Dreadful Ashes

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  Before they could get out my reach, I whipped the wrench up, placing the iron head against Lan’s ashen cheek.

  “But you,” I growled. He froze, one eye wide. “I have zero pity for you. Fright might be stuck here, but you chose this bullshit.” Lan took a step backward, away from the wrench, and I let him. “Get out of here. But the next time we meet, I will end you.”

  After a moment, Lan nodded with calm, infuriating acceptance. “I understand, and I accept. Thank you.”

  His response made my eye twitch, and I considered clubbing him to death all over again. But the vampire, even injured, wasted no time in escaping my easy reach and carrying Fright to safety. He retreated down the alley, disappearing around a corner and into the Birmingham night.

  I sighed at my own stupidity.

  “You shouldn’t ‘ave let em go,” Aine chided me, dropping lightly down from the rooftop. “I sure wouldn’t ‘ave.”

  “Well.” I took another wheezing breath. “I’m not you.” I looked over at the slim, red-eyed Sanguinarian. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Eh.” She shrugged, those dangerously red eyes harboring a note of humor. “You’ll eventually get tired of everyone’s bullshit too.” She held up the old musket and pouch of iron shot I’d had her collect from the collector’s house, the one I’d accidentally desecrated twice. “Mind if I keep these? Was a bit more fun than I remembered.”

  I shook my head. And grinned. “I'm just going to say it once: this plan was sheer genius.” I stared after the vanished Fright. “Glad I remembered it, but I do hate to have to put an iron ball into him like that. If you hadn't missed his heart, he would have died right here in this shitty back alley gutter.”

  “Don't fuck your arm patting yourself on the back.” The vampire served me a flat look. “‘Cause you're not, they're not, an’ I didn't.”

  I stared back, completely lost. “Say again, but slower. And in English, instead of whatever it is you normally speak.”

  She snorted. “First off, I didn’t miss. I told you my aim was top-fucking-notch.” Now it was my turn to snort. “Second, they didn’t make musket shot out of iron back then. You’re wrong.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “What. The. Hell. Yes they did. Around the Civil War and before, they made musket shot out of cast iron because it was easier than lead to—”

  She rapped on my head again. “That was cannon shot, you twat.” She stared at me. “You’re wrong. And you’re damn lucky I knew it, too.”

  Frowning, I powered up my phone…long enough to prove her right. “…Oh.” A faint chill went down my spine, and I put my phone away. “Oh. Guess I almost got myself killed, then. Huh.”

  She grinned. I noted she was still covered in blood. Mostly her own. She looked like a murder victim…which, I supposed, was rather appropriate.

  I closed my eyes for a moment. It was still far too early to have been such a long night.

  “Wait.” My eyes popped open so I could stare at her accusingly again. “If those,” I pointed at the sack of shot now dangling from her belt, “are lead, then how come Fright…”

  “‘Cause I didn’t use those, you stupid tosser.” I watched as Aine held out a hand, pinching a ball of viscous Sanguinarian blood between her fingers, the small sphere slowly darkening and hardening. It smelt cloying, as usual, but also…

  “There’s not that much iron in blood,” I protested.

  “There is when I want it to be,” she tossed the ball carelessly over her shoulder with a shrug. “I might not can take you in a fistfight, but I got a few parlor tricks up my sleeve. It won’t be as permanent a wound as the real thing, but it’ll sure hurt like a bitch.” She put her hands on her hips and gave me a wink. “See? Auntie Aine had you covered all along.”

  I put a hand to my temples, certain I felt a migraine coming on.

  “An’ good call on my stayin’ out of the way. That thing nearly gave me the loose shits from three roofs away,” the Sanguinarian shuddered. “Now, get the ‘ell out of here and check on your woman. I gotta go eat before I lose my shit.”

  Common sense barely stopped me from walking into the brightly lit Pancake hut interior, covered in blood, with holes in my face, and toting a splattered, battered five-foot pipe wrench like something from a campy horror movie. I stopped and peered inside from a safe distance instead, looking through the floor to ceiling glass windows, and realized it didn’t matter anyway.

  Tamara wasn’t in there.

  The chill of fear returned to my spine, this time to linger. I walked away from her workplace, lost in my thoughts, my mind racing. What if I’d taken too long gabbing with Aine in the aftermath? What if Lan or Fright hadn’t actually given up? Had the pair tricked me into letting down my guard? What if the whole assassination attempt by the two of them had been a ruse, or—

  I stopped in my tracks as a man screamed in terror.

  I looked up to see Tamara walking out of the shitty strip club down the street, a stranger’s arm tight around her shoulders, another man’s arm gripping her bare waist posessively.

  We both froze, meeting each other's eyes, as the pair of half-drunk men pressed tight against her—one missing his shirt—scrambled, stumbled, and fled at the sight of me.

  19

  We were almost lost

  “This isn’t what you think it is,” Tamara said.

  “The last time someone said that.” I thought of lying in a parking lot, bleeding alongside Charles, waiting for the woman who’d deceived me for years to finally leave me, “it didn’t turn out too well.”

  Tamara’s eyes flicked between emotions, sapphire lightning too quick for me to follow and process. “This isn’t the same. And I’m not Lori.” She took a deep breath. “Please. I hear you. But let me explain.”

  We stood for a moment and stared at each other.

  “Please?” she whispered.

  o o o

  We retreated to my church, the closest thing to a home I had left.

  “Do you want a coat, or something?” I gave Tamara’s “clothes” a critical eye. Her frilly, neon pink skirt was so dangerously short that it did little to hide the black thong underneath; the equally garish bandeau that passed for her top left so much underboob I feared I might go blind from either staring too much or trying not to stare. Not to mention the fact that both were barely more opaque than the lacy, detached sleeves and thigh-high stockings she wore. “You’ve got to be cold.”

  “Ashes…” The Moroi sat on the edge of her little bed, elbows on knees and face in her hands. She looked up at me. “I just want you to know, I do work at the Pancake Hut. I wasn’t lying about that.”

  “Just after your shift at the strip club?” I guessed.

  “Yeah.” She sighed. “Mostly cleanup and serving the late-night crowd. And some extra pick-up shifts here and there.”

  “Well, that explains some of those weirdly long shifts I dropped you off for,” I took a breath. “And the fact you discouraged me from hanging around during working hours. But, to be fair, you never told me you weren’t working at a crappy all-hours strip club.”

  “What would you have preferred I say? That I took a side job working at a skin bar so absolutely shitty that there’s no chance my family would ever wander in? That I was reduced to working at a filthy hole in the wall, selling extras to customers just to keep from starving?” Her sapphire eyes glinted dully in the low light, devoid of any of the anger or fire I expected. “That I was ashamed?” Instead…they were just…distraught. Tired. Hungry. “That I had no idea how I could start a relationship with you while…entertaining…customers five nights a week a few blocks over?”

  “But wasn’t…” Taken aback by the revelation, my upset shifted to confusion, but didn’t go away. “Wasn’t working at the Hut doing it for you? The whole ‘lust from the late-night crowd’ thing? Or even just…stripping? Did you really need to…” It was hard to finish the thought.

  She looked away, refusing to meet my eyes. “Normally? Mayb
e it would have. But not sipping off of the tiny crowds of worn-out souls a place like that attracts,” she replied bitterly, disgustedly. “Not when I know that drinking too deep from one of those assholes too many times would turn up a hospital visit—or a corpse—that Liandra would trace right back to me?” Not for the first time, I cursed Tamara’s elder sister. “No. Not good enough. I tried. Goddess, did I try. I didn’t think it would be so damn hard…”

  Tamara shook her head, tears splashing the stone by her feet. “I thought I could make it without my family. I wanted to go it alone so badly when I was younger, you know? But I don’t just miss them. I need them.” She scrubbed hard at her eyes with balled-up fists, scraping her alabaster skin with long, red-painted nails. I reached out to stop her, but she didn’t see the motion, and the marks slowly disappeared on their own. “I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to go this far. But inside, I feel…hollow.” The way she said the word, underlined with an ethereal sense of urgency, left me chilled. “I’m so hungry. And it just gets worse, bit by bit, never better. And it…it scares me, Ash.”

  She finally looked back up at me, her eyes shimmering and wet. “I’m scared I’m going to lose myself, you know. One way or the other.”

  I shook my head, trying to find the words for how I felt. I’d rather everything be a lie, than for you to suffer like this. “I…I didn’t know it was so bad.”

  “You weren’t the only one who starved after She threw you off that bridge,” the Moroi said softly. “There was nothing for me…except for a few poor people who were too good at their jobs, that came too close to finding me…and never lived to report it.”

  I rocked back on my heels, remembering the people who had gone missing in the manhunt; I’d never considered the fact that they’d disappeared after Meladoquiel had already departed Tamara for Charles. “Oh, Tam…”

  “Six more souls, gone, because I’m too scared to just let myself die,” her whisper was laced with bitter contempt. “Because I was trying to save myself and my cousin.” She glanced up at me and her face fell further. “Oh, and I also had sex with Lori.”

  “Me too?” I offered alongside the best smirk I could manage. It didn’t help. “It all makes more sense now. You weren’t just trying to survive all this time since your family disowned you. You were trying to recover.”

  “Turns out freedom isn't all it’s cracked up to be,” she breathed, dropping her head back into her hands.

  “Tam…I’m so sorry.” I let my shitty knee give out and dropped down in front of her, trying to take her hands in mine. “And I wish I’d understood. If I’d known what you needed, how hungry you were…” I gave up chasing her gaze and gently grabbed her chin, turning her to look into my eyes. “…all you had to do was ask.”

  Her eyes flashed as they met mine, a flicker of sluggish liquid, and she took a single, heavy, hungry breath. Then she shook her head, pulling away, and it was gone. “What? So I could accidentally kill you too?” She tried to pull away from me completely, and I tried to hold on. “Never. Not again.”

  Again? I furrowed my brow. “Still, all of this…you could have just told me. Why all the deception?” Try as I might, the last word was still a little bitter, and I knew she heard it too.

  “Because…” She stifled a sniffle. “Because…” She took a frustrated breath, dashing away tears with a fist—

  —Then leaned in and kissed me, full on the lips, her fingers entangling themselves in the shaggy hair at the back of my neck, pulling me against her so hard it had to be hurting her face. When the kiss finally sizzled to a stop, she rested her forehead against mine and stared into my eyes.

  “Because I’ve been falling for you for a long time, you idiot,” she said simply, her sapphire eyes shimmering. “And because you deserve better. Better than Lori…and better than me.”

  I finally blinked, slowly trying to recover. “Me? Why?” I blurted it out without thinking.

  She thumped me in the arm. “You dumbass,” she sniffled. “You really have no idea, do you?”

  I spread my hands, completely at a loss. “No?” I replied eventually. “Tam, I’m messed up too. I’ve let so many people down, failed so much, hurt too many people who didn’t deserve it. And now I’m just trying to do a little better every damn night, to make up for my mistakes, to move in the right direction for once. And all that’s without even counting…” I gestured generally at the ruined side of my face, my torn joints, the holes and rents in my torso.

  She slapped me gently, so lightly I couldn’t even feel it, and the gesture turned into a caress that ran along the ragged hole in my cheek. I flinched and tried to pull away, but she framed my face with her other hand, softly trapping me.

  I encircled her soft, pale wrists with my dirty, scratched hands, resisting her with a sad smile. “Like it or not, I’m hideous, Tam. And that’s just how it is.”

  She made a frustrated noise. “Dammit, Ashes. I thought I made it clear months ago that how you look doesn't matter. I care about you.” Her breath was warm, her face so close to mine.

  I shook my head, displacing her hands. “That doesn't add up, Tam. I’ve tried to move forward so many times since then. But you’ve pulled back over and over…it doesn't make sense. Or at least, I don’t understand.”

  Tamara frowned softly, searching my eyes with her own. “Ashley…I wasn’t sure you were interested.”

  “Say what?” I could only stare back. “How could you not know? You’re a Moroi.” I gestured at her and her…costume. “Besides, have you seen yourself? I’m not that dead, Tam.”

  Her puzzled look disappeared in a brief snort of half-hearted laughter. “You’re…weird. I can read your body language, your verbal cues. But something in your emotions is…missing. Like they’re blunted, or far away. Hard to grasp. Everything but the rage, which is too real.” She suppressed a shudder, almost before I noticed it. “It made me…doubt myself.” Now it was my turn to reach out, and her turn to dodge it. “Besides, if anyone’s damaged goods here, it’s me. I had that demon living in my head. She left me feeling…wrong inside. Stained. I did…awful things. And I’m the one having sex with strangers that disgust me,” the cutting edge to her tone made me nearly cringe, “just to stay fed, trying to survive off of people I’m not tempted to eat, hiding it from someone I care about because I’m disgusted with myself, all just to make it one more—”

  “Tam!” I raised my voice, breaking through her self-directed condemnation. She stared. “I don’t care.” I grabbed her shoulders, held her gaze. If she had trouble feeling the depth of my emotions, I’d show her instead. “Does this whole mess hurt? A little. But it’s okay.” I watched as her chest rose and fell, her heartbeat elevated. “So we’re both fuckups. We can work it out. You’re—we’re—worth it.”

  I didn’t register her movement until she’d already kissed me, but I didn’t have to for my body to respond of its own accord. Tamara’s lips met mine, hot and hungry. Her tongue caressed mine, running wetly across my cracked lips as she pressed against me, squishing her soft, ample, barely-covered breasts against my chest.

  And my very, very dirty shirt.

  Her impassioned kiss lingered, at first slow, then heavy and insistent once more. One hand tangled itself in my hair, flat black strands spilling from an alabaster fist. The other scraped down the side of my face, tracing the edge of my torn cheek, and continuing down my neck, crimson nails scraping hard against unfeeling skin. The collar of my shirt got in her way, and she tugged at the stiff fabric with eager irritation, then gave up just shy of tearing the cloth, only to quickly swap tactics and come up from underneath instead. She pushed my shirt aside, running her thumb along the long cut across my torso where I could almost feel the tender pressure, scraping her nails through the caked, dried blood and—

  I pulled away, leaving her gasping and off balance. “Tam, I can’t do this.”

  The Moroi almost glared at me in reply, her eyes viscous and molten, one hand still anchored tightly
in my hair. “What?” she said, exasperated. “I thought you just said—”

  I put my fingers to her lips and gently shook my head. “Oh, believe me, I want you. But I’m also so, so gross. And this time, I’m not talking about grievous tissue damage.” I mostly wasn’t talking about that.

  The light in her eyes faded by degrees. Then she rolled them at me. “Really? You don’t have to be so conscious of it. I told you I don’t care, and I meant it. I’m not like Lori was, and you need to accept that—”

  “Tam!” I had to cut across her again. “Tam. Look at me.” I paused for effect. “You get as nasty as I am and see how sexy you feel.” I paused and looked at the pale, perfect Moroi again. “Okay, bad example.”

  Tamara considered me for a moment…then smirked. Slowly, the sapphire in her eyes started to stir again, and she rose, but not before trailing a finger under my chin, almost pulling me along with her via a single, simmering glance. “Okay then,” she smiled deviously. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  I swallowed hard and moved to follow her command…only to have my knee give way with an extended, meaty crack.

  “Oof,” I commented, hitting the floor again.

  She was by my side in an instant, concern displacing a chunk of the passion lingering in her eyes. “Ashes! What’s wrong?”

  “Not much? Though I might have overdone it earlier kicking Fright and Lan’s asses when Juris sent them to kill you.”

  She stared, trying to make certain I was serious. “No shit.” She smiled again, warmly, fondly. “And you really don’t get it.” She shook her head; I had no idea what she was talking about. “So you fought off Fright and Lan? At the same time? How?” Tamara tossed an arm around me, supporting me, shouldering part of my burden until I could get on my feet and functioning again.