Dark mission 04 - Sacrifice the Wicked

by Karina Cooper

  Fortunately for him, his security clearance allowed for a certain amount of free reign in the building. Not as much free reign as she got, but being the Sector Three director’s daughter had its perks.

  It was only a matter of time before she’d come back to her office. So he’d waited.

  With some really bad vending machine coffee to keep him company. After the morning he’d had, it’d do.

  “No one knew about that folder but me,” he said, ignoring her wide-eyed surprise. He kept his voice low, but the intensity of his anger didn’t need volume to translate. “I broke every reg in the book, but I got it and got out, no mess. Only to lose it to some jackass shadowing me. How did you learn about it, Kayleigh?”

  Although she had no room to sidle in, less room beyond Simon where the alcove ended abruptly into the instant coffee machine, she didn’t give in. He let her shake off his grip from her arm.

  Her mouth thinned, practically white with anger. “Don’t you ever jump me like this again,” she hissed. “Ever. I don’t know where your goddamned folder is! My operative never got inside.”

  Simon frowned at her. “What the hell do you mean?”

  “Exactly that.” When she pushed at his chest, he stepped back, giving her the space she needed to peel herself off the wall and straighten her red suit jacket. “Are you telling me someone took that file from you?”

  “Motherfucker.” As an answer, it said enough.

  Kayleigh bent to pick up her dropped digital reader, light brown eyebrows furrowed. “That’s not what I wanted to hear.”

  “That’s all I’ve got,” Simon growled. He turned, glared at the coffee machine. It had no answers for him. “How did you learn about it?”

  “You aren’t the only eyes and ears in the Mission.” She sighed behind him. “I assume you’ll track that folder down?”

  “Yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Speaking of, what were you doing in Adams’s office?”

  Kayleigh dropped her gaze to the reader braced on her forearm. Her fingers moved quickly, keying in a sequence for something he couldn’t see. “That’s classified.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Simon raked a hand through his short hair. He didn’t have to check the halls to know they were still alone. People—impressions—pinged across the back of his mind, all tucked in offices along the corridor or in the floors above and beyond.

  When he wasn’t catastrophically bleeding through the nose, his ability worked just fine.

  “Simon—”

  “Look,” he said, cutting her off. “I’ve got a job to do. Give me the tools so I can. Who else is reporting to you?”

  She didn’t bat an eyelash. “Try again.”

  His back teeth ground. “Fine. What did you and Director Adams talk about?”

  She stared at him. Weighed it. He watched the struggle in her face, forced himself not to smile in victory as it gave way. With a small shake of her head, she said, “Operation Domino.”

  Of course. “You’re afraid the Mission might get too close.”

  “Exactly so. The evidence they’re sending our labs is liberally laced with Salem markers, but they’re ours. For obvious reasons. We can’t risk them learning any more of the truth than what Carpenter’s case revealed.”

  Jesus Christ. Kayleigh Lauderdale had no conception of the truth. Simon shook his head. “They won’t.” Not without some help, anyway. He turned back to the hall, his jaw set. “If that’s all, I need—”

  “Why haven’t you checked in, Simon?”

  He hesitated.

  “Your last report was two weeks ago.” The reader chirped in her hands. “And last you reported, you were, let’s see, ‘back to one hundred percent.’ That’s it.”

  A dozen different excuses all filtered through his mind, even as a shape detached itself from the others in his sensory awareness. A body on the move.

  A smile tugged on the corner of his mouth. “It’s true.”

  “You’re not in the Mission for your health,” she snapped, lowering the reader to her side. “The only reason I know you’re doing your job is because of the Domino reports. Simon, you have to keep me apprised.”

  No. No, he didn’t. He shrugged. “You need lab rats killed.” His teeth flashed, a smile he knew wasn’t kind. She flinched. “I kill lab rats.”

  Her knuckles whitened over the reader. “We’ll see how smug you are when—” As his smile widened, as he folded his arms over his chest, she bit off the angry words he knew she couldn’t possibly mean and amended them to, “At least check in with me now. No pain or headaches?”

  No one deserved death by degeneration.

  “None.” He told the lie without so much as a twinge of conscience. She made it so easy.

  “Nausea? Vertigo?”

  “Nope.”

  She hummed the tone that doctors everywhere cultivated. The one that hid her thoughts beneath a mask of intellectual study. “What about your abilities? Are they starting to fluctuate?”

  His smile hardened. “Like Carver?”

  He didn’t have to look at her to know she winced. “David was a unique case. He wasn’t showing any signs of degeneration, molecular or otherwise.”

  Or maybe the witch just didn’t want to report it. Didn’t want to end up lying on some slab while they cataloged every step of the process.

  Yeah. Simon knew the feeling.

  “Domino’s going to be a problem for us if this keeps up,” she continued quietly. “They can’t possibly think witches are taking out their soldiers.”

  “That’s exactly what they think,” Simon countered dryly, turning back. And they weren’t exactly wrong. He counted as a witch. So did the other few cleaners in Director Lauderdale’s camp. “Give me time.”

  “Time isn’t on your side. You need to report in for weekly examinations,” Kayleigh said. “The others are already starting to degenerate. You’ll need to be somewhere safe when it happens to you.”

  “I’ll cope.”

  “Simon, every chance I have to study this thing is a greater chance for me to break it,” she pressed. “Don’t you want to help the others?”

  No. He really didn’t. Simon raised an eyebrow, studying her with barely leashed scorn. “You sound like your father.”

  Color flooded her cheeks. “My father is right to be concerned.”

  “Your father is the reason you’re in corpses up to your pretty smile,” he replied evenly. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  “Screw you.”

  His tone lightened as he once more gave her his back. “I’ll check in when I’m done.”

  “Simon—”

  “Someone’s coming,” he told her, shooting her a grin over his shoulder. An easy, no-worries kind of smile. With teeth. “Better not get caught in a corner with a missionary, Doctor. What would Daddy say?”

  Setting her jaw, Kayleigh pushed past him, clutching the digital reader to her chest as if it’d provide a shield between her and his mockery.

  “You’re an ass,” she muttered.

  “You said it yourself, Kayleigh. Enough time, and I’ll be out of your hair.” Venom coated his tongue as he added, “Unless I explode. Like Carver.”

  “Damn it, Simon.” She stopped, didn’t turn around. He studied the back of her head, her wavy blond hair that wasn’t anything like her mother’s. But the obstinate set of her shoulders, well, he recognized that one.

  Reminded him of her mother. And of himself.

  But Kayleigh was one hundred percent natural. He wondered what she’d say if he ever sent her the DNA data he’d destroyed. What she’d do.

  Confront her father, maybe. It wouldn’t get her anywhere.

  “I didn’t choose this, you know.” The corridor sucked out her words, sent them bouncing along the plain, unassuming hall.

  He was too tired for this shit. “That makes both of us. Guess your family should have thought of you before they started making me.”

  Her indrawn breath wasn’t as si
lent as she probably hoped. But when she spoke again, she’d leashed whatever emotion she entertained into a thin, even line. “Just do your job, Simon. And check in on time.”

  Simon didn’t say anything. Whistling softly, a breezy little tune, he slid his hands into his jeans pockets and sauntered back toward the elevators.

  He was two floors down when his comm vibrated against his hip.

  Simon unhooked the device from his belt. As he dropped his gaze to the small case, pain licked across his temple—eighty people in the fifteenth floor of the Magdalene, mice in a maze—and lanced through his forehead.

  Did he get headaches? Oh, yeah.

  But that was the way a Salem Project witch went out. With a goddamned bang.

  Rubbing at his forehead, Simon flicked open his comm.

  The list was growing. Fully a quarter of the names were marked as completed, some he’d done himself, but it didn’t end.

  More names he knew. More faces he recognized.

  More bodies he’d have to hide.

  Splat.

  Simon blinked. The comm screen blurred red.

  Splat, splat.

  God damn it, not again. Lifting his hand to his nose, he swore thickly as a metallic tang filled the back of his throat. Blood splattered his hand.

  Tilting his head back sent waves of pain through his skull.

  Two headaches in twenty-four hours? That couldn’t be a good sign.

  Parker strode into her office. The door was already swinging shut behind her when the rest of her attention caught up. “For the love of Christ, Mr. Wells!”

  Simon didn’t get up. Sprawled in her office chair like some kind of decadent god on a throne, his long legs stretched across the gap between chair and desk, ankles crossed on the polished surface. Hazel eyes narrowed, he studied her over the raised hem of his blood-soaked T-shirt.

  It bared the lean muscles carved into his abs, revealed one flat nipple.

  Nausea warred with heat.

  Won.

  Parker clenched her teeth. “Why aren’t you at the infirmary?” More importantly, why did he keep showing up to bleed in her office?

  His teeth flashed in a grin, as lazy as she’d ever seen him despite the blood saturating the fabric of his T-shirt. He lowered the hem. “Stopped bleeding. You said you wanted to talk. Is now a bad time, Director Adams?”

  The way he stressed her title made her teeth ache.

  The way he seemed to think he could bleed all over her things was worse.

  She reached for the doorknob, mouth tight with the effort not to throw up the bile clinging to the back of her throat. She was an executive missionary, not a fighter. She didn’t do blood.

  Hadn’t ever.

  As they went, it was a hell of a phobia.

  “I can leave, of course,” Simon added, his tone wickedly knowing. Mocking. He straightened, dropping his feet to the floor. It only served to pull him upright, to send every muscle in his torso flexing. Moving.

  Like a well-oiled machine.

  He had a body most women drooled over. Parker was trying very hard not to be one.

  Lust and nausea, these things shouldn’t cohabitate.

  Parker glanced at the doorknob, an inch from her outstretched fingers. Her skin crawled.

  And tingled.

  Oh, God, this was bad.

  “You owe me an explanation, Mr. Wells,” she said quietly, appalled at herself for even forcing herself to endure that much. She turned, drawing her professional demeanor around her like a shroud. Cool, collected. “I’m eager to hear what you have to say.”

  “Yeah. I’ll just bet.” Simon stood, a powerful surge of his lean body, and stripped his T-shirt off.

  Parker tried not to swallow her own tongue. “What are you doing?”

  He pitched the bloody shirt into the small trash can behind him, every move flexing the muscles stacked under his swarthy skin. The man was shirtless in her office. Shirtless, and no sign of any fresh wounds. The puckered scar decorating the front of his left side shone healthy and pink, starkly pale against his tanned skin tone.

  She frowned. “What happened to you?”

  “Nosebleed.” He rubbed at his nose, which showed no trace of any lingering blood. “Sucker punch in the training room. It happens.”

  She swallowed as his gaze settled on her.

  Less than four hours ago, she’d met that gaze wearing nothing but thin silk pajamas and the cloak of darkness. Now, in her suit and severely pinned hair, dismay filled her as her body responded in the same, pulse-knocking way.

  “You often wear your street clothes in the training room?” she asked pointedly. Part of her knew he lied. The rest of her remained torn between visceral memory and the reality. Which was that he broke into her home. Bled on her desk.

  Disobeyed every order.

  His smile flashed.

  Parker’s shoulders straightened as she strode across her office. “Get out from behind my desk.”

  He stepped into her path.

  She stopped just shy of running into him, jerking her gaze to his, mouth set in a cold line. Enough games. Enough flex of social muscle, physical muscle.

  Enough with the sudden awareness of his body heat, of the warmth emanating from his bare chest. Flashing in his eyes.

  “You’re walking a thin line.” She ignored his quirked smile. “Make no mistake, Wells, you’re here on my tolerance. Regardless of who put you here,” she added as he raised one condescending eyebrow, “all of my agents answer to me. That includes you.”

  He raised a hand, fingers reaching for the side of her face.

  She seized his thick wrist in a tight grip, held it away from her. “Don’t,” she said tightly. “Don’t touch me. Don’t test me, or I’m going to screw the consequences and move heaven and earth to see you thrown in the cells.”

  “I have no doubt you could.” A beat. “Parker.”

  The way he said her name sent a ripple of heat through her insides. Her chest, her belly.

  Between her legs.

  Her grip tightened. The tendons and muscle beneath her fingers flexed; so much corded strength.

  He raised his other hand. Slowly, making no effort to disengage from her grasp, giving her every opportunity to dodge him, the tips of his fingers touched her cheek.

  Callused. Roughened. Gentler than she expected. They burned a path down the line of her face. Across her jaw.

  “Relax,” he said. Ordered, more like. His tone didn’t leave room to compromise. “I’m not your enemy.”

  “You’re a witch,” she scoffed, but she couldn’t pull away. Couldn’t look away from the heat in his gaze. “Don’t patronize me, Mr. Wells.”

  “Yeah, I’m a witch.” The rough edges of his fingers grazed her lower lip. “So why haven’t you thrown me out yet?”

  Because she wasn’t positive she had the clout. Because she wasn’t sure that the rest of her Mission was prepared for the political storm that would follow.

  Her eyes narrowed as his fingertips traced the line of her throat. “You lie to me, Mr. Wells. You make a habit of it. I don’t like liars. I don’t like witches.” He skimmed under her jaw, as if he were seeing her through his touch. Memorizing the feel of her skin.

  His other hand remained locked in hers, rock steady. Completely at ease.

  His smile pulled one side of his sculpted mouth higher. Sexy. And too damned smug.

  When he reversed the position of her hand and his, it twisted so fast Parker couldn’t react. Suddenly, her wrist flexed in his fingers, shackled in an unbreakable grip, and his other hand circled her throat.

  Not like he had last night. Not in anger, or in a bid to hold her still. This was slow, deliberate. A symbol, she thought wildly, a point. But what? Why?

  Her heart pounded. Why did the feel of his palm over her pulse send her body into meltdown?

  “Only I noticed,” he said, lowering his face so that his breath wafted hot against her temple, “this thing that happens when I’m near
you.” He inhaled deeply, which slid his chest against hers. Warm and hard and male. And bare.

  She shuddered, caught in his spell.

  Trapped by his assault.

  “You’re wearing that perfume again. Do you know what that does to me?” His words should have made her snort in mockery of his arrogance.

  But she couldn’t force it out of her too-dry throat. Instead, she gasped.

  “When you’re turned on”—his mouth lowered to her ear, lips brushing her sensitive skin—“your scent changes. Subtle. Real subtle.”

  It should have turned her off. It should have sent her into convulsions of laughter. It should have . . . Oh, God, it should have made her cringe.

  Instead, as if he touched a flame to her body, need swamped her. Wild. Sexy.

  She wasn’t any of those.

  But he made her want to try.

  Parker closed her eyes as his tongue darted out against the overly sensitive shell of her ear; a flick, a taste. She nearly jolted out of her skin.

  As he leaned back, his chuckle filled her senses as deeply as the scent of him; musky and faintly tangy. Woodsy and man and lust.

  He let her wrist go with a deliberate slide of his callused fingers against the inner skin of her arm.

  Parker swayed as he pulled away.

  Her fists clenched. Enough was goddamned enough!

  “Sit your butt in that chair,” she said, every word tamped down to an arctic chill, “and stop playing games.”

  This time, to her vast relief, he obeyed. Mostly. “No games,” he replied. “Just facts.” As he sat, the leather chair cushion creaked. Absurd counterpoint to his all-too-nonchalant drawl.

  “Then give me some more facts,” she retorted. “Real ones. Which of my missionaries are working for you?”

  “Me?” He grinned. “You give me too much credit.”

  Her fingers twitched. Nearly curled into a fist before she forced them still by her side. “How many of my agents are mine?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then what does Sector Three want with the Mission?”

  There. Simon’s expression shifted, an almost imperceptible change. Except to her. Parker didn’t sit. She braced her hands on her desk, met his eyes directly.

  Deliberately.

  “Why is Kayleigh Lauderdale trying to seize control of Operation Domino?” she pressed.