“If we’re not gone by the time they show up, I’ll handle it.” She winked at me confidently. “No worries.”
I just nodded.
The Moroi stepped over and leaned on the inside of the door frame, peering up at a thoughtful, concentrating Charles. “So, are we going to talk about the fact that some crazy guy just burst into the middle of our investigation and tried to shoot you? Did you offend someone new? Been up to something I don’t know about?”
Charles scrubbed at his stubble. “If I was hiding something from you, why the hell would I tell you now?” He didn’t glance at Tamara, continuing to carefully scan the apartment’s exterior. “But I honestly have no idea, except that I don’t believe in coincidence.” He took a wadded-up handkerchief out of his coat and dabbed absently at the side of his head, severely softening how forcefully the scent of blood assaulted my senses. “I’d say we should take our attacker captive and question him, but I doubt the police would take kindly to that. Nor am I sure it would work.”
“Actually, I don’t think he’s here because of Charles,” I inserted. “It’s definitely not the exact same guy, but he looks a lot like the man who attacked me before.” I glanced the mystery man over again, now sleeping peacefully in the middle of the living room. “Army garb, big guy, vacant expression, dedicated urge to kill… A lot matches up.”
“You didn’t mention this before,” Charles accused. He stepped back from the doorway, and Tamara and I took the opportunity to slip outside.
I frowned, eyeing him. “I might have if I thought you’d give a shit.”
“Hmmmm.” He stared at the top of the door frame. “Reasonable point.”
I rolled my dry eyes. “Anyway, I ran into an even bigger guy before, right after I first woke up… changed. Turned. Whatever you call it. He tried to stick me with a knife, with a fair degree of success. It hurt like hell, like it was on fire.”
That drew his eyes to me in consideration. “You’re lucky you survived, then, because those sound like vampire hunters to me.” He frowned, deep in thought. “Then again, there was certainly something off about this one. He didn’t act like a normal human, even one under the influence. And how would they know where and when you were going to awaken, and why would this one walk in and immediately target me, instead of you?” Charles shook his head, brow furrowed. “No, there’s too much that doesn't match up. Once we get back to my sanctum, Corey and I will do some research.”
As if summoned by the comment, Corey trudged out of the apartment, burdened by Charles’ big, hefty duffle bag full of magical accoutrements. “There.” He paused for a breath. “Done. Can we go now?”
“Almost. I think I’ve found what I was looking for.” Fishing around once more in his long, heavy leather coat, he produced a handful of what looked like metal shavings. “Iron should do the trick,” he murmured, seemingly to himself. “This will only take a moment.” He smirked. “Are everyone’s phones off?”
“What phone?” his apprentice grumbled. “I’m going to take this to the truck.” His teacher’s firm hand on the back of his shirt collar prevented the boy from actually wandering off anywhere by himself.
The sirens wailed louder, demanding attention as Charles stood up straight, barely having to stretch at all to scrub the iron shavings all across the top of the doorframe. As he did so, a strange mark shimmered into view like a materializing mirage, seated against the very top of the doorframe. “Look here.” He gestured to the head of the doorframe, where a burning brand, blazing dimly like the thin wound in the bedroom, formed into the shape of a looping symbol like two conjoined ankhs, now laid bare for any eyes to see.
“What…What is that?” I stared at the odd, raw-looking sigil. Something about it caught my attention, pulling at my awareness, but I was pretty certain I didn’t recognize it from anywhere.
“Remember that part in the Bible where they smeared blood all over the lintels to mark particular houses?” Charles said.
“Dimly.” I grunted. “I’m not exactly a Bible aficionado.” I peered up toward the mark, swatting down an urge to reach up and touch it.
“This is like that,” he explained. “Someone or something left this mark here to indicate particular dwellings or people and empowered it to draw attention from Next Door.” His visage darkened. “These people weren’t taken by accident or chance. Someone marked them for abduction.”
Our top secret rendezvous spot was an all-night Randy’s Burgers about five minutes away. I hoped no one on shift recognized me tonight; I’d been here after work an embarrassing number of times. Tamara must have picked up on my nervousness; she guided us quickly to a back corner, away from prying eyes, where we all slid into a big, half-circle booth.. Now as long as a hulking weirdo didn’t burst in suddenly and start shooting up our burgers, we’d be fine for a while. Hopefully.
I didn’t grab anything for myself; I wasn’t certain I still needed it, but mostly I was more concerned with asking questions than trying to stuff myself. I knew my mortal companions likely needed rest and food, but every anxious moment I sat here was one more I wasn’t out helping the people who needed it. “So—”
“So, I need to know what that mark above the door felt like to you.” Even with a mouth wedged half full of seasoned fries, Charles still managed to cut me off. “I noticed you seemed rather drawn to it.”
I glared at him a little. “I felt… I don’t know. It’s hard to describe.” I shifted around in the booth, thinking it over. “Drawn to it seems right. Not compelled or anything but like it was familiar somehow. I don’t remember ever seeing it before, though.”
Corey leaned forward curiously. “Could she have magical potential?”
Me, a wizard-lady? I got a little excited in spite of myself. Wave my hand, mumble some mumbo-jumbo, and make crazy shit happen? Yes, please.
“Once? Quite possibly. But not anymore.” Charles shattered my dreams on the anvil of his reality, and I rasped out a sigh. “That talent lies solely in the hands of humankind. Living humans.” He looked at me directly from across the booth. “If ever you could, that opportunity is now gone. Some rare supernatural creatures can perform human magic, but most just manifest a focused set of powers based on their affinity to certain types of energy.”
“The type of energy they draw from Next Door?” I interjected, shouldering aside my disappointment.
Charles nodded approvingly. “Exactly.”
“Why is this important to the matter at hand?” Tamara queried, already halfway through her meal and sipping a second milkshake.
“Stay with me on this,” Charles said, shifting his eyes from us to his chicken sandwich and back again. “Just like each bloodline of the Moroi feels an affinity to one suite of emotions, like the Dawn Fae feel affinity to places of rampant growth, or the Dusk have a kinship with cold, stone, and the dark. Each type of creature, save the Sanguinarians, has their own particular affinity.” I nodded, since he seemed to be mostly looking at me to see if I understood. “This does not mean that two different creatures cannot share an affinity or at least have one that overlaps.”
He leaned forward, steaming hot sandwich momentarily disregarded. “So, Ashley, the question is: What did you feel when you gazed upon the sigil?”
Tamara leaned over, offering to share her shake while I mulled it over. I took one sip and waved it away. I needed delicious sugar and carbs less than I needed answers right now, and my own feelings were a wild new frontier since becoming Strigoi.
“Cool? Calm and kind of peaceful, I guess?” I offered finally, knowing full well how weird it was to say that about a random wall squiggle.
Charles nodded though, as if it had been my expected reply. He leaned in, seeming satisfied, maybe even smug. “Like death?” He asked.
The question punched me in the gut. “Like death,” I finally responded.
The wizard smirked, his lips hinting at a suppressed grin, as he settled back and scooped up his sandwich. “I expected as much, because tha
t symbol represents death, among other things,” he explained around a mouthful of food. “You’re feeling that connection to the energy that sigil draws on and represents. But you’re not the only one who can feel it.”
“Like you said, someone’s leaving those marks to attract something’s attention,” Corey said, nodding in sudden comprehension. “Like building a bridge!”
Charles nodded. “More or less. Next Door isn’t laid out in any mappable manner. So if you want to navigate from here to there or the reverse, you need something to guide you.”
“So,” my rough voice wavered, “if the mark feels of death, does that mean that Lori is—”
“Not that.” Charles waved his hand dismissively. “Something with a similar affinity to you reached across and took these women, breaking into their homes, or even snatching them right off the streets. I aim to find out what did this. And why.”
His eyes grew suddenly distant, thoughtful. Maybe disturbed. “I saw it, you know. Flashes of imagery, when I did my ritual. I saw the girl, dragged screaming and struggling through to Next Door.” His face was sober and hard. “The thing is, whatever did this can’t be working alone. Someone on this side is leaving it breadcrumbs, leading it to its prey. A creature powerful enough to locate its victims so easily on its own would also be able to remove them without leaving such gruesome marks of its passage.”
“You’re thinking of stepping Next Door.” Tamara said, considering Charles.
“Actually, I’m thinking of chasing whatever this asshole is back to its home, finding out what’s going on, and putting them down.” He said firmly. “Then I can rescue its captives. If any are still alive.”
“I like the sound of that,” I said, leaning forward. “How can I help?”
“Wizards, powerful ones like Charles,” Tamara gestured indicatively at the tall, ornery magician, “can open Windows that they and others can step through. We can go Next Door with him and lend a hand against whatever he’s hunting.”
He grunted. “You make it sound easy. It’s not.” He looked between us. “It’s a serious effort of magic, and normally, we’d have no way to know where we’d end up. But my apprentice can lend a hand in the heavy lifting department, and as for where to go…” He stared at me. “I’m hoping you’ll be able to feel that out for us.”
I nodded as Charles’ plan became clear. “Use my similar affinity to track the mark and the thing that came across. In reverse.”
“Got it in one.” The magician nodded. “As a bonus, if we’re going to a place teeming with sympathetic energy, you’ll be even stronger there.” Charles gave a half sigh. “Because we need that.” He chewed into his food with a vengeance. “I still wonder why that guy tried to shoot me,” he mumbled.
“Maybe he knows you,” I replied. Tamara covered her laughter with a napkin.
Charles just gave me a flat stare. “Just tell me everything that happened with the other one you encountered.” He looked between Tamara and me. “And tell me anything you noticed from the one back in Jennifer’s apartment.” He blinked at me. “I was kind of busy rolling on the ground at the time.”
Tamara and I took turns explaining everything we’d noticed, then I told him about my encounter with Knife-Happy Military Zombie Number One, or KHMZNO for short. He didn’t seem to like the name, though, and it wasn’t until I mentioned the hollow look in their eyes that I saw a flash of realization in his.
I tilted my head. “Does that mean something to you?” I asked, my voice hoarse from the extended story. Tamara offered me some more milkshake, and this time I accepted.
The wizard nodded slowly. “I think so. But I’ll still need access to my home library to know for certain if what I’m thinking is right.”
Tamara sighed, leaning back in the booth. “Can’t you just tell us your assumptions, Charles? The events are pretty obviously connected, right?” She glanced around the table. “I mean, how could they not be connected, somehow? It just doesn't seem likely.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Assumptions will get you killed. We can figure that part out later, anyway. We have other priorities right now.”
“Like?” Corey asked around a prodigious yawn.
Charles dumped all of his food trash onto his apprentice’s tray, and Corey got up with a sigh to empty it. “Priority one is to go to another site and find another of these dark marks where something shredded reality on its way through. And the bigger, the better.”
“Dark marks? That’s what we’re calling them?” I tilted my head, trying to ignore the stiffness there, while noting how inhuman it made the motion. “You mean like in Harry Potter?”
Tamara snorted, amused. So did Corey. I cracked an unintentionally toothy grin, at least until Charles responded.
“In what?” He looked over at me, an eyebrow raised. I couldn’t for the unlife of me tell if he was joking or not.
I blinked. “Oh, come on! Please tell me you know Harry Potter. I mean, I’m dead and I know about Harry Potter.” Tamara didn’t bother hiding it as her chuckle grew into full fledged laughter.
Once out in the dark of the mostly abandoned Randy’s parking lot, we gathered around the hood of Charles’ Silverado. “Phone.” He held out his hand in Tamara’s direction.
“So you can make it explode? No thanks.” She took it out of her hip pack anyway, setting on the black hood out of Charles’ easy grasp. “You want a map of the other probable sites it came across, right?”
He grunted an affirmation. “Yeah. We’ll go to the last places where some of the women were seen and see if Ashley can find anything that pulls at her.”
I nodded. I honestly didn’t care where we went or how it happened, I just wanted Lori back and the other girls safe. Bonus points if we could make certain that whoever did this in the first place never got the chance to do it again. “So, the breadcrumb trail leading us to the kidnapper. Will it also lead us to whoever left those markings for it to navigate our world?”
Charles nodded, smiling a grim smile. “Yes. Yes it will.” He knitted his fingers together, popping his knuckles. “And when we find them, we’re going to stop them. Permanently.”
And here I thought we had nothing in common. I met Charles’ dark cinnamon eyes for a moment, and we both nodded firmly.
15
Through the looking glass
“You do realize this isn’t the best place and time to be doing this, right?” I shoved my hands into the shallow pockets of my borrowed hiphuggers, trying to look nonchalant and confident. We’d checked three other places from Tamara’s map before this one, and I’d found the deathly-feeling scar at each one. But, of course, the one Charles decided to stage his ritual at was smack on the edge of one of the worst parts of town. “It’s not exactly happy safe time out here, you know?”
“I’m not sure there is a safe place to be doing something like this.” Charles shrugged. “If you want to go, just go. I’ll manage somehow.”
I glared at him, slowly raising my middle finger.
Charles turned back to his preparations.
It wasn’t myself I was worried about, though. In the last forty eight hours, I’d been shot, stabbed, beaten, eaten, and nearly incinerated by sunlight; I’d even deflected a pair of bullets with my left boob and sternum, respectively. After surviving all of that, I was feeling pretty confident about taking on anything mundane these mean city streets could hurl my way. No, my concern was for my strictly mortal companions. This was one of those places where it just wasn’t safe to walk at night, even in groups.
It didn’t help much that the location the wizard had picked for the ritual was an alley, another damn alley. This one was set back a bit from what in the daytime would be a busy intersection, but still within a monstrous arm’s reach of the flow of unsuspecting pedestrians. It was dark, dirty, dingy, and ambiently smoggy. Birmingham’s heart stank like only the rotting, slowly degrading core of an inner city can stink.
Home sweet home, I thought sardonically.
Corey was already hard at work, laboriously clearing a spot for Charles to do his next ritual. Above his head, the massive melted slash I'd found loomed, big and bold and plain as day, a vulgar slap in the face of the natural order. I gave him a hand by shoving a rusted dumpster out of the way with a loud, cringe-worthy grating of metal on concrete. We kicked aside some trash and debris, making room beneath the supernatural graffiti for Corey to toss down the heavy black duffle with a huff of exertion.
“There,” the boy straightened and stretched his back, avoiding my eyes. “You happy now, Charles?”
“I’m never happy,” he replied with a grunt. “But it’ll do.” Then he caught me off guard. “Ashley. Walk with me.”
I exchanged surprised looks with Tamara, and she shrugged. “I’ll keep a lookout here and an eye on Corey,” she offered. “I can make sure no one gets too interested in what we’re doing.”
Despite being hesitant to leave them alone, I trusted Tamara could take care of herself. I followed Charles further down the alley, dodging piles of rusty metal, toppled trash cans, and clumsy stacks of cracked cinder blocks. But he didn’t say anything.
“So?” I prompted helpfully.
He cleared his throat. “These marks. They’re a sign that whatever made them isn’t supposed to be in this world, so much so that the very act of crossing over damages our Home.”
“Okay…” I raised an eyebrow.
He paused again. “And this ritual won’t be as simple as the last one.” I hadn’t realized the last one was simple. “Everyone will have to be on point, because I'm going to have to go deeper into an altered state than before, to create a physical Window that leads back to—”
Charles cut off sharply as we passed a corner, and he almost ran point-first into the naked edge of a razor-sharp knife.
A man, his face masked by the same nighttime camouflage cloth as the rest of his outfit, peeled away from the shadows of the wall as we passed, broad combat knife lunging for Charles’ heart with lethal intent.
Dead Girl's Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 1) Page 12
