Keenan led her to the back towards the bumper cars. She could tell this is where the fire started, because the plastic exteriors of the cars looked like a bad Dali painting. The Djinn sign had been permanently burned into the concrete floor of the warehouse. It was at least six feet wide.
“Here is the six point sun again. This was definitely his first fire. He was a little overzealous, even for an Ifrit.”
“I agree.” The voice behind her made her whirl around, and she stiffened as a dark shadow emerged from behind a pile of boxes. As the light from the windows caught his face, Azar sucked in a shocked breath.
He was Djinn, of that she was sure. His honey colored eyes burned with a supernatural light and he walked with an unnatural grace. He was definitely a full blood.
Keenan stepped forward, flashing his badge. “My name is Detective Reilly from the Arson Unit of the NYPD. This is a closed crime scene, Sir, so you’ll need to leave.” The Djinn just laughed at Keenan and Azar elbowed him in the ribs.
“He’s Djinn,” she whispered to Keenan, involuntarily stepping backwards, trying to hide herself from his sight. It was far too late for that, but old habits die hard.
“Jann to be specific; you may call me Bast. What I want to know is why there is an Ifrit in my warehouse again? Coming to finish the job, perhaps?”
He was practically on top of her in the blink of an eye, his face inches from hers. Time seemed to shudder to a stop as she stared at his face. The man was beautiful but he wasn't perfect. His nose was long and thin, with a slight hook at the end, as was common among the Persian people. His face was all hard angles, and Azar could see tiny scars littering his skin. One above his lip, one on his cheek and one slicing from the underside of his chin, right along his square jaw to end next to his ear. It looked as if someone had tried to slice his throat and failed. It wasn't physical perfection that made him beautiful, but rather the intensity of his eyes.
Reality crashed back in as Keenan whirled towards Bast and drew his gun. The Djinn merely laughed and grabbed Azar by the shoulders, lifting her five inches off the ground. “And telling a mortal our secrets? You have been a very naughty little Ifrit, haven’t you?”
Keenan flicked the safety off his gun and aimed it point blank at Bast’s head. Bast ignored him as if he didn’t exist, just an annoying fly that just wouldn’t go away. His grip on her shoulders was firm, bordering painful but she schooled her features into a neutral, almost bored expression. Azar hoped the Jann weren't like wild animals and could smell your fear, because if so, then she was one dead half blood. But if she didn’t do something about Keenan’s cowboy stance soon, he was going to be nothing but a pile of gore within five seconds.
“Keenan, put down the gun. Bullets can’t kill a Jann; they are creatures of air and smoke.” Azar pushed the words past the terror clogging her throat. “I didn’t light this fire. I think there’s a Rogue carrying out a fire pledge in the city. Not me,” she clarified quickly.
He seemed to consider her intently. The Jann was huge; easily over six and a half feet and his shoulders were so broad she wondered if he had to turn on his side to get through the warehouse door. Bast released her shoulders but ran his hands up her neck to cup her cheeks, rubbing his thumbs over her cheekbones.
“I’m glad it’s not you, little Ifrit, because I would really hate to hand you over to the Council. I wouldn’t want that pretty little head to be separated from that delightful body,” he purred at her.
Terrified or not, Azar didn’t like being manhandled. She lifted her leg and kneed Bast in the crotch. The Jann fell to the ground and grabbed his package, making a sound somewhere between a groan and a chuckle.
“You can’t shoot them, but a kick in the nuts still hurts like hell,” Azar told Keenan, who was standing there staring down at Bast with a wince on his face. “Look, Jann, I didn’t light those fires. I don’t go around endangering innocent lives to get my Djinn rocks off.” Azar sounded confident but she fervently hoped that this Bast wasn’t a lackey of the Council or else she was in a lot of trouble.
“I have to give it to you, you definitely have spirit. For a half blood, you definitely inherited the Ifrit temper. Come to my office, and you can tell me why you think an Ifrit is trying to attempt a fire pledge when there hasn’t been one done since Tokyo in 1923.”
Bast stood up slowly, still holding onto his package as he limped towards a side door. The word 'Office' was written in large black letters, still recognizable even though the door had been blackened by soot.
The office was filled to the brim with greenery. Potted plants and hanging baskets of flowers and ferns littered every available surface. Every plant was thriving, running down and tangling with each other until they were a indistinct, green mass. Some type of climbing plant wrapped around the legs of the big oak desk which was almost too large for the pokey little room, and plants littered the edges of the desk until there was nothing but a tiny workspace in the middle. The leaves of the desk plants reached down to their floor compatriots and ended up in a wild tangle of branches and leaves around the middle. Bast motioned them to sit and wandered around to the other side of the desk.
“So tell me why you think this is a fire pledge? When the warehouse burned I obviously knew it was an Ifrit, but I just thought it was sparked by their natural dislike of the Marid.” He stroked the leaves of the maidenhair fern on his desk and Azar could have sworn it wrapped around his hand like it was caressing him back. She looked at Keenan and noted he was looking at the same thing, but his face was so calm you’d think he’d seen plants hugging their owners every day of his life. Azar shook her head.
“But you aren’t Marid. Why would they attack you?” Though, now she thought about it, a Jann this close to the sea was a little strange. Jann were usually desert dwellers, or they inhabited wide open spaces where you could see undulating countryside for miles and miles. Not crowded inner city amusement parks.
“A Marid put a hotel out here in 1829 and before you knew it, it became its own little oasis. He gave it to me in 1980 when he went back to the homeland to die. I bought up most of the amusements soon after that. So if the Ifrit was a little bit out of touch with Djinn society, he may still think it belonged to Moselle, the Marid. We don’t exactly have a Djinn Weekly to keep us up to date on the gossip," Bast said with a grin.
Azar laughed as well. If they did, it would probably be like a trashy tabloid. But, instead of people getting abducted by aliens, headlines would read: “Ifrit vows to swim across the English Channel” or “Ghul turns vegan and protests outside Djinn Council.” Alien abductions and Bigfoot wouldn’t be that out of the ordinary for the Djinn.
Azar was a little stunned that there had been two Djinn so close for all these years. She rather arrogantly assumed that there were only a few Djinn who’d crossed the ocean to come to the New World. In hindsight, maybe she had just stuck her head in the sand because she was sick of running. She liked her life here; she had friends and a great job. It was easier to think that there was no real threat than to have to live continually on the move.
Shaking her head, she focused her thoughts. She needed answers about this Ifrit. She could leave the soul searching for another day.
“I,” she started, but Keenan cleared his throat. She rolled her eyes. “Er, we, think this is the first in a series of arsons, all with the Djinn emblem as their ignition point. Here, a sorority house at NYU and a dodgy little apartment building over in Brownsville. I was sure that this was the Marid hit, being so close to the ocean, but with you here it could be either Marid or Jann. The Sorority house is obviously the Sila hit; an all-female house at an educational institution is a bit of a no-brainer. I have no idea what the apartment fire could mean. There are just too many variables. There is going to be three more strikes and we have no idea where or when.” She met his eyes and held them, imploring him to do something. “We cannot let this be another Great Fire of London. New York is too densely populated and the technology has becom
e too great. It risks exposing us all.” She had pushed thoughts of all the possible destruction to the back of her mind, but saying it out loud reinforced it. If the fire pledge was successful, millions would die. She was out of her depth, her knowledge of her own kind far too limited. They needed help. The help of the one Djinn she knew for certain didn’t do it. “And we’d like your help.”
“Azar!” Keenan jumped to his feet. “Are you crazy? He is a possible suspect, and you want to bring him into a police investigation? For all we know he could be in on it, as some kind of insurance scam.” Keenan still had his gun in his hand as if it was some kind of security blanket. The only person he could successfully shoot in this room was her. She wasn’t immune to bullets because she was technically half human.
She knew there was far greater threat to her in the room than Keenan’s gun. If Bast knew that she hadn’t done her servitude, he’d be obligated to tell the Council. To not report such a thing would put him in the firing line. But she had to take the risk. She owed it to the people she worked with, her friends, the hot dog vendor, even the uppity woman and Snookums the dog. She owed it to every person in the city who had made her life here so good for so long.
“Millions will die if we don’t, Keenan. So will you help us?” She met Bast’s eyes and let her vulnerability show. His golden gaze held hers until she felt as if she might suffocate if she didn’t look away. But she held on, her chin raised. She would not back down. His mouth curved into a smile, and it held both respect and bemusement.
“Sure, little Ifrit, I'll do whatever I can to help, but what will I get in return?”
“How about if I promise not to kick you in the family jewels again?” Azar didn’t negotiate. Either he cared or he didn’t, but either way she didn’t want his help if it wasn’t given freely.
Bast threw his head back and laughed. “Deal, Ifrit. What is your name anyway?”
Azar hesitated. If she gave him her real name, it would be easier for them to track her down if he turned out to be a rat.
Who was she kidding? If he wanted to turn her in, the Council had ways of tracking her down with or without her name.
“My name is Azar.” She involuntarily hunched down into her shoulders as if she could already feel the cold wind of the guillotine that was poised above her head at this moment. Her fate was now in a stranger's hands.
“Azar; I like that. It means ‘little fire’ in Persian.”
She'd already known that; after all, she had the internet at home too. Although Bast sounded as if he could speak ancient Persian fluently. She knew Jann were long lived, far longer than the Ifrit, but not quite as long as the Marid. Considering the Marid lived for a thousand years and the Ifrit for approximately three hundred and fifty, his age would probably remain a mystery.
She looked over at Keenan, who was looking at Bast with barely contained suspicion. Well, at least he wasn’t giving her that look any more.
Bast reached into his drawer and pulled out a tourist map of New York. He spread it across his desk, and the plants lifted their leaves just a little bit higher to make way for it. These plants were seriously starting to give her the jeebies.
“So, show me where the fires have been?” Bast handed a black marker to Keenan, who took it and circled Coney Island, the sorority house near NYU and the apartment block in Brownsville. Bast took the pen back off Keenan and drew a large perfect circle around all three of them. “This is your ground zero. He’s going to try and make sure that each hit is roughly in the shape of the Djinn emblem, so that should give us some idea where. It is the potential targets that will be harder to narrow down. If we can’t work out what he is going to target, we don’t stand a chance because the area is too large.” He drew the Djinn symbol on a piece of paper perfectly, naming the points. “So we have the Sila for certain,” he crossed off their name, “and maybe the Marid or the Jann.” He put a question mark next to both their names.
“What about the apartment block? From what I know, there are no ties to any of the Djinn in that place. It was just a little run down hovel filled with single parents and people with nowhere else to go.” Azar tapped her finger on the map. They needed to figure out why he chose that apartment in particular. “Keenan, can you find out everything there is to know about that place; the site, the building and the people who live there? There has to be some connection.”
“I’ll do it as soon as I get back to the station. Speaking of which, I think we should be going.” Keenan stood and gripped her elbow, pulling her up and directing her towards the door in one smooth movement.
Azar swallowed down her irritation. He was out of his element here and for a control freak like Keenan Reilly, this whole situation would be a real bur in the ass. She could put up with him being a bit handsy for a little while longer. She shook her elbow gently out of his grasp and turned back towards Bast. He’d come around to the front of his desk and was leaning against it with deceptive ease.
“Would it be okay if I came and saw you after my shift tomorrow? We still need to work out where he will attack next. There can’t be too many Ifrit running around New York.” She put out her hand to shake his. Bast placed his hand in hers, then tugged her close to his body.
Before she could register what had happened, Bast’s lips were on hers and he kissed her softly. His breath was like the warm summer winds of her homeland. Azar lost herself in that kiss; it was like molten lava being poured over her body. So much electricity jumped between them that they could have powered Coney Island for a week. Keenan cleared his throat loudly. She shook her head and pushed at Bast's chest.
Bast let her go with a wolfish grin. “Oh, it’ll be my pleasure, Little Fire. You drop by any time. I’ll be waiting right here and we can pick up where we left off.” A lopsided grin curled his lips. “With the conversation I mean.”
No one in the room believed that’s what he meant. Keenan had dragged her out of the room and then out of the warehouse before Azar regained anything resembling coherent thought.
Keenan didn’t say a word to her the whole way back to her apartment. Azar didn’t know why he had his panties in a bunch. She was the one that just got violated by a sexy, golden eyed Jann. Okay, so violated may be the wrong word. The kiss was electric and made every nerve ending in her body tingle. They were still tingling now.
After parking the Shelby, she walked him back to his squad car.
“It’s against procedure to make-out with suspects.” Keenan’s voice was gruff as he stared into the distance.
“Well, luckily Bast is not a suspect and I am not an officer of the law.” Azar leaned against the side of his car as he climbed in. “Let me know if you find out anything useful about the apartment fire.” She pushed off the car and walked towards the security door of the apartment. It was a pretty nice apartment block for the area; the neighbors were reasonably friendly and the security was good.
“I don’t want you meeting that guy by yourself,” Keenan yelled out through the open car door. Azar shot him a half-hearted smile over her shoulder.
“If Bast decides to cause trouble, there’s not a being on this earth that could protect me, even the mighty Keenan Reilly.” She turned back around and went into her building, the door shutting with a slam behind her. There was no going back now.
Chapter 5
Azar was glad to be back on shift. The team at the firehouse welcomed her back like she’d been gone a month rather than a day and life settled back into its boring routine. But she couldn’t get the impending destruction out of her head.
“Hey Az, you with us today?” Joe asked. He had volunteered to spot her while she lifted weights on the chest press. She gritted her teeth and did another rep. Strength training was mandatory and every crew member found the time to head to the weight room at least once a day. She nodded at Joe and he put the bar back on the struts.
“Sorry Joe, I’m just a little distracted.” She stood up and her aching muscles protested. She’d tried to work out her
emotions with sit-ups last night. So now not only was she sexually frustrated and terrified, but every part of her torso ached liked someone had beaten her with a baseball bat.
She wiped down the bench and dabbed her face with her towel. She took a giant slurp of her protein shake, and momentarily wished she'd laced it with painkillers. However, she should have known better than to over do it, so she was going to endure the repercussions with grim determination. She gingerly walked behind the bench as Joe took her spot.
“Is there something wrong? Old Maconi is a good listener,” he grunted between reps. Azar sighed heavily. The firehouse was sometimes like a knitting circle; gossip spread like wildfire. It wouldn’t be long before he found out anyway
“I slept with Keenan Reilly the other day.”
Joe slammed the bar into the support struts and flew into a sitting position.
“You did what with your archenemy, Reilly? The same man you called a chauvinistic snake charmer? The same man to who you can barely say one civil word?”
Joe’s shock was kind of amusing and Azar gave him a sheepish grin. If someone had told her a week ago she would get sweaty with Keenan Reilly on her couch, she’d probably punch the person in the mouth and tell them to get their head read. Irony can be a snarky bitch sometimes.
“I don’t know, it must have been the smoke fumes. Or maybe it was the year since I’ve had sex. But it just kinda happened. One minute we are arguing and the next minute we are doing it on the couch.” Azar’s cheeks reddened as she remembered exactly what they did on that couch.
A couple of the other guys had heard Joe’s exclamation and had come over to see what the gossip was.
“Did I just hear that right? Did Nazemi sleep with Reilly?” McAdams called from where he was running on the treadmill.
McAdams was almost as bad as a little old housewife and this news would soon be known by everyone. The conversation buzzed as the information was whispered from one person to another. She wouldn’t be surprised that if by the time the guys out doing the equipment checks heard it, the story had morphed into her and Reilly eloping to Las Vegas and having a threeway with a show girl. She let them go; she was glad that all they had to worry about was her sex life. A call went over the line and everyone stopped to listen.
The Azar Omnibus: The Complete Azar Trilogy (The Azar Trilogy Book 0) Page 5