Dreadful Ashes

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  It was over in an instant, and I rolled with the injured girl in the gravel and grass as the backblast of the ritual’s power flattened us to the earth, then dissipated.

  I looked down, surprised to see that it hadn’t actually torn me in half.

  Rising slowly, carefully, I patted at my legs as if unsure they should still be there. I felt somehow raw inside…but also empowered, as if some of the ritual’s sympathetic energy had absorbed into me, just like it had earlier.

  And once again, it felt familiar.

  My skin started to crawl as I looked down at the girl in the grass.

  The waitress from the Dystopia Diner, I realized. The one that flirted with me. That made two I knew. No. No way.

  Charles’ mantra echoed in my mind. There are no coincidences.

  Why were there sacrifices at all if she hadn’t had to die to ignite the ritual? What did that mean, and why did less and less of this whole mess add up?

  Hershel jogged over, followed by a frightened-looking Kitty, and then by Fright himself.

  “You saved her,” Fright rasped, staring at me with a mix of emotions in his huge eyes that I was too tired to comprehend.

  “I hope so.” Her heartbeat was weak, and she was unconscious.

  “I…I’ll see to her,” Kitty managed, dropping to the grass. Fright took a step away from her, and Kitty glanced up at him. “And y-you need…your neck seen t-to.” She tugged her own soft scarf free of her throat and held it out.

  He smiled, missing more than a few of his shark-like teeth.

  “What now?” Hershel asked, staring at the Vulcan again, its distant figure pulsing with energy. “It’s almost complete.”

  “We have to stop them from bringing Lord Nischever over,” I replied. “Tam’s up there now—”

  “My father?” Fright cut in, looking shocked. “What do you mean?”

  I stared at him, icy dread winding its way through my veins again.

  Hershel nodded, his eyes harsh. “You should know better. The Elder Fae are locked behind the Gates for a reason! Your father is no exception—”

  “Hersh!” I cut him off in turn, staring at Fright. “That’s not what they’re doing, is it?”

  Fright shook his head.

  “Then what is the ritual for?” Hershel grabbed Fright by the collar of his chain mail, as if he might shake the answer free, but Fright didn’t respond.

  “He can’t tell us,” I realized—

  —and then I went motionless, as a massive pulse of energy blasted outward from the Vulcan’s feet, its metaphysical echoes ringing across the city and resonating in our bones.

  “And now it doesn't matter,” I finished, staring up at the distant statue.

  24

  These scars aren’t just for show

  I left everyone behind, leaping from shadow to shadow, reaching for the mountaintop.

  We were too late to stop the ritual; only one concern remained in my mind, one worry to consume all others.

  Tamara.

  She had to be okay.

  I didn’t know what I’d do if she wasn’t.

  At the top of the mountain, past the winding uphill roads and paved parking lots, the flattened rocky peak transformed into a manicured lawn and a grassy courtyard, still cared for and somewhat green despite the encroaching winter. The solitary road curved away from the mountain’s crown, looping back down, and a smooth stone path led onward in its place, an arrow-straight lane that led between a double row of twin trees and pointed straight at the feet of the iron man himself.

  The Vulcan rose above it all on his tall pedestal, towering above city and surroundings alike, his gaze cast upward at his spearpoint and the stormy night sky beyond it. His robust gray iron physique flickered dully from the subdued lighting hidden in the clouds roiling above his bearded head. Unconcerned with the brewing tempest or events unfolding around him, the God of the Forge kept his eyes skyward, locked onto his latest masterpiece, his arm aloft, his hammer in hand, and his massive feet set, anchored to the stone.

  Scattered around under those feet at the base of his pillar were walking trails and a park, trees and fountains, and a radio station and its accompanying tower that was almost as tall as the man of iron. At the base of the Vulcan’s hundred-foot pedestal was the museum Jason had recently snuck into, and nearby was what I assumed to be the darkened doors of the visitor’s center—I couldn’t be certain, since this was the first time I’d actually set foot here.

  I slowed and made my way resolutely forward, straight down the path, past piles and pallets of untouched building materials: steel beams, cinder blocks, dusty bags of cement, and more. A trio of heartbeats led me onward past the strips of caution tape and reflective orange cones: one human and two Moroi, one vital and healthy, the other two muffled, battered, and feeble.

  “There you are,” Juris commented casually as I stepped into the clearing around the Vulcan’s base. Even at this distance, the Moroi’s cold hazel eyes glittered like sparks in the dark, energized and alive, and his voice carried easily on the electrified air. “I was starting to worry you’d lost your nerve.”

  Cautiously, I eyed the unconcerned vampire, seated carefully on the edge of a square of cinder blocks near the Vulcan’s base. “What can I say?” My gut clenched as I took in the compact .45 magnum held nonchalantly in his hand, the barrel pointed carelessly at the two unmoving forms at his feet—one of them Tamara. “I don’t like to disappoint my fans.”

  I took another step forward; around us, the storm churned, the air filled to bursting with static charge. The pressure from Next Door mounted, warping my peripheral vision like a funhouse mirror as something on the other side strained and stretched at the very boundary between worlds.

  “That’s close enough,” Juris snapped, the illusion of relaxation abruptly blown away. Tension flooded his frame as he jerked the gun’s barrel to point directly at the silver-and-black head of one of the crumpled figures in the grass; the aura emanating from the weapon’s magazine made my skin crawl. “It would be a shame for a bullet to find its way into my poor cousin’s head, wouldn’t it?”

  I fought back a tide of anger at the threat, pushing it back down my throat like bile. “Don’t,” I rasped from between fangs and clenched teeth. “You don’t really want to hurt her, do you? She’s your cousin.” I held my arms up and wide, palms outward, and risked another couple of steps forward. “Why lose more family over this? Your grudge is with me.”

  “Enough!” To my relief, the gun snapped up, trained on me as I approached. “Not another step,” Juris warned, his voice deadly serious with an obvious undercurrent of rage. “They aren’t dead yet,” Juris rose as he spoke, adjusting his finely tailored suit with one hand, and put a boot on top of the other girl’s head. “But I can fix that at any time.” Looking more closely, I recognized the older girl from the rooftop, the sibling of the one Lan had refused to sacrifice. “I know you don’t want to take this girl from her sister, when their only fault was running into you one unfortunate night. Just like you don’t want Tamara to die, especially so soon after she confessed her feelings to you and finally admitted them to herself.”

  If I’d still been moving forward, Juris’ words would have stopped me in my tracks. “W-what?” I stammered; Juris grinned, savoring my reaction. “How…how could you possibly know all of that?”

  “Oh, I’ve had someone watching you, of course.” Chuckling, the Moroi ran his empty hand through his hair, combing back the once-neat black locks. “Someone capable of watching you closer than you can imagine, and for longer than you know.”

  Something in his words, and in his mannerisms, put me even more on edge than I already had been. My instincts screamed at me that something was very, very wrong, but I still couldn’t place it. “But…” Fumbling around the edges of the mystery, a few small pieces clicked together. “I knew all the sacrifices. And the ritual went off without them—”

  “Because they weren’t necessary.” Juris laughed
, a harsh, nearly caustic sound. I could feel his twisted emotions in the air, and they made my skin crawl. “Those deaths and threats of death were for your benefit. Completely unneeded.”

  I twitched and managed to hold my ground. There would only be more deaths if I charged him now. “But why?”

  The vampire shrugged. “I had it on good authority it would get to you. What more reason did I need?”

  “These are people, you assface!” I pushed back against the sway of his emotions; he was trying to provoke me, and it was working. “If you want to kill me, just fucking kill me already—”

  “Oh, you simple Strigoi.” His grin, dripping sadism, flickered in the shrouded lighting from above. “This was never about simply killing you. That would be too forgiving, too simple.” Juris’ voice was callous and casually cutting; I trembled with the effort of holding myself back. “This was about making you feel the same loss I felt.” He gazed downward at Tamara.

  “Even if you’re just committing the same crimes, the same sins I did?” I took a single, unintentional step forward, and Juris’ eyes darted back to mine, burning intensely as he stared down the barrel of the gun at me.

  “I couldn’t care less about crimes or sins.” He snorted derisively, dismissively, his emotions leaking out into the air all around us. “You hurt me. You killed my family, the two people I cared most about in this world. That’s all that matters to me. And when someone offered me the chance at revenge…I leapt on it.”

  That answer explained why he was here now, but raised more questions in its wake. I shook my head. “Then what about the ritual? If all you wanted was revenge, why bother?”

  To my surprise, Juris shrugged again. Utterly uncaring. “Honestly, I couldn’t care less about the ritual. It’s beneath me, beneath my concerns. Let Davora and her allies play god with the Sanguinarians. Let Lan and Fright try to remake the world into a better place. I’ll make my own way in whatever world exists; I always have. This was only ever about me and you.” The Moroi sneered, his hazel eyes burning, his face twitching. “Enacting this ritual was simply the price of doing business.”

  “You bastard.” Anger and disgust bubbled up together, and I started toward him. “All this death, addiction, pain. For this?”

  His leg tensed, his booted heel pressing against the human girl’s skull, and I froze in my tracks.

  “Almost had you,” he grinned, his eyes blazing feverishly. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill them. You are. Anything else would defeat the point.”

  I glared at Juris, reining myself in, pushing away his insidious will with my own. “And if I don’t? You won’t make me. Better shitfuckers than you have tried.”

  The vampire smiled, cracking a razor’s edge smirk. “Well, you do have a choice. You can attack me to save yourself, and I’ll kill them both.” He straightened, staring righteously down the magnum’s iron sights and into my eyes. “Or you can stand there and eat a bullet.”

  The answer didn’t take much thought. “Sounds good,” I said.

  His smile split the side of his face, growing into an asymmetrical, victorious grin. “Indeed it does.” His finger moved to the trigger and tensed. I could feel his emotions dragging at me, trying to make me feel despair in my final moments, but I stood tall and denied him the satisfaction. At my back, I could feel the pressure of the swelling storm and the massive, ominous presence peering at us from Next Door.

  Juris dragged the moment out, savoring it just like I’d expected, letting the specter of my death linger.

  I clutched tight to the shadows all around and stared him down; I could feel the anointed bullet in the barrel from twenty feet away.

  And then, because I was tired of waiting, I flipped him off.

  Juris’ face twitched, a flicker of anger.

  He pulled the trigger.

  I missed the sound of the gunshot as I stepped between shadows. Its echo, rebounding from the trees and off Vulcan’s base, greeted me as I slammed into Juris, smashing apart the cube of concrete blocks as I drove him away from the two helpless women.

  Another shot split the night, a bullet cleaving air two inches from my cheek, the blessed round sending a tinge of pain into my bones with its mere proximity. I gripped Juris’ arms, slowly forcing the barrel up and away, even as he angled his wrist to get a bead on me. I headbutted him in the face, bloodying his nose, but it didn’t faze him. I shoved my shoulder into his chest as we grappled, but the Moroi set his feet, growling, and stalemated me, refusing to be pushed over.

  “You think it’s that simple?” Juris snarled in my face, flecking me with vehement spittle, his eyes a boiling liquid hazel. To my shock, he pushed back against my grip, narrowing the gap between me and a clean shot degree by degree with superior strength. “I know your weaknesses. I will see you dead at my feet.”

  Increasingly desperate, I let go of Juris’ left arm and seized his gun arm in both hands, pushing his wrist away and bending his elbow as I tucked into his chest, keeping myself barely clear of bullet city. But no matter what I did, the implacable Moroi just kept bearing relentlessly down, one trigger pull away from fulfilling his promise.

  “And when I do,” the vampire grinned, his face an inch from mine, “I’m going to kill them both anyway.”

  With a snarl, I bit him, digging iron-hard Strigoi fangs along his cheek and jaw and sinking them into his throat.

  Juris recoiled, and I abruptly changed tactics. Instead of forcing his arm up and away, I yanked it down instead. I barely flinched as another shot ripped past beneath my armpit and blew a hole in my cardigan.

  Digging my claws deep into the meat of his wrist and bicep, I brought Juris’ arm down across my knee, snapping it backward at the elbow.

  Moroi blood splattered us both. Juris gasped in pain as his mangled arm reverted to unresponsive meat and bone. My claws tore out a few tendons for good measure as I slapped the gun from his grasp.

  Then I caught the weapon midair before he could react, enduring the sharp stabbing spike of contact pain long enough to hurl the weapon into the wooded park on the back side of the mountain.

  The Moroi staggered back, his boiling hazel eyes wavering and dripping. The fang-marks along his throat rapidly sealed up, but his arm dangled limp, still bent the wrong way, bits of ivory bone protruding from the joint. “Goddamn you, Strigoi,” he spat. “Falter. Fall. I have not come this far…to fail now!”

  His emotions raked at mine, trying to crush my will. A silver spike flickered into his fingers as he lunged at me with his good arm, almost too fast for my eyes to follow.

  Without thinking, I sidestepped the strike and clamped my hand down over his wrist.

  Acting on muscle memory, I twisted at the waist like Tamara had taught me, keeping his momentum going, adding it to my own. Juris glanced up at me; I grinned down at him. “Then get used…” I spun, locking my other arm under his shoulder, taking the off-balance Moroi along for the ride. “…to disappointment.”

  In one smooth motion, I rotated completely around, taking his feet off the ground as I gave voice to my own deafening roar of victory, then let him go.

  With a sickening crunch, Juris’ smashed into the Vulcan’s stone base head-first, fracturing his skull and shattering his neck on impact.

  For a long moment, I just stood there. I felt like I should be panting for breath, but instead, I just stared at Juris’ limp body as his pulse faded away.

  Which meant that I got a really good view as he twitched and slowly pushed himself to his feet again.

  “Well, so much for Juris,” the dead man said, his voice distorted, overlaid with something…ethereal and uncanny, something horrifyingly caustic that scratched at my ears and mind.

  I took a step back as the presence Next Door surged, pushing against the Walls of my Home, bending reality itself.

  “You know, I always wanted to learn martial arts,” Juris croaked; I flinched as he set his own broken neck, twisting it savagely back into place with a rapid series of gut
-wrenching snaps. “Only mankind would develop a science based on dismantling each other. Delightful.” Next came the mangled arm, yanking it straight without complaint, the bone shifting back into place as the torn flesh and tendon healed. “But it turned out to be more effort than it was worth.”

  Slowly, the dead Moroi turned to face me, his anguished hazel eyes bleeding ink.

  “You know, seeing as I have to re-learn it for each body I steal,” Ca-Lethe Meladoquiel finished with a yawn, stretching. “Better to just treat them all as expendable, since that’s all they are.”

  I took another horrified step back, then another, only stopping when my heels brushed the broken pile of cinder blocks.

  “No. No way.” I shook my head as if the denial could make the Ur-demon go away. She gave me a charming smile in response, filtered through Juris’ freshly-healed face. “You can’t be here, I exorcised you.”

  “And yet I remain,” Juris-Meladoquiel’s voice echoed on the wind: vast, unmovable and acidic. She smiled again, a flicker of amusement. “If only it were that simple, hmmm?”

  “I pushed you onto holy ground.” I watched as the anguish in Juris’ eyes was subsumed, drowned by ink as the pressure from Next Door mounted. “Left you with nowhere to go. Cast you out…of…” My words faltered, my blood turning to solid ice as the cold chill of realization dawned. “Except…I didn’t. You never left Charles’ body, did you?”

  “Ding ding ding! We have a winner.” Ink bubbled merrily along the outskirts of Juris’ stolen eyes. “What is it they say about making assumptions, my dear? The things you and Charles think you know could fill a bucket.”

  Slowly, I forced myself to stand upright again, to stop trying to unconsciously back away from the demoness’ overwhelming presence. I steeled myself as her eyes scoured me, too deeply for comfort, a palpable pressure of their own. “Charles wasn’t avoiding me. You were, since I uncovered you before.”

  She chuckled, the sound echoing in my mind. “I’d like to think I upped my game a bit too, but yes. I’m so proud of you for figuring me out, but I couldn’t let it happen again. It might have messed something up.”