Ashes of the Fae
Book 1
By Sophia LeRoux
Ashes of the Fae
Copyright © 2018 by Sophia LeRoux
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 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, Sophia LeRoux, at [email protected].
ISBN: 9781980759980
ASIN (eBook): B07BZP96SB
ASIN: 1980759987
Imprint: Independently published
Editors: Amanda Brown/Lauren Whale (Upwork)
Cover Design: GermanCreative (Fiverr)
www.sophialeroux.com
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank my friends, family, and editors for their hard work and dedication.
1
“Mommy...Mommy!”
The pats on my arm grew more incessant, blurred flowers painted with all sorts of pink and blue hues coming into focus. That tiny, familiar hand squeezing my arm. Such loud plastic baubles on her wrist, rattling away with each shake, splattered with fuchsia.
I must have nodded off after story time. That little face of hers was alight as I met her eyes. They’ve always captivated me, like little blue oceans splashed with mossy waves.
“Mommy, my tummy hurts.”
Her face turned to a grimace, a small hand rubbing her belly over her pony shirt, which was speckled with stains from snack times long past. I could only reply with a gentle coddle to her rosy cheeks, my mind locked in a struggle, trying to linger in the moment. The guilt writhed within me. I should’ve been there completely, savoring every second I had while I could.
For weeks, children had gone missing from their beds at night, and playgrounds at dusk. None of them had turned up yet. It was a parent’s worst nightmare, and yet there was still no explanation. There was never a single trace, nor witness. The kids just seemed to vanish. Everyone was left baffled, even police. With little crime in Missoula, law enforcement had no clue how to handle a case like this. When a child went missing almost every night, how could anyone know?
“It’ll get better, smush. I promise. It’s just a bug that’s going around. Did you take your tumtums?”
She nodded in excitement. With a scoot and a hunch forward, she unwound her chalky tongue for me to examine.
“Mmm…good. Now, come on. It’s bedtime,” I said, catching her in a hug as she hopped between the sheets.
Tonight would be the first night since the abductions started that I would sleep in my own room. Ever since the first kid went missing, I stuck by her like a shadow out of fear, knowing I would never forgive myself were she to be taken because I wasn’t there to protect her.
No one had gone missing on our street, but then most of our neighbors had teenagers. Whoever was taking these kids preyed specifically on the younger ones. The oldest one so far was about six. Close to Iris’ age. She would be six in a few months herself.
“Are you okay, Mommy?” she whispered, humming loudly as she grasped my hand.
“Hmm? Oh, I’m okay, sweetie. Just sleepy.”
With a pinch to her cheek, I tucked her in snugly, her eyes fluttering as soon as the blanket slid beneath her chin. She held her Lamby as tightly as the day she was born, but it was ragged now. An eye had gone missing years ago and was replaced with a mismatched daisy button, and it had matted hair littered with sew marks and missing fur from years of love and spot cleaning.
“Love you, smush. Sweet dreams,” I whispered.
But as I kissed her forehead, she was already lost to the dream world. A day full of excitement had caught up with her all at once. And now I had time to return to my thoughts, to focus my attention elsewhere, on the barren streets that lay outside her window.
It was as dark as the abyss out there, without a glimmer of moonlight or the smallest splash of stars. The longer I stared out into the streets, the more I began to loathe how the lamplights seemed to flicker lately, steadily and in a peculiar order. With each blink my mind would play tricks on me, shapes I knew couldn’t be real seeming to manifest themselves the longer I gazed.
I had to get over this craziness. Her room was right beside mine, and I had even dug out the old baby monitor for good measure. It helped put my mind at ease—even if only a little. With her door cracked and her night light dimmed, I dragged my feet to bed. I cranked the monitor volume to high as I melted into the mattress, soon enveloped by my mess of blankets. A light pitter patter of rain began to fall outside and helped soothe me.
For a while I stared at her dimly lit face between the flashes of my eyelids.
It’ll be fine, I kept telling myself. The mantra played over and over in my head as my sights and thoughts continued to slow like the ceasing of an old film roll until I was out. I was immediately plagued with nightmares that mimicked my worries.
Waking to find her gone, a tall man in a dark suit having carried her away in the night. I felt myself jolt awake several times as my adrenaline spiked, and each time she lay there quiet as a mouse, fast asleep and comfy in her bed.
So finally I fell into a deep slumber, the likes of which I hadn’t had for weeks now. It would’ve been one of the best nights of rest I’d had in a long time. That is…until peculiar sounds began to bleed into my dreams. Things that didn’t seem to fit. Bizarre echoes that I couldn’t put a finger on or a face to.
Horrible, unnatural sounds. Wheezing? I thought. And a hoarse, dry hack that ended with a shrill labored breath. Over and over again.
“Hack. Hhheeee.”
And the sound grew louder and louder until I awoke in a sweat, accompanied by nothing but silence. All I could do was try to catch my breath as my vision steadied.
What the hell was that?
I had never heard such a sound in my life, so my rational mind couldn’t help but wonder where it came from. What ungodly horror flick had I long forgotten that decided to plague my dreams now at this inopportune time? A momentary laugh even managed to escape me… until I heard it again. Clear as day.
It felt as if a spike had been driven into the base of my spine, every hair stiffening on the way up as a painful tingle traveled to my neck. My body was riddled with hard mountains of bumps, and for a moment… I couldn’t move.
All I heard was the foulest sounding wheeze imaginable, cut off by a wet chittering noise and a horrid emphysemic breathing. Why my head seemed to turn slowest now, I still don’t know. But as I set my eyes on the monitor, I struggled to believe it. Where my daughter once was, all I could see now was a black, curved mass, shiny and contorted. One that seemed to sway from side to side, those horrible sounds emanating from it.
It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream.
A hand outstretched, I repeated those words in my head over and over, hoping for the life of me that it was in fact a dream. But as my finger pressed on the monitor speaker, the figure froze. My lip quivered as I struggled to find the words.
“I… Iris?” I whispered. I still waited for the moment I awoke from this nightmare, but no. As soon as I spoke, I heard several sharp cricks of a neck. A bright, fiery orb of an eye came into view as the thing turned to me, its indistinguishable face moving closer and closer to the camera.
“Iris?” I said, louder this time. And as I did, an inhuman shriek echoed through the speaker, bouncing through the wall as I heard the cries of a child follow.
“Mommy!” she cried, the monitor falling to the floor as I hea
rd a frantic rustling, a panicked thumping, as if something was trying to escape. “Momm—”
“No!” I howled. Ripping the blankets away, I launched myself at the door.
Those ten feet had never felt so far away. Time seemed to slow as I still prayed that I would awaken. My mind had accepted all the possibilities, but not the impossibilities. This thing wasn’t human, whatever it was. A creature? God, I just wish I would wake up.
Her door swung open with such force the knob stuck in the wall, the air within her room carrying a fierce chill as I entered. It reeked of damp earth and a putrid stench that lingered for only a moment before dissipating completely. But as I looked around, my girl was nowhere to be found.
No windows were broken. No furniture overturned. I saw no evidence that anyone had forced their way in or even had been there aside from the monitor that had fallen. I rubbed my eyes violently—pinching my arm, smacking my face, doing whatever I thought I could to come back to reality. Frozen in disbelief, I still couldn’t accept it. There was no way the one night I spent away would be the night she disappeared. It couldn’t be.
“Iris!” I screamed, running to the window to scan the streets below before tearing through every nook and cranny of her room. “Irrisss!” Over and over I called for her. I ran through the house, turning on every light and opening every door. I cried for her until my voice ran hoarse and began to crack against my wails.
In the end I found myself in the kitchen, all the doors and drawers thrown askew with my throat sore and lungs bombarded with bouts of hyperventilation. As my heart continued to sink, I fell to my knees. It was all I could do because in that moment I couldn’t have felt more helpless. She was my world—the only thing I had for the five years since her father left. There was no way I was going to lose her as well.
Weakly, I crawled my way across the floor to the wall, the phone falling from its cradle as I fumbled for it. I slid over broken glass, but I barely noticed. I dialed 9-1-1 with the shakiest of hands, and as the operator answered, I replied with a voice full of gravel. I was choking on tears that muddied my words as I tried to explain to her what happened, but she couldn’t understand my mumbles. My mindless utterances. So I shouted the only thing I could. The only thing I knew she would understand.
“It took my daughter!”
There were lapses in time between leaving home and arriving at the station. I vaguely remembered the sound of sirens, the blinding red and blue lights flashing through the water-streaked window panes. Once at the station, they sat me in a room, the outlines of people passing back and forth across the frosted glass like ghosts. Even the scents in the station irritated my nose with notes of stale coffee and vinyl floors.
I think someone tried to ask me what happened, but all I could do was sob. I knew it was frustrating to the cops trying to question me, but they weren’t where I was. I watched their mouths move aimlessly as every word slurred into another. It wasn’t until the sun began to rise that I was able to assemble their words in my head. And I finally felt my knees begin to sting.
“Leila… Leila, dear, are you with us?”
I heard a woman’s voice. A kind voice—motherly in tone. Familiar. My tears finally slowed a moment.
Her face was round and robust, a dark tapered bob framing her olive complexion as her lips curled in approval. I remembered seeing her all those years ago when I thought my husband had gone missing, when really he had just left in the middle of the night. They ended up finding him three days later in a hotel about a hundred miles away with a woman we’d hired to help with Iris, so I left it at that. I didn’t want to know more than I already did.
We finally locked gazes. As she perked up in response, her bright rouge lips parted. Somehow I already knew what the next words out of her mouth would be.
“Leila, I know this is hard for you, okay? But you need to tell us what happened to your daughter.”
“Maria—” snapped a burly male officer behind her, one I hadn’t even realized was there. But even in my state of mind, I could tell he was wrought with a sense of urgency. His words interrupted by the woman’s abrupt sleight of hand.
Her lips pursed. “Leila…” Her hand shifted onto my knee, eyes fixed hard on mine. “I can’t even begin imagine what you’re going through, but we need your help, okay? The more we know and the sooner you tell us, the quicker we can help.”
“It took her,” I whispered, my eyes welling up again at the thought.
Both of their heads cocked in confusion.
“What took her, sweetie?”
“It?” he repeated. “What’s it?”
“Shhh, Roger,” she hushed, inching a bit closer. “What did you see, Leila?”
“It was all black. And its face… bright… fire…This thing was…” My hands rose in rigid cups as they fought to shape imaginary clay into a form that wasn’t there. But in the end they only clenched shut with frustration. “…and the smell…th—the sounds… It was a m—”
But I choked through the tears again, fighting to find a calm. To find the words.
“That thing… it took her,” I spat. “It took my baby. Please…” Pleading, I reached for her. “…y—you have to get her back… please,” I cried, her hands crippled beneath my grasp.
“I promise you we will try. Roger, tell Detective Howard possible kidnapping.”
He nodded, hand on the door, ready to relay any information.
“Possible suspect wearing black, large male. Possible smoker. Waiting on mo—”
“No!” I shouted, startling both of them as I did. “It wasn’t… a man. I—I don’t even think it was human.”
“Leila, you’re saying the suspect wasn’t a man. Was it a woman?”
“No, it was like… a creature. I don’t know. But it was enormous and black with these… these huge orange eyes…”
“A…creature?”
“Wh— yes… something like that…are you even listening, for Christ’s sake?”
With that, I watched as their demeanors changed from taking me seriously to something else entirely—something accusatory—and I didn’t like what their silent stares were implying.
“I know how…. insane this sounds, alright? But you’ve got to believe me. I’m not making this up. My little girl is out there and the longer we spend talking around the facts is time that could be spent finding her.” My anger in their disbelief helped clean up my speech a bit.
“Listen to me, Leila. I know that you’re suffering right now, I get it. But you need to accept that you might not be remembering things quite clearly right now. It’s alright, but we—”
“I know what I saw…” I hissed through my teeth, realizing now that my truth didn’t sit too well with their expectations. “And if you’re not going to believe me, at least let me go so I can find her myself.”
With an unsure nod, I saw Roger slip out of the room. Maria, now at a loss for words, smiled politely at me but avoided further eye contact. I couldn’t help but shake my head because I should’ve known they wouldn’t take me seriously. I probably wouldn’t either if I were in their shoes. But this was my reality. And if they weren’t going to do anything to help, I had to try and search for answers on my own.
I had to get my daughter back.
2
Two days.
Two whole days had passed and still nothing. Not a single word from the cops. They had stopped taking me seriously, and the only visits I got anymore were to make sure my sanity was still intact since my information never seemed to change. Much to their disappointment.
My neighbor Jean, the wife of a retired police chief, was still tied in with the department and told me I had become a person of interest in my own case. A possible suspect. Even though the police told me they were just watching my house to “keep me safe,” I had sense enough to know something wasn’t right.
Now forty-eight hours had already come and gone. For that much time to pass without a single shred of evidence didn’t bode well with anyo
ne—especially me. At this point a missing child would be presumed dead, but I refused to accept that. And I wouldn’t give up until I found Iris, whether alive or…
No.
I couldn’t think like that. Not yet. The problem was that every independent agent I called outside of town was useless. As soon as I tried to explain my situation, I was met with derogatory remarks, laughter, and one woman even tried to imply that I should just admit I did it. So who was left to call? Calling the local church rendered the same treatment, only under the guise of a polite apology and the half-hearted offering of their condolences.
Research into such things kept running me in circles as well, causing me to delve deeper into madness as the number of “monsters that took children” seemed to mount in the hundreds. They ranged from some kind of tentacle frog demon in the Outback to a hideous, fat monster from Latin culture that was used to frighten children from running away at night. None of these things seemed to fit with whatever was taking children in our little mountain town.
Even the state of my house matched my mindset. As I looked around, I saw papers strewn all across the oak floors and wondered if I would ever accomplish anything. Would I find her before it was too late?
Everything was still disheveled from the days before. When night came, I couldn’t sleep with the lights off anymore. Sleep only came once I had stayed awake so long between breakdowns and stress that my body gave into it. Since it was now Monday, I was going to make an effort to go to the police station to try and reason with them. Or at the very least see if they had any information more useful than what I had.
Thanks to Jean’s big mouth, I’d found out the night before that they were going arrange a sweep of the forest today, but I hadn’t heard a thing since, and I was scared to turn on the news. If they were to discover anything, I didn’t want to find out that way.
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