jinn 02 - inferno (8 page)

“Why do the demons care? Can’t they pretty much go back and forth at will?” Baker asked.

“Yeah, but they’re minor. The really powerful ones, they can’t come up. I don’t know if they can. Logically, I would think they want to shut them down any escapes from the underworld, but if these maps were in the house, maybe there’s more to it. Maybe they are looking to bring something up, something big.” He tossed the maps on the table. “But I really don’t know. I have a feeling they’re looking for a way to get something up here that can kill the angel.”

“So how do we find this stuff out?” Baker asked.

“There are a few people I could ask,” Holden said.

“I wouldn’t trust anything that came out of that house, Chuckles.” I explained the evening to him and he listened.

“Show me.”

I drove him and Baker back to the house. He walked through it, not touching anything until we were upstairs again. Holden scanned the room and inhaled deeply, then frowned. I sniffed the air to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, and I still smelled nothing alive, only the hint of rot, decay, and ammonia. He dragged a chair to the center of the room and pushed up a piece of the ceiling. His head swiveled right then left and his eyes narrowed. A moment later he boosted himself up and disappeared. The clang of metal against metal made me itch to move forward and see what was happening. The noise came again, then Holden’s heavy footsteps caused bits of popcorn ceiling to rain down over the room. A few seconds later he called Baker over and lowered what looked like a pile of rags and matted hair until it moved. The musty smell of dirt, feces, and sour milk caked the room, but the hollow feeling got stronger. I moved closer. What was it?

Baker lifted the heap to eye level and it burst into a flurry of motion. Growling like a feral raccoon, the creature’s arms and legs kicked and scratched and clawed. Baker held it back, but didn’t let go. The thing fought for dear life. Holden lowered himself back into the room, then stepped down from the chair, wiping his hands on his jeans before he took the bundle.

“No,” he said sharply, and as if the word held some magic directive, the creature stopped. Holden sat it on the ground and to my surprise it stood. No one spoke. Hell no one knew what to say. A small face peeked out from beneath the matted hair. It was a little kid—a human kid. Why would demons keep a child in the attic and how did Holden know to look?

“You chose the wrong house to play hide-and-go-seek in, kid.” I stooped down in front of her, testing if she could see me.

She eyed me warily before she turned her head away, a growl slipping out. She definitely saw me. I shifted so I was in front of her again. “What’s your name?”

At that innocuous question she charged me, pushing past but scratching me all the same, and pressed herself into the back of Holden’s leg. I looked up at him, and his mouth twitched down as he looked at her. He put a hand on her shoulder and moved her away, then knelt in front of her to make eye contact with the dirty little thing.

“Name?” he asked with the same authority he had before.

She stared back at him, completely blank.

“Why are you here?” he tried.

She turned her head away from him. He used his index finger to move her chin back. “Why are you here?” he asked with infinite patience.

Her huge eyes filled with tears. “Eat,” she whispered.

“How long have you been here?”

She shook her head and flung herself at him, dirty arms flying over his shoulders. Only this time she wasn’t fighting. She was clinging to him for dear life. “Eat,” she sobbed.

Holden returned the little girl’s hug. I pinched Baker to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

“Ow. What?” Baker said.

I hooked a thumb at the two of them. Baker merely smiled at me as if he never expected anything less from Chuckles.

Finally Holden scooped the girl up with one arm, her head still buried in his shoulder. “We’ll take her back to the warehouse. She needs food and a bath and probably some clothes.”

“You got it, boss. We’ll pick up the stuff. You take the kid.”

Holden started for the door and the dead-vacant feeling moved with him. It was definitely coming from her.

“We don’t know anything about her. What is she?” I asked. We hadn’t resolved anything, just picked up a stray.

Holden shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

And with that he left. My mouth fell open. “Did that seriously just happen?”

Baker glanced at me. “What?”

“First the king of OCD touched the filthy little brat without a hazmat suit. Second, he hugged her. I may be way off base here, but I’m pretty sure he was offering comfort. And third—”

“And third the feeling in the house is gone. It was her,” Baker said.

My head jerked slightly then I honed in on my senses and sure as shit he was right. It felt like a normal house again. “What is she?”

Baker rubbed a hand over his jaw. “She’s a void.” He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. “Every living being has a specific energy, and even the places or objects people are around can collect that energy. That’s why you thought this house felt weird. Basically, the energy around her is so strong it overpowers everything else in the room, leaving the space feeling empty and hollow. Had this been an abandoned place you probably wouldn’t have noticed, but since demons were living here your expectations were different.”

“Okay. But why do a bunch of demons have her?”

“Voids are good for hiding something magical or powerful that you don’t want found.”

“How did the demons get her?”

“The usual way I would guess. They probably kidnapped her, or possessed her parents and took her. Whatever was easiest.”

I stared at the trapdoor in the ceiling. “What were they hiding?”

“Whatever it was, it’s not here anymore.”

Thoughts and questions struggled to make it to the forefront of my mind. Was this why Olivia asked how many demons were inside? Could she not sense it because of the kid? At the time I thought she should know, but maybe the girl obscured them. And what had happened to whatever she was shielding? If they moved it, wouldn’t they take the void with them? Holden found her because he could sense the raw emotion coming from the attic, but where was the magic thing she was hiding? Either someone knew our raid was going to happen and removed it, but didn’t have time to get the kid, or it was still here.

I hopped up onto the chair, but I wasn’t tall enough to lift myself inside. I glanced down. “Give me a boost, Baker.”

He obliged, threading his fingers together to form a platform for me to rest my foot on, then counted to three and hefted me up. Inside the attic I couldn’t stand to full height and the floor felt spongy. The thick air was stagnant in the windowless, lightless space. I made out a tiny pile of covers and debris I assumed was her bed. The room was pungent with heavy overtones of urine. My eyes prickled and my throat clenched. How long had she been up here? Breathing through my mouth I moved forward slowly. In the pile of rags where she must’ve slept there was a round piece of metal attached to the main beam across the house. A thick chain about fifteen to twenty feet long was latched onto the circle and there was a cuff on the end of it. It was long enough the kid should have been able to reach most of the attic, but no further. Crude drawings filled the walls and random scraps of rotten food lay scattered around, but there was absolutely nothing magical. I crouched down and scanned the room once more. There had to be
something
.

Crack.

In an instant I was freefalling with bit of white ceiling and the kid’s bed around me. I got my legs underneath me and landed on my feet (in four inch heels I might add) with a thump. I raised an arm over my head to protect myself from any more falling debris and Baker rushed toward me.

“You’re supposed to walk on the boards, not the ceiling.”

I flashed a grin. “Where’s the fun in that?”

He laughed. “You’d rather fall.”

“Than be safe? Always. There’s nothing up there. Let’s go.”

He stooped and grabbed a dirty gray doll off the floor. “Right behind you.”

I had no idea where to put the kid in the warehouse. She was too filthy to go on any of the furniture and it wasn’t like we were equipped with a bathtub—just a small, bare bones shower. Some point on the way back, her death grip loosened and her breathing evened. Now she was sound asleep. Her frail little body was light, too light, in my arms. I doubted her vocabulary extended to more than a few words, one of those being eat. She didn’t look old, maybe a small five year old, but it was hard to tell beneath the crusted dirt and animal-like reactions. She was gray from head to toe. If Olivia hadn’t already killed the demons, I would have and made sure they felt it too. She was just a kid.

The thought of hurting the demons, making them pay, loosened the squeeze in my chest and eased the repulsion in my mind. Any demon would do. I’d find one and use my knife to peel the skin from its bones. The thought made me smile. It was the best idea I had in a while. Skinning a demon was better than any stress ball.

I laid the kid on the couch. The soft, reclaimed leather formed to her body and cradled her, but her eyes immediately shot open and a wave of pure panic crashed into me. Her eyes darted around as she scrambled into the corner of the couch, curling herself into a ball. When she finally saw me she whimpered a little. I held out an arm, an invitation, and she leaped in my direction then climbed me like a ladder, once again clinging to me, burying her face against my shoulder. Her fear of everything unfamiliar gnawed at me as I held her. Being this close to raw emotion was like repeatedly ramming myself against a knife, but I couldn’t abandon the kid. For some reason she liked me and felt safe with me, and I couldn’t turn my back on that. It had been a very long time since I’d been around children—not since my brother in fact—but he was the last person I needed to think about right now. I sank into the couch, holding the child against my chest until she drifted back to sleep, breathing through my mouth and keeping my mind blissfully blank. A shift in the air and the feeling of someone watching me opened my eyes. The angel stood in the doorway of her room staring at us.

“She was in the house,” I said.

She nodded, but cleared her throat. It was the first time I’d ever seen her taken aback by something. “So why did you bring her here?” she asked coldly.

Having had Olivia back for even the tiny moment we’d recently shared made me long for her return more than ever —so bad I tasted bitter loss. The angel stood before me, returning my stare, awaiting my answer, her back board-straight, her facial expression as smooth and hard as glass, her eyes, as always, emotionless. I hated her. Just a little, but the emotion was there and would probably grow over time. I resented that she kept Olivia away. I resented that she left this child in that house alone. She knew—she had to have known—the girl was there, but she killed the demons and left her chained in the attic. If Femi hadn’t brought me there, she would have starved. Seeing her study the child with contempt, hearing her honestly wonder why I brought her back with me, made me want to throw her angelic knife at her.

“Do I need a reason?”

Her eyes met mine. “You have one whether or not you need it.”

“She has no one else. She would have died.”

“Will you recruit her for the jinn?”

My lip curled and I couldn’t keep the disdain from my face. The angel apparently didn’t have a high opinion of me. “No.”

Slowly, as if she was far from certain, the angel came forward. When she was within an arm’s length, she stopped. “She does not belong here.” She stretched a pale, glowing hand toward the child; the girl jerked awake and screamed like she was being murdered before the angel could touch her, immediately trying to flee my arms.

The angel yanked her hand back and inched away, eyes wide. “It’s okay. You’re fine. She isn’t going to hurt you,” I whispered to the girl until she settled down again. This was going to be a long night.

The latch on the front door rattled. I gripped the knife in my hand and waited. It pushed open wide and Baker came through with a large, blue storage container in his arms. Femi strolled in behind him, drinking an orange slushy and holding a second one in her other hand.