jinn 01 - ember

by Schulte, Liz

“Wouldn’t count on it.” I transported to the back of the building, where the kid nervously paced while trying to look cool. “Follow me,” I told him.

  “Where are we going?”

  I ignored him and walked. Olivia finally popped back into my mind. I let her know to meet me at the warehouse because we still needed to question Maggie. The jinni lagged behind the entire trip, but he still followed all the way to the warehouse. He gave me a wary expression when I finally turned around.

  “Is what they say true?” he asked me.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re free.”

  I nodded once.

  He glanced around. “What are we doing here?”

  “I need you to go in there and say you are looking for Olivia.”

  He took a couple steps toward the door then stopped. “Why?”

  “Just do as you’re told.”

  I couldn’t be positive she wouldn’t kill him. This was as much of a test for her as anything. She needed to learn to control the angel, but at the same time, we also needed to talk to the angel. If this kid had to die to make that happen, it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. It was also a sacrifice Olivia would hate—if she remembered it.

  “What’s in there?”

  I sighed. “I don’t have all day.”

  The jinni slunk to the door. Then, raising his shoulders and letting them fall into his customary slouch, he went through. I counted to five before I followed after him. Olivia stood in front of him, hands shaking and face strained as she fought to hold back the angel. The jinni looked like he was caught somewhere between wanting to run away or fight back and froze.

  “I need to talk to the angel, Liv.”

  “She’ll kill him,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m willing to take that risk.” Her eyes met mine and she let go.

  The angel charged forward, ready to destroy the evil before her. I caught her arm, using the weakness of her physical form against her. “What’s a Balit?”

  Her cold stare turned to me. “It is a myth.”

  “Not according to Hell.”

  “Filth and lies.”

  “Why do they think they could find an angelic weapon in the Abyss?”

  She stopped trying to pull her arm away from mine. For a moment I thought Liv was back in control, but the angel’s inhuman eyes still stared unblinking back at me. “When Kushiel fell from grace, it is said that his whip of fire, the Balit, slipped from his grip and sank into oblivion. Kushiel became one of the presiding angels of Hell, but his whip remains lost.”

  “So it could be here?” I asked, letting her go.

  “It is gone. If the Balit were here, Lucifer would have found it by now.”

  I nodded. Just like Olivia, she was too confident in matters she had no control over. They might not have had the weapon yet, but they were following a trail.

  She gave a final glance toward the jinni. “Remove him from my presence.”

  I nodded toward the door and the jinni scurried away. At least she hadn’t killed him—progress. When I turned back around, she was closer to me.

  “Do not believe I am not aware of what you are doing. Do not call me forth. I am not your weapon to wield, jinni.”

  “How are you going to stop me?” I asked, curious as to how much control Olivia had.

  The angel gripped my arms, but like when Olivia had tried to show me how she could hurt jinn, I felt nothing. A second later, the angel was gone and Olivia blinked back, the grip turning into a caress. “Don’t torment her, Holden. I don’t want her to find a way to hurt you.” Her big blue-green eyes were liquid when they looked up into mine.

  “She needs boundaries, Liv. She has to work with us.” A worried line creased Olivia’s forehead. “Do you remember what she said?”

  She nodded. “There is no weapon.”

  I smiled at her selective hearing. “There is a weapon, but she doesn’t know where it is so she thinks it can’t be found.”

  Olivia shrugged. “What makes you think it can be recovered?”

  “I’m a jinni. It’s what I do best.”

  She shook her head. “Holden, if this weapon exists and is lost, we shouldn’t look for it. Let it stay lost. It doesn’t belong here.”

  “If there is a weapon in this world that can kill you, we don’t have choice. Its better we have it than anyone else.”

  She pursed her lips but dropped the subject. She didn’t think I could find it. “That jinni knows you’re using the warehouse now. He’ll tell others.”

  “Would you have rather I let her kill him?”

  “No,” she said softly.

  “Then it was a calculated risk.”

  “Hmph.” Something more than all of this was bothering Olivia. Stress made fine creases on her forehead and her mouth had a pinched quality.

  “What happened with Uriel?”

  She sighed. “He can’t find the voice in my head. He wants me to shut it down.”

  “Can you?”

  “He thinks I can, but it could be helpful. It has been helpful so far. I don’t want to close out an ally.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. Both sides of this were fairly clear. In a classic Olivia move, she wanted to trust something that may or may not warrant her trust. Though that was a risky decision, it was one that had paid off for her more than once. She trusted me and look where we’d ended up. She’d insisted we not kill Juliet, and Juliet ended up sacrificing her life to save Olivia. So far her track record for reform was in her favor. On the other hand, as someone who loved her, I understood Uriel’s point of view as well. This was a risk she probably didn’t need to take. Listening to a voice she knew nothing about—or worse yet, going to a voice she knew nothing about—was asking for trouble. “What’s the worst-case scenario?”

  She met my gaze dead on. “It’s Lucifer.”

  “I thought you said it was an angel.”

  “He is an angel.”

  That was a hell of a worst-case scenario. One that I couldn’t even fathom. “Why would Lucifer tell you when something evil was approaching?”

  “To tempt me. He would first get into my good graces then tempt me to join him. I wouldn’t be the first fallen angel he has recruited.”

  “There really isn’t a choice then, is there? Cut him out. Block him. Do whatever you have to do.”

  “But what if it isn’t him?”

  “That’s not a risk either of us can take at the moment. I already have the angel to deal with. I don’t want the fucking devil in your head too.”

  “Can we come out yet?” Baker called from the angel-proof cell where he was hiding Maggie in case Olivia had gone full-blown angel and lost her shit.

  “Yeah,” Olivia said. “I’m fine.”

  They came out. Maggie had a perpetual wide-eyed, deer-in-headlights expression on her face.

  “Sorry if I scared you earlier,” Olivia said, extending a hand to her.

  Maggie hesitated just a moment before she took it and her expression eased. And she griped at me about manipulating people. Olivia smiled slightly for the first time since I’d arrived at that thought.

  “It’s not the same,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” Maggie asked.

  “Nothing, sorry. How are you feeling?” Olivia asked.

  “Overwhelmed mostly. All of this is cool and it totally blows my mind that it’s real, but at the same time it’s…”

  “Unnerving?”

  Maggie laughed. “Completely.”

  Baker squeezed her arm. “You have nothing to worry about. You’re going to be a canceled stamp in all of this.”

  Both women looked at him blankly. As much as I hated the slang, it was comforting to know that he was getting back to his old self.

  “A wallflower?” he asked.

  Olivia frowned at him. “That isn’t his decision, Maggie. You can do whatever you want. It’s good you know about this world because now you can protect yourself. You can be involv
ed as much or as little as you choose to be involved.”

  She nodded. “What could I do?”

  “Ab-sol-utely nothing. The angel has lost her marbles,” Baker said. “Back me up, boss.”

  I laughed. “I told you, Baker. You brought her in. You are on your own.”

  “I’m not sure what you can do, but there is always something if you want to. Can you remember anything at all from when you were possessed?”

  She shrugged. “I remember everything. I didn’t even know I was possessed.”

  Olivia nodded encouragingly. “It’s the type of demon that was in you. It was more like a scout. It was hanging around, slowly weaving its tentacles into you. Your personality would have eventually changed and it would have been too late to save you. But think hard. Did you lose time at any point? Did it ever take over, even for a short period of time?”

  She wrung her hands nervously. “Once.” She glanced at Baker. “You asked me where I went after you broke up with me…”

  He nodded.

  She pressed her lips together. “I said I was driving and thinking, but the truth is, I have no idea what I did. It is all a complete blank. I remember leaving your house, but after that, nothing.”

  “How did you find my house that night?”

  She shook her head. “What do you mean?”

  “I never gave you my address. I’m not listed, and there is no way you followed me. So how did you find me?”

  The blood drained from her face. “I don’t know. I just knew where you were.”

  “That was probably the demon too,” Olivia said. “Why would they be so interested in you, Baker?”

  “You can search me, angel. I haven’t got the foggiest.”

  Olivia didn’t look entirely convinced, and I was with her on that. Baker had more secrets than I’d ever imagined, and the better I got to know him, the more I realized we knew absolutely nothing about his life outside of the time he spent with us.

  “Anyway,” she said, looking back at Maggie. “Maybe we can—” She pressed a hand to her solar plexus. That was when I felt it too. Something tugging at my core, very similar to the feeling when Olivia had pulled me into her dreams, only this time it was foreign and my body and mind fought against it. Baker had a similar stricken look on his face and both of his hands on his stomach.

  “Pray for Quintus to come to you,” Olivia said before she vanished.

  Seconds later, everything went dark.

  A DREAM, THERE was no doubt about that. The pull was undeniable. I couldn’t see anything surrounding me. I released my light, but it didn’t penetrate the darkness I was engulfed in. They’d pulled us into a dream. Smart. It would be easier to control us and the situation like this.

  “Holden? Baker?”

  Nothing. I would have sworn that Holden and Baker were being pulled in too. However, they didn’t answer. I was alone in the darkness. The angel buzzed beneath my skin, and it was tempting to give in and let her take over, but fighting my way out wasn’t going to get us the information we needed about who was doing this and why. The angel would have to settle for observing until we were in immediate danger.

  Scurries and clatters sounded to my right. My muscles tensed. I had to find a way out of wherever I was, but I had no spatial perception. The room felt vast and infinite. I closed my eyes so I would stop trying to see and my other senses could take over. The noises were definitely coming from my left. My instinct was to head in the opposite direction where it was silent and therefore safer. The angel, however, disagreed. She wanted to head toward the sound. We struggled with each other for a moment, not moving at all, until I gave in. One foot in front of the other, I kept my eyes closed and prepared myself to attack anything that touched me. My hands were groping at nothing in front of me until my fingertips grazed something cool and slick. Slowly I flattened my palm against the surface, running it to the left.

  The surface was smooth as glass and so cold. I moved with my hand. There had to be a door somewhere. Just when I was beginning to worry it would go on forever, I hit a bump. It came up about an inch. Then it had two humps before it dropped off into nothing. It was definitely wood, perhaps a frame. I waved my hand on the other side, but I didn’t find another solid surface. The space behind it was empty as well. I clutched the wooden frame and touched the cool, slick wall again—a mirror perhaps.

  Moving around it, I started forward again and ran into the same thing a few steps away. Mirrors, lots of mirrors. The scurrying didn’t stop. Sometimes it was close, sometimes it was farther away, but I kept moving forward around each new mirror I encountered. I took another step, my foot landing on something long and thin. There was a yowl beneath followed by a hiss and a claw to my leg. My foot yanked back and I stumbled into the mirror behind me. Cats. Cats and mirrors—why was that familiar? The sensation that Holden would walk up behind me any minute crept in. The image came easily to my mind, looking into the mirrors and seeing rows of us together. This wasn’t just any dream. It was my dream. The carnival.

  “Holden?” Reaching out for him was the most natural thing I could do.

  “Olivia. Thank God. I have been searching my mind for you. Where are you? “His voice was faint and sounded too far away.

  “I think we’re at the carnival from my dream. I am in the House of Mirrors. Where are you? Is Baker with you?”

  “I haven’t seen him. I am not sure where I am.”

  “Is it dark there too?”

  “No, I can see, he said. There’s a little stream with the occasional gondola floating by. Some animatronic monsters along the sides with some fairly cheesy sound effects.”

  I nodded, though he couldn’t see me. “What are we thinking? Dream demon? Angelic, perhaps?

  Angelic is not really as comforting as you seem to think it is, but I don’t think you’re right. This feels demonic to me.”

  I smiled despite the situation. “Find your way out and I will meet you outside. We need to regroup.

  Be careful, Liv. We don’t know what’s waiting for us out there.”

  You too. I love you, Holden.

  I moved forward again, but with the next step, the lights flipped on, blinding me for a moment. I blinked the water and discomfort from my eyes until they could focus. I picked up a piece of debris from the floor—a shard of the frame from a broken mirror. When I looked up, images were scattered through the six mirrors in front of me, but they were all different. The first mirror was me as a child with my mother standing behind me, her hands on my shoulders. Mom looked so young and pretty. I was looking up at her with awe evident on my face. The next was a very human me and Juliet. In my mind, I hadn’t changed my appearance at all from being human to becoming a guardian, but looking at myself then, I knew I had. Juliet smiled eerily behind me, her face distorting every now and then.

  The third was me and Holden. He had the typical solemn expression, but his hand was intimately resting on my waist. I looked different though. At least I didn’t look like I’d pictured myself. My face was smooth and my eyes serious. There was something detached about us. We looked aloof, dangerous, and unapproachable.

  The fourth mirror was an image of me I didn’t recognize at all with Uriel standing behind a dark-haired woman who resembled me. She glowed from head to toe in a flowing white dress, delicate snow-white wings protruding from her shoulder blades, and her large blue-green eyes burned with intensity. Her beauty was unearthly and terrifying.

  The fifth mirror was an even more frightening version of me. I could only see myself as the lightning in the mirror flashed behind me. My wings were singed black, my hair whipped wildly around my face, and I stood on the edge of a scorched canyon with my chin tilted toward the sky and blood dripping from my hands—the left one clutching a whip made of razor-thin blue flames. No one stood with me. I cracked the whip, making me jump back, though it never left the frame of the mirror. I didn’t want to see what the next mirror held, but I had to look.

  It took a moment to take i
n what I was seeing. I looked exactly as I did now. Happy even. However, I was seated on a throne made of polished white bone. Demons, angels, jinn, and guardians all bowed before me. A hand reached over and took mine, but it wasn’t Holden. The man in the mirror was beautiful in a way that was neither masculine nor feminine. He was tall and thin, but not frail. His skin had the same glow as mine, making his nearly black hair seem even darker. He exuded radiance, but he wasn’t the most compelling part of the scene. It was the peace surrounding us and all the races before us, who were in complete harmony. He looked over at me, standing in the room full of mirrors. My heart beat faster and the angel inside of me froze for the first time since being here. I knew who the man was. Lucifer walked toward me, extending his hand as he approached. The angel wasn’t chiming in. I stepped back.

  “You could be great, little angel,” he said, now standing in front of the mirror so it was just the two of us looking at one another. Bright blue eyes pierced me, sending ice trickling through my core. “Together we could do what Heaven has failed to do all these years. We can bring peace. Unite. I don’t want to fight you. Join me now.”

  The angel stepped us forward, ignoring my protest. “You have never wanted peace.”

  He looked down and smiled making his face almost sinister, but it disappeared before he looked back up. “That’s all I have ever wanted. I was removed from my home, and instead of trying to fight my way back, I started a new family. Heaven started this feud, not me. I never wanted to fight my brethren. You don’t remember the dark days, the persecution against anyone who followed his heart.”

  We looked back at him. He looked so sympathetic, supplicating.

  “You think I don’t understand you, but I do. Better than anyone up there. They have abandoned you. They could have stopped this, warned you of what is coming, but they haven’t, have they? Even your mentor, Uriel, he did not tell you who the voice in your mind was. You, little angel, are alone. I offer you allegiance, happiness.”

  The angel waivered, but she didn’t move us closer to the mirror. “What do you know of happiness, brother?”

  “I let the human have the jinni. Heaven never intended to let her keep him. They simply used him to guide her on their path. I gave her love with no strings attached. It was a gift—to both of you.”