All Things Wicked

by Karina Cooper

  Behind her, Tobias flinched.

  “—there is no one left to come looking. Time cures all ills. Including,” she added pointedly, “curiosity.”

  Staying low, Juliet half crawled into the dark. Torn between the formless haunts in her head and the very real dangers in front of her, it was all she could do to keep from throwing her hands out and begging for a reprieve. One problem at a time.

  She gritted her teeth, concentrated on Caleb. She couldn’t let him take this on his shoulders, too.

  Don’t leave us.

  “You don’t give anyone enough credit,” Caleb said, his voice low and terse. “You know what I can do. You know what I see, and mark my words, this will get out. You expect people to just swallow this?”

  “I expect people will be happy to know that they are sleeping soundly in their beds.” Her glasses winked, reflecting back the computer lights. “I expect they’ll discount the rumors in favor of maintaining the strength of the Church that has protected them for decades. Centuries, even.”

  His lip curled. “You’ve played them for fools.”

  “No, Mr. Leigh.” Mrs. Parrish braced her hands on the desk, long fingers tense. “We’ve saved them. We’ve taken the criminals, the guardians, the worthy and the cursed, and given them all a new meaning. They matter.”

  Tripe. All of it, sick tripe. Juliet shook her head, her hair sliding into her eyes as she mentally forged through the sobbing echoes of her memory.

  If she could get to Silas’s body . . . The very thought sent chills down her spine. But the man had a gun.

  She could shoot Tobias. If she had to.

  Jessie waved at her furiously, but froze as Tobias shifted. She withdrew back into the shadows, her face pale. Set.

  Caleb laughed, the sound harsh. “Bullshit. You and this doctor were down here playing God. How long?” he demanded, taking a step forward.

  Juliet froze, staring at him. At the twisted shape of his mouth, thin and angry.

  He was angry.

  For her? No, it wasn’t about her. It couldn’t be. It was for this. All of this.

  I see a mountain of corpses. Of course. She straightened as the screaming in her head reached a crescendo, tearing at the confines of her skull. Of her own memory. “How many?” she demanded, hoarse with the effort it was taking her not to scream.

  Caleb stiffened, but she ignored him. Ignored Jessie, somewhere in the dark.

  “How many case subjects”—the words tasted bitter on her tongue, grated out like shards of bloody glass—“died?”

  Mrs. Parrish folded her arms. “The number of failures is inconsequential. What matters is the data collected from each— Don’t come any closer!”

  She wasn’t aware that she walked forward until Caleb reached out, grabbed her arm as she tried to pass him. “How dare you,” she whispered.

  His fingers tightened, a painful vise around her forearm, but she didn’t shake him off. Didn’t look away, her temples bright, vicious points of pain drilling through her head. They reached out to her.

  They wouldn’t let her go.

  Don’t leave us!

  Mrs. Parrish pushed away from the desk. “The very fundamentals of science precludes such constraints as morality and ethics.”

  Juliet blanched. “And humanity?” Her voice rose. “What about all the lives you destroyed? All the people you captured? What about the children?”

  “Witches,” Mrs. Parrish spat.

  “And missionaries,” Caleb said, drawing Juliet behind him. He was too strong to fight.

  She was shaking so badly, she didn’t know how to try.

  “All missionaries are subject to a yearly physical,” Mrs. Parrish explained simply. “During this time, their genetic composition is harvested and stored. The best are then funneled to us. Under no circumstances are active missionaries ever taken.” She paused. “Processed agents are, of course, different.”

  “You monster,” Juliet cried, fighting Caleb’s grip.

  Tobias shifted, settling a large, cautionary hand on Mrs. Parrish’s thin shoulder.

  She shrugged him off. “I won’t be spoken down to by this . . . test tube,” she spat, pointing a vicious finger at Juliet. “Dr. Lauderdale is a genius. Because of his absolute faith in this world, in this city, he strode through breakthroughs most scientists can only ever dream of. We are safer because of him. We are stronger, and you—no matter how much you look down your nose! You’re better than you could have ever hoped to be.”

  Juliet bared her teeth, every muscle in her body tightening as violence filled her senses. Her head. Filled her skin.

  They killed us.

  Caleb stiffened. “Jules, stop it.”

  Mutilated us.

  “No.” The word grated out. Was that her voice, so rough and raw? Was that her body vibrating from within a fracturing shell of control?

  Twisted us!

  Juliet watched it all from a distance, formless in her own skin. Reaching out with hands that didn’t feel like hers; stretching, struggling to be heard in the raging tide of voices calling out for blood.

  “You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for him,” Mrs. Parrish continued, half snarling. “You and that whole lot of subjects owe him your life. You owe me your life.”

  Eve!

  The magic slipped free of shackles she didn’t know how to lock down.

  Mrs. Parrish didn’t seem to notice, but Tobias lifted a hand to his head. His gaze sharpened, pinned on her.

  “Jules!” Caleb spun, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her hard enough to clack her teeth together.

  It wasn’t a pain she felt.

  “They’re still here,” she said, her lips stretched thin over her teeth. She stared up into Caleb’s eyes, brilliant blue. White bled into his irises as she watched. White lightning, blue ocean, bright sky.

  Her skin crackled.

  Power unfurled like a banner. Snapped in the wind of her fury and Caleb staggered. Somewhere in the dark, Jessie cried out, and Mrs. Parrish lurched away as Tobias launched himself at Caleb’s back.

  Make them suffer!

  Ghostly hands grabbed her. Pulled at her, reached inside her chest and seized her heart in icy fingers. Magic coursed through her veins.

  It burned. Oh, God, it hurt.

  She threw back her head as her vision edged to black.

  Choked as long, formless fingers of power pushed past her lips, bored past her tongue, into her throat. Fought for her heart, pushed deeper, drilling through her body and soul until it found that dark place where the power thrashed and leaked and twisted.

  Avenge us!

  Control shattered.

  Her scream vibrated. Split into two voices not her own. Three. More. They wrenched loose from her throat, shrill. Ragged. Desperate. Not her scream; theirs. All the faceless, formless, nameless children cultivated beside her. The forgotten ones, the hollow ones, the witches and the babies and the sunken-eyed children.

  Somewhere in the back of her head, Juliet watched herself break down.

  And thousands of voices spilled free.

  Juliet’s power erupted.

  Her screams didn’t ebb, even when Caleb shoved her out of Tobias’s lurching path. He staggered around, struggling not to fall on his face. Not to give in to the visions pressing in on his brain, twisting at it. Clawing.

  The real world shimmered in and out of focus—a mountain of corpses, tattooed limbs rotting in the dank air—and Tobias came at him in fitful starts and stops.

  He tried to reach out, to grab Tobias as he lumbered toward him. His fingers spasmed, knees buckling.

  She sits at the top like a queen on a throne, her eyes empty—

  “Holy Christ,” he rasped, sinking to the ground, body bowing, wrenching. “Stop it!”

  —and her legs spread wide. The tattoo burns like molten steel, smoke trailing from her blackened skin, and she says nothing as they—

  He fought it back, struggled to see past the images assailing his
mind. The room blurred, overlaying pictures crashing together. Sweat stung his eyes.

  —pull on the chains that bind her flesh to hands in the dark. He watches from the fringes—

  “Caleb!” Jessie’s scream.

  Juliet’s scream.

  So much screaming.

  —and a cross burns bright as day behind him, shadowing his face, but his eyes. Gold then red. Eyes as radiant as the fires of hell—

  Long fingers curled around his neck. Caleb choked, managed to grab Tobias’s wrists. The man grimaced, his features a snarling rictus of pain, and Caleb’s skin crawled. His nerves peeled back, scathing inch by inch, as magic sizzled between them.

  Around them.

  And still Juliet screamed. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever heard before; as if her power hijacked her voice and filled the room with it. His head pounded, a skull-caving rhythm that he saw reflected in Tobias’s wild eyes.

  He wrenched at the man’s hands. Magic flared, a spark to gasoline, and suddenly, there was nothing but hot air and clinging static. Tobias’s hands locked into his shirt, eyes wild, mouth distorted.

  —and the mountain moves beneath her—

  “Get down!” roared a masculine voice that fell flat inside the cacophony of Caleb’s head.

  —as each leg and finger and rotting limb twitches, an earthquake of human flesh—

  Magic slammed into him like a tank, a bullet; the impact swept him off his feet, sent him careening through the air like so much trash and broken meat. Every muscle in his body twanged, screamed in unison as he collided with a far wall and slid bonelessly to the floor.

  —and she starts to sink into it, swallowed by glistening, grasping hands of the putrid dead—

  “No,” he groaned, clawing at his eyes. Struggling to rip the cobwebs of magic from his mind. “Juliet . . . Juliet!”

  —until another hand—this one pink and living and warm—seizes the queen’s in a living grip. The woman stands atop the shaking mound of death and decay, her blond hair streaming down her back, and strains with all her might to keep the queen from sinking—

  Gunshots fractured through the chamber, echoed and reechoed until it became a single, thunderous sound.

  —and she glares over her shoulder, green eyes brilliant with unshed tears. “Damn you, Caleb Leigh,” Delia says tightly—

  Red lights pulsed on, shattering the fitful flicker of half-shattered fluorescent lights.

  Save my sister! The whisper was barely a breath of sound, a ghostly murmur in the fringes of his awareness.

  And suddenly, the magic was gone. The voices ceased. As if a steel door swung shut behind him, utter silence settled into place.

  Caleb found himself splayed against the wall, his shoulders propped awkwardly with his legs twisted out in front of him.

  He blinked hard.

  Red lights flicked on, flicked off. Again, over and over. An alarm. Something was buzzing; not his head, he realized. A comm.

  Silas stared down the barrel of a gun, shoulders hunched around a bloodstain still spreading over his chest. Ashen, but upright.

  The barrel smoked faintly.

  On the floor beneath it, Mrs. Parrish lay in a pool of blood. Her thin throat worked, eyes wide and surprised, owlish without her spectacles. Her chest shuddered as she reached out a bloody, trembling hand. “The . . .” She sucked in a breath. It rattled. “The doctor . . . is . . . a hero,” she wheezed.

  Mouth set into a grim line, Silas pulled the trigger.

  It clicked.

  Mrs. Parrish laughed. And fell silent, head sinking back to the ground with a final, heavy thud.

  The comm in Silas’s other hand buzzed again.

  Caleb pushed himself upright, clambering to his knees. Juliet. Where was Juliet?

  “What?” Silas rasped into the comm.

  The voice filling the red-lit silence was tight and worried. “Get the hell out of there,” Naomi ordered. “Alarms are exploding from hell to topside.”

  Silas spun. “Jessie!”

  Caleb dragged himself to his feet, locking his knees. His chest hurt; his throat felt too dry, aching. He couldn’t take the time to catalog his bruises. “Juliet?”

  Silas jerked around, hesitated.

  Swayed. “Over there,” he managed, and yelled again. “Sunshine, God damn it!”

  “Here!”

  His sister was alive. And sounded strong; it was all he needed. Caleb sprinted across the floor, gaze pinned on the sprawled silhouette in the far shadows. As he got closer, he saw Juliet’s hands twisted in her hair. Her cheek pressed against the floor.

  So still.

  Was she breathing?

  Caleb sank to his knees beside her. Hands shaking, he slid his fingers over her sides. Gently rolled her over.

  Her head lolled, black lashes shadowing her cheeks.

  “Oh, shit,” he whispered. “Come on, Jules. Come on, honey, don’t do this.”

  Pressing two fingers to her neck, Caleb prayed harder than he’d ever prayed in his life. For her to be alive. For her to be all right.

  He’d promised.

  Please, God.

  As his chest tightened, a vise of something raw and wordless and so black it hurt to breathe in, Caleb lowered his head. Touched her lips with his. “Please, Jules,” he breathed against her mouth. “Don’t leave.”

  Jesus Christ, don’t leave him alone. Alive.

  Oh, Caleb. Thank you.

  A sigh, a murmur, and Caleb closed his eyes as something . . . changed. As if a curtain parted, something heavy lightened.

  Juliet’s pulse knocked faintly under his fingertips.

  Suddenly, he could breathe again.

  “Get out of there!” Naomi shouted through the comm, her voice tense.

  The red light drilled holes through his head as he gathered Juliet’s listless body into his arms. “I’ve got her.” The lab flung his voice back at him, overwhelmed only as Silas roared, “Jessie, we need to go!”

  “Give me just a second.” Jessie’s voice, exhausted to the bone, meshed with a clatter of keys. Caleb looked up, found her standing behind the computer. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, lightning quick. “I’m downloading—”

  “Now, woman!”

  “Almost got it.”

  “They aren’t going to come with sirens,” Silas said as he awkwardly refilled the clip in his gun. “They’ll come quietly and ready to kill. This shit’s way bigger than anything—”

  “Debrief later.” The comm clipped to his belt crackled as frequencies collided. “Fuck, shit, shitfuck, son of a bitch. They’re closing in hard and fast, go!”

  “Got it!” Jessie pulled a small black cartridge from somewhere on the computer bank and sprinted toward Silas. She was still so pale, almost yellow with the effort it was taking her to remain standing. Lucid. She slipped an arm around Silas’s waist. “We’re coming, Nai, and we got injured.”

  “I’ll meet you at the pickup.” The comm clicked off.

  Caleb made it to the door on legs that were too damned unsteady. He didn’t want Juliet to wake up and see the spray of blood and pulpy flesh that was all that remained of Tobias. To see Mrs. Parrish’s frail, old corpse.

  She’d have enough to worry about without knowing everything he’d only just figured out.

  “We’ll meet Naomi at the boat,” Silas was saying between his teeth, features ashen, and leaning more heavily on Jessie than Caleb knew he’d ever want to.

  Caleb nodded tersely.

  “She’ll get us through— Jesus Christ, where’s the back way out?”

  “This way,” Jessie said, pushing past a half-fallen slab of concrete wall. “Is Juliet—”

  “She’ll be fine,” Caleb replied as he held her close to his chest. He ducked through the hole, sheltering her with his body.

  “She’ll be awake, anyway,” Jessie suggested, her gaze intent on the room they stepped into. “Oh, shit.”

  Silas grunted. “Fuck me.”

  The r
oom was only faintly lit, remnants of electricity making it through shredded wiring. More of the storage tanks took up one wall, while a bank of small, six-by-six-by-six containment chambers ran wall to wall. Doors hung open, glass long since shattered.

  As Jessie pushed through the darkened room, Silas’s pained breath overloud in the tomblike silence, they left smudged footprints in the soot blackening the metal floor.

  The carnage, remains of a fire now smudged with dust and time, was impossible to miss.

  Caleb cradled Juliet, her head tucked under his chin, and stared at the tanks at the far wall. Incubators, he realized. Tiny little prisons for infants born from a test-tube mash-up of genetics.

  Juliet’s prison.

  “I . . . remember something like this. When I dream.” Jessie hesitated, shaking her head. Her eyes so damned haunted, Caleb could hardly stand it. Silas’s grip tightened across her shoulders, and they firmed. “We need to get out of here.”

  Caleb shot her a hard glance. “Jess?”

  “Now,” she told him. “Hurry.”

  They strode past the cells, the wide observation windows long since shattered. Left black footprints as they found a hall beyond and followed it hurriedly to a set of double doors. The chain sealing them closed was unbreakable, but the hinges at each side no longer held up.

  Caleb slammed a kick to the metal panes, twice, three times, until they gave way with a loud screech and pop.

  Blessed air swept over the group, and Caleb inhaled gratefully. City and rain; acid and refuse and thousands of bodies crammed behind protective walls.

  Even as much as he hated it, it was better than the stale miasma of death filling the building behind them.

  Gripping Silas’s side tightly, Jessie scanned the darkness beyond the empty lot. “They’re coming in from three quarters.” Her mouth quirked. “The fourth team got waylaid by squatters. Go.”

  Caleb followed her lead. She could see, after all.

  And as he held Juliet close, he realized wearily that his sister—the second woman he’d do anything to protect—had always been able to see so much more clearly than he ever could.

  Too little, too late.

  Picture a teacup.

  His grip tightened on Juliet’s warm body.

  They were still going to die.

  Chapter Twenty-Two