Make Me Burn: Fireborne, Book 2 (11 page)

Already surprised, Aziza found herself gasping for air when she got her first full look at the naked woman. “Te, what the fuck? First of all, this is not a peep show, it’s my shower. My release is none of your business.”

“I waited until you were finished,” Te offered.

“How fucking polite of you,” Aziza snarled back, taking a breath and scrubbing her hot face roughly with her hands. She’d forgotten to conceal herself. She’d been too distracted to think about who could be watching.

“Never sneak up on a person in the shower, okay? It’s too Hitchcock. Secondly, I thought you promised to pick a look and stick with it. And before you say anything? No. You can’t stay like that and you damn sure better not let Greg see you.”

Te looked exactly like Aziza. Or a negative copy of Aziza. Instead of hair the color of cocoa, Te’s platinum locks were braided over her shoulder the way Aziza’s had been for her earlier session on the silks. Where Aziza’s skin had the golden warmth of her father’s Egyptian ancestry, Te’s still had that ethereal pallor of her species and appeared to glow from within. Where Aziza’s eyes were big and blue, Te’s were the bottomless black of the Niyr. Other than those differences, the full lips, the shape of her face, even the faded smattering of freckles above her cheekbones, were identical.

Then Aziza looked down. Everything. She’d copied
everything
.

She groaned. “You’re doing it again, you know that right?”

Te bit her lip the way Aziza often did. “Are you going to call me creepy?”

“
Yes
. Creepy squared. I refuse to talk to you until you change.”

Te’s thick lashes lowered over her disconcertingly similar gaze. “And I refuse to talk to you until you lower your voice.”

Stilling instantly at her words, Aziza began to focus. “I don’t want
anyone
seeing you like this,” she muttered grumpily, though now it was all for show. Lowering her voice was Te’s new code phrase for needing privacy. True privacy.

Conceal.

She turned off the water and reached for her towel, Te close behind her. “It’s done. None of them—Jinn or Niyr—can see or hear us. Now before I look at you again, I want you to go back to your last body. And then you can tell me what you’re doing here when I could have sworn I warned you away.”

The glow behind Aziza lengthened her shadow on the tile floor as she dried herself off, then Te was beside her again, dressed and looking like herself. Or, at least, the way Aziza wanted her to. She really was pretty. Strange and creepy, but pretty. “I apologize for my initial appearance, Fireborne. I was attempting empathy. I hope this meets with your approval since we don’t have much time.”

She wiggled her fingers, showing Te her palm. “Don’t we have as much time as I want us to have?”

Te shook her head, straightening her pale-violet blouse awkwardly as she watched Aziza wrap her towel around her hair and walk naked across the room to open her closet door. “The Niyr are monitoring the frequency and duration of these episodes very closely. Finding ways to compensate.”

“The frequency of…so every time we talk when we’re concealed they
time
it?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Te moved closer to Aziza. “
Are
you still upset with your Enforcer? I thought your plans to go to Underbridge this evening, despite our individual warnings, would be enough to cheer you. Gregory did warn me of your contrary nature.”

“I know he did. I still need to thank him for that,” Aziza remarked wryly. “I think you’ve been spying on me a little too often, Te. And since you have, you already know what I told Greg and Penn. There’s no reason for me to repeat it and no reason for you to ask.” But she had asked. Her heart was obviously in the right place.

Her heart. Aziza could still feel it, the way she had at dinner. The hesitance. The purpose. The desire for…friendship? “Are
you
okay, Te?”

Te stiffened and pursed her lips. “What an odd question. As your Qarin, it is my duty to ensure your well-being. I watch over you so diligently because, where once you had three, at present I am the sole guardian with the power to do so.”

Aziza pulled two outfits out of the closet—restrained-but-still-cool and naughty-little-schoolgirl. She placed them both behind her on the bed and went to the dresser, pulling out a pair of red thong underwear while she mentally debated her options.

“I’m all too aware of the lack of Jinn Qarin in my life, Te, and I’m working on it. What I need from you is the information you promised.”

“Is it the box?”

She whirled on Te, feeling a sense of morbid victory. “I knew it! Damn it, I wish I’d bet someone money. You don’t care about my relationship problems. You don’t want to bond. All your talk about not stopping me was lip service, because here you are as soon as it arrives. You want to see what’s inside and make sure I don’t take his share of the sand.”

“You mistake me,” Te said with quiet dignity, somehow managing to mimic a defensive expression with her usual subtle tic. “I was wondering if it upset you, the idea that the box belonged to another brother who had met his end by Jiniyr hands. If that was why you hadn’t opened it yet.”

Aziza winced as hurt crashed over her like a wave. Dammit, couldn’t
anything
be black and white, instead of all these bewildering shades of in-between? She didn’t want to empathize with the Niyr but it seemed she had no choice.

She also didn’t want to believe Te’s concern was genuine. It was easier to think of the Niyr as cold and machinelike and all the same, but she couldn’t deny what she was feeling. “If that’s true then I apologize, Te. And it did. It does. I hate the idea that my brilliant and full-of-life brother only had a single box in the end. I could have sworn there were more boxes, but my cousin back home confirmed that this was the only one with his name on it at our old house. His life was bigger than that. He deserved more.”

“He has more.” Te shifted uncomfortably. “Your memories are a record of his life, Fireborne. And from my understanding, you remember all of them with perfect clarity. Tarik, Adam, Joseph and Emma Stewart. I believe that is the Niyr in you. As long as the record is preserved, so is the life. To the Niyr, observation and recording is akin to creation.”

Aziza crossed her arms over her bare breasts. “Who are you and what have you done with
my
Niyr? And did you just spout some Zen bullshit about trees falling in the forest?”

“I may not express myself as well as the Jinn, Fireborne. But as I’ve told you before, I still care for you in my own way. I am not like the others of my kind—I am coming to appreciate experience as well as observation.”

The instinctive tug in the vicinity of her heart made Aziza sigh. Te
was
different. Not only had she changed since they first met, but she was also a part of the mostly secret and apparently underestimated society among the Niyr who believed in aiding humanity, sharing knowledge. The Whispers of Jibril. They had somehow managed to keep their machinations hidden from a species of consensus-mad watchers for centuries. According to that bastard Razia, they believed Aziza was the key to…something. Razia had never gotten a chance to explain and Te had never offered.

Aziza had realized Te’s connection to the Whispers the night she’d saved Greg’s life. It had been the only way to explain her knowing enough about the evil that had been tormenting her family to hide Greg when they came for Aziza. The Whispers had somehow known about the Jiniyr when no one else did.
 

The Whispers and the Jiniyr. The Jinn and Niyr. The werewolves and that mysterious keeper, wherever he was. So many secrets. So many complications.

But all of them had one thing in common—the Fireborne. They believed they created her or they wanted to kill her. Wanted her to lead or wanted her to follow. She was a symbol to some, a threat to others, but she definitely had everyone’s attention.

Aziza sat on the edge of the bed to slide on her stockings. She didn’t want to think about it anymore. “What’s so urgent, Te? Or was this a ruse to get a sneak peek of Greg in his tight leather pants?”

She looked up in time to see a light blush bring color to those impossibly pale cheeks before Te shook her head. “Don’t be foolish. As to that, you should know that I do not choose body types based on bosom size. I cater to your whims, Fireborne. I strive to make
you
comfortable. No one else.”

“The Niyr protests a smidgen too much.” Aziza winked, attaching her garters to the black lace band at her hips. “But if I’m wrong and it is for me, don’t go any bigger or I’ll get jealous.”

“Since the last attack on you and our conversation that followed,
I
have been focused on conferring with Gregory and like-minded others, in an effort to arm you with information that could aid you in the next confrontation. Though I was…
occupied
at the time, I do not believe your encounter with the third body was one of chance.”

She didn’t think it was a coincidence either. “You were occupied? That’s convenient. But you knew about the murders. Don’t deny it. That was why you warned me away. You know about the connection to Underbridge. To me.”

“Yes.” Te shook her head slightly. Impatiently. “And the reason I couldn’t reach you would take too long to explain.”

Taking a calming breath, Aziza responded. “So when you’re
occupied
, is there a substitute Qarin?”

Te stilled. “You’re speaking of the Niyr recorder. The one you saw before you encountered the body. He has been assigned to you since you were born. He was not killed with your other watchers, as he remains in our world at all times to observe at a distance.”

Another one? “At a distance? He was closer to me than you are, Te. And he was…” she shivered thinking about his eyes, “…creepier than you have
ever
been.”

“He is also one of the reasons we must discontinue idle pleasantries so that I may address the true purpose of my arrival.”

Te was nervous. About this recorder person? Was he one of the ways they were keeping tabs on her power usage? How? “So unless I’m concealed he’s always there? Always that close? Taking notes on everything I do and say?”

The Niyr nodded almost impatiently. “Comfort yourself with the knowledge that you are not alone in that respect. Only those in the Fireborne line have Jinn and Niyr
Qarins
. Two point three billion humans have been assigned a recorder.”

Aziza sat down on the bed for a moment, stunned. “How could that possibly comfort me, Te? You’re saying your people spend their lives hovering over a third of the global population? Watching us all that closely night and day… Why?”

Te lowered her gaze. “I told you. The records must be preserved. Observation is existence.”

Aziza knew there was more to it than that. She felt it. But she was also getting the feeling Te was on the verge of her version of a panic attack. “No more idle pleasantries then.”

If a Niyr could sigh in relief, Te did. “Despite my preoccupation, I heard of your ultimatum. That is why I am here. Through sources that cannot be questioned, a human male has been brought to my attention. One who—unlike the Enforcers’ archivist—holds no loyalties. It is my understanding he has in his possession many of the answers you seek, in old journals and texts, more factual than your mythology books and containing more clarity than I was able to pass on to Gregory Prophet when I—”

“Used him as a human loophole and zapped him with enough energy to short-circuit the city?” Aziza interrupted helpfully, still reeling a bit from the recorder revelation.

Te’s lips tightened minutely in response. “I’ve been told the man I speak of is untouched by Niyr or Jinn. I have no knowledge of how he has been able to hide himself for so long. They say his skin is not marked as a sand keeper’s would be. He is a human of no particular consequence, with no lineage that would grant him such skills at evasion. The Niyr would find no consensus in allowing a human outsider to hold that kind of information. They would not entrust its safety to such fragile hands.”

Aziza stopped and turned to face the Niyr, adrenaline rushing through her veins. “Te, did you get me a present? It’s not even my birthday yet.” A human archivist with no loyalties, one who could stay off the Niyr radar? Journals and texts that weren’t daydreams and rambling guesswork?
Books.
“Tell me where he is and I think I might truly switch sides to Team Te. Does he know about you? About me?”
Does he know how to find the bastards who killed my family?

Te hesitated. “My source doesn’t know. And as a result of his protection, not even I have been able to locate him.”

“Well, did your source say anything about where he is? How I could meet him?”

“They believe he is somewhere in London. We are—” Te tilted her head. “Greg is coming. You should put on your robe.”

Aziza reached in exasperation for the silk kimono laying across her bed. “You’re such a prude.”

Greg opened the door without knocking. “Who’s a prude? Oh, Te. Wow, you look great today.”

“Thank you, Gregory.”

Oh dear Lord. The Niyr was
sort of
blushing again. And though she would probably deny it, she
was
checking out Greg’s leather pants and faded skull T-shirt. The one that was tight enough around his arms to showcase his hard-won biceps.

“You look…more comfortable than the Fireborne usually does for these excursions.”