Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4)

by Steven Montano

  The air tasted like sweat and urine. Every now and again the distant doors to the cell block slid open and prisoners were either deposited or extracted, but for the most part the metal chamber remained sealed, and the grimy population was left to fend for itself.

  The inmates wore sodden clothes and crumbling shoes, and their skin was covered in grey and green grime. Cell Block D12 was the size of a small barn. Fights frequently broke out, and they often ended with someone dead. Some of the inmates amused themselves and staged contests by throwing their shoes, steel rivets they ripped from the walls, or even severed fingers or toes. Whoever was most accurate or made the most distance won, which didn’t mean much except that no one was bored for a few minutes while the game was being played. Even then, most of the games ended in brawls.

  They hung at the edge of barbarism. It never took long for some prisoners to lose their minds and devolve into utter madness, if they weren’t mad already upon arriving at the prison. Most of the inmates in Cell Block D12 were human, but there were a few prisoners of other races: Vuul, Gorgoloth, Gol, and even a Doj, who held unquestioned dominion over a good portion of the water supply.

  Black sat with her back against the wall. Sweat ran down her face, and her body was so covered in filth she felt sure she’d never get clean. Her bones ached, and her vision faded in and out. She hadn’t slept much since they’d arrived.

  She and Cole occupied a far corner of the room opposite the doors. Dank water dripped down from the ceiling and formed a perimeter around their refuge of dry steel and dark rubbish. The flickering green lamps didn’t penetrate the gloom in their corner, which allowed them to stay hidden in darkness.

  Cole was asleep and wrapped in one of the few blankets they’d been able to get their hands on. The two of them had managed to avoid drawing too much attention. Part of the reason was because Cole had told the wiry Gath that both she and Black would sleep with him if he kept them well-stocked with food and water and gave them time to recover their strength. Somehow he’d fallen for it.

  Thank God men are really stupid, Danica thought.

  Gath was actually fairly efficient at providing sustenance for them, and he was good at keeping their existence a secret. He seemed connected, capable of getting goods and information from others, which was of vital importance to surviving in Black Scar.

  All things considered, we’re doing okay. I figured we’d have been raped ten times over and dead by now. Which I’m sure would just thrill the shit out of Rake.

  Rake. She couldn’t believe he’d whored out the Revenger’s services to Koth, of all places. Selling prisoners to the Ebon Cities had been part of the plan from the very start, but for Rake to actively throw his lot in with the renegade necropolis of Koth meant he’d grown dangerously ambitious, and had bigger plans than Danica had ever given him credit for.

  The alliance between Koth and The Revengers didn’t bode well for anyone. They wouldn’t have enough power to directly challenge either the Southern Claw or the Ebon Cities, but they would still be a force to be reckoned with. And if they decided to join forces with a third party – like, say, the city-state of Fane, which she and the others had recently learned sought independence from the Southern Claw – they could form a new superpower, a new faction in a world already torn apart by conflict.

  We’d be screwed. That’s all there is to it. As it is, humans are barely holding their own. A third side in the war would tear everything apart.

  And what did they want with Cross? Her guts twisted with worry every time she thought about him. Rake had clearly wanted Eric from the beginning – searching for him was what they’d really been doing in Blacksand all along. Whatever they had planned for him probably had something to do with Soulrazor/Avenger, which was just more bad news.

  Were they going to use him? Extract something from his mind? Turn him into a vampire?

  God damn it. We have to get out of here.

  “Dani,” Cole said from out of the darkness behind her. Black hadn’t heard her wake. “Are you okay?”

  They hadn’t spoken much, and most of the words they’d exchanged had been brief and necessary to their survival. None of what they’d said to each other had anything to do with them.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not okay.”

  A fight broke out between a dark-haired couple and a pair of Vuul savages. The Vuul’s near-translucent skin pulsed with excited purple and black blood as they clawed for the female. The conflict didn’t last long. Black wanted to do something, but she’d just get herself and Cole killed in the process. Besides, it would be over soon enough.

  “Dani…” Cole said.

  “No. We’ll just get killed, too.” She looked away. A crowd soon surrounded the scene. The Vuul were amped up with adrenaline and violence. The woman would be dead before she suffered much. If Danica had access to her spirit, things would have been different, but he was still locked away. Sealed off, either by Narcosm their jailors slipped into the water or by some effect of the Fade, Raven.

  “This is bullshit,” Cole said. Her dark hair was much shorter than the last time Danica had seen her. Black’s hair, conversely, was just past her shoulders, the longest she’d let it grow in a very long time. “It’s always like this, isn’t it?” Cole asked.

  “What do you mean?” Danica asked. “Because you’re not talking about the living conditions here in Black Scar, are you?”

  “No,” Cole said. “I’m not.” She sat up. They were side-by-side in the darkness. The sound of water coming into the pipes drowned out the sound of murder taking place just a few yards away. “I’m talking about you.”

  Danica looked at Cole. She still loved her. Lara had a brusque way about her, but something about her had always been so exotic, so intoxicating to Danica. She was a natural beauty, with her olive-colored skin and dark hair, her slight European accent and her glittering green eyes. And they’d had fun together. They drank and played and laughed, had sex deep into the night and on into the morning, stayed out on the town wreaking havoc and making other people smile, moved and drank and danced and kissed and lived more than Danica had ever lived before. She’d never felt happier anywhere else in her life, or with anyone else. Lara had shown her how to live again, and she hadn’t even really tried – just their being together had been enough.

  At least for me.

  “Why did you leave me?” she asked Cole.

  Lara was taken aback for a moment. She looked down at the ground. Her tank top was soiled with grime and water, and her tattooed arms were covered in sweat.

  “I don’t know, Danica,” she said with a sad smile. “I just…things were different. You always wanted to go further. You wanted to keep partying, to live fast…”

  “And you didn’t?” Black asked.

  “No, Danica,” Lara said. She took a breath. “I don’t know what I wanted…or what I want.” She looked at Danica, and her eyes welled with tears. “I don’t love you anymore. I’m sorry.”

  Danica felt tears run down her face.

  You bitch, she wanted to say. After all I’ve done for you. I betrayed The Revengers and got a ranger killed. I gave up my best friend to keep you safe, and I may have screwed over the entire human race in the process.

  She tried to stop her tears, but she couldn’t. They flowed fast down her cheeks.

  That’s on you, she told herself. Cole didn’t do that. You did. And now you have to fix it.

  Cole held her in her arms. Danica hadn’t even realized she’d come close until she felt Lara’s hair on her face, so familiar, so soft. She wanted to hate Lara for not loving her anymore, wanted to scream and shout at her, but she knew she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

  “Are you, uh…you girls okay?”

  Gath was an Islander. He had dark skin and hair, a thin goatee, and large and expressive eyes. His cloak was soiled brown and black with prison filth, and he had an almost rat-like quality about him, with his darting eyes and an expression and stance that made it look like
he was always ready to run for cover. His fingers were long and spindly and covered in old rings. He wore leather bracers and dog-tags, but he certainly didn’t come across as Southern Claw. Likely he’d scrounged them somewhere.

  “We’re fine, Gath,” Danica said.

  He gave them bowls of white-grey gruel from the feeding bins and a large clay bowl filled with water, which he sloshed around so they could hear that it was full.

  “So…what are we doing?” he smiled.

  “I’m going to puke if I don’t drink something in the next ten seconds,” Danica said. “That’ll be sexy, won’t it?”

  Gath sighed and handed her the bowl. Lara chuckled beside her.

  “Well, we need to do this thing soon,” Gath said. “I’m horny as hell.”

  “That’s terrific, Gath,” Lara said. “Not now.”

  Gath pursed his lips in frustration and fiddled with some pebbles on the ground.

  “We may not have much time,” he said offhandedly.

  Danica took a bite of the gruel. It tasted surprisingly good, like cheese and meat, even if it did slide down her throat like a wad of mucus.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I heard something…” Gath said.

  “Heard…what?” Cole insisted.

  “I’ll tell you…for a kiss,” Gath smiled.

  Black set down the bowl, took a breath, and as quick as a snake hooked her fingers around Gath’s head and rammed it against the floor. Blood spurted from his nose and lip. No one even noticed – the violence in the middle of the room had died down, but inmates still lingered there, laughing and mocking each other. No one seemed to care about one skinny man getting beat up in the dark corner.

  “Dani…” Lara said, but Black ignored her.

  “Talk, you little shit,” she hissed as she ground Gath’s face against the steel. “What did you hear?”

  “Okay,” he breathed through a mouthful of blood. Danica eased up enough for him to sit up and talk.

  “God, you bitch,” he started, and Danica moved to grab him again. “Okay, okay…Jesus…”

  “Talk,” she said. “Now.”

  “They’re taking you away, all right?” he said.

  “Which one of us?” Cole asked.

  Gath glared at Danica.

  “You,” Gath grinned. “They’re sending you to the Gauntlet.”

  Danica felt her heart sink.

  Shit.

  FOURTEEN

  ALLIANCES

  He walks through a city of the dead.

  Black corpses stand in rows to either side of the wide road that runs through the necropolis. Bloody runes cover their skin, and the bone blades used to carve those markings lay at their feet.

  The buildings are vague and dark, just shadows and edges in the smoking fog. The height of the buildings reminds him of Kalakkaii, the place where he grew up.

  He recognizes the bodies. They’re people he used to know. He has trouble putting names to faces, but he knows their statures, their shapes.

  His body goes cold as he walks down the lane. Ice ash falls on his shoulders. Frigid wind blows in from the blue horizon. The sky is a pulsing slate of frost. The gelid sun hangs like a stain.

  Bones are piled high in the streets. Some devastating event has lanced its way through his hometown and turned it to a smoking graveyard.

  His bones ache from walking for so long. Kalakkaii is not this big, and yet he feels like he’s walked for hours down the same lane, always passing the same rows of the dead. He’ll never reach the end of that road.

  Kane woke up coughing. He lay on a crude bed. The walls were green steel bolted together with rivets. The clang of furnaces and industrial equipment shook bits of sediment loose from the ceiling.

  He sat up. His back was twisted with pain, and sleepy muck covered his eyes. His was shirtless, and his tattooed arms were both hooked to IVs connected to two different movable mechanical carts loaded with vials, bags and whirring engines.

  Kane could barely keep his eyes open. He’d never felt so tired. He coughed again. He knew he should have been dead.

  “Good morning,” Jade said from the doorway.

  She’d changed out of her traveling armor and now wore a loose gray and brown shirt that was far too bulky for her thin frame. Her cargo pants ended just below the knee, and she wore long sandals wrapped around her well-manicured feet. Kane supposed he’d never realized just how lovely she really was.

  “Good morning,” he groaned. “So I guess I’m not a vampire?”

  “It seems that way,” she smiled. “But only barely.”

  “Swell.”

  Burke stepped into the doorway behind her. Kane stiffened.

  Stanislas Burke was a Warden of Black Scar, one of the only Wardens, besides Danica, who Kane had ever been forced to interact with on a fairly regular basis during his time in prison. Burke had been the head of the hellish cell block where Kane and Ekko were held. A surprisingly personable individual, Burke nevertheless had a cruel streak a mile long. He also had a fresh scar running down one side of his face that hadn’t been there when Kane had last seen him inside the prison.

  “Good to see you’re alive, Kane,” Burke said in his thick British accent.

  “I’d say it’s good to see you, too, Mr. Firth, but I’d be lying.” Kane coughed again. “Pretty scar you’ve got there. Did one of your pets get out?”

  Burke smiled grimly.

  “I’m afraid ‘my pets’ are no longer mine,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “Get dressed, Kane. We have a lot to discuss.”

  “Yeah, like why I shouldn’t stand up and beat the shit out of you,” Kane growled.

  “Kane…that’s not going to do anyone any good,” Jade said quietly.

  “Listen to your lady friend,” Burke smiled. “What’s done is done. Any differences you and I have will need to wait until after we resolve our mutual problem.”

  Burke turned to leave. Jade lingered a moment, and then followed. Kane saw his clothes on a small stand next to the door.

  “Wait!” he called out. His throat was raw and sore. “What ‘mutual problem’?”

  Burke turned and looked at him. “We need to determine how we’re going to save your friends: Eric Cross, and my old associate Danica Black.”

  They were still in the Grey Clan complex. Kane was thoroughly disappointed, but not at all surprised.

  They walked through green steel halls and over metal catwalks. Burke led them past vats of industrial grease that stood beneath curved domes made of iron and pitted bronze. Gouts of steam filled the air, and the grind of massive pistons and gears drowned out all other sound. The refinery never seemed to stop. Scaly humanoid workers moved with grim determination, never pausing to rest or socialize.

  Kane and Jade followed Burke through a complicated network of mesh walkways. The metal ceiling pulsated with orange and green lights as strange fluids washed back and forth through highways of translucent tubing. The air smelled like burning iron.

  “What do they do here?” Kane asked. He felt fluid in his lungs. They were walking in the strange green goop again, and he hadn’t even realized it. “Wait…Burke, what the hell are you doing here?”

  Burke pointed to a door that led into a small cube-shaped building made of grey concrete. A number of electrical cables and dangerous-looking antenna on top of the building flashed with pale electricity.

  They walked through the door, and it closed behind them. The sound of machinery receded to a background haze, and the gooey murk they’d been breathing melted away to clean air.

  I will never get used to that shit.

  The room was large, sparse and riddled with cracks. Drifts of dust and piles of tools filled the corners, and a long pair of benches sat at opposing angles near the center of the room.

  Ronan, Sol, Maur, a pair of Grey Clan wearing gas masks and two Revengers waited in the room. Most everyone sat facing a gigantic and primitive-looking monitor attac
hed to metal beams running up to the ceiling. Loose wires and cables ran from the bottom of the screen to a small but noisy generator that leaked smoke.

  The screen displayed a series of black and white maps, sepia quality images that flipped, shifted and realigned. The screen was controlled by a large control stick attached to the monitor via another cable. One of the Revengers held the controls, the same tall woman with short brown hair who’d earlier drawn the vampiric parasites from Kane’s body. Her partner was an imposing black man with tattoos on his face and thick muscles. Both of them wore the tell-tale dark leather armor of Black Scar.

  The two reptilians were unquestionably the same ones Kane had met before: the brutish giant and the slimmer, human-like creature who’d nearly killed Jade with its magic. Despite the fact that Kane had injured the big one’s knee – it wore a splint around its leg – and that the other one had threatened to wipe out Jade’s mind, everyone seemed at ease. They studied the schematics on the screen while the woman used the control box to search for something.

  “What the hell?” Kane said. “Did everyone go nuts?”

  “Hi, Mike,” Ronan said. “Sleep well?”

  “Maur is glad you’re okay,” Maur said.

  “Yeah, thrilled to be here, been a long time…what the crap is going on?!” He looked at the female Revenger. “You’re name is Turner, right?”

  “Charmed,” she said.

  “And you’re Marcus,” he said to the other.

  “Man, shut up,” Marcus replied.

  Kane looked at Ronan, who just laughed and shrugged.

  “I knew these two from when I was at Black Scar. Which means I’m in hell.”

  “Not yet,” Ronan said.

  “Kane,” Jade said. “Please. Sit down.”

  Burke walked in front of the screens with his hands clasped behind his back. Kane had forgotten how tall the man was. Burke looked more imposing than ever with his scar, and he moved with a certain authority Kane didn’t remembered him having in Black Scar. The Revenger had never given off the impression that he enjoyed his job, but Kane remembered how good at it he was.