Shattered Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 3)

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  I thought it over. “How soon is ‘eventually?’” I queried. “And I thought you said she could manifest without a host, if she wanted.”

  Charles flashed me a grim smile. “That’s always a possibility. And if so,” he saluted me, “it was passable knowing you.”

  I snorted, but couldn’t find where my sense of humor was hiding. Probably somewhere in the pit of my stomach, sinking fast.

  “Either way,” he continued, “she’ll be forced back to her realm until some damn moron of a magician with more raw power than common sense sets her free on our realm again. So potentially a long time.”

  I swallowed hard. “So even if we go down, we’re doing a public service.”

  “Got it in one.” He toasted me with the whiskey bottle. “Assuming any of this works, that is.”

  “The whole ‘plans rarely survive contact with reality’ thing,” I replied. He nodded. “So do you know anything about her that might actually help us stay alive or even win?”

  He considered it for longer than my waning confidence would have liked. “For one, we’re lucky she keeps hopping bodies. The longer she stays in one, the stronger she becomes, and the greater of a shadow of her full power she can call on.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Besides that, the old idiom is that salt, iron, fire,, and running water are your fallbacks when fighting the supernatural. But none of that toolkit works on Ca-Lethe.”

  I nodded. “So that’s why the trip to High Hill was important. Her weaknesses are more like some of mine.”

  “Right,” he responded. “Holy ground, hallowed weapons, et cetera. All of which are, unfortunately, things you can’t use against her. You can try to outsmart her or trick her, but it’s not likely to happen unless she happens to play into your hands. The best you can really do is hold her off physically or kill her hosts.”

  “Which isn’t an option,” I replied. I hoped he didn’t think it was an option. Not for Lori and not for Tamara.

  “We’re just lucky you’re immune too,” he mused. “It really is as rare as she makes it out to be, if you’re wondering. If not rarer.”

  I didn’t know how to feel about that. Fortunate, I supposed. Maybe a little proud, though it seemed to have landed me and the people I cared about in a lot of very hot water too. At least Charles didn’t have to go through all of this solo.

  “Speaking of anti-demon weapons.” The magician got up with a groan and wandered off, only to return a minute later with a worn-out looking gun case. As I watched, Charles unlocked it, gathering some gun cleaning tools and removing the weapon carefully from its container.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I asked hoarsely.

  He shrugged. “Do you think it’s a Beretta ninety-three R? Because that’s what it is.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Italian. Produced in the eighties, I think? Capable of eleven hundred rounds a minute in three-round bursts, assuming you’re a superhuman able to control all that recoil.”

  Charles raised an eyebrow as he started breaking the gun down.

  “My dad was a cop, okay? At least, he used to be.” I watched Charles clean and check his weapon. For a moment, I wasn’t sitting across from an ornery magician of indeterminate age. For a moment, my deceased father was there instead, explaining what he was doing and why to the little girl watching him with wide eyes, listening to the history of whatever weapon he was conducting maintenance on.

  I shook my head, sending the ghosts of my past fleeing back into the shadows, leaving me and the magician alone in the room once more.

  “I didn’t know that,” Charles said quietly. “You don’t talk about your family much.”

  I suppose I don’t. “There’s not much to say. I grew up with my dad and my uncle. I loved them, but things got hard. We fought. I left.” I fell silent, remembering. “It’s all in the past now. My uncle died a few years ago. My dad...passed away this last year.”

  “When you went back to Philly?” Sometimes I forgot how sharp the big magician was. Somehow it was easy to underestimate him, despite the intelligence written in his dark cinnamon eyes.

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “Some shit went down.” To put it lightly.

  The wizard didn’t push me to elaborate. “It’s rough. Losing someone you care about,” he said simply, speaking from experience.

  I could only nod.

  I watched as he finished up with the Beretta. When he spoke again, it almost caught me off guard. “You want to stay here tonight?”

  That had never happened before. It wasn’t an offer he extended to supernaturals, not in my experience. “Um…”

  He eyed me. “You should. You don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  I started to argue, then realized he was right. I couldn’t go back to our apartment and rest in peace. Or safety. And would the oddly selective holy ground of my church keep an Ur-demon at bay, when it didn’t keep me out?

  Slowly, I nodded. “Thanks, yo. I—”

  “I’ll lock myself downstairs in the basement,” he finished. “Spare mattress down there already.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I’ll draw the curtains,” he continued. I wasn’t worried. Charles tended to keep all the light out anyway, I supposed as a paranoid precaution against prying eyes. “You can crash on that filthy couch you stuffed in here,” he gestured at where I was already sitting.

  “Hey, it’s cleaner than I am,” I protested, finally cracking a bit of a grin.

  “Don’t remind me.” He put the reassembled firearm away, then made the rounds, assuring that the living room was light-proof. After all, if I caught fire in his living room, it would probably burn his sixty year old house down.

  Of course, he’d be safe in his undoubtedly reinforced basement.

  “Hey, Charles,” I rasped before he could take his Beretta and go downstairs. “Do you think she was messing with me about possessing Lori last night?” Charles turned and eyed me, his face a mask. “I mean, I would have noticed the whole inky eyes thing, right?”

  He considered, watching me from the hall, one foot on the top step down. “It’s hard to say,” he said finally. “I’d say yes, but Meladoquiel…” He frowned. “Deception is part of her nature, with countless millennia to practice the art. It’s all too simple for her to twist the truth, to make you see what you want to see, or expect to see. To even twist reality itself, if need be.”

  “You could just say you don’t know.” I gave him a thin smile. “Thanks, though.”

  He nodded noncommittally. “Get some rest. I need you up as soon as possible tomorrow.”

  Charles left me with plenty of time before dawn. I tried to sleep early, but sleep wouldn’t come.

  I’d lost Lori, and now I’d lost Tamara too.

  Lori’d been drawn into supernatural danger again, because of me. Again.

  What did that mean for our future? Recovering once had been hard-won enough.

  Even if she came out of this okay, how many times did history have to repeat itself?

  Tamara had put herself on the line to save Lori, and we’d botched it. Now they were both gone. And I didn’t know what she’d offered Meladoquiel to sweeten the deal, but whatever it was, I knew I wouldn’t like it.

  And finally, I wondered what Charles was still hiding, even now. His face might as well be made of stone, but the fluctuations I could hear in his all-too-human heart rate gave away the truth.

  It was damning, even for him. The magician was lying, or at least skirting the truth about the Ur-demon and its business in the Magic City. But why?

  With that whirlwind of bitter, somber thoughts in my head, when dawn finally came, for once, I welcomed it with open arms.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Battered not broken

  “Why am I coming along again?” I rasped, my voice like gravel grating on...gravel. Muscles stiff, I pulled my coat tighter around myself. We were out so early, so close to sundown, I was almost worried it might peek back over the horizon just t
o get me.

  “Reasons,” Charles replied, same as the last time I’d asked.

  I didn’t see any good reason I had to accompany him to his Grand ol’ Magisterium meeting, but at least I knew why he’d scheduled it for this evening.

  Barely this evening.

  In fact, I could see a few reasons why it’d be a good idea for me not to accompany him. Foremost among those was the fact that, as a Strigoi, I wasn’t supposed to exist. If one of the other wizards figured out my secret identity like Charles had, I didn’t know what might happen—except that it would almost certainly be bad, that is.

  Then again, getting Charles to accept my Strigoi-ness had been like trying to feed a horse nails out of a balloon or some other ridiculous analogy. If the other wizards were even half as stubborn, I was perfectly safe, even in plain sight. I could probably eat one of them and still be safe from discovery.

  My mind lingered on thoughts of bloody sustenance, and my stomach grumbled audibly. I’d managed to forget exactly how long it had been since the last time I’d eaten. That wasn’t good. I’d put feeding temporarily on hold while events had unfolded with Lori, then with Tamara’s grand opening of Abyss, and now with the flurry of high-octane events that had followed.

  I wouldn’t be able to put it off for much longer, though. Not the way I was exerting myself and absorbing regular ass-beatings.

  We arrived soon enough, and I was more than happy to retreat indoors, away from the smog-muted light still staining the sky the color of dusk.

  Glancing up, I noted the name of the restaurant a moment before we entered. The Oakleaf Tavern; a place I recognized. So we’re back at the Summit again. I’d once scraped together enough tip money to take Lori here for our first anniversary. I remembered liking the place more than she had, even though it was quite a bit more upscale than the eateries I typically frequented while alive.

  Some things never change, I noted as the hostess gave us a discerning eye and moved to block our path. Admittedly, my levels of proper dress and decorum had generally dropped off sharply since I’d died, so I didn’t blame them. My mere presence would almost certainly cost them paying customers.

  But as soon as Charles name-dropped what party we were with, they hurried to get out of our way, leading us to the correct section with a string of apologies for delaying us.

  The place hadn’t changed much in the years since I’d last been here. The decor was still a collection of unique, finely varnished oak pieces, and the only lighting for the dining area was still a scattered collection of authentic, antique oil lamps. Aside from my lingering nervousness about the flames, I found I liked the dim, ambient lighting even more than the last time I’d come; the gently flickering lamps cast everything in gentle gray scale, tinted with hues of proper color.

  We were led up and around, to a back room apparently set aside for the Wizard Meeting. As we’d pre-arranged, Charles went to the four wizards already seated at the only table in the small, oval room, while I went straight to the nearby bar.

  I was close enough to hear, if not easily. But I ignored them while they exchanged pleasantries and introductions, though I noticed that only the youngest of the four seemed to be someone Charles didn’t already know.

  Also, somewhat unsurprisingly, I noticed they were all male.

  My ears perked up at the first insult, though.

  “Magister Monroe, I must ask: what is that?” A sidelong glance told me one of the wizards was indicating me, as if I couldn’t have guessed.

  “A friend,” Charles replied gruffly, his voice flat.

  In revenge, I grabbed the attention of the man behind the bar and ordered two full racks of ribs. “Heavy on the barbecue sauce,” I rasped. “And I’m on their tab.” I jerked my thumb toward the wizard table.

  It wasn’t blood, but I’d be damned if I couldn’t still enjoy free vengeance ribs.

  Though one of the other magicians offered him a seat, Charles remained standing, as did one of the other four, a broad-shouldered man with a face like a shovel. His ambient glower was etched into his face so deeply, it put Charles’ stony poker face to shame, and instead of carrying a staff, he openly wore a broad-bladed Viking-style long sword belted securely on one hip.

  I wondered how often Homeland Security stopped him over that thing, or if he just used Jedi mind tricks to make all of the muggles ignore it. Maybe he used it as a conversation starter.

  “Won’t you take a seat, Charles?” asked the best-dressed of the group, a middle-aged looking man in a long, black dress coat, vest, and slacks that totally didn’t look like urban wizard garb. His features were fair and refined, with a single lock of silvery hair standing out starkly among his full head of blue-black hair. “We have a lot to catch up on. Why, it’s been nearly—”

  “I don’t have time, Elouan.” It was good to see that Charles ran roughshod over everyone, not just his circle of friends here in town. “I have a pertinent issue that needs to be immediately addressed.”

  “Ah, yes. Your ‘demon’ issue.” Elouan rested his hands on his intricately-carved ebony wood staff, the only one of the group who had theirs clearly out in the open. His accent was English, no doubt about it, but significantly different than any I’d ever heard before, though he enunciated so clearly it was impossible to misunderstand him. “You requested a personal meeting, and I compiled, for old times’ sake, if nothing else. But you know my answer cannot be any different than last time.”

  “Last time was the Rawhead,” Charles rumbled, leaning over the table. The two youngest magicians leaned back a little, as if intimidated. “It had taken twenty-six young women. Half of which it intended to eat, the rest of which were to be butchered in an arcane ritual. And you didn’t raise a hand.”

  “Twenty-six, all female, many underage, only three of which had any supernatural connections whatsoever, and none of which were of any significance,” the man with the sword cut in. “You’ve answered your own question as to why we didn’t send aid.”

  “Daniel, please.” The older magician, Elouan, raised a hand. “Just because we could not send aid does not mean we should be callous toward those girls’ suffering.”

  I could see the tension already building in Charles’ shoulders. “And this time it is none other than Ca-Lethe Meladoquiel herself,” he finished, his voice rough.

  The two youngest wizards, behind Elouan’s shoulders, winced visibly at the name. Daniel leaned in, hand on sword hilt, toward Charles. “Are you mad? To so openly speak her name?”

  Charles glared at him, a baleful stare that pushed the broad-shouldered man back out of his personal space. “Why?” Charles snapped. “Afraid she’s nearby, and I might garner her attention?”

  “Gentlemen, please.” Elouan sighed, pausing as a waiter came by and dropped off a couple of plates, thanking him politely. He smiled at his perfect, medium-well strip steak, then looked up at Charles. “Charles, you know the rules as well as I do! We’re not the world’s supernatural police for a reason. Can you make a legitimate case as to why we should intervene, especially to engage a creature that cannot be killed and never forgets a slight?”

  “You’re damn right I can,” Charles growled. “It’s our oath to defend our communities against threats like her.”

  “And by ‘our community,’ do you mean ‘your friends?’” Daniel eyed Charles critically. “Even if an Ur-demon were here—of which there is no proof, I’ll remind you—they cause harm and plague mankind wherever they go. You’d simply force her to plague another community somewhere else.”

  Charles ignored him, settling his gaze on Elouan instead. “You received my reports. She’s manipulating both the Moroi and the Sanguinarians, allowing them to work together. They’re spreading something among the populace to further their influence. You know whatever she’s up to will have serious detrimental fallout.” His voice took on a pleading edge alongside the blatant irritation. “Elouan, you tell me. What does our word mean if we won’t keep it when it matters?”r />
  I watched as that comment dug deep, sparking a sudden storm in Elouan’ near-black eyes. He sat up straight, his eyes flashing. “Our oath, our path, is to the Grand Magisterium itself first and foremost.” He glared up at Charles, neither wizard backing down. If there hadn’t been so much at stake, it would have been an enjoyable show. “We can't put our power on the line for a non-strategic locale, it stretches us thin for no gain.”

  “Non-strategic, my asshole,” Charles retorted.

  Elouan calmed a bit, ignoring the crude jab. “Besides, as I said before, you know the rules.” He straightened his jacket and put on a smile again.

  “Title ten-five-one of the Meridian Accords clearly limits how much power we may bring to bear in the service of low mages, mundane mortals, or members of non-allied factions,” Daniel elaborated coldly. “Especially when an opposing faction is present, such as the Sanguinarians or...her.”

  “Charles,” Elouan said more softly, “we’ve lost far too much of our power over the last couple of centuries fighting losing battles for so little gain.” He shook his head. “We’ve simply no stake here. It’s why we have no presence in Birmingham...except for you, of course.”

  “You know this will spread,” Charles said grimly. “And people’s lives are not ‘little gain,’ dammit.”

  “Of course they are,” Daniel inserted calmly, his words so detached they crawled down my dead spine. “Women? Low mages? Deviants?” I didn’t know why he chose that moment to cut his dumb green eyes toward me, but I narrowed my eyes right back. Two could play that game. “What good are short-lived mortals to our cause? They do nothing for the Magisterium.”

  “You may not like Daniel’s...lack of tact, Charles, but you can’t deny the unfortunate truth behind his point,” Elouan said calmly, a trace of sadness in his words. “If we overextend, we fall apart. And if we fall, then the common people have nothing. No one to restrain the vampires and Fae from preying upon them at will.” The older magician cut his eyes at me as well, as if trying to figure me out. I included him in my glare, and he shifted uneasily.