jinn 03 - vestige (18 page)

“A massacre. Mammon sent a message. When you asked for help, I expected this to be another one, but I don’t know if those creatures could have done what I saw at the club.”

She nodded. “Someone else sent them. I’ll look into it.”

I nodded. “Don’t do anything until I get back…and you might want to talk to Femi.” That should keep her busy.

I was nearly to the door when I had a new thought, a better thought. “Actually, Liv, I could use your help. Will you come with me to the club?”

****

Olivia and I walked into Xavier’s together. I didn’t have to burn down my business if she could simply incinerate the remains with her light. She stopped the moment she crossed the threshold, sucking in a deep breath.

She blinked several times. “I’m going to be sick.” She spun around, went back outside, and doubled over.

Phoenix came out of the room with all the bodies. “Three things,” he said.

“Just a second, Olivia isn’t feeling well.” I was immediately worried that whatever Death did to her, it hadn’t worked, but she waved my concern away.

“It isn’t that,” she said, wiping her mouth as she straightened back up. “It’s the sulfur and”—she shook her head, nose wrinkling—“the rot in the air.”

I honestly hadn’t noticed. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

She took a deep breath and stepped back inside. “I’m fine.”

Phoenix smiled at her. “You’re looking much better.”

“I’m feeling much better, thank you.”

Phoenix stood there grinning at her like a fucking idiot.

“Three things?” I said snapping my fingers in front of him.

“Right. First, the bodies are prepped and ready to be burned. Second, Sybil’s in your office. And third, news about this is already spreading.”

“Fuck. How?”

“I don’t know. Demons?”

“And the jinn?”

“Probably not on our side for long. They want to be free, but they don’t want to die even more.”

The jinn leaving wouldn’t just weaken our position it would annihilate it. If they went back to Hell’s control, Hell would once again have an army to use against us, and we only had Olivia until Mammon was gone. After that, we were on our own.

“Phoenix and I will take care of the bodies, Holden see what Sybil wants, and then we will discuss the jinn,” Olivia said.

Phoenix snorted and handed me a mirror. “I don’t think this is about what Sybil wants.”

Olivia paused and I could have hit him. “What do you mean?”

“With how long it took me to find her, I’d say she has been doing everything in her power to avoid Holden. But after the attack on you, who could blame her? She had to know what would happen.”

“The attack on me? You mean she was the one—” Olivia’s shoulder’s straightened. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll talk to her. The two of you do whatever you want.”

I caught her arm. “I’ll handle it, Liv.”

She shook her head. “No, this has been a long time coming. I need to do it or she’ll never stop.”

I smiled a little. She was so different than the angel. “Oh, she’ll stop,” I said. “Because I’m going to kill her.”

“She has to die” Phoenix said.

Olivia’s mind never went to murder first. It would go easily to sacrifice and helping, and maybe less easily into punishment, but straight killing someone without letting them redeem themselves wasn’t in her wheelhouse. That was the angel’s side of thing and without the angel here to clean up, it was my territory.

“That’s why you’ve been looking for her? To kill her.”

“Yes.” I raised a challenging eyebrow. “She had a choice and she made it. She betrayed us. I’m not letting her live. Take care of the bodies. I’ll be back.”

I felt Liv’s eyes following me as I headed for the stairs, but she was silent both in person and in my mind. If I pushed I could probably find out what she was thinking, but this wasn’t up for debate. I brought Sybil in, knowing full well who and what she was, just as she knew me—and what would happen if she betrayed me. Olivia would have to live with it.

Sybil sat on the couch in my office, her ankles and wrists zip-tied together. Laying the mirror on the table, my phone rang.

“Yes, Femi,” I answered.

“Baker’s ashes are missing,” Femi said.

“I don’t have them.” What did she expect me to do about it? Couldn’t anyone do anything on their own?

She sighed noisily. “Who knows about what Baker was? How can I find them?”

“Call Olivia. Ask her to tell Death you need to talk to the dragon.” I hung up and refocused on Sybil.

“Problems?” she asked sweetly.

I took out a knife, cut her ties, and sat down across from her.

“There was a time you would have come for me yourself, instead of sending a guard dog after me,” she said with a pout, rubbing her wrists.

“Possibly,” I said. Her wild curls sprung out in every direction and her dark eyes hardened. She appeared strong and indifferent, but I could taste her fear. It was lined with weariness and relief. “Did you ever think it would be me?”

Her lips pursed as her chin jutted out. “Feeling nostalgic? Spare me. Just get it over with.”

I waited.

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Did I think what was you? Did I think you were the one who was going to kill me? Pretty much from the moment I met you, because no matter how long you play house with the angel, it’s who you are. All of this is an act. We both know it. You’re a killer and incapable of love or compassion. That’s why I liked you. You made living forever as a parasite easier somehow. So yeah, this was my plan from the start.”

That was who I was, but I had changed. Gradual as it may have been, the fact was still there. When Sybil knew me, we wouldn’t have had this conversation at all. I would have walked in and put her in front of a mirror—if I was feeling nice. Otherwise there would have been torture and a mirror until she begged for release. But today, no matter what she had done, I wasn’t looking forward to taking her life. If that wasn’t progress I didn’t know what was.

“Or did you mean did I ever think you would be the one I fell in love with? The person I would stay with.” She turned her head and pretended to study the bookshelf.

I shook my head. Back then I didn’t think in those terms. I stayed with her until it became taxing, until a better offer presented itself to me. I believed, like she did, that I couldn’t love. I never felt capable of it until I met Olivia. She was the finger than knocked down the dominos, and we were all still falling—and probably would continue to fall long after she left us. Sybil’s sadness itched annoyingly at the back of my throat, shaving away my patience.

She shrugged one shoulder and swallowed hard before looking back at me. “Maybe I did. It was a long time ago. Who can remember?”

“That’s why you attacked Olivia.”

Her hands fidgeted in her lap. “You’re going to talk me to death? Wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Oh, I get it . . . This is the torture part.” She sighed. “I didn’t tell anyone anything. I simply pointed out that if they wanted her dead, she was a pretty easy target. Apparently she had more fight left in her than I anticipated.” She leaned toward me. “Tell me one thing before you kill me.”

I nodded.

“If I had succeeded and she died, would we still be sitting here like this or…”

“Or what?” I frowned at her. “Would I take you back? Would you slip into her place? How do you not understand this? She isn’t replaceable to me. It isn’t just a matter of her being in your way. She is a part of me, and I can’t go back even if I wanted to. She’s the reason I’m talking to you instead of killing you right now—”

“Please feel free to kill me instead of telling me about the angel.”

I gestured to the mirror. “You want to die, there it is. If you want me to do it, you’re going to tell me what you know.”

Her trembling fingers ran along the edge of the frame. When a succubus looks in a mirror, it is possible for them to become trapped inside. Unable to look away from her own reflection, she’d sit there until she died or someone broke the mirror thereby killing her and ending her suffering. “How will you do it?”

“Fast. Broken neck. Cremation.”

She sat back on top of her hands as if she could hold them back from the mirror.

“How much were you involved in?”

“Like I said, I told them about Olivia. I might have helped get the jinn here for Mammon. But it’s Mammon, Holden. What did you expect? You can’t defeat him. You don’t even have an angel. I want to die, but I don’t want to be tortured for the next thousand years in Hell. Sorry, but your little suicide mission can only end one way.”

“What about the wendigos?”

“What about them?”

“Did you send them to the warehouse? Why?”

“I don’t know anything about that. All I did was help get the jinn here and tell them now was the time to kill your precious guardian. That’s it.”

“Where is he staying?”

“It changes every night, and he rarely steps outside.”

So she knew nothing. Fantastic.

“He’s waiting for the lunar eclipse. That’s when he’ll attack and take you back to Hell with him.”

I nodded and stood up. Sybil’s nervous energy zoomed up my spine as I went behind her. I placed a hand on either one of her shoulders. “It’s going to be okay.”

She nodded and placed a cold hand over mine. “I’m glad it’s you and not a stranger. I didn’t want to be alone.”

All of her emotions vanished from the room, as the crack of her neck echoed in my ears and her body sagged onto the couch. I picked her up and carried her downstairs. The bar was back to pristine condition. Olivia had restored it fully. It was a neat trick, but would it last after she was gone?

She looked up, eyes lingering on the body in my arms. Sadness flashed across her face for a split second before she looked away. I didn’t feel her usual flood of emotion. In fact I hadn’t felt much from her since she made her deal with Death. Either she was holding back or he had messed with our connection.

“What are you going to do with her?” Phoenix asked.

“You still have the gas?”

He nodded.

Olivia shook her head. “Too messy. It will draw attention. I’ll take care of it.”

“Her body won’t react the same,” I said.

“I know. Just lay her down.”

I gently laid Sybil on the floor. Olivia knelt beside her. She glanced up at me. “You want to say anything?”

My eyebrows pulled together. What the hell would I say?

She nodded, placed her arms around the succubus, then transported across the room. Sybil was gone, dispersed into a cloud of energy and light.

So the silver haired fox was Rhys and he did have the cup—like I was really going to allow them to banish me to the kitchen. I dumped the kid off with Quintus and went back. Olivia didn’t think the cup could help her, but she didn’t know everything. Sy wouldn’t have pointed me in its direction for no reason.

However, Rhys left and not by the front door. Olivia said Death called him a traveler. She didn’t appear to know what that meant, but I did. Travelers were somewhere between demigods like my people, Sekhmets, and the spiritual powerhouses (angels and demons) power-wise, but they had no alliances to anything: good or evil, our world or the next, or even our dimension. They traveled anywhere and everywhere at their will, only limited by imagination. This made the task of getting the cup nearly impossible. Who could even say where a traveler lived?

“Spying? That’s a little cliché?” Corbin whispered behind me when the talking stopped in the front room.

I massaged my shoulder. Mad or not, I should have let Olivia heal me. “If you can’t be useful, go home and mind your own business, leech.”

He smirked. “Tell me where Thomas is.”

“I. Don’t. Know.”

“Then you might as well talk to me because I’m not going anywhere.” He nudged me with his foot. “Why did Olivia’s deal piss you off? It seems like you all need her and she was next to useless before.”

I took a deep breath. “Because she’s leaving again, and this time it’s my fault. I have three friends in this world: her, Baker, and Sy. When Olivia is gone, I’ll be down to one.”