by Liz Schulte
I took a few deep breaths, striving to lower my boiling anger to a simmer before sitting back down. Baker had a knack for knowing things. You couldn’t get a straight answer out of him for how or why he knew stuff, but he was normally right. “Why do you say that?”
Femi and Baker exchanged looks. “We’ve been looking into this. There’s nothing on angels with human souls written anywhere. We don’t think there are any others,” Femi said.
I sighed. If they actually didn’t know anything, why were they bringing this to me? “You have two seconds before I walk out of here.”
“The fact is, boss, angels are powerful. That isn’t news, I know. But I suspect the longer it has full control over Olivia, the more likely it will keep control. If there’s any hope of her human soul ever coming back to the forefront, you need to make a move now.”
“What exactly do you expect me to do?” I leaned forward, resting my arms on the table. “It isn’t like you know any of this for a fact, and right now, she’s saving all our asses. She’s the best chance we have.”
“We’ll find another way,” Femi said. “We need someone we can trust. Someone who isn’t going to use us and then let us die. We need Olivia, not a psychotic angel with an agenda.”
The bar filled with light. I looked over expecting to see the angel, but Uriel came into sight, once again looking like the bartender with bright blue eyes who once helped me.
“I apologize for my tardiness,” he said to Baker.
Shit, this really was an intervention.
“You’re right on time,” Baker said. “Scoot over, Holden.” I frowned and moved to the left. “Tell him what you told me.”
Uriel turned to me. “She can’t upset the balance. If Olivia tips the scales, Heaven will step in. I’ve already warned her of this, but she did not heed my warning.”
I returned his steady gaze. “If the choice is to let Hell kill us or to upset your precious balance, I’ll stick with her.”
“No one’s saying we can’t defend ourselves, right?” Baker said. “All he’s saying is there are certain things that could bring more trouble down on us. We have to do this the right way.”
“By all means defend yourselves, but Hell’s presence on earth is just as important as Heaven’s. The balance must remain. Lucifer has spent a millennia trying shift the scales and has failed. Olivia, whether she means to or not, is helping him achieve his goals now. Why do you think they haven’t attacked the two of you or made any overt moves against you?”
My jaw clenched. “And what are his goals exactly?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It has been a long time since I understood my brother. All I know is he seeks discord and that is exactly what she has set herself on the path to cause. I do not wish to kill her. Do not let it come to that. Please. I thought it would be different this time, but angels were not designed to be out of God’s grace. Left to their own devices they cause more harm than good, but the human can balance her. The soul she was paired with is strong—and made even stronger by its connection with you.”
Baker leaned forward. “You’re the only one of us who has a chance of reaching her. She loves you. Use that.”
I wanted to laugh. She loved me. Present tense probably wasn’t still applicable. My conversation with Lucifer played in my mind, as it often did. He said she had the power to give him what he wanted and that it was time for me to leave. Though he didn’t mention specifics, he didn’t kill me either—which meant he didn’t view me as a threat to his plans, or he thought taking me away from her at that point could change the course she was on. I had assumed it was the former, but maybe, just maybe, Baker had a point. “What’s in it for me?”
Femi snorted. “Do you really have to ask that?”
“He’s just buying time,” Baker told her, which was true.
I looked back at the concerned faces around me. “Let’s say I somehow—though I’m by no means confident I can—get Olivia’s human side to take back over, then what? Are angels going to offer us any protection?”
Uriel shook his head. “We cannot.”
“Then how do I keep her alive when she’s weakened by compassion for the enemy?”
The small tick in Holden’s right cheek was the only part of him that showed any sort of feelings about what was happening. Olivia had been gone for close to six months now, and Holden was ever so slowly following her down the rabbit hole. Little by little he shut off to the rest of us. He stopped yelling at me for talking in slang, which only made me do it more. He disappeared for hours at a time, only to bark orders at me and Femi when he returned. We weren’t ready to give up on either of them, though, not yet. To stay together, they’d made the biggest changes of any two people I’d ever met in the Abyss. They were the embodiment of hope and tolerance, but there was no way they would survive this is something didn’t give. If things continued as they were, they’d either kill each other or unwittingly clear a path for untold amounts of evil. People like them came along so rarely that when you found them, it was hard to walk away and watch them self-destruct.
“Letting her win the war this way—the not Olivia way, but the angel way—is letting her destroy herself. How could she ever be the same person again?” Femi said. “Whether or not you agree with compassion, it isn’t weakness in Olivia. It’s how she holds onto her humanity. You can’t take that from her.”
Holden looked wooden and unfeeling, but I could practically hear the gears squeaking and groaning as they came back to life. There was nothing like Olivia being in danger to set him into motion. It was a predictable button to push, but it worked. “How do I reach her?”
“You’ve said she’s done this before. What did you do then?” Femi asked.
Holden blinked a couple times and his mouth twitched. The first hint of smile in much too long shadowed his face. “I tossed her in the shower. She was mad and we fought afterward, but it snapped her out of it. When she shuts down, getting her to fight with me always seems to work.”
“Well, cheese and grits, boss. By all means fight with the angel if that brings her back. Do whatever you have to do to get a rise out of her.”
How did we miss it? Of course that was the problem. Holden and Olivia always fought. They fought over the remote, about holidays, about obscure literature… . It was their thing. Only he’d stopped fighting back. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, she wasn’t the only one who struggled with compassion. Holden might not have cared about much, but he cared about her and his empathy was blinding him. She wasn’t the only one who lost Marge; he had too. Since her death Holden simply left Olivia alone. Maybe he was just letting her grieve as he would want to, but the time had come to stop. I kicked him under the table. “So pick a fight with her.”
Holden’s jaw tightened. “Her mother just died. When my brother was murdered I went on a killing spree that lasted, oh I don’t know, 130 years give or take. She needs time—”
“Sorry, boss, but we can’t wait a century for her to get her shit together. She’s got to take it on the chin and keep marching forward.”
Uriel shook his head. “Challenging her could backfire. She could kill you.”
We all looked at him. Uriel was all wet. Olivia could never stand to see Holden hurt, let alone do it herself. If she was anywhere in there, there was no way she’d allow the angel to kill him no matter how sad she was, but that gave me nifty idea. “That’s the best plan you’ve had all day, ol’ bird.” I glanced at Holden for a reaction, but he sat there stony as ever, arms crossed over his chest.
Uriel smiled kindly. “What idea was what?”
“Piss off the angel enough to make it want to kill Holden. Can’t be that hard. He’s hardly a ray of sunshine—no offense, boss. He’s made me homicidal on more than one occasion.”
Holden narrowed his eyes. “Telling me I’m not a ray of sunshine isn’t the part of that sentence I’m going to take offense to, Baker. Plotting my death? That I take personally.”
“I don’t tiptoe around anyone.” Femi flashed a grin. “I glide, bitches.”
I laughed. “That’s right, kitten. You’re the only one with your head on straight.”
“And why would I want the angel to kill me? She’s helping us. Don’t any of you get that? And believe it or not, I don’t actually have a death wish.”
“Pipe down.” I wagged a finger at him and Holden’s mouth tightened again, at this rate he’d be shitting diamonds, but he gestured for me to continue. “Olivia will never let her kill you. You know as well as I do that she can’t hurt you. But if you make the angel mad enough, she’ll have no choice but to fight her from the inside. That might actually be enough to push her to do something.”
“I see where you’re going with this,” Femi said. “But what if Olivia isn’t strong enough to stop her? What if she’s too late? If the angel kills Holden, Olivia’s definitely never coming back and we’re all screwed.”
I laid my hands flat on the table. “If we don’t do it, she’s never coming back anyway. What do we have to lose?”
“Besides Holden?” Femi asked. I shrugged.
“Have you tried talking to her?” Uriel asked Holden.
A vein his Holden’s neck popped out. “I’m not the half of us who talks about feelings,” he growled.
Uriel shook his head. “Talk to her. It might be as simple as that.”
“And if it isn’t, we have plan B,” I added. A strategy quickly formed in my mind and spilled out of my lips. “You go talk to her on the up and up. If it doesn’t help, then we wait until she leaves the building and Femi and I ward it against her reentering. That should piss her off. Then you just need to think of something that will really twist her panties. When she comes to kill you, Olivia will stop her and we can get her back once and for all.”
Uriel shrugged and nodded. “I will leave all this in your capable hands.” He vanished into a ball of light.
Femi frowned. “I don’t like it.”
Holden was as hard-boiled as they come. He just stared at me with loathing in his eyes.
“She’s a swell dame, boss. There’s no way she’s going to let you get bumped off—but if you’re really worried, we could use her angel killing knife on her if things start to go south.”
His hand shot out and he grabbed me by the throat, half lifting me out of the booth. “No one touches Olivia while I’m still breathing, Baker. You hear me? I don’t care if she invited Lucifer to a goddamned tea party and paints his fingernails. She isn’t to be harmed.”
“Baloney,” I said. He tightened his grip, making it hard to talk. “If she’s checked out, there’s no need to hold the room. Whatever the angel has planned, we have to stop it, boss. She can’t destroy the world.”
Holden face scrunched and a fistfight broke out in the corner. He was losing control. Suddenly he dropped me back into my seat and sat back down. “Enough with the fucking slang, Baker. Why can’t you just say what you mean?” His voice was tired and weary.
I smiled wide. “Welcome back, boss.”
Femi shook her head. “So you’re going through with this stupid ass plan?”
“No.” We waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. He motioned to the bartender for a refill on both drinks.
When Holden had a fresh supply of whiskey, Femi tried again. “So what are you planning?”
He took a drink. “I’ll talk to her. If that doesn’t work we can plan something from there, but I don’t have any plans on making her want to kill me. It’s too risky.”
“You should give us the knife just in case your talk takes a bad turn,” she said.
He shook his head. “Uriel can take care of her if something happens to me. In that case, the two of you should leave. Hide. Don’t try to go after her.”
Femi’s head tilted in a very feline way and her vertical pupils shifted. “I don’t understand why. Just give us the knife. If you can’t reach her, nobody can—and this is the inevitable end. Baker and I will take her out before she kills you or does something stupid. She won’t see it coming.” She didn’t seem aware that she was championing a losing cause.
“Why are we talking about this again? No one harms Olivia while I’m alive,” he repeated slowly, making sure we understood. “Otherwise the person you’ll be hiding from is me.”
Femi started to reply, but I squeezed her leg. Holden didn’t intend to outlive Olivia and we’d never change his mind on that. They were a package deal as far as he was concerned.
Femi brushed my hand away. “You’re the glue, Holden. Not her. I love Olivia and I miss her, but you’re the one who holds us all together. You’re the one the jinn will follow when they’re released. We need you whether or not Olivia can be saved.”
He blinked a couple times then looked directly at her. “I need her.”
“That’s another good question,” I said. They looked at me blankly because no one actually asked a question. I shook my head and waited for my mouth to catch up with my brain. “Uriel’s concerned about ‘upsetting the balance.’ Do you think he means freeing the jinn?”
“Probably,” Holden said, massaging his temples.
My phone chirped in my pocket. I looked at the text and sighed. The council demanded my presence. I should never have starting poking around, asking questions about the Balit. “Then maybe we shouldn’t do it,” I said. “Do you think that’s why Phoenix was hesitating?” The punk emo jinni wasn’t my favorite person and he needed a haircut, but he didn’t seem stupid. “Maybe he’s heard something that’s put him off going through with this. You think we can stall?”
Holden shook his head. “They’ll get over it. How did turning the jinn into Hell’s minions not upset the balance when that happened? It’s bullshit. It’s politics. The jinn deserve to be free and our angel is on board. We’re going to do it. It’s the one good thing that might come of all of this.”
Hm, I wasn’t so sure Olivia would see it that way, but I wasn’t going to argue with him about it either.
“Yeah, but why?” Femi asked, stretching her arms in front of my face. “She doesn’t need them to fight off Hell and the angel doesn’t agree to anything without reason. So why is she willing to free them now?”
“Maybe it’s because she knows that’s what Holden agreed to,” I said. It still chapped my ass that he put his soul back on the line after everything we had all been through, but if he wanted to be a palooka, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Asshole.
Holden shook his head. “She has something planned. She has new tacks on her maps. Whatever her new scheme is though, she isn’t sharing it.”
My phone buzzed again. The council was a grand pain in my butt. I’d stayed off their radar for the last couple hundred years, but since I reminded them I was alive they suddenly had to speak to me. But we had enough to deal with without their bullshit.
“Look.” Holden cracked his neck. “I’ll handle Liv. You guys keep doing what you’re doing.”
****
I did a cursory drive by of the new location. It was quiet and suburban, so I headed toward the address the council texted to me. I could only ignore their requests so long before someone came after me. Right now the angel was the only one who knew much about what I was and I preferred to keep it that way as long as I could. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Holden or Femi. Just knowing, changed the way people looked at me.
I drove to Joliet to meet with the council. They always chose strange out of the way locations for their meetings. I was on the damn council for a few centuries, before the internal bickering and backstabbing became more annoying than it was worth, and I still didn
’t know who chose the spots or why they picked them. The only thing I was certain of was wherever we met would be safe and free from prying eyes.
I pulled my jalopy in front of the Joliet prison, which didn’t appear to be in use anymore. The massive building could have been a castle, all stone and turrets. A barbed wire fence surrounded the grounds. It wouldn’t be a problem getting in, but I didn’t want my car seen by some nosy looky-loo driving by. I parked a few blocks away and hoofed it to the prison.
I eyed the fence and the iron bars of the gate, planning my entrance. Being able to shape-shift definitely had its uses. Making myself smaller, I slipped through the gate and into the building with no trouble before I switched back to my more regular self.
“What do you want?” I asked, walking through the door of the old infirmary where only two members waited.
“What is your update, chol?” Leilah stood and brushed her long dark hair over her shoulder as she trained her strange eyes on me. Leilah had been on the council for centuries before I joined and was obviously still going strong. In all the time I’d known her, I’d never gotten used to her stare. The whites of her eyes were pink, her irises were blood red with thin lines of purple and gold running through them, and a coal black pupil slid around her eyes like an eclipse. Her eyes were the only part of her true appearance she couldn’t hide so most of the time she wore sunglasses. If people saw her true form, she would have been hunted out of existence long ago like the rest of her ancestors. Even immortals had weaknesses.
“Same as last I spoke with you, dragon,” I replied just as solemnly. Why they couldn’t just use a name was beyond me. Learning a new name every couple hundred years or so wasn’t all that taxing, but the council was stuck in their ways. I doubted many of them even knew I went by Baker.
Anessa smiled, her wide pale eyes blinking slowly, her white hair all but glowing in the dim light. “It’s good to see you again. It’s been too long.”
I kissed the unicorn’s cheek, her horn carefully hidden beneath her human appearance. How much of her essence had she lost, or rather, how much had the council taken over the years? One of the main problems with being immortal was everyone wanted a piece of it. With Anessa anyone who consumed her horn became immortal, with Leilah they wanted her blood, and with me they wanted my ashes. We all had a way to make others immortal, but it took something from us to do so. The council offered a fair amount of protection, but any time someone who wasn’t already immortal joined—and there weren’t many natural immortals left—one of us had to make a sacrifice. And honestly, I was tired of sacrificing to something I wasn’t even sure I believed in.