Lure of the Wicked

by Karina Cooper

  The gun pointed at Jordana, who screamed.

  “Everyone stays right here,” he said.

  Phin turned, watching warily as Carson picked his way toward the locker room again. “I was hoping someone in this heretical blight would be reasonable, but it seems you’re a stubborn bunch. You’d rather people suffer and die. Selfish, unholy bastards.”

  Phin wiped at his mouth with his sleeve. “You tried to kill Alexandra.”

  Carson smiled. Easy. “And the rich bitch. I knew you could save them both, if you wanted. Which you didn’t, clearly.”

  “We did save them,” Phin began, and then sucked in a breath as the gun shifted from Jordana, leveled at Gemma.

  “Nah. A real shame, this. I had hoped that the rich bitch would be the one to make you dust off the fountain. ’Specially since Naomi West is that boy’s piece of ass, and they’re related, ain’t they?”

  Phin jerked. “You son of—”

  “Glass houses, boy,” Carson said flatly, tightening his grip on the gun. “Since even your girlfriend wasn’t important enough to save her own family for, I’m going to give you all a little bit of time to figure things out. Maybe jar your memory.”

  Phin struggled to his feet. Swallowed the blood coating his tongue to say thickly, desperately, “I can’t give you what you want!”

  “Get to figuring it out,” Carson said with a smile. “Now, you remember what I said. I’ll be watching. Best be fast, though,” he added, and pulled the trigger.

  Thunder cracked. Once. Twice.

  Screams, shouting, Jordana’s terrified shriek. Someone thrashed in his peripheral vision, struggling to escape the tight knot of hostages clutching each other, but all Phin saw was crimson on sunshine yellow. Gemma’s eyes widened. She touched the center of her stomach, and the shock on her face shifted to sorrow.

  To regret.

  She folded, slowly, crumpling into a wash of gold and red in the blue-tinged pool light, and hit the floor before Phin could coerce his shaking limbs to move.

  He staggered. Sobbing, swearing, he lurched to her side, falling to his knees and ignoring the terrible lance of pain. There was so much blood everywhere. Already more blood than he knew what to do with.

  Gemma’s face turned sallow, her lips white as she gasped for breath.

  Hands shaking, Phin gathered her in his arms. “Towels,” he demanded, voice cracking. Gemma coughed. Blood spattered his shirt, soaked into his hands until he knew he’d never forget the warmth of it, the wet, liquid slide of it. “Towels!” he screamed.

  Rook was at his side in an instant, his shaking hands filled with pool towels. “My God,” he said, his voice suddenly thready.

  Joel sprinted across the floor. “I have some basic first aid!”

  Lillian’s sobs echoed as she scrambled to her wife’s side, the room’s acoustics bouncing back every wrenching gasp and breath.

  “Baby,” Gemma rasped. She looked up, a pale mask of pain. Caught Phin’s shirt in her hands. “Baby, don’t do it.”

  “I can’t let you die.”

  “I die,” Gemma whispered, her fingers tight in his shirt, “and he doesn’t get anything.”

  His heart wrenched. Tears acidic and too hot in his eyes, he sobbed in a breath and gathered her tightly to his chest. She clutched at him. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t do it.”

  “Phinneas, it’s bigger than you, and you know it.”

  Beside him, Lillian collapsed to her knees. Tendrils of golden hair tumbled around her face as she hovered trembling hands over the bleeding body of her wife. Her lover. Tears tracked silver trails through her once-perfect makeup. “Gem.”

  “Lily.” Gemma caught her hand. Brought it to her chest, to her heart. Blood seeped sluggishly from her stomach. Through the towels Joel bunched there. “You have to tell him. Make him see.”

  “You can’t die, love,” Lillian said, her smile heart-wrenchingly bright. Encouraging. “You can’t. You can’t leave us, and you can’t take that with you. Who knows what will happen to this world without you?”

  “We can’t let him have it,” Gemma rasped, and she choked, coughing. Groaning with pain, she curled into herself. Into Phin. “We can’t let him.”

  Phin closed his eyes.

  “Clarke.” Beside him, Rook’s voice went sharp. Odd. “Uh . . .”

  “Take care of her,” Phin said. He met Lillian’s too-bright eyes, nodded as she touched his face. “I’m going to fix this.”

  “Uh . . . Clarke?” Rook said again, and this time he grabbed Phin’s shoulder.

  “What?” He spun, scowled at the three people who filed inside through the double doors. Each wore the uniform of Timeless. Two men, one woman. “Agatha?”

  Her old chin high, the beauty floor attendant raked the room with hawk-sharp eyes. “Where is the missionary?” she demanded.

  Phin growled.

  One of the men leveled a bulky handgun at him. He was blue-eyed, tall with sandy blond hair, and he still wore his dishwasher’s apron. Regret shaped his boyishly handsome features. “Sorry, pal,” he said. “You really had a good operation here.”

  Temporaries. He recognized the men now, witches brought in to wait for a chance to escape the city. The Church.

  Liars. Traitors.

  Agatha’s eyes were faded blue, icy and unyielding as they took in the knot of people, the wounded Gemma, Lillian’s bloodstained hands and clothes.

  His hands fisted as Agatha slashed a gnarled hand through the air. “Ward this much of the room. Begin preparations.” Her tone was flat, so very different from the quiet demeanor of the woman he’d hired. “Kill the witnesses,” she added coldly.

  Phin surged to his feet as the third witch started toward Jordana. “What the fuck is going on here?” he roared. The man stopped, hesitated.

  His gaze flicked to Agatha.

  Phin pointed at her. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Christ, she’s going to bleed out,” Joel gritted out behind him.

  Agatha spared Phin a piteous glance. “Don’t do anything stupid, boy. Right now we’re the only thing keeping your mother alive.”

  “Bullshit—”

  The second man flicked his fingers, and Gemma threw back her head on a scream of pain. Blood flecked Lillian’s cheek, a fine spatter that turned her green-gold eyes to molten fury in her sallow face.

  Phin’s breath whooshed out on a wild rush of fear.

  “Like I said,” Agatha said calmly, as if murder hadn’t etched itself onto Phin’s features. “Marco, there’s your blood. Leave them and get to it. Greg, the witnesses.”

  The dark-eyed man called Marco stared at him. “Out of the way,” he said.

  Phin fisted his hands. “Over my fucking dead body.”

  Behind him, Gemma wheezed. “Let them,” she managed. Pain dulled her voice. Slurred her words. “Let them try. They . . . want it, too.”

  For the first time, a flicker of surprise touched the worn planes of Agatha’s face. But she didn’t deny it. “Yes,” she said curtly. “And your time is running out, so you had better be quick.”

  Gemma’s laugh raked over Phin’s ears. More pain, more anguish than humor. He turned back to her, met Lillian’s warning gaze, and didn’t move.

  “I can’t,” Gemma whispered. “None of you . . . is right.”

  “Not right?”

  “It . . . chooses.”

  Phin managed three steps before the blue-eyed dishwasher splayed his fingers in Phin’s direction. Every muscle in Phin’s body locked, tense as a bowstring. Vibrated so hard, so fast that it felt as if each tendon would tear itself from his bones. He locked his jaw on a scream, blood rushing through his ears.

  Agatha narrowed her eyes at him. “Let me spell it out for you,” she said evenly. “We’ve been waiting for the opportunity to take the fountain. We thought it was a thing.” Her gaze flicked to Gemma. “Clearly we were wrong.”

  “Clearly,” Phin bit out.

  “It’s not going to stop
us. We can carve the damn thing out ourselves.”

  Phin wrenched at the magic, snarling a mangled curse as his body threatened to tear itself limb from limb.

  The old woman shook her head slowly. “Stop struggling, you idiot boy. Miss Ishikawa was a problem. Then you got involved and we had to act.”

  It clicked. Hard, sharp as a knife. Suddenly he was seeing red. “You tried to kill her!”

  “Mark tried to kill her.” Her thin lips flattened into a hard, angry line. “Twice. She stuffed his body in the wardrobe, of all things, and we had to get rid of it before you saw it. We’d hoped to grab the fountain and go, but hey. No dice. This other guy’ll just have to be the distraction we need.” Agatha spun. “Marco, ward the room, I said. Greg!” Her voice cracked like a whip. “The witnesses.”

  The blue-eyed dishwasher dropped his hand, and suddenly Phin slammed to the floor, his head spinning. The man turned determinedly toward Jordana, stalking across the hall. The pop star cringed, desperately trying to push her way through the tiled wall.

  Marco knelt to rummage in a pack, muttering in a language Phin didn’t know.

  Phin’s muscles bunched, fingers tight as he prepared to launch himself at the witches. It was now or never.

  Michael Rook beat him to it.

  Greg swore as the wiry, gaunt man threw himself into his back. They hit the ground hard, skidded over the edge and into the depths of the large blue pool. Water splashed over the marble siding. Gunfire echoed in the tiled acoustics, tearing through the humid air like a trapped thunderclap. The metal bullets pinged, and Phin reeled, staggering as the pain of the sound lanced through his ears.

  Agatha turned, threw out a wrinkled hand, but Phin jumped at her with a wild sound of rage. He barely even noticed the aura of fire and scorching heat. His skin seared.

  The old woman’s eyes clouded as she scratched at his wrists, his face. Phin barreled forward, fingers tight around her throat as he forced her back, back, farther until she hung out over the same blue water that trapped Rook and the other witch.

  Phin shook the frail figure, his vision mottled with rage. “Can you heal her?” he demanded. “Can you keep her alive?”

  The old woman choked. “No,” she croaked around the viselike grip locked around her skinny neck.

  Phin’s vision flickered red. Fingers aching, he sucked in a long, hard breath.

  Behind him, the secret door split open, and the flicker of motion in the corner of his vision jerked his head around. A copper-skinned teenager slipped through, his dark hair dusted with cobwebs and grime.

  A slender hand curled around Phin’s wrist. He jerked. Agatha thrashed weakly in his grip, and the hand tightened. “Mr. Clarke.”

  Phin’s lip curled.

  “Mr. Clarke, let her go.” Liz’s masseuse-conditioned grip was strong, her hands gentle as she worked her fingers under Phin’s. “She’s harmless now, you leave her to us. Don’t murder her, Mr. Clarke.”

  Agatha’s eyes bulged. Her tongue distended as he stared into her red face.

  “Phin!” Lillian’s voice. His mother’s cry, desperate and scared.

  Liz pried his hands apart. The old witch fell from his fingers, splashed into the water with a gasping shriek.

  He whirled. Everything was chaos. He didn’t know what the hell was going on. Witches betraying him. Witches helping him. His mother—Jesus, help him, his mother.

  The boy Phin recognized as Hep knelt by Gemma’s side. “I’m going to have to use this,” he said, frowning as he dipped his fingers in the pool of blood. “Sorry.”

  “He’s protecting them,” Liz said behind him. She touched his shoulder. “Mr. Clarke—”

  “I don’t understand.” Phin studied them, the mishmash group of temporaries and the sodden beauty floor attendant he’d sworn had been legit. He raked his gaze over the hall, took in the ruined tangle of wires hanging from the ceiling and Jordana’s too-still body sprawled on the tile. Rook was soaked and shaking, hovering over the temporary who bandaged the bullet furrow on Jordana’s scalp.

  All of it. Hell without the handbasket.

  Phin’s eyes lingered on Lillian’s too-pale, too-taut face. The lines carved deeply into her brow, beside her mouth as she held fast to the bloodstained towels wrapped around Gemma’s clammy body.

  His jaw set. “Can you protect them?”

  “For now,” Liz said softly. “But we need to get out of here. Mrs. Clarke needs a doctor, and Cally went for help.”

  He couldn’t stand it. “Keep her alive,” he said roughly. “Please.”

  Liz shifted. But she said nothing.

  “I’m going to go end this,” he said, turning to pin Joel with a look that made the man flinch. “One way or another. I’ll provide the distraction, you get them out. Get them all out.”

  Lillian shook her head. “Phin!”

  He paused.

  “Be careful. Please be careful, he’s—”

  “A missionary,” Phin cut in. “Yeah, I know.” He hesitated. “I love you both. So much.” He turned his back as her eyes softened, as tears spilled over Lillian’s cheeks, and strode for the doors. He stopped only long enough to pick up a discarded gun and tuck it into the small of his back.

  He knew this building. He’d grown up here, spent his life touring its maze of hidden passages and staff corridors.

  All he had to do was find the bastard.

  Joe Carson. A missionary. Off his rocker, but a missionary. He recognized the way Carson moved. The way he handled a gun.

  The way he looked at blood and showed nothing.

  It reminded him of Naomi.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By the time she stepped out of the apartment, her rage had simmered to something much more caustic. Naomi could feel it, all but taste it welling up in the back of her throat. Eating at her.

  Fear.

  Betrayal.

  He’d never leave her? Right. He’d just look her in the eye and never talk about the witchcraft in his family. Or the witches he’d been hiding.

  Or the attempts to fucking kill her.

  Naomi zipped the shiny peacock blue jacket up to her throat. The plastic polymer repelled the worst of the rain, its high neck protecting her from the biting wind. Under her arm the Colt felt bulky, heavy.

  Comforting.

  Underneath the jacket and denim, she wore a black neoprene mesh suit. Standard combat gear for a missionary on the go. It’d protect her from the cold, offer some grip if she needed it. Its Teflon weave offered a measure of protection, but mostly?

  It was familiar. She desperately needed familiar right now.

  The streets turned darker farther below topside. As she paused on the landing, Naomi surveyed the rough, broken pavement, the pitted sidewalk and cracked foundations of the apartment building. In a short-lived bid for beautification, they’d planted trees along the street; scraggly, stumpy things. Naked of leaves, they thrust twisted fingers toward the layered city above.

  Just enough sunlight made it through the upper layers of the city to let her know it was still daylight. That the sun still struggled to shine through the drizzling gray clouds. Below these streets, she’d need a watch to know the difference.

  Cars didn’t come by often. Not here, this far from the carousel. The people who lived here struggled to stay living here.

  Maybe that’s why Naomi stayed. She both liked and loathed the odd nonquiet of a city flush with electricity and life, and the streets that didn’t see either any more than they needed to.

  Too fucking poor to know how to move.

  Too stubborn to want to.

  She rubbed the back of her neck, stepped off the landing, and picked her way across the broken path toward the sleek silver car half propped on the curb. The light darkened by increments as clouds rolled angry and fast into the layer cake that was the real heart of New Seattle.

  Sliding behind the wheel, she found the wires she’d already pulled and touched them together until sparks caught, meshed.
The engine turned over with a well-tuned purr of leashed power.

  The rain thickened. It splattered the windshield, infected the air with the slightly acrid sting of acid.

  She needed to tell the Mission. An investigation would have to be launched, they’d need to begin the proceedings.

  But would it mess with her current job?

  Would they pull her before she got the chance to put that bullet in Carson’s skull?

  Her fingers hovered over the comm unit. Curled in.

  Later. When she brought in the body, she’d give a full report. She’d tell them everything.

  She’d . . . do what she was good at.

  Shifting the car into reverse, Naomi eased back from the curb. She frowned at the dimming light pooling through the rear windshield, at the slide of water rippling across its surface. Another storm.

  Fan-fucking-tastic.

  She turned, flicking on the windshield wipers as she hit the gas. The car lurched forward.

  A figure loomed dark and broad out of nowhere, leaped to the side in a flash of wet denim and white. Tires screeched as Naomi swore viciously, slamming the brakes. The car swerved, spun ninety degrees, and she struggled to keep her heart from pounding right the hell out of her chest.

  Her fingers cramped on the steering wheel.

  Silas.

  Impossible. Silas Smith had died three months ago. Her childhood training partner was nothing more than a greasy smear in the ruined underground.

  The man was dead. She couldn’t have just seen him standing in front of her car, the man was dead.

  And she didn’t goddamn believe in ghosts.

  She threw open the door, tearing the zipper of her coat down for easy access to the Colt, but she didn’t draw it. She’d feel stupid, insane, if she drew a weapon on a hysteria-induced mirage.

  With her pulse still too fast in her ears, she surveyed the street. The dark alleys on either side.

  She spun when footsteps crunched on the broken sidewalk behind her.