She put her hand on the railing and began taking the steps two at a time before the view in front of her made her stumble. “What the hell?”
The stairwell had become a whirling tunnel. A shimmering whirlpool of strange swirling white light. She reached out to touch the air in front of her and gasped when it rippled like water against her fingertips. Through the waves she could see someone standing at the foot of a golden staircase, staring up at her with tears like diamonds glistening on her cheeks.
It almost looked like… “Shev?”
No. Not Shev. But the dark-haired woman had already disappeared before she could find out, the stairs morphing from gold to gleaming silver from one blink to the next. A tall male Niyr appeared at Aziza’s side and blocked her view, bending to look into her eyes. Too close. He was studying her as if she were a lab rat he was going to dissect. His skin glowed as if lit from within, but his cold, black gaze made her scream.
Aziza fell backward and familiar arms caught her just in time. Greg. “Aziza Jane! Can you hear me? What the hell was that?”
Gone. It was gone. All she saw was a normal set of stairs leading down to the underground tracks. No Jinn. No Niyr. No world but this one.
It had happened again—a momentary psychedelic flash of the two alternate dimensions that she’d been thinking was one of the side effects of taking “more than her share” of the sand. She hadn’t told anyone about them but Greg.
“Aziza Jane, if you don’t talk to me, I am taking you to the hospital. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
“I’m fine.” She shook her head, pushing away from him and walking carefully down the stairs. “I saw them again and got dizzy for a minute, that’s all.”
This was the third time it had happened. She didn’t count the glimpse of the Jinn she’d gotten at her family home in the Cotswolds after Brandon had taken her on the dining room table—the day she’d learned she was the Jinn’s favorite soap opera. This was different. It was more intense. As if veils were being torn open against their will. As if she had no control.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Greg grabbed her arm and turned her toward him. Poor Greg. He deserved a break from the insanity. Deserved to crunch his relaxing think-tank numbers and stare at perky breasts in peace. Unfortunately, crazy kept finding her and dragging him along for the ride.
He frowned. “You saw them again? Both of them?”
“Yes. One right after the other. I saw Te leave earlier and the way the air rippled after she was gone, but it wasn’t the same.”
This isn’t the same, she thought woozily, the strange nausea that always followed the experience rising in her throat. She always got sick to her stomach, but this was almost violent. This felt…wrong.
Something is wrong.
“I think we need to find a place to sit down.”
“I’ve got you.” Greg wrapped one arm around her waist and walked her toward the benches that lined the curved enclosure.
The walls across from the tracks were covered in colorful advertisements that weren’t helping her find her footing. She sat down and closed her eyes. “It should’ve passed by now but it’s getting worse.”
Greg sounded worried. “What should have passed? The nausea? What are you feeling?”
What you feel isn’t life. It’s death. Death is nearby. Unnaturally caused.
There it was. Another thought in her head that didn’t feel entirely like her own. Another side effect that was happening more and more often. But she could sense that it was true. “Something’s wrong.”
She pushed away from his touch and stood, weaving and clutching her stomach. What was she missing?
And then she saw it. “Look around. It’s not even ten o’clock at night, so where is everybody? There were people on the street but no one’s down here with us, waiting to go home. This place is empty.”
Aziza heard Greg’s steps behind her as she walked closer to the tracks.
“You’re right. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the stations empty.” He paused and lowered his voice. “Wait, there’s someone, but she’s not looking so good.”
She turned to him then followed his gaze to a young, red-haired woman draped in some kind of pale robe, on her knees as if in prayer, right at the far edge of the platform. The woman’s head was bowed so her matted hair concealed her face from view, and she wasn’t moving. Aziza couldn’t tell whether or not she was even breathing.
“Greg?”
He didn’t need her to ask twice. “I’ll see if she’s okay.”
As Aziza watched him move closer, she knew nothing was okay. Her stomach was twisting so violently she worried she might actually be sick, but she couldn’t look away.
Greg leaned down beside the woman and touched her shoulder gently. “Miss? Miss, are you ill? Do you need help?”
He stepped back with a gasp, his face twisted with horror as the woman fell backward. She landed on the floor, the loose robe that covered her slipping off to reveal a naked body, every inch of it marred by bruises and knife wounds.
“Jesus, Aziza…I think she’s dead.”
Chapter Two
Another gift from Death.
Aziza’s nausea faded and she realized this was why it had come. She’d sensed this victim. And the presence of her personal Grim Reaper, Razia. She’d known it before she’d seen the body. She glanced down at the palm of her left hand, but saw nothing. No symbols. No burn marks. She’d read about Jinn who were drawn to death, and part of her was Jinn. Was it that, a new Fireborne ability, or just gut instinct?
She’d seen dead bodies before, bodies that were disturbingly reminiscent of this one. The couple lying posed on the street. The old woman dressed all in yellow and affixed to the wall outside of her aunt’s flat, her mouth stuffed with roses.
Reminiscent but not the same. Aziza didn’t make a sound as she moved closer, staring at the woman’s wounds. Cuts had been carved into her skin, some deep and some shallow…too many to count. She should be covered in blood, but her wounds appeared to have been cleaned, as if to show off the designs of the marks. A few reminded Aziza of the symbols she’d seen emerging from her hand the night she set Harash and the large pond on her family’s property ablaze.
But these weren’t the same symbols. These were meticulous patterns beneath grotesque splatters of now freshly flowing blood.
Fresh blood.
The woman moaned. She was still alive.
The noise set Aziza in motion, and she pushed past Greg to kneel beside her. “Call an ambulance. She’s alive. She’s breathing.”
Poor girl. The detachment Aziza had forced herself to feel for what she’d assumed was a corpse was now ripped away by the horror of her survival, however temporary. There was no way anyone could come back from this. Who was she? Aziza could tell she was young and female, but whatever she’d looked like before was a mystery. She’d been mutilated, her face swollen and covered with cuts and bruises. And the rest of her body was worse. The things that had been done to every part of her…
She leaned closer. “Can you tell me who you are? What happened?”
When the girl gripped her arm, Aziza gasped. Suddenly she could feel every deep, piercing cut as it happened, hear the girl’s silent prayers for mercy, and she knew the terror that came when she could no longer move, no longer resist. It was unbearable.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, Aziza curled over the victim’s body, weak from their shared agony. She blinked away the moisture to focus on her lips as they moved.
“They won’t…stop…until they have her,” the girl gasped.
Damn it, if she could only stop time for this girl until the ambulance got here—but it didn’t work like that. Time stopped everywhere and for everyone but the person she was touching. Why couldn’t she think of a way to fix this? Where was the justice in letting an innocent die?
Justice will ensure her killer shares her fate.
“I don’t know what to do,” Azi
za said, her voice thick with emotion. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to fix this. Just hold on, okay?”
“Aziza,” Greg called out. “I can’t get a damn signal. I’m going to the street.”
She nodded without lifting her head. The woman’s eyes looked into hers, then past her, glassing over. When her hand dropped, the pain Aziza was sharing instantly subsided. Whatever she was looking at now, she didn’t see Aziza at all.
“Oh God, please hang on…”
“She…” The girl’s whisper became a choking cough, blood staining her lips from the wounds inside her that Aziza couldn’t see. “She must be freed.”
Free her.
She’d heard that before. The Jiniyr had done this. Razia had done this. According to him, Aziza was the key. The “her” they needed. They’d wanted her, wanted to take her with them to bring about their plans. Razia had called her the center of the storm.
But why kill this stranger? Had Aziza met her gaze on a busy street without realizing it? There had to be some connection, but if so, she had no idea what it could be. All she knew was that, once again, she had blood on her hands. More blood. Razia and his people wanted their precious Fireborne to know they were back for her.
And the girl in her arms was their dying—she glanced down at the still body with a sob—their dead messenger.
She rocked the girl against her, silently berating herself. She’d asked for this—practically begged for it. When everyone else was breathing a sigh of relief for the respite, Aziza was edgy. Restless. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the next body to fall from the sky. Now she’d give anything to have been proven wrong. No one deserved this. And for what? To serve as another of Razia’s love notes?
It didn’t make sense.
Aziza heard a growl echo in the darkness, but before she could do more than stiffen, she was dragged away from the lifeless victim and slammed against the wall. Her head rang and her vision blurred as one large, hot hand wrapped around her throat while another bound her wrists together in front of her with a slender length of braided chain.
“Got you now.”
Aziza struggled in her attacker’s strong grip, kicking out with both legs as he taunted her. “Smelled your stink as soon as I got down here, whore, even with all the blood. Is this how you get off? Get your kicks by slicing ’em up and making sure you’re the last thing they see? I know you’re not the delivery girl—you Jinn love to get your hands dirty. Did you plant another present for us to find?”
He was a werewolf—it was the only explanation. He was too large. Too strong. Unfortunately, he wasn’t her werewolf. When she opened her mouth to speak, he squeezed her throat, cutting off her air.
“No,” he muttered, his fingers tightening around her neck. “You don’t get to talk, demon. I don’t care if your papers are in order or if you’re the rutting queen of them all. I’ve stopped you from killing any more human girls, and I will be the one to kill you—after you admit you had partners. Admit you’ve made friends with a Shiner, and don’t lie—I can smell them on you too. Then tell me how the demon exile helped you murder them all. Do that and I’ll end it fast. Otherwise, I’ll tear you apart slowly and take your head to add to the Alpha’s collection.”
Shiner…Demon exile…Ram? Where was he getting this?
Where was Te? Shev? She needed help. They wouldn’t all leave her to die by werewolf.
Help me, damn you!
Aziza couldn’t breathe, and both his tight grip and her anger made it impossible to speak. She had no other choice.
Lifting her chained wrists, she gripped his forearm with her hands.
Burn…
The blue-white flame burst out from her skin and he dropped her with a sharp cry, jumping back to stare at the scalded flesh on his arm before focusing on her in fury.
“How the fuck did you do that?” he snarled. “You unnatural cunt, how the fuck can you use your tricks in those chains? How can you use your powers on me at all?”
She untangled the thin links of gold and iron and dropped them at her feet, holding her arms out wide and watching his eyes narrow in fear at the flames that still licked her fingertips.
That was better.
Her smile was mean and steady, but her mind was in turmoil. “You must not get the wolfy newsletter, Fido. I’m the fucking Vessel of Fire. And I’ll give you more of a chance than you gave me before I fry your furry ass and take your head back to your Alpha. What did you mean them all? Have there been other victims? Other murders like this one?”
The large man staggered in shock, bending on one knee and lowering his head instinctively. “Vessel, forgive me. I didn’t realize— You smell like—”
“All of them and none of them, I know,” she muttered. “I get that a lot. Although I’ve never heard it described in such an unflattering way before. The point is, you didn’t stop and wonder why. You assumed I was Jinn, and for some reason I can’t understand, you assumed a currently powerless exile, who happens to be under my protection, was my accomplice.”
The werewolf jerked his head up. “You’re vouching for a demon? Protecting it? But, you’re Justice. You are the true A—”
“Enough.” The female voice broke through the shadows and then a tall, beautiful woman lifted herself up easily from the tracks and into the light. She sent Aziza a hesitant smile—the kind of smile a cop offered to someone about to jump off a building. “Aziza Jane Stewart, with respect, if you’ll disarm, we could focus on the true criminal’s trail before it grows cold.”
Disarm? She looked down. Her hands were still burning.
Hot air balloons. Greg and Joseph. The impossible woman dangling in midair…
As she focused on calming herself, the flames diminished and then disappeared altogether. She was still shivering as she clenched her hands at her sides. “You know my name?”
The woman nodded without holding out her hand for introductions. “And you know mine. I am Natalie Stanton. I would have introduced myself under better circumstances, but you understand, I’ve no doubt, my obedience to the Alpha in all things.” She studied Aziza intently. “Shock is a natural reaction for those unused to the barbarism of the Jinn. Know that Brandon is with your Mr. Prophet as we speak, so you don’t have to worry about him. He, at least, is safe.”
Natalie. The woman who’d spied on them. At the door to the interrogation room…on the Stewart family land. Natalie, the eyes and ears of the Alpha. Dressed in street clothes—jeans, T-shirt and leather jacket—she made the ordinary outfit stunning. She was tall—runway-model tall—with full, high breasts and thick mahogany hair that fell in a perfect braid to her hips. Everything about her was flawless.
Another beautiful fucking werewolf. And Natalie, of all people, attempting to—what? Console her?
“Yes, I know your name. How do you know where Greg and Brandon are?” She’d obviously come from another entrance, the same one Fido had used, since neither of them came down the stairs beside the body.
Natalie held up a cell phone and her lips curved upward. “Special… What was the word you used? Wolfy? I quite like that. Special wolfy phones. We always get a signal, and there is a rather ingenious chip inside that makes it impossible for anyone else to use a cell phone when the need for containment arises.” Then her smile faded. “And to answer your question, yes, there have been two other victims. This one is our third.”
Aziza was in sensory overload. Maybe Natalie was right and she was in shock. Her hands, caked with blood dried by her fire, were shaking harder now, tears drying on her cheeks and fingerprints of pain still bruising her neck. Three deaths. Three times.
Three girls dead because of her. Because she hadn’t killed Razia when she had the chance.
She was still trying to pull herself together when Brandon leapt down the steps with animalistic grace and urgency and pulled her into his strong embrace. “Aziza. My Aziza, were you hurt? What are you doing here? When I saw Greg I thought…” He pressed his lips to her temple
and released a shaky sigh. “Natalie. Lawrence. Report.”
Natalie began speaking in that damn language of theirs, shutting her out, and Aziza stiffened in Brandon’s embrace. He held up his hand. “English, Natalie.”
The woman nodded brusquely. “Same MO. Body found in plain sight at a normally busy location that has been unnaturally isolated. Still no ideas on how they’re doing that.” Natalie’s crisp, efficient voice scraped over Aziza’s skin as though it were made of broken glass and needles. “Equidistant from the others but not in a straight line. I definitely think they are being placed with purpose, Bran. The bastards are painting us a pretty picture, and I would bet they aren’t finished.”
Aziza kept her eyes closed, not wanting to look at Brandon yet. He must have realized when he told Natalie to speak in English that she would find out exactly what he’d been hiding from her.
“Lawrence, why are you kneeling?” Brandon demanded. “Did you find something? Do you have anything to add?”
Fido remained silent, and Natalie chuckled. “I very much doubt it. The bloody idiot is still stunned, and I believe singed, as well, from his run-in with the Vessel. He thought she was one of our culprits. He won’t soon live that down.”
When Brandon’s warmth left her, Aziza opened her eyes and watched her big, sexy, bearded giant pick up the unfortunate werewolf by the scruff of his neck and shake him as if he were a chew toy.
Lawrence cried out in pain. “I didn’t know, sir. I swear it. I caught the scent and it led to her, that’s all. I didn’t know she’d smell like them.”
“You did more than smell her. You laid hands on her or she wouldn’t have defended herself. I should kill you for daring to touch what is mine.”
The guttural warning made Natalie pale. “Brandon, no. He was doing his job and she’s no worse for it. He wasn’t told. He knows the Vessel belongs to all of us.”
Brandon turned on the female werewolf. “And whose fault is it that he didn’t know, Natalie? When the Alpha assigned us to this case, I believe I gave you clear fucking instructions. Let’s try it once more, shall we? After you’ve dealt with the authorities, you will personally relay an image of Aziza along with her scent profile to every Enforcer that steps foot in London. This will not happen again or I’ll know who to blame.”
Make Me Burn: Fireborne, Book 2 Page 3
