Rest For The Wicked (14 page)

Anytime—they’ll be here anytime now.

She used the words as a mantra, repeating them in her head, listening, waiting for any sound that meant rescue. The focus helped keep her mind off the cold, and the raw pain in her ear.

She still didn’t believe Natasha had cut her
earlobe
off. If it didn’t throb like a bad tooth, she’d chalk it up as a side effect of the concussion she was sure she had.

And Eric—he’d be halfway home by now, ignorant of her abduction. Part of her was glad; he wouldn’t be involved, which meant he wouldn’t be in danger again. Natasha screwed up his life enough already. Now the woman was after Claire, and it burned Annie that she was the dangling bait.

“Stupid—how could you be so stupid—” No—beating herself up out loud didn’t help.

She would just find a way to help when the time came. Claire would not suffer for her mistake.

With renewed determination, she started working on the ropes again, ignoring the fresh burst of pain. If she could just—

“Hello, Annie.” The silky voice froze her. Natasha knelt beside her, reached down and brushed sweat matted curls off her forehead. It took every ounce of control not to recoil. Annie had a feeling the response to that would be painful. “I trust your nap was refreshing. Not that it matters, but I do enjoy playing polite.” The smile sent chills racing down her spine. “We are going on a little field trip. How does that sound?”

“Boring,” Annie said before she could stop herself. Anger snapped in Natasha’s dark green eyes. Swallowing, Annie kept going, hoping the anger would work in her favor.
In for a penny—
“I always hated field trips—nothing worse than riding on a stinky bus with a bunch of—”

Natasha backhanded her. Annie’s head bounced off the pillar. Moaning, she tried to decide which hurt more—her cheek or her head. Then Natasha yanked her forward and her entire body won as every muscle tried to cramp at the same time.

Annie let out a harsh gasp, and Natasha slapped her again.

“Make another sound, and you will lose talking privileges. For good. Do you understand?”

Annie nodded, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat. For a second—one long, endless second—she saw a hideous face flash across Natasha’s. A face that wasn’t human.

*

M
arcus screamed into the deserted parking lot, and Claire had the door open before he finished stopping.

She ran to the warehouse—another warehouse—and reached for the door handle. Marcus caught her hand just before she touched it.

“This is a trap—”

“You think I don’t know that? I’ve had to deal with the backlash of her nasty little games for years. I know her M.O.—and I will not let it stop me from getting to Annie—”

“Think, woman.” Marcus gripped both shoulders. If he shook her she swore she would smack him. “Let us find out exactly where she is before we go running to her rescue. Or we may be the cause of injury.”

“You’re right.” Claire rubbed her face. Heaven above, she was tired. “You can let me go, and tell me what you already have in mind.”

“We go in low, quiet, and fast. Eric.” He stepped up, fists clenched, his jaw working. “You will cover the back door. No argument—I do not need your temper involved at this point.”

“Any more insults before I leave?”

Marcus raised one eyebrow. “They will wait.”

That pulled the hint of a smile from Eric. “See you inside.”

He took off, checking the side of the building before he slipped around the corner. Marcus looked down at her. “Ready?”

Claire took in a breath. “If she’s hurt—”

“We will deal with it. Go.”

She opened the door just enough to slip through and crouched against the wall, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Her heart skipped when she saw the figure, tied to a pillar at the other end of the wide space. Just like before.

Squashing the desire to run flat out across the warehouse, Claire skirted the edge, caught sight of Marcus doing the same on the opposite wall, his black clothes the perfect camouflage. She sprinted once she got directly across from Annie.

Blood puddled the concrete around her, matted the blonde curls.

“No—” Claire dropped to the floor, reached out, her hand shaking. She gripped Annie’s chin and eased her head up. Her heart stopped, then burst back into life when she realized it wasn’t Annie. Her blood-slicked fingers searched for a pulse, knowing already there would be none. Cold surrounded the young woman, edged with the violence of her death. “Another one you will pay for, Natasha,” she whispered, gently closing the wide blue eyes.
Another one to add to my list of blame.

“Gods.” Marcus knelt beside her, brushed long fingers over the blonde curls. “We will not let her death be in vain.”

“If this isn’t Annie,” Eric’s voice turned them around, “then where the hell is she?”

Claire pushed to her feet, faced the rage pouring off him.

“I don’t know. I won’t stop until I find her, Eric. I love her as well.”

He blinked, obviously startled by her words. “Claire—”

“I need to think.” She slapped away Marcus’ hand and all but ran across the warehouse, shutting herself in the glassed-in office that took up one corner of the open ground floor.

Once out of sight, she sank to the floor and let the despair in. Afternoon sunlight streaked the floor, a reminder that time was running out for Annie. And Claire had no way to find her.

Ignoring the ache in her leg, she drew it up with the other and lowered her forehead to her knees. There was no way to track Annie, not with her power running close to empty. And Natasha would have her cloaked, just in case Claire was desperate enough to—

Her new cell phone rang, the default ringtone harsh and jangling.

She fumbled it out of her jacket pocket, looked at the display, recognized the number. It was Annie’s cell.

Taking in a deep breath, she answered.

“Annie better be alive, Natasha.”

“Claire—not even a hello before the demand?”

Natasha’s voice made her skin crawl. She heard the beast behind it, the demon who used her cousin like a suit, slowly burning her out from the inside. It was what they all did, when they found themselves banished to this plane, this earth.

Closing her eyes, Claire asked the question she knew Natasha waited to hear.

“What do you want?”

“Now we come to it.” Natasha let out a sigh. “Your Annie is alive, and will stay in that condition. I only ask one thing from you, darling Claire. That you come to me, in your true form. No more hiding—it is time to go home.”

Gripping the phone, Claire let out her breath.

“I’ll be there.”

“I will know if you try to fool me. And Annie will pay—”

“No tricks. Now tell me where.”

“The cliffs, near the main beach. Do you know—”

“I know it. I need an hour.”

“You shall have it. Cousin.”

The call disconnected. Claire stared at the wall, heart pounding, every moment from this one bringing her closer to the end. She had been expecting it for a long time, surprised as each decade went by that she still remained undiscovered, unmolested. Safe.

She could not have chosen a better reason for her sacrifice. It would save her best friend.

Dropping the phone, she stood, and turned to find both men staring at her through the glass. She moved forward, unlocked the door, opened it, and looked at each of them.

“I’m going to need your help.”

*

C
laire kept her gaze on Marcus while she explained, without actually using the words that would make it crystal clear to Eric. She wanted to delay the moment she would see the revulsion in his face for as long as she could.

“We only have an hour, and that includes travel time to the cliffs, so we need to get started. I don’t know how long this will—”

“You cannot do this, Claire.” Marcus grabbed her arm, started to pull her aside for what she knew would be a persuasive argument.

“It is already done. I just need you to help me—I need you to—” Unable to continue, she met his eyes, relieved that she saw only anger there. “I can’t touch what I need to use to break the ward, and I will need time—to adjust when you release—”

“Stop.” He cradled her face, let out a sigh. “Whatever you need. How long has it been?”

“Eighty years.”

“Gods.” He scrubbed at his face. “How strong were you?”

“I was what you would call a first lieutenant, before I was banished. I answered to only two, and my master was one of them.”

“Who, Claire.”

She swallowed, braced herself, and whispered the name.

“Azazel.”

It hung in the air, as if the name itself had weight, substance. She knew saying it pushed at the door that Natasha cracked open, but Marcus had the right to know what he was up against.

“Were you one of the fallen?” She closed her eyes briefly, nodded. “You must be at the top of the most hunted list.”

She let out a harsh laugh. “At the very least.”

“I will gather what we need to—”

“Plan on letting me in on the joke?” They turned around at Eric’s voice. He watched them, arms crossed, anger and fear rolling off him. “What the hell is going on?”

“Eric.” Claire crossed over to him, touched his wrist. “I’m going to need your help, and it is going to be for something you’ll have a hard time believing in. The knife has to be iron,” she called after Marcus as he headed for the door, ignoring the wash of dread at the thought of iron touching her. “Solid, if you can find it. And hurry, Marcus, please.”

“Claire.” Eric moved back, out of touching range. She didn’t expect the rejection to hurt as much as it did. “What are you saying—”

“I am a demon.” She held his gaze, watched the shock, the disbelief flare in the blue depths. “And the woman you know as Natasha—she’s a demon as well. She killed your sister to buy her way home.”

“Right.” He laughed, the sound hollow. “And the next thing you’re going to say is you’re her meal ticket home.”

“Got it on the first go.” She held her ground when he stumbled backward, his face white. “I am so sorry, Eric. If I had known, I would have stopped her. But my power—it’s buried behind a ward, and I didn’t see her for what she was until I came face to face. By then it was too late, for your sister. For more people that we most likely don’t know about.”

“And you want me to—”

“Break the ward.”

He rubbed one hand over his mouth. “Why me?”

“Because.” Marcus stalked toward them, his hands full. “You are the only human in the room.”

*

E
ric needed to sit down after that revelation.

He actually needed to run as far as he could as fast as he could, but Annie was still in danger, and his only way to find her meant sticking with the two people watching him. The two people who weren’t people.

“I’m sorry for the shock, Eric,” Claire said. “But we don’t have the time to be gentle—”

“Annie—” He didn’t want to believe that she wasn’t the vibrant person he had fallen hard for, that she wasn’t human—but he had to know.

 “As human as you, Eric. She has power, but it is the pure power of a white witch.”

“A—witch.” That explained the effect she had on him, when he was—not himself.

 “Don’t you dare hold that against her. She is the most compassionate, loving person I know. And she has no idea what I—she doesn’t know about me.” Claire closed her eyes briefly, then stepped back, her voice all business. She stripped off her jacket, started unbuttoning her shirt. “The office will work best—it’s a confined space, and you can use the desk to bind me.”

God protect me—

He turned on Marcus. “And what the hell are you? Another demon?”

“I am Jinn—and there is no time to tell you all I am.”

They looked the same—no sudden transformation just because he knew the truth. How was he supposed to believe when they looked just like they did before he knew—

“I can’t do this.”

Claire turned on him so fast he didn’t have time to retreat. Fingers dug into his wrist—fingers that shouldn’t have been that strong.

“You are the only one who can. I’m so sorry—but you are the only one who can help me save Annie.” Still holding on to him, she turned to Marcus. “What did you find?”

He dumped his supplies on the desk, picked up a small tool.

“This was the only iron with a point I could find.” He held what looked like a screwdriver with a long, narrow point. “It is an awl, and not very sharp. I am sorry, Claire.”

“It will do.” She touched the coil of grease-stained rope. “You can tie me to the desk with this. Let’s get it done.”

Marcus grabbed her wrist. “I will not tie you down like an animal—”

“I will be the closest thing to it. Eighty years is a long time to bury my true nature.” She let go of Eric, laid her hand on Marcus’s chest. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, not until I can get it under control. Please do this for me.”