Karina Cooper - [Dark Mission 05] Read online

  One for the Wicked

  A Dark Mission Novel

  Karina Cooper

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Before the Witches

  About the Author

  By Karina Cooper

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Footsteps crunched on the gravel behind him, counter to the streaming patter of rain slapping the rooftop lot. Four stories below, the pitted and broken strip that was all that remained of a leveled tenement glistened beneath a corona of neon fluorescence. Red pooled like blood into the cracks, purple flashed and sparked off the occasional skeletal finger of metal rebar and twisted hunk of cement.

  Shawn Lowe didn’t turn around. Only one person knew where to find him on this day.

  “What?”

  His greeting, cursory as hell, spiked hard. His dark brown hair dripped into his eyes, too long these days but Shawn hadn’t bothered to hack it off. Maybe he’d grow it out. Maybe he’d take a pair of scissors to it later.

  Maybe he’d be dead before it mattered.

  The odds were about even any which way.

  “Your comm is off.” The gravelly reprimand behind him didn’t need to fight for dominance over the rain and permanent hum of New Seattle’s electrical grid. She had a voice like sandpaper and a way with orders that put him in mind of an old dog long past the point of common courtesy. Raspy enough to stand out, it cut through the white noise like steel wool.

  Shawn’s shoulders moved. Apathy.

  The footsteps shifted, easing to his right, and the woman who was all the family Shawn had left stepped into view.

  May’s profile was nothing particularly flashy or awe-inspiring. A woman of sixty, maybe more or less, with iron gray hair kept buzz-short, and features lined with age and experience that bit deep. With her ten-pack-a-day voice and runner’s physique, she was tough as old nails and twice as sharp. Nobody could ever accuse the woman of being soft.

  Shawn had learned a long time ago not to try.

  Her eyes, a brown almost as dark as Shawn’s, had perfected the art of steel implacability long before he’d ever met her, and she used it to damned good effect.

  Years ago, she’d once told him that he reminded her of herself. He looked enough like her grandson to warrant the distinction.

  Similarities between the two men ended there.

  “I assume you’re here for a good reason?” His voice, deeper than hers, clashed with the faintest echo of thunder. This far down into the depths of the city, the sun never reached and the rain didn’t fall so much as leak off the higher tiers. The fact that he could detect the rolling boom told him there was one hell of a storm raging overhead.

  Fitting. It matched his mood.

  May mirrored his pose, toes inches from the edge of the roof, hands jammed into her coat pockets. She wore synth-leather, like him, though hers was more protective than street-style. Most denizens of the lower streets wore it, if they could afford it.

  “Been here long?” she asked.

  “Long enough.” Forever, even. Seemed like no matter how many years went by, Shawn still found himself here. Overlooking the cratered patch of land that was all that remained of his parents’ place after the fire.

  “Find anything?” She asked it every year.

  Every year, the answer was the same.

  No funeral. No bodies. Just a handful of ash and a vendetta.

  His jaw tightened. “What do you want, May?”

  She shifted, turning her back to the lot. Rain slicked down her short hair, painted her weathered face in reflected flashes of neon. “Your team lead’s been trying to contact you.”

  Shit. Of course today. Wrenching his gaze from the pitted scar, Shawn looked up. The lights and signs and irregular bursts of color would forever be the closest thing they’d ever see of stars down here. “If she wants more drills, tell her to go fuc—”

  Her hand flashed, a pale blur trailing water, and Shawn winced as it skimmed the back of his wet head. “Watch your mouth.”

  He had about six inches on her, but the woman had reach. Ducking, he rubbed his skull with a callused hand, slanting her a wry, wary grimace. “Where do you think I learned it?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.” A bald-faced lie if he’d ever heard one. The resistance leader had a mouth on her that rivaled most anyone else he knew.

  How she’d ended up with such a polite grandson in Danny Granger still posed one of life’s greatest mysteries.

  Shawn swore enough for the both of them, but not around May. Usually. Today was a sensitive day. “She can still take a flying leap.”

  “Usually, I’d agree.”

  He heard the word she didn’t say, so filled it in for her. “But?”

  “But I know you’ll want in on this, and I need your talents.”

  Shawn’s gaze slid away from the woman’s unreadable profile, vaguely aware that somehow, his face had settled into the same lines. May wasn’t his grandmother, not by any stretch of blood or marriage, but she’d practically raised him like one. He owed her his life—owed her a lot more than that, given the direction he’d been headed when she rescued him from the Mission orphanages.

  Sixteen years in the resistance had taught him a thing or two about debts.

  “Fine.” A reluctant concession. “Tell her—”

  May’s profile turned, and Shawn spun as another set of footsteps crunched on the gravel behind them. His fists clenched at his sides, a rapid pounding settling in his head as two more people crossed what had been his rooftop vigil.

  And his own private hell.

  Shawn’s jaw clenched so tight, even he didn’t know how the words made it out from between his teeth. “What the fuck are they doing here?”

  Sizzling pops of green and orange neon picked out Jennifer Davis and Kevin Horner, two of his assigned team. Jennifer led them, though he didn’t care one way or another who got called what. She raised a hand, slick with rain, and rotated a comm in silent greeting. The screen glowed blue, signaling its connection to someone on the other end.

  Wiry fingers circled his forearm, bit into the muscles he’d clenched in preparation for . . .

  For a fight. A brawl. Something.

  This was his turf. His hell. Nobody else got to look at it.

  Not like he did.

  “Time’s short and we didn’t have the luxury of playing tag,” May said tightly, her voice a graveled order buried in steel. “They’re catching you up and then you’re leaving.”

  “Five minutes,” he growled, his gaze pinned on the intruders but his voice lowered for her. “You couldn’t give me five goddamned minutes to meet them on the street.”

  Jennifer hesitated, her own eyes flicking between them both before she murmured something to Horner.

  They both stopped. Waited.

&nb
sp; “No.” And that was the end of May’s sympathy.

  Shit. Of all the days to hijack, whatever this was had to pick now. Turning his back on the crater long since broken and covered with debris, Shawn forced his attention away from the graveyard with no markers.

  Out of the past.

  He strode toward Jennifer, ignored the way she backed up a step, and nodded curtly. “Make this fucking fast.”

  “Hi to you, too, sunshine.” The crystal-clear voice from the comm earned Jennifer a withering stare, but she raised her chin, eyes narrowed, and held it up as if Shawn had trouble hearing it.

  “Didn’t know you’d made it to the inner circle already,” was Shawn’s greeting. Not much of one. Even Horner winced at the implication.

  The voice hesitated.

  “I know this is a bad day,” May said as she dragged a wet, gnarled hand over her short hair, “but that was your freebie, kiddo.”

  Shawn’s fists jammed into his jacket pockets. “What’s this about, Stone?”

  Jonas Stone had been part of the resistance for only three weeks. Word on the street was that he’d been rescued from the Holy Order he used to work for. In exchange, he’d rescued Danny from his old employers.

  Rescued, patched up, and then some.

  Shawn didn’t buy it. The Holy Order of St. Dominic wasn’t anything so innocuous as an employer. Once they got their hooks in a man, they owned him. Body and soul.

  His father had learned that the hard way.

  May didn’t share his reservation.

  Or his hatred.

  “We’ve got an in.” Jennifer’s voice was softer, more feminine than May’s. She was shorter than May, with a heart-shaped face and ruthlessly scraped back, frizzy blond hair. Nice enough girl; didn’t have the chops to stand up in a room full of dominant personalities.

  Still, she organized the same way he breathed: without effort.

  She’d do. Long enough to get what he wanted.

  This team had been on standby for months. Only one thing—one person—could pull them into active duty.

  Lauderdale.

  A predatory smile pulled at his mouth. He forced it back, intensely aware of May’s acute study. “What are we looking at?”

  The comm crackled as Stone cleared his throat. “In exactly thirty-seven minutes, I’m going to get one shot at the quadplex security.”

  Horner, a tall man with a barrel chest and balding brown hair, folded his arms across his belly. He looked at May, mouth beneath his handlebar mustache pulled into a frown. “I thought we had no way of getting in there.”

  A man of few words; Shawn had no problems with him, as long as he stayed out of the way.

  May’s eyes gleamed in the neon-infested shadows, sparked purple and green. “Jonas?”

  Shawn scowled at her; she returned his annoyance with relentless expectation. He’d never heard her pass technical details to another person. Ever. She’d been Shawn’s go-to for as long as he could remember.

  How had Jonas taken on that role? When?

  Maybe sleeping with the woman’s grandson earned a man more points than Shawn thought.

  “Been chatting with Parker and we found a loophole,” Jonas said, effortlessly translating to English without being prompted. Shawn met Jennifer’s gaze, shrugged when she raised her eyebrows. “Some of the backup systems she had installed to keep herself organized do a routine check every— Yeah, you don’t care. Listen, we get one shot at getting someone inside, and that’s the point.”

  “Wait.” Shawn’s gaze pinned May. “Inside?”

  “Where you’re going to track down Kayleigh Lauderdale and bring her here,” May finished.

  “Kayleigh Lauderdale?”

  “Yeah,” Stone answered, nearly drowned out by a sudden and freakishly loud clap of thunder. Everyone looked up in surprise, except Shawn.

  He snatched the comm from Jennifer’s flagging hand.

  “Hey!”

  He ignored her. “What do you mean ‘yeah’? Why the fuck are we kidnapping the daughter?”

  There was a moment of silence, a patter of offbeat clicks he recognized as strokes on a keyboard.

  May watched him silently. Unblinking despite the rain.

  “Your mission,” Stone replied slowly, his easy voice cautious, “is to extract her. We wouldn’t do it if it weren’t important.”

  We. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Somehow, this Church dog had become a we.

  “Shit.”

  Kayleigh Lauderdale. Shawn raked his wet hair back with one impatient hand.

  He didn’t want a shot at the daughter.

  Jennifer’s hand darted out, plucked the comm from his grip before Shawn’s fingers could lock around it. The look she shot him simmered, but her voice pitched to carry over the splatter of the pouring rain. “What does the rest of the data coming out look like, Jonas?”

  “Lots of chatter,” he replied without missing a beat. “And I mean, like, ice cream social, somebody nobody likes just won an award kind of chatter.”

  “What are they saying?” Shawn demanded.

  “Sorry, it’s encrypted tight enough to take me a week to crack.”

  All three pairs of eyes turned to May. Her smile flickered, a fast curve quickly gone. “Minimum of five days.” She was better at it, but if she meant it, not by more than a hair.

  “They’ve changed every encryption,” Stone explained. “We’ve lost every last plant up there and we’ve got no interior access to their closed system. All we have is mid-low sources and they’re drying up fast after Danny’s jailbreak. What I can tell you is that something big is going down. Not now, but soon.”

  Shawn’s lip curled into a snarl. “Why aren’t we taking the opportunity to plant something in their systems?”

  “May?”

  The woman shrugged. “We won’t have the opportunity to smuggle in you and a tech to do the planting. It’s a plant or the objective. Once you’re up there, it’s closed comms ’til you’re out.”

  And they thought Kayleigh Lauderdale was worth more than a jack into Church systems?

  Shit. He had nothing to argue with.

  “What do we have on the daughter?” Jennifer asked.

  “Not much,” Jonas replied. “All I’ve got is what you already know. She’s Lauderdale’s daughter and the newest scientist in charge of the Salem Project.”

  The witch factory. A place where Laurence Lauderdale bred witches for his own use.

  One of the most closely guarded secrets of the century. At least until a few months back, when a Mission operation had gone sideways and details started leaking into May’s hands.

  Nasty business. Made all the nastier when Shawn started putting pieces together himself. The lab, the timing.

  Lauderdale’s presence at his parents’ house sixteen years ago.

  Shawn had learned long ago how much the Holy Order of St. Dominic pissed on things like morality and ethics. And truth.

  Good to know the daughter didn’t stray far from her daddy’s crooked path.

  Even better to know he had an opportunity to dish out his own brand of payback to the man who had forever scarred Shawn’s world.

  “All right,” Jennifer said, squaring her shoulders, “we’re a go. Kevin, pick up Jim and Donald. We’re going to have to set up camp near enough that we can provide support.”

  “On it.” The man shook himself, splattering raindrops in a wide arc, and turned. He loped to the edge, where a ladder bolted to the far wall creaked beneath his weight.

  Shawn turned to May. “Why her?” He didn’t mean Jennifer, and May knew it.

  “She’s the only option we have.”

  “For what?” he demanded, ignoring the team lead as she raised the comm to her ear and spoke into it. Procedural crap, probably. She was good at that stuff.

  “She’s Laurence Lauderdale’s daughter,” May said, steel once more buried in her voice. Her stare. If she was at all put off by the rain, by Shawn’s looming challenge, s
he didn’t bend even a little to show it.

  Sixteen years earned her a lot of leeway.

  It didn’t earn him quite as much. Not as much as he needed.

  And what he needed was Kayleigh’s father. He wanted to get his hands around the man’s throat so badly, he could taste the raw edges of a violence he’d kept simmering, festering, for over a decade.

  He could make do with her, if he had to. Leverage. He lowered his head against the fat drops sliding out of the neon sky. “Have you heard from Amanda?” The abrupt change of subject didn’t faze her.

  He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until sympathy colored her frown. “You asked me that yesterday.”

  “I’ll ask until the answer I want to hear comes in,” he said, but roughly. Anger filled his chest where pain had settled only an hour ago. “Have you seen anything about Amanda and her team?”

  She blew out a hard breath. “No.”

  “Damn it, May!”

  Thirty-seven days imprisoned up in the Mission cells. The resistance—even May, with all her technological savvy—had no eyes on the group that had been ferreted out and arrested by missionaries. No ears in the topside Church quad. Nothing.

  If anyone was still alive, would they be worth saving?

  Yes. Hell, yes.

  “We have one goal, here,” she said, a lashed reminder. An order. “One. Concentrate on that. Let me worry about Amanda and the others.”

  “Are you still trying?” he demanded, staring down at her. Willing her to crack, just a little. Let him see what filled her head, her heart.

  Show him that she cared as much as he did.

  “Yes,” she said, so matter-of-fact that he wanted to snarl. To shout. To swear.

  But that was May. Iron-willed and steady.

  She cared. He knew she did. But in the scheme of things, half a dozen resistance fighters were expendable if it meant saving more.

  That’s why they operated they way they did. Only a handful of cells knew of May’s existence. Fewer knew her name.

  No one, not even her grandson, knew where she lived, or how many cells she operated. The less a member knew, the less he could spill his guts at the hands of the Mission interrogators.

  The Church was always on the lookout for insurgents. Rebels. Heretics, they called anyone they dragged in for questioning. Witches or witch sympathizers.