jinn 01 - ember

by Schulte, Liz

  “You aren’t going to kill him.”

  I just looked at her. Of course I was going to kill him. That wasn’t even up for debate.

  She shook her head. “Holden, Baker loves her.”

  I held up a hand. “Don’t start that.”

  “It’s true. He broke up with her when all of this started and that’s why he has been sad. He was trying to protect her.”

  “Then he should have stayed away from her in the first place.”

  Olivia smiled. “Not being able to stay away from someone you know you should. Hmmm, you wouldn’t know anything about feelings like that, would you?” She took my hand. “What if Maggie loves him too? She could do a lot worse than Baker. He is loyal and sweet, and he wants to keep her safe.”

  “She could get a dog for all the same qualities.”

  Olivia shook her head. “You don’t actually have a say in any of this, you know that, right? Baker is your only friend. If he isn’t good enough for the girl you haven’t even met, then who is?” She squeezed my hand. “Whether or not you like it, you can’t control either of them. They are both consenting adults.”

  “Has he told her about our world?”

  “No.” I raised an eyebrow at the hesitance in her voice. She frowned. “It isn’t fair to keep Maggie in the dark, especially if her life is in danger. I told him to tell her.”

  A vein in my forehead pulsed. I was surprised it hadn’t exploded.

  “I know a little something about being protected, Holden. I won’t be a part of doing that to someone else.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “If you really want to protect her, this is how you have to do it. Tell her what is happening and how to protect herself.”

  There was really no point in arguing. Olivia knew what she was doing. She’d waited to tell me until I couldn’t undo or stop what had been done. There were certain things Olivia and I would never see eye to eye on. We had both accepted that and dealt with it. “Letting your emotions make your decisions is no way to live your life.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Making choices for other people without considering their feelings isn’t helping anyone.”

  I nodded. “Isn’t that what you did to me?”

  She pressed her lips together. “That isn’t true. I considered them for as long as I could. The situation changed.”

  I squeezed the bridge of my nose, burying the irritation and anger—there was no time for that. “So what is your plan?”

  THE MOMENT BAKER had walked into the building I knew it. His nervous chatter buzzed through my subconscious. This hearing thing was strange now that I was aware of it and knew the signs. It wasn’t like listening to Holden in my mind. It was more like white noise. I didn’t know what was being said, but I could pinpoint the voice if I really paid attention. Had I been ignoring this part of my gift this long or was I only aware of it now because the angel was so much closer to the surface than she had been before?

  “Liv.” Holden snapped his fingers in front of my face.

  I sucked in a breath. “Baker’s here. Be nice.”

  There was a knock on the door. I headed for the door with butterflies in my stomach. Holden really hadn’t said a lot since I’d told him about Baker, and his irritation was evident. I opened the door and froze.

  Light burst forth from my skin and the angel struggled to attack. If I lost control now, Holden wouldn’t have to worry about demons killing Maggie—I’d do it myself. “Demon,” I managed to squeak out while trying to back up as the angel pushed me forward.

  Faster than possible, one of Holden’s arms latched around my waist and the other clasped over my chest as he pulled me back from door. Baker seized Maggie, his jaw clenched and eyes hard—not looking overly surprised by the news. Despite my struggle to hold on, I was slipping away.

  “I need you, Liv. Need you here. Stay with me,” Holden said in my ear as the back of his hand stroked my cheek. Fight it.

  More than anything, the internal voice gave me strength. Holden kept talking, his voice soft and alluring, coaxing me back home and calming the angel’s frayed nerves. “I’m okay,” I finally told him. “Help Baker.”

  “You sure?”

  I nodded, taking a few deep breaths. The world slowly came back into focus. I was in my bedroom, but Maggie wasn’t too far away. I could hear her claims that she wasn’t a demon. There was no way I was wrong. I stood up and forced one foot in front of the other.

  She was sitting on the couch, not restrained, with Holden and Baker flanking her. I searched her aura and approached. It was definitely smudged now in a way it hadn’t been before when I met her. I had never done an exorcism. She was certainly more in control than Juliet had been. Wherever the demon was hiding, it was deep and lurking.

  “Do you remember me?” I asked her.

  She shook her head and looked at me like I was an insane person—which was fair.

  Destroy the dark one, the voice hissed in my mind.

  I sat on the table in front of her. “There’s a demon inside of you.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Um. Well, huh.” She looked back and forth between the guys. “I don’t know what to say to that. Obviously there’s not.”

  I held a hand out to her, letting it glow. Baker put a protective hand on her leg, but I ignored him. “Then take my hand.”

  Liv, you sure that’s a good idea? Holden asked.

  “Take my hand,” I repeated.

  She reached toward me with trembling fingers, but they stopped before skin reached skin. Her brows furrowed, pulling back slightly, she tried again, but she still couldn’t make it to me. With control, I guided my light out toward her. Her hand pulled back the closer it got.

  “Do you see? It knows what I am.”

  “What are you?” she asked.

  I smiled slightly. “A friend.”

  Her lip curled slightly. “Baker?”

  He blew out a breath. “You’d better know what you are doin’, angel.” He squeezed her leg. “I would trust either of them with my life.”

  “I’m not possessed,” she said in a pleading voice.

  The dark one speaks only in lies. Do not hesitate.

  Who are you? I asked the voice and got nothing in return, but Holden’s head popped up and his eyes glazed with worry. I shook my head ever so slightly. It was easier to converse silently with Holden. With the other voice, I had to find the connection that was buried with the angel. Who are you? I repeated with more force.

  I told you, it said.

  Did you send the letter?

  Again no reply. I focused back on Maggie, letting my mind go blank. The angel knew what she was doing. I just had to get out of her way and trust she wouldn’t kill the human girl. “We need to take her to the warehouse.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

  I shrugged. “This might hurt.” I pressed my middle and index finger just above her heart, and at first, nothing happened. Slowly though, the image of a perthro rune filled my mind. As it did, the light singed it into her skin. She hissed and thrashed until finally the demon came forth.

  “Leave her,” I told the demon.

  Maggie’s face was an odd distortion of herself, longer and wavy, her features blurred. “You cannot win.”

  “Why have you latched on to her?” I asked. It was a scouting demon. Not very powerful, but it could burrow into souls and rot them from the inside. Why had it chosen Maggie?

  “We see. We watch. We know,” she cackled.

  I pressed more light into her, making her body twist and contort. Her breath came in quick gasps when I eased back. “Why her?”

  What had started as a raspy cough turned into sick laughter. “You think I am scared of you? Expel me back to Hell. Kill me. You cannot protect her forever. The human has been marked. She is ours.”

  Both of my hands seized Maggie’s shoulders without my permission, and there was a burst of light through the room that rattled the furniture with its shockwave. When the light cleared,
I pulled back, my fingers curling into my palms, and Maggie slumped to the side. Fear that I’d killed her shot through me like a bullet. The angel part of me was stronger than I could have imagined. If she wanted to do something, she would, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. That was scary enough, but what was even worse was there had been no warning. No internal deliberation or anything that would have clued me into what she’d had planned.

  Stunned silence echoed in my ears. Moments later, Holden and Baker rushed forward—Baker to Maggie and Holden to me. Holden tilted my chin up and waved his hand in front of my eyes until I blinked. Normally, after the angel took over, I couldn’t remember what happened, but this time I’d managed to hold on. My heart thumped wildly in my chest and my mind spun with my thoughts. The only calm thought I had most certainly wasn’t my own and it wasn’t Holden’s. It said that Maggie was fine and that we still had one thing left to take care of.

  I had to trust the angel. She had kept us alive this long, and frankly, she was probably the only reason Holden and I hadn’t been attacked by Hell sooner. She said that it was better to do this before Maggie regained consciousness. I released a long, slow breath.

  “She’s fine.” I reached around Baker and did as the angel instructed. I flattened my hand to the back of her neck. The demon said that she was marked. Well two could play at that game. When I pulled my hand away, an angelic rune was etched in white on her neck.

  “What’s that? What did you do?” Baker asked.

  “The demon is gone, but that doesn’t mean another won’t come back.” I studied the symbol until the angel was satisfied. “Now it can’t.”

  Both guys looked at the symbol. “If you can do that, why haven’t you done it to all of us?” Baker asked.

  “I didn’t know I could do it.” And the angel made no move to mark anyone else. “Besides, jinn can’t be possessed by something like this, can you?” I looked to Holden.

  Holden shrugged. “Before, not without runes, but now that I have my soul back…I really don’t know. Probably not. I think it would take a much more direct route.”

  “I could try on Baker,” I said, but the angel didn’t seem all that excited about the idea. I noticed Baker looked strange. More clean cut and handsome, less like he had been in one too many fights.

  Baker’s lip twitched. “I think I’ll pass. I’m good. I don’t want anything marking me, angel or not. No offense, doll. So long as Maggie is safe, we’ll consider this a win.” There was a protective glint in his eyes when he looked down at her. I smiled to myself, momentarily forgetting our troubles—not the least of which was how I was going to be able to control the angel inside of me.

  Holden turned toward him, his eyes narrowing. His fist met Baker’s face with a crack that sent goose bumps down my spine. Baker stumbled back, lip bleeding. Holden smiled to himself like he had been waiting to do that. “I’m not going to kill you, though I should. Start talking.”

  All things considered, Holden didn’t actually feel all that mad. Letting the two of them work this out on their own was probably for the best. I went to the kitchen to get ice for Baker.

  “Is it safe?” Femi stuck her head through the door and winked before coming in without waiting for an answer. Quintus trailed behind her, looking somewhat nonplussed—a look he often had around Femi. “I’m starving, wasting away. Carry on with your drama. I like a little entertainment with my meals.” She opened the bag of food and glanced back at Holden and Baker. “Damn, did I already miss the show? What happened? Has Baker come clean? What did you do, Baker? What happened to your face?” She called out the last part, but he ignored her.

  I grabbed plates from the cabinet, and Femi and Quintus helped carry the food into the dining room. Holden and Baker joined us as we sat down. Neither of them said anything, but there was a new calm in the air that came with nearly everyone being on the same page.

  Femi hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Who’s the chick on the couch?”

  “Maggie,” I said.

  Her pupils contracted vertically as she looked at me and took a huge bite of her sandwich then proceeded to talk with her mouth full. “Who’s Maggie? You guys taking in strays?”

  “Maggie is related to me and apparently Baker’s girlfriend. She was also possessed,” Holden said. “Did I miss anything?” He looked at me with a less than happy glint in his eye.

  Okay, maybe he was angrier than I had given him credit for. To Holden’s way of thinking, secrets kept him alive, and it was how he’d functioned for so long that I doubted he could remember what it was like before he had to be so guarded. He saw it as necessary. It simply always had been for him. Letting this many people into what he would consider personal couldn’t be easy, but we needed a united front. The two of us weren’t enough right now. “Did you tell Baker about the letter?”

  I might have sympathized, but I wasn’t letting him off the hook. Anyone who was willing to risk their lives to help us deserved to know everything. Holden tossed the letter across the table to him. After Baker read it, I nodded toward Quintus. I had no illusion that I had any more control over Holden than I did the angel inside of me, but at least Holden listened to reason—though sometimes he had to be beaten over the head with it.

  “Sounds like a load of malarkey,” Baker said. He flashed a cheeky grin, definitely feeling more like himself. “That’s Hell trying to lure you into them. They want something. You can bet your bottom dollar on that. You overhead them saying they needed a weapon to kill the angel. In case you missed the headlines, that’s you. Now you have gotten letter saying to let the games begin. They are fucking with your head. Either they have the weapon or they know that you know they are looking for it. Not to mention Maggie. They possessed her for a reason. I seriously doubt it was a coincidence. I would wager that they knew exactly who she was. Maybe even before we knew. We have to consider that Hell has known everything there is to know about Holden since the day he made his deal. And in that breath, they know all about you too, honey.”

  I shook my head. “They didn’t know about us.”

  Holden pushed his sandwich away untouched. “The jinn didn’t know about us. I wouldn’t count on the fact that Hell didn’t.”

  “Why do you say that?” Quintus asked.

  Holden sighed. “It would have been in their interest for her to love someone like me. It made her vulnerable. They have a plan and Baker is right. They are miles ahead of us. We have to figure out what they want and what they are looking for or we don’t have a chance.”

  “Obviously they want Olivia,” Femi said. “They let her stay alive. They let you stay with her so she would fall. Even if it is a trap, it is our only lead.”

  “I had a similar line of thinking,” Holden said, taking my hand. “We have four hours to figure what happens at midnight and where we need to be. I think just Olivia and I should be there tonight. You and Baker should be working other angles.”

  “That’s a lot of bullshit,” Femi said. “I think we should all go.”

  “I agree with Holden,” I said. “It makes more sense for us to cover more ground. Plus, if this is a trap, then they will only have two of us. The rest of you can still stop whatever it is that they are trying to do.”

  “Aren’t they just trying to kill you?” Quintus asked.

  I shrugged. “I think if they just wanted us dead, they would have made their move before now. I am not sure what their goal is, but it seems to me the pieces are being moved, and if we don’t get in the game soon, it will be over before it starts.”

  “Then either you or Holden should go with one of us. Not both of you. If it is a trap, you don’t want to risk them getting both of you,” Femi said

  “Plus, you could use your connection to warn the other,” Quintus said.

  “I volunteer to go with Liv,” Baker said.

  Holden scowled. “Olivia and I aren’t splitting up.”

  “If anyone gets to go, I get to go,” Femi said, looking at each of them.
“I do this kind of stuff for a living. It makes more sense for me and Olivia to go and for you guys to stay. Baker has more human and otherwise contacts than anyone I have ever met. Holden is already working with the jinn, and Quintus can do whatever he does.” She waved a hand toward him.

  “He could monitor strange activity and clusters. If Hell is about to make a move, you know the humans around them will be affected,” I said, and he nodded.

  “That’s all great, but we aren’t splitting up. Baker can deal with the jinn in my place.”

  “Okay, well let’s say all of this is a trap and the two of us are caught. How will whoever stays here know that we need help?” I asked.

  Holden gave me a level look, his eyes still saying no.

  “We don’t even know if more than one person can go or where we are supposed to meet them or what we are up against. This may all be moot, but so long as we are planning, nothing has been able to block our connection.”

  “Except death,” he said.

  My chin tilted down in a single nod. “Except death, but either way, it is a definitive answer for what is happening.”

  He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “Then I go and you stay.”

  “I won’t be as useful here as you would be.”

  “That’s the deal. If only one of us goes, it’s me.”

  “Why is—” My phone rang, cutting me off mid-protest. I glanced at the caller I.D. Selene. I didn’t really have time to navigate her messy life when I was smack dab in the middle of my own, but I couldn’t screen her either. I took a deep breath. There was no point in arguing about any of this with Holden. If only one of us could go, it would be the person who got there first. I answered the phone as I stepped out of the room.

  IT WAS ALL going to work out. Sure, Holden had given me an earful, but he knew everything and I was still breathing to talk about it. I figured when I came clean it would be time to get a wiggle on—or at least he would insist it was time—but Olivia had somehow come through. Not only that, but she’d taken care of Maggie’s demon. For once, everything was going my way.