by Schulte, Liz
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
A preview of Good Tidings, a Guardian short story
Acknowledgments
About the Author
by
Liz Schulte
Ember
Jinn Trilogy
Book One
Copyright © 2013 by Liz Schulte
Editing by Ev Bishop and Michelle Kampmeier
Cover design by Karri Klawiter
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
For other titles by Liz Schulte, visit Amazon
The suggested reading order for books in the Abyss World are as follows:
Secrets (The Guardian Trilogy)
Choices (The Guardian Trilogy)
Consequences (The Guardian Trilogy)
Easy Bake Coven (Easy Bake Coven series)
Be Light (The Guardian Trilogy)
Hungry, Hungry Hoodoo (Easy Bake Coven series)
Pickup Styx (Easy Bake Coven series)
Ember (The Jinn Trilogy)
Good Tidings (Baker’s Christmas Short Story in Christmas Yet To Come Anthology)
Tiddly Jinx (Easy Bake Coven series)
Inferno (The Jinn Trilogy)
Vestige (The Jinn Trilogy)
And two other books:
Sweet Little Lies (Femi short story in Cupid Painted Blind)
Good Tidings (Baker Christmas short story in the Christmas Yet to Come Anthology)
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
A preview of Good Tidings, a Guardian short story
Acknowledgments
About the Author
SOMETHING FLUTTERED ACROSS my face. I swatted at it and turned my head, mentally and physically exhausted. It had been a couple days since I had slept. It happened again, only this time I caught the culprit: a soft feminine hand—Olivia’s hand. I stifled a tired groan, rubbing my hand over the thick stubble across my jaw. Had it been one or two days since I last shaved? My eyes wouldn’t open—too heavy.
“What are you doing?” The words felt like sandpaper in my dry throat.
“Counting your freckles,” Olivia said with an amused lilt. She loved to torture me and I lived to let her.
I cracked one eye so I could see her. “I don’t have freckles.”
“You do. Fourteen of them to be precise.”
“Well, they’ll still be here in a couple hours.” I kissed her palm. “Lights out.” Her internal light receded when I broke contact.
She laughed. “Trying to get rid of me?” Her laughter was better than any cup of coffee in the world. She grazed her lips over mine—the woman was relentless. “I missed you last night. I’m glad you’re home. Get some sleep.”
An array of lustful thoughts and dark promises went through my more alert mind. Sleep could wait. I kissed her deeper and harder than before. She smiled against me and squirmed away, wiggling off the bed. I tried to catch her, but she was too quick. “You’re too tired. Don’t forget.”
I sat up. “I think I can muster up the energy.”
“It took too long to wake you up.” She bit her plump pink lip, a walking temptation, and backed toward the bedroom door. “I have to go to work.” She sounded entirely too cheerful and amused. “But we could have breakfast?” She nodded her head toward the kitchen.
“Tease,” I called after her as she left the room.
I closed my eyes again, but I was awake now, and worry was always quick on the heels of happiness. I had lived too long not to know that happiness was weakness that only masked impending disaster; happiness meant we had something to lose. Life had been too good for too long. The bill would come due and Olivia and I would pay the price. It was just a matter of when.
There was no rest for the wicked. I flipped back the covers and pulled on a pair of pants. I made it two steps toward the bathroom when Liv’s panic clenched in my gut before I heard anything. The contentment vanished.
Her strained voice rang through the apartment and my head. “Holden!”
I turned for the door, cursing myself for not relocating. It was stupid to have stayed in Chicago, no matter what she wanted. I darted for the door. She was standing in the doorway. My pace slowed when I ascertained she wasn’t in immediate danger.
Her shoulders hunched forward as she struggled to hold up a body and was slowly sinking to the floor with it. Olivia was powerful, but she wasn’t physically stronger than an average human woman. “Don’t rush or anything,” she said, frowning back at me.
“Let him fall.” I assessed the situation. No one was in the hallway. There was nothing except a smear of blood was on the door and the body. It took me a moment to put together that the bloody lump she stubbornly held on to was Baker. “Was there anyone else?”
“Not that I saw. He collapsed when I opened the door.”
I tilted his head up to feel for a pulse. His face was swollen nearly past recognition, and thick streams of crimson flowed in violent rivers from various cuts and gouges over his chest and forehead. His eye bulged, the skin around it purple and black. A cheek bone glistened from one gash and his clothes were nearly soaked through with sweat and blood.
One eye opened a sliver and his lips cracked into a bloody, nearly toothless smile that would have been bemused if not for the gore. “I have a message for you.” His eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp.
I finally took him from Olivia, lifting him over my shoulder. “Lock the door and get the gun,” I told her as I carried Baker to the couch. He didn’t need to tell me the message. It was loud and clear.
“What happened? What did you guys do last night?” The wheels turned behind Olivia’s eyes as she tried to put the pieces together. Suspici
on and worry for Baker dueled inside of her as she looked at us.
She stood in front of me covered in Baker’s blood. My heart clenched against fear and memories—more weaknesses. I would give anything if I could live the rest of my life and not ever see her covered in blood again. A red smear under her curious and confused eyes only made them bluer, but there was no fear, and she didn’t get the gun like I’d asked. Olivia was never afraid of anything. More and more she believed she was invincible, and there was nothing I could do to dissuade the thought. She had power, sure, but so did a lot of other beings in this world. Fallen angel or not, she wasn’t the top of the food chain by a long shot. I hadn’t involved her in preparations for the coming battle because she didn’t believe it would ever happen, and she was still naïve enough to race head first into whatever fight came our way—which would probably be our downfall.
When she accepted that I wasn’t going to answer her, she sighed and went to the kitchen to get a bowl of warm soapy water. She knelt next to Bake, gently wiping off some of the blood. She thoughtfully chewed on her lower lip until the silence became too much for her to bear. “Don’t shut me out. I can help. What are the two of you into?”
I watched her calmly work as if this was something that happened every day. Her lack of panic indicated she truly didn’t understand the magnitude of the situation we were in. Last I had heard from Baker, he was taking the half-elf witch Selene to New Orleans for some hoodoo thing. That was about a week ago. Had he not said he had a message for me, I probably would have assumed he’d found his own form of trouble or let the half-elf drag him into more of her issues. But he had said he had a message…
“It’s happening.”
Hell was preparing to make a move. They knew where we were, and we’d flaunted our freedom, practically begging to have it taken away. A woman scorned had nowhere near the fury of Hell, no matter what conventional wisdom said. They were coming after us for what we’d done and they would never stop until she was dead and I was in their clutches again. Being a jinni wasn’t something you walked away from.
She glanced back at me. “What’s happening?”
Olivia had proven to me time and time again that she could not be controlled—not to mention, I had zero control over the angel half of her. She would do what she wanted, and I couldn’t risk it this time. Not until I knew what was happening. “Hell is making a move, which means they have a way to counter you. Baker and I can handle this. You keep working with the guardians until we get this under control.”
I could feel her stubbornness protesting no matter how she tried to hide it. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, her mind a silent, pouting void.
“What are you doing?”
“Texting Femi.”
“Why?”
“Baker isn’t going to be use much like this. His wounds aren’t life threatening, but he also isn’t going to be walking around for a few days if we don’t get him help. She can heal him.”
I narrowed my eyes, not believing she would agree to stay out of it. It didn’t escape my notice that she hadn’t weighed in on what I’d said at all, which meant she already had her mind made up. Olivia had a special knack for sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. We had found a rhythm to the sometimes overwhelming connection we shared, but there would always be times we didn’t agree. Olivia had a plan—she always had a misguided plan—and if she wasn’t talking about it then she knew I wouldn’t agree to it. “You aren’t going to do anything stupid, are you?”
“Well that depends. Are you going to make me do something stupid?”
“Give me today to figure out what happened and then I will tell you everything.”
She nodded. I sat on the coffee table across from Baker, my knee barely touching Liv, and leaned forward. “Baker.” I jabbed my finger into one of the wounds on his shoulder.
He gasped, his head craning up and his back arching. He opened the one eye he could and hissed through his teeth, “Fuck.”
When his eye cleared some from the pain, I asked, “Who was it?”
“Who do you think?” He flopped his head back down, breathing hard.
“Names. I want names.” Very welcome rage rooted in my abdomen and shot through the rest of me, numbing the softer feelings. To come after Baker was to come after me. If they wanted a war, I would give it to them.
“Jinn. Burly fuckers.” His voice was fading fast. I considered hurting him again, but Olivia scowled at me. I let him drift back off.
I took my time standing up. Olivia blocked my way to the bedroom and didn’t move to let me through, lost in her thoughts. She lit from within when I put my hands on either shoulder and kissed her cheek, which strengthened my resolve to keep her away from this. Yes, she could help me, but the risk was too much. “Stay with Baker.”
“Don’t boss me around, Holden.”
“Please stay with Baker.” I headed for the closet, feeling Olivia behind me.
“He’s my friend too,” she said, coming around me, planting her hands on her hips. “I want to help.”
I looked back at her. “Staying with Baker is helping.”
Annoyance flickered in her eyes.
“I know about as much as you right now. He obviously can’t take care of himself, and you can handle jinn if they come back. I need to you to watch out for things here so I can do what I need to do.”
She pursed her lips bit her lip and inspected me with her arms crossed over her chest. “What do you need to do?”
“Find who sent the message. I can do it faster on my own. I have a handful of suspects. I’ll talk to them then we can regroup.”
Finally, she eased her head up and down. “I’ll protect him.”
I pulled a black t-shirt over my head and laced up my boots. “We should bring your mother here too.”
“But don’t you think—” I raised an eyebrow and she stopped what she was going to say when she met my eyes. Her jaw hardened. “I’ll take care of it.”
She was trying hard not to be argumentative and I appreciated that—those moments were few and far between. Olivia wasn’t scared of jinn or demons—probably because she could annihilate most of them without breaking a sweat—but she wasn’t a killer either. She didn’t seek out fights; however, she wouldn’t back down if one showed up on our doorstep. That much I was certain of. We were still fairly safe here. I had made some modifications to the apartment, including a commercial-grade steel door and frame. Olivia should be able to hold the apartment if we were attacked.
Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
“Let me know if Baker regains consciousness for any length of time.” I dug out a pair of brass knuckles I hadn’t had a reason to use in a long time and slipped them into my pocket. The old, familiar calm smothered everything else in me. This was what I was good at. I headed for the door, Olivia on my heels. She wanted to say something, but she held back. There was another knock.
“Now what?” I grumbled. I pulled my gun off the bookshelf and answered the door. “What?”
“Might want to clean up the crime scene out here, chuckles.” Femi winked a cat eye at me then strutted through the door like she owned the place.
Her flippant attitude couldn’t hide the worry coming off of her in waves. I glanced down the hallway and she was right. There were drips and smears leading all the way to the door where a small puddle had soaked into the carpet, marking our apartment.
“I’ve got this. Just take care of yourself.” Olivia pressed her lips to mine. “You have nothing to worry about here.” I started to go and she caught my arm. “If you need me, Holden…”
I nodded and left without another word.
I STARED DOWN the hallway, giving Holden time to make it out of the building. After a couple minutes, I closed my eyes and released the energy coursing through my veins. I imagined my light spreading from me down the hallway and stairs, all the way to the front door. Once I made it there, I envisioned everything being exactly as it was before�
��well maybe slightly better than it was before, but I couldn’t help that. When I opened my eyes, it looked like we had new carpeting and freshly painted walls, but at least the blood was gone. At least it wouldn’t alarm people. I went back inside where Femi had leaned over Baker with her hands on either side of his head.
As I moved closer to them, I could hear her talking. “I should leave you like this for being a dumbass. Who in the hell did you piss off? And why didn’t you call for backup?”
“It’s not his fault,” I told her, though I couldn’t be positive that was the case. I had no idea what he’d done last night or if he had even been with Holden. The last time I had seen Baker, he was headed to New Orleans with Selene. I assumed he got back days ago, but honestly I had no idea.
Femi’s head snapped toward me as if she hadn’t realized she had been talking out loud.
“He said this was a message to us. If that’s true, you probably aren’t safe here either. Really anyone who associates with me or Holden probably isn’t safe until we figure out what’s happening.” All the people I knew and should warn came to mind. Mom definitely wouldn’t be thrilled about having to put her life on hold once again. I sighed.
“You almost sound as paranoid as Holden,” Femi said.
I shook my head, not able to manage a smile, and gestured to Baker. “Can’t really deny that. Holden kept telling me this was coming. They wouldn’t let him leave. I just want all of this to be behind us, but now”—I glanced at Baker’s battered face then back to the door—“it’s unavoidable.” I chewed on my fingernail. Surely Holden wouldn’t make a move against them without me. A protective urge he would have hated filled me.