by Liz Schulte
While her unrelenting faith in me was always nice, it was misplaced. I wasn’t like I used to be, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be there again and all too easily. Ignoring my path wasn’t going to change it and neither was Olivia this time. This would be my last act of sacrifice, so I had to make it count. “Liv. Please.”
Her hands clenched into fists and some of the fight drained from her. “Fine. I’ll figure something out. I promise. But you aren’t going to need me to. You loved me before you knew what love was. And wherever it is that you keep me, you keep that little girl too.”
I released my breath and took her hand. She didn’t need to know my plan. It would make her want to interfere and that wasn’t going to help either of us. This was the best way. Neither of us spoke for a long while. So that’s what it was like—breaking up. It was quiet, not earth shattering. The only thing breaking were two hearts that were luckier than most. We found each other. No amount of time would have ever been enough, but the fact that we had even a moment together was a fucking miracle. “If Femi finds that urn…” My lips pulled back but the words didn’t come out.
“We’ll hide it too.” She didn’t need me to say it. The way the center of her forehead creased, she knew I wasn’t telling her everything. “You’re not dying.”
I kissed her one more time. “No, you’re right. I’m not. I’m going to win.” She wouldn’t sense a lie in those words because I was going to win. All it would take was to give up my humanity.
“Holden—” Her phone rang, but she silenced it.
It had to be Femi. They needed her and we had to say goodbye. “I need to talk to the jinn and you need to meet with Femi. It’s time, Liv.” I broke contact with her completely, but she moved forward.
“But—”
I pressed a finger to her lips. “You changed my world—everyone’s world—but it’s out of our hands now. No matter how little time we had together, I have loved you enough for every life time.” I kissed her forehead and transported out of the club to the basement where Phoenix had set our next meeting. Olivia would remember what I told her forever and even believe it every now and then, but would I? I looked heavenward, though it had never done me any good in the past. “Please let me remember,” I whispered.
Her voice instantly echoed in my head, but I shut it out. There was no going back. I couldn’t do this with her talking to me. The room was empty, but the jinn would start arriving any minute. I swung my arms back and forth around me, shaking out my muscles as I walked and clearing my head of everything. No more thoughts about the people I was leaving or Olivia or any of it. Just me.
The darkness waited, still and patient, beneath the surface, knowing I would always come back to it. It was who and what I was. I needed it as much as it needed me. Little by little, I let go and stopped fighting it. Soaring freedom lifted like smoke from the ruins of the past. The internal fire melted away my hopes, dreams, and anything too soft to withstand it, kerosene pushed through the veins of my blackening soul and the fire spread.
I opened my eyes. Jinn were trickling in: fucking whiners all of them. Mammon killed some of us. Let’s give up. My lip curled in disgust. I could taste their fear and smell their weakness. There were worse things in this world than Mammon. Phoenix nodded to me once from the back of the room.
“If you can’t protect us from Hell, why shouldn’t we go back?” A man I didn’t recognize said from the center of the room, and several others called out their support of his question.
I walked through the crowd and they parted like the sea around me. I grabbed him by the throat, and my eyes rolled back into my head as his soul, his strength, his energy seeped into me. When I released him, his body crumpled to the floor without a mark on it, dead. Not sent to Hell, just dead.
“Any more questions?” I said softly in the silent room. “Better to have an army of one than gutless cowards at your back. Did you think freedom would be easy or come cheap? Would anyone else like to resign?” I absorbed a few more who had the stench of fear for good measure. Each soul made me stronger. Pure fucking power. How could I have ever denied this?
Had I said “Boo” they probably would have urinated. “Get the fuck out of my sight. You make me sick.”
The group all but ran out of the room, leaving only Phoenix. “Learning new tricks?” he said.
“Have you found Mammon?”
He nodded. “I have a pretty good idea where he is. Is Olivia coming?”
“No.”
“We could use her.”
“She’s not the one we can use.” I transported back to the warehouse. I had told Olivia to hide the girl. She’d had warning. If she waited too long, who was really to blame? With the Seal of Solomon in my possession no one and nothing could stop me, not even Olivia. I wasn’t a fool. If she showed up she would ferret out the weakness in me again and help it to the surface. But with the collective power of the jinn behind me, even she couldn’t reach that deep.
The guardian looked up from the couch as I opened the door and began to say something—and then his passive expression melted from his face.
I held out a hand to the child who was looking at a picture book next to him.
Quintus put his arm out and held her back. She looked at me, her big eyes windows to the very thing I needed the most.
Quintus stood and positioned himself between us. “Run, Charlie,” he said softly. The girl looked at me once more, then ran to the left.
I grinned. “You think that will help?”
“Holden,” he said slowly.
“Quintus,” I mocked him.
He couldn’t transport, not in this building. We had made sure of that. He couldn’t escape. If I could absorb a jinni soul, could I take a guardian’s as well? It couldn’t hurt to find out.
His throat moved as he swallowed and his fingers twitched at his side.
Placing one foot slowly in front of the other, I advanced. “I have put up with you and your meddling for far too long.”
“This isn’t you,” he said.
“Isn’t it?”
“No. Think about what you are doing. What about Oli—”
My fingers clenched around his neck as I lifted him from the floor. “Olivia’s dead,” I growled.
I was hit with a burst of blinding yellow light that sizzled through me. I threw Quintus against the wall, and his head snapped back against the cinderblocks before he fell to the floor. His soul was too light; it wouldn’t help me. He struggled to get back on his feet, so I kicked him again and again, but he wouldn’t stay down. Unlike the jinn I had dispatched, he wasn’t afraid. All I could smell on him was determination. He was filled with something my people hadn’t found yet. Purpose. Purpose that would drive him to his last breath.
“How many injuries does it take to end a guardian’s life?” I raised an eyebrow, and kicked him again—hard enough he skidded across the floor. Light bled from fairly minor wounds. “Let’s find out.”
I pulled out my gun and shot him once, twice, three times then waited, watching his light, his energy go back into the atmosphere. I squatted next to him and pressed my gun to his temple. “You should have just let me have the girl. Now I can’t let you live or you’ll tell Olivia and she’ll try to stop me.”
He blinked—just as I was hit hard from the side and knocked off of my feet. The gun flew from my hand and misfired. Its blast echoed through the warehouse. Maggie stood between Quintus and me, her coal-like eyes burning with unmistakable, unquenchable hunger. I sent waves of influence in her direction, but she was still too new to what she was. She couldn’t control her hunger any more than I could control my darkness. I’d have to handle her later. I transported to the back bedroom and flipped the bed. The child was huddled underneath.
She launched herself at me, but not to fight. She clung to my legs and buried her trusting face into my jeans. Maggie skidded into the room as I picked the child up.
“Put her down, Holden,” Maggie demanded.
&
nbsp; “Walk away, Maggie. It had to be done.”
“Over my dead body.”
I nodded. “If you insist.”
She blinked, and the hunger for darkness swept back into her eyes. I wouldn’t allow her to lay hands on me, or she would drain what I had built. However, she was also too emotional and inexperienced to realize that danger was her greatest weapon, not her brute strength. “If you really want to stop me, come and get her.”
She charged at me and I waited until precisely the right moment. The moment you come to recognize as easily as drawing breath after decades of fighting: the moment to strike to do maximum damage. I hit her square in the jaw, using her own momentum against her. Charlie squeaked and Maggie dropped to the floor, jaw shattered.
“Someday, you’ll join me.” A thin trail of blood leaked from the side of her mouth. Her ability, while potentially harmful to me, was also useful. After all, what could be better than having a pet to take out troublemakers?
I walked out the warehouse unopposed, with Charlie in my arms and the world at my feet.
“Quintus will watch the kid,” I announced returning to the living room to find only Corbin. “Where’s Olivia?”
“She said not to wait for her and to call when we were ready for her.”
I sighed. “She’s with Holden, isn’t she?”
Corbin gave me an I-don’t-know-don’t-care look and tipped his head back against the couch, closing his eyes.
“If they would just listen to me, I could fix this. We could save Olivia, kill Mammon, and nothing would have to change. But no. They charge off and do whatever they want because no one could possibly have a better idea than either of them. I mean, had they listened to me about the demon lair being a total and complete trap, so obvious, then Baker would still be alive and I wouldn’t have had to stab Olivia.”
“Do you ever stop talking?” Corbin asked. “Or should I invest in earplugs.”
I kicked his shin and sulked on the couch for as long as I could stand before I had to move. “Let’s get out of here. We can scope out the meeting place and make sure it isn’t a trap.”
“Whatever.” He stood up. “Let’s play the quiet game while we drive.”
“Let’s play Corbin finds his own ride.” I went outside and got into my car.
Corbin slammed the door as he got in.
“Hey,” I said.
“I think this tank will survive,” he said.
“Gee, I wonder why people don’t like you,” I said.
“And I’m real broken up about that.”
I started the car and pulled out onto the street. “Are all vampires dicks?”
“Was Thomas?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, he was.”
He smiled a little at that. “Then I guess you have your answer.”
I shook my head. “What makes you think he’s going to come back, especially to see me?”
“Because you’re the first person he has come out for since he disappeared.”
I scrunched my nose. “Is that what you think? He didn’t come to see me. He turned Maggie because he was working for Hell and they were taking jabs at Holden. He didn’t even know I was involved.”
Corbin rolled his eyes. “You honestly believe that? He gave up his racket and exposed himself for what he really is—”
“And what is that?”
“Don’t be blinded by a single act of conscience. He’s a coward, a traitor, and worst of all, careless. He’ll be brought to justice and made to pay for all the lives he destroyed.”
“Vampire lives.”
Corbin turned his head very slowly toward me. “Does that make them somehow less worthy?”
I pulled the car over and stopped. In the center of the empty street was the strangest thing I’d ever seen. A single door stood with nothing around it. On the front, about eye level, a handwritten sign read “Questions answered. Justice Served. Free Hugs.”
Corbin, oblivious, continued to try to stare me down, even though I’d clearly moved on. “Do you see this?” I said.
“Answer the question,” he ground out.
“No, okay? Taking a life is taking a life regardless of the ass hat who owns it. Happy?”
He rolled his eyes, but looked forward. “What is that?”
“You see the door.”
He nodded. “Drive around it.”
I already had my seatbelt off and was getting out of the car into the rain. Driving around it might have been smarter, but curiosity won out. The door was a gnarled gray thing that bore a single shiny silver doorknob. From the backside of where the door should be, the road was empty, but when I walked back to the front again, the door was still there waiting.
I reached for the knob.
“You aren’t seriously stupid enough to open that? You have no idea where it leads or what it does,” Corbin called out as lightning flashed.
“There’s only one way to find that out.”
“I thought finding your friend’s ashes was more important.”
I hesitated. He had a point. I was on a mission, but Olivia wasn’t even here and there was really nothing I could do until she got back, except sit in a car with Corbin. I’d take my chances with the door.
My fingers closed over the cool metal knob and pulled. The door swung open with a creaking sound. The other side was simply darkness.
“Don’t be stupid, Femi,” Corbin said, grabbing my arm.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I said, stretching my free hand into the darkness. It disappeared. I wiggled my fingers on the other side and it felt just the same—at least it was still raining. I just wanted to see what was on the other side then we could go. “I need to know what it is.”
“It’s magic. I feel its pull, too. Judging by the curiosity it’s appealing to—and the fact it appeared on the road you happened to be on—I’d guess it was designed for you. Don’t be so easy. Walk away.”
He was right, of course, and I knew it. When I tried to pull back, however, something grabbed my hand and pulled from the other side. I yanked my arm back, but whatever had me pulled even harder, sliding me forward.
“Corbin,” I managed to say just before I tumbled through the doorway and whatever held me let go.
Corbin didn’t let go or pull back. He came with me through the door with a pissed off look on his face. We stood in a forest. There was nothing around us except trees.
“Any idea where we are?” he asked.
“No clue.” I took a couple steps forward, but the vampire kept a firm, yet gentle grip on my elbow. “You could have pulled me back,” I said.
“I also could have torn off your arm,” he said, looking behind us. “The door is gone.”
“Of course it is.” The spot actually looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place from where. One forest pretty much looked like all the others: trees, leaves, moss, and little critters scurrying around. My ear prickled and my face twitched at every sound. Something brought us here, and Corbin was probably right that it wanted me—or maybe him. It wasn’t like he was making friends.
Leaves whipped passed my face as the wind picked up and my skin prickled with the sheer power it held. Shit.
“Who did you piss off this time?” Corbin shouted over the howling gusts. .
The commotion stopped as suddenly as it started, leaving the forest still and silent as death.
“I will take the hand now,” an old woman’s groaning voice came from behind me.
I whirled around and there she stood, Baba Yaga, in front of the same little cottage as before—that hadn’t been there moments earlier. Even the fence made mostly from femur bones still surrounded it.
“I should have stayed with the car,” Corbin said under his breath.
“I told you, old lady, I don’t have the hand. Talk to the selkie.”
Her grim smile revealed black crooked teeth that poked out haphazardly beneath her giant hook of a nose. “The selkie is no long available for conversation.” The hag’
s bright pink tongue ran over her teeth. “But I do have leftovers.”
The legends surrounding Baba Yaga were vast and plentiful, but somewhere amidst the random rumors and facts there was something about her eating people, though I couldn’t remember exactly what. However, it explained the skeletal fence. “Tastes like chicken?”
“Actually, more like fish. I made tacos with a creamy cilantro lime and cabbage slaw. Delightful.”
I shot a glance at Corbin. He mouthed, “What the fuck?” to me. I simply shook my head. “Look, you can’t have the hand. You might as well let us go. We don’t want to hurt an old lady.”
Baba laughed, making the trees sway and the house lift from the ground on spindly little chicken legs that stretched toward the sky, as it let out a long, heart-stopping screech. We might have been in trouble. “Come in,” she said, opening the gate.
“Nope. We’re good.” I slipped the cell phone out of my pocket, praying to the goddess that we weren’t in some magical realm where cell phones were useless. “Really busy today. Maybe we can talk more later.” I found Olivia’s name and pressed send.
I tried to walk away, but vines sprang from the forest floor and wrapped around my legs. The harder I yanked, the stronger and thicker they became. Corbin had similar struggles. Olivia didn’t answer. The vines trapped my hands, squeezing the cell phone from my grip and crushing it. Shit, shit, shit.
“Look, witch, I get that the sekhmet took something from you, but your beef is with her not me. I’m happy to walk away from this.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said. I sent up a silent prayer to Olivia. She was a guardian. I didn’t need technology to call her.
“This isn’t my problem,” he shot back.
“If you did not wish to be judged then you should not have come through the door.” A broom appeared in Baba’s right hand and a butcher knife in the other. “If you will not return the hand to me, I will have to take another.” She held the broom out straight in front of her, between the two of us. It wobbled and shook then snapped toward Corbin. Baba nodded. “You will do, vampire.”
“Femi,” he said.
“It’s not my problem,” I mocked him, the vines cutting off blood flow to my feet. If struggling made them tight, then maybe giving up would loosen them. I went completely limp, but still the vines tightened.