jinn 01 - ember

by Schulte, Liz

  I wished I could believe her, but it was all so convenient. I needed a test. I could take her to a church, but given that they were using an old church as their headquarters, I doubted that would do much good. I could take her to see Olivia, but that would mean exposing this to Holden. It took a half a second to realize that it was only a matter of time before a demon exposed this relationship to him anyway. I had a better chance of keeping his trust if he heard it from me.

  “Earth to Baker. If you aren’t going to say anything then leave.”

  “Sit down,” I told her. She shuffled over to the couch and flopped down, pulling up her knees to her chin. “I’m not a doctor.”

  “Yeah, pretty much figured that out last night.”

  I had lived a long time without ever having to reveal myself. In fact, I would have rather had some big oaf take me for a ride than do what I had to do. I didn’t really know where to start. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “What?” She brushed her hair behind her shoulders.

  I shook my head. “Maggie, there are people who want to kill me right now.”

  She quirked an eyebrow. “Ghosts?”

  “No. Never mind about the ghosts. The world I live in isn’t safe for you. Right now in particular. Baby, I think you should leave.”

  She stared at me. “You came here to tell me you can’t be with me? That was your grand plan? Now you are making up something about ghosts trying to kill you? Get out, Baker.”

  “I’m trying to explain—”

  She held up her hand. “What’s really happening? No more farfetched stories. Just tell me the truth.”

  This wasn’t really going well. I took a couple steps toward her and sat on the edge of the coffee table. “Look at me.” When her eyes met mine, I changed my face into Holden’s.

  I’d expected her to jerk away from me, but she stayed still. She blinked and reached toward me slowly, her finger trailing down my cheek. Maybe I should have picked someone less attractive than Holden.

  “How did you do that?” she asked softly.

  “There’s a whole world you don’t know about. One I can’t even begin to explain.”

  “Can you turn into anyone? Like even celebrities.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  She took a deep breath and nodded, taking this all incredibly well. “And they want to kill you?”

  “There’s a faction.”

  “You were trying to…protect me?”

  I put my hand on her cheek and went back to me—or at least the me she knew. “Yes.”

  “Okay, well, show me.”

  The nagging feeling that all of this was too easy wouldn’t subside. “Show you what?”

  “Your world.”

  “You aren’t freaked out?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve read books like this. Granted they were all fiction, but I accept that there are more things out there than I understand. I have an open mind.” She smiled a little. “This is sort of cool. What are we dealing with? Vampires, werewolves, demons? What are you?”

  “Huh.” She smiled at me. I didn’t see this reaction coming at all. “I have somewhere I want to take you.”

  “I’ll get dressed.” I watched her go to her bedroom. She was seemingly completely over everything that happened the night before. There was no way she was taking all of this so well. Either the realization was going to hit her and she would scram or she would slip up and reveal herself for what she really was—a demon. There was only one thing I could do: take her to Olivia.

  OLIVIA DIDN’T COME back with Baker. I knew I should have gone. Some days Baker was nearly more trouble than he was worth.

  “He says I can recognize a demon. No amount of masking can hide one from me,” she said, splaying her hands and shrugging. “So at least there’s that. He had something he needed to do right now. He’ll be back.”

  Femi produced a bag of corn nuts from her skin-tight leather outfit and tossed a handful in her mouth, crunching loudly. “What if Baker never came back to us? What if he is already a demon and he is just telling you that to give you a false sense of security?”

  “Baker’s not a demon,” Olivia said calmly.

  “How do you know?” Femi asked. “I would have sworn that other Olivia was you. Everything was right about her. The voice, the smell, the speech patterns, the memories, everything.”

  “Then how did you figure it out?”

  Femi looked at me. “I didn’t. He did.”

  “We didn’t have the connection,” I said.

  “So you couldn’t tell it was a demon by sight either?”

  I shook my head. “How do you do it?”

  She tilted her head to the side. “I can see souls and life forces.”

  Femi’s eyes contracted. “So no shifter can trick you?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. When Baker shifts, it’s hard to find him in the new identity. I haven’t dealt with any other shifter, so I don’t know if that is normal or not.”

  “So it is reasonable to say you might not recognize one?” Femi said.

  Olivia shook her head. “A shifter and a demon are two different games entirely. Demons don’t have souls or life forces. They are a void, a parasite in the world around them. They don’t belong here and they can’t hide that.”

  Femi nodded, but I still wasn’t convinced. “What if they possess someone and they are hiding inside the person? There would still be a human soul. Could you really distinguish?” I asked, thinking about Malphas. She’d been every bit as much of an angel back when Juliet was dating a demon and she’d had no idea.

  A cloud passed over her face. “That isn’t fair. I couldn’t see souls then and the angel was hibernating. I don’t know how I could have recognized him then. I saw the demon possess the man in the bar. I felt the ungodliness in my marrow. I believe Baker is right.”

  I drew in a deep breath. Feeling and believing in something never made it true in my experience. “We need to test this before we trust it.”

  “How?” Liv’s hands perched on her hips. “Do you want me to go find you a demon?”

  I smiled. “No need. I know where one is.”

  “You aren’t serious. You aren’t taking her back to that church, are you?” Femi asked.

  “Liv and I are. You’re staying in case Baker comes back.”

  “The hell I am,” Femi said.

  “This won’t take a minute. We are getting the Belial and bringing it back here.”

  Olivia’s eyebrows shot up. “To our home? Why?”

  Why would we take him anywhere else? This was our turf and Olivia felt safe here. “To question it. We need information and there who knows what will show up there. Here is better. Is that a problem? They already know where we live.”

  “Yeah, it’s a problem. I don’t want demons in our apartment. I sleep here.”

  I sighed. So picky. “Where then?”

  She shrugged.

  “To your demonic prison,” Femi suggested.

  I had forgotten about that. “Good idea.”

  “You don’t even know if the warehouse will work,” Olivia said.

  “Baker and I have been working on it for a year. It will work,” I said. “And you are going to wait for Baker.”

  “Send him a text message. I’m going to the warehouse. I don’t sit around and wait for anyone.”

  The apartment filled with light as Olivia transported out. I followed.

  I hadn’t liked leaving that church without striking back. We looked weak—we were weak—but looking so wasn’t doing any of us any favors. I didn’t think much on the fact that they’d said that they weren’t here for us. They were in Chicago for a reason, and I couldn’t believe in coincidences at this point. Outside the church, Olivia’s posture was stiff and rigid.

  “What do you feel?”

  She closed her eyes. “One, maybe two inside. One is injured.”

  “We want the injured one.”

  “Why?”

  “It pissed me o
ff.”

  She nodded and vanished without another word. Inside, we walked down the center aisle. The back of her jaw twitched as her eyes scanned the room. Apart from that, she looked calm and relaxed.

  A perfectly healthy demon walked into the room. It ignored me, letting its beady eyes drill into Olivia. She didn’t slow her pace, but the light around her grew brighter and bolder. For a second, I thought it would run, but the demon charged instead. Olivia held up her hand. As soon as its fist connected with her hand, his arm disintegrated into dust, but it didn’t stop there. It traveled to his shoulder, down his right side, and over to the left until it was as if he had never been there.

  She blinked a few times, the light receding, and led me to a small room in back. The demon from before still looked like her—too weak to change back. It hissed when she stepped in the room. Olivia’s lip curled up in response.

  “You take him,” she said.

  I wrapped an arm around the demon’s body. “This is going to hurt.” I concentrated on evaporating and taking it with me. I wasn’t sure I could do it, and obviously neither was Olivia because she hung around to watch. The demon screamed as it slowly blended into my smoke. In the warehouse, I came back together much faster than the demon. Olivia walked in through the door.

  “What took you so long?” I winked at her.

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s still warded against me transporting in here. You forgot to remove that.”

  I hadn’t forgotten to remove anything. This warehouse was a fort. I had it warded against everything Baker and I had thought of.

  “Shit, are you guys back already?” Femi called out from one of the cells. “I’m still snooping around the place. Did you know they even have something for Sekhmets in here?”

  I smiled. “You never know what side they will fall on.”

  She nodded. “Smart.”

  “This demon isn’t looking so hot,” Olivia said. “Pun totally intended.” She moved in front of the still blurred demon. “Do you think it can recover from being transported with you?”

  I shrugged. “Apparently not fast.”

  She nodded. “That could come in handy.”

  I smiled. “I had a similar thought.”

  “You need to learn to do it faster though.”

  She’d joked earlier, but she was running on mostly angel right now. It wasn’t that Olivia looked any different or sounded different. It was the manner in which she spoke and carried herself that gave her away. However, she was holding on to her temper. That was a good sign. “You want to help Femi check the symbols? I I’ll wait with him.”

  She nodded once and walked away, her hand grazing my arm. Liv was still in there. I stood over the demon and watched as it tried to piece itself back together. It wasn’t easy the first time. Finally it was solid enough that I could start to make out Olivia’s features.

  Femi popped her head out of the cell. “We’re ready for you.”

  I carried the demon into the room and sat in on the chair in the center. Olivia stood in the doorway.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  “What do you see when you look at it.”

  “Filth. Abomination. Lies.” Her eyes were cold as she looked down on it.

  “Do you see its face?”

  She nodded. “Both the face it pretends to be and its true appearance.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Femi said. “Get rid of her. This whole thing is creepy.” Having perfectly normal Olivia standing behind me and a bloody, slightly limp one in front of me was somewhat unnerving, but not enough to ruin this opportunity.

  The demon groaned.

  “Not yet,” Olivia said, on the same page as me. “While we have a demon in our grasp, we’re going to get some answers.”

  “What weapon are you looking for?” I asked it, squatting down so I could see its face.

  It blinked slowly and its face melted into that of Olivia’s mother. “Please, Holden. Help me.”

  It was not a subtle threat. It knew I wouldn’t be swayed by the change of appearance, but it was letting me know it knew about Marge. And by letting me know, it also let Olivia know. She charged it. I stood just in time to step between them. Not yet.

  Her mind was violent and filled with righteous anger, but I knew my words had gotten through to her. Fists clenched to her side, she took a step back and I resumed my position. “What weapon?”

  “You can’t hurt me, jinni.”

  I considered it for a brief moment. “You want to try transporting again?”

  Its lip drew back. Olivia’s fingernail went down the side of its face, leaving a scorched mark in its wake. The demon screamed and sizzled. When it still didn’t say anything, she did it again and again.

  I caught her hand. “Tell us what we want to know and we’ll let you go.”

  It looked at me, panting for air. “You have signed your death warrant.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time. I’m not going to ask again.”

  “Balit. They want the Balit.”

  Olivia narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  It smiled a grotesque smile. “We seem to have an angel problem.”

  “What is the plan?” Femi asked, stepping forward.

  It sneered at her. “Come a little closer, Sekhmet. Let me get a good look.” Its tongue flicked out a few times. Femi kicked it hard enough that the chair tipped backwards. The demon’s laugh was rusty and made my skin crawl.

  “It doesn’t know,” Olivia said. “This is a minor demon. Barely a pawn.”

  I nodded and Femi walked away with a shudder.

  “Release me.”

  I raised an eyebrow at it. “Liv, you want to do the honors?”

  She took a couple steps into the room until she was right over it. He struggled to move away from her but couldn’t. “Holden said he would let you go, but he didn’t say to where. I’m going to give you a gift. Free you from your vile existence.” She laid a hand on his head then brushed away the ashes as pieces of him floated to the floor.

  I smiled. My girlfriend was a total badass.

  AT THE APARTMENT, another note was stuck to the door. I plucked it off before Olivia could. They were really persistent about these fucking building meetings apparently. I opened the envelope and knew immediately it wasn’t the same as before. Inside, the note was written on what I could only guess was skin. I waited until we were inside to carefully pull it out of the envelope, the thin, leathery material smooth in my hand.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Femi asked.

  I unfolded it and read the old-fashioned and elaborate handwriting out loud. “’We will meet soon. Consider the lack of retaliation for tonight’s attack against us as my gift to you. A welcome home, if you will, for you cannot resist me for long. I know you all better than you know yourselves. Tonight at 12 a.m., let the games begin.’”

  “What games?” Olivia said. “I thought you said they weren’t here for us.”

  I shook my head. “They lied. Or changed their minds. Either way, doesn’t really matter. Whatever the game is, we can’t win it. We’re not playing.”

  “Don’t be so hasty.” Femi leaned against the kitchen counter, resting her elbows behind her. “We have no idea what their plan is. Sure this mildly threatening letter probably leads to a trap, but at least we aren’t on hold. If we stay here, hiding, we are blind to what’s coming. This is something we can sink out teeth into.”

  This was a situation I couldn’t control once we got into it. I didn’t care if we had an entire army—I didn’t like it. The fact that we still knew nothing about their plans for what they could do was unacceptable.

  Femi clapped her hands together. “Okay, since Olivia has that whole spotting a demon thing down, I am going to pick up dinner. You have absolutely no food in here. How do you live like that?”

  Olivia laughed. “Thanks.” She gave her a hug then came over to stand next to me, her shoulder against mine. The angel had retreated again, wit
hout a fight. How much would Olivia remember about this time?

  Femi left, wiggling her fingers at us, and Olivia looked up at me. “I don’t remember anything from the church to the apartment. I take it I did okay?”

  I put an arm around her. “You did great. Do you think someday these two halves are going to blend?”

  She rested her head on my shoulder. “Am I driving you crazy?”

  “Never.” I kissed her hair.

  There was another knock on our door. Peace and quiet—that was all I ever wanted, yet it was the one thing I could never have. Olivia straightened. She closed one eye and wrinkled her nose. “Um, Quintus.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Quintus came in all light and good intentions. “I found Maggie. She’s at her apartment.”

  “Then why did you leave her?” I asked.

  “Just to tell you. I will head back. She is with a man right now. He seems familiar.”

  My eyes darted to Olivia. Who was the guy? How did we know he wasn’t a demon? “And you left her? Damn it. What did I say about not leaving?”

  Olivia held up a hand. “She’s fine.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “The man is Baker.”

  “Baker? Why would he be at her apartment?”

  She smiled tightly. “Why don’t we fill Quintus in on what is happening. Then we can discuss Baker.”

  I stewed while she brought him up to speed. The pieces were coming together and I didn’t like them. Baker had been acting like an idiot about some girl and moping. At the same time, Maggie had disappeared. But when she showed back up, he had been the first person to know.

  “Hey, dimples,” Femi said when she walked back in with a paper bag.

  “Hey, Femi.”

  Olivia cleared her throat. “Could you two go and pick up…” She gave a helpless gesture. “Something?”

  Femi glanced at me then back at Olivia. “Yeah, sure. Come on, dimples.” She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him outside.

  “How long has Baker been fucking my brother’s great-great-granddaughter?”

  She blew out a breath and turned back to me. “I don’t know.”

  “Damn it, Olivia—”

  “I really don’t know. He didn’t say. I told you to talk to him.”

  “There’s no need to talk to him. I’m going to kill him. No conversation necessary. Just a shallow grave.”