Then she remembered that he’d owned the fanciest hotel she’d ever seen, and gave up worrying about it. Phin was more than capable of making himself at home.
“How do you feel?” He sat back into the armchair Silas liked.
Jessie looked away before her cheeks turned red. They’d done things in that chair that might make the very proper Mr. Clarke burst into flame from mortification if he knew. “Fine,” she managed, loudly clearing her throat. “Just fine. A little bruised around the soul.”
And that gnawing worry in her gut wasn’t easing.
He cradled his injured arm, one hand curved over the sling. “Matilda says a witch attacked you while you were in your vision.”
“That . . .” She thought about it. “That makes a lot of sense. Who?”
“I don’t know. Silas and Naomi have gone after him.”
She sat up so fast, hands braced on the mattress, that sparklers flared across her vision. “What?”
“Whoa, easy.” Phin stood again, bent over her as she swayed. “Take a deep breath.”
She tried to wave him away, but ended up hanging onto his sleeve when vertigo kicked her in the side of the head. The room tilted, and she sucked in an obedient breath.
“Matilda said you might be out of it.” Carefully, he sat next to her, supporting her with his good arm.
Between the rolling, rocking motion of the world around her, she couldn’t help but smile. Even if it twisted. “How’d you . . . get the short stick?”
“You mean stay here?” Phin kept his voice low, soothing. The man was good. “Still injured. Naomi’s gift doesn’t work very fast. Faster than it would be naturally, of course, but it still has to go through the normal physiological steps.”
Jessie had noticed that. She concentrated on breathing, eyes closed, until her stomach stopped sloshing around inside the fragile cage of her own body. Cautiously, she slit open one eye.
Her head throbbed, but nothing she couldn’t live with.
Phin’s handsome features swam into focus. His dark eyes met hers, crinkled at the corners.
A little corner of Jessie’s heart melted. No wonder Naomi liked him. “Thank you. I’m okay now.”
“You sure?” When she nodded, he let her go, but stayed close enough to catch her just in case.
“Where are they?”
“Somewhere in the lows,” Phin said. “Matilda told me.” And for the first time, his eyes darkened.
Jessie’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t probe farther. Maybe Naomi was playing at some kind of game. Maybe there was trouble in paradise.
But whatever the case, she didn’t know Phin well enough to pry, and she didn’t think he’d appreciate the gesture. She drew her knees up, draped her arms over them. “How far in?”
“The old industrial quarter,” Phin replied. “Thing is, I’m not trained like they are. So even if I wanted to go, I’d just be in the way.”
She stared at him as the glow from the old-fashioned lantern danced over the sculpted planes and angles of his face.
How did he do that? Just . . . vocalized so matter-of-factly what she’d been struggling with for weeks, now.
He caught her staring, raised his eyebrow with a self-effacing kind of smile that tweaked that corner of her heart again. Damn. The man had charm. In spades. “Do I have something in my teeth?”
“A little bit of common sense,” she said. “How do you do it?”
His lips twitched. “Do what?”
“Be useless.”
He sat back, his expression turning thoughtful. “Is that what you think you are?”
Jessie looked away.
“I love Naomi,” he told her, surprisingly candid for all Jessie was as much a stranger as anything else. “I fell in love with the woman she is, and that means all of it.” He braced his weight on his good hand, bed springs creaking. “I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
She shook her head. “Even knowing she could be somewhere bleeding right now?”
“Even knowing that.” But he didn’t try to hide the pain that thought caused him. “We all have a part to play. The least I can do is play mine.”
“Jesus,” Jessie whispered, and dropped her forehead to her knees.
“It doesn’t make it easier,” he added, and rose. “Not for us. But I like to think it makes it easier for them out there. Knowing we’re holding down our part, that they don’t have to worry about us, too.”
“Common sense,” Jessie repeated, muffled against her knees.
Phin’s chuckle eased some of that tension. Just some. “Hang in there,” he said. “I’ll go let Matilda know you’re up.” He hesitated at the door, and she raised her head. “You’ve got your friends scared, you know. Be careful.”
“I will,” she said, and wasn’t quite sure if it tasted like a lie.
Her head ached, everything felt unsettled. She’d do her best to be careful, but as the door closed on Phin’s friendly concern, Jessie wasn’t sure she’d have much choice.
***
Neck gristle stretched, ground. Joints locked. With a savage wrench, the guard’s head jerked halfway around on his suddenly much-more-flexible neck. Silas caught his limp body in one arm and set him down as lightly as he could.
His heart pounding, he turned and offered cupped hands for Naomi to step into.
Her eyes gleamed back at him, reflected pools of . . . nothing.
Worry flickered somewhere in all the adrenaline slamming his system, but he gritted his teeth and helped her down into the dark.
Later, after they’d gotten out of this alive and with Lillian Clarke, he’d see what he could do about her. Right now, they had a job to do.
The fact that this motto had followed him from Mission employ was an irony not lost on him.
Naomi bent, searching the body. When her fingers found the smooth plates of his plasteel body armor, she jerked her gaze to Silas.
He shrugged.
It didn’t make sense to him, either. Matilda had assured them that a witch was involved, but the guard was equipped with state-of-the-art body armor and a machine-pistol—one part pistol, one part machine gun. Military-grade and deadly as hell. The New Seattle Riot Force, as close to a military force as the metropolis had, carried them for the real big problems.
Not standard Mission weaponry, last he knew.
He turned, studying the interior of the warehouse. As far as he could tell in the dark, it was an open floor plan turned into a series of narrow corridors by the metal crates stacked within it. Near the center, a single fluorescent light guttered on and off—the humming voltage shorting through it sent up an echoing buzz throughout the complex. It made Silas’s teeth ache.
Shadows loomed out from that flickering light. Corners of crates, some gaping open to reveal more shadows. More dark places where men could hide.
He didn’t sigh. He wanted to. Adrenaline slid through his veins, wiping away any traces of ache and fear, but all he wanted to do was get in, get out, and go home.
Where Jessie was waiting for him. Hopefully conscious.
He rubbed the back of his neck with one large, callused hand.
“Here.” Naomi pressed the machine-pistol into his hand. Her whisper barely disturbed the dusty, mote-ridden air, but she wrinkled her nose as her nostrils flared. The smell was awful: rotting refuse creeping in from the filthy alley beyond the broken window behind them, layers of dust and decay filling the warehouse.
Nothing moved, and he didn’t like it.
He took the weapon, checked it automatically. He didn’t need perfect sight to do it; the Mission had guaranteed he could fieldstrip a weapon one-handed and blind, if he had to. The metal clicked into place, sending echoes scattering out like ripples in the dark.
Every hair on Silas’s neck lifted. The whole fucking thing smelled like a trap, but he’d seen nothing beyond this initial guard.
Naomi passed him, easing through the dark like the hunter she’d been.
She still di
dn’t carry a gun. He wasn’t sure how to bring it up, and wouldn’t now, but eventually, they’d have to discuss her viability in the field. Not a fight he was looking forward to having.
Despite paranoia knocking between his shoulder blades, nothing triggered an alert. No sounds, no lights. No footsteps. Just the single light in the center.
Which was enough of a gimme that he figured they were walking into some kind of shit storm.
He followed Naomi into the maze of crates, caught her by the back of her black sweatshirt when she would have cut right through the heart.
She waited. Enough of a blessing that he wouldn’t question why. She’d been leashed down so tight the whole ride up through the foundation streets. Violence simmered under her skin, so close he could practically feel it coming off her like radiation.
But she met his eyes. Raised a silver-decorated eyebrow.
He lifted two fingers, slid them in a line towards the center. When her eyes narrowed, he pointed at her and mimicked a semi-circle.
“Hell—”
He cut off her heated whisper with a hard look and slash across his throat.
Full mouth thinning into a white line, she shook her head and signed a curt message he didn’t have to see all of to read. He’d fuck himself later—better yet, he’d go home and lose himself in Jessie for a few hours. Drown in her whiskey eyes and sweet voice and warm body.
Right now, he had other pressing matters.
Raising the gun to his shoulder, he reached out and caught a fistful of her sweatshirt, pulling her forward until they were practically nose to nose. He didn’t have to say anything. Though one gloved hand wrapped around his wrist, she jerked her chin up. Bared her teeth.
But she was trembling against him.
Damn it. Naomi was losing her shit, and he couldn’t afford it. “Cool it,” he ordered, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. “Or get out.”
She shook her head. Took a deep breath and let it out in a slow, silent exhale and tapped his fist, curled into her sweatshirt. He let go, and she stepped back, signaling to the right.
Silas hesitated. What were the options? He needed backup, and when she wasn’t trying to prove something, Naomi was a hell of a choice.
He nodded.
Teeth flashed in a hard, white smile, she turned and vanished into the dark.
If they were lucky, if there was a goddamned guardian angel nearby, they’d find Lillian, extract her, get out. But the odds of that weren’t good, which is why he’d sent Naomi around to flank the center. He’d put the target on himself, hope she could avoid any other guards, and put his own life in her hands.
Not a choice he’d make under normal circumstance. He respected Naomi, had worked with her on the Leigh witch operation that had culminated in his “death.” Hell, he’d practically grown up in the orphanage with her.
But he didn’t know how to fix her. Didn’t know how to even try.
Maybe he’d have a man-to-man with Phin when he got back.
And then avoid getting flayed by Naomi for interfering.
His lips quirked at the corners. Squaring his shoulders, he forged into the dark.
CHAPTER NINE
Take the right. Circle in and flank the middle.
Naomi fumed as she made her way between the crates. She knew what Silas had just done; painting a huge fucking target on his back was the worst idea she’d heard all day. Right up there with bring Phin to the sanctuary.
Even if that one had been hers.
Fear lodged itself into her stomach, an icy knot that sucked the air out of her lungs and left her staggering. She grabbed the corner of a crate, clung to it as she sucked in a sudden, angry breath.
This wasn’t the time. Damn it.
This was why she couldn’t keep this crap up. Phin was a fucking distraction. She may not be a missionary anymore, but that didn’t mean Naomi got any sort of vacation. This little job right now proved that.
She needed to stay focused. This wasn’t her first hostage extraction. It wouldn’t be her last, she was sure of it. Not if the Church had anything to say about it. Not as long as people like this unidentified witch kidnapped others.
But even as she ran it all through in her head, as she seized desperately for the rationalization, she called herself a liar. Phin wasn’t the problem. She was.
She never used to let her personal shit get in the way of the job.
Lillian’s life depended on her now. Assuming she was still alive.
Forcing her knees to straighten, Naomi pushed off the rusted, peeling metal surface of the empty container beside her and strode further into the warehouse. The dark lightened as she approached the single lamp hanging from the ceiling. Blue-tinged shadows filled the shipping crates, cast a miasma of ghostly gloom over the whole place. The crates were too high to see over, but as she got closer, she eased into a semi-crouch and concentrated on her role in this shitty plan.
Circle in, flank the bad guys. Catch them by surprise.
Only Silas got there first. As she slipped into a sheltered vee between crates, she saw his big form enter the circle of light. Saw him scan the borders of the all-too-coincidental clearing between crates.
There was no sign of Lillian. No bad guy with a gun. Just an expanse of bare, dirty cement floor and nothing.
“Now.”
Shitfuck!
All at once, the atmosphere went nuclear. The electrical grid shrieked, a buzz that rattled through every bone in her body, and the gloom shattered to nova-white. She covered her eyes, kneeling behind the crate, as gunfire erupted through the chaos.
Blinded, she couldn’t do more than flail as hands grabbed her by the arms, hauling her out of her hiding place. She wrenched one arm free, blinking her streaming eyes, and slammed her fist into the body she felt beside her. Her knuckles cracked on plasteel, sent pain shrieking all the way up her shoulder.
“It’s a trap!” Silas’s voice.
No shit.
Naomi twisted, lashed out a booted foot, and collided with something softer. A grunt beside her transitioned into static as a fist slammed against the side of her head. “Bitch,” a man hissed.
As she staggered, skull ringing, the man threw her into the open space. Her knees grated against the ground, shoulder wrenching as she sprawled face-first. Dust wafted into her nose, her eyes, and she reared back to dig her palms into her sockets, cursing.
“Stay down,” Silas ordered, his voice strained. The echoes threw it back at her from every direction.
But the intensity in those two words kept her knees on the floor. Her heart slammed in her chest as she blinked furiously through grit and the aching pain behind her eyes. Slowly, blearily, the world came together.
A figure in synth-leather pants perched on the corner of a shipping crate. His shirt wasn’t anything more than a few straps, the kind of accessory Naomi saw a lot of in the mid-low clubs she used to frequent. He was lean, nearly as wiry as she was, and a shock of white-blond hair drifted into his near-black eyes. He smiled lazily, an expression that did nothing to warm the glacial chill rippling down Naomi’s spine.
Barefoot, gnarled toes planted against the crate beneath him, he looked as out of synch with the setting as the woman held in his loose embrace.
Lillian Clarke had always seemed untouchable to Naomi. Her hair was kept summer-gold and swept into an elegant chignon, and her aristocratic features told a tale as blue-blooded as Naomi’s own—the Clarkes had been in the city since before the quake, and were one of the few families who’d managed to regain their former glory. Even the lines, new lines of grief and exhaustion and the parchment creases of age, couldn’t detract from the woman’s unmistakably chic demeanor.
But her black tailored suit was dusty and rumpled, and tendrils of hair had escaped to untidily frame her face. Her hazel eyes met Naomi’s, wide with fear; flaring in recognition, in—Naomi’s gut twisted—wild hope.
The kid, maybe no older than twenty, toyed at Lillian’s lapel with the point
of a knife. His arm crossed her body, draped over her shoulder in a casual display of possession, and every cell in Naomi’s body surged to vicious, violent fury.
The last time a Clarke woman had been held hostage, she was murdered. It couldn’t happen again.
It wouldn’t. Not to Phin.
Not . . . not to Naomi. Not again.
She surged to her feet, managed only a step before the kid’s smile died. “Stay down.”
As if that was all the order they needed, a boot slammed into her back. She toppled, snarling, back to her hands and knees.
The instant the foot lifted, she straightened, jerking her hair out of her face. “Who the fuck are you?”
The kid’s eyes brightened, glittering black. Lillian’s jaw tightened as his arm pulled her closer against his chest. “Beautiful,” he breathed.
Across the bare circle, a man at each arm, Silas tried to take a step and grunted as one kicked out his knee. He fell into a kneel, cursing savagely.
The kid raised his free hand, palm down. Pain flared low on her abdomen, a lick of fire that stole her breath. It’d been months since the seal of St. Andrew had activated; that long since a witch tried to do anything to her. The pain was something a missionary learned to live with—to appreciate—but after too long dormant, it shrieked through her nerves. Sizzled unbearably.
Naomi gritted her teeth.
Purple light licked out from under his palm. With his eyes bright and wide, he cocked his head, watching her. “Do it,” he told her.
“Stop, please,” Lillian whispered.
Naomi flattened one hand against her jeans, just over the tattoo, and lurched to her feet.
The kid laughed, and as he pushed his splayed palm towards the ground, Naomi’s knees buckled. Throwing her head back, Naomi cried out as her shoulders collapsed under a weight she couldn’t see. Her muscles strained, every tendon pushed to the breaking point as she fought to stay standing.
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