Heir of Ashes

by Jina S Bazzar

  “This room will start filling with fast acting, enhanced radiation. We have reason to believe you can form an air shield around you and your mother. Once the room starts filling and you're exposed, if you don't form the shield within two minutes, your mother will die. You have enough immunity to live three minutes longer than your mother.”

  Shock left me speechless for a good thirty seconds. “P-please don't do this. At least let her go.” I choked.

  My mother was huddled on the corner, loose strands of her honey-blonde hair around her face, her black eyes huge and frightened, her skin ghostly white, and she was shaking and shivering. It was an image that brought me nightmares for many years to come.

  “Those are my orders. I have no choice. I'm sorry,” Dr. Maxwell added.

  “If you're wrong and I die then you won't be able to experiment anymore,” I said furiously. Tears tracked down my cheeks, and I was shaking in fear too.

  “I'm sorry. I have orders to follow,” he repeated before falling silent for a moment, as if debating what to say next. “They think if you can't do this, then you're not what they thought you were.”

  I laughed sarcastically. “Then I die, and you get to pick another victim to torture.”

  “Subject UX01-484!” boomed another voice on the speakers. “This is Dr. Michael Dean. I want you to know that if you don't meet our expectations, then there's no reason to waste funds and resources on you. You are nothing but expendable,” he said before clicking off, and I heard hissing from all four sides of the room. I heard gas coming from small holes installed in the corners, and my mother came closer to me in the middle of the room. Did radiation have odor? Texture and color? I thought frantically about what I could possibly do. I imagined the air shield they wanted me to form, I even closed my eyes to concentrate harder, but nothing happened. Desperate, I imagined me and my mother inside a bubble and tried to project it… and nothing. Either I wasn't concentrating enough or Dr. Dean was about to be proven wrong. An arm's length away, my mother sat, sobbing, telling me she was sorry, over and over.

  I crouched and held her close. We rocked back and forth together, and I kept trying to do something, to form that damn shield. For once, since the day I had been brought to the PSS fifteen months earlier, I had hoped they were right about me.

  The gas reached us, and it had no odor at all, but my mother and I choked all the same. I guessed it was the principle of breathing radiation and the knowledge that it was lethal.

  I tried to count the seconds, but I couldn't pass one, two, three, before my thoughts jammed. My mind screamed that this was wrong, that this couldn't be happening to me. My mother choked, and I watched in horror as her skin began reddening, forming red splotches on every inch and growing. She cried out, and I saw her gums bleeding, covering her teeth. I screamed at the mirror and saw a trickle of blood running down her nose from the corner of my eye. I clutched her to me, trying to hide her face on my chest, to protect her and to not have to watch her die. I rocked from left to right, feeling my tears burning down my cheeks until—until—my mother stopped shaking.

  I didn't let her go.

  Children shouldn't watch their parents die. It just shouldn't happen. My only consolation was that I would be dying also. The PSS had killed my mother to test a reaction from me and all I could manage was… rage.

  I felt lava boiling in my blood.

  I wanted to kill Dr. Michael Dean with my bare hands. No, I wanted to mutilate him with my new-found talons.

  I felt the beginning of a familiar stir inside me and knew I wasn't far from snapping. If I snapped, they would get a reaction from me. Perhaps not what they had wanted and expected me to do, but one nonetheless, and my mother would have died for nothing. My hands blurred and formed talons and for the first time since I had been brought there, I felt my teeth shifting and elongating, rearranging inside my mouth. I clenched my jaws and tried to fight any changes, but my rage was overwhelming. All I wanted was to kill someone—preferably Dr. Dean—and feast on his blood. To pull off his head with my bare hands and dance around his still-twitching body. I lowered my head to my mother's limp shoulder and shook with rage and grief. All the while we rocked left and right.

  They shouldn't have killed anyone in an experiment. My rage grew to degrees I never thought possible. I knew something was happening to me, inside me but, besides my rage, my talons and teeth, nothing else was different… and yet, there was something more. Something other. Foreign, even to me.

  My mother lay limp in my arms and I rocked her from side to side. Was this punishment because I injured one of the scientists?

  My mother shouldn't have been there. She shouldn't have been able to visit. Didn't Dr. Maxwell tell me no visits, no matter what, were allowed?

  My mother wasn't supposed to be there…

  I noticed my arms, still around my mother's prone body, becoming red, then blurring and wavering, and suddenly I knew, and I wasn't afraid anymore.

  I wasn't afraid, because I wasn't dying.

  Because my mother wasn't there. She wasn't allowed to be there. I pushed back on my anger, gaining an inch. I had realized what was happening to me seconds before the PSS successfully provoked me into reacting. I concentrated on the rapid beating of my heart, slowing my breaths. I felt my teeth slowly reverting to normal, then my talons back to my fingers. The tremors that shook my body followed moments after that.

  My mother wasn't there. I wasn't dying.

  I closed my eyes tight and concentrated. My rage dissipated slowly, and my breathing slowed down to a normal rhythm. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself alone in the room, my arms around myself as I rocked, facing the two-way mirror.

  My nightmare was over. For now. I'd broken the illusion spell they had injected me when I had been unconscious.

  Despite the many nightmares to sprout from that day, I felt a twinge of triumph they never found out how close they had come to almost succeeding. I had managed to control my rage, my beast, and they had no satisfactory results. Up until the fire mage last year, I had thought the PSS had missed their mark big time with that experiment. Indeed, I had found and experimented with that slumbering otherness deep inside my soul often, but never really known what it was or could do until the mage.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “They hurt you,” Logan said, touching his knuckles to my cheek and bringing me back to the present. I could still see the anger in his eyes, feel it cool the air, but it was mixed with sympathy for me. Although my mother had never been there in that room with me, the horror and despair of that day had been real enough.

  “Yeah,” I said softly, my throat constricted with tears. I looked away at what I could see of the endless desert, and breathed slowly, blinking back my tears, trying to compose myself. It was harder when there was someone who understood. Would my mother react the same way if she knew what I had been through? Did she even care? Did she know what I was? Did she give me up because she was disgusted with what I would become? Did she fear me? So many questions… never an answer.

  I concentrated on the cold anger around me to take my mind away from my disparaging thoughts. Logan's anger wasn't the hot fury of the impulsive, of the reckless, but the cold of calculation, the banked fire left to simmer. He was a man in control of his actions, examining his opportunities, and overcoming obstacles with intelligence and calculation, instead of brutal force and impulse.

  I closed my eyes and began to pick Logan's anger apart, to calm my raging heart. I could practically see the cold anger fogging the windows like mist on a cold winter night. With my eyes closed, I reached for the mist, like the warm summer sun rays reaches and breaks through the morning mist, turning it into soft droplets of water. They were cool under my touch, and when I licked a drop, it tasted cool and refreshing. I reached for another drop, then another, and another.

  “Stop it.” I heard Logan's choking voice, but I had no idea what he was talking about. I licked another cool drop. I felt like a cat, basking— />
  “Eliza… stop it,” he croaked.

  It wasn't my name that opened my eyes, but the urgent tone of his voice. Logan was slumped forward on the steering wheel, his tanned face pale, his eyes narrowed almost shut, and his breathing shallow and irregular.

  What the hell was wrong with him? I frowned. I felt among the stirrings of confusion, deep among the blurring edges, understanding. And I tried to shove it away.

  I didn't want to know.

  However, something deep inside me, some perverted part that didn't let me hide from myself, pushed the knowledge back to the surface, not letting me run from it.

  I reached out for him and he flinched away. He was still breathing hard, but his narrowed gaze remained sharp and intense, despite the obvious strain around them.

  I dropped my hand and looked away, noticing belatedly that his gun was out and clutched in one hand.

  Only after I had reverted my expression to the blank mask I had worn for almost half of my life did I look at him again. His face had gained some color and his breathing was evening out. He had leaned back at the door, putting as much distance between us as possible within that confined space.

  This time, the hurt stayed hidden inside.

  “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…” I broke off, realizing it didn't matter what I said. I had done what I had done. Thinking about it then, I had probably been feeding from the swirl of emotions in the casino, too. Or perhaps I had just blocked it. I didn't know, and it only frustrated me more. I had no guideline to go back to and reference.

  It wasn't like I felt stronger or glowed as a result. There was no difference at all.

  I don't know what Logan interpreted from my blank expression, but he snarled, baring his teeth at me. “Do that again, I'll kill you.”

  I nodded, acknowledging the threat and the truth of his words, turned and looked ahead at the road. He certainly wasn't the first to threaten me, but somehow, coming from him, it felt like a betrayal. I wasn't expecting his pledge of loyalty and friendship, but—damn it! He'd saved my life three times already. I thought he had considered me someone. I had talked to him, told him things I'd never told anyone or never had anyone to tell before. He'd cared for my injured hand, he'd shown concern.

  He'd made me feel human.

  Somewhere during that past day, I had begun to pretend we were friends. Me and my false sense of belonging.

  “Can we go?” I asked, eager to get to Sacramento, give him the details for the PSS's headquarters and move on.

  I could feel his gaze on me, and, for the second time that day, wondered if he was debating letting me off in the middle of nowhere, wondering if I was worth the trouble. But he turned to face the road and drove off.

  I stared out my window, doing my best not to look at Logan at all, not even from my periphery. It felt constricting, although if I wasn't trying hard to keep averted from him, I'd probably do just fine. So, I took Dr. Maxwell's journal from my jacket's pocket to check about Silvery Blue. Vaguely, I wondered if the dangerous information Logan was talking about wasn't a rumor, and the journal was actually it.

  My night vision was good, and I didn't need the light overhead to read the notes, so I settled, angling myself a little, just in case Logan's night vision was better than mine.

  I leafed straight to the part where Dr. Maxwell mentioned the auras, where he side noted about the information being shaky, that they had no proof of it being accurate. The previous page talked about a spell enabling a person to see auras and the results of what happened when they tried it a few times, sometimes on ordinary humans, sometimes on willing preternaturals. Although they couldn't trust the word of a preternatural being, considering most liked to stay anonymous, Dr. Maxwell had documented the findings nonetheless. Still, the side effects of the spell were unpleasant and, authenticating the preternatural's claims by testing the spell on each other had become a big no-no, followed by a big red “x” when one of the scientists injected had seized and gone into a coma for an entire week. And so, the project had stalled, far from complete.

  As far as I knew, I was the only person who could see auras on a permanent basis, a secret—one of many—the PSS had never gleaned. Except for my own aura, I could see everyone else's, given they were within the required proximity.

  There was no mention of any species in Dr. Maxwell's journal—or even in mythical books—about what kind of creature could see auras the way I could. Plus, none of the volunteers that had been admitted in the PSS could see them either. If they could, they never told, or it had been documented somewhere else. It wasn't as if the PSS tested or punished them for hiding or refusing a test or two. Those who volunteered only agreed upon a specific experiment, stayed for the time or experiment agreed upon, collected their money and left to resume their lives. In fact, I think I was the only permanent resident of the PSS. Even the scientists went home every now and then.

  I found the page I was looking for and scanned it carefully. Nothing new there. Red for vampires, lighter if consumption of blood was less than required—an anemic vampire, ha!—darker if blood consumption surpassed the requirement. Yellow for a born vampire, orange for a newly made one, or a born one that indulged too much in blood… blah blah blah.

  Blue for humans, green for weres. The black aura had a long list. It could mean the person was a practitioner of black arts, a zombie, a ghoul, the degree of how long that person had been dead, and so on. Of course, those weren't the only auras out there, but those were the ones most pronounced, the most common. There was mention of a brown aura that no one could decipher, and I often wondered if that was the color of my aura. I read, and reread the page, looking for something I could have missed. It did mention about the glow of an aura, which meant the person had the ability to wield magic, but nothing that reflected with a silvery glow. I recalled the events in the casino and tried to think if perhaps I had misread the silvery tone of the aura, that maybe the lighting had some weird effect on it.

  And that's when, as I sat in that darkened car, reading Dr. Maxwell's stolen journal in the middle of nowhere, I had a sudden, and terrifying realization.

  Remo Drammen had no aura.

  I thought harder, trying to remember if I had missed it. He'd come within range, I was sure of that, but I couldn't remember… The more I thought about it, the surer I was Remo had none. What could possibly lack an aura?

  I tucked the journal back in my pocket, more disturbed than I had been half an hour earlier, closed my eyes, leaned my head back, and tried thinking pleasant thoughts. It was hard because I didn't have many of those in my memories. My previous life at home was only a jumble of flash memories that I sometimes doubted had been my own.

  The car slowed and stopped. I opened my eyes and saw we were parked in front of a brightly-lit motel. I looked at Logan questioningly, sure that we weren't far from Sacramento, but he just opened his door and climbed out, leaving the key in the ignition, his door ajar. I frowned at it, debating if he trusted me enough not to steal the car and just go or if he wanted me to and didn't care.

  * * *

  Well, Logan didn't believe in those no-name motels I so frequently found myself in. The room he had rented was clean, bright, and—no doubt—cost more than what was worth just for a few hours of rest. There was a king-sized bed in the middle of the room facing a big flat screen TV, propped on top of an ornate wooden chest drawer, a small round table with two chairs on the far corner by the window, an electric stove beside a refrigerator, and a small sink under a cupboard. To my left was the bathroom, to my right another window that overlooked the parking lot. I wondered if they had a room with two single beds, but I didn't say anything.

  After placing my duffle bag and purse on the floor by the bed, Logan turned and left without a word. So, he was giving me the silent treatment, I thought, half annoyed, half amused.

  I looked around the room and picked up some pamphlets left on the night stand. We were still in Nevada, in the city of Reno. I placed them back on the ni
ght stand; there were no attractions or tourist sites I wanted to see. I looked around at the tidy room once. What now?

  After I showered and dressed for bed, I went in search of a dry cleaner. Yes, I went out in wrinkled PJs.

  An hour and a half later, my laundry was no longer dirty, my hand was freshly cleaned and re-bandaged… and there was no sign of Logan. His black Range Rover was also gone. I promised myself if he didn't show up before morning, I'd leave without him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I propped myself on the bed to read Dr. Maxwell's journal again, starting from the beginning.

  When I was only a quarter of the way through, Logan came back, carrying some bags and a laptop under one arm.

  He placed the laptop on the bed and the bags on top of the small, round table and turned to face me.

  “I got us some good food here,” he said. No trace of anger or anything suggested he was still upset about the incident earlier.

  That was not what I was expecting. No, I was expecting threats, controlled anger, or maybe even some indifference. But this? Certainly not.

  Earlier, while I showered and did my dirty laundry, I thought back on those few minutes in the car and tried to put myself in his place, see the event through his eyes.

  If I were traveling with someone who had escaped a fortified major-league facility without any apparent outside help; had multiple dangerous preternatural beings gunning for her; had no idea what she was, but that she was rumored to be dangerous; then with no preamble found myself being fed upon; what would I do?

  Well, I'd probably have skipped the warning threat and attacked. Or at the very least dumped her and taken off. No explanations asked, no excuses accepted.

  I hadn't meant to hurt him, but he didn't know that. He didn't know me. He probably thought I did it on purpose. I could understand where he stood. Unfortunately, he couldn't do the same for me.

  Like I realized long ago, I wasn't a friendable person. For one, I couldn't relax my guard without exposing myself or hurting someone. And of course, there was the fact that ten years had kept me isolated, way out of practice.