Dead Girl's Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 1)

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  “I just…couldn’t, you know?”

  He grunted noncommittally in reply, and the silence returned. The sidewalk passed uncaringly beneath us, the night rich and dark.

  “How’s Corey?”

  He took a deep breath. I didn’t know how much he still blamed us, or at least me, for what had happened to his apprentice. “Still in the hospital, still stable, still under observation.” He didn’t seem angry. Just sad and tired, with a tangible hint of regret. His face didn’t give it away, but his shoulders slumped visibly under the weight of it. “The doctors give him pretty good odds, though.”

  I didn’t have a response for him. The typical “if there’s anything I can do” or “I hope he gets better” seemed hollow and inadequate.

  “It happens, you know.” His sudden statement caught me off guard. I’d fully expected the stoic magician to remain silent all the way to his house.

  “What does?”

  “The more you use your powers, the hungrier you get. It’s a staple of vampire kind.”

  Well, it’s not like my issues had gone unnoticed, there at the end. Kind of like how hard it was to ignore the so, so close beating of his heart as we walked...

  Charles shook his head, still unreadable. “One more reason I didn’t want you involved.” A frown worked its way past his stony poker face. “You helped do good work. There’s no two ways about it. But who’s going to pay the price for it in the end?”

  It was a good question. I’d been asking it of myself every day lately. I wished I had an answer to give either of us. Instead, I changed the subject. “Heard from Tamara?”

  He chuckled dryly. “We’ll be lucky to hear from her for months, and that’s an optimistic estimate.” The wizard shook his head. “I figure she’s in deep shit. Liandra… You don’t screw with Liandra. She’s got too many ambitions, and too much on the line. It’s not good for your health.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. I wished I’d had the chance to give Tam my new number, but by the time I’d gotten my hands on a new phone, she’d already disappeared. I’d given it to Charles in case he ran into her before I did, but that was all I could do for the time being.

  “So. You were right.” The tall wizard cleared his throat, attempting to dislodge whatever obstruction that admission had caused. “The Strigoi you killed was Dana Warren. Several of the girls who were kidnapped and intended for ritual purposes were some of her classmates.”

  I nodded. I’d already guessed that much; that’s why I’d asked him to look into it in the first place. “I figure Ariande turned her, and she ‘volunteered’ a handful of candidates for a ritual that was already planned,” I rasped. “That’s why the school was such a hot spot for abductions.”

  He sighed. “My investigation revealed that she had an abusive home life, and was bullied at school. She probably wasn’t the best person to hand overwhelming power to.” He glanced at me.

  I shrugged. “I guess even old-ass Strigoi can make poor decisions.” Frowning, I shook my head. “I can’t really make fun of it, though. Shitty situation all around. Every last bit.”

  Charles nodded his agreement. “And when we got involved and you decided not to die, the ritual changed,” he continued. “The best I can figure, it was originally was intended to turn Sloss into a personal haven, somewhere they could stay put, but hidden, right under the collective Sanguinarian noses. But what we were lured into was an empowerment ritual, one tailored to give them an advantage over their adversaries.”

  “Which was us. She tried to eat me, Corey incinerated her,” I shuddered, “And we ended up on their trail.”

  “Well, Tamara and I were on their trail before that,” Charles pointed out. “But when you survived, and they failed to eliminate you, that meant that it was then impossible for them to cover up the continuing existence of the Strigoi without killing the lot of us.” He snorted. “And so, deeper into the morass we all did go.”

  That pretty much summed it up, as far as I could tell. Except for one thing that was just my own conjecture. “Ariande… Have you wondered why she decided to turn Dana? I know I have.”

  Charles shrugged off the question. “Nope. Does it matter?”

  I looked away, off of the mountain and into the empty night sky, murky with clouds and pollution. “I think… After a long time alone and hiding from pretty much everyone… You’d get really lonely.”

  The wizard didn’t answer. I didn’t expect him to. I already knew his position on monsters and sympathy, after all. My own opinion, however, was more nebulous, laced with guilt and doubt. If our positions had been reversed, if Dana had been Lori, what would I have done in the ancient Strigoi’s place?

  Another question with no answer.

  “Well,” Charles cleared his throat finally, “if that’s the case, I guess we’ll see her again sometime. Best to be ready for it.”

  Deep in my gut, I knew he was right.

  In the end, the long walk wasn’t quite comradely, but neither was it unfriendly. Traffic and gleaming city lights rolled past us on either side as we traversed the rest of Robert Arlington Boulevard, trudging up the hill towards his home.

  We paused on the porch to his little non-wizardly house, Charles fumbling through a needlessly large ring of keys, and me trying to figure him out.

  “You know, Ashley,” he flipped through the keys and settled on one, taking a deep breath. “Some people get power, they change. Even humans can become monsters.” He eyed me, his eyes hard and discerning. “But rarely, some don’t.”

  I just stared back, not knowing what he was trying to say, not knowing anything to say in return. His heartbeat was loud in my ears, reminding me that I was hungrier than ever.

  “You still can’t come in, though.” He added as he stepped up to his door and keyed it open.

  I nodded. Probably for the best. “Oh. I’ve got something for you, by the way.”

  He gave me a skeptical, suspicious look, pausing half in and half out of his threshold. I tossed him a vial of thick, dark blood.

  My blood.

  “And yes, I know what you can do with that. That’s the point,” I cut him off as he opened his mouth. “Just… In case I can’t... You know.”

  Slowly, he nodded, face still a stoic mask. “You have my word.” He lifted the vial, scrutinizing it in the dull porchlight. “You didn’t have to do this.”

  “Don’t be an ass.” I snorted. “It’s not for you, Charles. It’s for me.” I turned and started down the creaking, wooden steps. I could trust Charles to do what he felt was right. At least as far as I could throw him. “By the way.”

  He paused. “Yeah?”

  “You probably want to wipe that vial off. You don’t wanna know where I found it.” I grinned as he cursed and dug the glass tube back out of his coat pocket, making a disgusted face. “Later, Charles.” And with that, I departed into the depths of the dangerous Birmingham night.

  My heart burned inside my chest with each slow, agonizing beat. Hope was the most painful poison of all; it could even affect the dead.

  “Lor, c’mon. We’ve been through bad times like this before—”

  “No we haven’t, Ash! You’ve never died before. And now that you’re back, it’s different, you’re different, and it’s just like—Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I don’t know if I can handle it. Not anymore. Especially after...”

  After what happened with the damn Rawhead, I finished silently. But, listening to her on the other end of the line, it was the words she left unspoken which hurt me the most. “So, what do you want to do?” My heart was a dead weight in more ways than one.

  “I… I don’t know.” Her voice was hurt, raw; I knew her too well to not recognize that she’d been crying. I wanted nothing more than to go to her, to hold her, to tell that everything was okay. But that was the crux of the problem, wasn’t it? “I love you, Ash. I always have. I still do.”

  I believed her. She’d always been able to put her emoti
ons out there, make them felt. Even through the phone, I could still feel her love. But right now, that just made everything hurt even worse. I braced myself for what I knew was coming.

  “Ash… We… I... just need some time apart.”

  The second most frightening words she could have said. I supposed it could have been worse. At least this way, I still had that hope I mentioned earlier. Things weren’t over, not yet.

  I couldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt. Of course it did. Almost more than I thought I could bear. For the last two years, Lori had been my life. Now, despite having come back from death itself, I was still losing her.

  But what hurt most, though, was that I knew she was right.

  I wasn’t the same as I’d been a week ago, and there was no going back. Like it or not, what Lori and I had was gone. If there was to be anything more between us, it’d have to be built anew. In fact, my whole life was gone, rather literally. There was no way to pretend otherwise, no trying to go back and feign that things were the same as they’d ever been.

  We wrapped up the painful silence, said our goodbyes and our hopeful promises. And then she hung up. I don’t know how long I stared at the phone in my hand, her number and little picture glowing brightly in the dark.

  Finally, I turned it off, and that picture faded away, leaving me alone in the silent black.

  Lori was gone, at least for now. My new friend Tamara was gone. No one else I knew from my old life would understand, and I hadn’t had many friends in the first place. Even my family…

  There was no point in looking back.

  From here, there was only forward, building things anew on the ashes of the old. Besides, to hear Charles tell it, there was a decent chance I was a ticking time-bomb anyways, fated to lose my mind and become just one more soulless monster on the streets, no different from those I’d faced down during the last few days, a ravening danger to all those around me. More than anything, I didn’t want that, and I wasn’t about to inflict it on those I held most dear.

  I didn’t feel soulless, but how would I know? What if it really was just a matter of time before I lost whatever moral compass remained to me, and I started using body parts as confetti in dark alleyways, forcing Charles to use that vial to come hunt me down? And worse, proving him right all along?

  On the other hand, Tamara had insisted that the grumpy wizard didn’t know everything. That being a monster wasn’t a birthright, but a choice. And looking at her, I might could believe that. Maybe.

  In the end, I could only go with the one thing that I knew for certain, with an iron-clad absolute assurance: there was no way I was going to let myself go down that road, to become just one more monster, and especially to make more monsters like myself.

  No matter what anyone said, no matter what anyone else had done before me, I was going to face this, and master it. If I had to be the first, then so be it. I’d already clawed my way back from death’s door, and I wasn’t done yet.

  For now, I was alone. And if I had no other option than to take that time, alone with myself, alone with my own thoughts and changing identity... Then I was going to make damn good use of it.

  There was a lot of work to be done, and I was only getting started.

  Want More Ashes?

  The story continues in Blood Red Ashes, (Coming SOON!)

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  In the meantime, why not check out our other series?

  If you enjoyed Ashes, you’ll probably love Dakota too!

  Auralight Codex :

  Dakota Shepherd Novels:

  Awakened (#1)

  Hunted (#2)

  Driven (#2.5)

  Blooded (#3)

  Dakota Shorts Vol. 1 (#3.5)

  Risen (#4) - by Early 2017

  Fallen (#5) - TBA

  And many more…

  DarksbaneBooks.com.

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  Thanks!

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my friends for their support through my too-frequent depressions.

  Thanks to my favorite authors and writing inspirations, for being you.

  Thanks to my family for existing and being awesome.

  Thanks to Rot and the girls for you-know-what. Keep it up. :]

  Thanks to my wifey, especially, for being patient and loving.

  Thanks to our designer, Mark Thomas for the awesome cover! You nailed it!

  Thanks to our editor, Brenda, for settling so many of those comma disputes. ;)

  Thanks to Robert Dahlen, Jen, and anyone else unfortunate enough to have been online when we needed people to throw lines at for tie-breakers during our final revisions. Thanks for putting up with us!

  And thank you as always to our fans for giving us the chance to do what we love for a living!

  *pterodactyl noises*

  About the Author

  Annathesa Nikola Darksbane is a Discordian lesbian shaman who dreams of one day becoming a real cyborg. Currently residing with her awesome partner (and fellow author) of 16+ years, and her unusually awesome daughter.

  She loves philosophy, science, critical thinking, chaos, good food, reading, writing, pen and paper RPGs, video games of most kinds, has an interest in melee combat and believes in making magic every day.

  Though she was born wanting to be a storyteller, for many years the only stories she told were born of being a game master for varying circles of friends. Eventually, with much prodding, she was convinced that those tales needed a new home, instead of living solely in her head.