jinn 02 - inferno (6 page)

I shook my head. “I don’t love Olivia for the way she looks or how strong she is.”

“Then why?”

I turned back to her. “Because of who she is. There isn’t just one reason. Every day I know her is another reason to love her. She makes me want to be a better person. She sees the best in everyone and as much as that drives me crazy, it’s one of the many reasons why I love her.” The angel was listening which spurred me on. “She helps people. Not to look good or to prove to people what a good person she is, but because she means it. I love her for a thousand reasons you won’t understand. Reasons I don’t fully understand, but I know I miss her and I know that none of us are going to make it through this without her. You are powerful, but you aren’t her.”

“Kindness does not win wars.”

I nodded. “Neither does blind vengeance—a lesson I’ve learned to well.”

Her head inclined slightly. “I will not allow you to leave me. You helped start this war. Had you stayed in your proper position, none of this would have happened and I wouldn’t have given up my life for the two of you. You will see this war through until the end.”

I shook my head. “Wouldn’t count on it. If there is no Olivia, there is no me, and as far as I can tell, she’s gone.”

A dangerous glint sparked in her eyes. “You will stay.”

“Give me a reason why.” I picked up the camera and snapped her picture.

The angel jerked at the flash. “What are you doing?”

I took the camera to her and held it up so she could see the picture of herself. She averted her eyes. “If you’re in there, Liv, look at it. This is who you are now. Is this who you want to be?”

“You will not leave,” she said, still refusing to look at the camera.

“Look at the fucking picture.” I took her face in my hand and forced her to look at it.

Her eyes connected with the picture, and for a second my Olivia flashed in the angel’s face. Her features softened, the light retreating for just an instant, before she jerked away, hitting the camera out of my hands and smashing it against the wall. Anger coiled inside of me and I grabbed her shoulders. I fought myself for control and the angel’s knit brow suggested she was fighting her own internal battle, but she did not pull away this time.

“Is this who you want to be, Liv? Is this the life you want to live? Say the word and I’m with you all the way, but I have to know you’re still there.” I kept a tight hold on her, pulling her closer until my breath moved her hair.

“Please,” I whispered.

A finger brushed against my chest. Just one finger lightly, gently touching me. I didn’t want to look at her, afraid I might still see the angel, but I had to. I caught her face in my hands and tilted it up.

“Holden,” Olivia rasped in a strained voice, but it was hers. It was hers. A tear spilled over the edge of her eye and ran down her cheek.

I pressed my lips to hers. Kissing her hard and deep, forcing her to feel and take. Her lips were unmoving and hard beneath mine, but again she didn’t pull away. I kissed her even harder, willing everything I felt, everything I feared into her. Her lips parted slightly at the shock of it, and an instant later she softened, kissing me back. I eased back on the kiss changing the texture to gentle and slower, cherishing her the way I hadn’t been able to in far too long.

I ran my fingers through her hair and her hands pressed flat against my chest, her fingers digging into my shirt. The light that represented her in my mind began to grow and brighten. She was opening our communication connection again—

And then it slammed shut once more, and Olivia shoved me away, hard.

The angel stood in front of me, her shoulders heaving and her eyes bright and glaring daggers.

I advanced slowly. “She’s in there. You have to let her out.”

“Do not test me, jinni.”

My phone rang. There were too many wheels in motion to ignore it, but this was far from over. Olivia was alive and well. The angel wasn’t all-powerful after all. I could get her back.

Femi waited for me on the stoop—something she could do since most humans couldn’t see her. I, on the other hand, was a nosy old woman’s dream. I could practically feel the milky cataracts drilling into me as I ran up the steps and pretended to knock before going inside.

I whistled through my teeth. “Swanky joint.”

Femi rolled her eyes. “This place gives me the creeps.”

I looked around the mostly empty rooms. The house was older, probably built as a single family residence back in the day then later split into two apartments, like a lot of the older homes when the populations boomed and real estate went through the roof. I didn’t feel anything particularly strange here though. It was just an empty house with a lot of dead demon ash on the floor. “I’m not really sensing what you are, kitten.”

She perched her hands on her hips. “Down here isn’t as bad. Come upstairs.”

She took the narrow, steep stairs two at a time. Her long legs were hugged-tight by low slung, soft leather and a sexy top left most of her back exposed. Her bronze skin begged to be touched but also promised an elbow to the face.

“I can feel you staring at me,” she said.

“Sorry, doll.” I averted my eyes.

She turned around and winked. “I didn’t say you had to stop.”

Stepping into the room snapped me back to attention. She was right. Something did feel off. There was a lack of something here, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. “How did we find out about this place?” I asked her.

Her eyes met mine. “We didn’t. Olivia did—then she showed up out of the blue and killed everyone. There wasn’t even the full group here.”

Definitely strange. As if on cue the boss texted me. “Holden says we shouldn’t come back for a while.”

She nodded. “You think he’s confronting her?”

“Probably. Let’s get this stuff and take it somewhere else.”

“You feel it too, though, right? It’s hollow here.”

I nodded. “Yeah. You’re on to somethin’, but hell if I know what. Some things are best left untouched. Let’s get out of here.”

We made short work of shoving all the papers, maps and anything else we came across into Femi’s messenger bag. I followed her toward the much larger and safer car I’d liberated for her. The roadster was an egg, but this boat could take down a brick wall. I smiled a little. Despite what she said and the attitude she projected, maybe Femi did recognize the need for caution, at least every now and then, because she was still driving it.

“Want to grab dinner?” I asked.

“Like you even need to ask.”

We decided on a nearby restaurant that was open 24 hours. At this time of night it wasn’t crowded and the few people scattered around were three sheets to the wind. I ordered for both of us after Femi told me what she wanted. It wasn’t a dominating thing, the waitress never even glanced in Femi’s direction nor did she blink an eye at me ordering two meals and picking the most secluded booth. Must have looked hungry.

Femi stretched her arms across the back of her booth. “I don’t know if we should trust anything that comes out of that house.”

I nodded. “It’s hard to say. I don’t want to get in a lather about this until we get the angel’s perspective on it.”

Femi frowned. “I gotta be honest with you, Baker. I’m trusting her and her judgment less and less.”

I shrugged. “She’s an angel. You can’t expect her to react like Olivia. She’s old, really old, like a total face stretcher. Dollars to donuts she has her own motive here that she isn’t sharing with us, but I don’t think it’s nefarious. Angels tend to be good eggs. Whatever her plan is, you can trust that she thinks it’s for the best.”

“She pointed us toward that house. Why did she attack it without Holden? What’s she looking for and what does she want? I don’t believe for a second that it is to help Holden.”

Femi was sure in a twist about the angel. Me? I wasn’t so sure. Yeah, it might be involved in some conspiracy, but it also might not be. The house felt strange and hollow, as she said, but it was a place demons had been living and scheming. Who knows what they’d done between those four brick walls. If I was pointing fingers, it would be at them and not the angel. “We’ll run it by Holden and see what he wants to do. But I stand by the fact that I trust the angel not to do anything evil.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re the one who wanted to do the intervention. You obviously can’t trust her that much.”

“That’s different, kitten. I trust the angel is probably on our side. She probably isn’t conspiring with Lucifer or anything, but I don’t want to see Olivia go away forever. I like the angel, but I like Olivia more. The boss needs her. Hell, the world probably needs her in it. The angel doesn’t belong here. I’m just setting things right before someone else gets a mind to.”

The waitress dropped off the plates, not making eye contact, then went back behind the counter and resumed watching television. Femi already had a chicken finger in her claws and was munching on it by the time I looked back to her.

My phone rang. It was Maggie. The urge to screen her was strong. I liked the girl, but she was wearing me out. “Hey, baby,” I answered.

“Hey.” Her voice was low, a little sad.

I held back a sigh. I was an asshole, I knew it, but Maggie and I weren’t a good fit. Back when she didn’t know about the Abyss, she was an escape for me. I had lived as a human for a long time and it was nice to revisit that. It was like losing myself in nostalgia, but still having the thrill of danger and secrecy. Now that she knew everything, the problems were too clear. She couldn’t be with me. I put her life in danger and she couldn’t take care of herself; instead of being an escape, she was a burden. As I said, I was the asshole here. “What’s shaking?”

“It sounds like you’re out.”

“What do you need, Maggie?”

She hemmed and hawed for a while before she came out with it. “You ruined my life. I see things now. Walking down the street I see stuff, creatures that scare me, but I can’t react to them. And you never want to talk about any of this, though you’re the only person I know who can see this stuff too. I don’t even know what you guys are doing now. If you would just let me help…”

“You get used to things. The more I tell you, the more dangerous it is for you. You got to trust me on this, doll. Just pretend it isn’t there and eventually you’ll stop seeing it.” I didn’t know if that was true or not, but it sounded good.

She sighed. “Why can’t I help? I helped before.”

“We’re in a different place right now. You need to lay low.”

She blew her nose. “Why did you tell me any of this, if you were just going to break up with me as soon as I knew?”

“I’m sorry,” I said for about the hundredth time. When I told her, I was dumb. I wanted to be in love. I thought it could work, but every day, every minute, it became clearer that it couldn’t. Not really.

“Whatever.” She hung up.

Femi flashed me a grin. “So what’s the deal with you and the human? You still a thing?” she asked between bites.

Femi never called Maggie by her name, always “the human” pointing out our mismatch that I should have seen coming. The thing was I liked humans. I was used to humans. Over the last hundred or so years I had mainly lived with and worked with humans. Yes, they had short lives and a limited worldview, but they also had passion. They embraced their lives and accomplished amazing things in the short amount of productive time they had.

However, Maggie and I weren’t a good match. Fifty years ago, it would have been fine. I was pretending to be human so dating humans made sense. Now though, I couldn’t protect her and I had responsibilities. She needed to go back and live a normal life: get married to some schmo, have a few kids, and worry about things like whether or not the HOA would allow her to paint her door pink. That was the life she should live and I was in the way of that. However, Maggie was hard to shake. I broke it off with her right after Olivia’s mom died—proving that any connection to this world was dangerous for humans—but she just kept showing up places, and Holden would give me a death look anytime her chin so much as quivered. He had no interest in talking to her or getting to know her, but he still considered this my problem. I brought her into this world and like it or not, I had to babysit her and make damn sure she didn’t get drawn in again. The best way I knew how to do that was to convince her to keep her head down.