She would be useless against another Ifrit. Bast was a creature of air and was therefore vulnerable to a fire attack. Donovan would probably have a thirty percent chance of doing some kind of real damage before he was brought down himself. The wolves could probably take Fareet down if there were enough of them, by severing his head from his body, but a lot of the pack would die in the process. Keenan was just a liability.
She slumped down onto the floor and felt the walls closing in on her. It felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest. Great, not only did she faint like a silver screen damsel, but she had panic attacks like a scared little mouse. Her breathing grew choppier so she stuck her head between her knees and took deep breaths.
Two hands grabbed her upper arms and pulled her to her feet, wrapping her into a broad shouldered hug. As she breathed in the scent of Bast, her heart rate slowed and her breathing eased. He whispered soothing words into her hair and rubbed her back with his large hand. His chest felt warm and solid against her cheek, like a beacon of safety in a world that was rapidly spinning out of control. He pulled her back so he could look at her face.
“It will be okay. We will figure out a plan and use what we have to win. There is power in numbers.” She nodded and tried to convince herself that he was right. She peeked around Bast’s shoulder and saw both Keenan and Oliver were standing. Keenan didn’t even look jealous that she was in Bast’s arms; his brows were drawn together in concern. A similar look was on Oliver’s face. Azar took a deep breath, pulled her shoulders back and stepped out of Bast’s arms regretfully.
“I’m sorry. Mini meltdown. I’m fine now.” Ironically, Oliver’s phone chose that moment to ring and he quickly slid it out of his pocket and answered.
“Yeah. No, meet us at Azar’s place. Yeah I’ll call them now.” He hung up the phone. She wished she could keep her calls that short and to the point. “They went around to Fareet’s address but said the place was empty and had been for a couple of days. They could smell traces of Aaron there, but there was no blood. I told them to come over so we can decide what to do next.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. There was still hope that they would find the boy alive. They just had to keep him, and New York, that way.
Oliver opened his phone again, and talked briefly to someone; Azar guessed either Jerry or Donovan. It looked as if her apartment was going to be packed to the brim yet again. God only knew what Mr. Grimond next door thought of all the men traipsing through her door at any hour of the day or night. He probably thought she was a woman of ill repute running a one woman bordello out of the building.
Within twenty minutes, her little one room apartment was filled with eleven Weres, two other Djinn and Keenan Reilly. A person sat on every available stable surface she had and some not so stable surfaces. Her coffee table was bent ominously under Tao, the Were from the Sterling Pack. Someone had bought a couple of cases of beer, twelve bags of chips and some nuts. Her house looked like a frat party filled with steroid pumping gym junkies, although she doubted any of them had ever set foot inside a gym in their life. Except maybe Keenan, who chatted to one of the Weres about the Mets chances of winning a World Series anytime this century.
Someone had put on a Guns ’n’ Roses album and turned the volume up loud. Apart from Bast and Donovan, who were huddled up in the corner of the room to have a serious conversation, everyone else chatted and drank like old friends. Azar leaned on her kitchen bench and took in the hubbub of her apartment. Oliver drifted over to her side and wrapped a companionable arm around her shoulder.
“They’re preparing for the worst,” Oliver explained. “They have a party like this before any big battle, to talk about the good times and the people they love, so they remember why they are doing it.”
Azar agreed with the concept. If the worst thing happened, you wouldn’t want your last days to be filled with worry and stress. There was time to plan and plot later. It wasn’t as if Fareet was just going to waltz into her apartment when it was filled to the brim with supernaturals or turn up in Times Square naked proclaiming he was a Fire Genie.
“I can understand that.” They stood together in silence for a moment, but Azar had already had her moment of melancholy. What she wanted was a bit of carefree, harmless fun. The look on her face made Oliver raise his eyebrows. He wasn't one to walk away from an opportunity to be mischievous.
“Okay, I’ll give you five bucks if you can bounce a quarter off the bench and into Tao’s cup without him noticing," she whispered conspiratorially.
There was probably about ten feet between the bench and Tao’s cup, which was sitting behind him on the coffee table. Oliver grinned and nodded as he fished a couple of quarters out of his pocket. He lined the first one up and it fell short of the coffee table. Azar raised her eyebrows.
“I’ve been duped. I was led to believe that you Werejaguar's had above average precision.” She gave him a look of mock disapproval.
Oliver just waved her away and lined up his next shot. “Babe, I am above average in everything. Now watch.”
He bounced the quarter off the bench with more force, and it went high into the air, sailing down to plop into Tao's cup. Scotch and coke splashed up onto the huge Were's back and Oliver and Azar quickly faced the other way, pretending to be really interested in her oven. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tao glare around the room and Azar tried not to laugh. She turned and gave him an innocent smile. He glared back at her. She didn’t think he bought her innocent act for a second.
Tao fished the quarter out of his cup and wiped it on his pants. Faster than her eyes could follow, he bounced the quarter off the coffee table. The projectile made a perfect arch in the air and landed in the small strip of cleavage that showed above Azar's tank top. Her mouth dropped open and Oliver applauded, and so did everyone else who was watching. Tao bowed and sat back down on her groaning coffee table, resuming his conversation with Jerry.
That one incident seemed to set the mood for the rest of the night. After two more bottles of her scotch and a case of beer, one of the Were's started a rousing game of quarters. The game became so heated that Mr. Grimond came over to see if Azar was being murdered by a serial killer. The Weres laughed it off, took the old man’s baseball bat and gave him a beer. Someone ordered pizza, and a heavily loaded pizza boy knocked on the door about one a.m. The Werewolves invited him to stay as well.
Eventually even Bast and Donovan got into the spirit of the gathering, although Donovan led a not so great game of Five Finger Fillet, stabbing one of her steak knives between his fingers and into her chopping board at a speed almost too fast for her eyes to follow. This led to all the werewolves wanting a turn and eventually, to one of the younger wolves nicking his little finger and bleeding on her carpet. By that stage she was too drunk to care about a little bit of blood on her carpet and she just let go and partied like there might not be a tomorrow.
For her, it might be the truth.
Chapter 12
Azar felt like she was being strangled. Her eyes felt like they were glued shut and her mouth was like the Sahara desert. She forced one eye open but the light searing her eyeball was so excruciating she quickly closed it again. She’d had it open for long enough to see she was lying across from Keenan, who was on his back snoring. She tugged at her singlet top, which had twisted around her body until one of the straps had almost stretched right across her chest. She seemed to still have her jeans on, and the button was jabbing painfully into her abdomen. She was lying on her side, her body encased in warmth even though she was on top of the blankets. Something warm was pressed against her back. Wait. What?
Azar bolted upright in bed and almost laid straight back down as she was struck with a nasty case of the whirlies. Trying again, she struggled to stay upright until it passed and then looked over. There was a huge jaguar lying on her bed, purring as it slept. She was wedged between a sleeping Keenan and a morphed Oliver. She was so glad she was still wearing pants, otherwise she didn’
t know if she could look herself in the mirror when she finally dragged herself to the bathroom.
Telling herself that it was Oliver, not a wild jaguar and he wasn’t going to bite her hand off, she nudged Oliver’s fur covered rump. His spotted fur was so soft, it was unbelievable. She twisted her fingers in his pelt and ran it down his back, making the jaguar purr louder. She pulled her hand away, realizing it wasn’t a giant pet cat but rather a man.
“Move it,” she croaked, her face flaming red.
The cat slunk off the bed and stretched, and as it stretched its body elongated and shifted into something more recognizable to her as Oliver. Naked, yet again.
“If only I could get you to stroke me like that in this form,” he purred at her.
Azar stared daggers at him, no matter how much she’d very much like to follow through with his suggestion right about now. Instead of following through with her poor impulse control, she pushed past him into the bathroom. She splashed water onto her face and brushed her teeth until they squeaked and her breath no longer tasted like the dregs at the bottom of a whisky barrel. She quickly ran a comb through her hair and went in search of coffee.
As she staggered past her bedroom, she threw a quick look at the clock. It was one in the afternoon. She needed coffee, really bad. Her lounge room looked like a boarding kennel/frat house. Beer bottles and pizza boxes littered every surface, and there were sleeping wolves and passed out guys everywhere. There were even two guys asleep under her tiny dining table. She could smell the coffee brewing, and followed the aroma into the kitchen. Bast was standing there, holding a coffee cup towards her like a heaven sent deity.
“I think I love you,” she said as she took the coffee from Bast.
“But we barely know each other,” Bast replied jokingly.
“I was talking to this hot, dark deliciousness,” Azar grumbled as she slowly sipped the liquid gold.
“But we hardly know each other,” Donovan quipped. His eyes didn’t look so dead today. They looked hot, like how she imagined Satan’s to look before he tempted you right into sinning. And you’d love every minute of it. Obviously, she’d killed more than a few brain cells last night. Probably the ones governing her common sense. She ignored them both and focused on inhaling her coffee. Once she was in a caffeinated state of mind, she noticed Oliver was in the kitchen too. “Did the wolves eat the pizza boy?” She was only half joking.
“Bast and I took both him and Harry home.” She guessed that Mr. Grimond’s first name was Harry. She didn’t actually know. He’d introduced himself as Mr. Grimond and she just ran with it. She liked to pretend he was like Madonna or Mr. Ed and only had the one name. She nodded very, very slowly. She had a fifteen hour shift tonight that she wasn’t looking forward to. She needed to get everything squared away before that happened.
“Okay, so what do we do?”
Donovan, who looked positively gleeful. “We kill him,” he said pleasantly as if he’d just suggested that take Fareet out to a fancy restaurant rather than murder him in cold blood. Azar was glad that Keenan was still asleep, so he had plausible deniability about the murder of a high profile businessman.
There was a murmur of agreement in the kitchen.
“I was hoping for something a little more constructive. Maybe something like a plan on how we are going to find him to kill him?” She was trying to be patient, but a hangover usually made her grumpy, and this hangover was the Godzilla of hangovers. Her head actually felt like Godzilla was stomping on it, repeatedly.
“I was thinking we could run down some addresses and see if the werewolves can’t pick up his scent and track him.” Keenan’s voice came from behind her. “I’m just assuming that they’re werewolves. I was drunk but I’m pretty sure I’d remember someone bringing a pack of wolves to the party.” Keenan poured himself a cup of coffee and sighed when he took his first sip.
His hair stuck up haphazardly, big dark circles puffed up under his bloodshot eyes and his permanent squint implied he had a raging headache.
Keenan glared at them all. “How do you people look so good this morning? I swear Oliver was drinking two to my every one and you two went through a bottle of tequila each.” He nodded towards Bast and Donovan.
Azar’s scotch collection had taken a serious hit last night. She refused to even look in her liquor cabinet. But hey, if New York was going to go up in flames, she was going liquored up enough to go out in a blaze of glory. Literally.
“Fast metabolism,” Oliver answered.
“Djinn can’t get drunk.” Donovan even looked a little sympathetic as he said it.
Keenan’s eyes narrowed. “Azar is Djinn and she was definitely drunk. She was up on the kitchen counter singing 'I Love Rock’n’Roll' by Joan Jett at one point. That’s pretty classic drunken behavior.” Azar felt herself blush bright red; she didn’t remember doing that. She didn’t want to know what else she did.
Oliver was laughing too now. “That’s because she’s half human. After you passed out she reenacted the kiss scene from 'The Notebook' with Bast. Complete with dialogue. It was totally hot.”
Holy crap, she didn’t remember that either. Her eyes shot to Bast, and he shrugged one shoulder, with that smug grin plastered on his face again. Oliver continued to laugh, so she elbowed him in the ribs hard and he let out a satisfying grunt.
“I don’t remember,” she said as she stared at her feet, blushing right down to her toes.
She was horrified. Keenan was right there and she could feel his eyes burning into her skull. However, no matter how horrified she was, she was also secretly disappointed. If there was one kiss she’d want to remember forever, it would be a kiss like that with Bast. She continued to stare at her feet, just in case one of the guys could read the look of disappointment on her face. Once her face had stopped flaming, she looked up but she still avoided looking Keenan and Bast in the eye. She focused solely on Donovan and Oliver.
“We’ve gotten off topic. Do you think the Weres will agree to Keenan’s plan?” She directed at Oliver, who still had that look of mischievous glee on his face. He nodded. “Good. Maybe Keenan can take Tao to work with him and they can figure it out from there. Does anyone have a plan for what we can do once we’ve found Fareet? Don’t say kill him Donovan, it’s really not that simple.” Both Bast and Keenan spoke at once.
“We sever his head from his body.”
“We take him into custody.”
Azar shook her head. This is where the plan got sketchy, to say the least. “Keenan, you can’t put Djinn in jail. We don’t stay there for very long. Bast, if we can get close enough that might be a possibility, but he is going to be on high alert and sneaking up on him is going to be almost impossible.”
“Misdirection,” Donovan said quietly. Somehow, Azar knew she wasn’t going to like where he was going with this. “We make sure his attention is focused on something else, and then we can get close enough to him to take him out.” He turned to her, his onyx eyes somber. Even the laughing skull tattoos on the sides of his neck looked deadly serious today. “Azar presents herself to him as an opportunity he can’t pass up. While he’s focused on her, Bast and I get into position behind him and send him down to hell to meet Balraka personally."
She hated to admit it, but the plan made sense. Of course, she knew that there was always going to be considerable risk taking down the Rogue, but deep down she was still hoping he would accidentally get trapped in a deep freezer somewhere, or the Council would cotton on to the problem of their own accord and deal with it. They had told Lila days earlier of the threat, but Azar wouldn’t put it past her to let the Rogue have its way so the Ghul could have a smorgasbord of corpses when Balraka was finished. They were a self-centered bunch like that. Not to mention Lila was a gigantic bitch.
She snuck a quick peek at Keenan. His face looked like a storm cloud and she wasn’t sure if he was still furious from the Bast kissing thing or Donovan’s suggestion that she be bait, yet again.
“The Weres could back her up?” Oliver suggested but Azar shook her head immediately.
“The risk is too great. I’d rather not have your deaths on my conscience because I was too chicken to go on my own. You should back up Bast and Donovan. If things go badly, we are going to need everything we have to make sure the Fire Pledge isn’t completed.” There was another round of nodding. “Okay, it’s settled. You guys track him down today, and tomorrow I’ll confront him and we’ll take this asshole out once and for all.” Everyone agreed except Keenan, who still looked like he wanted to murder every person in the room, his face a mixture of anger, frustration and concern.
Azar leaned over and grabbed his hand, looking directly into his eyes. “It’s the only way. I’ll be fine, I promise. I’m not actually that easy to kill.”
Keenan nodded imperceptibly, but she could see the torment in his eyes as he did so. She knew this next part was going to make it even worse. “And I don’t want you anywhere near Fareet when this goes down. You can’t help and it would make you an accessory to first degree murder. I can’t let that happen. If everything goes bad, you need to do what you can to get as many people to safety as possible, as quickly as possible.”
Keenan looked as if he was going to crack in two from the warring emotions that played like a slow motion reel across his face. Keenan had a hero complex, she knew that for certain, and right now, he didn’t know who he should save. Her, or the entire city of New York.
Finally, he nodded again. He tipped the rest of his coffee down the sink and walked out.
No matter how badly she wanted to go after him, she stilled her feet. He needed time to process and come to terms with his role in the whole scenario, but she just wished that his exit didn't have such an air of finality about it.
Azar walked out of the kitchen and started nudging wolves awake, the human ones at least. She’d let the others wake up the sleeping wolves; she liked all her appendages where they belonged. She got out a trash bag and started cleaning up pizza boxes and beer bottles. Slowly, the other Werewolves’ woke and stretched. Then they morphed back. Naked.
The Azar Omnibus: The Complete Azar Trilogy (The Azar Trilogy Book 0) Page 14