All Things Wicked

by Karina Cooper

She cut him off. “One more thing, Agent Stone. Two new agents have been placed in this Mission. Church agents, let me be clear.”

  “That’s . . . odd,” he said. “Did you send for them?”

  “Absolutely not,” she told him. “I want you to comb everything you can and get me information on Tobias Nelson and Simon Wells.”

  “Are we sure that’s their real names?” he asked as a keyboard clicked rapidly in the background. “I mean, most of us got new ones.”

  She thought about it. “Right. Search for any information regarding a particular tattoo.”

  “Hit me with it.”

  “It’s a bar code.”

  “Do you know what it says?”

  Parker glanced over her shoulder at the maintenance door. It remained closed. The hum of machinery around her would keep the rest of her conversation covert. “I am fluent in several languages, Mr. Stone, but computer is not one. Just see what you can find about bar codes on missionaries. In fact, search up anything regarding bar codes within the Holy Order mainframe. Dig as deep as you have to.”

  The agent coughed politely. “Director, am I to assume this is off the books?”

  “Indubitably.”

  “Man, I love that word,” he said happily, and clicked off the channel.

  Parker stared at her comm unit for a long moment. Then, shaking her head, she went in search of the generator.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A corpse thudded to the ground in a graceless tangle of limbs. Blood gushed across the muddy earth, forced out by the impact of the man’s own dead weight.

  Lifeless limbs and ashen skin. A pile of faceless corpses—Jesus Christ, what did it mean?

  Why had he seen Juliet at the top of it all?

  Who was she to them? Who the fuck were them?

  Caleb’s boot crunched against ribs that felt nothing. His curse echoed savagely in the tomblike silence that followed in the wake of the transient storm.

  Clapping the clinging grit from her hands, Naomi slanted him a wary look from beneath the fringe of her magenta bangs. Wordlessly, she rolled the body he’d kicked back toward herself.

  “Settle down,” Silas ordered, stepping over the corpse he’d dropped. “We’ll get rid of the bodies and begin a search pattern.”

  “She’s gone,” Caleb snarled, as if Silas hadn’t been there when Caleb had gone tearing back toward the water. As if he hadn’t witnessed Caleb’s fury and panic.

  I blamed you for the coven and I’m sorry.

  Rage clamored inside his skull, vicious claws tearing at the thinning confines of his own restraint. His fingers curled and uncurled, fists clenching as he struggled to breathe deeply. In and out. Slow and steady— “Fuck!”

  Naomi stepped over the only female corpse and knelt by the ruins of her face. Dispassionately, she tipped the remains of the jaw up. Her purple eyes flicked to Silas. “Nice shot.”

  The man nodded, but his gaze remained on Caleb. “See what you can find out, Nai. Leigh, if you don’t settle down—”

  Caleb whirled on him, watched as Silas’s shoulders squared. As his massive chest broadened, feet braced, legs steady.

  He was almost stupid enough to go for it. A fight. A brawl—fuck it, a murder. He didn’t know. He didn’t care.

  Juliet was gone.

  “You need to calm down,” Silas was saying, his rumbling tone just this side of reassuring. Just that side of a threat. “You aren’t going to be useful to anyone if you don’t stick a lid on it.” His eyes narrowed. “Now.”

  Caleb closed the distance between them, fists balled. Silas towered over him, but he was beyond seeing. Beyond fucking caring.

  Juliet was gone.

  And the visions he’d had suggested she was so much more to them—them, Christ, whoever they were—than just . . . just. . .

  What the hell was she? A mascot? A tool?

  A battery?

  He hated that he could glimpse the future. Hated it. “Where’s Jessie?” he demanded.

  “Not going to help.”

  “Bullshit, she can see where they are!”

  The ex-missionary was bulky, but he wasn’t slow. A big hand shot out and twisted in Caleb’s collar. “You listen to me,” he growled. “Jessie’s still out. I’ll be damned if—Fuck me, kid, knock it off!”

  Caleb pulled back a fist and grunted when the momentum of his swing snagged. Bone to bone, pain snapped a warning through a black tide of rage and he jerked his head around to find Naomi’s arm hooked through his.

  It was the same catch she’d pulled on her partner.

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Can it,” she said flatly. “Or I swear to God, I’ll kick both your asses.”

  Silas’s grip tightened on Caleb’s collar.

  Her lip curled. “This isn’t helping Jessie.” Caleb jerked at her arm. She let him go so fast, it sent him staggering, saved only by Silas’s grip on his shirt. “And it sure as shit isn’t helping your girlfriend. Man up, the both of you.”

  Abruptly, Silas let him go, and Caleb wrenched backward with a savage, snarling curse.

  “I know what you’re feeling,” Silas said. “Believe me, I know. Whatever happened, we’ll get her, okay? But we can’t go running in blind.”

  Caleb forced himself to breathe. In. His fists clenched. Out. He closed his eyes.

  Why the hell had he left her?

  Silas turned his back. “Are they missionaries?”

  “Nope.” Naomi nudged the girl with the toe of her boot. “If I had to call it, I’d say witches.”

  Caleb dug his fingers into his eyes. “Alicia. Son of a bitch.”

  “Friend of yours?” Silas knelt to rifle through pockets.

  “No. Hell, no. She’s the current leader, took over after I killed Curio.”

  “For which I owe you one,” Silas told him. With one tug, he flipped the girl’s body over, checking the back pockets of her filthy cargo pants. Blood dribbled into the sand, lightened to pink with brain fluid. “You know these guys?”

  Caleb studied a thin, whiskered face. Hook nose, fleshy lips slackened in death.

  Nothing. Not even a ghost of a memory. If he’d ever met the witch, he didn’t stand out.

  A cursory inspection of all three corpses yielded nothing but equal parts frustration and impatience. “None of them look familiar.” He scraped stiff fingers through his hair. “I’ve been out of that coven for a year. Damn it, Silas! What do they want with her?”

  Naomi glanced at him. “Ever consider that this goes beyond your girlfriend?”

  Finding nothing, Silas rose, his gaze straying to the house behind her. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Caleb frowned at the bodies, already turning waxen in the faded light. Two men, one woman. Witches. Not missionaries. Forcing himself to be still, to think through the anger ricocheting across every nerve, he followed Silas’s gaze to the house.

  His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  The look Naomi slanted him was barely this side of pitying. “Seriously?”

  “Nai,” Silas warned, then nodded to Caleb. “Jessie and Juliet both have the same tattoo.”

  “You know?”

  Silas sighed. “Leigh, I’ve been living with Jessie for a year,” he said flatly.

  Caleb took the hint.

  “I’ll take care of these,” Naomi said, bending to haul the girl into her arms. The ruins of her face dribbled, blood and fleshy gibbets spattering Naomi’s shoulder, but the pretty witch didn’t even flinch.

  Tough. Caleb locked his jaw. Everyone was tough.

  Except Juliet.

  “Fuck,” he hissed out. “Jess has had it all her life. Until I saw it on Juliet just yesterday, I didn’t think anything about it. For all I knew, it had something to do with before I was born.”

  “Your mother never said?” Silas clasped his hands behind his back, an idle readiness that only helped remind Caleb of what the man had used to be. Still, in a way, was. A soldier.

 
On Caleb’s side, if barely, but a soldier nevertheless.

  His smile thinned. “Witches get shit for lives. For all I knew, she and Jessie had escaped some kind of human trafficking ring before I was born. God only knows, okay? Our mother taught us how to run and hide and survive. Then she died.”

  Silas said nothing, his gray-green eyes steady.

  Caleb jammed his hands into the pockets of his too-large jeans and stared at the cloudy sky, instead. “Looking back, I can’t help but think that she had a reason. Maybe that tattoo ties in to something our mom did, or used to do. Maybe it’s the reason we always had to run, I don’t know.”

  “I asked Jessie about it once.”

  “And?”

  Silas hesitated. “She said the same thing you did, that she’s had it for as long as she could remember. That you both only ever knew your mother.”

  “That’s true,” Caleb conceded.

  “That much, anyway?”

  His smile twisted. “Jess is the best liar you’ll ever meet.”

  “Next to you?” Silas’s tone wasn’t gracious.

  Caleb shook his head, exhaustion eating away the last of his reserves. “Better than me,” he corrected wearily. He turned, walking to the edge of the green bay. Behind him, Silas’s footsteps crunched.

  “So, what?” he prodded. “What happened?”

  Frowning into the green water, Caleb said, “I asked Mom once.” Slowly, he dredged through the soup of memory and adrenaline and sheer exhaustion. “I wanted to know why Jess had a tattoo and I didn’t.”

  “And?”

  “She said she hoped to God we never found out. Three months later, she was dead.”

  Silas grunted. His version of comfort, maybe. “How?”

  “Murdered. I was ten or so.”

  “Missionary?”

  Caleb shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “It might,” Silas said, easing into Caleb’s peripheral with his hands in his own pockets.

  A wary sort of truce. It was almost worth a laugh.

  “Maybe, but if it was, he didn’t stop long enough to do anything official,” Caleb said. “No words, no orders, no nothing. Just killed her. Imagine my surprise when my mom’s magic shunted into me.”

  Silas’s jaw shifted. “Did you see her die?” When Caleb only nodded, he muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

  “Jess found me later, hiding in the engine block of the car,” Caleb said, and though the emerald water spread out like a jewel in front of him, all he saw was darkness. All he felt was edges and metal, smelled oil and sweat and fear.

  He’d been a small kid. It was all that saved his life that night. That and the voice of his mother, warning him away.

  “We went on the run that night and never stopped.”

  “So you came here,” Silas said. “Why?”

  Her magic had bored through his skull. Twisted him from the inside. Branded. It had been so surprising, so sudden, that he’d only been able to lie there as it filled him. Like molten metal.

  “Caleb?”

  He glanced over, blinking hard. “What?” he asked. “With the where?”

  Silas stared at him, astonishment clear on his features.

  Caleb frowned. “What?”

  “You . . . sounded exactly like Jessie for a minute,” he said quietly, and pinched the bridge of his nose between a thick thumb and forefinger. “Never mind. Why did you come to New Seattle?”

  “Our mother grew up here,” Caleb replied, but slowly. Why had they come? “Jess thought it a safer bet. Hundreds of thousands of people live in that shithole, so what’s a couple more?”

  The sound Silas made was noncommittal. “And the tattoo? Jessie’s and Juliet’s?”

  “I already told you,” Caleb growled, and caught himself. His eyebrows snapped together. “Why would both of them have the same tattoo?”

  “Are they . . .” Silas hesitated, rocking back on his heels. “Are they related?”

  “Oh, Jesus, fuck, I hope not,” Caleb replied fervently. The mere thought sent cold chills down his spine. If Juliet was related to his sister— “No way. Mom would have said. Something. Christ, Silas.”

  “Just a thought.”

  Behind them, Naomi returned for a second corpse. Caleb half turned, watching as the long-legged woman yanked one of the remaining dead men up onto her shoulder. He didn’t appear to be bleeding, but his head lolled awkwardly on a neck that Caleb suspected had one too many kinks to be healthy.

  Silas followed his gaze. “Caught him walking into the house,” he said, matter-of-fact. Caleb recognized the ragged black edges underneath the so-calm words.

  He didn’t have to say anything else.

  “What bothers me,” Silas continued, “is how they found us. This place is supposed to be hidden.”

  “Warded?”

  “Probably,” Silas replied, shaking his head. “I don’t know the terms. Up until recently, the place had some kind of witchcraft in place to keep even the smallest lies from going unnoticed.”

  Caleb’s features locked before he could flinch.

  Silas’s mouth hiked into a thin smile. “It’s no longer the case. We decided to put more effort into going undetected. This sanctuary’s supposed to be all but invisible to most detection. How did they find us?”

  “Blood,” called a feminine, surreally familiar voice.

  His heart slammed.

  He knew that voice. Knew the cadence, the roughened, imperious authority of it. Knew it, and recognized the woman who rounded the corner of the painted house.

  Her long red hair had a lot more gray in it than it used to, but she still twined it into a braid that hung nearly to her hips. Her features, even at a distance, were aristocratic, thin and shaped by an age that was partly years and mostly a knowledge that went deeper than any normal stretch of life.

  Matilda.

  The woman who had taught him how to kill.

  She raised a whip-thin hand. “Blood’s the tool and the key. Caleb, my dear.”

  His fists clenched. “You!” Conflict waged a brutal war inside his head. Anger. Confusion.

  Fuck it all, fear.

  “How do you know her?” Silas demanded.

  “I can answer that,” Matilda said as she approached the rocky shore. Brushing off her overalls, she added briskly, “Hello, Silas, I came as soon as I could. Have you taken good care of my home?”

  “Up until tonight,” Silas replied flatly. “Matilda, what is going on?”

  “Hey, stranger!” Naomi called.

  The woman raised dark brown eyes to the last corpse, lips thinning. “Just in time to miss the starter event, it seems. Naomi, love, you’ve got blood on your cheek.”

  Caleb’s teeth bared. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Matilda frowned. “Young man, as delighted as I am to see that you still live, there are much bigger fish to fry. What visions have made it through that blinding curtain of yours?”

  Shock slugged him in the gut.

  Silas grabbed his shoulder. “What in God’s name—”

  “It’s all right,” Matilda said calmly. “I once taught Caleb a bit of magic.” She strode past them both, peeling off her oversized rain coat. The end of her graying braid swayed as she took the porch steps lightly.

  “A bit of magic,” Caleb repeated. His tone flattened. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go with that.” He shrugged out of Silas’s grip.

  “Gentlemen, I’m sorry,” Matilda said, draping her coat over the back of the rocking chair. “We’ve very little time, and even that is running out faster than I’d like. Silas, dear, I love you dearly, but I need your focus.”

  Caleb glanced at Silas. Who looked back at him.

  Silas jerked his head toward the porch. “After you.”

  “Visions,” Matilda repeated. “I need to know what you’ve seen, and quickly.”

  “What makes you think I’ve had any?”

  Silas muttered a hard word, but Matilda only sank into the old rocking chair, ey
es narrowed. “The warding magic against lies is gone,” she said archly, “but I am not senile. Shall we get this out of the way? I’m still a witch, child, and there’s tricks up these old sleeves that you haven’t seen yet. I know a great deal.”

  Caleb didn’t step onto the porch. “Great. Fine. Now I want to know—”

  “Everything,” she cut in quietly, “will be explained in time. You want to know who I am, and why I taught you the harvesting ritual. You want to know why it matters, and what’s wrong with your sister, and why Juliet Carpenter bears the same mark as she does.” Caleb flinched. “I will tell you, but things are dire. We have to be faster than explanations will allow.”

  Silas sat on the porch steps, elbows on his knees, and stared at Caleb, his expression hooded. “Jessie is dying, man.” His mouth worked for a moment, and then, even quieter, he added, “Please.”

  Fuck. Caleb scowled. “Just tell me one thing.”

  She cocked her head, inquisitive and birdlike.

  “Are—” He swallowed, forcing the words out through the tightened rasp of his throat. “Are they related? Is Juliet my . . .”

  Sudden amusement lit the old woman’s expression, vivacious and brilliant beneath her paper-thin skin. Her eyes crackled with laughter. “That’s your one question? No,” she said quickly, seeing his face. She sobered just as fast. “Rest assured, no blood ties them. I can promise you that.”

  “Thank God,” Silas muttered, and Caleb locked his knees as relief turned them weak. He didn’t say anything.

  He wasn’t sure he could. What was there to say? So he banged a girl who wasn’t his sister. Simple as that.

  His fists clenched.

  Matilda rifled in a small wooden box beside the chair, withdrawing a worn pipe and old-fashioned matches. “To answer the deeper question, both of them are teacups. Very, very old teacups.”

  Caleb blinked at her. Then glanced sidelong at Silas, who shrugged.

  Matilda smiled faintly. “I did say I wasn’t senile, didn’t I? Picture a teacup, gentlemen, filled with tea. Most people sip from their teacup; not them. They can’t. They must break to get the tea, and now all the tea is pouring out. You can clean the mess, but you can’t stop the leak.”

  “She’s . . . leaking?” Silas asked, brow furrowed deeply. “Something cracked her . . . what, her control, and now she can’t stop it?”