Blood Red Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 2)

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  It wasn’t what I’d expected to hear, that’s for certain. “How do you figure?”

  “Well, when we met—hell, even after we met—you always felt like you couldn't control your life, like you didn’t have any prospects, like life had just shat on you and there wasn’t anything you could do about it. And don’t get me wrong, life really did kinda take a big dump on you.” I chuckled, the sound of rocks in a blender. “You kept chugging along determinedly, but it was always up to me to make the big breaks, to really move us toward our goals.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Nine months of forced introspection had helped put my own bullshit into perspective.

  “But you’ve changed. At least, as far as I can tell over a cell phone.” She chuckled, almost sounding sad. Or maybe guilty? Her voice was suddenly hard to read, that or I was just getting tired. “You’ve taken your own...life...into your hands. Not only that, but you’re standing up for other people and not backing down. Using that famous stubborn streak of yours for something good.” We shared a laugh. “Kind of like what you always admired about your dad but never felt you could emulate, I guess.”

  The honesty, the intimate familiarity—it felt good. Lori had always known me better than I’d known myself it seemed, and it looked like that hadn’t changed, even with us being separated. She was right too. Despite dying, I wasn’t unhappy with my new un-life—save for the part about losing my old life with her. In fact, in many ways, I felt more alive than I ever had before.

  Maybe it had taken my death to define what I wanted to live for.

  And my Dad…It almost stung for Lori to bring my old man up. She knew it was a sensitive topic; it always had been. I’d loved him and admired him so much, so much I couldn’t stand to see him destroy himself, and it had driven a wedge between us. And when I’d died, I’d just written it off as the end for him and my uncle both. I’d thought maybe it was best to just let them think I’d died for real.

  Maybe that had been hasty. It had certainly been selfish.

  And maybe when this was all over, I should rectify that.

  “Anyway…What I’m trying to say is that I’m proud of you.” She paused. “I hope that’s not too presumptuous for me to say. With everything that’s happened between us, I mean.”

  “It’s not,” I said hoarsely, softly. My heart beat once, reminding me it wasn’t actually in my throat.

  “I’m proud of you, and I’m...happy for you, as dumb as that might sound. Not because of what happened, but because of what you’ve made of yourself in response. And I know you. I know that if you’ve let anybody down, it isn’t because you didn’t try your best. And it sure as hell isn’t because you gave up.” Her voice grew softer, thicker, so faint I had to strain to hear her. “You never give up. It’s part of why I still love you so much.”

  “I love you too, Lor.” I didn’t know what else to say or how to voice my relief at hearing those words again after so long. “I always will.”

  “I hope you’re right,” she breathed the words so softly that by the time I figured out what she’d said, the conversation had moved on.

  With the remaining minutes before sunrise, we left the heavy, exhausting topics behind and just chatted. We didn’t say anything of substance; I think we were just leaning on the sound of each other’s voices.

  Eventually, though, the dawn came, and I slept.

  - - -

  And once again, I dreamed.

  As monuments like skyscrapers congealed out of nothing around me, I heaved out an abrasive sigh and plopped down on the packed, grassy hill that wasn’t really there.

  Assuming Charles was right and this was “merely” a dream, I was decently certain that nothing here could really hurt me if I didn’t let it. It would be a different matter if I’d actually crossed over and was here physically, but I wasn’t. As long as it was all “in my head,” this might as well be my own little slice of Next Door, and I had final say on what happened here—now that I actually understood I was in control at any rate. And assuming I understood correctly, of course.

  As soon as the tall man in a bloodstained coat and hat sat down next to me, I knew I was at least a little bit wrong. The presence of the too-slender figure in the dark, stained coat tugged at something deep inside my core, and hunger stirred in response.

  I didn’t care much for the feeling. It felt wrong.

  I looked over at him. As before, my not-physical eyes couldn’t pierce the shadows…or could they? As soon as I reminded myself that I was in control here, that the difficulty was just in my head, it vanished and I could see again, just as unnaturally as ever.

  “I think we...got off on the wrong foot before,” he said, haltingly but casually, his voice a greasy hiss that made my lip want to curl. He kept the wide brim of his beat-up, brown leather hat pulled down as far as was feasible, but now I could see glimpses of his pale, waxy complexion. “We have…a lot in common. More than…you know.” The voice made me think of the smell of blood at the abduction scenes: almost human, but not quite—and wrong.

  “Yeah?” I tried to stay casual-sounding, despite my skin crawling and Strigoi anger starting to stir, deep in my gut. He couldn’t hurt me here, but I couldn’t do anything to him, either.

  “She’s been watching you...for a while, now. At first, she was to be my…little messenger.” While he spoke, I scanned the shadows for Maggie’s specter. She had to be here somewhere; it was the only thing that made sense now. “But she is too...limited. So tonight, with so little...time...left, she brought me to meet you.”

  “You mean Maggie?”

  “Yes and no...my daughter.” He—was it a he or an it?—didn’t move as he talked like a normal person. He wasn’t unnaturally still like a vampire could be; he just lacked any sort of body language.

  I snorted, my ire rising. I kept it out of my tone. “She’s not your daughter.”

  Instead of anger, I got humor. “But I took her in,” he chuckled tonelessly. “I took all of them in. But Once-Maggie is my...favorite of all. Your first is always the most...special.”

  The tone of relish, even more than the choice of words, made me cringe. I seriously considered trying to backhand him through a monument. “That’s pretty sick, yo.”

  “Really?” He sounded curious, turning to look at me more directly, though the brim of his hat still somehow blocked most of his face no matter which way he moved. “But we have...so much in common. Do you...not relate?”

  “You and I are nothing alike,” I snapped.

  He seemed to find that funny, too. “Wrong...you hunger...like I hunger. You hunger...for blood. Me too. And for flesh and for pain...for screams, death…” He shuddered repulsively. “Meat, too.”

  “We’re—”

  His hiss suddenly cut across me, forceful and insistent. Deep in my core, I felt my hunger stir again, stronger and stranger than before. “You feed, I feed. You hunt, I hunt. You bleed, I bleed. “You kill…” His gaze stirred the shadows. “...I kill.”

  I shivered even as I finally spotted Maggie, hovering inside the nearby shadows at the edge of one of the ebony monoliths.

  “So are there more like...Maggie?” Anger fought with hunger deep inside, disorienting me. I struggled to keep my head clear.

  “She is...mine, mine alone.” He paused, then a crooked yellow grin split the visible lower half of his face. “The rest are...ours.”

  Doubling down with my will, I tried to rise above the tangle of emotions. “I don’t understand.”

  He hissed out another chuckle; his breath stank of old human blood and rotted meat. Even my dead stomach tried to revolt. “Victim. Partner. There is…no difference. So intimate.” Breathing heavily, he shrugged. “She needs…playthings too. Even if…she breaks them.” The crooked smile turned fond. Insane and warped, but fond. “She makes me...strong. So strong.”

  My head swam; by the time it cleared, a moment later, he was in front of me with Maggie hovering obediently just behind one shoulder. I couldn’t see hi
s eyes, but I could feel them rise to meet mine behind the veil of the stained hat’s brim. “You don’t even know…how much easier...better...you can enjoy it all so much more… Just let go. Hunt. Feed.”

  That otherworldly hunger tried to rise again, invoked and encouraged by his words, a mirror of the real thing I was so familiar with. I strangled it ruthlessly. “Yeah, no. Easy doesn't mean better.” He was silent, a slender, enigmatic figure, watching me. I tried to pierce the veil of his hat, to see him better, fighting myself and trying to figure him out. “What are you?” I said finally.

  His smile brightened, almost as if he’d been waiting to field the question. “I am...Man. And more. A man with...a vision. A desire. And...the will to make it come true.” He straightened, towering over me. I still couldn’t see under the brim of that damned hat, but I thought I saw a glimmer of bloody red where eyes should have been. “I discarded...fears, limits, the shackles...of normal and mundane. I took...what I deeply desired...I chose to make of myself...more than what I was born as, more than I was...supposed to be.”

  Pools of blood where his eyes should have been caught mine, trying to reach inside me. “We have so much in common,” he repeated firmly, looming over me.

  “The only thing we have in common,” I growled, “is that we’re both about to be dead.” Anger won out over hunger, and I was on my feet in an instant. I pushed back against the draw of those eyes, took that fake hunger and strangled it, stomped it into the dirt and ground my heel on its corpse. He still towered over me, but I leaned in toward him anyway, and now he leaned away.

  “Too...hasty…” He eyed me with caution, holding up a hand; Maggie fluttered protectively close, her mouth easing open to show the filed-down teeth inside. “You must know—”

  “Know what?” The ends of my fingers split open, blood-rusted iron easing out like a promise.

  “There is…another.” The Blood Man twitched, his face twisting with dislike. “They were...curious. Kept us...limited. Then he came; he took control. He removed the...limits...not part of his ‘plan.’ But we are not...free...anymore.”

  “Wow, that must suck so much for you.”

  He eyed me with a feverish intensity, his eyes pools of shifting liquid blood that now stirred my real hunger. “He…wants you too. To use you, like he...uses me. End him. Free us both. And I will—”

  “Wow,” I rasped, “It really is true. Everybody wants something. Even psycho child murderers.” I didn’t care what he wanted, or what he offered. “No deal, asshat.”

  His blood-eyes turned wary, but like me, he didn’t seem to be afraid of coming to harm here. “Thought...you...would understand.” An edge of anger crept into his wispy voice, scraping at the air with self-righteousness. “Together…our secrets, our power, our wills…We could take as we pleased. Do as we pleased.”

  This time I didn’t bother to curb the rumbling growl that spilled from my throat, more than matching his anger with my own. “The difference between you and me, asshole, is that I don’t want to.” I glared at him hard enough to make him take a step back. His mouth split open with a hiss of anger, and Maggie’s little ragged ghost responded instantly, throwing herself at me with a shrill, angry, alien cry.

  I swatted her aside without even trying, her tiny figure disappearing into the dark. This was my mind, my world. I stabbed out a single claw, pointing the deadly edge at his heart, assuming he had one. “And I’ll be seeing you soon.”

  I’d heard enough. This meeting was over. I woke up.

  - - -

  I opened my eyes and shook my head, crawling over to my little card table. Even through the stone floor, I could still feel the last embers of the sun blazing far overhead. Dusk is still falling. This is too early for me. I fumbled my phone off of the table, only its charger cord and my blunted reflexes saving it from the unforgiving stone floor. I noted it was glowing with two recent messages from Tamara, but it was the one from Charles that caught my attention most.

  Ashes. Emergency. Get here ASAP. -Charles.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  At least we weren't stuck in the waiting room

  I looked up at the towering sign of Saint Valentine’s Hospital for the Weary and felt my eye twitch, just a little. Religion and I had never gotten along, even at the best of times, less so now that it could actually set me on fire.

  Hospitals had always made me uncomfortable too. Maybe it was because of my earliest memories of one where a little Ashley sat and waited for her mother to die. Maybe because of the all too common fear of sickness and death.

  Even now, I wasn’t comfortable. Deathly energy hung thickly overhead, an aura that should have put me at ease and magnified my strength. But here, those energies were actually locked away, walled off behind a sense of suffering and sadness counterbalanced by unrelenting hope. Perhaps Tamara would feel more at home around the high emotional energies hovering about the great, blocky structure than I did. Or maybe Moroi avoided hospitals and their depressing ambiance too. It’s not like they really needed their services.

  I rasped out a shallow sigh. The last time I’d visited St. Valentine's, it hadn’t gone well for me or the hospital itself. Hopefully, this time would be different.

  It took me a lot longer than I liked to find Charles’ room. While thankfully, no one shouted “Zombie!” and ran around screaming and waving their hands in the air, it was still blatantly clear my presence unnerved them...much like it did pretty much everyone else. On top of that, I had to insist repeatedly that, despite my appearance—and even with a fresh set of clothes—I was here to see a patient, not to be one.

  My phone buzzed one more time on the way up the elevator. All I know is that he got ambushed and hurt around dusk while trying to protect Rain and Jason, and they took him here. I called the hospital, but all they’d confirm was a concussion, Tamara’s text read. Just make sure he’s okay, and that he doesn't do anything stupid, like trying to leave. I’ll be there as soon as I can—trying to dodge family “responsibility” atm.

  No prob, Tam. Good luck. Tucking my phone away, I pushed my way inside Charles’ room without bothering to knock. Rain and Jason stood together at one end of the dimly lit room, while Charles lay on the only occupied bed. The roughed-up wizard sported a hospital gown, a bandage wrapped around his head, an IV trailing from his right arm, and a sturdy half-cast on his left. I winced. His staff was propped against the side of the bed in easy reach of his uninjured hand, possibly the best indicator of all that the stubborn wizard was still alive since he wasn’t moving.

  “He said to tell you ‘you’re late’,” Jason commented.

  I shrugged. “Then he shouldn’t have started without me. Look what happened without me babysitting him.” I thought the comatose wizard made a sound, but I couldn’t tell for certain. I looked toward the two boys. “You guys okay?”

  They both nodded, and I breathed a mental sigh of relief. Both changelings were now clad in near-identical, nondescript hoodies, tees, and sweatpants with pockets. They were both ruffled and dirty but otherwise, thankfully, unbloodied and intact. Rain gave me a sunny smile. “Yeah. We’re fine.”

  “Kinda put his ass on the line for us,” Jason concurred.

  “He’s good like that.” I patted Charles firmly on the leg, and he made a faint, muffled sound. “What happened? Vampire attack? Chimera? Hydra? Skeleton with a bazooka? Ghost of Elvis?”

  Charles stirred, coughing repeatedly.

  “It was…wow.” Rain began, gesturing grandly. “Real magic, you know? Fire and stuff. Wind, lightning, his staff was glowing...I mean, we hid like he said, but we had to see what happened, and there was this salt, but it was huge, like way bigger than Mister Charles—”

  “Salt?” I interrupted.

  Rain nodded. “Yeah, out of his bag, and then—” The young man cut off abruptly, fishing his phone out of a pocket. “Crap.”

  “What is it?” Jason asked, beating me to the punch.

  The younger shifter stared at his phone a
s it vibrated again, trading a significant glance with his older friend. “Um, it’s my dad. He’s probably wondering where I am; I gotta take this.” I nodded as he cracked the door just enough to slip out, putting the phone to his ear as he left.

  “Yeah, you don’t say no to Mister Garibaldi,” Jason grinned. “Wish my papá was like that.”

  “Oh?”

  “Actually gave a shit and wondered where I was? Yeah, that’d be nice.” Jason opened the window and sat on the sill next to it, pulling out a crumpled, half-used pack of cigarettes and lighting one.

  I started to say something, but figured it wasn’t my place. Instead, I asked, “So what all really happened out there? No offense, but your friend didn’t really explain much.”

  “Yeah, he gets excited like that.” Jason grinned. “Well, for one, we found a trail.”

  I blinked, my mood lifting. “You did? Where? How far did you follow it? What did it smell like?”

  He chuckled, taking a draw from the cigarette; the embers danced at the tip, making me a little anxious. “Calm down, chica. You want the story, or not?” I nodded and shut my mouth. “We found that mysterious third smell, the unique one. We followed it for a while into a pretty bad part of town, off toward the ass end of the airport.”

  I cringed a little. There was a strip of urban decay in that area, old unused factories and warehouses and the homes that had fallen into decline alongside them. It wasn’t a nice place for regular people, much less when you mixed in potential supernatural badness. Exactly the kind of place I’d hoped the two boys wouldn’t have ended up; I should have known better.

  “Anyway, we smelled something was up before it happened, or it probably woulda clobbered him. Big hulking giant-thing, made entirely of blood—and not human blood either. Came out of nowhere; some tentacle-looking thing whipped his legs out from under him, and he cracked his head on the sidewalk. But he told us to bug out, and we kinda did, far enough to be out of the way, but still watch.” He grinned. “Man, it was really awesome though. He blew it up big time, and while it was trying to come back together, he sat down on the sidewalk, pulled out his phone and hit a couple of buttons, then opened a bag—I guess it was the salt—and mixed the whole thing into this big airball.”