No Rest for the Witches by Karina Cooper Read Free Book Online

threads only tightened. Became more real.
    Jessie struggled. “Let me go!”
    She must have said it. More words blared in her ears, and the image shimmered, dangerously thin.
    Was it some kind of ward? But how? She didn’t affect anything, hadn’t opened herself to the location she saw . She hadn’t even made it inside to get caught by any holy wards the Church might have set in place.
    What was happening? She wrenched her arm, snapped several of the threads and stared.
    Each frayed tendril trailed a thin sliver of light. It glimmered through all of the tendrils wrapping her in place, bound them as tightly as they bound her.
    Magic. Someone else’s, to be precise.
    Teeth clenched, her breath coming in harder gasps as the tendrils constricted, Jessie scraped together what focus she had as her lungs— not real! —clamored for air.
    â€œJessie?”
    The voice echoed around her, as out of place in the open sky above the city as she was.
    No! If they pulled her out now, she’d lose it.
    Someone didn’t want her here. She wanted to know who, and why.
    Summoning her will, forcing herself to crack open the doors shielding her power, Jessie flung everything she had out in a sparkling net. She saw it visually, she always did—skeins of power, woven together, made to reveal everything to her sight. It hit the bonds holding her in place, the manifestations of another’s will.
    The net enfolded the tendrils, which did nothing. Slid through the air, as formless as she was supposed to be. Caught nothing. There were only those snapping, angry threads shot through with power.
    Whoever he was, whatever kind of witch had caught her, he was damned good.
    The net drifted harmlessly into nothing, but in its wake, each ropy skein of magic gleamed brilliantly with the assaulting witch’s power. The magic didn’t lie. She saw the connections, the tiny frayed edges that sought her own.
    They fused to her formless consciousness. As clear a marker as a neon sign.
    The witch knew her? Somehow was connected to her?
    But who?
    Her stomach twisted. Caleb? Her brother had supposedly died in a bomb explosion that destroyed the Coven of the Unbinding, a rogue witch coven that tried to kill her. Caleb had been working with them, and to this day, she wasn’t entirely sure why. But he’d saved her in the end.
    And though Silas wasn’t convinced, Jessie knew he wasn’t dead. She’d always been able to tell when her brother wasn’t being straight with her.
    But this didn’t feel like his magic. She’d know.
    The images wrenched. The witch’s magic dragged at her, sucked her deeper into the heart of the city. She felt like she was drowning. Sunlight turned to muted half-light. The city loomed over her. She kicked, struggled, body desperate for air. For life, for—
    â€œSunshine!” Silas’s voice. Angry. Demanding.
    Fading.
    Jessie’s mental eyes fluttered closed.

 
    Chapter Six
    T he place was beautiful.
    Phin Clarke paused on the porch, bracing his unbound right hand against the weathered wooden rocking chair for balance and a chance to catch his breath. The sling binding his left arm in place took the worst of the strain off the bullet wound in his shoulder, and Silas had assured him it’d heal in no time.
    It didn’t hurt half as bad as the sheer panic twisting in his gut.
    In the space of an hour, his whole life had gone to hell. Again . Phin was working overtime to keep the Church off his back, away from the people he’d promised to protect. Just because Timeless was nothing more than a burned-out husk didn’t mean Phin’s responsibility ended.
    It never occurred to him, not once, that the Church would break all protocol, risk the political backlash, and come after the Clarkes with operatives . Those were lower city shenanigans.
    Something must have pushed the Holy Order to it.
    So they’d gotten his mother. Those bastards.