All Things Wicked

by Karina Cooper

  “Nice.”

  “Nice,” Alicia repeated slowly. Amusement laced through the single syllable. “Nice? Have you ever seen the ritual?”

  The sound Juliet made could have been a denial. Maybe it was supposed to be, but she couldn’t force herself to shape it past the pain in her side.

  Alicia didn’t seem to notice, or care. “First, a ritual circle is drawn. Cardinal directions, all of that. Then the sacrifice is bound in silk and iron.”

  Juliet stared at the ground, forcing her leaden feet to move. Saying nothing, she concentrated on the backs of the man’s heels.

  “Real silk, mind,” the witch said, almost cheerfully. “Real iron, which is easier to get. And then the true test of patience comes in. The carving.”

  Juliet flinched.

  “Over every center of power on the body, carved even into the bone. The trick here,” Alicia said, sidestepping a slab of cracked cement, “is keeping the sacrifice alive while you bleed her.”

  Shudders rippled through her, but Juliet fisted her bound hands and said tightly, “Sounds like you already know all about it.”

  “Oh, no. Not even close.” Alicia tucked the lead over her shoulder, as if out for a casual stroll. Her smile gleamed. “Caleb and Curio are the only ones who’ve done it all, start to finish. Can you imagine how many times our darling soothsayer had to practice to get it right?”

  Something sick knotted in her stomach.

  “I wonder how many victims he slaughtered before he got the timing down. A handful? A dozen?”

  Juliet’s nails bit into her palms. “Shut up,” she whispered.

  Pale blue eyes flicked back to her, keloid scarring stretched wide around one. “Why, Juliet. Does it bother you? Knowing that he peeled the skin from humans? Humans like your sister?”

  “Shut up,” she growled.

  Alicia’s laugh trilled like liquid silver. “Oh, you ignorant child. God, I feel so sorry for you. You really fell hard, didn’t you?” She tugged on the leash, forcing Juliet to bend awkwardly. “Tell you a secret,” she confided, eyes glinting. “I always had a thing for him. Even knowing about the blood on his hands. Or,” she drawled, “because of it. I adore a ruthless man, don’t you?”

  Juliet clenched her jaw hard enough to drill pain through her temples.

  “Of course you do,” Alicia purred. “You naughty thing. Whatever would your sister say?”

  “You shut up about Delia,” Juliet gasped, her side screaming, twisted and cramped. “You shut up, or I swear to God—” The lead loosened, and she sucked in a hard breath. Gasped for it.

  “Don’t like the truth, huh?” Alicia taunted softly. “Don’t worry, I do understand. Get close to Caleb and you’ll be close to your powerless whore of a sister.”

  Juliet’s head snapped up.

  Her boots immediately snagged on the craggy ground. She didn’t have the strength to right herself, pitching forward suddenly. Only her grip on the shortened lead kept her from breaking her face.

  Alicia hauled back on the cord, swinging Juliet around so quickly that her back slammed into packed dirt and rock, leaving her gasping before she knew what happened. Rocks dug into her back, her legs, but all Juliet could see were stars.

  “Get up,” Alicia snapped.

  Juliet squeezed her eyes shut as she breathed through the cramp in her side.

  “Get the fuck up!” Then, impatiently, “Tobias, pick her up.”

  Boots crunched by her ear. Callused fingers poked into her neck. “We rest.” His voice was wholly emotionless, matter-of-fact as the rocks digging into her back.

  “The hell we do.”

  “She’s no good to us dead.”

  Footsteps retreated, and Alicia cursed as she threw the rope at Juliet. She felt it strike her chest, slide in plastic coils to the ground beside her, but all she could do was breathe.

  Her limbs felt pinned. Too heavy to move.

  “Stay put,” Alicia said, venom filling her voice. Then, almost as an afterthought, the rope went taut again, plucked hard. “Never mind. You’re just stupid enough to go running off.”

  Juliet heard her footsteps head in the same direction as Tobias’s.

  Groaning, she pressed her clasped hands to her forehead.

  “Let’s get this straight,” Alicia hissed, far enough away that Juliet struggled to make it out. “Down here, you do as I say.”

  “Nope.”

  Despite herself, the man’s monosyllabic, matter-of-fact response made Juliet’s lips twitch.

  “What the hell do you— Don’t you dare walk away from me!”

  Their voices faded to a dull murmur.

  Clenching her back teeth as every aching muscle protested, Juliet sat up. Without Tobias’s light, the underground pressed inward, an endless sea of black, impervious to her straining eyes. Blind, struggling to remain as quiet as she could as she all but inhaled the choking dark, she pulled her hands in every direction. The rope twanged, cinched tightly into her wrists, and refused to give.

  She was well and truly screwed.

  Juliet dropped her forehead to her raised knees. “I give up,” she whispered. Tears filled her eyes. “I just give up.”

  “Damn,” muttered a voice just over her shoulder. “Does that mean I have to walk back alone?”

  Her heart—traitorous, foolish thing that it was—slammed in her chest.

  “Caleb!”

  “Shhh.” Even hampered by inky shadows, he found her easily. His hands closed over her shoulders, and as she made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, his fingers slid down her arms. Her sides.

  Despite every spine-tingling warning to get his ass in gear, his arms closed around her, her back to his chest, his nose in her hair. He inhaled deeply, locking her warm fragrance inside his nose, his lungs, as if he couldn’t get enough.

  Christ, what was wrong with him?

  She shuddered. “They’re not far,” she whispered.

  “Quiet.” He knew that. The light that had helped him pinpoint her was powerful enough to cut a lasered swath through the artificial night, and even now shimmered just beyond the crumbling remains of a segmented building ahead.

  The glass star pulsed in his pocket.

  He fished the switchblade from his boot, flicked it open, and cut the cord from between her hands. Her fingers closed over his wrists. Squeezed. “I knew you’d come after me.”

  A spike of heat, of anxiety, knotted in his gut. “Let’s go.”

  Juliet struggled to her feet. He caught her elbows, helped her until she tipped her face up to his. Even with excellent vision, he could just barely make out the curve of her cheek. The faint line of her mouth. Her eyes gleamed, a faded slash of awareness in the dark.

  Her fingers grazed over his rippled jaw.

  The whisper-light touch scorched through his veins, shot straight to his dick. And fisted like a spike in his heart.

  Not the time.

  He seized her wrist, jaw tight, and pulled her around him. With his other hand, he fished Naomi’s comm from his pocket and pushed it into her fingers. “Straight back the way we— Get down!” he hissed, pulling her to the ground.

  She made a sound as she fell into his supporting arm. A beam of light swept around, shattering the darkness over their heads. Caleb’s other arm slipped around her shoulder, and he told himself it was to keep her from making any sudden moves. Keep her steady.

  It had nothing to do with the fragrance of her skin, sweet and warm and so familiar, it made his body clench. Or the way she huddled into his side as he stared toward the light.

  Alicia’s voice trilled from the dark. “You be damned glad I’m letting you have her.”

  His lips twitched, a grim slant. “Shhh,” he breathed over Juliet’s head.

  She said nothing.

  “I don’t answer to you,” a deep male voice replied.

  “This is my turf,” Alicia shot back. “Mine. One wrong fucking move from you, and you’re just another maggot-infested corp
se, you hear me?” The flashlight jerked, swung back around and vanished behind the wall, and Caleb breathed out a sigh of relief.

  “Very quietly,” he murmured, shifting his weight. Rocks ground into his forearm, but he gritted his teeth as she grabbed his free arm and struggled to her knees.

  “Where are we?” she whispered.

  He ignored that. “Head back the way you came. Slowly, and keep down.”

  “What about you?” Her voice trembled in the dark.

  He knew his smile hid beneath the shroud of black. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  She was a ghostly figure, a splash of black just a shade lighter than the shadows surrounding them as she crossed his field of vision. She hesitated, half crouched, and he could imagine her looking back over her shoulder.

  Weighing her options?

  “Go,” he said, striving for light. “That comm—” He froze.

  “Cal—”

  “Shhh!” The voices had stopped.

  The quiet thickened, too heavy, waiting. Listening.

  He threw out a hand. “Run.”

  Gravel crunched behind him.

  Caleb stiffened, spun just as a thin beam of light pierced the dark. It swept over broad shoulders and thick arms, silhouetted a massive body edged in muscle.

  He jerked back. It wasn’t enough.

  Quick as a snake, a meaty hand closed over his throat. “Get the girl,” rumbled that deep voice.

  “Caleb!”

  “Stop.” The man’s fingers tightened around Caleb’s neck, and he choked, grabbing the thick wrist in both hands as it lifted him to his toes. Spots flared in the corner of his vision. “Move, and I snap his neck.”

  The light jerked. “Tobias!” Alicia’s voice, waspish as she strode out from behind the ruined wall. “Don’t you dare, I need him.”

  Juliet hesitated, her face pale in his peripheral.

  “Run,” he croaked from between the large man’s fingers.

  Her mouth opened.

  The man called Tobias flexed, and pain ratcheted through the fine bones in his neck. His windpipe. Gasping, Caleb hauled back a foot, slammed it into Tobias’s knee and heard it crack.

  Teeth flashed in the wildly bobbing light, a sideways grimace as Alicia darted around them both.

  Caleb raised his arm, stiffened it. Through the crushing weight in his throat, he rasped, “Run!” as Alicia clotheslined herself on his forearm. Screaming in violent rage, she hit the ground on her back; the light spun end over end as it clattered into the shadows, beam flickering wildly.

  In the flashing strobe, he saw Juliet raise her hands to her lips. Saw her spin, clenching her eyes shut.

  “Run!” he roared, wrenching away from his opponent’s grip. He reached for the gun in the back of his waistband and found himself staring into the barrel of an almost identical pistol.

  Caleb froze. Juliet’s footsteps faded into the black, and as an icy ream of sweat blossomed over his forehead, he breathed out a silent, relieved sigh.

  The comm he’d given her would see her safely back to Matilda.

  Tobias’s aim remained rock steady. “We don’t need you,” he said flatly. “Just her.” It was as simple as that.

  Caleb met his eyes. “Why do you want her?”

  “Not your business.” His finger tightened on the trigger.

  “No!” The gun jerked as Alicia slammed into his back, fingers twisted into claws.

  Caleb launched himself to the side. The muzzle flare cracked like lightning through the dark.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A rapid staccato of gunfire echoed all around her, bouncing eerily in the dark, dogging every step. Juliet choked back a frightened sob.

  Caleb was a fighter. He’d always been a fighter. That Tobias guy had nothing on him. Nothing.

  Except seventy-five pounds and a gun.

  The wayward thought drilled into her temples.

  She couldn’t think about that. Juliet paused, gasping for breath, hands braced on her knees.

  How long had she been running? A few minutes? Ten? She was well and truly lost now. In the encroaching shadows, everything looked the same. Black, gray, more black.

  It blurred. Juliet dashed her arm across her eyes and sucked in a trembling breath.

  She couldn’t stop now.

  The comm wasn’t a flashlight, but down here, the screen lit the air with incandescent blue. It was the second best thing, and she’d take what she could get.

  Swallowing hard, strange echoes skittering from the fringes of the faded blue glow, Juliet pushed on. Every step sent throbbing needles of pain through her feet, and her mind spiraled, over and over. Replaying the final scene. Combing over the details. Tobias’s expression, empty but intense.

  Alicia’s twisted smile, so smug.

  The way she’d watched Tobias with such hatred.

  You’re about as valuable as any tramp with heart’s blood to harvest.

  Her toes slammed into something hard. It gonged like metal, eerily muffled, and Juliet staggered. Her shins barked into the edge of broken concrete, sending shards of agony up her legs.

  Swearing, windmilling, she toppled as her knees gave out. She sprawled back on her ass, sucked in a breath, and let herself go still.

  The vestiges of a ruined street ribboned out of the ghostly light, the skeletal remains of its ruined buildings grinning raggedly at her. She fought for breath. For reason. Slammed mental shutters on the worry clawing at her.

  Caleb had to be all right.

  He’d told her to run. He’d stepped in front of the gun and ordered her to run.

  He was fine. He had to be fine.

  But the memory of those gunshots echoed in her mind, hollow and cold. Juliet clenched the comm in both hands, staring at it. Willing it to buzz an alert, light up with a caller, anything.

  It wasn’t until her teeth chattered that she realized how badly she was shaking. There had to be—oh, something. Anything that she could do. She had a comm. Whose?

  His? He hadn’t taken anything from that seedy motel room but his jeans.

  Wordless with fear, knowing she was lost and hoping against all reason, Juliet flipped open the unit and cycled through the programmed frequencies.

  There were three. Only one had a name. “Oh, thank God,” she breathed, and pushed the button. White noise filled her ear. It crackled, spat out fuzzy gibberish as the line clicked over.

  “Leigh, where are you?”

  “Silas!” Juliet cried, clutching the comm unit to her ear. “Oh, God, it is you.”

  “Juliet? Where are you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, so fast she was sure the words all ran together. “Caleb rescued me and told me to run, and there was a big guy named Tobias and I heard gunshots. I’m so scared—”

  “Okay,” he interrupted. Tension intensified his voice, fuzzing the speakers. “It’s going to be fine. Leave the unit turned on, I’ll track it to you.”

  “But Caleb—”

  “He’s a big boy,” Silas told her firmly. “He can take care of himself. Stay put. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  The line went dead, and Juliet stared at the unit as its screen flickered.

  Caleb was a big boy. It was true. God knew he’d taken care of himself for a long time.

  But there’d been the gun. And Alicia.

  Juliet snapped the unit closed, swallowing back tears. She wasn’t just some helpless female to throw her hair and kick her feet, damn it. She’d taken care of herself, too.

  Had she? “Shit,” she whispered.

  She’d mostly had others to take care of her. The prostitutes who had raised two girls off the street. The girls at Waxed. Her sister. Curio.

  Bottles of gin.

  “Damn it, Jules.” She clenched her fists against her thighs. She wasn’t helpless.

  Scared, yes. Unprepared, definitely.

  But not helpless.

  Wrenching herself to her feet, Juliet flicked the screen back on and il
luminated a three-foot square of barren, rock-strewn ground. She wasn’t going to sit here and wait to be rescued.

  If anything, she told herself as she set off into the dark, she’d haul the comm back to where Caleb was so that Silas could help there.

  She wasn’t a fighter. She wasn’t even a serviceable witch. But she knew how to use what was in front of her.

  Juliet stepped over the broken, rotting remains of what looked like an old-fashioned trash can frame. Every ten steps, the comm screen faded, so she clicked it over and over.

  Each time, it came back dimmer.

  Her heart slammed into her throat as the light winked out again. She clicked the button. Nothing happened.

  Freezing in place, her heartbeat suddenly hard and sporadic in the too-thick silence of the underground, she closed the case, opened it again. The blue light flickered once, and faded.

  “Oh, no,” she groaned.

  No, whispered the echoes back at her.

  Juliet’s skin crawled. Darkness pushed at her. Slammed in tightly around her, too thick to breathe. Too clinging to move in.

  She knuckled her eyes. “Get a grip,” she said hoarsely.

  A whisper slid through the empty ruins. A note, a question? Her imagination? She held her breath, straining to hear.

  Nothing. Not a breath of air, not a—

  Crack.

  Juliet jumped out of her skin, slamming her free hand over her mouth. Her pulse pounded through her temples, her throat, her stomach. So loud, she was sure anyone out there could hear it.

  Crack.

  The rough sound clattered through the dark. She folded into a crouch, easing to the balls of her feet, fingertips planted to the uneven ground for balance. Her eyes wide, she strained to see through the pitch darkness.

  Which direction was it coming from? Which side? Oh, God, what if it was Tobias?

  What if Caleb was dead?

  She held her breath.