Falling to Ash

by Karen Mahoney

  ‘Ah, Moth. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed anything . . . wrong with the boss lately. Considering all the quality time you spend with him.’

  ‘Stop talking crap, asshole, and get your stinking hands off me.’ I grabbed a handful of his stringy blond hair and yanked down on it. OK, so hair-pulling was kind of beneath my dignity, but whatever worked in a tight situation was fine with me.

  Kyle growled and pushed me away so hard that I stumbled and banged my hip on one of the chairs tucked behind the pillar. I hissed with the sudden burst of pain but jumped up onto the chair, giving me the high ground – and a good view of the dance floor. All the way across to the exit, which was flanked by what looked to me like two vampire doormen. I wondered if the human manager of Subterranean knew that the silent owner of the club, Theo, was providing more and more of the staff. Most of the muscle was undead, although Holly had told me that the bar staff remained human – for some reason vampires couldn’t mix a good cocktail. Not like Augusto, who reigned supreme at the main bar.

  ‘Ah, so you don’t want to dance with me tonight,’ Kyle said, his voice dripping with fake disappointment.

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied with a not-so-sweet smile. ‘I think I’ll pass.’

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah, because I really give a rat’s ass about a runt like you.’ He shrugged and half turned away. ‘My work here is done, anyway.’

  I frowned. Now what was the stupid idiot talking about? ‘What work? Collecting glasses?’ Then understanding dawned hard and cold. He’d been playing with me – holding me up for some reason. Keeping me from . . . from what? I jumped down from the chair, hating myself for going to him but needing to know what had just happened. ‘What are you talking about?’ I grabbed his arm. ‘What have you done?’

  His face was suddenly empty of emotion. Even the gloating smile had slipped away, leaving a blank mask. ‘You didn’t come here alone, child.’

  Confusion washed over me, making it difficult to think. The flashing lights and pounding bass weren’t helping. ‘But I did come alone. You’re not making sense.’

  The older vampire looked thoughtful for a moment and then that slow smile spread across his face again. ‘Maybe one of your little human friends has been following you, then. What a pity for him . . .’ He let his voice trail off in mock sorrow as he shook his head.

  Oh God, no. Please don’t let Jace have been dumb enough to come after me. Why the hell had I left that stupid message? I licked my lips and stared at Kyle, fury waging war with terror in my gut. ‘If you’ve hurt him, I’ll make you sorry.’

  ‘Ah, so concerned about the human boy.’ He spat on the ground and then fixed me with cold, cold eyes. Eyes that had gone the color of flat steel.

  I didn’t wait around to ask more questions. If Jace had followed me here, surely he would’ve brought weapons – he was potentially crazy, but not crazy enough to arrive unarmed at a place like this. I had to find him. He’d be out back in the alley; I might not have been here before, but I knew how the vampires dealt with unwelcome visitors to Subterranean. Holly’s stories had some uses.

  Running through a small crowd of clearly underage kids on the edge of the dance floor, I pushed someone out of my way and ignored the girl who yelled something at me. I couldn’t hear anything above the beat of the music, the bass making time with my pounding heart. I was almost too overcome with fear to notice how hard my inhuman heart was suddenly trying to beat – something that would normally make me bizarrely happy.

  I slammed through the fire exit so hard that I left the imprint of my hand on the metal bar across the door.

  The cold air hit my face and brought me to a sudden stop. The night was still and the rain from last night had already frozen into icy puddles dotting the alleyway, making it difficult to stay upright. I looked left, toward the main street: nothing.

  Turning my head, I held my breath as I looked to the right. At the end of the alley a crumpled shape lay on the ground. It was too dark to make out any detail, but it looked like a guy-shaped body curled into a foetal ball. Shadows danced as an overhanging tree was caught by a sudden gust of wind, its empty branches making spidery trails on the alley’s high wall.

  I walked slowly toward the body – no, not the body, I wouldn’t think like that – toward the shape on the cold ground. I trod carefully on the light covering of frost as I knelt down beside the young guy who lay so very still.

  It took me a moment to register the fact that he was wearing a long black coat and heavy black boots. Camouflage? A disguise of some kind? I frowned as I gripped his shoulder and turned him over.

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘No.’

  His stark white face glowed in the darkness. His sludgy green eyes were wide open and blood still seeped from the gaping wound in his throat. The blood seemed leached of color; it was almost black in the surrounding gloom as it slowly dripped into a growing puddle beneath him.

  ‘Byron,’ I whispered. ‘You idiot.’

  It wasn’t Jace at all. The whole time that Kyle had been tormenting me – delaying me and playing for time – Byron had been lying out here in the cold, slowly dying. All alone. A sob hitched in my throat. He was just a dumb kid whose only ‘crime’ was to love his girlfriend and try to find out what had happened to her. Tears ran hot down my frozen cheeks, taking me by surprise.

  Now there was another murdered kid to deal with. Murdered by Kyle? How else might Theo’s Enforcer be involved? And what about Theo’s scent on Erin’s body? I rubbed a hand across my tear-stained face. Whatever else was going on here, I knew one thing for certain: this boy was dead because he’d been following me, probably desperate for the answers that I’d held back this afternoon. He must have waited for hours outside my apartment.

  I swallowed bile as I looked at the bloody mess of his throat, knowing that I’d cost him his life.

  Chapter Nineteen

  BYRON’S EYES WERE half open, glazed. I brushed his streaked hair away from his face, gently, as though I might disturb his peace if I moved too quickly. Grief closed around my heart like a fist. And the scent of blood took me back, back to that earlier time. Those first few days . . .

  ‘I can smell it from here,’ I say. I want to cry, but the tears won’t come. ‘Why can I smell it from all the way out here? Why does it smell so good?’

  Theo kisses my forehead. He casts no reflection in the window. ‘Because you’re hungry,’ he says, so softly I almost don’t hear him.

  ‘But I’m always hungry,’ I whisper.

  ‘Yes.’

  * * *

  I couldn’t leave Byron’s body here. Much as I wanted to make an anonymous call to the BPD and let Smith and Trent come out here to do their thing, I couldn’t take that risk. Not right behind Subterranean. And what if Byron went the same way as Rick? His girlfriend hadn’t – or not that I’d heard – but it didn’t mean that this boy would be so lucky.

  Lucky. What a word to apply to a murdered teenager.

  ‘Screw it,’ I said under my breath, reaching for my cell phone. Then I cursed loudly. I shouldn’t use my own phone. Not here. What if calls could be traced? I didn’t need my name coming into another murder investigation. I forced myself to take a breath to steady myself, then dug through Byron’s pockets. It felt wrong, gruesome, to disturb him in death, but I needed a phone and his had to be here somewhere.

  Of course, Byron’s cell phone had a cracked screen. Crap. I held my breath and hit the ‘on’ button. Waited what felt like an eternity. But finally the graphics shuddered into view. I didn’t know where Theo was, and he didn’t carry a phone anyway. I couldn’t call out the vampire security – not while Theo was trying to convince them I was nicely under control. Who was to say I wouldn’t be blamed for this death? So there was only one person I could call for help. I punched in the number still stashed in my jeans pocket. Thank God I hadn’t dumped it, or left it in my leather jacket – which was safe and sound with my sister.

  After two rings Jace picked up.
r />   After a brief explanation he was on his way.

  And that’s how it came to be that it was Jace who helped me lift the body into the back of his father’s van.

  ‘So,’ Jace said, his casual tone hiding something darker, ‘is this kid going to vamp out on us?’

  I swallowed and shook my head. ‘No, you’re safe from that.’ I couldn’t quite keep the bitterness from my voice. ‘They didn’t make him feed from them. Either he’s dead or he’s coming back as Zombie Boy Mark Two. But he won’t be a vampire.’ For a horrible moment I thought I might start to cry again. What was with me and all the tears lately?

  Jace nodded as he moved the body’s legs so he could shut the doors. ‘Good.’

  Hot fury warmed me. ‘Why? Because it’s one less monster for you and Daddy to dust?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ His voice was quiet and he didn’t quite meet my eyes. ‘Because I didn’t want us to have to kill another one of your friends.’

  ‘Oh.’ I paused, gathering my scrambled wits. ‘He wasn’t my friend. I only met him properly today.’

  Jace whirled his silver-edged blade between his fingers, making it glitter like a sharpened shard of moonlight. It was making me nervous.

  ‘Moth, I’ve seen a newly risen vampire before. If there’s no Maker around to control it . . .’ He looked away for a moment and I couldn’t help wondering about the things this kid had seen in his life. How old had he been when he first knew that the monsters were real?

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘At least we only have to worry about the whole Unmade thing.’ I shook my head. ‘I can’t believe I just said that.’

  Jace’s mouth was set in a grim line as he pulled a huge sheet of plastic over the body. It was thick, black, and looked perfect for hiding corpses in the back of his dad’s van. The vehicle stank of death and decay, and I knew that wasn’t only thanks to this body. Gross as it was to even think like that, Byron was too fresh to smell this bad.

  I watched Jace tuck everything out of sight and swallowed. ‘What are we going to do with him?’

  A muscle flickered in his jaw and he shot me a dark look. ‘What do you think?’

  I grimaced. ‘I just—’ I shook my head. Dammit, this was hard. And I didn’t even know the guy. Well, hardly. ‘I was hoping there might be something we could do.’

  Jace barked a laugh that echoed with bitterness. He turned his back on me and climbed between the front seats, sliding into the driver’s position and hunching his shoulders as he fiddled with the ignition. He put the car in gear, tapped the accelerator and drove down the street. He banged a left at the first intersection, weaving around pedestrians and motorcycles and other cars running the red light.

  I frowned and followed him, leaning over the seat backs and trying to catch a glimpse of his face. ‘What’s wrong? What did I say?’ I clambered into the passenger seat. It was covered in cheap nylon that was worn in several places.

  ‘Why do you guys care about him all of a sudden?’

  By “you guys”, I assumed Jace was referring to the vampires that existed under-the-radar in the city. I tucked my feet underneath me on the seat and clasped my hands in my lap. They were shaking and I didn’t want Jace to see. ‘So what’s your big plan for dealing with this, then? Especially as I have no idea if he’s going to come back the same as Rick.’

  ‘We have two options. Either we take him to your Maker or we deal with him ourselves.’

  ‘There’s no way we’re going to Th—’ I stopped and glared at him. ‘You asshole, you almost had me there.’

  Jace’s mouth quirked very slightly. ‘It was worth a try.’

  ‘I’m not telling you anything about him, so you can just go screw yourself.’

  ‘You say that so often, and it’s not getting any more appealing.’

  I pouted and stared out of the window. I wasn’t interested in looking at anything outside – I just wanted a break from Jace Murdoch and his irritating know-it-all posturing. I glanced out of my window and watched the road blur pass, black and endless as the night itself.

  ‘Moth?’ His voice was low. Insistent.

  ‘What?’ I practically growled, still gazing out of the window.

  ‘You’re steaming up the damn window. I can’t see shit.’

  Oh. I’d been breathing without even thinking about it. That was sort of cool.

  The guy who wasn’t supposed to be in my life touched my arm. ‘Moth, are you listening to me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’ He shifted in his seat, as though uncomfortable with what he was about to say. ‘If you don’t want my help that’s cool. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t particularly want to be here dealing with this. I’ve had enough of it in my life already.’

  ‘So why didn’t you leave me there? Why did you even bother to come in the first place?’

  ‘I came when you called because I wanted to see what crazy drama you’d gotten yourself into this time.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t trust vampires.’

  ‘Sometimes, you don’t seem like a regular vampire,’ he said.

  ‘What am I supposed to be like?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just . . . not like you.’

  I raised my eyebrows, wishing my vamp-abilities extended to reading his mind. He probably thought female vampires were femme fatales, sultry seductresses who wanted to drink the blood of every man they met. A siren. Someone who radiated menace. I almost laughed. That was so far from who I was it was laughable. I was tough, rather than dangerous. Needy, rather than sexy. And my total geekiness pretty much ruled me out of the seduction stakes (no pun intended).

  But Jace wasn’t done talking. ‘I didn’t leave you there in the alley because . . .’ His voice trailed off as he concentrated on a stream of traffic and we pulled out onto a busy road.

  I continued to knead my fingers together in my lap. It reminded me of the way my mother used to make bread. ‘Well? You can’t just say something like that and stop.’

  He glanced at me, then focused back on the dark road stretching ahead. Headlights zoomed past us on the other side, but Jace handled the van effortlessly. He zigged and zagged along side streets I wasn’t even sure I knew had been there, dodging triple-parked cars that were common sights in Boston.

  Finally, he said, ‘Why do you think I didn’t leave you there, you idiot? I always said you were a freak.’

  If my heart could race, I knew that’s what it would be doing. But I could still feel its ghostly beating, as surely as I could feel the warmth from the van’s heater beginning to thaw out my frozen cheeks. An echo of humanity.

  Jace said, ‘OK, maybe this will help. When you saw that body in that alley, did you think it might be me?’

  I bit my lip. Maybe if I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t get myself into trouble. I turned and watched him as his dark eyes reflected back the lights from passing cars.

  ‘For a minute, yes. When I saw him lying there. And I couldn’t stand the thought that something had happened to you.’

  He didn’t say anything, but I watched that familiar muscle pulsing in his jaw. Then he nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’

  Oh, please don’t say he’s going to be smug about this.

  ‘Moth, are you really so dumb that you need me to tell you that I came here for the same damn reason? That’s why I came when you called me – and you’re just too stubborn to already know it.’

  ‘Why can’t you just say what you mean?’ I pouted. ‘You’re so confusing.’

  ‘Maybe . . . maybe I like you.’

  He likes me? Did threatening me and pointing sharp weapons at me count as liking me? I snorted. Yeah, maybe if you’re in third grade. But then again . . . I glanced at the bruises on his face. Bruises from his father. Bruises he got sort of (lamely) defending me . . .

  Jace stared through the windshield, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. He laughed, but it came out sounding strained. ‘You gonna leave me hanging here?’

&
nbsp; Silence filled the van, the only sounds filtering through the thick glass from outside. The wheels bumped over a patch of gravel on the freeway; the engine grumbled under the hood as we made our way to the cemetery.

  I slumped down in my seat and leaned my head back, gazing at a smear on the ceiling directly above my head that looked a lot like dried blood.

  I sighed. ‘Jace, how was I supposed to know how you felt until you told me? It’s not as though we’re the most natural of . . . friends.’

  His lips curved into a tantalizing ghost of a smile. ‘I thought you vampires could read minds.’

  Dammit, I didn’t want him to make me smile. ‘Is that what your dad’s books say?’

  Finally he glanced over, locking eyes with me for dangerous seconds before returning his attention back to the road. ‘Nope. I figured that one out all by myself. When you pulled that number on me down in that hospital storeroom.’

  I laughed. ‘I’d go back to what you do best, genius.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Jace asked.

  ‘Hunting the bad guys. Being a pain in the ass.’

  He glanced at me, his face tinted green by the van’s dash lights. I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes, and before I could even try, he returned his attention to the road.

  We travelled the rest of the way in silence, but my vamp-hearing could still detect his heartbeat and it didn’t make me hungry – not even a little. At least, not for blood.

  Chapter Twenty

  THE GRANARY BURYING Ground was the last place on earth I wanted to be.

  Seriously, would you want to be sneaking around a freaking cemetery at night? I shivered. Just because I’m a vampire doesn’t make this my natural habitat or anything. Shadows shimmered like dark water, and in between, crumbling stones lined the path. Grave markers were haphazardly arranged so that they looked like broken teeth scattered around.