jinn 03 - vestige by Liz Schulte

everybody. And, for a while at least, we were his family.” She glanced at her partner. “My name is Anessa and this is Leilah.”
    I stared back blandly. “I don’t have all day. You still haven’t told me what you want.”
    Leilah smiled faintly. “It has come to our attention that your abilities have expanded past that of a typical jinni.”
    “And you are free,” Anessa said, over enunciating each word like she was talking to a small child. “You still have much to learn about this world, but you are in a unique position, with the ability to influence the Abyss as it enters into a new phase. And that is very useful to us.”
    “We also know about Mammon being here.” Her lizard eyes darted around the room.
    I sighed. “Your point? You didn’t just come here to tell me what I already know.”
    “My point is that you are woefully out matched.” Her self-satisfied smirk made me consider places to hide her body. “However, we would like to help you balance the playing field and perhaps offer you a seat on the council, provided you are able to clean up this…mess.”
    “Baker’s spot,” Anessa said. “I think he’d like that. Plus there would be benefits for you, too. For all the jinn, really.”
    I laughed. “You have the wrong person.” I turned for the door.
    “I don’t think we do,” Leilah said. “You are Holden Smith. Born on October 26, 1868. You have one half-brother you were quite close to who was murdered and a mother and stepfather who died of natural causes. You have recently found a blood relation named Margaret Edwards. You have refused to meet your father, showing as little inclination to get to know him as he has shown toward you throughout the years.”
    My teeth clenched so hard they could have shattered. Who the fuck were these people?
    “You have had four committed relationships since becoming a jinni, but only one that has been, shall we say, life altering. You kept a low profile, again until recently, as a jinni, never making a splash one way or the other, but you still managed to cultivate a reputation for being ruthless and uncompromising. You have been consistent in your output, but never pushed the line. Quite the good soldier you were, right up until you weren’t. You had very few connections or friends. And that’s why we’re here.”
    “Because I don’t have family or friends?” I asked dryly.
    Her dark pencil thin eyebrows arched. “Because you know how to play by the rules, have demonstrated you are unemotional, and yes, fewer attachments makes it easier to make hard decisions. That was always Baker’s downfall. He couldn’t separate his heart from the problem.”
    “That’s quite the biography, but I’m still not interested.” My hand was on the doorknob.
    Leilah pressed her hand against the door, holding it shut. “You want to hear something you don’t know?” Her face was inches from mine, and her pupils rolled around inside her eyes, while a second set of eyelids blinked vertically as she stared at me. “Mammon didn’t come alone.”
    I shrugged. What was one more demon? The more the fucking merrier.
    “He brought someone with him. Someone just for you.”
    Ice spread through me. My last moments in the tunnel, holding Baker’s fiery corpse flashed in my brain. But no . . . what I saw at the base of that tunnel wasn’t real. It was just a temptation. Thomas wasn’t in Hell. I kept a firm grip on my emotions. “Who might that be?”
    “Your brother.”
    I shook my head, but my fingernails broke the skin on my palms as my hands clenched into fists. “It may look like my brother, but it isn’t him. That is what they do. They find your weaknesses and exploit them. My brother is dead and in a better place.”
    She arched an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you like to know for sure?”
    I fought back the flames that wanted to engulf me. “No.” I knocked her hand away, opened the door, and fled into the darkness. My brother was dead.
     
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