“The antichrist!” Red blotches appeared high on Lucy’s cheeks as she massaged her temples with slim fingertips.
Moira smiled inwardly. If there was one skill she had perfected under Nick Kingswood’s liquid whiskey gaze, it had been the art of annoying the ever-loving shit out of someone bent on makin’ you ooh and ahhh with their flat pronunciations of doom and disaster.
Lucy took a deep breath and arranged her features into an expression of concern as she began again. “Your sister is carrying the antichrist.”
Chapter Four
Nick stormed across the vaulted expanse of the living room in the compound that had become their de facto base of operations since the First’s Seal’s breaking. He strode straight for the front door, keys to his Ferrari 458 Italia grasped tight enough to dig into his palm.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going? And why does your head look like it got caught in a vice grip?” Dru had momentarily halted his pacing to glower at Nick from his post at the fireplace, now empty, but sporting soot-blackened stone walls as dark and impenetrable as the gaze War fixed on him.
“First, I have an errand to run. Second, none of your fucking business.”
“What errand would that be, pray tell?” Artfully sprawled across the chaise like a poet in the severe throes of writer’s block—or extreme intestinal distress—Julian Roarke, pale as the plague victims he had once infected, looked up from the heavy book on his lap.
“It doesn’t concern you,” Nick answered, his grip tightening on his keys.
“You’ve found a way to get rid of Lucy?” Dru suggested.
“No.”
“You were on the point of disposing of the water witch and remembered that you had regrettably left your bow and arrow in the boot of your vehicle?” Julian pushed a silver-black lock of hair back from his sharp cheekbone with a gloved hand.
“No.”
“You’ve devised a new solution to dispose of the horde of zombies that fucking bitch of an air witch sent to decorate our lawn like a bunch of undead plastic flamingos?” Dru asked.
All three men looked through the oversized floor-to-ceiling window to the thick underbrush and pine trees beyond their shared home.
Disembodied limbs hung from the trees like grisly garlands. Appendages clung to the branches and partially crushed or cleaved heads poked up through the grass like some kind of macabre Easter egg hunt. These remains seemed dedicated to stand—or hang, or loll—guard while their more intact colleagues had shambled off to accomplish an as of yet unknown request at their mistress’s bidding.
Julian cleared his throat. “I would prefer you refrain from using such language when discussing matters pertaining to Aerin de Moray.” The tone of Pestilence’s voice suggested that this polite request was anything but. His pale blue eyes rose from the book on his lap to deliver a glacial warning to Dru.
Dru’s shoulders squared within his fitted black T-shirt. “So you’ll lead her into an ambush, but you’ll get your knickers in a wad when someone uses dirty words in conjunction with her name?”
“Like you haven’t besmirched Claire’s name, Jules,” Nick tossed out, hoping to fan the flames of their mutual dislike so he could inch unnoticed toward the door.
War advanced toward the chaise with thunderous steps. “You were talking shit about Claire?”
“I can assure you, I am not now, nor have I ever talked—” Nick watched Julian’s elegant mouth try and fail to shape itself into the vulgarity “—in a negative manner about Sinclaire de Moray.”
“Really?” Nick prodded, daring another couple steps toward the door. “So what would you call that whole discussion we had about Claire’s ghastly unfeminine leathers making her the ideal candidate for destruction? ‘To rid the world of such an eyesore,’ I believe you said.”
The thick volume on Julian’s lap slid to the floor with a heavy whump as Dru closed the space between them in three strides and hoisted Pestilence by his ascot, pinning him against the wall.
Nick chose that moment to make a break for it, but only got as far as the kitchen counter before Julian’s voice froze him in place. “Nicholas.”
Dru’s fist reared back in line with Julian’s fine, aquiline nose, the muscles of his forearm bunched, cocked, and ready to deliver the blow.
Julian’s expression remained unperturbed and stoic, even under the threat of violence. Nick had the displeasure of knowing his brother’s lack of reaction had nothing to do with overconfidence or failure to understand aggression’s finer points. Julian Roarke had simply seen suffering and death on such horrific levels that being punched in the nose didn’t carry the emotional or psychic resonance required to physically move in self-defense.
“Should you desire a permanent case of testicular hemochromatosis, then by all means, continue, Drustan. But, I can assure you, I did not, at any time, make such comments about your paramour.”
“What’s he talking about Nick?” Dru asked, unwilling to wrest his gaze from Julian’s lest his sack be stricken with plague on the sly.
“Fucked if I know,” Nick said.
“You know very well which de Moray’s choice of clothing I find objectionable, and your efforts to misrepresent my statement is only further proof of your attempt to sow enmity between Dru and me so you can quit the premises unmarked.”
Gods-damned fucking English accent. Julian Roarke could lend the reading of the Malleus Maleficarum an air of wholesome respectability.
“Do I need to punch this motherfucker or not?” Dru asked, point-blank, casting his dark eyes on Nick.
“Not,” Nick admitted grudgingly.
Dru released Julian, who smoothed his ascot before settling back onto the chaise and retrieving his book. The few shoulder-length hairs that had escaped the queue Julian wore at the nape of his neck were likewise tucked back into place before Julian turned a thin vellum page. “Now then, Nicholas. Where were you off to in such a clandestine manner? Under normal circumstances, I would assume you were off to a meeting with the water witch, but as she is presently chained to your bed, I’m going to presume your motivation lies elsewhere.”
“I think you presume correctly,” Dru added, circling Nick from a distance.
Julian glanced up at the grandfather clock near the mantel. “I wonder where Nicholas Kingswood would be hurrying off to at half-past seven in the morning. Were we not agreed that you would kill the water witch as soon as you broke her—if I may borrow your parlance?”
“We were,” Nick said.
“And wasn’t it you who said you’d have broken her before the clock struck midnight last evening?”
“He did say that,” Dru confirmed, folding his arms across his broad torso.
“And when we expressed our doubts that this could be accomplished in such a brief timeframe without significant effort on your part, did you not say that the only part you’d need would be…” Julian hesitated, looking to Dru for back up.
“Right here,” War said, cupping his package.
“Thank you, Drustan.” Julian slid a leather bookmark between the large tome’s pages. “Am I to assume that your plans went awry?”
“Gentlemen,” Nick said with a heavy sigh, “have any of our plans for dealing with the de Moray witches up until this point not gone awry?”
Both War and Pestilence remained silent.
“I was blasted by a thirty-foot wall of water, Dru had his sword stolen and has been thrown over for a zombie, the most lethal immortal in the world couldn’t manage to off an east coast cloud company CEO, and Killian Bane, Death himself, has been cast down to Hell by the earth witch whom he knocked up. I think it would be fair to say that all our plans to date have been about as successful as the time No-Arms Babineaux tried to jerk off.”
A crease appeared between Julian’s dark brows. “Did you…did you just employ a hillbilly colloquial anecdote? If you can’t kill Moira de Moray, at least assure me you won’t be adopting her ear-bloodying accent as well.”
&
nbsp; “Her accent is the least of our worries, Jules,” Nick said, knowing how severely this irritated the refined scholar. “She’s growing stronger. They all are.”
“And would this explain the errand you felt compelled to undertake?” Julian asked.
“Since when did I need your permission to leave the house?” Nick’s keys bit into the backs of his knuckles. “Did I sit there and give you the third fucking degree when you snuck off to let Aerin rape your encyclopedic brain about zombies?”
Julian lifted one eyebrow—his understated equivalent of complete, wordless shock.
“Yeah. I knew. We all knew.”
Julian looked to Dru, who nodded his dark head.
“I’ll be deuced.” Julian shut his book sharply, the resulting puff of air rippling his loose silk shirt. “I thought myself fairly skilled in surreptitious machinations.”
“Try planning a battle sometime.” Dru had seated himself on the long leather couch, knees spread lax in their faded fatigue pants. “Covert maneuvers are our specialty, brother.”
“Does walking across the goddamn living room and grabbing my keys seem like a covert maneuver to either of you? I just need to go somewhere.”
“It’s your hesitance to share your destination with us that has engendered our suspicions, Nicholas,” Pestilence pointed out. “If it’s a simple errand, why be so evasive regarding the details?”
Nick’s empty stomach churned with an acid mix of rage and irritation. They weren’t going to let this go. “Grrrss,” he grumbled.
“Come again?” Julian asked.
“Yeah,” Dru piped up. “I’m afraid we didn’t catch—”
“Grits! I’m going to buy some fucking grits, okay? And some butter, and some cheese. You happy now, you nosy fucking pricks?”
“Aww,” Dru mocked. “Conquest is going to make his water witch a nice breakfast. Are you sure you don’t want to throw some biscuits and gravy in there too? I hear those dumbass Southern broads eat that shit right up.”
Nick had no recollection of having crossed the room or leaping onto the couch. His first conscious memory after Dru’s comment was the sensation of War’s teeth biting into Nick’s knuckles through the flesh of his lip. His fist rained down again, connecting with Dru’s cheekbone as an unforeseen haymaker caught Nick’s temple, releasing firework bursts of a kaleidoscope cosmos behind his eyelids. He swung blindly then, but managed to land a solid right just below Dru’s chin, rewarded with the hollow echoing crack of a trachea. War gagged, then coughed wetly.
Nick had threatened to punch people in the throat before, but never actually done it.
Dru’s knee jammed upward, catching Nick’s inner thigh, mere millimeters from a far more serious hit. Both of Nick’s hands found the weak spot on Dru’s neck and squeezed, releasing a rattling gasp.
“Get. The fuck. Off. Me.” War choked through teeth coated in blood from his split lip.
“You will never again refer to Moira as dumb, you brainless fuck.” Nick’s thumbs dug deeper into the tanned, stubbled flesh of his brother’s neck. “You understand me?”
“Now, boys. If you insist on engaging in these kinds of pissing contests, I demand that you at least make them useful.”
That voice. Perhaps the only voice in all creation capable of freezing both War and Conquest mid-fight.
Julian alone did not look up, thumbing another page in his book.
“Nicholas, get off your brother, and go sit down like a good boy. I have a matter I would like to discuss with all three of you.”
Nick grudgingly untangled himself from Dru and took a seat at the far end of the couch. Dru wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand and righted himself on the sofa. These dust-ups were neither unusual nor infrequent. Bring War and Conquest in close contact with one another, and they were just as likely to soil the field with each other’s blood as they were their enemy’s. The addition of females to fight about or fight over introduced an entirely different element. One Nick was neither pleased about nor eager to contemplate further.
No longer barefoot, Lucy beat a stern rhythm across the wood floor in her black leather boots. Rather than seat herself in the empty spot on the couch between them, she settled into Dru’s lap like he was some sort of surly, tattooed arm chair.
“Well, we seem to have a serious problem on our hands,” she said.
“And other appendages,” Julian tossed out, casting a pointed look at Dru.
“I’ll let that slide for the moment, Julian, but I would suggest that you not test my patience today. I’m afraid it’s rather thin at present.”
“Moira decide against becoming your BFF then?” Nick asked. He’d had a vague idea of what Lucy might have had in mind when she’d dismissed him from his own room. When Moira had shot him a defiant look pre-departure, he’d had to fight off a fond—no, not fond—he immediately corrected himself. A knowing smile. If Lucy thought her odds would be better with a simple Southern girl than they had been with the power-hungry air witch, she was more wrong than tentacles on a housecat.
Jesus Christ. Where the fuck had that expression come from?
“She was…resistant, yes. But, she has some qualities I think we might find useful.”
“Such as?” Nick asked.
“Such as, she considers her life to be worth far less than that of her sisters,” Lucy announced casually as she picked threads from a hole at the knee of Drustan’s fatigue pants.
“She told you that?” Nick kept his jaw from dropping by a sheer effort of will.
“She didn’t have to,” Lucy said. “I’m a woman. Women sense these things about each other.”
“As do Leviathans, apparently,” Julian muttered under his breath.
“What was that, darling?” Lucy asked, her attention shifting to him abruptly.
“Nothing.” He offered her a frosty smile. “Just cross-referencing the Talmudic accounts of mythological beasts with the Apocrypha.”
“Right.” Lucy’s red-lipped smile thinned considerably. “Perhaps you ought to limit your comments unless you have something useful to bring to this conversation.”
“I beg your pardon,” Julian said, hand over ascot. “Of course.”
“As I was saying, the water witch’s belief that her life is not as valuable as the lives of her sisters is something we might be able to work with.” Lucy absently stroked the length of Dru’s muscled thigh. “I believe we might be able to use it to solve both problems at hand.”
“I was under the impression that stopping the Apocalypse was sort of the only problem at hand,” Nick said.
“Which will be quite impossible for you to accomplish without the fourth of your number,” Lucy explained. “Poor, poor Killian.” She shook her head, a gesture utterly devoid of feeling. As always, Lucy appeared to Nick as a mask without a face.
“If he is indeed in Hell,” Julian said, putting his book aside at last, “wouldn’t it be within your purview to free him?”
“I only wish it were that simple. You see, residency in Hell is permanent, no matter how you end up there. Unless…”
Lucy let the word hang there, tempting them all to ask the question she had been dancing around since she sat down.
Nick obliged her. “Unless what?”
“Unless Death makes a deal with the Devil.” Lucy’s smiled broadened. Her canine teeth were sharper than Nick remembered. “Luckily for him, I already have some terms in mind.”
“He’ll never give you his firstborn,” Dru said, shifting his weight beneath her. “I wouldn’t even bother with that one.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Lucy’s elbows folded under her bosom in a defensive gesture.
“Already asked him, did you?” Julian’s ice-blue gaze came to rest on her face.
“Maybe,” she admitted.
“So what is it you want that could somehow also solve the problem of the impending Apocalypse?” Nick asked, rising from the couch, considering mixing a gigantic martini th
ough noon Pacific Time was yet four hours away.
“It’s exceedingly simple, Nicholas.” Lucy pushed off of Dru’s lap and stood in the center of the room, equidistant from three of the Four Horsemen. “I want the water witch’s soul.”
Chapter Five
Oh, the expressions on those handsome Horsemen’s faces.
Lucy allowed herself the luxury of a laugh on her way up Water Street. Coming from other women, it would have been a giggle. Coming from her, the malevolent snigger caused everyone within a half-mile radius to take a sudden chill. The religious among them crossed themselves or uttered spontaneous, silent prayers for reasons unknown to them.
The expressions in question had not been surprise at her admission that she wanted the water witch’s soul. Knowing her for as long as they had, this revelation hadn’t exactly been a shock. She was the Devil, after all. Souls were kind of her thing. Souls, and expensive leather handbags and shoes designers actually paid her to wear.
No. The surprise had come from her announcement that she was dead serious about making the pissing contests useful. Once she had explained that she needed their urine as part of a witch-repellant perimeter she’d built around the compound, they had all blinked at her, wide-eyed and embarrassed as frat boys who had just heard the words “cavity search” uttered by a particularly foxy police officer.
Of course, that usually ended in the foxy police officer being a stripper, and the frat boys enjoying a personalized exhibition of T&A that they mostly wouldn’t remember after they binge drank themselves into oblivion and passed out under the coffee table.
Unfortunately, that would not be the case for her Nicholas, Drustan, and Julian.
A delicious late summer evening breeze lifted her blond hair from her neck, setting the leaves to whispering around her. It had taken her the better part of the day to secure a perimeter around the Horsemen’s compound much as the de Moray witches had secured their vomitously quaint Victorian home against the Horsemen.
Which Witch is Wicked? (The Witches of Port Townsend Book 2) Page 28
