Ashes to Ashes (Barbie the Vampire Hunter Book 3)

by Lucinda Dark

My fangs still hadn't come down. I was far too angry and somehow, that anger left me feeling very much in control. It was strange. I would have thought the opposite would be true.

  No, Satrina said. You are in control because your vampire trusts your instincts in this.

  Probably because my instincts were very close to her own. My desire to torture and kill was very much at the forefront of my mind.

  "Why," I started again, "did you attack this girl? Who are you? Who sent you?" I spoke the questions in a low voice, as if I were asking for directions. The words were swallowed by the sound of his screams. I waited a moment and then another, but still, they didn't die down. I grabbed his hand and yanked it away from his face, slamming both his wrists into the pavement until I felt the bones beneath fracture. They'd heal of course, but my intent was not to hurt his hands, merely to prove a point.

  I stared down at a face, one half coated in blood and the other a pale ivory. A single red eye stared back at me, darting back and forth with a mix of confusion and pain. "You're not supposed to be—" he blubbered, cutting himself off when I shook my head.

  "Stop," I ordered. I could feel my skin knit itself back together along my spine and shoulders, the areas tingling. And even as I sat back and watched, the vampire's eye socket slowly began to stop bleeding. "Why did you attack this human?" I demanded, jerking my head back to Olivia's body behind us.

  "W-we were given four images and asked to make sure the redhead was killed and that one of the other three found the body. We were asked to send a message," he said quickly.

  My eyelids lowered slightly as I held his hands above his head with one of mine. I let the other trail down his face. I couldn't even enjoy the tremble of fear in him. I felt too sick. "Arrius," I whispered more to myself than to the vampire. Fuck that fucking bastard.

  How does he know that you still live? Satrina asked. Ask him that. The others, ask him about the others as well. If he knows about you, then chances are—

  Yeah, I fucking know, I snapped, cutting her off. If he knew about me, then chances were he knew about Maverick and what Torin had done.

  He nodded. "We were supposed to—"

  I slapped my palm over his mouth, the edges of my talons digging into the flesh of his cheeks as I squeezed and snarled at him. "You don't talk unless I ask you a fucking question," I gritted out, bending low. "Do you have any clue who I am?" I asked, removing my hand. He nodded. "Do you know the names of the others—the other pictures you were given? Were they two men?"

  He nodded again. "One was our Master's ... his son."

  I gritted my teeth. Torin had been so fucking right. The knowledge wrapped around my brain like barbed wire, cutting into me in painful spikes of understanding. "What was the message?" I demanded.

  His one eye widened in fear. I opened my mouth to tell him the truth—regardless of what he would say, the result of this would be the same. He would either die slowly or quickly, but I would kill him. I would rip his head from his shoulders like I had his brother and drink his blood, and then I would find Arrius fucking Priest and I would do the same to him.

  "Barbie!" Maverick's voice tore my attention in two. I could feel the mistake even as I made it—knew what would happen and yet my head was already lifting and turning as the vampire beneath me saw an opportunity. Talons ripped through my shoulders again as I was thrown from my position. My back hit a parked car alongside us, the metal denting against my weight as the man clamped two hands around my throat. Sharp nails shredded my skin. I didn't even blink at the pain. None of it could compare to the agony echoing in my chest as I caught a glimpse of Olivia's body sprawled against the asphalt.

  "Is it in your message to kill me?" I asked. He froze, his fingers squeezing. I guessed it wasn't. I pierced his gut again, reopening the wounds I'd made earlier as I sank my hands further until I was inside—beneath the surface of his skin. I grabbed, feeling the squish of organs in my palms and I pulled.

  His screams reached a whole new pitch. I was dropped unceremoniously as he backed away, cupping his arms over his stomach as if to hold in everything I'd attempted to rip out. Booted feet were moving closer. "Barbie?" Maverick's voice was joined by Torin's. The man didn't think twice. He turned and bolted, his body moving faster than the human eye could see clearly. But not me. I wasn't human anymore. I could see exactly where he was going—straight towards Maverick and Torin. I snarled and got to my feet—my ankle rolled and I went down hard. I wasn’t down for long though. I stumbled back to my feet and took off after the bastard.

  "Grab him!" I screamed as Maverick's shocked intake of air reached my ears. Another blur, lightning fast, came out of nowhere, slamming into the escaping vampire. Glass shattered, several car alarms went off as Torin climbed from the wreckage of the car he'd plowed the vampire into. I stopped behind it as Maverick came barreling up. He glanced once at me—panting, covered in blood, eyes blazing red—and the vampire Torin held up from the caved in roof of a dark blue Maserati.

  "Why do I smell human blood?" Maverick's first words reminded me.

  I turned, staring down the row of cars. Olivia's feet were still visible at the end of the car I'd found her at. I swallowed roughly.

  "What happened?" Torin snarled, grabbing the vampire that he apparently recognized as he threw him from the top of the Maserati. The vampire's back hit the ground with a thud as he groaned. His one eye opened and he must have realized that he no longer had a chance. Once you let a motherfucker slide, they start to think they can ice skate and I was done playing with this fool.

  "Olivia..." I couldn't even say it. The words stuck in my throat. The shattering pain of what that meant making them stop halfway.

  Torin froze, following my gaze. Mav cursed. "Shit."

  There were no more words. No more questions. Though I knew we probably should've tortured the vampire for more information—we knew what we needed to know. Arrius Priest knew I was alive. He was behind Olivia's death and he had killed her to send a message. The vampire didn't have to say it for me to know what it was.

  There was nowhere we could go, nowhere we could run to escape him. Anyone and everyone we were close to would be subject to the same treatment. And if he knew about her, then there was no doubt in my mind that he knew about Maverick's parents as well. There'd been four pictures, the vampire had said. Mine, Torin's, Maverick's, and Olivia's.

  "No-No-No—" Torin's talons tore through the vampire's chest and came out on the other side holding a cold heart, dead, having long since stopped beating. The pain must have been intense, but I, too, was not finished. A need—a desire—I hadn't felt in weeks came over me. Something inhuman. Not vampire, though. Satrina's abilities poured through me, demanding sacrifice.

  "Wait," I whispered when Torin would have torn the man's head off his shoulders and ended his undead life. He froze, talons at the ready, his head turning towards me.

  Consume, the voice said. Devour. Inhale.

  I felt the tips of my fingers tingle with power, felt it flood the rest of my limbs—overpowering my vampire's shrieks for blood and killing. I took a step forward, reaching out and pushing Torin away slightly as I bent down. The vampire whimpered, a massive hole in his chest. It was attempting to close, the edges healing over slightly. I reached inside and hooked my fingers, talons and all, into the edges and yanked him up, parting my lips as I let the demonic part of me take what it would.

  ...Consume...

  ...Devour...

  ...Inhale...

  "Jesus fucking Christ..." Maverick's whisper was loud in the silence of the parking garage. Somewhere along the time span, the car alarms had stopped blaring. There was no noise other than that of our breaths as I consumed the vampire in front of me.

  His hair went from a pale blond to pure snow white. His skin grew sallow and withered, age lines crept up his skin the longer I inhaled him. He tasted foul on my tongue. The rot of decay coated the back of my throat and still, I kept going.

  What had once been a handsome, st
rong face of a young man became that of a decrepit old man and then nothing. He was absolutely nothing. Ash drifted from my fingertips.

  "Shit," Mav said again. I could understand his inability to say anything else.

  I might have tried, too, to come up with something if the world hadn't grown dark. My legs gave out on me, but before I could hit the ground two strong arms came around me and as I tried to fight against the oblivion, two distinct vampire-red eyes stared down at me. Torin's mouth moved. I closed my eyes, but not before I managed to read his lips.

  I'm sorry, Barbie.

  Thirty-Six

  Barbie

  Some lines were never meant to be crossed. For me, Olivia was one such line. She should’ve grown up and gotten married and had kids and done all of those other things that people did. She should have completed every item on the grocery list of life and now she never would.

  I wanted to ask, why her? But I knew the answer. As unique as Olivia was—her personality like a whirlwind of excitement and broken edges of too much of everything—she wasn’t special. She was ordinary, as unoriginal as a person could be.

  Why her? She didn’t matter to the universe. The better question to ask would be, why not her? If it could’ve been anyone else, though, I couldn’t stop myself from piecing together the shattered fragments of my thoughts—I wish it had been. Anyone else but her. It was morally and ethically wrong to want the death of someone innocent, but I did. Over the next several weeks as the confused police tried to piece together what had happened in the parking garage, I wished none of it had happened. I wished none of it was real. I wished someone else had been killed.

  There was no worry that the police would find anything—Torin had taken care of cleanup. As he always did. The bodies of her murderers had been nothing but ash by the time blue and red lights had arrived, flashing across the pale gray and white of the parking garage as I’d come to again, groggy and carrying the massive burden of a migraine forming behind my eyes. The migraine had grown only in the days following Olivia’s death and the pain didn’t seem to be willing to lessen. Instead, it cropped up—fading and coming at random intervals—reminding me that I’d used my demonic powers and therefore, a release was due. I knew what would help it—what would make it go away, but it was hard to feel horny when your best friend was dead and it was all your fucking fault. And even though it could’ve been anyone else in the world, the fact was that it was Olivia who had died, and it was Olivia because she’d been my friend, because she’d known. That was as true as anything. Olivia was dead because of me. Her life snuffed out in a horrible display of supernatural strength and vengeance. She was a casualty in my war. Not the first and most certainly, not the last. But the first truly innocent one—the only one who hadn’t had anything to do with the supernatural before me. She had been dulled and snuffed out, turned into nothingness—as whatever gave her life, whatever animated her body—had deserted her. It broke me in ways that watching my own family slaughtered hadn’t, in ways I thought I’d overcome.

  My parents had fought against their deaths. So had Brandon for that matter—if only to save me. They’d fought against their deaths. Whereas sweet, trusting, Olivia hadn’t even been given the fucking chance.

  The world was a cruel place. It would shatter you if you let it and there was no more denying the reality anymore. I was shattered.

  Yet, I still hadn’t cried. It was like I was broken beyond repair.

  "Just ask her, honey." I heard Beth's voice through my bedroom door, followed by Maverick's.

  "She's not going, Mom. Just go without us."

  "She was her friend—"

  "And she's understandably upset," Maverick interrupted her. "Just ... leave her be."

  "I just want to see if she's okay," Beth insisted.

  "She's not," Maverick said. I didn't even flinch. He was right. I was as far from okay as fucking possible. "Remember how you felt when you heard about her mom's death? And you hadn't talked to her in years. Imagine how she feels and double it." And it still wouldn't be enough, I thought.

  There was a brief silence and then I heard it, the tell-tale hitch in Beth's voice before she spoke that told me she was holding back tears. "I just don't want to leave her alone right now, sweetheart," Beth whispered quietly.

  "She's not going to be," Mav replied. "I'm staying with her." There was a brief silence and the rustle of fabric that only my sensitive hearing could detect. I assumed they were hugging, but I couldn't know for sure. "Go," Mav said a moment later. "I'll take care of her."

  "Just let her know that we're here if she needs us," Beth said.

  "I will," he promised.

  I sat against the window, staring out over the backyard to the great valley that reached beyond the McKnight estate. I found myself thinking back to the first day I'd met Olivia—how annoying I'd found her. I wondered when that irritation at her presence had altered. When had it changed? A knock sounded on my door—not unexpected, and yet it still drew me out of my thoughts. Before I had a chance to answer, though, the door opened and Mav stepped inside the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

  "They went to the funeral," I guessed.

  "Yeah." He approached slowly.

  "Where's Torin?" I asked. I slid a hand over my abdomen as a cramping pain slid through my gut—residual discomfort from my actions in the parking garage.

  "Probably attending," he said.

  "Why?"

  "To see if there's anyone he doesn't recognize," he answered.

  I nodded. "To see if Arrius sent more messengers."

  Mav hitched one shoulder. "Of sorts." Of course, because they wouldn't be vampires. Not during daylight hours. I pivoted back to the window.

  "Barbie?"

  "What?"

  "Are you okay?" I could feel him at my back, standing close enough that the heat of him warmed me even through my clothes.

  "What do you think?" I asked. He'd already answered that for Beth. He knew the answer for himself.

  "I'd like to hear you say it," he said.

  "What? That I'm not?" I snapped without looking back. The pain in my gut grew sharp claws and ripped deeper, leaving me breathless.

  "It's okay, you know."

  "What is?" I panted.

  "To cry."

  "Fuck off, Mav," I growled, hating my vulnerability and my agony. "I don't need your pity party—I'm throwing one on my own just fucking fine."

  "You don't need to be throwing a pity party, though, now, do you?" he asked.

  Irritation rocketed through me and I gave up on trying not to look at him. I whirled around, looking up into his dark brown gaze. "What the fuck do you want from me?" I asked. "Seriously? What's the point in coming up here?"

  "You haven't come down since you got home," he replied. "It's not like you."

  "You know what else isn't like me?" I shot back. "Getting innocent high school girls fucking slaughtered."

  "Don't give yourself so much fucking credit," he snapped back.

  I reeled as if he'd actually physically slapped me. "You can fuck the fuck off, Mav," I gritted out. "I don't need your shit, especially not right now." I turned back towards the window, leaning forward and pressing my face against the cool glass.

  Instead of leaving, however, he decided that staying and being an asshole in true Maverick fashion was better. "Tell me something," he urged even as a groan echoed out of my chest. “Have you ever actually cried, Barbie?”

  “Of course I’ve cried,” I said. “Everyone has. No child grows up without crying.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” No, I knew it wasn't. “Did you ever cry for your parents or your brother? Did you cry for your family?”

  “I…” I cried during the torture. I cried when I’d been held down and forced to watch. I cried when my father had died and my brother’s life was slowly being leached away. But after I’d decided to fight back. After I’d picked up my father’s sword … there’d been no more tears. It was as if I'd cried my
self dry. I'd come to the realization that crying wouldn't do anything. It wouldn't save them. It wouldn't bring them back. So, I'd simply stopped doing it. “What fucking good would crying about it do me?” I asked. "Crying doesn't do anything but show how weak you are."

  “Crying is good for you,” he said. “When you get hurt—a bruise, a cut, a physical wound of any kind—there has to be a time period for healing. Color blooms over the skin. Blood oozes out. Scabs occur. There is a balance in pain and grief. But if no blood comes out, if no bruise happens, if no scabs form—then there is no balance. If your body is trying to heal and you keep ripping the scab off, then your wound will never close. When the wound stays open, it can’t heal. You’ve been hurt, Barbie. You’re in pain—such indescribable pain. But the wound isn’t on the outside. It’s on the inside. The thing is you haven’t forgiven yourself for how you got that wound. And without forgiveness, your wound remains open. If it stays open for too long, it’ll start to fester.”

  Silence was left oscillating on the steepest cliff imaginable—something I was scared to even touch. But he wasn’t. He let it rest, let it linger between us until some unknown alarm went off in his head and he was ready to continue.

  “You should cry for them, Barbie,” he said. “Because you have a very long life now and it would be such a waste to see you die even as your heart beats on.”

  What the fuck was I supposed to say to that?

  Perhaps, you should say the truth. I scoffed as Satrina’s voice broke through the thoughts and emotions filling me up with something other than the sharp spikes being yanked through my insides.

  What is the truth? I asked. The truth is subjective. The truth is, I should’ve never told her about vampires in the first place. I should’ve never come here. I should’ve just … stayed away.

  “Barbie?” My eyes burned, so I shut them at the sound of Mav’s voice. I couldn’t look at him.

  A single tear escaped from behind a closed eyelid and slid down the outside of my cheek. My breath caught in my chest—strangling me as it reached my throat. My lips parted on a harsh exhale. “It’s all my fault,” I blurted. “She died because of me—I killed her. I did it.”