Dreadful Ashes

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  Reeling, I dropped her, backing away and shaking my head.

  But I couldn’t get away from the corpses, their dead eyes staring, accusing.

  “So I sacrificed the few, to save the many later.” She stuffed her hands in her pockets, trying to act nonchalant. “An’ yeah, the many just happened t’include me. So what?” She stared at the corpses along with me as I tried to swallow my guilt.

  To my surprise, she lashed out and kicked the young vampire—turning the body over, turning her youthful face away from us both. “You idiot,” she snapped, her voice subdued. “I told you t’run.

  “So yeah,” she said again after a quiet moment. “It didn’t look like you were gonna make the hard choice. So I made sure you had to fix it.” She stared. “It is fixed, ain’t it?”

  After a long moment of consideration, I nodded. “Yeah. I think it is.”

  She sighed. “An’ I’m double damn stupid for still trusting you or your stupid face.”

  I watched her. It was the safest place to look anyway. “So how did you survive that? It’s not possible. Not for a Sanguinarian.” I thought back to that night outside the hospital, with an injured, semi-conscious, drugged, and unfortunately talkative Charles strapped to my back. “But it’s not the first time, is it?” I remembered the distinctive sound of Tamara snapping Aine’s neck that night…or so I thought?

  “Pfft. You think you know me? I got secrets too.” She stared back, hands on slender, blood-slathered hips. “You're gonna hafta buy me a drink or somethin’ first.” She sounded more serious than I liked, and I made a face. “But,” she grinned suddenly, the white of her teeth and snake-fangs breaking through the bloodstain around her mouth, “you shoulda seen the look on your face.” She forced her voice into a raspy, mocking approximation of mine. “Wah, wah, I’m sooooo fucking sorry you died.” She grinned. “An’ then you leapt, like what? Two fuckin’ stories into the air?”

  I stared, unblinking. I raised my hand. “Hold still, I’m going to kill you.”

  She burst out laughing, clear as a bell…if maybe a little strained at first. After a moment, I joined her.

  “But seriously, you ain’t got time,” she said suddenly. Soberly.

  My laughter died on the vine alongside hers. “Wait, what?” I furrowed my brow in confusion.

  “Juris is gonna kill Tamara,” she said simply. “Tonight. Lan an’ Fright should be on their way…” She glanced at her pale, naked wrist as if there were an invisible watch there. “Oh, right about now.” Her eyes met mine: hard, bloody, and serious. “So, if you hurry, you just might be able t’stop them.”

  I turned in the direction of Tamara’s work…and froze.

  “You ain’t movin.’” Aine stepped up, almost shoulder to shoulder beside me.

  Lan…and Fright. I could do those odds with Tamara on the line. I had to. But then again…

  I glanced over at the blonde, bloodied, somehow-not-dead Sanguinarian.

  “How’s your aim?” I asked.

  18

  The one line they won’t cross

  “I wish we did not have to do this in a place so…public,” Fright said, glancing nervously at the backside of the brightly lit Pancake Hut. “In fact, I wish we did not have to do this at all.”

  “Our path is hard,” Lan agreed, adjusting the bandage that covered his missing eye and torn face. “And at times unpleasant. Though we have little recourse but to forge ahead.” He started walking again and favored the small Fae with a thin smile. “But I will stay with you. A small thing, but I hope it helps.”

  “Usually, yes,” the creature replied, his eyes glimmering like ghastly lanterns in the darkness of the alley. “But tonight’s air is thick with foreboding. For all involved.” He cast a worried look at Lan when the Jiangshi looked away.

  “Reading my future again, Fright?” the vampire asked with a faint smirk.

  “I say again: it is far more curse than blessing.” Fright shivered faintly, as if chilled, as he passed an alcove seething with shadows. “Do you think…she’ll be here?”

  Lan frowned, his footsteps hesitating. “I would like to say no.” He raked a strand of matted, purple-dyed hair away from his one good eye. “To reassure you. But it would not be the first time she showed up unexpectedly, to stand in our way at the worst time—”

  “Boo,” I interrupted, stepping out of the darkness.

  Lan took a few steps back, falling into a fighting stance as Fright let out a startled yelp and leapt backward, claws and shark-like teeth bared.

  “Speak of the devil, right?” I rasped. “So here’s the deal: if you two want to go after Tamara, you’re going to have to go through me first.” I set my feet, putting myself firmly between them and the path to the Pancake Hut. “But, as a one-time only offer,” I shrugged aside my cardigan, “if you turn around now, no one gets an assful of pipe wrench.”

  I tossed the fifty-pound, sixty-inch length of heavy, rusted metal casually over my shoulder. “Any takers?”

  “Lan…” Fright shuffled behind the Jiangshi, his huge Fae eyes peering nervously over Lan’s shoulder at my corroded hardware. “We can just slip past her, right?”

  “And kill a Moroi princess before this one catches up and kills us both from behind?” Lan shook his head, his stance relaxed but ready.

  “See? He’s got the right idea.” I nodded encouragingly toward Lan. “Walk away, assholes.”

  “If I were…intact, this might be different,” Lan said quietly. He met my eyes, his remaining smoky orb still serene and accepting. “But as things are, if we fight her while distracted…she will end us.”

  I smiled a flat, humorless smile, death’s own grin peering out through the ragged hole in my cheek. “If I have to.” I dropped my arm and let several inches of rusty wrench slip through my fingers, the lifeless klunk of its head hitting the pavement adding its own emphasis to the statement. “Last chance. Turn around. You don’t wanna cross this bridge.” I let my claws burst free on my other hand, spattering the dirty, cracked alley ground with dead blood.

  Lan took a deep breath, steadying himself. His cracked gray eye never faltered. “If it were up to me, I would refuse this unwholesome assignment and return to our leader with a denial. But Fright has a Deal and cannot retreat from this task.”

  I held out one arm and dragged the heavy pipe wrench back and forth across it, leaving a wide trail of rust across my battered cardigan.

  “I'm playing you the world's most rusted violin,” I replied coldly. Fright winced. “So are we doing this or not?”

  “I suppose we are,” Lan replied solemnly. I popped my neck and knuckles, cracks like lighting in the otherwise silent alley, and Fright and Lan shared a long, unreadable look.

  Then they rushed me.

  I whipped my fifty-pound weapon back and forth as if it were weightless, driving them both back with the threat of crushing force. Lan was still very dangerous, even with one eye, and Fright was possibly stronger than I was; I couldn’t let either of them get close to me—not intact, anyway. They tried to split up and dart around me, but I’d chosen an alley too tight for the maneuver to be feasible.

  Not that they didn’t try. Lan darted in, then Fright, back and forth, trying to distract me, trying to make me slip up. But I kept up a constant stream of swings aimed for their skulls, creating a five-foot area of no-man’s-land with my giant wrench. “Come on,” I shouted, grinning as I swung, pushing the pair down the alley one backward step at a time. “Is this all you’ve got?” Strigoi didn’t get tired; I could literally do this all night if I had to.

  With another shared glance, the rhythm of our dance changed. Fright leapt onto the wall to my right, and tensed to leap again to land behind me. I lunged upward and drove him off with a hammer blow from the wrench’s head, the rusty metal pulverizing red brickwork only a few inches from his face. Even as Fright flipped backward to safety, Lan rushed in close, opening his mouth for a too-deep breath; I felt the vacuum of the Jiangshi’s hunger d
raw at me, and my limbs grew heavy.

  In return, I almost managed to shove my claws down Lan’s throat, forcing him to scramble and retreat as well.

  “What’s wrong, guys? Can’t handle two tools in an alleyway?” I kicked a trash can at Fright as I taunted, knocking the Fae’s legs out from under him and planting him face-first in a puddle of oily runoff.

  They came at me again; Fright threw the trash can back at my face, the garbage inside spraying out, blocking my vision. I leapt onto the wall as Lan lunged at me, claws digging into brick as I dodged away from the trash and into the Jiangshi’s blind spot. Fright cried out a warning, and I only managed to clip the vampire on his injured shoulder instead of crowning him solidly with the pipe wrench like I wanted.

  I leapt back down as Fright tried to dart past me. As I fell, I kicked a stinking, half-empty dumpster and slid it across the alley; the Fae winced as it tipped over and pinned his legs to the far wall. Lan stepped into my weapon’s reach, catching the wrench in both hands and trying to use my own momentum to yank it from my grasp, but I leaned into the blow and smashed him into the wall instead. And when he wouldn’t let go, I jerked him off balance and put a boot square in his chest, throwing him a good twenty feet down the alley.

  With a snarl, Fright grabbed the dumpster in gloved hands and flipped it over on me; I shouldered it aside, sending it tumbling toward Lan instead as the Jiangshi flipped smartly back to his feet, the tight alley resounding with the cacophony of the bouncing dumpster.

  At least with Fright’s fearsome presence here, I didn’t have to worry about any curious bystanders approaching, drawn by the noise.

  I turned and pressed the attack against Fright while I had the chance; the Fae shrank back against the wall, giving the rusty wrench a wide, cautious berth—and for good reason, as a single, solid blow from the weapon might kill him outright. Uncannily quick, he flinched, ducked and dodged away from three such near misses, before standing perfectly still for one moment too long—

  —And I twisted, kicking out behind me, and was rewarded with the thump of impact with an invisible Fright. The mirage dissipated as the heel of my boot knocked him prone and breathless, his real form becoming visible once more, and I straddled his figure and raised five feet of deadly wrench high overhead.

  With a mental sigh of grim resignation, I brought the rusty weight down on his face.

  “No!” An impact from behind staggered me as the swing fell and I stumbled forward, the heavy head of the wrench crushing pavement instead of Fae skull. I spun around as the thrown manhole cover bounced off of my shoulder blades and clattered to the ground; Lan grabbed Fright’s legs and dragged him away from me before I could wind up for another blow. I tucked the toe of my boot under the sewer lid before it settled and flipped it toward Lan, bouncing it off of his chest and nearly knocking the slender Asian vampire down.

  I moved in for the kill, but instead of falling, Lan leapt high, catching onto a dangling fire escape ladder above my head and driving both his boots into my face. I caught an eyeful of shoe and staggered, blinking away dirt and grime. Meanwhile, Fright found his feet again and turned to the wall, tearing free a length of sturdy drainage pipe and tossing it to Lan as the vampire landed.

  With the skilled Jiangshi armed, everything changed. I stepped forward, only to catch the sharp end of a pole in the hollow of my throat, halting my movement before it started. Lan fell into a fighting stance, wielding the pole like a spear, and rifled off precision strikes into me quicker than I could react to stop them, backing away as I advanced, refusing to let me close. He struck repeatedly against my arm, but couldn’t make me drop the wrench; I managed to lash out at Fright as he crept close, chasing him away again with the threat of a crushed skull—but in doing so, I fell for their feint.

  The first couple of jabs into my damaged knee did little but blunt the end of the broken pipe, but the next several weakened it, making it hard for me to move fluidly. I tried to swing the long wrench back and forth in the way to block, but Fright menaced me when I lowered the weapon for too long, and Lan simply stabbed me in my chest wound instead, making me wince away from the unexpected sparks of pain. Slowly, they began to press me harder and harder, with Fright picking up whatever he could find and throwing it at me, making it even more impossible for me to dodge or block Lan’s lightning strikes.

  I stubbornly held my ground, hardening my knee against Lan’s relentless punishment, willing it to continue supporting me. I fell into the rhythm of bracing myself against the jabs to my leg, the wild swings to drive Fright back, the garbage bouncing off my face—and overbalanced when Lan suddenly stopped, leaping high onto the wall, then higher still, and brought his long pole down on the back of my skull with a sharp crack.

  Already off balance, I fell forward at the impact, my knee wrenching when it didn’t bend the right way in time. Before I could even hit the asphalt, I felt the gut-churning feeling as something tore in my damaged joint, and Lan whipped the now-bent pole across into my knee, bringing me crashing completely down.

  I looked up in time to see the pole draw back, then the jagged, battered end dart for my eye.

  I stuck my claws through the manhole cover and jerked it up, deflecting the pole with my makeshift shield. I slammed the head of the pipe wrench down on Fright’s booted toes as he advanced, forcing a pained, piercing yelp from the Fae as I pushed myself to my feet, nearly destroyed knee or no. With a growl of bubbling wrath, I met Lan’s next jab head-on with the manhole cover, stopping the strike cold and bending his pole into uselessness. With the Jiangshi staggered, I stepped forward, snarling, and put my full force into a wide swing at Fright’s chest.

  Hopping on one foot and grasping his shattered toes, the Fae’s eyes went wide as death arced in.

  Lan stepped into the way, shouldering Fright aside, and winced in agony as my blow pulverized his good arm and bounced him off the dirty alleyway wall.

  I shuffled another awkward step forward and brought fifty pounds of iron down on the prone Fae anyway.

  Only to realize he wasn’t actually there.

  Incredibly strong arms wrapped around mine from behind, hooking my elbows and dragging me backward as the small Fae hauled me off of my feet. I dropped the pipe wrench as we strained and struggled, but our strength was too well matched, and Fright had me dead to rights, both off balance and at the mercy of leverage.

  “Now, Lan!” he cried out, right in my ear, his inhuman voice wavering with strain. I could hear his heartbeat hammering as I defied him with muscles that would never tire. “Now! I cannot hold forever!”

  Slowly, Lan rose to his feet, his stiff right arm using the alley wall for support, his ashen complexion creased with pain as his left arm dangled limp. I drove a boot backward into Fright’s thigh as his companion fumbled for the silver stake tucked into the waistband of his sweatpants. I kept on kicking and straining, feeling the Fae princeling’s arms begin to tremble from the effort of holding me back.

  Lan made it to me, held the stake high overhead in his off hand, then paused and realigned it with the hole he’d already put in my side.

  I started laughing.

  Lan paused mid-strike, his one eye suddenly wide and wary.

  “Why…are you laughing?” Fright hissed into my ear, his breath strained.

  “Because the punchline’s a killer,” I replied.

  A crude gunshot bludgeoned the air behind my words, Fright’s agonized shriek cutting the air immediately afterward. My boots hit the ground, and I leaned forward, throwing Fright into Lan’s face and bowling them both over. They went down together, blood pumping from the gaping exit wound just below Fright’s left shoulder, the Fae crying out quietly as he clutched ineffectually at the wound.

  “Thanks for holding still,” I rasped as Lan detangled himself and tried desperately to rise despite his injuries. “I mean, what kind of crazy would come out here without a backup plan?”

  My dead muscles stretched and creaked as I bent and retr
ieved the tarnished pipe wrench. “So.” I slung it over my shoulder, tested my knee for stability, and took a step forward, towering over my two prone, injured enemies. “Where were we again?”

  Fright’s eyes were wide and bright as pallid lanterns, lit from within with pain and alarm as he looked up at me looming over him, rusty weapon again in hand. Lan rose slowly to a knee, his hands up, putting himself between the injured Fae and another strike.

  He froze when I gripped the wrench’s handle tight in warning.

  “We yield,” the vampire said quietly.

  “Lan…” Fright whispered, his voice cloaked in agony. “I can't…”

  “Sorry, couldn’t hear you,” I replied, staring down at Lan, feeling icy rage inch though my veins as I looked at the Jiangshi. “What was that again, mister invincible?”

  “Fright does not deserve to die here,” Lan continued. “He is very young and compelled by debts and deals to another. This is not—”

  “Shut up,” I snapped, my knuckles white on the wrench’s grip. “I’m so tired of hearing you talk.”

  I hefted the heavy weapon and weighed the pros and cons of caving in both of their skulls right then and there.

  Pros: I wouldn’t have to deal with these two ever again. If I let them live, I knew that Lan would never truly surrender, and Fright—if what Lan said was as true as it seemed to be—simply couldn’t, constrained by his very nature.

  Cons: I’d be one hell of a merciless asshole.

  Could I really kill them both in cold blood, injured, beaten, and surrendering?

  I hefted the wrench again…

  …and let it fall to my side, one more crack in the battered pavement.

  “Take him and go,” I rasped, my anger rising…at my myself as much as anyone. “He’ll probably die anyway if you don’t get him help soon.” Lan nodded and moved without hesitation, lifting Fright as best he could with one arm, the other still dangling grotesquely like a pallid, boneless fish. Fright gasped in accentuated pain at the forced movement.