Ashes to Ashes (Barbie the Vampire Hunter Book 3)

by Lucinda Dark

  Olivia’s funeral had been, in a word, bleak. Not shocking for any funeral. This one just meant a little more. Barbie had been missing, as had Maverick, but neither was expected to attend anyway. Maverick hadn’t been close with Olivia, but that’s not why he hadn’t attended. Before I’d gotten to the public part of Olivia’s funeral—the burial—Mav had texted me to let me know that he’d be staying behind. That was a couple hours ago now.

  The sound of a car coming up the driveway a moment later reached my ears before it headed around towards the front. Stepping outside, I stopped, keeping both of my clenched fists in my pockets as Maverick parked the truck and got out. The passenger side door opened and Barbie got out as well, her hair still wet from a shower. She looked better than I’d seen her last—more animated than the night Olivia had died.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, sweeping my gaze to Mav who stood just on the other side of the truck. He met my gaze and then nodded to Barbie and I moved my attention back to her.

  “We need to talk,” she said, nodding further off to the side—down the path that would lead to the guesthouses. “Meet you at the guesthouse?”

  I nodded and they got back in the truck, the engine starting up once more as they rolled on by.

  It’d been a few days, but the last time I’d seen her, she had been riddled with guilt and agony—far too upset for any consolation. I decided to take the back way. I turned around and headed back through the main house that I’d been cast out of only weeks before. I hit the back lawn and just kept going. By the time I was walking up the side garden path and around the front of the guesthouse, Barbie and Maverick were already there and inside.

  I walked in and shut the door behind me with a sigh. “So,” I said, “what’s this about?” I removed the tie from my pocket and dropped it on the coffee table as I bypassed the living room and headed for the kitchen.

  “We need to go after Arrius,” Barbie said, trailing after me from where she’d been sitting in the living room. I headed for the fridge, opening it and pulling out a bag of blood. I snapped the bag to my teeth and turned, watching her and waiting. When she realized I wouldn’t be talking for a few minutes, she continued. “I think I have a plan, but I need you and Maverick to agree to it.”

  I removed the emptied bag and dumped it in the trash before retrieving a second full one from the fridge. “Do you need to feed?” I asked.

  “What?—no, actually…” I slapped the bag to my teeth as she bit her lip, shifting on her feet. Behind her, Mav entered the kitchen doorway and leaned against the frame, crossing his arms as he watched us. “Actually, Satrina and I have been talking,” she said. “And I—I drank from Maverick. That time we had sex together and earlier today.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I could feel my muscles tense. My eyes flicked to Mav, but as per his usual, there was nothing on his expression that might give me a glimpse inside his mind.

  “I think I can only drink supernatural blood,” Barbie continued. “That’s why I can drink from you and Mav, but not from humans and not from the bag.”

  I nodded slowly. “Well, that clears that up,” I said. “Does it have anything to do with this supposed plan?”

  She grimaced. “No, but I thought you should know. The plan is…” She paused and looked back at Mav, exchanging a glance that was far too fast for me to sense the intention, “Unconventional,” she finished.

  “I see.” I popped a new bag to my fangs and proceeded to think as I sucked up the blood. Unconventional would be good for getting to Arrius, but so much about us as a group was already unconventional—so much we’d tried was unconventional. Unconventional did not ensure success. I pulled the bag from my fangs and dropped it into the trash. “Barbie,” I started, pausing and letting my eyes glance over the wall as I prepared for her reaction to what I was about to say, “we need to think about this logically.” I turned, sliding my hands back into my suit’s pant pockets, already sensing her impending wrath from the way her brow puckered as she looked back at me. “After what’s happened, we need to have a solid plan. We can’t rush in, we can’t be—”

  “We won’t,” she said, stepping forward. Her gaze blazed, a fire within that was impossible to deny. She was a firecracker, a spark in an ocean of darkness for me. My vampire wanted—I wanted—to give her everything she desired. The only thing that could eclipse that was her safety.

  What she didn’t seem to recognize was that we’d gotten off easily thus far. She was alive. I was alive. Maverick was alive.

  Olivia’s death was a tragedy. It was unfortunate and I was not without my sympathy. By all accounts, Olivia Jones should have grown up to be an admirable adult. Though, in life, I could tell the girl had annoyed Barbie, there was also a piece of comfort Barbie had drawn from her. As if, by remaining friends with the ditzy, kind redhead, she could cling to humanity. Olivia was nothing if not human. As human as anyone could be in the end.

  And as horrible as it was to admit, her life was unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

  Barbie’s eyes flamed red, glowing vibrant and vicious. “Her life,” she spat, “was not unimportant.”

  My eyes widened. How had she…? She advanced on me before I was given another moment to contemplate how she’d read my mind. My back met the wall and her talons shredded through the front of my shirt in the blink of an eye. “She was a good person,” Barbie snarled. “And her life had meaning. She was important. Every fucking person born on this Earth has a purpose and because of us—because of me—her purpose will go unfulfilled.”

  I stared down at her, not so much startled by her vehemence. Barbie seemed to do everything with such fervor that it no longer shocked me. It was what attracted me to her—drew me, a moth, to her flame. Now, as I looked at it, examined it up close, I felt ... bereft. Incapable.

  “What?” she snapped, shaking me. “Don’t you have anything more to say?”

  I shook my head. “Only,” I began, swallowing around a dry throat, “only that I wish I could take the pain of her loss away for you.”

  Through clenched teeth, Barbie spoke—low, as though she were making a very detailed threat. Except, I could feel that it wasn’t towards me at all, but towards the universe itself. “I don’t want it taken away,” she said. “I want to hurt. I want to bleed. I want to feel it all in excruciating detail. Because, make no mistake, Torin…” Her talons retracted and she stepped away, lowering her hands to her sides as her eyes changed, morphed into something different. Behind the red, a blue and gold shone through. Dangerous. Haunting. Deadly. “I’m going to channel all of this pain into doing what needs to be done and ridding the world of Arrius Priest. I have a plan and it will work.”

  She turned away, pushing past Mav as she made her way out of the kitchen and just before she disappeared from my sight, she whispered something under her breath that made my heart crack. “It has to.”

  Forty

  Barbie

  I hefted my duffle bag over my shoulder and paused in the doorway of my bedroom. I scanned the room on the pretense of looking for anything that I might have missed, but in actuality, I was stalling. And when I couldn't stall any longer, I closed my eyes and inhaled, blowing out a breath before turning and shutting the door behind me.

  This was it, I realized as I descended the stairs of the McKnight Mansion. This would probably be the last time I was ever here. Even if we succeeded in killing Arrius Priest, this would no longer be a place we could return to as the same people. We needed to disappear. We needed to ensure Beth and Jon's safety.

  When I opened the front door, I paused. Torin and Maverick were there, leaning against the front porch railing, their arms crossed over their chests in identical postures. I wondered if they even realized how alike they were or if they'd be irritated by the comment.

  "Is it done?" I asked.

  Torin nodded. "Do you want to say goodbye?" he asked.

  I shook my head and lifted my bag higher on my shoulder as I passed betwee
n them and down the porch steps until my booted feet hit the grass and sidewalk. "I'm not good at goodbyes," I said. "Let's just go." I headed for Mav's truck.

  "We're leaving the truck," he called across the yard, drawing me up short. That was when I saw Torin's car behind the truck.

  This is necessary, Barbie, Satrina said.

  I nodded. She was right. I licked my lips and took another step forward, bypassing Maverick’s truck and the small Volkswagen bug Beth had bought me on the other side. I didn’t want to look at it, to be reminded, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d left the keys in the house, hoping that whatever Torin had put into Beth and Jon’s heads would explain it all away for them. If we never came back, I didn’t want them to grieve. I wanted them to be happy.

  I shoved my duffle into the backseat and popped the passenger side door open before finding a pair of aviators in the glove compartment and sliding them over my eyes. I turned back to the guys. “Let’s go, boys, we’re burning daylight.”

  As the guys got into the vehicle—Torin in the driver’s seat and Maverick in the back—I turned and glanced back at the house, noticing that Mav was doing the same. “You okay?” I asked.

  He was quiet for a moment before he finally turned and met my gaze. Gold fire burned behind his amber irises. “I will be,” he said. Of any other answer he could’ve given me, it was the best one. No. None of us were alright right now, but we would be. As soon as we were done, we would be.

  I turned around, facing forward as Torin started the SUV and pulled out onto the road. Come hell or heaven, by the end of all of this, Arrius Priest would be dead. When I killed him—because I would kill him—there wouldn’t be a vampire or supernatural creature in the fucking world that didn’t know my name.

  Forty-One

  Barbie

  A black fog seemed to have descended over the supernatural world. For the next several days, damn near two weeks, we had searched high and low for information on Arrius, but there was nothing. It appeared as if all supernatural creatures had been forewarned and they were avoiding us. We were so low that we'd even sunk to tracking down previous members of Priest's servants—supes and humans alike—to get some intel on where the fucker might have been. It was beginning to grate on my nerves. The time was inching by at an agonizing pace. If we went any slower, we’d be turning back the fucking clock.

  I had a plan. Satrina assured me that everything was in place. All I had to do was get near him and get hurt—not exactly my favorite part of the plan, but it was necessary. I needed him to take me to the brink of death and then she'd be able to take over and use the full force of her powers to kill him. There was the minor detail of possibly not being able to come back from a full on possession like that, but I thought it best not to mention that little detail to the guys. I knew without a shadow of a doubt, if they knew that, they would rescind their willingness so fast, it'd leave my head spinning.

  Remember, Barbie, when the wolf hunts, it only needs to get lucky once. I narrowed my eyes and kicked my feet up on the dashboard as Satrina's words filtered through my head.

  Thanks for the vague commentary, Dr. Seuss, I replied dryly. Makes me feel loads better about staking out an abandoned motel in the middle of bum fuck nowhere just to see if the vampire living here has any information on Arrius Priest.

  I turned my cheek and checked out Mav's profile. He sat in the driver's seat with his chin propped on his arm, fast asleep. I couldn't blame him. The three of us had been running on empty in the days since we'd left town. Everyone was either dying or disappearing and we had thrown ourselves headfirst into tracking down Arrius. First Esperanza—who we were almost certain now was with Arrius, likely being held captive. Then Katalin had reappeared just long enough to throw us off and disappeared without a trace. Then Olivia's death...

  I blew out a breath and shifted in place. I was tired of waiting, but wait and search was all we’d managed to do since we’d left. All of those phone calls Torin had been taking had been from contacts in the supernatural community. Before Olivia’s death and Katalin’s desertion once again, he’d had contacts across the globe with possible information. Since then, however, all leads had dried up.

  I reached over and knocked Mav's arm so that his chin would slip off. He snorted and jumped, his eyes popping open. "The fuck—Barbie?"

  "You were sleeping," I said, unbuckling my seatbelt and leaning forward. "How long has he been in there?"

  Mav checked his phone. "An hour," he said.

  "This is fucking ridiculous. He's been in there too long without backup." I cracked my door and got out, listening to the sounds of him scrambling to follow behind me. "He might need us."

  "Torin said to wait in the car," Mav growled. I ignored the warning in his tone and flashed around the front of the vehicle to head for the front steps. I unsheathed my swords—those, at least, we hadn't left behind. "Barbie!" Maverick's hiss was ignored as I reached the entrance Torin had used.

  “Move your ass or lose your spot, hotshot,” I whisper-hissed back. “Cuz I’m going in—with or without you.”

  “Don’t you fucking dare, I swear to God, Barbie, I will spank your ass so—”

  I didn’t stick around to listen to the rest of his threat. Instead, I chose to push through the door and into the dark interior of the motel lobby. Once inside it was easier to see out into the parking lot. If the warlock we were tracking came through here, he definitely would’ve been able to see us waiting outside in the SUV. The door at my back opened and a wave of fresh air came in as Mav arrived.

  “When I say—”

  “Shhh,” I cut him off as I moved forward quietly, listening intently.

  “No, no, you don’t understand, he’ll—”

  “I understand.” The second voice was Torin’s. I followed it down the hallway to the left of the deserted front desk. Dust coated the surfaces of most of the place—from the lounge chairs to the dilapidated wooden desk complete with greeting bell. “All I’m here to do is get information on—”

  “He’ll know!” the unfamiliar voice hissed. “He always knows. The only reason I was allowed to leave was because I’m not even worth killing.”

  “Just tell me where the last place you were with him was, that’s all I’m asking.”

  My heart pounded in my ribcage. I put a hand out, stopping Mav when he would’ve moved in front of me. We were close enough as it was. We could hear them perfectly without interrupting. Mav smacked into my side causing one of my blades to scrape the wall with a loud clang. I winced and gritted my teeth.

  “What was that sound? Did you bring someone with you? No! The more people who know about—”

  I cursed silently, but Torin was already assuring the man. “Don’t worry,” he said, his voice taking on a quiet hypnotic quality.

  “I can’t-I can’t-I can’t—”

  I couldn’t see what Torin had done, but whatever it was, the warlock cut himself off and soon stopped talking altogether. “What is he—” I turned and clamped a hand over Mav’s mouth to keep his voice from echoing up the empty space. I needn’t have bothered. In the next instant, Torin was there—his eyes red with fury.

  “I told you two to wait in the car,” he snapped.

  “I’m through with waiting,” I replied, taking my hand away from Mav’s mouth. “If he won’t tell you what we need to know the nice way, then let me handle it.” I moved to step past him, but Torin put an arm out to stop me.

  “Enough,” he growled, his tone dipping down into a dangerously deep baritone that told me his vampire was damn near in complete control.

  I arched a brow.

  “We’ve gotten all we can from him. We’re heading back to the hotel.”

  “But—”

  “We’re leaving, Barbie,” he said, nodding to Mav. Before I could decipher what that nod meant, he had my hands captured in his and Mav stepped forward—tearing my blades from my grip and tucking them to his side as Torin swung me up and over his shoulder.


  Hell hath no fucking fury like me when I didn’t get my way. I jerked my arm and slammed my elbow into the back of Torin’s head, scowling as I did so. How fucking dare he? How dare they?

  Torin didn’t stop walking. Instead, he shifted his hold so that I was cradled against his front so tightly that my arms were pinned between my chest and his own. “I’ve had enough, Barbie,” he gritted out, striding from the building with Mav following closely behind. “You don’t follow directions. I don’t want you coming to any more of these stakeouts.”

  I fought and struggled in his grip—but I hadn’t been drinking much lately in the hopes that I could determine how long I could go without supernatural blood. He was stronger. “Put. Me. Down.” I ground the words out through teeth so tight, if I were human, I probably would’ve already broken or cracked one.

  “Over my dead body,” he responded.

  “That can be arranged.” My threat, however, despite being delivered with the perfect mix of fury, was ill received. Torin merely dumped me into the backseat of the car and slammed the door behind me. I didn’t have a chance to get out again before he and Mav were climbing into the front.

  These two didn’t know it, but the second we were back to the motel, I was going to unman them both.

  Forty-Two

  Maverick

  If wrath had been given physical form, it would’ve had Barbie’s face. I couldn’t blame her. We stopped at the nearby motel we’d agreed on earlier and almost as soon as we’d exited the car, both Torin and I had taken a fist to the face. I grabbed her hand when she would’ve gone for another punch and scowled.

  “Stop it,” I ordered. “You’re acting like a fucking child. We needed to leave. You agreed that Torin would take the lead on questioning people. You shouldn’t have gotten out of the car.”