jinn 01 - ember (28 page)

Holden’s arm slipped around my waist. I leaned my head against his shoulder and his cheek rested against my hair. Holden saw the broken world more clearly than I did. The goodness I believed was there wasn’t. Over and over it had been proven to me, but I’d refused to admit it wasn’t there. I turned into Holden and buried my face against his chest. I couldn’t save my mother because I’d been naïve. Holden was strong. I had to be strong too. The silence deafened me, but the angel strengthened my breaking heart and I embraced her this time rather than fighting her. She was warrior, a fighter. I needed her to do what I had to do.

I straightened away from Holden. His eyes were liquid and brimming with remorse as he wiped away a tear from my cheek. It was hard to remember a time when Holden hadn’t been there to wipe away my tears, only this time it didn’t help.

“I’m sorry, angel,” Baker said softly as he put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed, reminding me he was there.

Femi shifted uncomfortably, staring at my mother on the ground. I had no idea what we were supposed to do next.

“We’ll take care of the body,” Baker said. “You don’t need to stay.”

Anger flared in me.

“Not get rid of the body permanently, but call an ambulance,” he clarified.

I took a deep breath and nodded. I wasn’t able to meet Holden’s eyes. “Let’s go home.”

I took a step back and transported. When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in our apartment. I was at my childhood home—Mom’s house. I sucked in a shaky breath. All of her things around me seemed frozen in time, somehow smaller and less significant without her here to love or care for them. I felt smaller and insignificant without her. My heart had brought me here because it had been looking for comfort, for a way to hold on to her, but there was nothing I wanted in this house.

I bit my lower lip hard, the pain giving me the strength to move my legs. I went outside to the swing, not caring if the neighbors could see me or that Holden didn’t know where I was. This place was my last connection with my human life. Everyone and everything else was gone. The cold, familiar chain soothed my burning skin and aching soul. I stared at the house, just four walls and a roof, and listened to the angel plan our attack, our avengement. The realization that I didn’t belong here—I never had—hardened my insides. The Olivia who could come home again was gone. This Olivia had no home, didn’t need one.

Holden nudged my mind, trying to find me. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to feel his sympathy or pain. Not now, not yet, maybe not ever. I sat on the swing through the night, not moving. Dew coated my skin as I watched the sunrise. The angel and I blended until I couldn’t tell where she began and I ended. We were one. Our thoughts were one. Our memories were one.

“You can’t shut down this time, Liv.” Holden’s voice came from behind me. “We’ve started something and there are people who are depending on you.” He waited a couple beats before continuing. “I need you.”

I stood slowly and turned toward him. My heart fluttered, giving its first sign of life in hours at seeing him. He looked raw and emotional. I couldn’t tell if he only appeared that way to my frozen emotions or if he really had been hit that hard by my mother’s death. He cared for my mother, I knew that. Somehow she had managed to slip into that small and exclusive inner circle of his heart he had protected from the jinn. This wouldn’t be easy on Holden. This wouldn’t be easy on any of us, but I couldn’t find any sympathy in me to give. The promise of swift and ultimate retribution sustained me. It was what I wanted—it was the only thing I wanted.

“I’m ready to give the jinn a demonstration of my commitment.”

Holden frowned. “How did you—” His face smoothed and the lines hardened. It was like watching him slip on a mask. His removed detachment matched what I imagined my own looked like. “We’ll go now.”

I nodded and smiled a little, slipping my ice-cold hand into his. Of course Holden would understand. We were more alike than anyone ever gave us credit for. They had taken everything either of us had ever loved except for each other. If Hell wanted a fight, a war was what we would give them. If we died, it would be side by side on our own terms, taking as many of them with us as we could. My eyes were open and death was on my lips. A reckoning was coming.

The end.

Good Tidings

A Guardian Short Story

by

Liz Schulte

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.

I HUMMED ALONG with the Christmas music Olivia played in the background. It had been a while since I celebrated Christmas. It just wasn’t fun to do it alone. Regardless of what Holden thought, I was glad Olivia wasn’t backing down on celebrating the holiday. She still had family and loved ones. Those were the moments you treasured because they could all too easily slip through your fingers. That said, meddling with the boss-man’s family, that wasn’t something I needed any part of. The angel was on her own there.

“Tell me about your past, Baker,” Olivia said, smiling as she picked out her favorite ornaments to hang. “You’re the only one here that seems to get Christmas. How did you manage to hold on to it?”

I nodded. “I didn’t always celebrate, but one year everything changed. I realized what a palooka I had been.”

“What happened?”

I didn’t talk much about my past. It led to questions I wouldn’t answer—that didn’t need to be answered. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. The angel was different though. This story wouldn’t hurt for her to know. She might even learn something from my past. I took a deep breath.

1929 WAS A shitty fucking year. A damn rotten tomato of a year. I glared at the jolly fat guy in the too cheerful window display.
Good riddance to you, you miserable bum,
I thought as I walked past. It couldn’t be over soon enough for me. The year started with the death of five of my friends in a parking garage on St. Valentine’s Day then the whole north side seemed to go into upheaval. I had been to more friends' funerals this year than any year I could remember. That was always the problem when living with humans—they had short lives. And if that didn’t make a bad enough year, the stock market plummeted in October devastating the population like I hadn’t seen before. People kept saying 1930 had to be better, but they were patsies to think so.

“It’s only going to get worse,” I mumbled to myself. People couldn’t even wet their beak—well not legally. What was the world coming to?

“What was that, Baker? My hearing ain’t so good in this ear,” Mickey the Knife asked.

I waved him off. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. The world had gone to Hell in a hand basket, and I was about ready to start over. I had enough of this life. The highs were taller than mountains, but the lows, well they went so deep they burned my feet.

Mickey wasn’t a bad guy, a bit of a palooka, if you catch my drift, but not a bad sort. More the simple sort. I was saddled with looking after him since most of the gang got themselves killed. Not that Mickey was ever in anything too deep. We all knew better than to involve him. He lost most of the hearing in his right ear when a touchy dancer jammed a potato peeler into his ear drum. He was big as an ox, but missing a few vital screws. To this day, I still don’t know why she stabbed him. Must have caught her in a cross mood—dames.

We let him hang around ‘cause the kid never had many chances at doing anything else in his life, but this was no business for someone like him to be in. This business wasn’t really fit for anyone to be in these days. A sigh weighed heavy in my chest. I had to get Mickey situated in some sort of gig, so his sister didn’t have to worry about him; then it was time for old Baker McGovern to disappear for good.

Whom would I be in the next life? That was the real question. Nothing too stuffy. Maybe someone who wasn’t a rag-a-muffin. A doctor maybe. Yeah, a doctor, I liked the sound of that. Now all I needed was a name.

My hand darted down and caught the little arm of a street rat trying to abscond with my wallet. I plucked it from his fingers as two even smaller ones ran as fast as they could for the alley.

“You think I’m a sap, kid? You’re going to get yourself pinched with those ham hands.”

“Hey, mister, let go.” He kicked me in the shin and twisted hard. He looked vaguely familiar. Huge brown eyes, dirty face, and scabby fingers were all I could see though. Who was looking after this kid? Someone needed to teach him the way of things before he got pinched.

“Who’s your father?”

The slippery little devil squirmed right out of my grip and darted away. He ran down the same alley his friends disappeared in. I moved to go after him, but Mickey stopped me.

“Let the kid go. He didn’t hurt nothing. It wasn’t anything we wouldn’t have done at that age.”

He had a point, but this was a matter of respect. And kids like that needed a good talking to, or they ended up wise guys like us, which for most people, meant dead before forty.

“It’s Christmas.” He tried to appeal to my holiday spirit—fat lot of good that would did.

FIRST AND FOREMOST I always want to thank my fans. You guys are awesome and the more of you I talk to and get to know the more excited I am to share these characters and worlds in my head with you.

I also need to thank the incredible team of people I work with. My editors, Ev Bishop and Michelle Kampmeier, my cover artist Karri Klawiter, my VA Cheryl Callighan, and my beta readers/people I can bounce ideas off of any time of day or night: Olivia Hardin, Amanda Latzel, Melissa Lummis, Mandie Stevens, Tawdra Kandle, C.G. Powell, Lola James, and Stephanie Nelson (otherwise known as the Romantic Edge).

Finally, I have to thank my family for always being there for me and for never trying to make me be anything other than completely insane. :)