jinn 02 - inferno (9 page)

“We’ve got everything she could possibly need, boss. Food, clothes, a doll—and a bathtub. She’ll be smelling like roses in no time flat.” He grinned like this was just another day.

A storage bin was hardly a bathtub, but I admitted Baker’s ingenuity was genius. I carried the girl, who was wide awake now and watching everyone very carefully, over to them. She lunged for something in the bin, almost tearing herself from my grip. When I pulled her back up, she was clutching a doll every bit as gray and dirty as she was.

Femi and I followed Baker to the back with Femi following. He dumped out all the packages from inside the tub onto the floor then used the shower to fill it with warm water. The girl watched everything he did with a frown, squeezing the doll to her chest. He stepped out and sat the container near the drain in the floor. Femi moved to the corner of the tiny room and leaned against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest. I sat the kid on the floor and gestured to the bath.

She stared at me blankly.

Baker squatted down. “Water,” he said putting his hand in it then holding it in front of her. His hand might as well have been a dead frog. She squinted, nose wrinkling, and bared her teeth as she tried to move away from him. I nudged her stiff body closer and Baker took the wrist of the hand not holding the doll and dipped it. “Water,” he said again as he let her go.

Her head tilted to the right. She put her hand back in, leaving it a little longer before pulling it out gain. She looked over at me and I nodded. She did it again and again, splashing more and more as her enthusiasm grew.

“Enough. Get in.” I lifted her over the water and started to lower her. Horror sprang across her face when she realized what I was doing. She dropped the doll and attacked, clawing wildly at my arms and face with tiny sharp fingernails. Growls and screams ripped from her throat, and she managed to bite my arm in her frenzied attack before her feet touched the bottom of the tub. Her shoulders heaved and tears created muddy streaks down her cheeks. She tried to climb out, but Baker kept a firm hand planted on her shoulder. My chest tightened again from the raw fear and anxiety she released into the room.

“Whenever you’re ready, boss.”

Pushing away the trance of emotion, I blinked. “For what?”

Baker glanced at the kid. “She’s still wearing rags. Can’t really clean her up like that.”

“Go ahead,” I told him.

“You’re the one who brought her home with us.”

“Oh, for crying out loud. Get out both of you.” Femi pushed me out of the way. “I can handle this. Bring me a trash can and a cup.”

I found what she needed and brought it back. The kid was still standing in the storage bin, waist deep in water, but she was eating a chicken nugget and looked much happier. Femi took the cup and placed it next to the washcloth at her feet. She peeled the layers of soiled rags from the girl and tossed them into the trash one at a time until there was only dirt left.

“You can go, Chuckles. We have this under control.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I headed to my own cell and changed my clothes then threw the old ones out with the girl’s rags. That smell was never coming out. When I returned to our makeshift living room, Baker was sitting in a chair beside the couch, which looked new again.

“The angel did it.” He gestured to the furniture. “Haven’t seen her do anything like that in a while.”

“I have to empty this.” I held up the can and nodded toward the door. Baker followed me out. “She asked me why I rescued the kid.” I glanced at Baker. “She left her there. I can’t believe once all the demons were dead that she didn’t know there was another person there, especially a human. Fixing the couch doesn’t really make up for that. We don’t have Olivia back.”

“But it’s a start.”

I stared at the windowless square building. “No—more like she knows she’s losing us and she’s trying to pacify us until she gets what she wants.”

“And what does she want with us? Let’s face it, she’s an angel. Not one of us is gonna compete with that. Why bother?”

“I don’t know.” It was true. The angel wanted, at the very least, me to stay. Was it because Olivia would fight back more if I left? Was it because of the jinn? “I’m willing to bet she doesn’t do anything without a reason. She has a plan.”

“Back at the house, Femi figured the demons had the kid to block something that was there. What was it and where did it go? There were only ten demons there at any one time max, so it definitely wasn’t a stronghold. The kid had to have been there for a long time too.”

“You think Olivia took whatever it was?”

“Possibly. She went in without you. We’ve established she knew the kid was there. Unless a demon escaped with it before she attacked, then yeah, I think she has it.”

“If she doesn’t want to talk, I don’t think we can make her.”

Baker cracked his knuckles. “I don’t know a damn thing about angels, boss, but don’t forget we have Uriel.”

“That might make the problem worse. He already said if she steps out of line they’ll kill her.” And killing the angel meant killing my Olivia, which wasn’t an option. There had to be another way.

Baker scratched his head. “Okay, so what about Olivia?”

Irritation spiked through me. “What do you mean,
what about her
? Who do you think we’re talking about?”

“We were talking about the angel,” he said pointedly. “Now I’m talking about one who has you wrapped around her little finger. Olivia has front row seats on the inside. Maybe she could tell us something.”

“The angel keeps her blocked. We can’t count on being able to talk to her—especially confidentially.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose. There had to be someone. Anyone.

“Quintus,” Baker said.

I opened my eyes. “He looks like he’s going to piss himself every time he’s in the same room as her. I don’t think he’s the man for the job.”

Baker nodded. “Ab-so-lute-ly he is. He’s a bit of a bird, sure, but the angel also underestimates him. If anyone can pry around into what she’s doing, without her catching on, I think it’s him. He wants to help.”

“We must be fucking desperate if I’m considering this.” Fucking Quintus.

A smiled popped onto Baker’s face, replacing the worried pinch. “How’s Phoenix?”

“How the hell should I know?” I frowned at the change of subject. “Last I saw he was lying on the ground passed out with fifty other jinn. What does that matter? Who cares about—”

The warehouse door opened and the angel appeared. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just takin’ out the trash, angel. You need something?”

Her eyes narrowed.

Baker had known she was coming. I raised an eyebrow at her and folded my arms over my chest in my own small challenge. She’d went out of her way to fix the couch. Some part of her plan required that I stayed here. It was time we started using that to our advantage.

Her mouth pursed, but she closed the door. The angel wasn’t stupid. She was definitely suspicious.

Baker’s large, masking smile was gone, but the edges of his mouth were still curled up. “She can’t see out here.”

“What do you mean?”

“She stands in her little room staring at maps. I think she’s observing the location from afar.”

“She can do that?”

He shrugged. “How else would angels be able to monitor such a large area? They’re the ones who direct the guardians, right?”

“Why can’t she see out here? And how did you know she was coming?”

“Well, Femi and I had enough of her nosy neighbor syndrome, so we painted over the ends of her binoculars before we spoke with you at the bar.”

“What binoculars?”

“Keep up, boss. Her angel mojo. We did some rune work to prevent anyone from seeing into our little haven, but it just so happens that it prevents her from seeing out too.” He puffed out his barrel-like chest. “Honest mistake.”

“She’s going to catch on to all of this, Baker.”

“Then we better get Olivia back quick before she blows a fuse.”

A great plan—except we still didn’t have any ideas on how to pull it off. “And how did you know she was coming to check on us?”

“Call it survival instinct.” He winked and headed back into the warehouse.

I struck out in the opposite direction toward the nearest church. It was almost sunrise. Picking the lock on the door would have been easy enough in the darkness before dawn, but now I wasn’t sure how long it would be before people started showing up. I leaned against the building and thought Quintus’s name. Not really a prayer, because that wasn’t going to happen. He really needed to invest in a better way to get in touch with him.

“How’s Olivia?”

I looked up, shielding my eyes from his yellow sun-like glow. Olivia’s white glow never seemed harsh or painful, but Quintus’s burned if stared at too long. “Angelic,” I answered dryly.

Quintus nodded with a frown. “You have considered that she might not come back?”

“No.” I stared at him until he nodded again. “But we need your help to make that happen.” The words tasted bitter in my mouth. It was easier to be around Quintus now than it had been before—and occasionally he wasn’t a complete tool—but asking him for help was painful to say the least.

“Anything. I want to see Olivia come back too.”

“The angel is plotting something. She wants to free the jinn a little too much. We think she might have taken something from the last group of demons she vanquished, and she seems to think she needs me around. She’s suspicious of Baker, Femi, and me so she’s keeping an eye on us. That’s where you come in.”

“You want me to spy on her.”

“I don’t care if you spy on her. I want you to figure out what she has planned.”

He folded his hands behind his back. “How?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll try to keep her distracted.”

He nodded. “I know it wasn’t easy for you to ask for my help.”

Christ. Here came the heart to heart.

He smiled gently at me. “I’ll find a way.”

I waited and he didn’t continue. “Good.” I started to walk away but I had a nagging urge to say something else. I turned around. “She’s not herself right now. Just keep that in mind.”

He looked at me for a moment. “You think she might kill me.”

I licked my lips. “I think if she thought you were a threat, she wouldn’t hesitate.”

He nodded again and this time I did leave.

Femi strutted into the living room, the clean kid trailing behind her, still clutching the dirty doll to her chest and probably ruining her new clothes, but at least she looked more human. I reached into the bag at my feet and pulled out a new doll.

“Wanna trade?” I asked.

She held on to her doll tighter and wouldn’t look at me.

“I already tried to get it away from her. She’s not letting go without a fight.” Femi glanced back at the kid. “How old do you think she is?”

I studied her malnourished body. I had no idea. She was tiny and her face didn’t hold the baby fat someone her size would normally have. The demons must have had her for a really long time. She wasn’t going to talk to me though. Out of all of us, she only seemed to like Holden, the one person who wasn’t here. I cleared my throat. “I’ll get Holden.”

If she understood me, she made no indication. I stepped outside and shifted into Holden then waited a few minutes before I came back inside, imitating his confident I’m about to kill you walk.

The kid looked at me. Her face went from happy to scared as hell in about three milliseconds. Maybe I put too much “I’m about to kill you” in my gait. I stopped and spoke in Holden’s voice. “Come here, kid.”

The girl turned and fled to the back of the warehouse.

Femi shrugged. “Guess you’re not her favorite anymore, Chuckles. Where’s Baker?”

“He is Baker,” Olivia’s voice said from the doorway on the opposite side of the room. We both looked at her and I shifted back to myself. “The human can tell the difference.”

Femi bristled. “There’s no way. I couldn’t tell and all my senses are heightened. He even smelled like Holden. How could she know?”

“She’s lived surrounded by darkness and evil. It’s what she knows. It’s what she trusts. She senses it in Holden and recognizes it. Baker can imitate a lot of things, but not that.”