Smoke & Ash (Wardens Series Book 2)

by Heather D Glidewell

  “Are you sure that’s smart?” he asked me as I grabbed the charger and headed back to the house.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if they can track you?” he asked as he held the door into the house open for me.

  My mother walked in from the kitchen, drying her hands. “What are you two talking about?”

  “Dawn wants to set up her old phone, and I asked if that was smart,” Adam said, still eyeing me.

  “I don’t see why not,” my mother said, smiling. “Besides, if they are tracking her here, they’re in for one heck of a surprise.”

  “See? I told you it was okay,” I told Adam.

  “Well, here’s hoping they don’t find us till tomorrow night. I’d feel much safer having this away from my father.” He looked upset for a second. “Is he going to be alright?”

  “Your father is a strong man,” my mother said, patting him on the shoulder. “I just laid a lot on him last night. He already had an idea of what I was; he just had some of the details wrong. Alright, Dawn, get your phone set up and then go to bed.”

  I apparently hadn’t missed much. There was no message from Aaron and no missed calls. I sat there staring at nothing for a few minutes, feeling deflated. All I wanted was for my phone to buzz, to tell me that someone somewhere was thinking about me.

  “I guess I’m not as popular as I thought,” I said to Adam, putting my phone away and getting up. “To bed, my prince. Maybe tomorrow we’ll get news on Aaron.”

  “Yeah, maybe. What’s up with that anyway? I mean, really, why move him at all. Why not leave him where he can be properly cared for?”

  “I don’t know. I just hope Edmund finds something,” I said, climbing the stairs in front of him.

  “Edmund is the big scary vampire, right?” Adam asked as I reached my door.

  “Yes. Now good night, Adam. We have a long day tomorrow.” I went inside and shut the door behind me.

  I waited a few seconds till I heard the door to the next room open and shut, then sighed with relief. Things were getting weird. A change that I had been waiting for was coming. As I lay down on the daybed and rested my head on the feather pillow, I couldn’t help but wonder if Wesley would summon me during the night.

  ****

  To my disappointment, my mother woke me from a dreamless sleep at five in the morning. She looked well rested, but I could have slept another eight hours. I blinked at her and her smiling face, fighting the desire to roll over and pull the blankets over my head.

  “Get up, sleepy head. We have a little drive this morning. Kim and her parents are already here,” she said, shaking me until I was sitting up and glaring at her.

  “That time already?” I asked, groggily.

  “Yes. Adam is already loading the car with his stuff and saying goodbye to his dad.” She threw a pair of pants and a t-shirt at me. “Get dressed.”

  I got up and pulled on the clothes, grumbling the whole time. Even on school days, I wasn’t up before the sun. I would have to get used to it though: this was going to be my life for a while. Early to wake and late to bed. I groaned as I pulled the shirt over my head, picked up my dirty clothes, walked out the door, and down the stairs.

  “Dawn!” Kim rushed to me as soon as she saw me and gave me a hug.

  “Hey,” I said, hoping I wasn’t coming off as unfriendly. I was not a morning person.

  “Shawn came and saw me last night and had a talk with me and my parents. We’re here to do as we are needed. Your mom said that we are going to be staying with Adam’s dad for a bit.”

  She was way too perky for that hour in the morning. I just looked at her with glazed eyes and nodded. My mother appeared next to us.

  “Dawn, I’d like you to meet Tiffany and Kaleb Love, Kim’s parents.”

  My mother directed my attention to a tall, middle-aged man and his equally tall wife. Both had wild blue eyes and black hair, which seemed a bit off since Kim’s eyes were green and her hair was blonde. I could sense something about them, something strong and powerful. Then my stomach rumbled with hunger, and I looked at them in apology.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, holding out my hand; first to Kim’s father then her mother. “Excuse me; I must eat something before we leave.”

  I didn’t like coming across as impolite, but I just couldn’t deal with people at five in the morning. I should have been sleeping, not being polite to water elements.

  “Got a call from Nadine,” Adam said walking in from outside. “Hey, Kim.”

  He seemed quite relaxed as if this was just a typical morning for him. Nothing ever seemed to faze him.

  “Hey, Adam,” said Kim.

  Adam ignored her as he concentrated upon the phone in his hands. “She said she stopped by the townhouse last night. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, but she found it odd that I wasn’t there.” He looked at me and smiled. He looked well this morning.

  “Well, I’m glad nothing attacked her,” I said, opening the refrigerator door, and grabbing a handful of grapes. My mother had stocked the fridge. That was for sure.

  “Yeah, me too. Maybe they learned their lesson with you,” he joked.

  I tossed a grape in my mouth but thought it best not to say anything to that.

  “Did you sleep alright?” he asked, coming closer.

  “Sure. I just don’t do well being woken up before the rooster,” I muttered as my mother motioned for us to get going.

  “I’ll be back in a few days to check on everything,” she told the others. “I’ll send a trainer as soon as we find one. If you need anything just call the number on the fridge. Nothing should find you here. However, if something does show up, don’t leave the house,” she instructed as she pushed Adam and me out the door.

  Kim and her parents walked us out to the front porch and waved at us as we got in the car. Adam was closing the trunk when his father came racing out of the house.

  “Son!” he yelled, throwing his arms around Adam. “Be careful.”

  Adam nodded.

  “You come back to me, now. You hear?” Adam’s dad looked worried. Then again, so would I if I knew my eighteen-year-old son was being sent off to war.

  I got in the Escalade and shut the door, trying not to hear the rest of their conversation. This was something that was between him and his father. My mother put her hand on mine.

  “You ready for this?” she asked, looking serious.

  “As ready as I’m going to be. How long is the drive?”

  “An hour or two,” she answered as Adam got in, his eyes watering.

  “You crying?” I asked looking at him in the passenger mirror.

  “No, there’s just a lot of pollen in the air,” he lied. “It’s really messing with my allergies.”

  I knew he was scared but didn’t want me to know just how much. I knew what it was like to walk away from a parent; this was going to be the hardest part of the trip.

  “So, Adam, what’s your weapon of choice?” my mother asked, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

  “If I say words, will you laugh at me?” he joked.

  “I have so much I can’t wait to show you,” my mother promised him, sounding excited.

  “I have so much I want to learn,” he replied.

  He sounded cheerful enough, but when I looked in the mirror, he appeared troubled.

  “Will I have a bed to fall into when we get there?” I asked.

  “Nope, as soon as we get there you have training,” my mother told me. “We are a few days away from the resurrection, and you have to get your part right.”

  I grumbled and put my earbuds in my ears. I knew it was something that I had to do, but I would have been happier if she had told me I could get a few more hours of sleep beforehand.

  I must have passed out somewhere between the farmhouse and our destination because when I woke up, we were pulling into the driveway of a large white house surrounded by open land.

  “Could you find a house further in the wo
ods? How many acres does it have?” I asked, glancing at my mother as she navigated down the drive.

  “Two hundred. Enough to hide away in, and enough room for those that join us.”

  She brought the car to a stop behind a black Corvette that I assumed instinctively was my father’s.

  “I was expecting the country, but I wasn’t expecting this,” I said, fumbling to get my stuff together. I looked in the back seat and saw that Adam was passed out, snoring softly.

  “He fell asleep right after you did,” my mother told me when she noticed me staring at him.

  I touched Adam’s leg, and his eyes shot open.

  “We’re here,” I said.

  His jaw dropped. “Is this house like the other?” he asked.

  “Yes, it’s protected,” my mother answered as we got out and unloaded our bags.

  When we walked inside, I nearly fell over. The place was magnificent! I could tell that my father had had a lot to do with the planning of the house. It wasn’t dissimilar to the house he had in Dallas, from the marble entryway to the crystal chandeliers. The doors were dark mahogany and the whole place smelled of fresh flowers.

  “Dawn!” My father emerged beaming from one of the rooms to the right of the entry. He put his arms around me and held me close.

  “Dad.”

  “You ready for this?” he asked, pushing my hair back from my face.

  “Of course, she’s ready for this,” Helen said over his shoulder. “She’s ready for anything. I mean, look at her.”

  “Hey, Helen,” I said as she grabbed my hand and pulled me away from my father.

  “We have a lot to do,” she told me. “Minerva is out back waiting for you.”

  She led me from the room, leaving my parents to catch up out of earshot.

  We went out the back door and into the yard, where Minerva and Shawn were throwing fireballs back and forth. It was amazing to see. The white eyes of Minerva were locked on the black eyes of Shawn, and they seemed to be in perfect harmony. I watched for a second as Minerva’s hands shot a perfect white fireball at Shawn and he miraculously caught it, turning the color from white to red. Then they both seemed to feel my presence, and their eyes instantly transformed back to normal as they came toward us.

  The beautiful blonde girl smiled at me and held out her hand. The moment she touched me the power in her radiated through my body, and I felt my skin crawl. The force she emitted must have pissed off the dark side of me, which was telling me to back up.

  “Nice to see you again,” she said.

  “Yeah.” I nodded at my brother as he took his place beside Helen.

  “Okay,” said Minerva, “let me see what you have. Try to focus only on the white light. The dark light will do much the same, but for Earth to function correctly, you need the white.”

  She stepped back, and I closed my eyes. Nothing happened at first. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get the prickle to come. Then I raised an image in my head of Wesley and the bitch he had run off with. All I had to do was think of it, and I burst into flames. I heard Minerva gasp behind me. Then I felt my feet lift from the ground and the sparks begin to fly. When I was done and had lowered myself to the grass, I got a round of applause from the peanut gallery.

  “Well, that was interesting, to say the least,” Minerva said, looking at my brother.

  “Told you she was full of fire.”

  Shawn motioned for me to come and sit at the table on the back porch.

  “I wasn’t expecting that,” Minerva said, sitting down next to me. “I must admit it makes my job a lot easier.”

  “What’s the problem then?” I asked, looking at the house.

  “Well, I told you only to bring the white.” She looked at Shawn then back at me. “You brought both.”

  I shrugged. “I find it hard to fixate on just one side. I keep having them split. The white comes from one side, the dark from the other. Makes me wonder what will happen if I mix them together.” Discussing such things with fellow fire elementals was good.

  “If I didn’t know what you were, I would find it rather frightening,” Minerva confessed. “Your eyes are amazing too.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, frowning. I had seen them in reflection only once, the day that we ran into Xic in the school hallway. I hadn’t thought about them since.

  “One is black, and one is white. However, they are on the opposite side to the power from your hands. It’s not like you are split in half; it’s like you are cross-sectioned somehow. And then there’s your ability to levitate.” She shook her head. “I suppose that makes up for the fact you are flightless.”

  “Blame my parents for that one,” I mumbled.

  “Because her mother and my father were stripped and put on Earth, Dawn was born without wings,” Shawn explained as he lounged in his chair. “Though, from what I’ve heard, she can earn them. I just don’t know how an angel earns her wings.”

  “I suppose we should invest in some bells,” Minerva said, joking.

  Shawn and I looked at her, confused.

  “The movie?” she said. “You know… every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings.” We were still lost. “God, your parents really did shelter you,” she mumbled.

  Minerva finally had the idea for me to only call the power to one hand instead of both. I tried it, but every time I tried to draw just the white, I still had the same outcome. I was becoming increasingly frustrated; I had been able to pull only one flame when the demons stormed my school with their guns blazing. I should have been able to do the same then, but my power was too balanced.

  After hours of constant fireballs and direction, I was worn out to the point that all I could do was fizzle. Minerva cut our lesson off there, telling me that I needed to replenish my core. I staggered into the enclosed porch and fell into a hammock. It creaked for a second and then started to swing nicely. I was officially drained.

  Chapter 26

  All Good Things Must End

  “Your mom is awesome!” Adam exclaimed, plopping down in a chair next to the hammock I was lying in.

  “What did you learn today?” I asked, yawning, and looking at him.

  He flinched when he saw my face. “Dawn, are you okay? Your eyes are gray,” he said, reaching out to touch my face.

  “I’m spent,” I admitted. “No more fire is coming from these fingertips today.” I wiggled my fingers above my head.

  “Your mom showed me how to sword-fight!” Adam burst out, excited. “It was like the movies. I wore one of those awesome face masks and a white padded jumper. I learned all kinds of amazing shit.” He leaned back in the chair.

  “Are you going to think it amazing when you have to use it for real?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know. I guess it depends on who I am using it on.” He jumped up. “I’m hungry. Are you hungry?” He reached for my hand.

  “Yeah, I could eat,” I said, grabbing it, and letting him help me to my feet.

  We went to the kitchen, whispering back and forth about all the things that we could eat right then. My mother was sitting at the table with her head in her hands. She clearly had something on her mind.

  “What’s up, Mom?” I asked as Adam opened the fridge and started to rummage through the contents.

  “I had a missed call from Edmund.” She looked up at me, and I could see it was serious.

  “What’s happened?” I asked, sitting down at the table. I didn’t think I could be any more drained.

  “He hasn’t found them. But he’s still looking.” She touched my hand. “And we will find them eventually.”

  “What with Wesley and Aaron both missing I think I should have just stayed single,” I groaned as I smacked the table with my forehead.

  “You still have me,” said Adam as he popped a cherry tomato into his mouth. “Can I make a sandwich, Mrs. Weathers?”

  “Of course, Adam. I’m sure you worked up an appetite.”

  “Awesome. Dawn, you want one?�
�� He asked, looking at me. I nodded but kept my eyes on my mother.

  “How does someone just fall off the face of the Earth?” I asked, my throat tightening.

  “I don’t know. It makes me wonder who gave them the heads-up.” She sighed. “Have no fear. Edmund will find something out.” She tried to look optimistic, but I knew she was just trying to make me feel better. “So, what did you learn today?”

  “That I’m too balanced.”

  She laughed. “I could have told them that. You are the perfect balance between your father and me.”

  “How did I manage to tip things in one direction or the other before?” I complained. “I mean, I found it easy enough to use one or the other. Now I find I can only use them both together. And my eyes... have you seen my eyes?”

  “One question at a time,” said my mother, chuckling. “Okay, as for you managing things before, I think you weren’t as balanced then as you are now. I mean, you saved those kids in school and the night before Wesley ran off. I think in a way your body balanced itself out based on both the good and the bad happening in your life. As for your eyes, yes, I noticed them the other night. I thought to myself that you were absolutely beautiful.” She touched my face, and I blushed. I had to admit I rather liked them myself.

  “You think it’s going to take me a while before I can do this protection flame thing?” I asked as Adam put a plate with a sandwich on it in front of me.

  “From what I understand, in a way you’ve already done it.” She gave me a mom-knows-all look. So, Shawn had run his mouth off about the other night.

  “That was by accident,” I stammered. “This one has to be for real. I mean, I have to only use the light fire; I can’t summon the dark.” I avoided her look. I hated it when she pulled the mom face on me.

  “You’ll do fine once you figure out how to control one half of your body.” She squeezed my hand and got up. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take a nap. Did Adam tell you he’s a natural with an epee?”

  “With a what?” I asked.