Burn For Him (24 page)

“I’m as fine as I can be.”  I didn’t want to talk about it.  I just wanted to get all of this over and done with and move on with my life.

“It won’t be long.  We’ll get this done and you’ll hopefully be free of Milligan tonight.”

I shook my head at him slightly.  It wasn’t just about Milligan now.  I had to adjust to this side of Harper that I had never even known about. It was a lot for me to take on board.  And, even if they did manage to do with Milligan what they hoped to do tonight, he would be gone but not forgotten.  I would always be weary of new people that I would meet and my feelings towards them.  How would I ever know if they were real? Or if I was being manipulated? It was a scary thought.  It meant that I would always have doubt in my future.

“Just drop it.  I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it.” I said through gritted teeth.

              “You don’t want to talk about it.  That’s fine.  But, I want you to know that whenever you’re ready, I will be here to answer any questions that you have.  I assumed that there will be quite a few.” He paused.  When I didn’t answer, he carried on.  “I just want you to know that I am always here for you.”

I nodded.  It was all that I could do. Harper left.  I was on my own again.  Alone with only my thoughts. It wasn’t exactly great as my mind was a whirl of information that I didn’t want to think about.  I sat down on the bed and hung my head in my hands.

              “Grab what you need, it’s time to go.” Harper’s voice woke me up. I didn’t even realise that I had fallen asleep.  With everything that was going on, I didn’t think that my brain would have shut down enough to let me sleep.

“Where are we going?”

“We need to go and set up.”

“Already?” I was shocked to realise when I looked around that it was turning darker already.  Where had the day gone?

Harper simply nodded.

“What do I need?”

“Just make sure that you bring a coat and your phone.  We’ve got everything else that we need.” With that, Harper turned and walked out of my room, leaving me to rub at my eyes to wake myself up.

I ran a brush through my hair, not that it did me a lot of good.  I still looked like I’d been pulled through a hedge backwards.  I didn’t really care.  It didn’t really matter what I looked like. Quickly changing into a fresh pair of jeans and a black fitted shirt, I walked back out to find Harp and Marissa picking up a couple of bags, stuffing the papers that I had printed out into one of them.

“Are you ready?” Marissa asked. She looked much stronger now.  A thought crossed my mind.

“How are you going to be able to do this? I saw what being close to Milligan did to you earlier.  How are you going to be able to stand up to that to get this done?”

Marissa actually looked pleased with my question.  “I wasn’t sure that you would think of that.  I have made each of us one of these. It’s a talisman.” She pulled a strange looking necklace out of her top.  “These should help to dilute Milligan’s strength and power over us.” She passed me a necklace just the same as hers and I put it over my head without argument.  “We need Milligan to gain no extra strength from us.  He would be able to sense and feed off of our fear of him. And, your lust.  You have already found a way to fight that all on your own.  This talisman will be able to back that up.”

“Oh.” Was my response.  Eloquent, I know.

“Keep that on you at all times, no matter what.” Marissa instructed.  She picked up the bag once again and walked to the front door.  A shudder of apprehension ran through me.  It really was time to do this.  We were going to do this now.  Were we ready? Was I ready? What would happen if we failed?  I couldn’t allow myself to think like that.

“Carrie?” Harper’s voice interrupted my thoughts.  I nodded at him to show him that I was ready.  I shrugged on my coat as I followed after Marissa and we walked out of the apartment.

Chapter Eighteen

We took separate cars.  I rode with Harper. They didn’t have to explain why.  I knew now that this was going to be more dangerous than either of them were letting on.  We had the two cars to make sure that at least half of our small party could get away.  If anything happened to him or Marissa, then we still had a way to get out of there.  It was a sobering thought.

“Where are we going?” I asked finally.  The suspense was killing me.

Harper sighed.  “We’re going to find Milligan.”

“I think that this could well be the time that you start telling me the truth about what we’re doing.  Don’t you?” There was a sharpness to my tone.  I couldn’t help it.  This was huge. Harper had said so himself.  It was about time that they shared with me just how huge it was.

“We need to find Milligan.  We need to lure him to where we need to be.”

“Where do we need him to be?”

“A location I found this afternoon.”

Evasive, much?  “And, how exactly are we going to do that?”

“You’re going to do it.”

“What? Me? How?” I said in a panicked state.

“We’re going to swing by the club.  You’re going to make sure that he sees you and then you’re going to leave.  He’ll follow you.”

Well, he made it all sound so simple.  I knew as well as anyone that this was going to be anything but simple.  Another thought dawned on me.  “But, this afternoon when he was sitting outside the apartment, he felt me fighting his hold over me.  Won’t he know that we are up to something? Won’t he know that we have got some kind of plan?”

“Maybe.  Maybe not.  But, either way, once he sees you, he will still be intrigued enough to follow you.  Even if he knows that you have figured something out, he’ll want to know how and what it is.”

“Okay… But, you keep on saying how serious this is all getting.  Doesn’t that mean that it could be really dangerous for me to go in there?” I didn’t want to have to face Milligan alone, that’s for sure.  Yeah, I had the talisman with me and I had managed to fight him off earlier, but I hadn’t actually been face to face with the guy.  He had a hell of a hold on me.  I wasn’t sure that I could fight it off, especially not if he got close enough to touch me.  That would cloud every other sense I had.  I didn’t really want to be going in there and looking for him and then ruin the rest of the plan by succumbing to him and sleeping with him.  Marissa said that I had to stay in control of my emotions so that he couldn’t feed from them, but that was much easier said than done.

“We’re not sending you in there alone.  We’re not that stupid or reckless.” he said as if reading my mind.  “We have a friend that is going to take you in there for a drink.  He’s not going to leave your side for a single second.  We only want Milligan to notice you and then he’ll get you the hell out of there.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“Leon.  He’ll look after you.”

“Is he…. One of you? A Djinn?”

“No, he’s not.” Harper smiled.  “We didn’t want to arise any more suspicion than we needed to.  If we walked in there with you, or another Djinn, then he would definitely know that we were on to him.  Leon is a close friend of Marissa’s.”

“What if he already knows that we’re on to him? He saw me trying to fight him off and he would have surely known that we have brought in another Djinn.”  He would have been able to sense both Harper and Marissa.

“It doesn’t really matter.” he shook his head at me.  “It will still all work in our favour.  He wants you, he wants you to still want him and we want to lure him out of there.  It’s a done deal.  This is the easy bit.”

Easy? Hmmm.  I fell quiet again.  I didn’t think that this was going to be easy at all.  I wasn’t in the mood to go clubbing.  Hell, I wasn’t even sure that they would let me in.  I wasn’t exactly dressed like I was ready for a night on the town.  Jeans and a plain shirt didn’t usually fit in too well in a place like this.

“There’s Leon.” Harper pointed to a guy on the side of the street as we pulled up to a stop quite a way away from the club behind Marissa’s car.  She got out of her own car and walked over to us.  Leon walked over to meet us also.

              “Hey, man.” Harper said and walked off to one side to speak to him.  I didn’t appreciate all the whispering that was going on. I was at the centre of all of this.  There shouldn’t have been any secrets from me. Marissa walked to stand next to me.  I think that she was going to try and keep my talking so before she could say a word, I smiled at her sweetly and strode over to where he and Leon were standing.

“Hi! You must be Leon, my fake date for tonight.” I said in an overly happy voice. Harper glanced over at me nervously.

              “That means that you must be Carrie.” Leon held out a hand to me.

“Can you give us a minute please, Carrie?” Harper asked.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.  If you’re talking about what is going to happen tonight, then I need to hear it.  I don’t think that I should be the only one missing out on all the information.”

“She’s right, you know.” Leon said.  Harper still looked undecided.

“Do you know what’s going on here?” I asked Leon.

“Yep.” He replied simply.  I glanced over at Harper.

“Leon’s been a friend for years.  His companion was a brother of mine.”

“Was?” I asked hesitantly.

Harper shook his head at me and Leon looked down at the ground.  I didn’t ask anything else.  It was clearly a sore subject.

“So, what’s the plan, then?” I asked, changing track quickly.

“We go in.  Have a drink.  Make like I’m your new boyfriend.  Make sure that Milligan sees us. Then we leave.  It’s as simple as that.” Leon explained.

“Yeah. Simple.” I smirked.

“He’ll take good care of you.” Harper reassured me, throwing a mock threatening look at Leon.

“Are you ready?”

No.  Not in the slightest.  That didn’t stop me from saying, “Yeah, sure. Let’s go.”

Chapter Nineteen

We walked into the club and the first thing that I noticed was that all of the doormen seemed to know who I was. For me, that was not a reassuring sign.  I had only been here at this club the one time.  There was no way that they should have been able to recognise me.

“Good to see you again, Carrie. Go on through.” One of them said, waving away our money when Leon tried to pay the entrance fee.

“Well, that was weird.” Leon whispered in my ear. I raised my eyebrows in response and we continued our way into the club.

The bass seemed to pound through my chest. The place was heaving with wall to wall sweaty partygoers.  The atmosphere was electric.  This would have been the perfect night out.  If only we hadn’t been planning to ice a Djinn. 

No wonder Milligan thrived in a place like this.  There were people hooking up all over the place.  Alcohol and music were the perfect recipe for lust and anger, the kind of things that fed a Djinn like him the best.

I glanced over at Leon.  He was busy scanning the crowd but when he noticed me looking at him, he smiled warmly and took my hand.  When he felt me start to tense up, he leaned in to whisper, “Relax.  We’re supposed to be together, right? If this is a new relationship, we should still be in the honeymoon period.  We should want to be touching one another.”

I smiled and my fingers tightened around his, and he grinned pleasantly.  I laughed.  This was all so crazy.  I was doing this tonight to rid myself of one man’s attention, and yet here I was, getting all cosy with another guy that I didn’t even know.

“A drink?”

“Sure, why not?” I could honestly do with a drink right now.  We walked over to the nearest bar.  I was glad that we seemed to be planning to stick to the ground floor.  It made for an easier getaway.

We stood at the bar and I sipped at the Pepsi that he’d bought for me.  I could have done with something a little stronger, but I understood the need for a clear head tonight.  I didn’t even flinch when he put his arm around me and pulled me close to his side.  I even played up to it.  Whenever I leaned in to speak to him, I made sure that my hand lingered on his arm or his chest.  It was weird, but in a way, I was enjoying myself.  In fact, I was having a bit of fun with this.

“There he is.”

I froze. I couldn’t help it.  I’d been having so much fun chatting and laughing with Leon that I had almost forgotten why we were here.  Almost.

“Where?” My voice was a little shaky as I shouted over the loud music.

“Up on the second floor.” He tightened his grasp on my waist.  “No.  Don’t move away. Stay like this.”

I hadn’t realised that I tried pulling away from him.  The thought of Milligan being so close unnerved me.  I didn’t want to look around, but I needed to.  I fisted the back of Leon’s shirt in my hand and glanced up.  I watched as Milligan looked around the club, scanning the crowd before his eyes settled on me.  For a moment, longing and lust flashed in his eyes.  That was until he spotted Leon’s hand around my waist, playing with the hem of my shirt so his fingers brushed at the bare skin underneath.  Anger seemed to radiate off of him in waves.

Leon must have noticed it too, as he gently brushed the hair back from my face and leaned in to intimately whisper in my ear.  “I think that it might be time to get out of here.  What do you think?”

I tried to pull my eyes from Milligan’s. It wasn’t easy.  I didn’t have the power to resist him when he was so close to me.  I wanted to reach up and touch the talisman, but I didn’t want him to know that I had something like that.  I wasn’t sure what I was feeling.  Sure, the lust still lingered there in the background, but it was more of a physical call.  I couldn’t explain it.  It was like the call to him was dulled, but it was still strong enough to hold me.

“Carrie?” Leon leaned in to kiss me on the cheek.  He was outwardly casual and seemingly attentive to me, but I could hear the wary tone in his voice.  I unwrapped my hand from the back of his shirt and dug my nails into the palms of my hands.  The pain helped me to let go of Milligan’s hold on me.  I felt a shiver run through me, like someone had walked over my grave.

“Let’s go.  Right now.” I tried to keep the urgency out of my voice, but failed.  Not that it affected Leon in the slightest.  He was more than ready to get out of here.  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted that Milligan was moving towards the stairs.  “We’ve got to move, now.”

Leon grabbed hold of my hand tightly and dragged me off towards the exit.  I was kind of worried as we pushed through the crowds of people that the doormen may try to stop us from leaving, but they simply waved us through.

Once we were back out in the cool night air, Leon pulled me into a run towards the cars.  Marissa and Harper had been standing outside the cars, waiting for us to return.  As soon as they saw us running, they jumped into their cars and revved their engines. Leon and I dived straight into the back of Harper’s car and we sped off.  I glanced out of the rear view mirror, half expecting to see Milligan chasing after us Terminator 2 style, but he was nowhere in sight.

“So, what now?” I asked breathlessly.  I really needed to start working out more.  I wasn’t used to all of this kind of activity.

“Now we go to
Et incarnatus est de terra.”

“What is that?”

“It is one of the most sacred places that I could find around here. It’s a place where we can draw more power.”

We all fell quiet again as the cars raced to a place that I’d never heard of.