The Heart's Ashes

by A. M. Hudson

  “I said bite him.” He shoved down with a violent jolt until my mouth meshed against the boy’s neck.

  He was so cold, but so tangible—so real; I can’t kill him, it’s not fair. “It’s okay,” I whispered softly into his hair. “It’s okay.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Jason moaned and his cold, solid finger slid around the lip of my mouth, forcing my teeth apart. Stringy hair and salty flesh fell against my tongue—pushing it to the back of my throat.

  I won’t do it. I won’t bite him.

  “Bite,” Jason yelled, cupping my chin and striking me across the back of my head so my jaw smashed closed—piercing the skin of the innocent child.

  No.

  A part of my soul died in that one breath, my wet lips falling away as my teeth popped out of his bleeding flesh.

  He dropped to ground, cupping the wound with his hand, screeching like an old whistling kettle.

  “No.” I scuffled back on my hands when Jason released his grip; the boy writhed—ripping at his own hair as the skin dissolved around the wound. But the sound of his screams faded to the background of my thoughts while the sweet, delicate tang of his blood reminded my lips of the hunger in my stomach.

  I could do it. I looked over at him, pity dissolving. I could roll him over and tear his arms away from his neck; pin him down with my legs and rip his throat open with my teeth. It would ease the acid-sting in my mouth—the hunger, the need—the need that burns like the will to run.

  My hand edged, twitching with my thoughts.

  No! No. He’s a person, what am I thinking—what’s wrong with me?

  Sound came rushing back to my ears in violent waves, and a searing liquid rushed up my throat—rolling on the back of my tongue. My stomach contracted; I cupped my hand over my mouth, heaving as I folded over.

  What have I done? What’s happening to him?

  “He’s dying,” Jason informed.

  I closed my eyes, clutching my belly—forcing myself to breathe as the boy who suffered my existence thrashed about under the fiery grasp of Hell.

  Then, the terror-laced shrieking and scuffling stopped.

  The room went silent.

  Breath was not enough—tears could not suffice. He was still, because I made him still.

  I have ended life.

  A loud clap echoed and my eyes flung open. Drake waltzed over and lowered himself to the ground, lifting the boy’s head, studying him; no air pushed his chest, no twitching, no crying.

  Dead.

  “Dead,” Drake confirmed, slamming the boy’s face into the stone.

  What did he do? Why did they bring him to an end like this? I sniffled, looking at the dead boy, who, in his moment of passing, brought a truth to the surface I wasn’t sure I could bear.

  I am a Lilithian—punishable by death. I was immortal all along, and I never even knew it.

  My stomach churned. If we’d known, if only we’d known. We could’ve run. We could’ve gone from here and never looked back.

  The curse—Eric once said it’s triggered. But they don’t know how.

  Blood. When I drank David’s blood—that’s when things started to change. That’s when I became immortal.

  My eyes grew wide and round.

  Immortal—but not undying.

  A chorus of ghosts seemed to surround me then, chanting, calling my name in a hymn of eternal echoes. Silent, non-existent to those in the room. But to me, their empty song chimed a shattering story of a girl whose life never had the chance to begin.

  I’m dead. I’m going to be killed in the most drawn out, most epically disgusting way. So horrid David never told me the stories, so painful Eric himself wouldn’t speak of it.

  It once was Lilith, my ancestor, and now I, too, will play the protagonist in this sadistic tale; one of a ruined life, a tragic existence, and an unfortunate, eternally haunting end.

  “Jason.” Drake looked past me. “You know what to do.”

  “Happy to oblige.” Jason grabbed the wrist of the boy and dragged him across the ground. For a second, as I lifted my head, I saw his face; young, so young—his skin smooth, his nose pointed, his lips dark pink, like David’s.

  “What are you going to do with him?” I sat up on my knees as Jason neared the blazing fireplace.

  Drake looked back at me, his hands clasped in front of his chest. “Cremate him.”

  I spun around and planted my face into my knees as Jason hoisted the boy into the flames.

  I can’t watch this. It’s too horrible. Oh, God. Please. God, if you’re up there, please help me. Please? I rocked back and forth, hugging my knees. Please let me wake up.

  “Come on.” Jason lifted me from the stone floor; my legs worked, permitting me to stand, though my spirit stayed on the ground. “It’s time to go.”

  “Where?” I asked, but he ignored me, faced Drake and bowed, forcing my head down as he did.

  “Your majesty,” Jason said.

  Drake bowed his head slightly and Jason stood, clutching me close, his fingers a tight sleeve as he pulled me along.

  “Oh, and, Amara?” the Blood King called. We stopped and I turned my head to look at the council again. “I will call on you later. When I do—” his eyes narrowed with a wicked smile, “—try not to scream, we have guests.”

  I looked at Jason, my mouth falling open as my stomach jumped into my chest.

  He smiled to himself and looked to the path ahead.

  Chapter 21

  My feet moved, carrying my numb soul through the endless walk of dark corridors—each door closed, housing some dark secret they didn’t want me to know, or maybe some dreadful nightmare I was just about to meet.

  Death, tragedy, loss, lingered in these walls like a paste that sticks to the roof of your mouth. I knew it was there, I could feel it, taste it, but couldn’t escape it.

  We meandered down a stone staircase into a dark, cold underground; each step stung the tips of my bare toes, like ice. The bitter chill of earth beneath rose up the stairwell, circling my arms and chin the way fear gripped the fugitive. Jason held me close to his body; his fingers twined tightly around my arm, piercing the underside with his nails, our ankles hitching with each step.

  “You’re hurting my arm,” I said quietly.

  “Hm, let’s play a game called ‘see how long it takes you to realise I don’t care.’”

  I looked down at my feet, my toenails lined with ridges of dirt, a cloudy greyness to my skin. “You cared once.”

  He just laughed, walking with purpose, maintaining speed.

  Shadows wandered over my face, as we followed another really steep set of stairs—going down. The air smelled dry, like sticking my face in a bed of topsoil—gritty, dusty. I walked willingly, though, tired and weak with apathy, devoid of all fight, or even the will to fight.

  I want to die. Jason was right. I am an abomination—created to kill that which I love. Created to kill my vampire, my David.

  They’ll keep me alive here until they’re done with me, but their torture cannot measure up to the pain of knowing what will happen to David. He’s being punished because of me; because I came into his life, because I caused my mum’s death, moved here and met him. If I’d never come, he’d be on the council—ruling, climbing the ranks and, one day, serving at the right hand of the king.

  “My God, girl.” Jason shook his head and shoved me forward under a stone arch as we reached the base of the stairs. “Could you be any more self-defeating?”

  “Stay out of my head and it won’t bother you.” I folded my arms to block out the ghostly frost making my teeth chatter.

  He shook his head at me, then walked deeper into the darkness, leaving me on my own in the centre of the wide space. If I focused intently on the walls, I could mark out two, but it wasn’t until a flame torch came ablaze at Jason’s fingertips that I could truly see this shadowy dungeon—all four walls, no windows. Brick upon brick of thin grey stone outlined the room, the foundations that held up
a decaying, dirt roof.

  This must be deeper underground than I thought—surely the castle isn’t mounted over this rotting tunnel.

  Jason moved across the room and lit another torch, illuminating the clear, wet slime, oozing down the walls, resembling the glossy surface of a sweat-covered brow. As he lit the torch on the far side of the room, and light fingered the objects around me, my shoulders lifted to my ears, making me cringe with unsavoury thoughts. The room was no dungeon—it was purpose-built, with oddly shaped metal implements hanging from walls by iron chains, and artistic displays of mutilated skeletons with hair still draping their skulls. All those people—all of them were once alive, now, their fleshless, bloodless remains hang eternally in a dark cavern where only the dead or dying will know them. The room looked large and square, though the shadowy part on the opposite side could quite possibly be a corridor.

  “Take a seat.” Jason ushered me toward a chair in the middle of the room. It resembled a dentist’s chair, large and oddly shaped, with metal cuffs on the feet and arms—a feature I’m sure most dentists wish for but can’t employ.

  I stood fast in the middle of the room like a hesitant child, unwilling to suffer what I could only fear was to come.

  “Ara, I said sit.”

  “Please. Don’t make me sit in that.” It looked dirty, slimy.

  Jason sighed and grabbed my arm. “You will sit, and you will do as you’re told. Otherwise—” he turned and pointed to a small camera in the far corner, “—the Blood King will order me to do unspeakable things to you.”

  “He already did.”

  “M’yes, but it could be worse,” he stated coldly and pushed me into the chair.

  “Oh, God—” I tore my fingers away from the wet, splintery arm of the chair, and folded the back of my wrist to my nose. “What is that smell?”

  “Centuries of rotting flesh.” Jason smiled.

  My mouth opened and my tongue came forward, choking on the gassy burn of egg in the back of my throat. “How long has it been since someone died down here?”

  “Stop asking questions.” Jason squatted by my feet and bunched the base of my dress over my knees, tinkering with the cuffs, then stopped and looked up at me. “Why aren’t you trying to escape?”

  “Is there any point? I don’t know where to go, and although you think I’m some horrible, evil being, capable of great malice, I have no idea how to use any of that wrath.”

  He shook his head then nudged my ankle into the open arm of the metal cuff, clamping it tightly. “You know I’m going to hurt you, right?”

  “Yes.” I stared him down.

  He stood up, motionless, his fingers twitching beside his jeans pockets. “You seem awfully calm.”

  “Do I?”

  He moved again and pinned my arm down as he fastened the clasp over it, cranking a lever until it capped my wrist like a tight bangle. “Yes, you do.”

  “I—” I flexed my fingers and tried to twist my arm. “I don’t know what to feel.”

  “Fear should be the first emotion, I would think.” He winked then walked behind the chair—out of sight.

  “Jase?”

  “What is it, creature?”

  “Don’t do it,” I said calmly. “Please? Just don’t. Just let me go.”

  A breathy laugh came from somewhere in the darkness behind me. “I really had you convinced, didn’t I?”

  “Convinced?”

  “That I loved you.” He looked over the top of the chair, his hands wrapping the back, rolling it downward. Butterflies bashed violently inside my stomach. All I could do was watch the rounded ceiling as I came to rest, my spine straight, my hair falling past the headrest, reaching for the ground, my hands pulled into position, stretched out beside my hips.

  “So that’s what it was?” I asked in a nervous attempt to gauge where in the room he was standing. “It was a game—I was a game?”

  “If you stopped to look at yourself for one minute, with all your scars, your high-maintenance girlie issues and your lack of anything intelligent to say, you’d have realised that.” His voice gave away his position behind me. “But, you’re really just too young and dumb to see past your own nose.”

  As if a mask of heartache saturated my face, the corners of my closed lips arched downward and my teeth chattered inside my mouth.

  No. I know it was real. His love—it was real. This is the lie—it has to be.

  The darkness of the fire-lit room became an orange ocean as tears filled my eyes, pooled there like a lens, then rolled out over the sides of my face. I wanted to wipe them away, but was too afraid to even try moving an arm, not wanting any confirmation that I was trapped—that this was real, that Jason, the boy who saved me at Karnivale, could really be doing this to me.

  “Stop crying,” Jason muttered impassively from somewhere behind.

  “What are you doing back there?” I asked, my ragged sobs allowing only a small voice.

  He took a deep breath through what sounded like his nose, and something heavy clunked on something tinny. “I’m getting things ready.”

  Ready? I closed my eyes and rolled my head to the side, wishing I could scratch away the itch of salty tears. My nose, crinkled, trying to shake off the irritation, and as I opened my eyes, saw the tiny, open-mouthed skeleton of what looked like an infant.

  “Is that real?” I asked, all tears, itches and fear stopping with my heart.

  Jason appeared beside me and looked up too. “Yes, there’re no Halloween costumes around here. That, my dear,” he leaned closer, whispering in my ear, “was my brother’s handy work.”

  David, holding a screaming baby in his arms—killing it? “I don’t believe you.”

  “Believe what you want—doesn’t matter to me.”

  I swallowed, looking away. He’s right. He’d have no reason to lie to me—not now, it’s not like I’d ever see David again.

  While he ‘prepared’ things behind me, I searched for something in the room to open a conversation over; maybe make him relax, relate to me—help me. “Jason, what’s that metal cage—the thing shaped like legs?”

  “That—” Jason pointed to it, “—is the Coffin. You’ve heard of it in your History studies.”

  Damn. Playing dumb won’t work. “Ur, yeah, I remember now.” My mouth dried seeing one for real, though. I’d seen all sorts of medieval torture implements, but never the Coffin. Imagining people had actually died in there was sickening, but the History student in me was somewhat fascinated. “Was this place only used to torture vampires?”

  “Yes.” He rested his elbow on the chair beside my hip and smiled, becoming the light, carefree boy from my dream. “Hey, d’you know what our favoured method of torture is here—still in practice today?”

  “Humour me.”

  He wandered over to an iron shelf on the wall opposite my feet and grabbed something. “This method was known as Toe Wedging. You see, we take this little guy—” he held up a small triangular block of wood, “—and place it under the toenail.”

  I tensed, panic rising, making my toes flex as the splintery block parted a tiny bit of flesh from nail.

  “Then, we take this hammer—” He held up the rusty old mallet. “And bang!”

  I jumped involuntarily, snapping my eyes shut tight. But nothing happened.

  “Relax, Ara. I’m not going to use this on you—unless you have something to confess?” he suggested.

  I shook my head.

  He wandered away again and came back with an oddly-shaped metal thing, almost like a really small hot-air balloon. “This is called the Pear of Anguish.”

  Okay, pear, that’s a better comparison. “What do you do with that one?”

  “Well, the torturer inserts this little baby into any number of orifices. The mouth for a liar, anus for a homosexual, and vagina for a whore or a woman who miscarries. Then, he’d wind this little key here—” He twisted the top of the thing and it opened out in four arms. “See?”

 
“And that’s it?”

  “That’s it? What’d you mean that’s it? Do you know the extent of mutilation this, when opened completely, would cause?”

  I thought about that for a second.

  “Especially if the torturer decided to rip it out—” he thrust his hand backward quickly, “—while it was still open.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Message clear.”

  “Good, because you’ll be seeing this again.” He threw it on the shelf with a loud, echoing clunk.

  “What do you mean?” I tried to sit up a little to look at him, but my dead-straight arms made it impossible to move higher than a stomach crunch. “Jason, tell me you’re not going to use that on me.”

  “Of course not. But this is still one of Drake’s favourite toys. Especially with you, my dear, since you have the ability to heal.”

  “Kill me!” I shook my wrists in the cuffs. “Just kill me, please, Jason. Don’t let him do that to me. Please don’t let him—”

  “Shh, hush now.” He stroked my hair. “Don’t be afraid. Pain is not the worst you can suffer.”

  “How is it not?”

  “I’ve lived a long time, Ara,” he started, his eyes becoming distant. “I’ve seen men, vampires alike, rise above, even overcome agony to survive. Pain is only pain. But there are always things man himself cannot fathom—things that drive one to madness, making animals of good people, fuelled by instinct alone. All manner of survival will become acceptable to you soon, Ara, and in that, you would even give up the life of a child to survive it. We all do. It is, essentially, human nature.”

  “Ple-e-e-he-ease.” My eyes shut tight. “Please let me go. I can’t do this. I can’t take this.”

  “But you will,” he soothed, his lips against my brow. “You will surprise even yourself, my dear.”

  “I don’t want to. I don’t want to know what I can survive. Just kill me. Please. You loved me. You told me you cared for me. There has to have been some truth to that. Jason!” I called angrily when he disappeared from sight. “Jason, don’t leave me like this.” I shook violently against my confines, tearing at the skin on my wrists. But it didn’t matter. If I could break free, I’d take the pain, I’d rip my entire arm off to get out of here. Anything. I don’t care. “Jason!” My voice came back so high-pitched, laced with raw fear, like a mother screaming for a child walking toward the road.