jinn 03 - vestige Read online

  by

  Liz Schulte

  Vestige

  Jinn Trilogy

  Book Three

  Copyright © 2015 by Liz Schulte

  Editing by Ev Bishop

  Cover design by Karri Klawiter

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The suggested reading order for books in the Abyss World are as follows:

  Secrets (The Guardian Trilogy)

  Choices (The Guardian Trilogy)

  Consequences (The Guardian Trilogy)

  Easy Bake Coven (Easy Bake Coven series)

  Be Light (The Guardian Trilogy)

  Hungry, Hungry Hoodoo (Easy Bake Coven series)

  Pickup Styx (Easy Bake Coven series)

  Ember (The Jinn Trilogy)

  Good Tidings (Baker’s Christmas Short Story in Christmas Yet To Come Anthology)

  Snow and Mistletoe (Quintus’s Christmas Short Story)

  Tiddly Jinx (Easy Bake Coven series)

  Inferno (The Jinn Trilogy)

  Vestige (The Jinn Trilogy)

  Ollie, Ollie Hex ‘N Free (The Easy Bake Coven series)

  And two other books:

  Sweet Little Lies (Femi short story in Cupid Painted Blind)

  Good Tidings (Baker Christmas short story in the Christmas Yet to Come Anthology)

  To keep up with Liz’s latest releases sign up for her newsletter here

  http://lizschulte.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=b24d896a4369244959d216887&id=a525d7447f

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Excited giggles broke the silence of the room. The little girl darted behind the chair across from me, smiling brightly. She slowly peeked around the arm at Holden, who merely lifted an eyebrow as he read the newspaper, and she dissolved into that honest uncontrollable laughter of a child. Thrilled to have his attention.

  Domestic bliss. Those two words were like a wound packed with salt. They couldn’t have been further from the truth. The child ignored me when she wasn’t flinching away in terror, but who could blame her? The angel could have done any number of things to that little girl. Just because I couldn’t remember what she did, didn’t mean she didn’t do it. The girl, after all, held the key to ruling the jinn. She had been but a means to an end. That was until Holden stepped in.

  After Holden’s initial relief at having me back, he withdrew further away from my reach than ever before. In the two weeks since the event in Arizona, he had cut me out of most everything. I wasn’t included in meetings or plans. I wasn’t even fit to watch the nameless child. Even Uriel wasn’t answering my prayers. I had been effectively shut out of my life. Punishment, no doubt, for the angel’s infractions and for not being strong enough to stop her. Had it not been for Femi and Quintus filling me in, I’d have no inkling of what happened during the months I was shoved to the back.

  Though I was no less a prisoner now, than I was then. The angel had kept me safe and calm and hidden from the pain of losing my mother. Her decisions were bad, but she made them with the best of intentions. I had to believe that she really did just want to make the world a better place, with less pain for everyone. Now that she was gone, I was still trapped, just in a different way.

  I was trapped by the life I lost: the one where there had been hope, the one that should have never been. It was a life where Holden and I looked each other in the eye, smiling and knowing nothing was more important than what we felt for each other. A rose-colored time of believing we were stronger together than apart. A fairy tale. I could see now it only ever existed in our hearts. But how do you let go of the one thing, the only thing, you have ever fought for? I didn’t know and clearly neither did he. The punishment was fitting. I deserved it. There should have been something I could have done to fight her. I wanted revenge. I made a decision with malice in my heart and left death in my wake. The finger of blame was pointed squarely at me. My mother and Baker were the primary victims of my failings—but now Holden was gone too. Physically still here, but gone. He looked at me like I was any stranger on the street. We sat in silence, using as few words between us as we could, prolonging what I feared was the inevitable end. The whole thing was exhausting. But I had one more chance to make things right.

  My eyes found the urn of Baker’s ashes on the shelf. I’m sorry, I thought for the millionth time before I forced myself to look away.

  The inactivity and the weight between us was driving me mad. How could he stand it? How could he just sit in this makeshift living room and let—no, I wasn’t going to do this. It was my fault, not his. I moved to get up, then winced. Sharp pain stabbed my chest and echoed through my body. A dizzying wave of nausea swept over me and for a moment I thought I might faint, before I shoved the feeling away and stood anyway.

  “What’s wrong?” Holden asked, not looking up. He wasn’t asking about life in general, but about the pain he would have felt through our bond. It was visceral and therefore harder to mask than other things.

  “Nothing,” I said. Nothing at all. Just the spot where Femi jammed a holy knife into my chest to kill the angel that refused to close or heal. It constantly seeped light and with every day that passed, chunks of myself went missing. But that was normal, right? I’d lived my whole life with the angel inside me. Now that she was gone, of course something was missing. I was incomplete without her, but I couldn’t regret her absence. Not after the way things ended.

  I started for the back of the warehouse, needing space from Holden and the happy little girl. Roaming up and down these hallways like a ghost, thinking—always thinking—was the only thing that brought me peace. Since the rain started two weeks ago, I was stuck inside and haunting the cold impersonal hallways to keep from going insane. As I wandered, I could make plans to fix everything. I could, for just a few moments, have control again.

  Before I made it too far, however, there was a knock on the door. I went to answer, glancing back to make sure the child w
as hidden. Her safety was priority. Holden nodded and I yanked the bar back and opened the door. The wind blew in rain, and lightning scattered across the clouds as the sky growled. The jinni, Phoenix, and the succubus, Sybil, entered.

  “You look horrible,” Sybil said to me. She shoved a thumb under my chin and pushed it up. “Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. You should put more effort into your appearance.”

  I smacked her hand away, took a deep breath, then forced a smile. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

  She smirked and shoved past me, making a beeline for Holden, where she took his arm and batted her pretty eyes at him as she pressed the length of her body against his side.

  “You should fight back. She’s just jealous.” Phoenix’s voice surprised me. I had forgotten he was there. He squeezed my shoulder when I turned around. “She gets off on torturing you. If you put her in her place, she’ll stop.”

  Phoenix had his typical eyeliner and stark appearance. Without warning, I rose on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. We hadn’t been friends, but I felt connected to him, to all the jinn really, since the angel freed their souls from purgatory. They were all now pieces of me in a way I didn’t really have the words to explain. “She’s not worth the fight,” I said softly. “There are more important enemies.”

  He winked as he stepped away. “Are you trying to get me killed?”

  My insides froze, his words hurting more than anything she said. I didn’t want to get anyone killed.

  “Hey,” he said, touching my arm. “Holden’s looks can kill and right now he has a knife to my throat for even touching you. That’s all I meant.”

  I nodded and patted his hand. “You should go then.”

  “Phoenix, we don’t have all day,” Holden barked.

  Holden led them to the room with the maps and closed the door. The little girl didn’t come out of wherever he hid her either—and she probably wouldn’t while I was there alone. I chewed on my thumbnail, staring at the closed door. I wanted to throw something, to stomp, to push my way in, but I ignored that urge too. It wasn’t useful.

  There was another knock. I opened the door again, relieved to see Quintus. I hugged him tight, just happy to have a friend and ushered him inside.

  “You’re early,” I said.

  Quintus came to see me almost every day. We would go for a walk and talk about things. He would tell me what was happening with the guardians and try to get me to return to work, and I would listen, appreciating his attempts to make me something useful again. But I didn’t tell him why I couldn’t come back or what I actually needed to do, if only I could muster up the energy—because here’s the thing. After someone gives his life for your relationship, you no longer have the right to complain.

  “I have troubling news,” he said.

  I suppressed the urge to sigh and pulled my sweater tighter around me. Of course it was bad news. There was no other kind. “Uh huh?”

  “The night Baker died, something from the underworld slipped through the veil. It’s big. The power shift is massive. The real problem, though, is something that big shouldn’t be capable of crossing into our world at all.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, but there have been signs.”

  “Such as?”

  “First of all, there is this storm. It’s affecting the whole of the United States. Second, there are the bird issues; flocks of them have fallen from the sky. Third, schools of fish have washed ashore, the darkness is growing. Can’t you feel it? The newspapers are littered with signs.” He paced in front of me. “Nothing got through that tunnel. I was there. They must have been distracting us away from somewhere else.”

  I looked down. My head felt so heavy on my shoulders. “I don’t know. I haven’t … I guess I haven’t paid attention.” I had been so caught up in my own problems that the outside world seemed light years away.

  Quintus stopped moving, and his face changed from determined to concerned. “Are you okay?” He reached for me, but I dodged his hand.

  “I’m fine. What do all these signs mean to you? What exactly are they indicating?”

  “Mammon is here,” Holden said, coming out of the office with Sybil and Phoenix behind him.

  Quintus shook his head. “It can’t be him. That would be nearly apocalyptic.”

  “I’ve been fairly reliably informed that the tunnel we closed wasn’t the only one. He could have come through another.” Holden frowned. “What else do you know?”

  Quintus’s lips parted, eyebrows furrowing. “Even if there are other holes in the veil, Mammon’s too powerful to go through them without the entire barrier between the worlds collapsing. It would take unbelievably strong magic—magic that would have been felt all over.”

  “Perhaps he had angelic help,” Holden said, not looking at me though the words were clearly directed.

  Quintus crossed his arms over his chest. “I doubt that. How do you know it is him?”

  “Because when I went back to get Baker, he spoke to me. And because the jinn are free, at least the ones in Chicago. He will take it personally. We were his charge and he has failed to keep us. It will be an embarrassment and make him look weak. He’ll want to return things to how they were.”

  Quintus nodded. “We have been getting reports… . The jinn are free everywhere, not just here.”

  “Exactly who is Mammon?” I asked.

  “There are seven princes of Hell. Each one is representative of one of the seven deadly sins. Mammon is greed and his job is to rule the jinn,” Quintus said. “But a prince has never come above. Ever. I don’t think it’s possible.”

  “So I gathered,” I mumbled.

  “Do the signs have a central location?” Holden asked.

  “Not that I can see. Seems to be worldwide.”

  Holden glanced at his watch. “I have to go. Let me know if anything progresses. You going to stick around for a while?” he asked Quintus.

  “I can.”

  “Good. Keep an eye on the kid for me.” His gaze didn’t even flicker to me.

  If I had blood it would have drained from my cheeks. Instead, I pressed my lips together and said nothing.

  “Where are you going?” Quintus asked before Holden made it to the door.

  “Meeting the jinn,” he said and walked out.

  Sybil blew me a kiss, then sashayed out behind him, the beads on her skirt jingling. Bitch.

  I can help you, a subdued voice said in my mind. Why won’t you come to me?

  Stay the hell away from me, I thought back at it. Whether he was “just doing his job” or not, I had watched the Angel of Death kill my mother, and we weren’t ever going to be friends. Almost from the moment I was back, he was there in my head, talking to me, trying to coax me to come and see him, but I had other plans. He’d have to wait until I was ready.

  “Are you really okay?” Quintus asked, snapping me back to reality. My fists ached at my sides, making me realize I had them clenched.

  I release my fingers. “I’m fine.”

  “You’ve been staring at the door for twenty minutes.” Worry creased his brow and I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I didn’t want his or anyone’s sympathy. “Sit down,” Quintus said. “You look sick.”

  “We’re undead. I don’t think we can get sick.”

  He tilted his head. “Well, you look it.”

  “Gee thanks.” I strode around the room. Why was everyone so concerned with how I looked? I didn’t go around commenting on their appearances. Why couldn’t everyone just leave me alone? Like Holden is doing? my own voice rang in my mind. I bit my lip. That was different. Not the same thing at all.

  Instead of responding further I did a half-hearted search for where Holden stashed the girl until a more reasonable response came to me. “You try freeing every jinni in the entire world and we’ll see how you look.”

  “Maybe you need to take a break,” he said gently.

  “There’s not time,” I muttere
d.

  He sighed. “There is always time, you just have to take it.” Why couldn’t he just leave it alone? “Are you ready to tell me what is going on yet?”

  “With what?” I asked blandly, refusing to look at him.

  “With you and Holden.”

  I couldn’t find her anywhere. “Little girl, are you hungry?” I called out, continuing to poke around the room.

  Quintus caught my arm to stop me. “You can’t see her?”

  I blinked. “Do you know where she is?”

  He frowned. “She’s a human, Olivia. You can sense humans.”

  I tried to use my guardian sense, but it made my chest ache. “Maybe I’ll sit down after all.”

  I sank onto the couch, closed my eyes, and leaned back against the cushion. Quintus took my hand and pushed light into me. After a few minutes I felt better, not renewed, but the edge was definitely taken off. I smiled and squeezed his hand before I opened my eyes. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime, you know that.” His face was thoughtful and I pulled my hand away from his quickly. Perhaps I’d let him hold on for too long. “I think you’re unwell, Olivia, but you know that, don’t you?”

  “It’s just stress. You know, it’s the silent killer.” I smiled but he didn’t look convinced. I sighed. “A lot has happened in the last couple weeks and there’s a ton to catch up on. The angel burned through most of my energy. I have feelings to feel.” Sadness latched onto me again.

  “Then take the time to take care of yourself. I don’t understand what you’re doing. What do you want?”

  “I just need to make things right before it’s too late.” The words spilled from my lips, though I hadn’t wanted to say them. Tears came to my eyes.

  He reached for me again, but I stood up.

  “It’s familiar, but I just can’t quite put my finger on what’s wrong with you.” He frowned in my general direction.