Burn For Him

by Kristan Belle

  “I’ve got it!” Harper jumped up to show Marissa something on his iPad. I didn’t bother to get up and go and look. I knew that it wouldn’t make any sense to me, anyway. I carried on scrolling through Google. I was back to looking for anything that seemed to combine Djinn, demon’s and strange Latin chants.

  “Here, come and look at this, Carrie.” Harper said as he turned to me. “This is what will shield Milligan from the rest of his clan so they won’t know what’s happening to him.” I looked. I had to. I had no choice when he shoved the screen virtually under my nose. As I’d thought, it made not the slightest bit of sense to me. Latin mumbo jumbo.

  “Cool.” I said, trying to sound enthused, but failing.

  Harper sat on the arm of the sofa and looked at the laptop. “Wait a minute. Go back.” He said as he pointed at the screen.

  I clicked to go back a page and looked up at him as he read it. “That’s it! That’s the binding spell! Well done, Carrie! You found it!” I looked back at the screen but I clearly wasn’t seeing what he was seeing. More Latin, that’s all.

  “Can you print that out for me, please? And, this one too?” He asked as he passed me over his phone. I nodded. At least that would give me something practical to do.

  “So, we’ve got the incantations for the binding and the individualisation, so now we just need to find the right exorcism.” Marissa said as she carried on scanning through her phone.

  It was strange for me how totally normal this all felt. We were talking about getting rid of Milligan using some kind of magical spell. Yep, totally normal stuff.

  “I’d better go and get the things that we need.” Harper said. He popped his head into my bedroom where I was turning on the printer and loading up the paper. “I’m going to have to search the city for some of this stuff. Is there anything I can get for you while I’m out?”

  I shook my head at him. The only thing I needed was to be rid of Milligan.

  “What’s wrong, Carrie?” He asked as he stepped into my bedroom.

  “Everything’s wrong, Harper. Is this really going to work?”

  “Honestly? I’m not really sure. It’s the only thing we’ve got to try at the moment. But, remember, if this doesn’t work, we’ll keep on going until we find the right thing. That I can promise you.”

  “I know, Harp. I’m just scared.”

  He nodded. “It’s right to be scared. If you weren’t, I’d be even more worried about you. This is huge. You should be scared.”

  I didn’t say anything else to him. I didn’t need to. I watched him as he turned and walked out.

  I called to Marissa to see if she wanted a drink or anything, but she declined the offer. I grabbed a can of Coke and walked back into the living room. “Any joy?” I asked her.

  “Not yet. I feel like I’m getting close, though.”

  There wasn’t much more for me to do. The incantations were printed and laying on the coffee table. I walked over to the window. I saw Harper pulling away in his car. I wondered what else he needed to get. I knew that holy water and some kind of vial or bottle was on his list. I dread to think what else he might need to do this.

  Within seconds of him driving away, I saw another car pulling up in its place. I knew that car. I sucked in a breath when Milligan got out of the driver’s side and leant casually against the car, looking straight up at my window. I froze when his eyes met my gaze. A sudden rush of longing ran through me. I gripped at the ledge of the window so tightly that my knuckles turned white. He just kept on staring. I didn’t want to feel like that. I really didn’t. I didn’t want to think how badly I wanted him to come up here and take me any way he liked. My finger nails dug into the plastic frame. Pain flickered through my fingertips. Pain I could concentrate on. Pain seemed to take over the lust that I was feeling. I felt a victorious grin forming on my face. I could finally find a way to get over what I was feeling. I felt so good to know that he didn’t have to have this hold over me.

  I knew that he must have felt my resistance. A shadow seemed to fall across his face. He grimaced before yanking the car door open again and the car quickly screeched off down the street.

  I turned to see Marissa studying me. “What just happened?” She put a hand to her head, rubbing at her temples gently while looking at me intently. “He was here, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you grinning like that?” She sounded and looked confused, but I couldn’t blame her for that. She had to be wondering why I was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  “I fought him off.” I said triumphantly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I felt the lust trying to take me over and I didn’t let it.”

  She stood up, looking suitably astounded. “How? How did you do that?”

  “I felt my own pain. It wasn’t much either, but it was enough to be able to fight him off.”

  “Do you realise what this means? This is amazing!” She looked as good as I felt.

  “It’s great, isn’t it?”

  “It’s more than that. If you can find a way to keep him out, he won’t be as powerful. It will make it easier for us to be able to bind him.” No wonder she looked quite so happy. This little development was a definite plus. “And to make it even better, I think that I’ve found the incantation for the exorcism. I need to check out a couple of things, but I think we’re nearly set.” She grinned over at me again. “I can’t wait for Harper to get back. So much has happened.”

  “He’s only been gone ten minutes.”

  “It shouldn’t take him long to get back.”

  I sat back down on the sofa. I didn’t know what to do with myself. “So, what’s going to happen? Tonight, I mean.”

  “Let’s wait until Harper gets back and then I only have to explain it all once.” She said, glancing back up from her phone, looking straight back down as if to dismiss me.

  I fell silent. Marissa clearly was too busy for further conversation. I didn’t have any other questions for her that sprung to mind. I was just going to have to wait. I sighed loudly. I would wait but I never said that I would be patient about it.

  “Can you print this one out for me, please?” Marissa held up her phone for me. I took it off of her without a word. All it seemed I was good for was photocopying and printing. But, hey. I knew that they would both have much harder jobs to do later, so who was I to grumble?

  I heard the front door open and Harper walked back in, smiling in greeting as he paused at my bedroom door. I didn’t bother running back into the living room after him. I knew that Marissa would fill him in on what happened while he was out. They didn’t need me in there. I couldn’t really do anything to help them, I had nothing to contribute. I was just human. I didn’t understand any of what was going on.

  “What’s wrong?” He asked as he came back to stand in the doorway to my bedroom.

  “Nothing.” I tried to smile brightly. “Everything?”

  “You not fooling me, you know.” He looked over at me and narrowed his eyes.

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot. The emotion thing, right?”

  “Talk to me, Carrie.”

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine.” I turned back to the printer, taking the pieces of paper to add to the pile of Latin mumbo jumbo that were waiting in the living room.

  “It’s not nothing. This would be a hell of a lot for anyone to take in. You’ve learned a lot and had a lot to adjust to in such a short space of time. Of course you’re not fine.”

  “I’m as fine as I can be.” I didn’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to get all of this over and done with and move on with my life.

  “It won’t be long. We’ll get this done and you’ll hopefully be free of Milligan tonight.”

  I shook my head at him slightly. It wasn’t just about Milligan now. I had to adjust to this side of Harper that I had never even known about. It was a lot for me to take on board. And, even if they did manage to do with Milligan what they hoped to do tonight, he wou
ld be gone but not forgotten. I would always be weary of new people that I would meet and my feelings towards them. How would I ever know if they were real? Or if I was being manipulated? It was a scary thought. It meant that I would always have doubt in my future.

  “Just drop it. I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it.” I said through gritted teeth.

  “You don’t want to talk about it. That’s fine. But, I want you to know that whenever you’re ready, I will be here to answer any questions that you have. I assumed that there will be quite a few.” He paused. When I didn’t answer, he carried on. “I just want you to know that I am always here for you.”

  I nodded. It was all that I could do. Harper left. I was on my own again. Alone with only my thoughts. It wasn’t exactly great as my mind was a whirl of information that I didn’t want to think about. I sat down on the bed and hung my head in my hands.

  “Grab what you need, it’s time to go.” Harper’s voice woke me up. I didn’t even realise that I had fallen asleep. With everything that was going on, I didn’t think that my brain would have shut down enough to let me sleep.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We need to go and set up.”

  “Already?” I was shocked to realise when I looked around that it was turning darker already. Where had the day gone?

  Harper simply nodded.

  “What do I need?”

  “Just make sure that you bring a coat and your phone. We’ve got everything else that we need.” With that, Harper turned and walked out of my room, leaving me to rub at my eyes to wake myself up.

  I ran a brush through my hair, not that it did me a lot of good. I still looked like I’d been pulled through a hedge backwards. I didn’t really care. It didn’t really matter what I looked like. Quickly changing into a fresh pair of jeans and a black fitted shirt, I walked back out to find Harp and Marissa picking up a couple of bags, stuffing the papers that I had printed out into one of them.

  “Are you ready?” Marissa asked. She looked much stronger now. A thought crossed my mind.

  “How are you going to be able to do this? I saw what being close to Milligan did to you earlier. How are you going to be able to stand up to that to get this done?”

  Marissa actually looked pleased with my question. “I wasn’t sure that you would think of that. I have made each of us one of these. It’s a talisman.” She pulled a strange looking necklace out of her top. “These should help to dilute Milligan’s strength and power over us.” She passed me a necklace just the same as hers and I put it over my head without argument. “We need Milligan to gain no extra strength from us. He would be able to sense and feed off of our fear of him. And, your lust. You have already found a way to fight that all on your own. This talisman will be able to back that up.”

  “Oh.” Was my response. Eloquent, I know.

  “Keep that on you at all times, no matter what.” Marissa instructed. She picked up the bag once again and walked to the front door. A shudder of apprehension ran through me. It really was time to do this. We were going to do this now. Were we ready? Was I ready? What would happen if we failed? I couldn’t allow myself to think like that.

  “Carrie?” Harper’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I nodded at him to show him that I was ready. I shrugged on my coat as I followed after Marissa and we walked out of the apartment.

  Chapter Eighteen

  We took separate cars. I rode with Harper. They didn’t have to explain why. I knew now that this was going to be more dangerous than either of them were letting on. We had the two cars to make sure that at least half of our small party could get away. If anything happened to him or Marissa, then we still had a way to get out of there. It was a sobering thought.

  “Where are we going?” I asked finally. The suspense was killing me.

  Harper sighed. “We’re going to find Milligan.”

  “I think that this could well be the time that you start telling me the truth about what we’re doing. Don’t you?” There was a sharpness to my tone. I couldn’t help it. This was huge. Harper had said so himself. It was about time that they shared with me just how huge it was.

  “We need to find Milligan. We need to lure him to where we need to be.”

  “Where do we need him to be?”

  “A location I found this afternoon.”

  Evasive, much? “And, how exactly are we going to do that?”

  “You’re going to do it.”

  “What? Me? How?” I said in a panicked state.

  “We’re going to swing by the club. You’re going to make sure that he sees you and then you’re going to leave. He’ll follow you.”

  Well, he made it all sound so simple. I knew as well as anyone that this was going to be anything but simple. Another thought dawned on me. “But, this afternoon when he was sitting outside the apartment, he felt me fighting his hold over me. Won’t he know that we are up to something? Won’t he know that we have got some kind of plan?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But, either way, once he sees you, he will still be intrigued enough to follow you. Even if he knows that you have figured something out, he’ll want to know how and what it is.”

  “Okay… But, you keep on saying how serious this is all getting. Doesn’t that mean that it could be really dangerous for me to go in there?” I didn’t want to have to face Milligan alone, that’s for sure. Yeah, I had the talisman with me and I had managed to fight him off earlier, but I hadn’t actually been face to face with the guy. He had a hell of a hold on me. I wasn’t sure that I could fight it off, especially not if he got close enough to touch me. That would cloud every other sense I had. I didn’t really want to be going in there and looking for him and then ruin the rest of the plan by succumbing to him and sleeping with him. Marissa said that I had to stay in control of my emotions so that he couldn’t feed from them, but that was much easier said than done.

  “We’re not sending you in there alone. We’re not that stupid or reckless.” he said as if reading my mind. “We have a friend that is going to take you in there for a drink. He’s not going to leave your side for a single second. We only want Milligan to notice you and then he’ll get you the hell out of there.”

  “Who’s your friend?”

  “Leon. He’ll look after you.”

  “Is he…. One of you? A Djinn?”

  “No, he’s not.” Harper smiled. “We didn’t want to arise any more suspicion than we needed to. If we walked in there with you, or another Djinn, then he would definitely know that we were on to him. Leon is a close friend of Marissa’s.”

  “What if he already knows that we’re on to him? He saw me trying to fight him off and he would have surely known that we have brought in another Djinn.” He would have been able to sense both Harper and Marissa.

  “It doesn’t really matter.” he shook his head at me. “It will still all work in our favour. He wants you, he wants you to still want him and we want to lure him out of there. It’s a done deal. This is the easy bit.”

  Easy? Hmmm. I fell quiet again. I didn’t think that this was going to be easy at all. I wasn’t in the mood to go clubbing. Hell, I wasn’t even sure that they would let me in. I wasn’t exactly dressed like I was ready for a night on the town. Jeans and a plain shirt didn’t usually fit in too well in a place like this.

  “There’s Leon.” Harper pointed to a guy on the side of the street as we pulled up to a stop quite a way away from the club behind Marissa’s car. She got out of her own car and walked over to us. Leon walked over to meet us also.

  “Hey, man.” Harper said and walked off to one side to speak to him. I didn’t appreciate all the whispering that was going on. I was at the centre of all of this. There shouldn’t have been any secrets from me. Marissa walked to stand next to me. I think that she was going to try and keep my talking so before she could say a word, I smiled at her sweetly and strode over to where he and Leon were standing.

  “Hi! You must be Leon, my fake date for tonight.” I sai
d in an overly happy voice. Harper glanced over at me nervously.

  “That means that you must be Carrie.” Leon held out a hand to me.

  “Can you give us a minute please, Carrie?” Harper asked.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. If you’re talking about what is going to happen tonight, then I need to hear it. I don’t think that I should be the only one missing out on all the information.”

  “She’s right, you know.” Leon said. Harper still looked undecided.

  “Do you know what’s going on here?” I asked Leon.

  “Yep.” He replied simply. I glanced over at Harper.

  “Leon’s been a friend for years. His companion was a brother of mine.”

  “Was?” I asked hesitantly.

  Harper shook his head at me and Leon looked down at the ground. I didn’t ask anything else. It was clearly a sore subject.

  “So, what’s the plan, then?” I asked, changing track quickly.

  “We go in. Have a drink. Make like I’m your new boyfriend. Make sure that Milligan sees us. Then we leave. It’s as simple as that.” Leon explained.

  “Yeah. Simple.” I smirked.

  “He’ll take good care of you.” Harper reassured me, throwing a mock threatening look at Leon.

  “Are you ready?”

  No. Not in the slightest. That didn’t stop me from saying, “Yeah, sure. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  We walked into the club and the first thing that I noticed was that all of the doormen seemed to know who I was. For me, that was not a reassuring sign. I had only been here at this club the one time. There was no way that they should have been able to recognise me.

  “Good to see you again, Carrie. Go on through.” One of them said, waving away our money when Leon tried to pay the entrance fee.