My Wicked Enemy (3 page)

Neither of them stopped for the pretty waitress who’d given Nikodemus her phone number, and they ignored her gesture to an open table. Their heads swiveled, looking around the restaurant, searching.

For half a second she refused to believe she was in danger, but then the part of her brain responsible for self-preservation took over. They were looking for her, and that couldn’t be good. Kynan saw her first, and the moment his attention locked on her, her spine turned to ice.

“Magellan doesn’t mess around, does he?” Nikodemus said. “He sicced the big dogs on you.” He pointed to a glass door with a heavy push bar across the middle and the words “Fire Exit” in big black letters on the upper pane. “That way.”

Tibold shouted when she and Nikodemus headed for the exit. Tibold slammed into the waitress, and they both reeled back. A bowl of rice went airborne. Kynan jumped onto a table and launched himself. He seemed to stay in the air an inhumanly long time.

Customers shouted and dove for cover from flying food and broken glass and plates. Nikodemus upended their table and kicked it toward the leaping man. Then, hand clamped around hers, he hauled ass out the fire exit with her stumbling behind him, trying to keep her balance. They exited onto a narrow street closed to traffic, the alarm blaring.

“Magellan sent them,” she said. She was shaking again, worse than before. Thinking about what Kynan would do to her if he caught her made her sick. “They’re going to kill me.”

“You’re a fucking genius,” Nikodemus said. He shot a glance at either end of the street, then back to the exit door. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. The hair on the back of Carson’s neck stood up. Goose bumps prickled along her forearms.

The alarm cut off.

Light seared her eyes, just once, like a camera flash going off. Kynan, by far the larger of the two, reached the fire exit on the run. He put out his hand to press the crash bar and nothing happened. He punched the handle again, but the door didn’t budge. Tibold joined him. His sunglasses were gone. Kynan stared through the glass and connected with Carson. She took a step back. Kynan’s mouth contorted in rage. He redoubled his assault on the door.

Nikodemus laughed like he’d known the door was going to jam and was enjoying the hell out of watching the two men bang away on it. He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the cross street. Carson ran to keep up.

Behind them, something exploded. She stumbled as the air around them concussed. He grabbed her, spun her around to put her back to the brick wall, and flattened himself against her, his torso trapping her with her head toward the restaurant side where the fire-exit door had exploded. She breathed in his scent, a desert-dry heat that rose from him and enveloped her. At least her head stopped pounding. She could feel the hum of his breath in and out of his lungs. Glass, bits of masonry, and metal rained down.

“Kynan’s coming for me,” she whispered. Magellan had taken Kynan off his leash and sent him after her. She shook because she’d always known there was something fundamentally wrong with Kynan.

“Breathe,” Nikodemus said, stroking a hand along the outside of her arm. “Don’t panic on me. You’re just picking up their emotion, that’s all. A couple of mageheld fiends, Carson. Nothing I can’t handle.” She realized she’d been chanting her fears out loud.
He’s coming to kill me. He’s coming to kill me. He’s coming to kill me.
His body pressed against hers. “Do you need me to take control, Carson?”

That got her attention. Her head cleared, and so did some of her terror. This whole situation was just insane. Completely insane. She wanted to be far away from here. Her muscles twitched with the urge to run. She needed to be away from the nightmare her life had become.

He pushed off the wall as Kynan and Tibold charged into the alley. The light hit their eyes just right and turned their pupils shiny orange. She was seeing things now, because people’s eyes didn’t change color. No way. Tibold jerked back like he’d been hit. With a grunt of surprise, he fell hard on the pavement. Kynan never missed stride. Tibold sat on the ground, hands pressed to his chest, gasping like he couldn’t breathe while Kynan charged on, staring at her the whole time.

What was left of the metal push bar from the door had landed near Carson’s feet. She grabbed it, because something was better than no weapon at all. The metal chilled her palm.

Nikodemus ran toward Kynan, then spun and, using the force from his spin, coldcocked him with a furious backhand. She heard the crunch of bone giving way. Nikodemus kept moving until he was behind Kynan. He wrapped his arms around Kynan’s neck and chin and wrenched hard. Kynan threw him over his shoulder and staggered, blood pouring from his broken nose. Meanwhile, Tibold was back on his feet. He propelled himself at Nikodemus.

Carson screamed a warning, and that made Kynan’s head whip toward her. His broken face was healing right before her eyes. He pointed at her and grinned.

Nikodemus had Tibold in a headlock. His arms strained. Bone cracked, and when Nikodemus let go, Tibold’s body hit the ground and didn’t move. Nikodemus knelt and did something with his hand. The body jerked once.

Someone roared. Kynan, Carson realized. He shot toward her so fast she didn’t have time to think. She swung her metal bar as hard as she could. She was going to die, she thought. But not without a fight.

The jagged end of the bar caught Kynan’s cheek and tore through his skin. He grabbed his face, eyes burning like a furnace, and Carson felt the world turn upside-down. She couldn’t move. Her brain was locked tight against her. Kynan’s eyes boiled as red as the blood oozing over his fingers.

“Don’t worry,” Kynan said. “I’m going to take my time with you. It might be hours before I kill you.”

Behind him, Nikodemus was on his feet. He didn’t look any friendlier than Kynan. He flung out a hand, and Kynan’s body bowed toward her. Her paralysis shattered. Kynan whirled to Nikodemus, who was circling around them.

Carson’s headache returned with a vengeance. She was practically blind from the pain. Her stomach burned. Her mouth tasted bitter, metallic, and sour. Her vision wavered. No matter how hard she blinked, Kynan looked more like a deformed lion than a man. His eyes glowed; his upper face protruded, or maybe his jaw receded. He started running toward Nikodemus. Steam rose from his feet. Beneath her the pavement rippled.

Kynan snarled, a rumbling sound that buzzed in her ears and vibrated in her chest. He leapt toward Nikodemus, arms outstretched, fingers curled into talons. Carson grabbed her metal bar with both hands and darted toward Kynan, shouting with inchoate rage. She swung the bar with all her might and hit the back of his head with a crack like a gun shot. Her joints hurt from the impact. Kynan staggered.

Heat bubbled around her, burning her. Her skin sizzled, and she was sure her head was going to explode like the fire-exit door. Pain enveloped her, and she screamed. The heat came from Nikodemus. It gathered around him, coalesced, and flashed outward. She didn’t see anything, but she felt the push on her body like a punch. Kynan flipped head over heels and hit the ground, sliding backward, smoke curling out of his mouth and wide-open eyes. He lurched to his feet, normal now. No animalistic face or body. Only his normal, beautiful, hate-filled face. Carson held her bar like a baseball bat.

“Come on!” Nikodemus sprinted, grabbing her wrist as he passed her. She clenched the length of metal as they exited onto the main street and slowed to a normal pace. He pushed through the crowd, jostling people as they went. “You can drop that now,” he said.

She looked at the bar. “No.”

Nikodemus shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Down the hill, a No. 1 California bus moved through traffic, less than a block away. Bodies pressed in on her, carrying her toward the bus stop, whether she wanted to go or not. Nikodemus was ahead of her, moving through the crowd easily because he was tall and acted like he owned the sidewalk. The pain in her head was a dull ache, but she still had the visual disturbances and the sensation that the air around her was crackling with electricity. Her fingers and palm hurt from gripping the bar, but she didn’t want to be without a weapon ever again. Having a weapon was all that kept her from breaking down.

Nikodemus was past the bus stop. He looked over his shoulder, saw how far back she was, and stopped. Carson headed for the unaware crowd at the bus stop. She wanted out of here. Away. Far away from Kynan and visual hallucinations and exploding doors. Sweat trickled down her back, and her shoulders were one huge knot of tension. Someone bumped into her, pushing to get ahead of her in the line of waiting riders.

The bus stopped and the door whooshed open. Nikodemus scanned the crowd, looking away from her for just a moment. One advantage of being short was she fit into a gap in the line of passengers. She got on, dug out quarters, and paid the fare. Standing room only. Her jaw clenched. So many people, bodies pressed together without regard to age or gender or propriety.

On the sidewalk, Nikodemus headed back the way they’d come. She walked to the rear of the bus, into the thick of people who lived every day of their lives without wondering if they were going insane. Nikodemus scanned the street, and then he shoved a man with a briefcase and shouted. He whirled. His mouth was tense, eyes darting everywhere. He called out again. Her name.

As the last passengers paid their fares, panic grabbed her by the throat. He’d fought in that alley and kept Kynan and Tibold away from her. From her. She was insane if she thought Kynan wasn’t going to find her again. He wasn’t going to give up. She knew it. As for Nikodemus’s intentions, if someone was going to kill her, better him than Kynan.

At the last minute, she leaned over the seated passengers and banged her fist on the window. Nikodemus turned around. Their gazes met, and swear to God, she felt like he was right there in her head. He dashed for the bus and got on just as the doors were closing. He flashed a Metro card at the driver and joined her at the back of the bus. He stood close. Too close. No more than six inches between their bodies, and there wasn’t room to back up.

Nikodemus smiled. “You whacked Kynan a good one,” he said.

She tilted her chin so she could see his face. “He deserved it.”

His smile flashed into a grin. “You can play on my team anytime.”

The bus lurched and headed up the hill. And Carson’s head was full of Nikodemus, who might or might not be five thousand years old.

She gripped her metal bar and prayed he wasn’t planning how to kill her.

She swayed toward him, not as unsteady as before, but not entirely steady, either. “Sure,” she said. And then she laughed, but not like something was funny. “Unless you decide to kill me, after all.”

“I don’t kill people when they’re helpless. You have my word on that.” He smiled, because he wasn’t sure how much she knew, which he guessed was jack shit, and how much she was figuring out on her own, which was possibly more than he thought. “It’s okay,” he said. Damn, but she was pretty. Exactly his type. He put his arms around her and drew her close. Her metal bar banged against his leg. “Honest.”

“Why should I believe you?” She clung to him like they were soon-to-be-lovers only she didn’t realize that’s what he was thinking. Okay, maybe she did. She pushed away, fighting back tears.

“Sweetheart.” He brushed the back of his fingers along her cheek. She didn’t turn her face to the contact. Too bad, because her skin was soft, and the contact gave him a rush. At the moment, her magic was practically nonexistent, and that made her feel enticingly human. “Who else do you have to trust? More to the point, come to think of it, who else has your back where Kynan is concerned?”

She looked into his face, staring hard because it was getting dark and she didn’t see as well in the dark as he did. “Nobody.”

“Then why not me?”

“I don’t know you,” she said softly. She touched his earring. Wasn’t that just like a witch to go straight for the object of power? “You could have let Kynan take me. But you didn’t. Why not?”

“A grave misjudgment on my part,” he said, smiling so she’d know he was joking. Kind of. “But then, I’m known for my open mind. Look, you can trust me, but if you decide for whatever reason that you can’t, then whack me with that bar, okay? Deal?” She nodded, and he took her hand in his, and they started walking again. Slowly, until she was steadier on her feet.

They walked uphill past Lafayette Park, turned a corner, and continued along a treelined street to his narrow Edwardian with no front yard and twenty steps to the door. At the top of the stairs, he pulled a set of keys from his pocket and fit his key to the lock. He stood aside to let her in. While he bent for the mail, she looked around. His house had good proportions and he watched her take in the high ceilings, the chandelier overhead, the hardwood floors, and the wooden florets around the windows and doors. She appeared fascinated by the medallions painted with woodland faces that interrupted the straight line of the crown molding. Had she guessed what they were? To the left, stairs led to a second floor. A hall extended rearward to the right of the stairs, and through an arched passage on a hard right, he could just see the bowed windows of the room that fronted his street.

Mail in hand, he flipped on the light. Carson closed her eyes and kept them that way. When she opened them again, she stared hard at the nearest painted-face medallion. She rubbed her eyes. “Where is this?”

“Home, sweet home.” He tossed the mail on a table by the door and reached around her to turn the locks. The deadbolt clicked into place. His spine turned to ice, and he whirled, expecting to get hit with something deadly, but the witch had her head down, shoulder against the wall, and was holding on to her bar like it was her only friend in the whole world. “You okay?”

She nodded. She wasn’t okay, though, any idiot could see that, and Nikodemus liked to think he wasn’t an idiot. She was a witch, after all, and sensitive to a lot of things here. He lifted a hand toward the ceiling and the faces in the medallions went quiescent. “You want to put that thing down yet?”

She shook her head and straightened. Her eyes didn’t quite focus.

After a bit, he said, “What’s the matter with you?”

“I have a headache.” She cradled her purse to her chest, the metal bar across her body. She was a little thing, really little. Didn’t look dangerous at all. “A migraine, and I don’t have my medication with me.”

He pushed her shoulder, herding her deeper into the house. “I’ll give you something to help.”

“Regular medicine doesn’t work.”

In the arched hallway leading away from the door, darkness coalesced and solidified. He was used to it, but Carson came to a dead halt. He turned around. She took a step, stumbled, and caught herself with a hand to the wall. The bar clanked onto the floor.

“That bad, huh?” Nikodemus touched her upper arm and steadied her. She’d hardly eaten at the restaurant, just some soup. She was probably light-headed from lack of food. “Come on.”

She let him lead her to his kitchen. He didn’t turn on the light for her, and she seemed grateful. He took a bottle and a plastic jug of dark liquid from his refrigerator and filled his favorite mug from the container. He handed it to her. The word
STUD
was stamped in gold letters on a green background. She didn’t take it, so he drank half before refilling it and handing it back. “You’re not the only one who gets headaches.” He pressed the mug on her. “Perfectly safe. An old family remedy,” he said. “It’ll help your head, I promise.”

She took the mug. “What is it?”

“A traditional cure for what ails you.” Nikodemus watched while she sniffed the contents. “Smells awful,” he said. “But it works. Sit down.” He pointed to a chrome table and chairs tucked into a nook. While she did, he opened an ice-cold bottle of Asahi Black. He sat cater corner to her with his legs out straight and crossed at the ankles. “I use brown sugar to sweeten it,” he said after she took her first swallow. “Doesn’t help much.”

She swallowed and tried hard not to make a face. He did his best not to let her see he knew. For a witch, her manners were impeccable. She set her feet on the bottom rung of her chair. “Is this where I say it tastes like chicken?”

“Is that a joke?”

She ducked her head and stared into her mug for a bit. Then she said, “Yes. Actually, yes it was. Sorry if I offended you.”

He waited a beat, then said, “I was beginning to think you didn’t have a sense of humor. Tastes like chicken. This shit tastes like swamp water.” He laughed, and so did she, a little. She had a nice smile. Not that a nice smile meant anything. “I was getting hives thinking about sitting around here with you never laughing at my jokes.” He took a sip from his beer. Condensation made tracks on the bottle and dammed up around his fingers. He looked at her from over the top of his beer. “I’d offer you one, but you need to get rid of your headache first.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Then I can get you drunk and take advantage.”

The witch laughed and drank the rest in one long, horrible swig. “Good girl,” he said when she showed him the empty mug. He took it and put it on the table. He tipped his head toward the hallway. “Come on, I’ll show you my mad scientist laboratory while we wait for the juice to kick in.”

She stood up. “If you’re going to kill me, I have to say you’re the nicest, most polite killer I’ve ever met.”

“Thanks,” he said, touching his chest for effect. “That means the world to me. It really does.” He was having a hard time believing he was amused by her or that he actually wanted to make her laugh. She followed him out of the kitchen, watching him walk, a fact of which he was very much aware. “That was the kitchen,” he said. “Living room.” He pointed ahead of them with the hand holding his Asahi Black. A drop of water rolled down the bottle and fell, twinkling, to the floor. At the edge of the room, he switched on the lights. This time, she didn’t need to close her eyes. “Chainsaw in here.”

She looked around. “The bloody ax is where?”

“Spare bedroom.”

She laughed, genuinely. Jesus, she was really something when she smiled, wasn’t she? He kept watching her from over the top of his beer. “I’ve always had a thing for girls with green eyes,” he said.

Carson opened her mouth to say something but didn’t. She was very good at hiding her thoughts. He wondered what was going through her mind.
Thank you, I’m glad I have green eyes.
Or was it,
Don’t touch me or I’ll scream.

He leaned against the wall opposite, arms crossed over his chest, watching her without saying anything. He had the impression she was listening intently, but the house was as quiet as an abandoned temple. “How’s the headache? Any better?”

“Yes. It is.” She touched the side of her head. “What’s in that stuff?”

“I told you. Secret family recipe.” He used his upper back to push off the wall. “You ready to talk?”