Ashes of Raging Water

by Michael J Allen

  Ignis took a deep breath, smothering the coals of fury that’s started to outline his body in a nimbus of flame.

  Calm, the flame of a scented candle or sandalwood and incense. Wildfires are destructive, and once unleashed control becomes problematic—not something anyone wants in a metropolitan area.

  Ignis hated having to take public transit, but he wasn’t comfortable storing money digitally and accumulating debt was out of the question. Without a banking card of some sort, he couldn’t call one of the cab company replacements. He didn’t have enough time to reach a banking branch to get cash for a taxi. He made it to the bus stop as the MARTA bus rounded the far corner. The dirty, dented bus pulled up stinking of natural gas. The door opened and a wave of taint rolled over him masking all other smells.

  Ignis licked his lips, smiled and stepped inside.

  So, who’s today’s contestant? Fae Kissed or faerie?

  No one jumped him.

  He scanned the half full seats. No one looked at him for more than a glance. No one failed to take that glance.

  “Were you going to pay?” the driver asked.

  Ignis slipped the bills into the reader labeled to warn him the unit didn’t give change. The bus gave a small jerk as it lurched back onto the road.

  Ignis stepped between benches and seats, keeping a hand on the guide bars to ensure his balance. He inhaled as he passed each passenger, envying Caelum his nose.

  Old lady—no.

  Two toughs—no.

  Middle-aged waitress—no.

  Corporate clone—no.

  Each filled seat failed to intensify the taint, but the prickle along his skin identified the magic’s origin as Unseelie.

  Ignis closed to the final row of seats a somewhat feminine male doing his best to persuade the clothes off a teenage girl not long into her breeding years. Ignis inhaled the increased taint.

  He dropped into the seat behind them and leaned his arms on both chair backs. “Unless you want to bleed purple for the young lady, I suggest you sit up straight and don’t say another word until we step off this bus.”

  “What’re you talking about?” the boy said. “Buzz off, creep.”

  Ignis grabbed him by the back of the throat. “You must be new to this Shield.”

  The girl paled, eyeing them both. “W-what’s going on?”

  “Everything will be fine, miss. He won’t bother you anymore. The young gentleman and I are just going to get off at the next stop.” Ignis let a flicker of his anger heat his fingers. “We need to chat.”

  “He wasn’t bothering me,” she said.

  The young man jerked from Ignis’s grip and whipped around. “I don’t know who you are, but hands off or I call a cop.”

  Ignis frowned. He grabbed the boy’s shirt, jerked him forward and inhaled.

  “What the hell, freak?”

  “What’s going on back there?” The bus driver called.

  “Everything’s under control.” Ignis pulled a wallet and flipped it open. At the distance, his fire inspector’s badge did the job. He turned toward the girl. “Just questioning a suspect.”

  Her expression flickered. Then her whole image flickered.

  “By the Undying Light,” Ignis said. “I order you to hold and be known.”

  The girl looked from Ignis to the boy and back. “I-I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  Ignis’s eyes narrowed. “I think you do. After the boy’s gone.”

  “Who’re you calling boy? We’re basically the same age.”

  Ignis smirked. “Would you care to repeat that? Are you telling an enforcer of law that you’re a twenty year old male trying to seduce a teenage girl?”

  “Um, well, I said basically the same, I-I’m seventeen, so—”

  “ID, please,” Ignis said.

  A little ring heralded an impending stop.

  “I didn’t do anything. I’ve seen TV. You can’t question anyone underage without a parent or guardian present.”

  “Show me your ID to establish your age, and I’ll let you go.”

  “Screw you.” The boy lurched out of the bench, grabbing a rail as the bus pulled up to a stop. He rushed out the door before Ignis could follow. Ignis didn’t bother. He turned to the girl.

  Her image vanished with a pop. A pixie scowled around a cigar that parted his salt and pepper beard. “What’s the deal, bird? Do you have any idea how much fresh wafer semen goes for at the Goblin Market?”

  “Ensorcelling a mortal’s mind is a class-c infraction.” Sightline blocked by the bus seat, Ignis slipped his spare phone from one pocket and an elderberry thorn loop from another.

  “I didn’t do a damned thing to his mind. I didn’t offer him any deals. Hell, he was practically begging to put his little worm in my hand.” The pixie grinned. “Besides, nothing happened thanks to you. No slime, no crime.”

  “You’re wrong—plenty of slime in that seat.” Ignis tossed the loop into the seat next to the little pixie.

  The faerie leapt up, flitting away from the loop. He raised his eyes back to Ignis in time for Ignis to snap the surprise photo.

  “Name, Sidhe,” Ignis said.

  “Cember, bird.”

  “This is an official warning. Leave the mortals alone and return home.”

  “I am home,” Cember said. “Next stop.”

  Ignis tensed. “There’s an Arch at the next stop?”

  Cember’s brow wrinkled. “Not that I know of, just my apartment.”

  “Apartment? You don’t live in Faery?” Ignis asked.

  “Cember fetch this. Cember do that. Cember lick my ass so I don’t have to bathe. Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “How’d you pay for the apartment?” Ignis asked. “Fairy gold?”

  Cember snorted. “Greenbacks, pal, and before you ask they were as genuine as spring rain. Earned fair and even, disgusting as that is.”

  “How?” Ignis asked.

  Glamour changed Cember into a grizzled, middle aged man.

  “I’m a private dick—surveillance, lost objects, just like in the Philip Marlowe books. Getting very candid pictures is easy when you can fly into the room with an invisible camera.” Cember rang the stop request and stood. “I’ve been warned. I’m going.”

  “I don’t like the idea of an Unseelie running around the city unsupervised,” Ignis said. “What’s to stop you from converting mortals?”

  “I can glamour, okay, but wishes aren’t my bag. Hell, who wants the administrative headache of keeping track of all those deals? Besides, if I were dealing, I’d have to answer to the Court, and that means losing my anonymity. Thanks, but no thanks.” Cember headed for the exit.

  Ignis didn’t stop him. He retrieved the thorn loop and sat back in the seat thinking about the encounter. The bus pulled into Dunwoody station. He rode the escalator up to the train platform. Along the way, another taint played across his nose.

  That lingering from Cember or something else?

  Taint stench grew then faded.

  Ignis followed, still itching to vent his spleen while waiting on the next train. A strange graffiti tag marked the foot of another stairway. The stylized goblin’s head resembled a badly depicted house elf. Symbols rode a silver headband across the cocked head: a bag of gold coins and scales—typical of a Goblin Market; a birdcage; and a triangle composed of three smaller shards or possibly daggers. The bubble depicted around the head made less sense. Tiny marks shaded the bubble into a sphere. Violet and green goop graphically clung to its exterior.

  That’s pretty intricate. How’d they get this painted without getting caught?

  Ignis cradled his face.

  Glamour, you idiot, hence the taint.

  He took a picture with his phone. The sound of an arriving train summoned him. He hurried back up to the platform and slipped into a car as the doors were closing. His body triggered a safety buzz. The doors opened back up. He’d claimed a seat and drew out his headphones before the doors closed and the train
lurched forward. The new Sanderson audio book filled his ears, taking Ignis into foreign battlegrounds as MARTA whisked him through the city toward his Camaro.

  Caelum

  Caelum surveyed the carnage around his motorcycle. The dwarfish figures bled pools onto the parking bay floor, resurrecting the blood-red of their vests and berets. He’d been on his way to headquarters, stopping only to replace his empty clips.

  He’d barely rounded the corner back to his motorcycle when the redcaps staged his second ambush that night. He piled their footman picks and Freddy Kruger gauntlets nearly to the top of his rear tire.

  He headed over to the closet where he kept jugs of water, envying Quayla’s ability to clean up so much more efficiently.

  “What’s going on—oh my God!” A woman shrieked.

  Caelum whirled around and bolted in the direction of her scream. He threw his hand her direction, wind sweeping around her cry in an attempt to muffle her scream

  Probably too little too late like those first gunshots.

  He bent the wind around her, sweeping air from the reach of her lungs. She gulped like a landed fish, grabbing at her throat. Almost a full minute later, her eyes rolled back. Her body followed suit.

  Caelum’s essence propelled him to double speed. A feet first slide caught her head moments before she hit the ground. Her head slammed a little too close to home, but he shook off the pain and lifted her from the ground. Wind fed and starved her, keeping her momentarily out while he rushed her to the stairwell.

  Damn but it’d be nice sometimes to have Glamour.

  Caelum laid her down and beckoned air to her lungs. She stirred almost at once. “What happen? Oh, God, dead bodies. There were dead bodies.”

  Caelum smiled. “I may not look my best, but I assure you I’m not dead.”

  “I saw...what happened?”

  “You fainted, hit your head pretty hard.” He flashed her a charming grin. “It would be my pleasure to escort the lady to a doctor.”

  “No, we need to call the police.”

  “For a little bump on the head?” Caelum asked.

  A man’s voice boomed deeper in the parking bay. “What the—hell, yes! I’m going to be rich!”

  “Shit. It’d be so much easier being a faerie sometimes.” Caelum pulled a small white feather from his back pocket.

  The woman shrieked again as the down glowed to life.

  “Vilicangelus, Vilicangelus, Vilicangelus,” Caelum watched her staggering retreat transform into a shrieking sprint. “We’re going to need some rewrites.”

  An indigo-scaled wyvern slipped from within the Arch.

  Blood Phoenix Chronicles

  Explore more of the Blood Phoenix Chronicles:

  BPC: Ashes of Raging Water (Book 1)

  BPC: Ruled by Tainted Blood (Book 2)

  BPC: Vengeful are the Drowned (Book 3)

  BPC: Rise of the Exiled Lady (Book 4)

  BPC: Razing the Last Bastion (Book 5)

  Books by Michael J. Allen

  - Urban Fantasy –

  Dumpstermancer 1: Discarded

  Dumpstermancer 2: Duplicity

  - Modern High Fantasy –

  Bittergate Chronicles 1: Murder in Wizard’s Wood

  Bittergate Chronicles 1: The Wizard’s Bane

  - Western Fantasy –

  Guns of Underhill 1: Fey West

  - Science Fiction -

  Scion 1: Scion of Conquered Earth

  Scion 2: Stolen Lives

  Scion 3: Hijacked

  Scion 4: Unchained

  You can also find miscellaneous short fiction on my website.

  Dedication

  For Tina, an inexhaustible fount of help and support.

  For B, B & E, J, S & J, and L.

  Acknowledgments:

  Welcome to the end of the first Blood Phoenix Chronicle. This novel marks my tenth published novel and a long list of firsts. Ashes was my first attempt to join forces with other authors, my first try and completing a whole series before releasing any of it and my first attempt at rapidly releasing a series of books.

  I’ve learned a scandalous amount about myself, my writing and subjects I didn’t even realize I needed to know. Along the way I learned about Quayla’s world too. Both of us thank you for reading our story. I know there were a few tense moments as well as some deliciously frustrating moments as well. There are plenty of questions left to explore even after hours and hours of enjoyable reading.

  If you like Quayla and want more of her world or urban fantasy stories like this one, I ask you to add fuel to the fire by leaving a review.

  A lot of people worked very hard to help bring you this story. Andrea Fodor spent countless hours designing and redesigning Quayla, her shieldmates and their phoenix forms for our covers. Thanks as always, Andrea, for putting up with how picky I can get.

  On our editing, reading and proofreading teams, we had some heavy hitters this time around. Author Sam Gregory handled early edits. Authors L. V. Bell and Len Barry dealt with my mid-series rewrite-it-all crisis in addition to providing beta reading help. Author T. Allen Diaz not only put up with my neurosis and helped keeping me encouraged, he provided his firefighting expertise for scenes in Ashes as well as its sequels. I can’t forget Larry Dixon (and Mercedes Lackey for loaning me her husband). Larry’s guidance has been invaluable to keeping me grounded and moving forward. Billy and Rebecca, Scott, and Sarah also deserve thanks for various stages of reading and editing. Tina, well this one’s dedicated to her for all the countless hours and rereads.

  Lastly, thanks to Quayla and the whole Atlanta Shield. Usually, I’d be looking forward to continuing our journey in the sequels—except they’ve already been written. Well, see you in the future...

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people—living, dead or in between, businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Michael J. Allen.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Delirious Scribbles Ink

  P. O. Box 161

  Fortson, Georgia 31808-0161

  www.deliriousscribbles.com

  Interior Layout ©2018 Delirious Scribbles Ink

  Cover Design ©2018 Delirious Scribbles Ink

  Cover Art ©2018 Andrea Fodor

  ISBN 978-1-944357-38-2 (intl. tr. pbk.)

  ISBN 978-1-944357-38-9 (hc.)

  ISBN 978-1-944357-40-5 (epub)

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Ashes of Raging Water / Michael J. Allen. — 1st ed.

  About the Scribbler:

  (Photo credit: Jim Cawthorne)

  MICHAEL J. ALLEN IS a USA Today bestselling author of multi-layer science fiction and fantasy novels. Born in Oregon and an avid storm fan, he lives in far too hot & humid rural Georgia with his two black Labradors: Myth and Magesty. On those rare occasions he tears himself away from reading, writing, and conventions he can be found enjoying bad sci-fi movies, playing D&D or the occasional video game, getting hit with sticks in the SCA or hanging out with the crew of Starfleet International’s U.S.S. DaVinci.

  To learn more about Michael, check out his website at https://www.deliriousscribbles.com/

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