jinn 03 - vestige (9 page)

“You said you could help.” Desperation clawed its way back inside of me, disrupting the calm of the room.

“I can.” He searched my face like he could see straight into my heart. “But you won’t like the solution.”

“What is it?”

“From the beginning of time, I have been alone. This is my sole purpose for being. I will never know my heavenly brethren or the fallen below. This world is my domain and all those who step foot in it leave by my hand. Can you fathom that sort of power?”

I shook my head.

“Good.” He nodded. “Too many would seek to abuse it. For every beginning, there must be an end. I am that end. Good, evil, right, wrong, none of it matters. Every creature great and small, no matter what deals they have made or how they might try to escape me, always meets an end.”

“And that is you.”

He nodded.

“So you could kill Mammon?”

He smiled a little. “Yes, but I am neutral. I do not influence events. I merely deliver souls as they are needed. Breaking that would have terrible irreversible consequences.”

I nodded. “So how do I defeat him?”

“You cannot.” He blinked, breaking his intense stare for just a moment. “You have shown incredible resilience to both sides seeking to impart their agendas on you.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“You could join me. You are an angel or at least you could be again. Once you come to me, you will be untouchable by either side. I will restore your strength and you will help me collect souls. It will save you and eliminate any threat to you.”

My mouth went dry. The image of my mother crumbling to the ground, no preamble, no fight, just gone, filled my head. I helped people. I didn’t kill them. “You took my mother,” I whispered.

He breathed in deep. “I take everyone.” He held my gaze then nodded slowly. “I took your father. I took grandparents. Your great grandparents. . You aren’t thinking about this in the correct terms. The life would end regardless of you being there. You make the passing easier and lead them to a new life. A second, third, fourth, one-hundredth chance.” He took my hand. “Don’t you see? You will still be helping.”

He was so calm, so soothing, so devastatingly reasonable.

I shook my head. I couldn’t see that. I didn’t want to. “How do you know?”

“I have faith.”

This was impossible. How was I supposed to choose? On one hand every decision I made led to worse consequences that I had to bear. On the other hand was death and giving up everyone I knew and loved.

“If I say no, how long do I have?”

Disappointment was clear, but he nodded. “If that is what you want. Hours, days, there is no way to tell. Your date has not been set.” His mouth settled in a firm line. “Are you sure of this decision?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

He placed a solid hand on my shoulder. “I will give you one week to settle your affairs and decide if you would like to continue here with me. In seven days time, all of this will end one way or another.”

Energy rushed through me, making my stomach jump then crash back down. I blinked and was back at the warehouse, dizzy but still very much alive. Rain pelted my skin and I had never felt anything so invigorating.

Holden opened the door almost immediately. His face was hard, but an instant later I was in his arms. I couldn’t say if I went to him or if he pulled me to him. Either way, we collided and it was exactly where I wanted to be—and exactly where I shouldn’t be if this was going to end.

He squeezed me tight and I melted into him—then gathered my strength and stepped away. A shadow of grief crossed his face, but a moment later was gone.

He faltered for a moment, then spoke haltingly. “Are you better? You look better. What did he want?”

“I am stronger, but I don’t know if it will last for very long.”

“So he didn’t…”

Kill me? Obviously not. I shook my head. “He offered me a deal. I told him I needed time to think about it.”

He nodded. “What were his terms?”

“Me. He wants me to be a reaper. He will restore me to angel status, minus the other personality, and I would become untouchable by either side.”

Holden’s hands fell to his sides. “And you’ll live.”

I frowned. “I’ll have to kill people—countless people, every single day, for the rest of eternity.”

Holden didn’t look sympathetic.

“I have one week to decide.”

“There’s no decision. It’s this or dying. You have to do it.”

I crossed my arms. “Of course, there’s a
decision—
and I will make it, not you. I’m the one who will have to live with it. So far every change I’ve gone through has made my life worse. I was happy. I had a good life, a job I loved, a family, and friends, and then I died. I was a terrible guardian and an even worse angel. I won’t fool myself into thinking I’ll make a good reaper. Maybe the only thing I’m good at being is human.”

One side of his mouth curled up. “When you’re done feeling sorry for yourself, let me know.” He turned and went back inside leaving me in the rain.

My fist clenched, wanting to punch him in his smug face. I went inside, drenched. Everyone was there: Femi, Quintus, Maggie, Corbin, Phoenix, and the little girl. Femi and Quintus jumped up and came toward me, firing a flurry of questions.

I imagined myself dry, and for the first time in two weeks my power actually worked. Light covered me then faded away and I looked like I always did.

“So you’re better,” Femi said. She pulled me in to a tight hug. “I’m not going to lie, you were starting to worry me. I don’t think I could take losing both you and Baker. We should celebrate.” She tipped her head to the side. “Wanna go kill some demons? Get a little payback?”

I laughed and hugged her back just as tight, emotion tightening my throat.

When Femi let go, Quintus gave me a softer hug. “What would we do without you, firefly?”

Holden caught my eye over Quintus’s shoulder, raised an eyebrow and then glanced around the room.
Every person in this room will suffer needlessly if you choose to leave,
he said.

Not every one,
I replied.
Not the vampire, not . . .
I was going to say “not you,” but I was transparent enough. It wasn’t that Holden’s words didn’t resonate with me because they did. But it wasn’t as simple as just becoming a reaper. It never was. There were always catches.

Give him time,
Holden thought-spoke, ignoring the second part of my comment, which was just as well. There really was nothing left for him to say.

I fielded Femi and Quintus’s questions with the most vague answers possible. It made sense why Death took me away from Femi and Holden. The thought of disappointing them, any of them, was enough to sway my decision.

Are you going to tell them or should I?
Holden’s voice rang through my head again.

This is my decision. Butt out.

Like hell it is. Do you have any idea what they all went through to bring you back?
“She isn’t healed,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear.

Femi stopped midsentence, Quintus’s face fell, Maggie accidentally broke the little girl’s doll, and even Corbin looked back at me with interest.

“Is that true?” Maggie asked.

I clenched my jaw and nodded.

“What does that mean?” Quintus asked. “How can you not be healed?”

I rubbed my temple. “I don’t feel like talking about this.”

“Too fucking bad,” Femi said. “Sit your boney ass down and tell us exactly what happened.”

When I didn’t say anything, Holden did. “He offered to renew the angel’s powers to her and save her life.”

Why was he doing this to me?

“Then why aren’t you better?” Femi asked.

Support came from an unlikely corner. “There’s always a catch,” Corbin said. “There’s a catch.”

“What is it?” Quintus asked.

“I have to reap for him.” Everyone went quiet.

“That’s not so bad,” Corbin said. “It would take Mammon out of the fight before it even began.”

Holden had the self-satisfied smirk of someone who obviously felt he won.

“What else?” Quintus asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Will you be able to stay here? With us? How will it change your way of life? Will you get time off? As far as I know the Angel of Death has never done a lot of mingling. He works all the time. So many people die, and someone has to be there. . . . I don’t actually know how he manages it.”

I closed my eyes. I’d been so appalled by the idea of taking lives, I hadn’t thought to ask those questions. “I didn’t ask,” I said.

Holden wasn’t smiling now.

Femi stalked around the room. “Well, that’s something we need to know. We also need to find other options.”

“I can look in the archives,” Quintus volunteered.

“I’ll talk to the witches,” Femi said, heading for the door with Corbin on her heels.

“Phoenix, find Sybil and bring her here,” Holden said.

Phoenix stood up. When he got to me, he stopped. “For what it’s worth, if anyone was going to take my soul to the underworld, I’d want it to be you.” He smiled a little and left.

Holden scowled at the door. “Like a moth to a flame,” he muttered to himself.

“Do you want me to go too?” Maggie asked.

I shook my head and sat down next to her and the girl. “Why did you try to become a vampire?” I asked. “I mean, didn’t having to live by feeding off of others bother you?”

She took a deep breath. “I didn’t think about that part. Knowing this whole other world existed, and I was defenseless against it, scared me. This was the only thing I could find that offered me a chance to control my life again. As a vampire I could take care of myself and—” She shrugged.

The little girl, bored with us, went to Holden and tugged on the bottom of his shirt until he picked her up.

“Be a part of Baker’s life,” I supplied. It wasn’t a stretch. It was the exact same reason I’d been willing to become a jinni. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.

She pressed her lips together, her red eyes filling with tears. “I think Baker would understand if you didn’t want to be a reaper,” she said. “He would want you to be happy. He was kind of great like that.”

Tears prickled in my eyes, too. “He really was.”

The door slammed and Holden was gone. The child dropped her beaten-up doll, lip quivering.

You want a fight? Here I am,” I shouted into the wind and the rain, standing in front of a boarded up, former synagogue Hell was using as a base. “You fucking cowards.”

They always went after the weak, the ones who couldn’t defend themselves. Marge, Maggie, Baker, and now Olivia. They chipped away at you and set you on edge until bad decisions were the only ones you had left. I was done playing their game. If Olivia wasn’t surviving this then who the fuck cared if I did. She didn’t have any business being a reaper any more than I had being an angel.

No one came out, so I went for the door. “So you want to die, just when you’re getting interesting?” a woman’s voice said behind me.

I turned, expecting to find a demon. Instead two women stood leaned against a car parked on the street. One had long coal black hair and wore sunglasses, though it was overcast and storming. The other had long white-blond hair that fell in cascading waves. They definitely were magical, but I couldn’t place what they were. I turned back toward the building, taking a few more steps.

“We just want to help,” the other one called out. “We knew Baker.”

I made it the rest of the way to the door in a blink, and yanked it opened. Three demons tumbled out. One took a knife beneath the chin (the same blade we used to kill the angel), and I pounded the next in line, while the third made a grab at me. The first demon blew away in a cloud of ash. Fire erupted all over my body and spread to the demon trying to restrain me from behind as I took out the second one. He released me and stumbled back. I smiled and tossed the knife aside. I didn’t need it.

The demon’s black eyes darkened and it charged, knocking us both to the sidewalk. He grabbed my head and smashed it against the sidewalk, cracking the concrete. My vision blackened for a second, but I swung anyway. My fist smashed into the side of its face. The jaw gave way. I hit him again and again, and the human shell broke beneath my hands. The demon only laughed, catching my fist in the air, squeezing it and twisting until my wrist shattered. White-hot blinding rage took over. I screamed and focused on my good hand. Soon it was engulfed in an inferno of flame. I shoved my burning fingers through his chest. The fire spread throughout his body, undeterred by the rain. I knocked him to the side and straightened, watching him writhe and die.