Follow the Ashes: Book 1 of the Executioner Trilogy

by Kindra Sowder

  He turned the knob and it protested with a loud squeak that left me grinding my teeth. It was intensified one hundred times over and it left a ringing in my ears. I wasn’t sure how much more noise like that I could handle with everything sounding so exaggerated.

  I felt like a ragdoll as I tried to use any energy I had to help Gordon stand me up and get me into the tub. It wasn’t much at all, and I could feel my legs and knees shaking as they threatened to give out at any moment. I was shivering so hard and my skin was so slick with sweat, I could feel his hands slipping from my waist as he tried to hold onto me. As he guided me to the side of the tub even more sweat continued to pour off of me. One hand moved to hold onto my arm as I stepped into the water. His grip was firm but tender as my teeth continued to chatter like those little windup toys you can buy at gag shops.

  I subdued a shriek as my skin was submerged in what I could best describe to anyone as what water directly from an iceberg must feel like. I knew it wasn’t really this cold and that the fever made it feel a lot worse than it actually was, but my first instinct was to jump right back out and never go back in again. No matter how much I didn’t want to be anywhere near the tub’s contents, it needed to be done so the heat wouldn’t obliterate my mind and turn me into a blabbering vegetable. That wouldn’t work out for someone who slew the undead for a living, now would it?

  I had to take my mind to another place just to be able to sit down in tub. I imagined myself in hot springs surrounded by luscious trees, the water gently boiling around me and filling my body with its warmth. Anything was better than this ice I was surrounding myself with. As the thought of this wondrous place overtook my mind I almost completely forgot the iciness I was truly sitting in. That was until Gordon was running a washcloth full of suds and freezing water over my back.

  I had my legs curled up against me to try and hold in some of whatever warmth might be left in my body, but the water surrounding me was making that next to impossible since it had made its way into those crevices. I rested my head on my knees and looked at Gordon. His face was set in a look of concentration and focus. So much so that I thought that expression was frozen in place and he would never smile again. Wouldn’t that be a shame?

  He then brought the washcloth to my chin where the remnants of what I had vomited up were keeping residence, and began to wipe it away with the most gentle of touches. The roughness of the cloth against my skin felt like a tiny massage on my chin and bottom lip.

  He flashed me a quick and stiff smile with a wink as I stared into his eyes that were so filled with unanswered questions. It all threatened to spill over into the tub with me. He rinsed the cloth in the water right next to me and as I watched crimson tendrils drift through the clear water I couldn’t help but realize this was all my life had become. Would I ever be able to get away from all of the blood and carnage? I was beginning to think that there was no way out. Not even in death.

  Chapter 23: Breathe

  I could feel myself fading as my breath came in long, hard, ragged pulls. All I could do was lie there as I slowly drifted off into nothingness with no way to claw myself out. I had gotten to the point where I would just let it take me. I decided I would keep this bit of information to myself unless it was getting much worse. He lay in front of me, caressing my hair, keeping the long dark wisps out of my face. It felt like pure heaven. This would’ve been the most perfect moment if it weren’t for the feeling that I was falling deeper and deeper into darkness and that death could take me without notice. The pain had become a dull ache in the presence of the medications he kept injecting me with like clockwork.

  A large part of me wanted to start some kind of fight so he would have to leave. I didn’t want him to have to see me like this any longer, but I had a feeling no matter what I said he would see through the façade and decide to stay. I didn’t want him to watch me slowly wither and die, like the flowers my mom always kept in our home while she was alive. At first, they would be vibrant and full of life and then they’d turn brown and wilt until there was nothing left in them and we would have to throw them away.

  That was exactly how I felt at that moment. I could feel this sickness crawling through my veins, under my skin, working its way throughout every cell in my body with nothing to stop it. Not even my Herculean immune system knew what to do with it.

  My head still throbbed, just no longer with the same intensity as before, like it could sense I was nearing the end. I no longer felt like I would explode into a million tiny pieces. Now it just felt like there were tiny men at every inch of my brain beating away with chisels and pick axes at a slow and weakened pace. I could literally imagine tiny men that looked much like gnomes in there with their tools, just hacking away, but with less vigor than earlier. The drugs had slowed them down to a crawl.

  My skin was once again shiny with sweat, but I didn’t feel as disgusting since the freezing cold bath that had left me chilled to the bone. The cool water had cleansed away all of the filth covering my skin. It had swirled down the drain so I wouldn’t have to see or feel it ever again. It felt like it had worked its way to my muscles and bones underneath, and would keep going until it had taken over anything and everything. That was what it had seemed to be doing to Gordon.

  Gordon’s eyes held no sparkle and looked as dead as I felt. That made me feel even worse for putting him through this even though he was willingly subjecting himself to my torment. But I could admit it wasn’t like I had held him down and made him stick around. He chose to be here, but there was nothing left inside those eyes as he watched me slowly fade into nonexistence. He was becoming as jaded as I had always been, and all this from watching me suffer relentlessly at the hands of Lilith’s superbug. His eyes had held so much happiness and a sparkle in them that reminded me of the stars. Those were distant memories now. His eyes became dark pools of despair. I was sure there was no way to bring that sparkle of life back.

  Every now and then the overwhelming thirst would take over and I would have to ask weakly for water. My pleas were becoming more and more silent as time passed, and I became weaker and weaker—most of it from the illness, the rest from dehydration. I was so tired, but I wouldn’t dare sleep and miss out on anything that could happen in these last moments as I continued to fade away. Every moment with Gordon was more precious than each labored breath I was fortunate enough to take. Each one was becoming more of a struggle as time passed. I was sure that I would never have these moments again, no matter how hard I tried to hold onto them. This would change everything. Not just for me, but for Gordon and Beth as well. That, I was sure of.

  I hardly saw Beth through all of this. I was sure she saw this as something to suffer through privately, and I agreed with her wholeheartedly. Just his eyes on me while I writhed and cried were almost too much for me to handle. I couldn’t bear hers beating down on me as well. It would have been way too much to handle. I was becoming an empty shell and there was nothing we could do.

  I also couldn’t help but think that this couldn’t be all Lilith had cooked up for me. There was no way possible. This had to get a lot worse before I ceased to exist and would no longer struggle. It would have to become much more excruciating before she would ever let it end. That was how she did things, according to the visit from visions of the past long gone. What was left of this agony?

  No matter what it was, I felt like I was never going to leave this spot with breath still filtering in and out of my lungs in unsteady and ragged rhythms. There was no way Lilith would be willing to let that happen without a lot more suffering on my part first. I had turned her quest for a partnership down, but then again, she must have known there would be no way I would be a part of conquering the world at the expense of millions of innocents. She had known that before she even requested it, which meant she had had this planned all along.

  I could see her sick twisted smile in my mind’s eye like she had left it there for me to gaze at as I withered and died, just so I would know that she was wat
ching. I now knew what she was truly like. Her crimson lips curled around porcelain teeth, her eyeteeth biting slightly into her bottom lip as laughter overtook her body. That laugh was enough to make the bogeyman shrink away and hide in a dark corner like a frightened child.

  All I could do was close my eyes to hide from that laugh, but closing my eyes did no good since I could still see her in that darkness. The only way I had to close myself off from the shadow creeping over me was to try to block her out of my mind. I didn’t have enough mental power to do that and that was what she had been banking on. Once my eyes were closed she was gone and all I could see was the darkness that was my only salvation from her pure wickedness.

  I supposed this would be the best time to pray if, in fact, I was the praying type. I wasn’t sure what I believed about an afterlife, or even a higher power for that matter. I know being the person I was, I should believe in something bigger than all of us. After all, a higher power sent an almost carbon copy of my mother to explain my destiny to me. Even then, I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of power this was.

  If there was a way out, I was hoping this power would make it a much easier one than what I was suffering through now. What lies beneath the cold exterior of what my life had become? Apparently sickness and death would follow me wherever I chose to reside, and would slither around taking everyone and everything away from me until there was nothing left.

  Alone inside with my thoughts, I heard a rustling sound, a loud thud, and then a piercing scream of a vampire turned to ash. It was soon followed by Beth’s shouts. Before my eyes had even snapped open Gordon was up and at the door to my bedroom, just in time to meet a large looming vampire who looked like he could bench press a semi, if not four or five semis at once. A silent moan escaped my lips as I tried weakly to come to at least a sitting position, but failed miserably as my body fought me with every move I tried to make. How could I help if I couldn’t even sit up? What was I supposed to do?

  I then saw Gordon down on the floor, but didn’t even see how he had ended up there while I was struggling. All of a sudden he was just there, and I had no idea how. The vampire was standing over him now, large muscled legs on either side of him like he planned to sit on him in a straddling position to keep him pinned there. This vampire was much different than a lot of others I had seen before now. This vampire was pure muscle, rage, and animal instinct. He was snapping his teeth and cracking his neck like I had never seen a vampire do before. This vampire was pure, unadulterated evil. There was nothing human left.

  Then it hit me. This vampire was the pure creation of Lilith and Lilith alone. The pure blood of her produced something so animalistic it was terrifying. I wanted to close my eyes and pretend it wasn’t there, like a ghost who had haunted me. Before reaching down to Gordon, he popped every joint in his body. The cracking sound made me shudder and grimace. The sight of this man made me feel dwarfed lying on the bed, curled into a tight ball, arms wrapped around my midsection. I felt so small in comparison, especially with my power fading. I wasn’t even sure what I was capable of now. Probably not much, if anything at all.

  The vampire’s arm was outstretched towards Gordon, getting ready to lift him from the floor. I had to sit up before this vampire was able to rip his throat out with one single muscle movement. Gordon wasn’t going to die because I couldn’t even sit up on my own. I mustered up all of the strength I had left to do this one thing. Save his life. I was sure he had to have a power of his own to protect himself with, but with him having denounced his evil ways I was sure he wasn’t going to use them for fear of going back. He had apparently fought so hard to get away from that side of himself. I wasn’t going to let him jeopardize all he had worked for.

  My arms were so weak that pushing myself up was like rising up on limp spaghetti noodles that bad been boiling for about ten minutes. I had even almost fallen back down to the quilted softness of the comforter, but managed to keep myself up somehow with just my iron will. Once I was sitting I yelled out to the vampire, trying to gather up any energy I could and into my hand to do what needed to be done before the man I loved lost his life. Gordon wasn’t going to die because of me. I wasn’t ready to die, and I was sure he wasn’t either, so I would do everything in my power to keep that from happening so we could live. We would live at least long enough to defeat Lilith, and bring her animalistic breed down.

  I felt the heat rising up through my torso and into my arm, coming to rest and swirl in the palm of my hand showing a brilliant display of swirling golden energy in my palm. It left a rippling feeling in my belly. The glow from my skin was almost at its full brightness and as I yelled out to him again my voice was almost a growl, like I was an animal caged and no one wanted me set free. I was about to free us all.

  The flames shot out of my hand without remorse and as the vampire caught flame I could feel the power draining everything I had left inside of me. By the time I killed this one vampire I would be a useless sack of meat and flesh, and nothing more. I would have no more power left and wouldn’t be able to continue this fight. I would barely be alive after this, but I’d rather be barely alive having done something than completely dead, having done nothing at all. The cries continued to pour out of me as the energy and flames left my body in a flowing mass that started to become a slow trickle. The vampire was writhing in agony, pure animal screams pouring from his mouth and into the air as the flames licked at his body, turning it into ash one limb at a time. I was completely shocked nothing in the house was catching fire as high as the flames were reaching. They were literally licking the ceiling, leaving a large black smudge on its whiteness without catching.

  Gordon was hurriedly backing away from the thing, shock in his body language as well as panic and intense fear. His muscles were rigid with anxiety. He had almost died and it was registered all over his face. By the time the flames had stopped completely I had somehow made it onto my feet. All of my power was gone and there was next to nothing left to even be able to hold myself upright. My arm dropped limply to my side and my knees buckled like I weighed tons instead of barely over one hundred pounds. All I knew with certainty was that I was going to be making dear friends with our hardwood floors. As I hit the floor the mind-numbing headache was back, as well as the burning travelling through my veins as the hard pressure from the floor assaulted my skin. This sent my nerves into frenzy. I was in pure agony, and this would no longer be tamed by nerve altering drugs. This would continue until I surely lost my mind, my life, or both.

  There was no way out of this. I realized that as the vampire started to crumble into a pile of ash, each limb falling off in a waterfall of dust. His heart exploded, a bright light filtering into the room from his chest cavity. I had to cover my eyes as his remaining torso and head fell into a pile of the ash I had reduced him to. This was something I had never seen before.

  Vampires didn’t normally burst into a bright light like that when they died. As the light faded I heard Gordon making his way to me on all fours, like he was too scared to stand and move, as if the light would scorch his skin. Tears were streaming from my eyes like tiny waterfalls. Not just because of the intense pain, but because I had saved him and that made my heart sing. It wasn’t just tears though. Blood was streaming from my eyes as well. His hand grasped mine with such strength. I could only softly squeeze back a response, and to me, it felt as if my hand hadn’t moved at all. Did he feel it?

  I looked up at him and our eyes met and in that moment I knew I should have felt something other than pain, but that’s all that there was. Intense pain that there was no way for me to escape. Not even his dark stare that normally had me floating on air could take the pain away from me like I wanted so badly for it to. I wanted to continue to look at him but I could no longer hold up my head because my neck was beginning to burn. Letting it fall to the floor with a soft thump made the pain in my head one hundred times worse, and the tears of blood continued to fall in small rivers, staining my pale skin with crimson streaks.<
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  As we lay there hand in hand, I could feel his pulse in my palm and it was racing steadily like the adrenaline hadn’t yet left his system. I could feel that my own pulse was a lot slower than his. That’s when I remembered that Beth had met this onslaught head-on. Where was she? Was she hurt? Was she dead?

  “Beth,” I whispered. I barely had the strength to vocalize above an insignificant whisper that I was sure he hadn’t been able to hear. I heard Gordon shift, but he didn’t get up like I had expected him to. Apparently I was so quiet he couldn’t hear me over the deafening silence that was spreading throughout our home. I worked up as much vigor as I could and as full of a breath as I could collect and said with more force, “Where’s Beth?” That question had taken all of the breath out of my lungs.

  That’s when I heard Gordon’s helpless cry as he was jerked from the ground, his hand leaving mine with a finalization that scared me. My body jerked in response, and my head jolted up from the cold floor to see what was responsible. A sharp scream escaped my lips that I couldn’t hold in. Lilith had him by the neck, holding him only inches from the ground with one pale, slender arm that seemed to sparkle in the moon light sifting in from outside, making her eyes look even more filled with the horrors I was about to experience at her hands.

  His feet were moving above the ground as he tried to release himself from her iron grip, like he was trying to run away. But he wasn’t making any leeway. The fear I felt coming off of him was like acid on my skin. This was a feeling I never wanted to feel from someone ever again. It was almost toxic. I could taste its bitterness in my mouth and a cough was threatening to work its way out. It was like liquid fire had been poured directly onto my tongue and was filling every corner of my mouth and throat, coating it so I couldn’t even try to swallow down the taste.