All Things Wicked

by Karina Cooper

  Alicia followed his gaze, and her smile widened. She slid off his lap with a hell of a lot more skin against skin than it required. He sucked in air, gasping. Grateful for it.

  “She doesn’t,” she said breathlessly. Almost eagerly. “Oh, heaven. You’ll know soon enough, won’t you, pretty Juliet?”

  Juliet’s shoulder moved. Her expression settled into carefully blank lines. “What are you babbling about?”

  Caleb cut in before Alicia could say anything. Reveal anything. “Remember the harvest ritual?” He carefully tested the ropes that hadn’t stretched even a millimeter, despite his efforts. “She wants that. And she’s going to use it on you.” His muscles ached, wrists burning, but he didn’t stop working his bindings.

  Damn the fool that had taught Juliet Carpenter about knots.

  Alicia spun in a circle, her feet filthy to the ankle. She ran her hands over the bare half of her shiny, rippled scalp as she laughed. “Oh, yes. How long do you think Curio tapped that power?” Her voice dropped as she sank to her knees in front of the bound Juliet. “How long did he have to fuck you before you let him use your magic, pretty Juliet? Did he make you beg for it?”

  She reached up and traced the side of Juliet’s face with her unscarred hand. “Did he make you choke on it?”

  Juliet stared at the ground. Caleb’s muscles locked as black rage slammed home inside his skull. “Juliet,” he grated out, his voice taut with the effort to speak through the drums throbbing a ragged beat in his head. “Explain your magic.”

  Her jaw shifted, but she didn’t raise her gaze above Alicia’s dirt-smeared toes. “You already—”

  “Just do it.”

  “It . . .” Her lips flattened. “I enhance other witches’ power.”

  Alicia studied the top of her head, her half grimace carved by shadow and lantern light. “Yes, lovely,” she said patiently, “we know that.”

  “It means,” he explained, “that she doesn’t have anything else. Her power doesn’t help her. If you take it, you’ll never get to use it on yourself, just everyone else. She’s more useful alive.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” A beat, and Alicia bent to thrust her misshapen smile into Juliet’s trembling stare. “And maybe she just doesn’t tap into the best of it because she lacks anything else. Maybe if someone like, say, me had that power, I’d be able to use it better. We’ll find out.”

  “Damn it, Alicia—”

  Alicia turned on him, and her blue eyes widened dramatically. “Will you kill me again, Caleb? Will you set fire to my skin? Maim me? Put me through hell? Oh, wait,” she amended, laying her disfigured hand against her scarred cheek. “You already have. But our pretty Juliet wasn’t there, was she? She never got to feel that burn.” Her twisted grimace of a smile lengthened. “And neither did her sist—”

  “Come on then,” Caleb snarled, cutting her off. “Let’s see what kind of crazy you are.”

  She laughed. “Last chance,” she singsonged gaily. “I can play fair. We can start with you, if it’ll make you feel better.” She beckoned to the door behind him. “You want to be the hero, don’t you? Sailing in to sacrifice yourself in penance for all your terrible misdeeds? I’ll let you.”

  Footsteps crunched on the floor.

  “Banner.” Alicia pouted as a giant of a man stepped into the circle of the light. She leaned against his side, disfigured hand braced against a chest that put cinder-block walls to shame. “The soothsayer isn’t being nice to me.”

  His heart pounded. Adrenaline slammed through him. Alicia always had a way with the big, mean, stupid ones. The man towering over them was all three. A face rearranged by too many meetings with back-alley brawlers leered down at Caleb. Then at Juliet.

  She shrank away.

  Caleb jerked at his ropes and bit back a curse as the knots dug into his flesh. The small pain was just another sensory fuck-you in a litany of them, and he squared his shoulders. Forced himself to look directly into the big man’s fleshy features.

  Alicia smiled. “I want that ritual, Banner. If he won’t talk, I want you to beat it out of him,” she directed, withdrawing from the circle. Her bare feet made no sound in the muck coating the cement floor. She paused. “Oh, and don’t break his jaw, just in case. We need him to form words.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the giant rumbled.

  Caleb risked a glance at Juliet. She watched him steadily, her face carefully blank again. He couldn’t keep the corner of his lips from twitching.

  Show no fear.

  That’s my girl.

  “You going to tell her what she wants to hear?” Banner asked slowly. “So that you can maybe hurt less?”

  Caleb’s gut jerked, stomach churning with nervous anticipation. His eyes narrowed until he realized the man meant Alicia.

  He’d never be able to tell Juliet anything. Not his girl, God damn it. Not his.

  “No,” he said flatly.

  The first blow took forever to land. The giant raised a punch-scarred, hairy fist and drew back as if winding up a difficult toy. There was a palpable sound of effort, a hard exhale as it pushed through the air, and Caleb’s head snapped around. The skin over his cheekbone split, almost audible in the sudden silence. It throbbed through his head, sloshed around in his brain until his ears rang with it.

  When another didn’t come straight away, he cracked open an eye.

  Juliet’s light green stare met his. Too shiny in her white face. Tears?

  Little rose.

  “God damn it,” he said tightly, staring at her as blood dribbled into the corner of his mouth. It tasted bright and thick, warm salt and liquid copper. “Toughen up.”

  She bared her teeth.

  “Now?” Banner’s voice thundered like a freight train.

  Caleb sucked in a slow breath, and signed his death warrant with a grim smile. “Let me make this easy on you,” he said, stretching out every word as if talking to a particularly dim child. “Go. To. Hell.”

  Banner took a moment to mull this over. Then, nodding, he stepped around the chair on boots built out of scrap rubber and knelt to peer into Caleb’s face. “She says not to break your mouth,” he rumbled.

  He braced himself. It didn’t do him any good. The next fist caught him in the gut, cutting off his breath with spectacular precision. Then the sternum. Caleb gritted his teeth as wave after wave of pain spiraled from each point of impact.

  The next fist to drive into his flesh set off a torturous chain reaction that sparked through every fried nerve he had left. Blood oozed through the bandage around his shoulder, and he bit his tongue. The small pain wasn’t enough to mask the agony tearing through his body.

  As if finding a particularly pleasing button, Banner hit him again in the same spot. Harder.

  Flesh stretched, popped, and tore. Like an obscenely red flower, blood blossomed around the makeshift bandage, splattered over his shoulder. Caleb threw back his head, clenched his jaw so hard that the joint cracked. More punches, more savage blows that didn’t leave him time to breathe.

  Time to think or brace.

  New blood splattered, almost black in the flickering light.

  It overwhelmed him. Filled his skin like acid and fire. Desperately aware of Juliet’s horrified stare, he locked his teeth on a rough scream.

  Chapter Three

  She didn’t know how long the giant worked him over. Too long. Long enough that each groan, each crack of bone on flesh and muffled howl of defiance tore through her head like rusted knives.

  Juliet watched Caleb in wretched silence. Her heart pounded against the cage of her ribs and queasiness kept her teeth clenched firmly together, but she did watch.

  Wasn’t this what she wanted?

  His hoarse screaming stopped, as abruptly as if he’d flicked a switch. He slumped over, his battered body slack. The bloody-fisted giant grabbed his hair and wrenched his face to the light.

  Blood dribbled out of Caleb’s lips. His lashes clung to his sweat- and blood-damp cheek
s, and she sucked in a horrified breath as the man wiggled Caleb’s head side to side. Then he dropped it, leaving Caleb’s chin to thunk against his own chest, and shuffled out of the room.

  The lantern had gotten dimmer and dimmer, and now it flickered threateningly. Shadows skimmed over the gleaming, pale muscles of Caleb’s chest, made the runny, blotted splashes of blood look foul. Intrusive.

  Was he alive? For now, maybe. But he didn’t move, not even when the door slammed shut.

  She’d made a terrible mistake.

  Juliet closed her eyes as the batteries finally guttered out. Darkness settled into place, as heavy and thick and stifling as a blanket over her head.

  Fear. Oh, God. It slid down her spine, infused her nerves with ice. The silence smothered her. Choked her, a dreadful miasma broken by her uneven breathing and the creak of her jacket as she moved.

  She had to get out.

  Twisting her arms, she writhed and worked her wrists until sweat or blood made them slick. She didn’t know which. Her fingers had long since gone numb.

  Get free. That’s all she needed to focus on now. Get free, and she wouldn’t be alone.

  But in the hollow space behind her eyelids, the scene replayed over and over. Fists like cinder blocks drawing back, colliding with flesh and muscle. Caleb’s features, wracked with pain and drawn so tight that she could see each individual angle of his face. His scars white with it. His eyes radiating anger and desperate resolve as he thrashed against the chair.

  The idiot. What the hell was he trying to prove?

  Did she care?

  She caught her upper lip between her teeth as she tried to see through the dark. Felt the fine hairs on her skin prickle and shiver beneath sweat that turned her skin sticky and cold.

  She cared. Cared enough to hate the treatment he’d gotten. Cared enough to flinch with every blow, every grunt and smothered gasp.

  But hadn’t her intent been to kill him? Now it was to save him?

  What was wrong with her?

  “Caleb,” she whispered. Her voice skittered back at her, sibilant whispers tossed a thousand directions.

  There was no answer. She hadn’t expected one. Hoped, but not expected.

  Biting her lip harder, she twisted her left hand until her fingers curled up in an angle. It burned, probably sloughing off skin with it, but she couldn’t let that stop her.

  Calling the remnants of the coven was, she admitted to herself, a really, really stupid idea. She’d barely been part of it when it was whole. Without Curio to protect her, she was just fodder for the rest.

  So Caleb had been right. Of course he’d been right.

  It galled. “Hate him,” she muttered. “Hate him so— Ouch!”

  Gasping with the effort, she jimmied her wrist back and forth, pulling and twisting as she did. She clenched her teeth, locking her jaw as pain ripped through her arms. Just as it reached a crescendo, felt as if she were scraping off her own skin with jagged razors, her hand slipped free with a wet, tearing sound.

  Relief outweighed the agony. Tears of pain slid down her cheeks, but she didn’t have time to sit and nurse it. She was getting out of here.

  And yes, she was going to rescue Caleb Leigh while she was at it.

  No one deserved to be tortured to death.

  Hurriedly shaking off the loose rope from her other hand, she bent and fumbled with the knots by her ankles. As the ropes hit the dirt, she pushed herself to her feet and thrust her hands out blindly in front of her. Six steps, maybe seven. She took them cautiously. Her fingers slid through air warmer than the ambient temperature, and she sighed shakily in mixed relief and anger as they collided with muscle.

  “Caleb,” she hissed. “Wake up.”

  No response, not even as she pressed forward and found her palms full of wet, warm skin. Muscle flattened. Rose and fell beneath her touch and as heat climbed her cheeks, she realized she’d found his chest. His lean, beautifully defined chest.

  He breathed, slow and even. Thank God, he was alive.

  And she was an idiot.

  Muttering under her breath, she blindly mapped the contours of his torso, skimmed the taut, round shape of his shoulder and slid her fingers over smooth flesh. No ridges scraped under her fingertips. She’d found his right side, then.

  Slowly, holding her breath, Juliet traced the very tips of her fingers across his chest. They glided across smooth skin and dipped into the valleys of muscle; a warm flush slid to her belly. Pooled lower. Without anything for her eyes to adjust to, her sense of touch seemed somehow stronger. Infinitely more sensitive. She found herself leaning forward, outlining tendons and sinew.

  Smelling the warm, musky fragrance of his body.

  Oh, Jesus, she had it bad.

  Corrugated skin rasped under her shaking touch, and she blew out a hard, surprised breath. In the dark, the nodules of his scars felt monstrous. Terrifyingly thick and oh, how much pain he must have suffered.

  A muscle tensed under her probing stroke, and she jerked upright, appalled. An arm. No time to be stupid, it was just an arm. Harmless and exactly what she needed. At the end of this arm, there would be ropes.

  She sank to her haunches, sternly setting her jaw, but her palms glided over his elbow in slow exploration. Her fingers dug into the overwhelming contradiction of his body—soft and hard, smooth and ridged. Warm and alive and damp. She traced his unscarred forearm. The wiry hair tickled the pads of her hands, and she stifled a groan.

  She knew exactly how strong those arms were. Remembered the feel of them tight around her, iron and silk and so secure. Like they’d hold her forever.

  “Lies,” she hissed, shaking her head hard enough to catch a tiny breeze from her swinging hair. She bent forward, running her fingertips over the binding with effort. The ropes were tighter than her own had been. The ridges where it puckered into his wrists would hurt later.

  Every nerve thrummed, high alert, her ears straining to hear even the smallest change in sound around her as she concentrated. She found the knots by luck. Cursed silently as they evaded her damp grasp. Grimacing with the effort, her temples throbbing, she sat back on her heels and worked her fingers between his limp hands.

  The ropes twanged. Juliet bit back a shriek as hard fingers clenched over hers, and she froze.

  For a long moment, only his labored breathing filled the silence. It echoed her pounding heart. His hands were damp, hot around hers. Hard enough to hurt.

  Then, pain wrapped through his tightly restrained voice, he said thickly, “Knife in my boot. They didn’t check.”

  She stared into the endless wall of black and weighed her options.

  Could she leave him behind? Yes.

  Could she make it far without him? Maybe.

  Would she ever sleep again, knowing what Alicia planned to do? Imagining the uniquely creative ways the witch could get what she wanted without ever putting him out of his misery?

  She set her jaw. “Which leg?”

  “Left.” He let her go.

  Moving as quickly as she dared in the black void, she located his leg by touch and slid both hands down his calf. His muscle jumped under her palms, tightened, but he said nothing as she hiked up the frayed hem of his jeans and found the knife tucked into his boot.

  She withdrew it, clenched it tightly in one hand, and blindly groped for his arm again. Her fingers clanged against the metal chair, and she yelped.

  “Careful,” he murmured. “It’s dark.”

  No shit danced on the end of her tongue, but simmered to bruised pride instead. She almost stuck her stinging fingers into her mouth, smelled the nose-curling fragrance of drying blood and whatever filth infested the rough ground, and thought better of it.

  “Don’t move,” she snapped instead, opening the folded blade by feel. “I’d hate to accidentally cut off a finger.”

  He chuckled, but there was no heat to it. Only something dark, something grimly reserved and hurting.

  Juliet found the edge of t
he rope and very carefully placed the blade underneath it. The bindings unraveled with ease.

  The metal chair creaked. Air wafted across her face, and the solid heat of him was suddenly gone. She fumbled the blade closed and shoved it into a pocket, shutting her eyes before they widened any farther and strained out of her sockets.

  Sweat clung to her back. Her chest. Nerves. “Now what?”

  “Over here.” The voice came from her right, not where she’d imagined him standing. “Follow my voice. I’m not that far.”

  She thrust out her hands and took three steps before something grazed her arm. Fingers curled around her wrist, pulled her flush against a wall, and she gasped as a broad hand flattened over her chest.

  She stared down at it, seeing nothing, feeling, oh, God, everything. The warmth of his palm. His body heat pressed against her shoulder, so contrary to the cool, dank slab of concrete at her back. He smelled like sweat and blood and something indefinably him, and even as she thought it, she realized that the hand plastered against her sternum was shaking.

  How badly was he hurt?

  “Caleb—”

  “Be quiet,” he whispered. Wood grated. A seam of light speared through the absolute dark, and Juliet flinched. “Follow me.”

  He slipped through the open door and Juliet wordlessly obeyed, stumbling over the uneven stairs. His hand shot back again, gripped her upper arm as her eyes struggled to adjust.

  “Okay?”

  “Fine,” she muttered, shaking his grip off with—she could admit it, if only to herself—childish pride. His smile flashed in her spotty vision as he turned away. He crept up the stairs with more grace than she would have given his battered body credit for, ducked low and peered around the open corner.

  Nothing moved. She didn’t so much as breathe.

  Where were they? The walls flickered, painted in orange light and dull brown shadows. That meant fire, real fire. The underground was the only safe place to light anything short of a cigarette, and they made special tools for those.