by Liz Schulte
“And third the feeling in the house is gone. It was her,” Baker said.
My head jerked slightly then I honed in on my senses and sure as shit he was right. It felt like a normal house again. “What is she?”
Baker rubbed a hand over his jaw. “She’s a void.” He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. “Every living being has a specific energy, and even the places or objects people are around can collect that energy. That’s why you thought this house felt weird. Basically, the energy around her is so strong it overpowers everything else in the room, leaving the space feeling empty and hollow. Had this been an abandoned place you probably wouldn’t have noticed, but since demons were living here your expectations were different.”
“Okay. But why do a bunch of demons have her?”
“Voids are good for hiding something magical or powerful that you don’t want found.”
“How did the demons get her?”
“The usual way I would guess. They probably kidnapped her, or possessed her parents and took her. Whatever was easiest.”
I stared at the trapdoor in the ceiling. “What were they hiding?”
“Whatever it was, it’s not here anymore.”
Thoughts and questions struggled to make it to the forefront of my mind. Was this why Olivia asked how many demons were inside? Could she not sense it because of the kid? At the time I thought she should know, but maybe the girl obscured them. And what had happened to whatever she was shielding? If they moved it, wouldn’t they take the void with them? Holden found her because he could sense the raw emotion coming from the attic, but where was the magic thing she was hiding? Either someone knew our raid was going to happen and removed it, but didn’t have time to get the kid, or it was still here.
I hopped up onto the chair, but I wasn’t tall enough to lift myself inside. I glanced down. “Give me a boost, Baker.”
He obliged, threading his fingers together to form a platform for me to rest my foot on, then counted to three and hefted me up. Inside the attic I couldn’t stand to full height and the floor felt spongy. The thick air was stagnant in the windowless, lightless space. I made out a tiny pile of covers and debris I assumed was her bed. The room was pungent with heavy overtones of urine. My eyes prickled and my throat clenched. How long had she been up here? Breathing through my mouth I moved forward slowly. In the pile of rags where she must’ve slept there was a round piece of metal attached to the main beam across the house. A thick chain about fifteen to twenty feet long was latched onto the circle and there was a cuff on the end of it. It was long enough the kid should have been able to reach most of the attic, but no further. Crude drawings filled the walls and random scraps of rotten food lay scattered around, but there was absolutely nothing magical. I crouched down and scanned the room once more. There had to be something.
Crack.
In an instant I was freefalling with bit of white ceiling and the kid’s bed around me. I got my legs underneath me and landed on my feet (in four inch heels I might add) with a thump. I raised an arm over my head to protect myself from any more falling debris and Baker rushed toward me.
“You’re supposed to walk on the boards, not the ceiling.”
I flashed a grin. “Where’s the fun in that?”
He laughed. “You’d rather fall.”
“Than be safe? Always. There’s nothing up there. Let’s go.”
He stooped and grabbed a dirty gray doll off the floor. “Right behind you.”
I had no idea where to put the kid in the warehouse. She was too filthy to go on any of the furniture and it wasn’t like we were equipped with a bathtub—just a small, bare bones shower. Some point on the way back, her death grip loosened and her breathing evened. Now she was sound asleep. Her frail little body was light, too light, in my arms. I doubted her vocabulary extended to more than a few words, one of those being eat. She didn’t look old, maybe a small five year old, but it was hard to tell beneath the crusted dirt and animal-like reactions. She was gray from head to toe. If Olivia hadn’t already killed the demons, I would have and made sure they felt it too. She was just a kid.
The thought of hurting the demons, making them pay, loosened the squeeze in my chest and eased the repulsion in my mind. Any demon would do. I’d find one and use my knife to peel the skin from its bones. The thought made me smile. It was the best idea I had in a while. Skinning a demon was better than any stress ball.
I laid the kid on the couch. The soft, reclaimed leather formed to her body and cradled her, but her eyes immediately shot open and a wave of pure panic crashed into me. Her eyes darted around as she scrambled into the corner of the couch, curling herself into a ball. When she finally saw me she whimpered a little. I held out an arm, an invitation, and she leaped in my direction then climbed me like a ladder, once again clinging to me, burying her face against my shoulder. Her fear of everything unfamiliar gnawed at me as I held her. Being this close to raw emotion was like repeatedly ramming myself against a knife, but I couldn’t abandon the kid. For some reason she liked me and felt safe with me, and I couldn’t turn my back on that. It had been a very long time since I’d been around children—not since my brother in fact—but he was the last person I needed to think about right now. I sank into the couch, holding the child against my chest until she drifted back to sleep, breathing through my mouth and keeping my mind blissfully blank. A shift in the air and the feeling of someone watching me opened my eyes. The angel stood in the doorway of her room staring at us.
“She was in the house,” I said.
She nodded, but cleared her throat. It was the first time I’d ever seen her taken aback by something. “So why did you bring her here?” she asked coldly.
Having had Olivia back for even the tiny moment we’d recently shared made me long for her return more than ever —so bad I tasted bitter loss. The angel stood before me, returning my stare, awaiting my answer, her back board-straight, her facial expression as smooth and hard as glass, her eyes, as always, emotionless. I hated her. Just a little, but the emotion was there and would probably grow over time. I resented that she kept Olivia away. I resented that she left this child in that house alone. She knew—she had to have known—the girl was there, but she killed the demons and left her chained in the attic. If Femi hadn’t brought me there, she would have starved. Seeing her study the child with contempt, hearing her honestly wonder why I brought her back with me, made me want to throw her angelic knife at her.
“Do I need a reason?”
Her eyes met mine. “You have one whether or not you need it.”
“She has no one else. She would have died.”
“Will you recruit her for the jinn?”
My lip curled and I couldn’t keep the disdain from my face. The angel apparently didn’t have a high opinion of me. “No.”
Slowly, as if she was far from certain, the angel came forward. When she was within an arm’s length, she stopped. “She does not belong here.” She stretched a pale, glowing hand toward the child; the girl jerked awake and screamed like she was being murdered before the angel could touch her, immediately trying to flee my arms.
The angel yanked her hand back and inched away, eyes wide. “It’s okay. You’re fine. She isn’t going to hurt you,” I whispered to the girl until she settled down again. This was going to be a long night.
The latch on the front door rattled. I gripped the knife in my hand and waited. It pushed open wide and Baker came through with a large, blue storage container in his arms. Femi strolled in behind him, drinking an orange slushy and holding a second one in her other hand.
“We’ve got everything she could possibly need, boss. Food, clothes, a doll—and a bathtub. She’ll be smelling like roses in no time flat.” He grinned like this was just another day.
A storage bin was hardly a bathtub, but I admitted Baker’s ingenuity was genius. I carried the girl, who was wide awake now and watching everyone very carefully, over to them. She lunged for something in the bin, almo
st tearing herself from my grip. When I pulled her back up, she was clutching a doll every bit as gray and dirty as she was.
Femi and I followed Baker to the back with Femi following. He dumped out all the packages from inside the tub onto the floor then used the shower to fill it with warm water. The girl watched everything he did with a frown, squeezing the doll to her chest. He stepped out and sat the container near the drain in the floor. Femi moved to the corner of the tiny room and leaned against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest. I sat the kid on the floor and gestured to the bath.
She stared at me blankly.
Baker squatted down. “Water,” he said putting his hand in it then holding it in front of her. His hand might as well have been a dead frog. She squinted, nose wrinkling, and bared her teeth as she tried to move away from him. I nudged her stiff body closer and Baker took the wrist of the hand not holding the doll and dipped it. “Water,” he said again as he let her go.
Her head tilted to the right. She put her hand back in, leaving it a little longer before pulling it out gain. She looked over at me and I nodded. She did it again and again, splashing more and more as her enthusiasm grew.
“Enough. Get in.” I lifted her over the water and started to lower her. Horror sprang across her face when she realized what I was doing. She dropped the doll and attacked, clawing wildly at my arms and face with tiny sharp fingernails. Growls and screams ripped from her throat, and she managed to bite my arm in her frenzied attack before her feet touched the bottom of the tub. Her shoulders heaved and tears created muddy streaks down her cheeks. She tried to climb out, but Baker kept a firm hand planted on her shoulder. My chest tightened again from the raw fear and anxiety she released into the room.
“Whenever you’re ready, boss.”
Pushing away the trance of emotion, I blinked. “For what?”
Baker glanced at the kid. “She’s still wearing rags. Can’t really clean her up like that.”
“Go ahead,” I told him.
“You’re the one who brought her home with us.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Get out both of you.” Femi pushed me out of the way. “I can handle this. Bring me a trash can and a cup.”
I found what she needed and brought it back. The kid was still standing in the storage bin, waist deep in water, but she was eating a chicken nugget and looked much happier. Femi took the cup and placed it next to the washcloth at her feet. She peeled the layers of soiled rags from the girl and tossed them into the trash one at a time until there was only dirt left.
“You can go, Chuckles. We have this under control.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I headed to my own cell and changed my clothes then threw the old ones out with the girl’s rags. That smell was never coming out. When I returned to our makeshift living room, Baker was sitting in a chair beside the couch, which looked new again.
“The angel did it.” He gestured to the furniture. “Haven’t seen her do anything like that in a while.”
“I have to empty this.” I held up the can and nodded toward the door. Baker followed me out. “She asked me why I rescued the kid.” I glanced at Baker. “She left her there. I can’t believe once all the demons were dead that she didn’t know there was another person there, especially a human. Fixing the couch doesn’t really make up for that. We don’t have Olivia back.”
“But it’s a start.”
I stared at the windowless square building. “No—more like she knows she’s losing us and she’s trying to pacify us until she gets what she wants.”
“And what does she want with us? Let’s face it, she’s an angel. Not one of us is gonna compete with that. Why bother?”
“I don’t know.” It was true. The angel wanted, at the very least, me to stay. Was it because Olivia would fight back more if I left? Was it because of the jinn? “I’m willing to bet she doesn’t do anything without a reason. She has a plan.”
“Back at the house, Femi figured the demons had the kid to block something that was there. What was it and where did it go? There were only ten demons there at any one time max, so it definitely wasn’t a stronghold. The kid had to have been there for a long time too.”
“You think Olivia took whatever it was?”
“Possibly. She went in without you. We’ve established she knew the kid was there. Unless a demon escaped with it before she attacked, then yeah, I think she has it.”
“If she doesn’t want to talk, I don’t think we can make her.”
Baker cracked his knuckles. “I don’t know a damn thing about angels, boss, but don’t forget we have Uriel.”
“That might make the problem worse. He already said if she steps out of line they’ll kill her.” And killing the angel meant killing my Olivia, which wasn’t an option. There had to be another way.
Baker scratched his head. “Okay, so what about Olivia?”
Irritation spiked through me. “What do you mean, what about her? Who do you think we’re talking about?”
“We were talking about the angel,” he said pointedly. “Now I’m talking about one who has you wrapped around her little finger. Olivia has front row seats on the inside. Maybe she could tell us something.”
“The angel keeps her blocked. We can’t count on being able to talk to her—especially confidentially.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose. There had to be someone. Anyone.
“Quintus,” Baker said.
I opened my eyes. “He looks like he’s going to piss himself every time he’s in the same room as her. I don’t think he’s the man for the job.”
Baker nodded. “Ab-so-lute-ly he is. He’s a bit of a bird, sure, but the angel also underestimates him. If anyone can pry around into what she’s doing, without her catching on, I think it’s him. He wants to help.”
“We must be fucking desperate if I’m considering this.” Fucking Quintus.
A smiled popped onto Baker’s face, replacing the worried pinch. “How’s Phoenix?”
“How the hell should I know?” I frowned at the change of subject. “Last I saw he was lying on the ground passed out with fifty other jinn. What does that matter? Who cares about—”
The warehouse door opened and the angel appeared. “What are you doing out here?”
“Just takin’ out the trash, angel. You need something?”
Her eyes narrowed.
Baker had known she was coming. I raised an eyebrow at her and folded my arms over my chest in my own small challenge. She’d went out of her way to fix the couch. Some part of her plan required that I stayed here. It was time we started using that to our advantage.
Her mouth pursed, but she closed the door. The angel wasn’t stupid. She was definitely suspicious.
Baker’s large, masking smile was gone, but the edges of his mouth were still curled up. “She can’t see out here.”
“What do you mean?”
“She stands in her little room staring at maps. I think she’s observing the location from afar.”
“She can do that?”
He shrugged. “How else would angels be able to monitor such a large area? They’re the ones who direct the guardians, right?”
“Why can’t she see out here? And how did you know she was coming?”
“Well, Femi and I had enough of her nosy neighbor syndrome, so we painted over the ends of her binoculars before we spoke with you at the bar.”
“What binoculars?”
“Keep up, boss. Her angel mojo. We did some rune work to prevent anyone from seeing into our little haven, but it just so happens that it prevents her from seeing out too.” He puffed out his barrel-like chest. “Honest mistake.”
“She’s going to catch on to all of this, Baker.”
“Then we better get Olivia back quick before she blows a fuse.”
A great plan—except we still didn’t have any ideas on how to pull it off. “And how did you know she was coming to check on us?”
“Call it survival instinct.” He winked and heade
d back into the warehouse.
I struck out in the opposite direction toward the nearest church. It was almost sunrise. Picking the lock on the door would have been easy enough in the darkness before dawn, but now I wasn’t sure how long it would be before people started showing up. I leaned against the building and thought Quintus’s name. Not really a prayer, because that wasn’t going to happen. He really needed to invest in a better way to get in touch with him.
“How’s Olivia?”
I looked up, shielding my eyes from his yellow sun-like glow. Olivia’s white glow never seemed harsh or painful, but Quintus’s burned if stared at too long. “Angelic,” I answered dryly.
Quintus nodded with a frown. “You have considered that she might not come back?”
“No.” I stared at him until he nodded again. “But we need your help to make that happen.” The words tasted bitter in my mouth. It was easier to be around Quintus now than it had been before—and occasionally he wasn’t a complete tool—but asking him for help was painful to say the least.
“Anything. I want to see Olivia come back too.”
“The angel is plotting something. She wants to free the jinn a little too much. We think she might have taken something from the last group of demons she vanquished, and she seems to think she needs me around. She’s suspicious of Baker, Femi, and me so she’s keeping an eye on us. That’s where you come in.”
“You want me to spy on her.”
“I don’t care if you spy on her. I want you to figure out what she has planned.”
He folded his hands behind his back. “How?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll try to keep her distracted.”
He nodded. “I know it wasn’t easy for you to ask for my help.”
Christ. Here came the heart to heart.
He smiled gently at me. “I’ll find a way.”
I waited and he didn’t continue. “Good.” I started to walk away but I had a nagging urge to say something else. I turned around. “She’s not herself right now. Just keep that in mind.”
He looked at me for a moment. “You think she might kill me.”