jinn 01 - ember (25 page)

“Easy, angel. Let’s not spread that around.” He shook his head. “I’m surprised you don’t know. You don’t talk to the angel at all, do you?” He glanced toward the door. “No time to wag our jaws. We’ll rehash this later.”

I let Holden know it was safe to come back. He and Maggie came back in. She looked uncomfortable, but he looked like he always did.

Did you talk to her at all while you were out there?

Why would I talk to her?
he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

I shook my head.

“How is she?” he asked.

“Good as new,” I said.

“Maybe even better,” Baker added.

Holden glanced around. “Where did he go?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Have you heard from Quintus? Has he found Marge?”

Everything in me stilled. My mom was missing and I was just now hearing about it? “What happened to the guardian watching her?” I asked too sharply.

Holden threw a hand up in the air and I prayed for Quintus. He arrived moments later.

“You found Femi,” he said.

“How did you lose my mother? Where is her guardian?”

Quintus took a deep breath. “I think he’s dead.”

I looked at Holden. “He didn’t tell me that,” Holden said, looking about as happy with the news as I felt.

“What have you done to locate her?” I asked.

“Olivia, I am doing everything I can. I am using every resource available to the guardians. She is gone. Vanished.”

Holden used to cancel me out when I was alive, but that was different. I was never a normal human. My mother was. Death was the only way I knew of to make a human vanish, and judging by Holden’s expression, he thought the same thing. That wasn’t something I could live with.

“I can find her.” I didn’t know how I would do it, but surely I could. I could identify people who needed help. I had to be able to direct that to find a particular person.

“How?” Quintus asked.

“Maybe Uriel could help?” Holden said.

I shook my head. “He isn’t… He can’t help us anymore.”

Holden ran his hand through his hair. “Then we will find her on our own, but we will find her.”

“We don’t need him,” Baker said. “We have you, angel.”

I appreciated the vote of confidence, but nerves were too much with the stakes this high. “Yeah, I can do it.”

They all stood and watched me. I closed my eyes and tried to focus, but I couldn’t. Not with everyone staring at me.

“We should probably give Liv some space,” Holden said, sensing my discomfort. I smiled a little, feeling in that moment very lucky to have him.

“Great idea, boss. That’s why you’re paid the big bucks.” Baker grinned. “Why don’t you take Maggie for a cupcake. The two of you have a lot to talk about.”

Holden gave him a stony look. “I don’t eat cupcakes.” He’d said it with such finality that the absurdness of his words was almost lost.

“Then you should branch out.” Baker’s grin widened farther and a mischievous glint twinkled in his eyes. “Holden here was related to your great-great-great-grandfather. Isn’t that right?” He looked at me.

“Well, yes.” I looked back and forth between them. Holden’s jaw was so stiff that it looked like it could shatter. His mind was completely shut down. What in the world was Baker doing?

Maggie stared at him with a new appreciation. “You’re related to me? How is that possible? Does that mean I am like you?”

Holden’s stare continued to drill holes into Baker, whose smile never faltered as he nodded encouragingly to Maggie. I had no idea what to do or how to diffuse this, my own worries taking primary residence in my mind.

I need people to leave, Holden. Please.
Even though I couldn’t hear his thoughts, he always monitored mine.

He blinked and inclined his head ever so slightly. With a deep breath, all the anger disappeared from his face. He was a little too good at dismissing the things he felt, never giving them time to breathe or heal, but he didn’t really have that luxury since every feeling he had was amplified in the people around him. He turned to Maggie, offering her his hand. “We haven’t been properly introduced.”

A too familiar blank look went over her face when he touched her. She stopped asking questions and stared at him as if awaiting instruction.

Holden.
I couldn’t block my disapproval. It was bad enough when he did it to strangers. Acting It that with people we knew was inexcusable.

I’m doing it my way or I am not doing it.
He looked back at me to punctuate his sentence.

Baby steps, I reminded myself. I let it go. He walked her out of the apartment and Quintus excused himself, but Baker hung behind. I flopped down on the couch, leaning my head back against the cushion. I didn’t want to necessarily change Holden. I just wanted him to be more mindful of his actions and considerate of others. It wasn’t like I expected him to go around offering hugs and advice, but talking to people instead of manipulating them to do what he wanted would be a step in the right direction.

The couch gave under Baker’s weight as he sat down next to me. “Let’s find your mom, angel.”

I released a slow deep breath. “I don’t know how.”

“Sure you do. Just relax.”

“JUST RELAX. SURE, that’s easy. It isn’t like lives are on the line or anything,” Olivia said, covering her eyes with her forearm. “Even if I were relaxed, what am I supposed to do then?”

Only a woman this stubborn could have held her own with Holden. “You are an angel. Quiet your mind and listen to what she has to say. Angels can find people. You can find your mother.”

She bit her lips and nodded. She was quiet for a couple minutes but her foot tapped faster and faster. “Nothing’s happening.”

I sighed.

She sat up. “Talk to me. I can’t clear my mind because I am too worried. I am worried about Mom, about Femi, and that Lucifer wants me to join him. I am worried about Holden and what will happen to him in all of this. I am worried about you and Maggie. I am worried Holden is terrorizing Maggie as we speak. I am worried the angels are going to put a hit out on me. You have to help me clear my mind.”

“Sure, angel. What do you want to talk about?”

“What’s a chol?”

I’d known it from the first time Olivia and I had really connected. She would be the one I’d tell what I was. There weren’t many who knew. Few could recognize me on their own, but most of those I hadn’t stuck around to chat with. The Abyss was a dog-eat-dog sort of place. Everyone had an angle. It was easier to let people believe I was a shifter. They accepted it because shifting was one of the things I could do. I didn’t really know what had put me in the path to meet Holden that day or why I’d known I liked him from the start. Whatever sort of destiny had been working in favor because with Holden came Olivia and with Olivia something I never thought I would have. I’d always planned to tell her everything, but I just hadn’t planned on doing it this soon. “It’s like a phoenix.”

“You’re a bird?” She lifted a doubtful eyebrow in a very Holden-like expression.

I laughed. “Kind of. Not really. No feathers.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “I live forever, but I don’t live one life. I have been born and died countless times.”

“How?”

“When I die, I am reborn from the ashes then dropped off with someone. I don’t get to choose who or where I go.”

“But how do you change your appearance?”

“I can shift into anything I want. I don’t know where they are going to leave me. I could be raised by humans, elves, pixies, vampires, caliban, or whatever. I have to be able to blend.”

She looked thoughtful. “Why don’t you just shift right back into you and then live your life as you would have?”

“I can’t. I have to age. I cannot hold a shift for any appreciable length of time until I am eighteen years old. When I am a baby matching my adoptive parents, it isn’t so much a shift as a metamorphosis.”

Her eyes were so bright and curious when she looked at me. “That’s why you know so much about the other races.” I nodded. “But why didn’t you recognize that I was an angel? And why were you able to keep the angel from attacking when we were out together?”

“First off, angels aren’t as common as you seem to think. I have never in any of my lives met an angel. Fact is, I never thought I would. I don’t get to die. Heaven isn’t something I ever thought I could experience. You might be the only glimpse I will ever get.” She took my hand, sadness filling her eyes. “The angel part of you knows what I am. Just like chol, angels are mostly immortal. She recognizes my essence in a way most can’t.”

“She trusts you?”

“I have no idea. When you went Heavenly warrior on those jinn, she wasn’t looking at me with love. I think she tolerates me. She listens to Holden. Whether or not she trusts any of us, I cannot say.”

“That’s because of me.”

I nodded. “She’s only here because of you. Maybe it’s time you let her have a voice.”

Olivia chewed on the side of her fingernail. “Why haven’t we talked about this stuff before now, Baker?”

I smiled. “It never seemed like the right time.”

She leaned her head back again. She didn’t close her eyes this time. Instead, she stared at the ceiling. “If something happens to me, I want our deal to stand. Take care of Holden.”

“Angel, if something happens to you, he’s going to follow close behind and there’s nothing I can do about that. I wouldn’t want to be the person to make him live without you.”

She blew out a breath, releasing her light and staring into nothing. Her faced morphed into the angel then back to her. Then it went back to the angel. They seemed to be trying each other on, but not blending. Still neither was willing to give up any part of herself so they could be one whole person. This was going to take time. Time we didn’t have. I obviously didn’t know Marge as well as Olivia or Holden, but she was a cool lady. I’d spent some time with her while pretending to be Holden and I didn’t want to see harm come to Olivia’s last anchor to her human life. None of us did. Holden and I had both been there at one point or another—I had been there on more than one occasion. Losing someone you love was never easy.

“You know what? You know her better than anyone else. Go to St. Louis and look for her,” I told her when it was clear this wasn’t going to work. Maybe sending her away by herself with the single purpose of finding her mom would open her mind.

Olivia nodded. “What are you going to do?”

“I will keep an eye on Femi. Everything here will be fine until you get back. Take care of your family first.”

She kissed my forehead. “You are a genuinely decent guy, Baker. I am glad you found Maggie.”

I smiled, but I knew I had made a mistake with Maggie. It was hard to be around Olivia and Holden all the time and not want to get caught up in a little of what they had. I liked Maggie a lot. I might have even loved her a bit. But it wasn’t going to work with us. She couldn’t be a part of this world and I didn’t want to not be a part of this world. It was good that we’d told her, but—I shook my head. It was a mistake to date a human. The fact that leaving her wasn’t the worst thing I could think of was a pretty strong sign that the type of love Olivia and Holden had just wasn’t for me.

“Who kicked your puppy?” Femi’s voice was threaded, but at least she was talking. Her color was better too.

“Reality.”

“Ain’t she a bitch?” Femi pushed herself up and swung her legs down to the floor. “You figured out you couldn’t keep the girl, huh?”

“I’ve been wearing blinders, kitten.”

“Love is in the air, Baker. There is nothing wrong with wanting a sip of that Kool-Aid. Just make sure choose the right glass.”

“You mean a non-human glass.”

She licked her lips. “I mean pick someone who can defend herself and not hold you back. You want someone who can be your partner, not someone you need babysit.” She grinned and plopped her feet up on my knee. “See. You should have come to me earlier. I give the best advice.”

I unzipped one of her lethal boots then the other. No way those shoes were comfortable. She watched me, though her expression wasn’t as guarded as it normally would have been. “You gotta stay alive to give me advice, kitten.”