Free Blood of the Wicked by Karina Cooper Page A

said cautiously, spreading both hands on either side of the folder. “What’s this?”
    “Open it.”
    Her eyes flicked to him. “Come on.”
    “Jessie, shut up and open it.”
    Maybe it was the raw aggression he didn’t bother to filter out from his voice, or the way he didn’t sit. Didn’t stop pacing. Didn’t want to stop and watch her face as she opened the folder and a handful of glossy photographs spilled out on her lap.
    He knew what she’d see. How her mind would latch to the color red and stay there, mired in it. Rotting in it, like the bodies captured in each picture. Black, brown, red, saturated. Detailed.
    High-resolution carnage.
    Her gasp slapped him across the conscience. He steeled himself and turned around, knowing he was an ass and ignoring it anyway.
    White-faced, mouth open, she stared at him, accusation written over her pixie-fine features. One photo bent in her hand. “Why?” she whispered.
    Why. Silas almost laughed. Instead, because he had to, he pushed. “Melissa Calhoun. Bobby Jenkins. Katie Angela Morris.” Each name stuck in his throat. He forced them out on a verbal acid burn.
    She blanched.
    “Two don’t have names,” he continued, brutally ignoring the tension snapping over her rigid body. “They don’t exist, and this city could give a rat’s ass.” Her gaze dropped to the glossy paper again. Her mouth worked, but no sound came out. Silas crossed the tiny living room, sank to his haunches in front of her.
    Eye to eye with the witch’s fragile, innocent sister.
    Do it , he thought, and cruelly twisted the emotional knife. “Your brother, Jessie, made them scream.”
    The photos fluttered into the air as she jerked back. She slid halfway up the back of the couch, feet scrabbling to escape the glossy paper that Silas knew burned. Seared the mind and heart and soul.
    “No,” she denied, shaking her head. Her hair slid over her cheek like silk, and Silas cursed, seized her arm and yanked her back to the couch. A photo crinkled under her hip.
    “Look at them,” he ordered. He slid his fingers under her leg, freed the photo of Melissa Calhoun and the shattered remains of her mutilated pelvis. “Caleb Leigh and his coven tortured these people to death. Don’t think it was easy. It was a long, slow, painful way to go.”
    Jessie, white and shaking under his grip, turned her face away.
    It wasn’t enough. He spread the photos, one by one, across her lap. “Maybe they liked your brother, Jessie, until he started to cut them up. Until he dug a red-hot knife into their bodies and bones and turned them into a sacrifice for whatever demons he’s following now.”
    She jerked, but he was stronger. Her skin burned hot under his palm. Edges of green slid in around her nose and mouth, and it still wasn’t fucking enough. “Stop it,” she whispered.
    “No.” Silas selected another, one of the nameless two, and held it up to her face. “Look at him, Jessie. Look at him .” Naked without clothes, naked without skin. “They flayed this kid alive. Do you know what that feels like?”
    The photo tore from his grasp as she swiped it away, scattering the pictures. “Stop it!”
    He seized her wrists. Yanked her arms down and found himself practically nose to nose with her. Eye to eye.
    Staring into her tears.
    Jesus, don’t cry. “Maybe it wasn’t Caleb,” he said roughly. “Maybe they forced him to be there. Maybe he’s some kind of hostage. Help me find him, Jessie. Help me find out.”
    “It’s not—”
    “It is,” he interrupted, ignoring her efforts to free herself. “Look at me, Jessie—”
    “No!” With monumental effort, she ripped free of his grasp, thrashed back at him with fists and feet. Silas clenched his teeth when she grazed his knee with her foot, swore as her knuckles slammed into his chest.
    Twisting, he forced her to the thin couch cushions. Pinned her legs down with one of his own, swore again when she arched back like a spitting cat and shoved