jinn 02 - inferno (2 page)

Baker and Olivia’s relationship had changed as well, though I couldn’t say how. It was just different. They looked and spoke to each other on a level that was almost out of my grasp. Around her, Baker’s customary slang and annoyingness vanished. He could be laughing and flirting with Femi one minute, but as soon as Olivia walked through the door he was deadly serious and they’d share cryptic exchanges that neither of them explained to the rest of us. At first that made me want to beat Baker within an inch of his life, but now it was comforting. It was good to know she spoke to someone even if it wasn’t me.

Femi was the most oblivious to the new pecking order. She dealt with the fact Olivia had changed by pretending nothing was different at all. She still strutted through the door without knocking and said whatever was on her mind. Femi’s ego was indefatigable. Whether or not Olivia laughed at her jokes, she still knew they were funny. Most of the time Olivia ignored her or stared at her like she didn’t understand why they were friends, but Femi would carry on, giving Olivia no say in the matter.

We walked into the warehouse where we had all been staying since Marge. It was the safest place in the city. Femi and Baker constantly added to the wards and tweaked the runes as they studied them. The building was a 5000 square foot fortress against the supernatural with an animaphagist (or in layman’s terms, a soul eater) to boot. Though we hadn’t tested it on demons, it worked on Juliet, making us figure anything with a soul was toast, so we kept it around for a rainy day. The echo of the warehouse door closing behind me announced our arrival. Home sweet home. I slid the bars into place over the steel door. Olivia went to the first room on the right, a space filled wall-to-wall with maps, to cross off the latest cell and plot her next attack. I stared after her. Had we spoken at all this week? It was hard to remember. I should probably try to do it today.

Baker came ambling from the rear of the building into the front room which housed most of my furniture from the apartment. “Heya, boss. How’d it go?”

“Dead.”

His mouth twitched down and his eyes flicked toward the only room in the warehouse Olivia ever spent any time in. “Did she try to save the human?”

I shook my head.

He sighed and glanced at the floor. He mumbled something that sounded like “Still no change” to himself then looked back to me. “So what’s next on the docket? Any leads?”

“I have another location for you to scout.” When we discovered new demon cell locations, either Baker or Femi would watch the building, tunnel, or wherever they were hiding for a few days. Once they knew the best time to attack—when there were the most demons present—Olivia and I would work out a plan. I held out a slip of paper that I had written the address on. “The demon gave it up pretty easy this time.”

He took the note. “Will do, boss-man. Femi still has eyeballs on the one in Wicker Park.”

I nodded. “Has Phoenix been in contact?”

Baker shook his head. “Not for a while. He’s sure taking his sweet time choosing who he wants freed. I mean after having the kahunas to demand a ‘demonstration’ the least he could do is not take six goddamned months—” Baker jumped as a bolt of electricity shot into his ass. “Son of a—” he stopped himself from finishing, rubbing his right butt cheek.

“You know she’s sensitive about that.”

He moved to a safer spot in the room, less in the line of fire. “I haven’t seen her send a bolt of lightning into your ass for swearing.”

I raised an eyebrow at him and crossed my arms. He wouldn’t see it either. She did it to Baker because he let her. He would take it. I wouldn’t.

Baker huffed and sat down, heavily favoring his right side. “Long story short, Phoenix hasn’t called.”

I nodded. Phoenix claimed the jinn wanted a demonstration of Olivia’s ability to free them, even though I was walking, talking proof, and amazingly she had agreed to provide one, but as soon as she did, he started to hesitate. And because he was a jinni, it was obvious he was up to something. That didn’t actually bother me though. The real problem was Olivia
agreeing
to do it. I thought originally it was because she knew we needed the backup, but the two of us managed to dispatch any demon we came across. Where would the jinn even fit into the plans now? Why she was willing to free them as an angel but not when she was herself?

“I want to do it tonight,” Olivia said from the other room. “No more waiting.”

Baker made a face and shrugged. I ran a hand over my hair as I walked to the doorway of her room. “Why tonight?”

She stared at the maps of the city surrounding her, face smooth and alien. “Tonight or we start making other arrangements.” Her voice was soft, but still not hers.

I released my breath and pulled out my cell phone as I walked back to the living room area. Phoenix answered on the second ring. “We do this tonight or not at all,” I told him.

He paused. “That wasn’t the deal.”

“It’s the new deal. Take it or leave it.”

“Fine. We’ll be ready.”

I pressed end and put the phone back in my pocket before I obliterated it in my hand. Anger and resentment licked along the edges of my brain, tightening my jaw and stretching my skin. I hated taking orders. I took several deep breaths to push it back down.

“You wanna get outta here? Maybe get some giggle water?” Baker asked. His tone was light and he wore a grin, but I noticed he kept the glow of Olivia’s room within his peripheral vision.

“Holden.” The angel stuck her head out of the room and waited for me to look at her. “What is the new location?”

“Just a second,” I told Baker. I went back into the room, took a black pushpin from a container on the scarred wooden table in the center, then scanned the maps. Black pins marked suspected demon locations. When a spot was cleared, a white pin replaced the black. Now she also had a scattering of red and yellow pins on the board. “What are those for?” I asked.

Olivia ran her fingers over the new pins and a little smile curved her lips, but when she looked at me, all smiles were gone. “The location?”

I pushed the pin into the street in Northbrook. “There. Baker will start staking it out.”

She moved in for a closer look, tilted her head to the side and closed her eyes. I had seen her do that for hours at a time. She wasn’t going to answer my question. She never did. If this talking to her thing was ever going to work, I needed to break through. She needed to see me. I moved to touch her shoulder, but she pulled away before I could, eyes still closed. Message received.

I took two steps toward the door. Her eyes popped open. “Do you think you deserve to be forgiven?”

My feet stilled. “Forgiven for what?”

“For all the wrong you have caused. For the evil and perversity you have willingly placed in this world. Should you be forgiven simply because you fell in love?” Her voice was emotionless and flat.

I never thought I should be forgiven. I never believed I would be. Olivia was the one who had those hopes and fears, not me. I looked back at her. “Do you think I do?”

For once her thoughts were clear on her face. She didn’t. That judgment hit me harder than I would have guessed. I nodded and started toward the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

I continued out. This was who we were now.

Baker and I left the warehouse and it was a relief to have the distance between us. I still loved her, but she was hard to be around. Baker’s favorite bar wasn’t too far away. It was dark, seedy, and mostly human. Femi waited inside, her arms stretched out across the back of a booth, and openly staring at the humans with a vaguely disgusted expression.

“They really are a strange race, aren’t they?” she asked as we approached.

Baker nudged her foot off the seat so he could sit, leaving the other side for me. “How long you been here, kitten?”

She directed her cat-eyed gaze toward him and ran one sharpened fingernail down the side of his cheek, not leaving a mark, but the threat was apparent. “What did I tell you about calling me kitten?”

He caught her hand and kissed the back of it. “I do it out of love.”

She pulled away, smiling. “No one’s buying what you’re selling, champ.”

I slid out of the booth and went to the bar, leaving them to flirt. Whether or not either of them meant anything by it I didn’t know or care. They were adults; they could do what they wanted. I ordered two double whiskeys for myself and carried them back to the table. Baker made a move to take my second drink, but the knife I stabbed in the table next to his hand stopped him. They were mine.

“So, Chuckles, we gotta talk,” Femi said. I drank half a glass in one gulp then looked at her. She brushed her long ponytail over her shoulder and leaned in. “What are you going to do about the angel?”

I polished off my first drink, pushed the glass to one side, then took the second one in hand.

“You know this can’t last Holden,” Baker said.

I leaned back in the booth, cradling my beverage as they both looked on expectantly. “Is this a fucking intervention?”

“Have you been eating glass? No? Well, then it isn’t an intervention. This is a meeting of the still sane members of our group,” Femi said. “Did you see that episode with the person who eats glass—”

“Not the time,” Baker stopped her. “Femi’s right though. Olivia is not herself and she isn’t getting better. I hoped she’d snap out of it by now.”

I downed my second drink and stood up. I couldn’t control Olivia. We just had to wait her out. There was no reason to talk about it. If they didn’t like it, no one was asking them to stay.

“Longer you wait, the less likely it is that she’ll ever come back,” Baker said. “Every day she gets weaker and the angel gets stronger. You gotta do somethin’, boss.”

I took a few deep breaths, striving to lower my boiling anger to a simmer before sitting back down. Baker had a knack for knowing things. You couldn’t get a straight answer out of him for how or why he knew stuff, but he was normally right. “Why do you say that?”

Femi and Baker exchanged looks. “We’ve been looking into this. There’s nothing on angels with human souls written anywhere. We don’t think there are any others,” Femi said.

I sighed. If they actually didn’t know anything, why were they bringing this to me? “You have two seconds before I walk out of here.”

“The fact is, boss, angels are powerful. That isn’t news, I know. But I suspect the longer it has full control over Olivia, the more likely it will keep control. If there’s any hope of her human soul ever coming back to the forefront,
you
need to make a move now.”

“What exactly do you expect me to do?” I leaned forward, resting my arms on the table. “It isn’t like you know any of this for a fact, and right now, she’s saving all our asses. She’s the best chance we have.”

“We’ll find another way,” Femi said. “We need someone we can trust. Someone who isn’t going to use us and then let us die. We
need
Olivia, not a psychotic angel with an agenda.”

The bar filled with light. I looked over expecting to see the angel, but Uriel came into sight, once again looking like the bartender with bright blue eyes who once helped me.

“I apologize for my tardiness,” he said to Baker.

Shit, this really was an intervention.

“You’re right on time,” Baker said. “Scoot over, Holden.” I frowned and moved to the left. “Tell him what you told me.”

Uriel turned to me. “She can’t upset the balance. If Olivia tips the scales, Heaven will step in. I’ve already warned her of this, but she did not heed my warning.”

I returned his steady gaze. “If the choice is to let Hell kill us or to upset your precious balance, I’ll stick with her.”

“No one’s saying we can’t defend ourselves, right?” Baker said. “All he’s saying is there are certain things that could bring more trouble down on us. We have to do this the right way.”

“By all means defend yourselves, but Hell’s presence on earth is just as important as Heaven’s. The balance must remain. Lucifer has spent a millennia trying shift the scales and has failed. Olivia, whether she means to or not, is helping him achieve his goals now. Why do you think they haven’t attacked the two of you or made any overt moves against you?”

My jaw clenched. “And what are his goals exactly?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It has been a long time since I understood my brother. All I know is he seeks discord and that is exactly what she has set herself on the path to cause. I do not wish to kill her. Do not let it come to that. Please. I thought it would be different this time, but angels were not designed to be out of God’s grace. Left to their own devices they cause more harm than good, but the human can balance her. The soul she was paired with is strong—and made even stronger by its connection with you.”

Baker leaned forward. “You’re the only one of us who has a chance of reaching her. She loves you. Use that.”

I wanted to laugh. She
loved
me. Present tense probably wasn’t still applicable. My conversation with Lucifer played in my mind, as it often did. He said she had the power to give him what he wanted and that it was time for me to leave. Though he didn’t mention specifics, he didn’t kill me either—which meant he didn’t view me as a threat to his plans, or he thought taking me away from her at that point could change the course she was on. I had assumed it was the former, but maybe, just maybe, Baker had a point. “What’s in it for me?”

Femi snorted. “Do you really have to ask that?”

“He’s just buying time,” Baker told her, which was true.

I looked back at the concerned faces around me. “Let’s say I somehow—though I’m by no means confident I can—get Olivia’s human side to take back over, then what? Are angels going to offer us any protection?”

Uriel shook his head. “We cannot.”

“Then how do I keep her alive when she’s weakened by compassion for the enemy?”