Blood of the Wicked (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

I
t seemed an eternity before the first distant rumble of an approaching helicopter cut through the mind-numbing monotony of water and silence. Silas looked up, saw only the dark cliff face.

Black, twisted, empty shadow. Like his head. His hollow thoughts.

Silas turned, picked his way back across the ledge toward Jessie’s huddled, silent silhouette. She hadn’t said a word the whole time. No begging, no questions.

No lies.

But she hadn’t slept, either. Jessie opened her eyes as he loomed over her, the fragile skin around them bruised with exhaustion and her pathetic attempt at gaining his sympathy through her tears. “Get up,” he ordered.

He wasn’t going to touch her.

She wasn’t going to make it easy.

Jessie braced her bound arms against the trench wall. The noise of the chopper gained volume. She tried to push herself up, flinched and collapsed back to the rocky floor as her strained knees gave out.

Silas’s hands curled into tight, angry fists. Leashed the urge to reach for her. To help.

Lying witch.

“Get up,” he said again, sharper.

“I’m trying,” she snapped back, and clenched her teeth when the first lights crested the trench walls. High-powered beams split the shadows like columns of fire, blindingly real after too long in the dark.

She flinched when a spotlight skimmed over them. It swayed, swung back to highlight their perch in a brilliant beam.

Her skin gleamed bone white. Fear pinched the skin around her eyes. Good. Silas reached down, hauled her to her feet by her jacket collar.

Lingered too fucking long with his raw, bloody fingers under her chin. With her gaze wide and dark, staring up at him.

Her mouth compressed. “Let me go.”

“Not on your goddamned life,” he growled, and shifted his grip to her upper arm. She staggered as he pulled her along the ledge; his hold on her arm kept her upright, but barely.

Instead of looking up, he shielded his eyes with his free hand and waited for the crew to land.

They came on nylon cables, each strapped into a harness lit by small safety lights. When the first set of feet hit his peripheral, Silas spun Jessie around and hooked his fingers in the ribbon binding her hands. “Cuffs,” he barked.

Wordlessly a black-masked figure tossed metal cuffs at him, then unsnapped the harness and laced out its lead. Silas snagged the handcuffs from the air, silver glinting. He flicked them open with practiced ease.

This shit he knew. This didn’t ever change. Grab a witch. Bind her.

Kill her later.

The second figure tore off the goggled mask. Purple hair shone electric in the blinding lights, silver facial piercings sparkling as Naomi tipped her eyes toward the hovering chopper. “Ready?”

“In a minute.”

Jessie turned her head. “I’m not going to run,” she said quietly, all but muted under the heavy whirr of the helicopter’s rotating blades. “Those aren’t—”

Silas snapped them around her wrist. “Shut up.” She stumbled when he pushed her into the first, masked missionary’s arms.

The missionary spun her around, wrapped the harness tightly around her waist. Through her legs.

Silas watched her stand stiffly, staring at him as the missionary passed the lead under her bound arms, around her chest. Her eyes burned molten in the unforgiving spotlight.

Silas looked away first. “Where’s everyone?”

Naomi unfolded a second harness and tossed it at him. “We’re dropping off midway and the bird’s headed topside,” she said, and for once, there wasn’t anything but cool professionalism in her clipped words. Hell of a hunter, Silas remembered as he strapped in.

Hell of an executioner.

Every movement was tight, economical as Naomi hooked solid metal rings together and tightened straps. Then she signaled the missionary wrapped around Jessie.

Probably using the comm frequency Silas didn’t have, the missionary sent a command. Both man and witch swung out over the water. Silas went through the motions of double-checking the harness, but he couldn’t look away from her face.

Jessie’s eyes were closed, and she couldn’t hide her fear as the duo rose toward the lights. The Mission.

And her inevitable death.

His heart thumped.

“Ready?” Naomi said in his ear.

“How come I have to be the bitch?” Silas asked, struggling to sound as normal, as effortless in the job as he knew he wasn’t. He gave the tandem harness one last tug, signaled a thumbs-up. “Ready.”

She raised the mask to her mouth, angled for the mic tucked into the reinforced fabric. “Haul us in,” she ordered, then, with a smirk, “Because you’re the bitch that got dumped in the trench.”

The line snapped taut overhead. Within moments, Silas felt his feet leave the ground. They swung wide, a living pendulum, and Naomi swore as they hit the wall on the return swing. “Jesus, you’re heavy,” she grunted.

Silas said nothing, his gaze fixed on the chopper that reeled them in.

It didn’t take long before all four were aboard. Deliberately Silas ignored what they did with Jessie. Ignored how they hauled her in, shackled her ankles with larger cuffs.

Pretended to ignore how Naomi kicked out her knees from under her and forced her to sit in the corner of the transport chopper, her face gone paler, almost green at the edges.

Knew he lied to himself every moment as Naomi wrapped a gag tight around her mouth and latched her to a pole strung across the hull.

It killed him.

But then, she was a witch. She’d played him from the start, and he had fallen right into it.
Sucker
.

He leaned against the pilot’s chair, snagged a headset from the dash. “Let’s go,” he said sharply into the mic. The pilot nodded, gave a thumbs-up. The chopper climbed higher.

The ride was tersely silent.

Silas inhaled the storm-tinged wind as it blew through the open sides of the chopper. It cleared his head, drowned the memory of hothouse flowers and sulfur. Cold, rain, wind, darkness, those were the things he knew.

Below, rain drifted like a mist over the wrecked remains of what had once been outlying sub-cities of Seattle. Across the cabin, Naomi perched at the other door-less side, one leg dangling over the skids. He watched the surreal maw of the Old Sea-Trench pass beneath him, and he knew she watched him.

He ignored her, too.

His eyes raked over the landscape, strained to see deeper into the fault. It blurred in shadows beneath him. As they ate up ground, covering the incredible distance Silas hadn’t realized they’d traveled, he saw no sign of Matilda’s cove. Her sanctuary.

The hot springs where he’d made love with a witch. He set his jaw.

Once they reached the city proper, the helicopter circled around the mid-lows until they approached from the east. No spotlights outlined their progress. The Mission had a standing arrangement in the New Seattle flight ordinances.

“Drop-off imminent,” the pilot said, his voice tinny in the speakers. “Two minutes.”

Silas took off his headset. “Link up,” he ordered.

Naomi rose. “What are you doing?”

He ignored her, bypassed the other missionaries, and gripped the bar over Jessie’s head for balance. “Get up,” he yelled over the roar of the props. He hooked a finger in the gag around her mouth and pulled it down to hang loosely at her neck.

Jessie looked up at him. Flatly, purely terrified. “I can’t,” she whispered through too-dry lips. He read the shape more than heard it.

Gritting his teeth, he unhooked her tether and jerked her up by her arms. She stumbled, and for a split second, his brain shorted to white heat as she fell against him. As her body slid against his.

He knew this body. Thought he’d known the woman.

Silas thrust her back to arm’s length. “By the sanctions of the Holy Order of St. Dominic,” he grated out, “you are hereby accused and proven to be a witch.” The old words felt thick on his tongue, too stiff. Too damned formal. Her skin deadened, went ashen, as he stared into her eyes.

They swam with glittering, unshed tears.

“For this crime,” he continued, forcing himself to swallow the fury, the raw emotion filling his throat, “you will be executed. If you cede to the Mission the names and location of your heretic brethren, your death will be quick.”

But never painless.

The first of her tears spilled a silver river down her cheek as she shook her head.

Silas’s fingers tightened on her arms. “Jessie, do you know what happens to witches?” His voice shook under the
whup,
whup,
whup
of the main rotor. “Do you hear me?”

She bit her lip. Shook her head harder. Her hair rippled like gold, brushing over his hands, and he took a breath, realizing he was about to plead. To fucking
beg
her to reconsider.

Beg her not to die the torturous, gruesome death that awaited all witches within the Church.

His brain shaped the words his mouth couldn’t say.

When her eyes flicked to his shoulder, Silas knew Naomi stood behind him. He jerked Jessie into his arms, spun her around and began to hook the harnesses together. “I’ll take her down,” he said curtly.

“Silas—”

“I said I’ll fucking do it.”

Naomi frowned, a deep curve of her lower lip. When he didn’t show any sign, even a hint of interest in what she thought, she shrugged and gestured the other missionary to buckle in. “All right, we’ll be swinging low. Everyone, prep your gear and get ready to jump. Once we hit the ground, the bird’s headed topside, so kiss your captain now and thanks for flying Mission Air.”

On cue, the pilot raised a hand, index finger up. One minute.

Jessie trembled in Silas’s arms as he maneuvered them both to the cabin access. “Just for the record,” she said tightly as he grasped the rung over her head. “I know exactly what you do to witches.” She turned her face, slid him a look that made him want to shake her for being so damned stubborn and kiss her for being so fucking brave.

All at once.

Her mouth curved. Silas watched a tear slide along that curve. Clenched his jaw so tightly, his temple throbbed. “When I’m finally dead,” she said as the helicopter dipped, “and you can bet your ass I’ll die fast just to spite you,
Agent
Smith, you can laugh about the stupid witch who loved you.”

“Go!”

Naomi’s voice lanced through the cabin. On cue, she and the other missionary dropped out of the cabin. The helicopter swayed, held in place by the waiting pilot.

Silas closed his eyes. “Shut up,” he growled. If she’d had anything else to say, it died as he launched them into thin air.

The harness caught easily, snapped taut around them both. Silas let out the lead in quick increments, muscles rigid with the effort.

Jessie’s body was stiff with terror, and as he lowered them to the ruined parking lot of a half-shattered apartment building, he realized her hands clenched tightly on the hem of his shirt.

He wasn’t going to be her safety this time.

They landed hard, pitched awkwardly. Silas twisted, wrenched her aside, and swore as he landed back first on sharp gravel. Her weight slammed into his chest.

With the air knocked solidly out of him and bright lights of pain dancing in front of his eyes, Silas didn’t move when she struggled to free herself. Hair like tangled silk slid over his face, his mouth, and all he could smell was her.

Remnants of sulfur, spice, and that goddamned scent that was pure Jessie.

“Hey, Silas.” Naomi’s face edged into his vision, her trademark smirk. “Need a hand with the lady?”

“Fuck you.” Silas unbuckled the harnesses without getting up. “Get her off me.”

Naomi reached down, grabbed Jessie by the jacket, and hauled her neatly to her feet. Silas sucked in a breath, winced. “You have tape in there?”

“Ribs?” Naomi nodded, unlocking the shackles clamped around Jessie’s ankles. “Yeah, bandages, tape, and then some. Come on, old man, we’ll get you patched before I go topside for briefing. Jesus, I don’t even get a drink between ops,” she muttered. “Total waste of a win.”

Silas’s grin bared teeth. But it didn’t last.

Jessie’s expression when she turned was empty. Silently, her eyes flat and, Christ, devoid of anything resembling that spark so uniquely hers, she walked in front of the woman who marched her across the lot.

Silas rolled to his feet and followed. He’d made it four steps before the seal of St. Andrew spit blue fire.

Pain was a breath behind.

I
t all happened so fast.

Naomi turned in a fluid line, swept Jessie’s feet out from under her, and was already moving when Jessie hit the ground. Jessie yelped, gravel biting hard into her stomach, her cheek. Her hair fell across her face.

“Miles, catch your six!” Naomi’s voice rang from somewhere behind her. Too far for her to worry about Jessie.

She hoped.

“Christ, fuck.” Silas’s voice. His anger. “Man down! Where’s Jes—
Fuck!
” That odd, sickly blue light seamed through her blinding mass of hair.

Jessie wriggled around, struggled to get her knees under her. The first spray of bullets splattered the cement walls over her head, ricocheted splinters of rock and careened wildly back through the dark. Jessie flinched, rolled to the side, as more voices shouted orders, warnings, around her.

It was too damned easy to recognize Silas’s voice. The depth of his tone, the surge of adrenaline and aggression leashed tightly under hard orders. Naomi’s voice, cursing. Pained.

Other voices she didn’t recognize. Grim voices.

Jessie braced herself against the crumbling apartment wall, managing to get her knees to her chest. She pulled her cuffed hands underneath her and around her legs.

Gunfire rattled the night, more blue light spilled. With her arms functional and in front of her, she could get to her feet and shake back her tangled hair. She sidled along the wall, one eye fixed on the battle that surged in front of her.

Witches. Witch hunters. Magic scorched the air like ozone during a lightning storm, bullets rained metal fury. She saw Silas circling a man twice his size, his gun a dark blot on the ground. Too far out of his reach.