jinn 03 - vestige (21 page)

I never intended to live without Olivia and I still wasn’t going to. She may not have been dying, but she was leaving and the past pointed in one clear direction: self-destruct. I always did. When she wasn’t here to balance me, I always found solace in darkness. So rather than denying it, this time I’d plan for it, use it to our advantage.

Olivia shook her head, still denying, but she didn’t have all the facts. The darkness inside was strong and it could stop everything. She was willing to become a reaper in order to defeat Mammon, and she wasn’t the only one who could make sacrifices. The angel’s words still played in my head. Olivia may have been the one who loved me and would always believe the best in me, but the angel was a warrior. She was a fighter, and she knew what it would take to win this war. I had to embrace what I was, and that’s exactly what I was going to do. It was pointless to ask Olivia to kill me afterward, and the rest of them wouldn’t be strong enough, but someone would eventually figure it out. As a reaper she’d be safe, Femi would take care of herself, and Quintus would just have to stay out of my reach. Charlie was the only one I didn’t know how to protect. “I don’t know how you should hide her and I don’t want to. Just keep her safe and as far away from me as you can.”

“Holden, you aren’t the same person you were when I met you. It won’t be like last time. Think about all the choices you are making. You didn’t ask me to try to cheat Death. You are choosing to let me go for the greater good. You wouldn’t have done that before. Don’t you see the good in yourself?”

While her unrelenting faith in me was always nice, it was misplaced. I wasn’t like I used to be, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be there again and all too easily. Ignoring my path wasn’t going to change it and neither was Olivia this time. This would be my last act of sacrifice, so I had to make it count. “Liv. Please.”

Her hands clenched into fists and some of the fight drained from her. “Fine. I’ll figure something out. I promise. But you aren’t going to need me to. You loved me before you knew what love was. And wherever it is that you keep me, you keep that little girl too.”

I released my breath and took her hand. She didn’t need to know my plan. It would make her want to interfere and that wasn’t going to help either of us. This was the best way. Neither of us spoke for a long while. So that’s what it was like—breaking up. It was quiet, not earth shattering. The only thing breaking were two hearts that were luckier than most. We found each other. No amount of time would have ever been enough, but the fact that we had even a moment together was a fucking miracle. “If Femi finds that urn…” My lips pulled back but the words didn’t come out.

“We’ll hide it too.” She didn’t need me to say it. The way the center of her forehead creased, she knew I wasn’t telling her everything. “You’re not dying.”

I kissed her one more time. “No, you’re right. I’m not. I’m going to win.” She wouldn’t sense a lie in those words because I
was
going to win. All it would take was to give up my humanity.

“Holden—” Her phone rang, but she silenced it.

It had to be Femi. They needed her and we had to say goodbye. “I need to talk to the jinn and you need to meet with Femi. It’s time, Liv.” I broke contact with her completely, but she moved forward.

“But—”

I pressed a finger to her lips. “You changed my world—everyone’s world—but it’s out of our hands now. No matter how little time we had together, I have loved you enough for every life time.” I kissed her forehead and transported out of the club to the basement where Phoenix had set our next meeting. Olivia would remember what I told her forever and even believe it every now and then, but would I? I looked heavenward, though it had never done me any good in the past. “Please let me remember,” I whispered.

Her voice instantly echoed in my head, but I shut it out. There was no going back. I couldn’t do this with her talking to me. The room was empty, but the jinn would start arriving any minute. I swung my arms back and forth around me, shaking out my muscles as I walked and clearing my head of everything. No more thoughts about the people I was leaving or Olivia or any of it. Just me.

The darkness waited, still and patient, beneath the surface, knowing I would always come back to it. It was who and what I was. I needed it as much as it needed me. Little by little, I let go and stopped fighting it. Soaring freedom lifted like smoke from the ruins of the past. The internal fire melted away my hopes, dreams, and anything too soft to withstand it, kerosene pushed through the veins of my blackening soul and the fire spread.

I opened my eyes. Jinn were trickling in: fucking whiners all of them. Mammon killed some of us. Let’s give up. My lip curled in disgust. I could taste their fear and smell their weakness. There were worse things in this world than Mammon. Phoenix nodded to me once from the back of the room.

“If you can’t protect us from Hell, why shouldn’t we go back?” A man I didn’t recognize said from the center of the room, and several others called out their support of his question.

I walked through the crowd and they parted like the sea around me. I grabbed him by the throat, and my eyes rolled back into my head as his soul, his strength, his energy seeped into me. When I released him, his body crumpled to the floor without a mark on it, dead. Not sent to Hell, just dead.

“Any more questions?” I said softly in the silent room. “Better to have an army of one than gutless cowards at your back. Did you think freedom would be easy or come cheap? Would anyone else like to resign?” I absorbed a few more who had the stench of fear for good measure. Each soul made me stronger. Pure fucking power. How could I have ever denied this?

Had I said “Boo” they probably would have urinated. “Get the fuck out of my sight. You make me sick.”

The group all but ran out of the room, leaving only Phoenix. “Learning new tricks?” he said.

“Have you found Mammon?”

He nodded. “I have a pretty good idea where he is. Is Olivia coming?”

“No.”

“We could use her.”

“She’s not the one we can use.” I transported back to the warehouse. I had told Olivia to hide the girl. She’d had warning. If she waited too long, who was really to blame? With the Seal of Solomon in my possession no one and nothing could stop me, not even Olivia. I wasn’t a fool. If she showed up she would ferret out the weakness in me again and help it to the surface. But with the collective power of the jinn behind me, even she couldn’t reach that deep.

The guardian looked up from the couch as I opened the door and began to say something—and then his passive expression melted from his face.

I held out a hand to the child who was looking at a picture book next to him.

Quintus put his arm out and held her back. She looked at me, her big eyes windows to the very thing I needed the most.

Quintus stood and positioned himself between us. “Run, Charlie,” he said softly. The girl looked at me once more, then ran to the left.

I grinned. “You think that will help?”

“Holden,” he said slowly.

“Quintus,” I mocked him.

He couldn’t transport, not in this building. We had made sure of that. He couldn’t escape. If I could absorb a jinni soul, could I take a guardian’s as well? It couldn’t hurt to find out.

His throat moved as he swallowed and his fingers twitched at his side.

Placing one foot slowly in front of the other, I advanced. “I have put up with you and your meddling for far too long.”

“This isn’t you,” he said.

“Isn’t it?”

“No. Think about what you are doing. What about Oli—”

My fingers clenched around his neck as I lifted him from the floor. “Olivia’s dead,” I growled.

I was hit with a burst of blinding yellow light that sizzled through me. I threw Quintus against the wall, and his head snapped back against the cinderblocks before he fell to the floor. His soul was too light; it wouldn’t help me. He struggled to get back on his feet, so I kicked him again and again, but he wouldn’t stay down. Unlike the jinn I had dispatched, he wasn’t afraid. All I could smell on him was determination. He was filled with something my people hadn’t found yet. Purpose. Purpose that would drive him to his last breath.

“How many injuries does it take to end a guardian’s life?” I raised an eyebrow, and kicked him again—hard enough he skidded across the floor. Light bled from fairly minor wounds. “Let’s find out.”

I pulled out my gun and shot him once, twice, three times then waited, watching his light, his energy go back into the atmosphere. I squatted next to him and pressed my gun to his temple. “You should have just let me have the girl. Now I can’t let you live or you’ll tell Olivia and she’ll try to stop me.”

He blinked—just as I was hit hard from the side and knocked off of my feet. The gun flew from my hand and misfired. Its blast echoed through the warehouse. Maggie stood between Quintus and me, her coal-like eyes burning with unmistakable, unquenchable hunger. I sent waves of influence in her direction, but she was still too new to what she was. She couldn’t control her hunger any more than I could control my darkness. I’d have to handle her later. I transported to the back bedroom and flipped the bed. The child was huddled underneath.

She launched herself at me, but not to fight. She clung to my legs and buried her trusting face into my jeans. Maggie skidded into the room as I picked the child up.

“Put her down, Holden,” Maggie demanded.

“Walk away, Maggie. It had to be done.”

“Over my dead body.”

I nodded. “If you insist.”

She blinked, and the hunger for darkness swept back into her eyes. I wouldn’t allow her to lay hands on me, or she would drain what I had built. However, she was also too emotional and inexperienced to realize that danger was her greatest weapon, not her brute strength. “If you really want to stop me, come and get her.”

She charged at me and I waited until precisely the right moment. The moment you come to recognize as easily as drawing breath after decades of fighting: the moment to strike to do maximum damage. I hit her square in the jaw, using her own momentum against her. Charlie squeaked and Maggie dropped to the floor, jaw shattered.

“Someday, you’ll join me.” A thin trail of blood leaked from the side of her mouth. Her ability, while potentially harmful to me, was also useful. After all, what could be better than having a pet to take out troublemakers?

I walked out the warehouse unopposed, with Charlie in my arms and the world at my feet.

“Quintus will watch the kid,” I announced returning to the living room to find only Corbin. “Where’s Olivia?”

“She said not to wait for her and to call when we were ready for her.”

I sighed. “She’s with Holden, isn’t she?”

Corbin gave me an I-don’t-know-don’t-care look and tipped his head back against the couch, closing his eyes.

“If they would just listen to me, I could fix this. We could save Olivia, kill Mammon, and nothing would have to change. But no. They charge off and do whatever they want because no one could possibly have a better idea than either of them. I mean, had they listened to me about the demon lair being a total and complete trap, so obvious, then Baker would still be alive and I wouldn’t have had to stab Olivia.”

“Do you ever stop talking?” Corbin asked. “Or should I invest in earplugs.”

I kicked his shin and sulked on the couch for as long as I could stand before I had to move. “Let’s get out of here. We can scope out the meeting place and make sure it isn’t a trap.”

“Whatever.” He stood up. “Let’s play the quiet game while we drive.”

“Let’s play Corbin finds his own ride.” I went outside and got into my car.

Corbin slammed the door as he got in.

“Hey,” I said.

“I think this
tank
will survive,” he said.

“Gee, I wonder why people don’t like you,” I said.

“And I’m real broken up about that.”

I started the car and pulled out onto the street. “Are all vampires dicks?”

“Was Thomas?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he was.”

He smiled a little at that. “Then I guess you have your answer.”