Firestorm (Smoke & Ashes Book 1)

by D. N. Hoxa

  The need to close my eyes and keep them closed was overwhelming, but I had no choice but to see. The beak of the phoenix was huge, bigger than I ever imagined, and I only realized it when it closed around half the head of one of the evil spirits. The growl it let out was deafening, and it fueled the phoenix. Then, one of the other evil spirits bit her left wing, and she let go of the first before she slammed her body onto the second.

  From then on, there was a lot of slamming.

  There wasn’t that much space inside the hole, and it was five against one, but there was a reason why the phoenix had lured them in here to kill them. Out there in the world, the risk of being seen was great. Even though a lot of people had already seen her, more could be there, and she didn’t want to risk it. She knew the consequences as well as I did.

  But in the hole, it was easy for the evil spirits to hurt her. I felt her pain like it was mine and wondered if she felt my pain the same way. I heard her cries and saw a lot more of her than I ever had before as she wrestled with glowing monsters that could hurt her just as much as if they’d been made out of concrete.

  Yet she hurt them more.

  It was a blur of movement, blue and orange light, fire spreading to the sides, up and down, dripping down her body and into the depths of the hole we were in, and she never stopped moving. I had never seen her fight before. The few times she’d come out, all she’d done was fly and cry and burn. But now, as I watched her, felt her bite and claw her way into the evil spirits, a new sense of respect filled my chest. She fought the same way I did—she gave it her everything. It didn’t matter if her life was lost right now. It only mattered that she stopped what the bitch was doing.

  Which was calling out to the horsemen again.

  An eternity later, there were only two evil spirits left alive in the hole with us. The sound of the bitch’s voice as she recited the verses reached our ears, and the phoenix knew exactly what that meant. How long until she actually succeeded? Was that even possible—to summon the horsemen like this?

  We didn’t know, but it wasn’t a chance either of us was willing to take.

  The phoenix was wounded. Her blood caught fire the second it left her body. Her feathers were falling, too, and I could actually see them this time. The smallest of them was as big as my forearm, with bright oranges, reds and yellows. Every time an evil spirit bit her, or slammed her against the walls of the hole, she grew a little weaker. She still was a long way from stopping, but how long until sunrise?

  Because when sunrise came, the phoenix went back in. It was the rule, part of the magic of the Fallen that had created them in the first place. No matter when I shifted in the day or night, come sunrise, the phoenix burned all the way and I shifted back to my human shape. I got my body back, no questions asked.

  That’s why we needed a new plan.

  I imagined her flying out of the hole. It didn’t matter who was out there or who saw. Right now, all that mattered was that the bitch died before she unleashed something even worse into the world.

  And for once in her life, the phoenix agreed with me. She was pulled by the evil spirits, one of them wrapping its snake-like body around her wing when she spread them to fly into the night. She used her claws and her beak and her fire all at once, and the taste of foul magic coated her tongue. To my surprise, it was spicy, and it left a really bitter aftertaste down her throat. She clawed her way out of the evil spirit’s hold and shot for the sky, her eyes zeroing in on the bitch, who was now standing right at the edge of the hole, arms raised up. She repeated those words over and over again, giving them everything she had. That bitch was determined, I’d give her that.

  The evil spirits were right behind us, and when the phoenix looked down at them for just a second, I saw her entire back clearly. Millions of orange and red and yellow feathers covered her body, and three really long ones curled into spirals at the end, making her tail. They were completely covered in flames, yet you could still see the colors in them. Just like my skin, they didn’t burn at all. They were the fire.

  An overwhelming desire to take pictures of her grabbed me, but the thought left me as soon as it came, when the cold air of the night slammed onto her face like she’d just hit a wall. The evil spirits were slower, so they were still a good distance away, giving her more than enough time to do what she planned—to grab the bitch and take her for a ride.

  The scream that left the bitch’s lips was like nails scratching a glass surface. The phoenix looked down, and I saw her legs and talons, too, for the first time. Her legs were thick and covered in feathers, but her talons were featherless, and the skin on them was green with a golden shimmer to it, almost like a fish’s scales. The claws at the tips of her talons, that were wrapped tightly around the bitch’s torso, were easily as big as my hand.

  The phoenix didn’t stop flying. She no longer looked back at the evil spirits, but their growls told us that they were still right behind us. Still, she kept her head up to the dark sky and flapped her wings faster and faster until the air was too thin to even breathe properly.

  The bitch was still screaming.

  “Put me down! Put me down! You’re going to pay for this, you—”

  The phoenix moved, threw her up as if she weighed nothing, and I barely felt the movement of her beak.

  The cries stopped abruptly. She’d cut off the bitch’s head completely. Her blood coated the phoenix’s tongue, and you know what? It wasn’t so bad. A vampire would have probably enjoyed it more, but it was okay as far as tastes go. A bit metallic, too. Far better than the taste of magic.

  The cut-off head of the bitch was nowhere to be seen, but her body was still hanging by a leg, secured in the phoenix’s talons. She looked down at it, as if to show me that it was over.

  The bitch was dead, her headless body more than enough proof of it, even before I realized that there were no more evil spirits behind us. They were gone.

  It was over.

  I screamed on the inside—this time with joy. It was over. The phoenix opened her talons and the rest of the bitch’s body fell. We were high, too high to make out anything other than land below us, but once she started flying downward again, it was only a matter of seconds before I saw everything.

  Lexar, Feather Girl, Abraham, the were-lions—they were all there, just as we’d left them, looking up at the sky.

  And the body of the bitch was still falling—straight for the hole she’d opened. Fuck, the phoenix was fast. She circled around the falling body of the bitch three times before she disappeared down the hole, crying out every few seconds, like an eagle on steroids. And every time she moved, her wings, her back, her right leg hurt like hell, but she didn’t mind. She welcomed the pain, cherished it like it was the most valuable thing in the world. I did the same. I loved my pain as much as I loved my happiness. It fulfilled me, made me human, put a greater distance between me and my father. With it, I wasn’t just a creature from Hell. I was a woman who’d gone through her own shit and survived, too. With pain, my life had meaning, and to my phoenix right now, it felt the same way. It was a testimony that she’d won. That she’d done something good.

  For the first time in our life, I felt her need to be more than just a firebird of Hell.

  And for the first time, I felt gratitude that she was a part of me and I was a part of her.

  The others watched us circling in the sky, some in awe, some terrified. I wanted to stop and hug the shit out of them, to tell them that it was finally over, go get Chelsea and get the hell out of there, but it wasn’t dawn yet. My phoenix was in control, and I didn’t even mind. So, when she took off east, spreading her wings wide, I had no regrets. No anger. I dragged myself to the back of her mind and hid there, giving her all the time I could give her before the sun took her away. She more than deserved some time on her own.

  27

  Time for another history lesson, but don’t panic—this one’s short.

  When Hell made phoenixes, they were too powerful to co
ntrol, so the Fallen decided to give them limitations. When the sun rose, the phoenixes turned to ashes, and from those ashes, they were reborn to fight another night. It had been my father’s idea, as he proudly told me, except he hadn’t thought all the details through as he should have.

  Because when the sun rose, and the phoenix turned to ashes, it was defenseless. To be reborn, the seed—which basically looked like a worm containing the phoenix’s spirit, needed the ashes to feed on, to regrow. To live. So, if sunrise caught a phoenix somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, wind or people or anything at all could mess with the ashes and with the seed and kill it permanently, simply by not letting it regrow.

  Yes, I turn into a fucking worm when the phoenix burns. Go ahead and laugh. I don’t even care.

  From the second I was a worm, until I grew back to my original human size, it was about eight hours. I was asleep for the whole thing, thank God, but in the past, when I’d woken up, the pain of growing so fast had stayed with me for days afterward.

  This time, when I opened my eyes, I was happy. I hadn’t died. I hadn’t had a plan when the phoenix took off into the sky, not like the other times when I’d let her out under Joleen’s supervision. To be honest, half of me had already accepted that I might never come back to life again.

  But I had.

  This time, though, when the pain started, it was about a million times worse than it had ever been. My eyes opened together with my mouth, and a weak cry left me. I didn’t know where I was. I couldn’t see anything. I just felt the ashes all over my skin, sticking to me like glue in the most uncomfortable way, burning me like fire never could. I gritted my teeth to keep from touching myself because my ashes needed to be absorbed into my skin completely before the transformation was complete. So even though it burned and stung and tortured me, I had to lay there and take it.

  “You're okay,” someone was telling me. It was a woman’s voice, but I couldn’t tell who it was, though my memories insisted it was Joleen. I had only ever woken up from shifting with her and my father, so it was possible that my mind was just replaying those times now.

  Cold hands on my face.

  “Sassy, can you hear me?”

  Chelsea. Her voice was unmistakable. Did that mean that I was safe? If Chelsea was there, it probably did. And I couldn’t even feel relieved.

  Another sound left my lips, a cross between a scream and a moan, but I couldn’t control myself. This kind of pain I hated with everything in me. It was too much for my mind to handle, and that’s why I constantly blacked out. Sometimes, even when the phoenix was far away from the surface, I dreamed about it, and I woke up screaming in the middle of the night. Now, I didn’t even have the energy to let some of it out with my voice.

  At some point, when I opened my eyes, I saw a silhouette that brought shivers down my back, and it had nothing to do with the pain I was in. I knew who it was without having to see any detail of his face or body. It was my father, and for a second, the idea that I was dead, in Hell, filled my mind. He hadn’t been up here at all in the past two years, so why would he be here now?

  Unless I was Downstairs. But…

  “Sleep,” Chelsea said. “Sleep, Sassy. You’ll be okay.”

  It was her voice. I knew it like my own.

  And Chelsea was not dead. She couldn’t be—I’d never allow it. So, if she was with me, I wasn’t dead, either. I held onto her voice, closed my eyes to keep thoughts of my father away, and tried to do what Chelsea said.

  But sleep only took me for minutes at a time. I always woke up, over and over, and I always felt every ounce of the pain of coming back to life, before passing out again. This time was no different. And like every other time I’d been through this, all I could think about was to beg God that this was the last time.

  28

  The pain remained, but it no longer made me want to pass out. When my eyes opened, I could actually see my surroundings. I was a bit surprised to find myself in my room, in my own bed, all alone—and dressed in my favorite pair of pajamas. The shirt was bright red with a black, glittery heart in the middle. I looked terrible in it—red didn’t really suit me, unless it was the exact shade as my hair—but who cared? I loved it anyway.

  My head was pounding, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was dying for some water, and when I looked to the side, there was a big bottle full of it on my nightstand. Probably Chelsea. Just as soon as I emptied that bottle, and my throat didn’t feel like it would tear if I spoke, I was going to call for her. She was here somewhere, and I couldn’t wait to see her. To see everyone—Lexar, Feather Girl, even Abraham.

  And I also wanted them as far away from me as was possible. The urge to run out the window right now was ridiculous, but it was strong. All my life, I’d kept my phoenix hidden from the world because it was for the best. My father had made sure I understood that, and now that people knew, I had no idea what to even say about it.

  Relax, I told myself, and grabbed the bottle of water slowly, afraid my arm would fall off. The pain had retreated for the most part, but that didn’t mean I’d forgotten what it was like when it was here, and my body felt like it had gone through the sewer, like it was never going to be whole again. But my arm didn’t fall off, and I managed to get a good grip on the bottle and pull it toward me.

  The first thing I noticed was the bracelet. It was there, secured around my wrist, just like always.

  The second thing I noticed was the glass jar that had been next to the water bottle, barely five inches tall, with a wooden cap over it. It was half filled with dark red liquid that gave you the impression it was diluted blood, but it wasn’t. I’d drunk that stuff before. It was actually made with rose petals and a shitload of other stuff.

  The water bottle wasn’t there from Chelsea. It was from Joleen.

  Joleen knew exactly how to mix her herbs to make you concoctions that could take away a hangover in a matter of seconds. They couldn’t take away all the pain in my body every time I came back to life, but they helped. And that jar was normally full, which meant I’d already drunk half of it while I was out. Was Joleen here herself? Had she given it to me?

  Cursing under my breath, I grabbed the jar and drank the rest of the liquid. It didn’t have a strong taste initially, but it did leave a faint aftertaste of roses on my tongue. Looking at the bracelet around my wrist, I flinched. My father had probably found it where I dropped it in Lafayette Hills. Right now, it looked more evil than it ever had before, and I didn’t even know why.

  Pulling the cover off me, I looked down at my body, touched my feet, my legs, my stomach and back, my arms…everything was in its place. The best part—and possibly only good part about this whole thing—was my skin. My cheeks were baby cheeks right now. My fingers slid over them. No acne, no dryness, no pores, no nothing—just smooth baby skin, and it would last for months. The fact that I’d been washed and clothed meant that I’d absorbed all the ashes that my phoenix had left behind when she’d burned to a crisp at sunrise.

  Which sunrise?

  The sun shone outside my window. I couldn’t tell where it was in the sky, but I doubted the fight had been last night. Probably two nights ago.

  A headache was already developing behind my eyes. I was going to find out exactly what had happened after my phoenix left Lafayette Hills just as soon as I walked out of my bedroom.

  But before I did that, I heard footsteps, and they were right outside the door. It opened, and Chelsea’s smiling face greeted me. I don’t know how she knew that I was up, but she must have because she wasn’t surprised at all to see me awake.

  “You bitch,” she said, running to the bed. “You fucking bitch!”

  She practically assaulted me when she jumped over me on the bed and hugged me. Yes, there was pain all over me, but screw it. I was hugging the shit out of her, too.

  It lasted a while, and she kept calling me a bitch, but there’s nothing wrong with that. When she finally let go and got off me, I could breath
e a little bit easier. And see that we weren’t alone in the room.

  Abraham was there, too, standing by the door, hands in his pockets, a huge smile on his face. Angelic would be the word for it. Seriously—the sun hit him just right on his left shoulder and the side of his head, and all he was missing was a fucking halo.

  I cleared my throat and made sure my shirt hadn’t hiked up from Chelsea’s bearhug, then looked behind Abraham, out in the hallway…waiting….

  Where the hell were Lexar and Feather Girl?

  “It’s just us,” Chelsea said, as if she sensed the question in my mind.

  “Where are they?” I asked halfheartedly. If something had happened to them…

  “Lexar got dragged back to Hell. Annabelle went to spy on her family yesterday. Said she’d be back today.”

  My eyes closed, and a smile spread on my lips. At least nothing hurt on my face. Whatever damage the fight had done to me, it had healed. That’s another good thing about coming back from the dead. Physically speaking, you came back brand new.

  “By the way, met your dad. And your, um…Joleen. I don’t even know what to call her. She’s weird as fuck, and your dad just might be the scariest thing I have ever seen in my life,” Chelsea started, pushing my legs to the side so she could sit on the bed. “And, by the way, you bitch! How dare you turn into a fucking bird? How the hell did that happen? And did you kill all those blue things? Those were scary, too. Not as scary as your dad but definitely scary.”

  For the first time since I met her, I realized why people told us both that we talked really fast. She really did, and I was no better.

  “I, uh…I…” Fuck. I had no idea what to even say to her. I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks. “I need to pee.”

  Yes, pee. And think.

  Chelsea helped me up, but I didn’t really need help. My legs were stronger than I gave them credit for.

  “Here. Get dressed,” Chelsea said, and she brought me some clothes from my closet—jeans, a shirt, and my hoodie from Hell. It was washed, it smelled perfect and looked brand new, like I had never worn it before.