“Uh, I might go shower. Help yourself to breakfast,” she mumbled as she ducked into her bedroom. She was pretty sure the walls of her apartment had never seen so many different penises.
Once she was certain they’d all be up and at least partially dressed, she went back out. Her house gleamed as if there hadn’t been a wild party the night before.
“Geez, you guys clean fast. Want to come and do it once a week for me?” They’d gotten rid of all the trash and wiped down every surface until it shone. Furniture had been put back to the way it was, and the dishes were all done. Someone was humming the tune to ‘I Love Rock’n’Roll’ and the whole lot of them were smirking.
“I’m going shopping,” she scowled as she pulled on her boots and slammed out the door, Oliver close behind her.
“Where are we going?” he asked, as he shuffled into his own boots mid stride.
“Victoria’s Secret. If I’m going to die tomorrow, I’m going to do it in nice lingerie.”
To say that Oliver was enjoying their shopping expedition would be an understatement. Azar had spent forty minutes trying on different bras and Oliver had spent the whole time picking out lingerie for her.
The saleswoman had forgotten that she even existed after about two minutes in Oliver’s presence, and she could hardly blame the woman. Oliver was smoking hot, like a tanned surfer but with a Texan drawl. It was a strangely alluring combination. Azar had decided on a red lace bra and Brazilian cut briefs. The red looked sensational against her skin. She had her eye on an emerald green one too, but hadn’t picked it up. She stuck her head out of the change room.
“Excuse me?” Azar tried to get the attention of the saleswoman but she was too busy flirting with Oliver. Azar tried again. And a third time. Finally she huffed and walked out of the change room wearing nothing but the red lace bra and her own black boy cut underwear. Oliver’s mouth fell open as he looked over the shoulder of the salesgirl.
Azar knew she looked good. She was six feet and she had to be fit and strong to be a firefighter. As a result there was only a little padding on her rounded hips, her toned legs went on forever and thanks to the marvels of Victoria Secret, her boobs were so perky they defied gravity. The salesgirl turned around to see what Oliver was gaping at and she gaped too, before snapping her mouth shut and sashaying over to her.
“Is there something I can help you with?” The woman’s voice was snippy, obviously upset that her eye sex with Oliver had been interrupted.
“Yes, can I please have the emerald demi over there? Thanks.” Oliver sauntered over as the salesgirl strode off. He let out a low whistle.
“Azar babe, you look smoking in that. Screw misdirection, just take your top off tomorrow and you’ll make the bad guy spontaneously combust.” Azar laughed. That probably wasn’t a bad idea, except the rest of her team was a pack of horny werewolves and Bast. She’d misdirect them all into an early grave.
“Very funny, asshole.”
But he didn’t look like he was joking as he prowled toward her, his eyes hot and predatory. She stepped back into the change room and swallowed down the lump in her throat. Her ass hit the wall and Oliver leaned in close, his eyes eating her up, or maybe watching her for any sign that she didn’t want what was about to happen. But she wanted it. Her traitorous body wanted to burn them both up.
The salesgirl came back with the emerald bra, clearing her throat loudly. “Saved by the human,” he purred, turning to leave. Both she and the saleswoman watched him go.
Azar quickly tried it on. It looked great, but she knew it would. She threw her own clothes back on and took her selections to the counter.
She maxed out what was left on her credit card, bought four pretzel dogs, three for Oliver and one for her, and then they went home.
The house was blissfully empty when they walked in. The place was so clean that there wasn’t even a stray dog hair stuck to the rug. The bloodstain was miraculously gone from her carpet as well. She imagined that the Werewolves would have quite a bit of experience with bloodstain removal.
She only had an hour until work, so she left Oliver sitting on the couch and went and stood under the shower spray for twenty minutes, soaking the warmth right into her bones. She didn’t get out until her fingers had started to prune and the water was getting cold. When she was ready, she found Oliver eating cereal on her couch and watching some japanese game show where the objective seemed to be getting hit in the nuts.
When he saw her, he tipped up the bowl, drank the contents down in one mouthful and was on his feet. He beat her to the door and stood to the side, allowing her to pass.
“Ladies first.”
“Funny how gentlemanly you are now you’ve seen me in my underwear, Cable. I’m still mad at you for letting out the whole Bast kiss thing. I don’t even remember it and I’m still in deep shit over it. Just doesn’t seem fair,” Azar huffed as she strode over to the stairwell. She looked over her shoulder and grinned. “First one to the car gets to drive,” she yelled and took off down the stairs two at a time, Oliver pounding down after her.
Twenty minutes later, Azar got out of the passenger seat of the Shelby with a pout. She should have known better than to challenge a jungle cat. He’d jumped from one landing to the next without even flinching and beaten her to the car easily. Cheater!
Azar had gotten so used to Oliver following her around that she didn’t even realize it would seem odd to the guys at work. Well, until they all stopped what they were doing and stared at her and Oliver as they walked into the room. They hadn’t even come up with a plausible excuse why Oliver was with her. She wasn’t sure she could pass him off as her cousin looking like the All-American poster boy.
Of course, Joe was the first to come and investigate. “Hey Az, who’s your friend?” He stuck out a hand towards Oliver, who shook it. “Nice to meet you; I’m Joe Maconi.”
“Cable Oliver, I’m from Playboy. Miss Nazemi is kindly allowing me to follow her around during her day to day activities for our ‘Women in Uniform’ article, coming out next month.” Azar turned beet red as the boys all laughed and wolf whistled. Boy, she was going to murder Oliver for this later.
“Wow, ain't that something,” Joe said, his face almost cracking with a grin. “Who else is going to be in the article?” Joe led Oliver over to the table and chairs that sat outside near the trucks, and a dozen guys came over to hear his response.
“Well I’ve done an article on a police officer, a flight attendant and a NFL cheerleader so far. We were thinking…” Azar missed the rest as she walked towards the lockers. Joe caught up with her as she entered the locker rooms.
“You okay Azar? I mean first Keenan Reilly, then the Blue Smoke club and now posing for Playboy. Are you spiraling? Do I need to get Linda to organize an intervention?” He said it jokingly but Azar knew beneath the humor he probably was actually worried.
“I’m fine Joe. My love life is a mess and I’ve got a lot on my mind, but I’m getting there. I promise you by Monday, I’ll be back to my old self.”
Or dead. Hell, they all could be. Azar shook off her melancholy and set out to doing the mundane tasks that kept her mind occupied and her hands busy.
Fifteen minutes after she started, Oliver came to stand next to her as she tested the oxygen tanks, rerolled hose lines and did paperwork. Sensing her mood, he even refrained from making hose jokes. She appreciated his restraint.
She’d been working on menial stuff for about three hours when a call went out over the PA system.
“Truck sixty one, truck eighty five, ambulance thirty one; warehouse fire 52nd street and 2nd avenue.” She strode towards the truck, and told Oliver to follow her in the Shelby. She lost herself in the routine of a call out. After almost a hundred years of firefighting, these procedures had become second nature to her; she was pretty sure that she’d be able to do them in her sleep. Although the tools and technology had gotten far more sophisticated in recent years, the procedures were still similar. Fire a
lways behaved the same way, and since the beginning of time it hadn't evolved or digressed. It was predictable in its unpredictability.
With the efficiency of a well-oiled machine, everyone was in the truck and on the way to 52nd street within minutes. Azar took a deep calming breath and waited for the ribbing to begin. She didn’t have to wait long. It was McAdams who went first.
“So, in this Playboy article, will there be a photo shoot?” He said it seriously but Azar could see that he was holding back a laugh, along with the rest of the guys.
“I don’t know McAdams. Maybe there will be, Playboy isn’t really known for its articles. Of course you'd know that. The last time we had a party at your place, there were copies of Playboy everywhere that had all the pages stuck together.” Everyone laughed, including McAdams.
“I’m getting my local newsstand to order me in ten copies of that.” And so it went.
Azar was glad that the Captain was in the first response vehicle and not the truck, otherwise they’d all be forced to sit through one of those sexual harassment seminars. Again. By the time they got to the corner of 52nd and 2nd, the only person who wasn’t buying enough copies of Playboy to wallpaper a room was Joe. He said he was just going to buy one to show Linda, of course.
She just sat back and took the good natured joking. She knew that every single one of them would jump to her defense if someone outside of the station house ever made even a remotely derogatory comment towards her or any woman. They were a nice set of guys, even if some of them were still teenage boys deep down. Lieutenant Ryan had actually been Mr. August in last year’s FDNY calendar. They’d all teased the hell out of him about it for a month, including her. She even had a fully signed copy of the calendar at home.
As they turned down 2nd Avenue, Azar could see the huge cloud of black smoke curling into the air above the building. It looked bad, but then most warehouse fires were. Ninety percent of the time they were a melting pot of old wooden frames, bad wiring, boxes and flammable liquids.
Azar went into work mode as soon as the truck stopped in front of the building, taking orders from Lieutenant Ryan and Captain Fuentes, who’d beaten them to the scene in the first response vehicle. What faced them was a huge wall of flames that encompassed an entire strip of factories. The flames were licking at the walls of the warehouses next to the burning buildings.
“We have a chemical fire, possible combustible materials inside. Keep to the outer perimeter in case of reflash. Maconi and Nazemi, I want you in the alleyways around the site, clearing out anyone who might be living between the buildings.” Azar nodded and was right behind Joe as they took off towards the nearest alleyway.
At night, the close proximity of the warehouse buildings provided breaks from the icy winds that came off the bay. Refrigerator boxes crammed into the alleys ended up makeshift shelters for homeless people, street kids and addicts.
The alleyways closest to the buildings were clear; obviously people were smart enough to move away from the burning building. A few alleys along, they came across a couple of addicts on the nod against the wall of a building.
“Guys, you have to move it. We need you to leave the immediate area.” Joe used his authoritative fireman voice, but the two guys were obviously right out of it. Their heads were just lolling around on rubbery necks. Azar leaned down and hefted one of the guys to his feet.
“Hey, you need to go right now!”
Joe picked up the guy’s friend and they frog marched them to the end of the alleyway. The guy she was holding had greasy blond hair and the damp smell of heroin addicts. She half pulled/half dragged the guy to the EMT’s.
“Check these guys out. They are pretty non-responsive and we just want to be sure.” One of the EMT’s took the guys arm and was talking quietly to him in a soothing voice.
Azar shook her head. She saw drug addicts a lot in her job, but the waste of human life never ceased to amaze her. However, she didn’t have time to ponder the detrimental effects of heroin for long as she and Joe quickly returned to the alleyways in search for more potential victims. The smoke in the air was so thick that they could barely see five feet in front of their boots. The wind off the bay fanned the fire, making the smoke swirl between the buildings.
Azar looked over at the flames that licked the air, and a bad feeling settled in her stomach. The fire was raging out of control, almost too wild for the kinds of accelerants that would be inside. The fire wasn’t telling her anything unusual. There was no one alive in the building. But still, her gut told her something was wrong.
“On your left, Nazemi,” Joe said from the other side of the alley.
Azar could see a shadow curled up on the pavement. She crept closer. The figure was scrunched into a ball in the depths of a shadow being cast by a dumpster. She bent down close to the shadow and saw it was a young guy, maybe in his early twenties. He turned his head towards her, and she saw his face was swollen and bloodied.
“Run,” he whispered. She heard a thud, and whirled to see Joe go down in a heap, his helmet next to him on the ground.
“Joe!” she screamed before something crashed into the back of her head and the lights went out.
The first thing Azar saw when she opened her eyes was someone’s dead face below her. She bolted upwards away from the corpse but her head hit something solid above her. She forced herself to breathe and lowered herself back down to take stock of her situation. She blocked out her surroundings until she remembered how she had gotten to this point; the boy in the alleyway, Joe going down and the blow to the back of her head. She reached around to where the blow had connected and felt her scalp. There was a huge egg and some congealed blood, but it didn't seem too bad.
Once she was calm, she recognized the face of the body below her immediately. It was Aaron. She checked his pulse and breathed a sigh of relief that he was still alive, if only just. She’d been piled on top of him into what appeared to be the trunk of a car.
Azar's wrists were cuffed in front of her and she looked down at the bronze colored metal that gleamed even though there was barely any light filtering into the trunk. Panic set back in.
The son of a bitch had put her into slave cuffs.
Slave cuffs were two thick bracelets that wrapped around your wrists and partially up your forearm. They were chained together and she couldn’t melt them down to get them off. They were immune to her Djinn magic. When imbued with the Councils Blessing, the slave cuffs transferred ownership of the Djinn. Once the slavery period was up, the cuffs fell off. Also, the cuffs could only be used on someone with their slave brand still on their body; it was a fail safe to prevent a Djinn being kept against their will at the end of their compulsory servitude.
Things started to click into place. Fareet must have seen her slave brand at the Blue Smoke club when she was putting out that girl and started planning her capture.
She lit up her hand just to be sure she could still reach her fire. She wiggled her fingers like a happy little supernova and she let out another sigh of relief. She couldn't melt the cuffs off, but at least she hadn't been completely immobilized.
Azar felt the blood seeping from one of Aaron’s wounds near his stomach. She let the fire die down in her hand, so that it was hot but no longer flaming. She was going to try and stop him from bleeding out by cauterizing his wounds. A large gaping hole in his stomach didn’t seem too deep, just long, and she pushed the edges of the wound together as best as she could with one hand and then seared it closed with the other. Aaron’s eyes shot open and he screamed. The burn left a perfect handprint on his torso. She hoped it would fade so he wouldn’t have to have a reminder of this pain every day for the rest of his life.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured as she held him down. “I promised Anton I’d get you home alive, and I can’t do that if you bleed out in the back of this crappy ass car.” Tears streamed down her cheeks for the kid. No one should have to go through this much pain. She was saving his life, but death would probably fe
el like a better option to him at this moment.
Other than the big tear in his stomach, there were a couple of scabbed wounds and newer cuts that had healed up on their own. His face was smashed up, his left eye socket looked like it had been cracked and his breathing was labored.
Aaron had passed out again from the pain and she rechecked him for anything serious. Nothing else was life threatening, probably just incredibly painful. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do about that.
She looked around the trunk for some kind of weapon but found nothing. There wasn’t a tire iron or even a spare in the trunk with her and Aaron, everything had been removed to accommodate them both. The carpet lining was sticky in places, probably from Aaron’s congealed blood. The trunk was fairly big, and made of solid metal, so the car was probably something old and American made. Fareet had removed all her turnout gear. Fear curdled her stomach at the thought of Joe lying in the alley way, and she prayed that he was okay.
Azar wondered where Fareet had gotten the slave cuffs. They weren’t exactly given out by the Djinn Council as party favors. She focused her power on the chain, which wasn’t made of the same thing as the cuffs. This just made the whole thing even stranger. Normal slave cuffs came with a chain made of the same energy absorbing material as the cuffs themselves. This was to prevent the Ifrit from melting the chain, the Marid from freezing it, the Sila from hitting it with a bolt of lightning, the Shaitan from scaring the chain into submission and so on. Azar didn’t know what this metal was. It wasn’t immune to her powers, but its reaction to it was slow. Where she could have melted the entire car in minutes, the chain had barely warmed. But it had warmed a little, and that was a reassuring sign.
Azar could have just melted her way out of the car, but to do so would cause even more injury to Aaron. Obviously Fareet had guessed she wouldn't put the kid's life in danger and that was why he’d brought him along instead of just leaving him in the alley. This way, he had her cooperation far more easily than if he had to take her kicking and screaming.
The Azar Omnibus: The Complete Azar Trilogy (The Azar Trilogy Book 0) Page 15