Dreadful Ashes

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  And after that, I didn’t move at all.

  “I hate that it has come to this,” Lan said, taking a seat next to me on the cold stone and wadded mass of blankets. “I take no joy in playing the role of assassin.” If I concentrated, I could make out his face, wearing a faint, humorless smile like an apologetic mask. “Though I am glad, at least, that you awakened before the job was done.”

  My emotional helplessness the night before had translated to literal helplessness upon awakening. Lan watched me in silence as I strained like I never had before, grinding my will against the rigid immobility, but the long, thin spike deep in my dead heart held it paralyzed—and me along with it.

  “To be honest,” the Jiangshi continued, finally rising to his feet, “I do not approve of this plan.” He stared down, his body motionless as he studied me, his dead eyes glowing a diffused, luminous red in the darkness. “One of my compatriots even desired that I deliver you to him, so that he might slay you himself.” I watched the red lights shift back and forth, leaving a dim trail as Lan shook his head. “But there is no place in revolution for vengeance.”

  “However, he is correct in that you are an obstacle that must be overcome, a threat far too dangerous to be ignored.” The vampire turned to my card table and retrieved a couple of dark, blurry items. “Indeed, it is a lesson you taught me last night.”

  I didn’t feel very dangerous at the moment, straining with all my might to move—though my body might as well have been nailed to the stone, for all the good it did. I couldn’t even close my eyes; I could only watch as Lan prepared to kill me, my own red-eyed reaper in the darkness.

  “I would prefer that you die in combat, standing for your beliefs. Or better yet, that you had simply heeded my warning and departed.” The Jiangshi tugged on a pair of dark, thick, heavy gloves and inclined his head toward me. “I offer you my respect, Strigoi. But our cause is worth far more than your life, or mine.”

  And with that, he flicked on a lighter.

  I braced myself for the end.

  All he had to do was drop it on me, and my journey was over.

  My thoughts went to Tamara. To Lori. Would they be okay? My mind glossed past my other friends, the few I had. How would Charles manage without me? But even as the inevitable settled over me like a shroud…I still didn’t give up.

  I couldn’t.

  Hidden in a curl of bedding, one of my fingers twitched, a single claw slowly cutting its way free from my flesh.

  Too little, too late.

  But above me, Lan paused.

  Eyeing the metal lighter warily, the Jiangshi leaned low, close to my face, careful to keep the dancing, hungry flame well away from his body. “Do not worry, Strigoi,” he whispered, his voice sympathetic, reassuring. “In the final death, all things are forgiven, forgotten. Those you have failed. Those you have killed. Those you have harmed.”

  He straightened in one stiff, swift motion, and dropped the lighter.

  I hissed quietly as close as my paralyzed body could come to a growl—and managed to poke a hole in the blanket with my one claw.

  Time slowed as I watched the lighter fall, end over end, glittering in its own light like a meteor streaking to earth.

  Silver lightning split the air as Tamara’s whip slapped it out of the air.

  The lighter smacked heavily into the far wall and went out, the lack of flame swallowing the room in darkness once more.

  I tried to sigh in relief, but failed.

  Lan darted for Tamara immediately—but the Moroi princess was faster still.

  “No.” She laid a hand on his chest, pushing the Jiangshi effortlessly away. “Stop.” Lan’s muscles trembled, almost as useless as mine, his eyes a fitful red gleam in the dark. “Now kneel.”

  Tamara’s voice rang out with authority, anger…and utter contempt, the likes of which I’d never heard. Dark veins stood out on Lan’s neck as he dropped helplessly to his knees and bowed his head; Tamara towered over him, regal even in her long, stained nightshirt.

  The Moroi’s eyes shone a bright, icy, unforgiving blue as she calmly took the heavy sword from Lan’s sheath and raised it high overhead. “You should have listened to your own warning,” she hissed, frozen venom dripping from the words, hints of sapphire light glinting from the crescent-shaped blade.

  The dao fell in a lethal arc; Lan’s downturned eyes blazed a baleful crimson as he finally managed to breathe.

  I tried to call out a warning and failed.

  Lan snapped to his feet in one sudden motion; he twisted aside as the blade dropped and rammed his shoulder into Tamara and pushing both vampires from my view. I cursed—silently, of course—and resumed my frenzied straining.

  I twitched a little here and there, but couldn’t even manage to fall helpfully off of the bed.

  Somewhere in the darkness, I could hear the grunts and thumps as Tamara fought it out with the undead intruder; try as I might, I couldn’t even roll my eyes enough to get a glimpse of more than vague motion. As much as I wanted to lay my bets on Tamara, I’d seen how weak she was earlier, how tenuous her grip was, even over her own emotions. I knew I needed to get up and help before something—

  The snap of breaking bone shattered the rapid cadence of blocks and strikes. Tamara gasped, a sound laced with pain. “Ashes!” I could hear her inhuman voice strain as if somehow stretched too thin. “Get up! I need you—”

  Her voice cut off, but the summons sent a thrum of energy along my limbs, a power not negated by the metal thorn in my side, the Moroi’s command tugging at me like a puppeteer’s strings. Zombielike, I shoved myself stiffly to my feet, where I could see Tamara dangling from Lan’s outstretched arm, his claws digging at her throat, one of her arms hanging limply at her side.

  I lunged at him like Frankenstein’s monster and tried to stick my solitary claw in his throat. Lan saw me coming easily enough and parried my blow, knocking me aside as I stumbled. Tamara burst into motion as soon as he glanced aside, arching her back and planting both bare feet in Lan’s face. The impact pried her free, and her back hit the stone floor hard.

  I swung at Lan again, wildly, buying her more time. He ducked easily and simply shoved me away; I nearly fell down, but it didn’t matter. Tamara rolled back to her feet, setting her broken arm back into place with a quick yank, crack, and gleam of sapphire. Ruby red rolled from the shallow punctures in her throat as she rose once more and called out, her voice filling the room. “Halt—”

  “No.” Lan managed one quick stride forward before her command took hold, putting his face inches from Tamara’s as he inhaled. With one deep breath, the Jiangshi’s eyes shone like crimson lanterns, even as Tamara’s luminous cerulean faded easily away.

  The small room suddenly felt empty, voided of Tamara’s power. The static saturating the air abruptly vanished as Lan breathed it all in and Tamara collapsed, her strength spent.

  Rather than let her strike the stone, Lan caught her gently on the way down.

  I wasn’t so lucky. With the Moroi’s power shattered, my body went rigid. Lan watched calmly as I toppled backward, unable to maintain my balance enough to stand.

  I smacked into my flimsy card table, cracking the plastic top and bending one of the shoddy legs the wrong way as I tried stubbornly to cling to it. It didn’t work; I bounced off the floor anyway, my body unresponsive, only able to watch as my poor, battered laptop crashed to the floor and shattered, the screen going blank as it broke apart on the stone.

  From halfway across the room, Lan lowered Tamara carefully to the floor, inhaling deeply. “Now I am truly regretful. I had thought to spare the one of you, at least.” As the long breath drew to a close, Tamara tried to rise, but Lan planted a knee in her chest and pushed her effortlessly back down. She tried to speak, but he simply moved his knee to her throat, cutting off her air.

  My own efforts to rise despite the odds redoubled…and still got me nowhere. Rage saturated the edges of my vision, crimson over monochrome gray, but it didn’
t help.

  “I suppose it must have been destiny for you both to die here, together.” Lan cradled the back of Tamara’s neck in his hand, raising her head toward him. “Just as it is my fate to end you.” He moved his knee aside and bent low over her face, his head hovering close to hers.

  Once more, Tamara tried to speak—but Lan breathed in, absorbing the words. “Shhh…” Lan’s voice came quietly between solemn breaths. “You failed, princess.”

  I screamed soundlessly. My will had overcome both daytime and stakes separately in the past, but faltered and failed to push away both at once. I was helpless, useless.

  Lan breathed in, a steady, lethal rhythm. Killing her. Tamara’s eyes flickered once, as if someone had struck a supernatural cerulean match deep within; Lan’s eyes flared an intense, vivid red as the sapphire spark began to break up and drift free of her dimming irises. “But this failure is not your fault. Rest now.”

  I lay on the floor, a battered, boneless puppet with Tamara powerless to assist me. Watching unblinking as Lan’s face nearly brushed the Moroi’s pallid skin, his mouth gaping and wide. Listening as her breath slowed to nothing and her mortal heart went still.

  No…

  A shadow of static crept through the air as Tamara’s spirit flickered and faded.

  Please…

  Time crawled, an excruciating agony. I gathered every scrap of my will and threw it against the forces holding me down, to no avail.

  Ashley had failed; she simply wasn’t enough. Not this time.

  Please… I begged, trapped within my own dead body. Not Tamara.

  Not like this.

  I reached out in desperation, searching for something, for anything…

  And deep beneath the ancient church, I found my something.

  Something buried and old.

  Something hidden, yet familiar.

  A single spark of pure death.

  I didn’t ask questions. I grabbed it and yanked.

  Ripped abruptly free from its hiding place, something unfurled, power emanating from beneath the very foundations. Like a single, harsh pulse from a reawakening heart, deathly energy pushed its way through the church’s damaged bones, like blood forcing its way through clogged, long-dead arteries until the walls reverberated with power.

  Lan laid Tamara gently back on the stone and closed her eyes before glancing my way.

  Thoughts failed, replaced by rage. My claws burst free and cut into the stone as I slung myself at him.

  I buried Lan’s confused expression with a graceless tackle, wrapping my arms around him, just below the shoulders. Our momentum carried us into the hall; my vision turned to a crimson haze as I tripped over Tamara’s unmoving body on the way out. Stone shuddered as I palmed Lan’s head and pinned it to the wall, drinking deep from the power all around me. I could feel him reaching out as well, trying to draw some of that power into himself, so I simply slammed his head into the wall until he stopped trying, blood already matting his hair thickly to his scalp.

  Rage overflowing, I leaned in and roared in his face, fangs bared. Lan’s eyes lit up in response, glowing brighter than ever before as he breathed in, trying to steal the torrent of energy from me directly. But the energy poured into me faster than he could take it—and then he gasped as I instinctively cut him off, wresting the energy source away from him by force of will.

  Air rasped its way out of me, a feral sound halfway between a laugh and a snarl, and I bore down, planting my feet and grinding his head against the wall. Distantly, I felt the sudden, sharp spike of pain as Lan grabbed the stake jutting from my ribs and tried to push it deeper.

  It might as well have been embedded in iron.

  I wrapped my own free hand around his, crushing his fingers around the stake, and yanked it out myself.

  My heart spasmed as it began to beat once more, shoving pain and dead blood through my veins. It burned; I could feel the hole in my heart, and where the blood leaked liberally from where the spike had pierced between my ribs.

  It managed to make me even angrier.

  Lan struck me with his free hand, kicked at me with both legs in every possible weak point. I ignored him and twisted his arm backward, slowly shoving the stake into his own shoulder, forcing the metal through his dead flesh with his own hand.

  Meanwhile, I dug my thumb claw into the side of his head, cutting deeper and deeper as I dragged it across his face. His inhalation slowed and stopped as, inch by excruciating inch, my claw cut up and across his head, ruining his right eye in a sudden burst of fluid.

  I laughed, gleeful and harsh and ruthless, as I dug my rusted claw into the wound, finally prying a piercing cry of agony from the dead man.

  Then I shoved the stake completely through his shoulder and pinned him to the wall.

  “Tell me again about how you can’t lose,” I growled through teeth clenched tight in an unforgiving grin.

  Lan recoiled and twitched in agony, his one remaining eye alight with pain and stolen power.

  Then he disappeared in an acrid puff of smoke.

  For a moment, surprise blunted my rage, but it came flooding right back. I roared again, vision pulsing red, incensed at the denial of my prize, my vengeance.

  Finally, I spotted him.

  A nebulous cloud of smoke, gray and indistinct even to my dark-piercing vision, but lit from within by one gleaming red Jiangshi eye as it billowed and flowed swiftly away from me. Maddened, I chased it down the hall, but my claws couldn’t cut it, my fingers couldn’t grasp it.

  I slammed into the bulky stone blocking the stairs and bounced off, but Lan—or rather, what Lan had become—simply flowed around the cracks and edges of the barrier, as unstoppable and uncatchable as the very air that carried him.

  Still half-blind with rage-tinted vision, I grabbed the chunk of pillar and pulled it down the stairs; it almost flattened me as I stumbled in my haste to run the fleeing vampire down. How dare he hurt someone in my home, someone I cared about, someone under my protection—

  Tamara. I froze, still hugging the pillar tight to my chest as the mania ebbed and my senses came rushing back to me.

  What if it was already too late? And if it wasn’t, could I even save her?

  10

  Lost and found

  My rage vanished, replaced by the chill of fear, a cold that cut far deeper than any visions Fright had pushed upon me.

  I raced back to the fallen Moroi’s side; before the pillar had finished toppling heavily to the hallway floor, I was already on my knees taking her pulse.

  Nothing.

  The only heartbeat in the underground was my own unsteady, intermittent one.

  I put my finger under her nose, hoping to feel the soft, living warmth of her breath.

  Still nothing.

  “No no no no no…” I ran a bloody hand through my hair, a dead weight in my chest like the world was collapsing. “Please, no, Tamara…please, just be okay…” My own breath came quicker and quicker until it stopped completely. “C’mon, not like this. Not like this, anything but this…”

  And because I was panicked and didn’t know what else to do, I bent down and kissed her.

  Nails like claws latched onto my shoulders as Tamara screamed, a feral, hungry sound that cut across my thoughts and left me dazed. Her legs wrapped around my waist as her eyes flew open: liquid and blue, but dim and murky. She clung to me, pressing her lips hungrily against mine as I instinctively tried to recoil.

  And, like with Lan, I felt something pull insistently at the very core of me.

  Unlike with Lan, as soon as I realized what was happening…I stopped fighting it.

  A couple of quick seconds passed and Tamara wailed again, this time a wordless shriek of denial. Her eyes full of liquid panic, she wrenched herself away from me and threw herself across the floor, scurrying as far away from me as she could manage.

  Where she immediately threw up.

  Confused, I watched her lose her gravy, content to listen to her renew
ed heartbeat echoing off the stone of my home and give her time to recover.

  The retching continued for several long moments before she managed to force out words instead of food. “What—are you—Lan—”

  I was at her side in an instant as she collapsed again, keeping her head from hitting the stone.

  Tamara tried to pull away, but I didn’t let her. “I…are you…” her eyes, now a sluggish, dingy sapphire, stirred slowly and focused on me, the confusion fading. “Oh goddess…I fed on you.”

  “And I’m okay,” I said, as soothingly as my rough voice would allow. “You didn’t hurt me.” I don’t think, anyway.

  “I fed on you.” Her eyes steeled a bit, anger directed inward.

  “You almost died,” I countered. “And I’d gladly do it—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence!” she snapped, some of the vigor returning to her voice. She shook her head; I noticed the silver strands slick with sweat. “You don’t know how dangerous that sentence is,” she continued softly, her eyes glimmering…hungrily? Sadly?

  I shrugged and gave her a squeeze. “I’m fine.”

  “Dammit, Ashes—” The Moroi tried to pull free, but seemed as weak as a kitten. Or maybe it was just my enhanced strength, the borrowed energy of the church still running through my veins. Tamara stared up at me, considering, thinking.

  “We good?” I asked, giving her another squeeze.

  “I don’t know what’s more worrying,” she said finally, taking a deep breath. “That I could have killed you back there, that you don’t seem to care, that Binh Tuan Lan just walked into our church and tried to eat us, or that you just shrug off everything that should properly kill you.”

  I chuckled, searching for my sense of humor. “File all complaints with tech support.”

  She laughed, at least until the tears began. “Ashes, I—”

  “Shhhh,” I whispered soothingly. The sound drew to mind Lan leaning over Tamara, and I ground my teeth, for a moment torn between a sense of anguish and anger. I shook my head and held her close, burying my face in her hair. “Just shut up a minute so we can both calm the hell down.”