Contents
Title Page
Description
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
1 Felt like falling
2 Not the best wake up call
3 Mortal combat
4 A shower was too much to ask
5 Bathroom Adventures
6 Too late for waffles
7 Only partially in charge
8 Hug it out
9 Fortune favors the dead
10 As fast as we can to stay where we are
11 Longing to stay, needing to go
12 Mister wizard
13 Surprise party
14 Burning bridges
15 Through the looking glass
16 Never underestimate diplomacy
17 Regardless of cost
18 What the heart wants
19 Tamara's wild ride
20 You wanted a monster
21 About time we found religion
22 Just a talk in the dark
23 Vampires one, Charles zero
24 A wizard's work is never done
25 It's bedtime for monsters
26 We're all night terrors
27 And the award for best monster goes to...
28 We all fall down
29 Epilogue: Almost a walk in the park
Further Reading
Before You Go
Acknowledgments
About the Author
By Annathesa Nikola
Darksbane
& Shei Darksbane
What happens when you die?
For Ashley Currigan, it means waking up, opening her eyes, and discovering who she really is. But it's not a painless process. Not when the person she loves most in the world goes missing. Not when a myriad of supernaturals want her dead, and she doesn’t even know why. Not when the very monsters who gave her eternal life want to take it away. And not when her only allies are a human wizard who hates monsters, and a vampire that's at least as much of a monster as she is.
And with dozens of innocent lives hanging in the balance, does she choose to save her humanity and fail, or give in to monstrosity and save them?
And, in the end, is there a difference?
Dead Girl’s Ashes is the first book in the Dying Ashes series.
Copyright © 2016 by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane.& Shei Darksbane
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America.
First Printing, November 17, 2016
Darksbane Books
707 E Mobile ST
Florence, AL 35630
DarksbaneBooks.com
Cover design and illustration: Mark Thomas / Coverness.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people and events are coincidence.
To Charles, Rain, Kitty, and Tam.
Thank you for the inspiration, and I hope you enjoy the ride.
Foreword by Shei Darksbane
I awoke one morning in January of 2015, to the excited nudging of my wife, Anna, who insisted that as soon as I was awake enough, she had something to show me. I grogged my way to the computer and sat down to read the page of text glaring brightly from her huge monitor. I was a slow reader at the best of times, and it was way too early for me to be focusing on anything, but the first few words caught my attention… It took a few seconds to sink in, and then I realized what I was looking at. This was a story. But not just any story…
This was our story.
Well, one of them anyway.
Anna and I had been roleplaying for the entirety of the fifteen years we’d been together so far, and our list of settings, characters, and tales had filled boxes and gigabytes of storage. The story she was working on at that time became her space opera novel, Destiny Abounds, a tale based on our most recent roleplay which we had been deeply involved in for the past two years at that point. I devoured the first chapter of the first draft until…
…suddenly, it stopped. I glanced up at Anna to congratulate her, imagining she’d just paused for the day and that’s when she informed me, “I need your help.”
Some of the characters in the story, after all, were mine. She wanted to introduce one, and she wanted me to write the dialog and help keep her in character. That sounded like fun, so I did it. I wrote my part, then moved back to my own computer to let her work some more. I was excited for her, happy she was enjoying the process of writing down our story… But…Well, suffice to say, Anna’d tickled an itch and I just had to keep scratching it.
Fast forward nearly two years and so much has changed. I have written three full-length novels, a novella, and a short story compilation. Anna started with Destiny Abounds, published it, wrote half of the sequel, ran into some complications that caused that story to be back-burnered for a bit, and decided she needed another series to work on while the other issues got sorted out.
That’s when she started writing Dead Girl’s Ashes.
Anna and I have some weird and interesting co-writing methods. For one, we generally each write our own stories, but they’re based on material we mutually create, settings we’ve developed together, and characters that belong to each of us. We edit for each other, help each other revise, and argue way too much over commas. ;)
One of the funniest things to me about our writing is this: I write stories Anna originally created from my character’s point of view, and she writes stories I originally created from her character’s point of view.
Which is to say, if you liked the Dakota Shepherd novels… Stay put. Anna is the mastermind behind most of the plots in those stories, the characters you adore, and basically everything about them that isn’t Dakota herself. (Okay, Driven was my own little project, and I made a lot of changes to the original story in Awakened, but still. Anna is responsible for a huge amount of the behind-the-scenes work that went into that series!)
That said, the Dying Ashes series is kinda like the Auralight Codex’s darker, grittier twin. Ashes isn’t as geeky or awkward as Dakota, but she has her own killer sense of humor, a good deal of snark and sarcasm, and a touch of sardonic to round it out. Ashes and Dakota aren’t too much alike, but I imagine most people who like one would also enjoy the other.
This series is a little different from the rest. Like our other series, this one derived from a long-running, well-developed roleplaying game. Unlike our other two IP’s, however, this one had people involved besides just Anna and me. A very small group of some of our closest friends joined us for this adventure, and helped us create some of the incredibly interesting details of the setting and the plots. When we started writing, we discussed the idea of telling this story with the group and everyone insisted we find a way to wrangle our game into a set of novels. It wouldn’t be that hard. As the storyteller of that game, I’d actually mapped out most of the arcs like outlining novels anyway to help me keep track of the events. When I handed it over to Anna to write, I figured she’d have a pretty easy time adapting it…
Turns out, she took my material, my plots, and most of the characters, gave them a good look over, then wrote her own damn thing.
That’s my wife for you, folks.
What was fascinating for me about this journey was reading this novel and seeing how Anna had evolved our world, our characters, and the story’s tone and direction. A game that had usually involved nights of serious roleplay
punctuated by bouts of uncontrollable laughter translated into a deep and gritty tale about death, loss, and identity crises. The reading experience was truly just as unique for me as it would have been for anyone else, and that impressed me immensely. I ran the storyline this book was based on, and throughout the entire manuscript, I had no idea where the story was about to go, or what turn the tale would take.
Anna didn’t just write a roleplaying game into a story… She might have used the game as a reference, but she made a story all her own, and I must say, it puts my original storytelling to shame.
A story about vampires, monsters, and a few hapless souls caught up in the torrents of a Supernatural Birmingham turned into a thrilling, gripping page-turner about a girl who lost absolutely everything, and refused to accept that “no choice” was her only answer.
I laughed, I cried, I held my breath, and I found myself repeatedly on the edge of my seat.
This is not my story, rewritten by Anna.
This is Anna’s story. No… This is Ashes’ story.
When I was running the game… I had no idea how much incredible depth that quippy little vampire had inside her. I’m glad I finally had a chance to see it all through her beautiful, dead eyes.
Now, without further rambling, I present to you, Dead Girl’s Ashes, book one of the Dying Ashes series by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane.
- Shei Darksbane
And if you like it, check out our other series:
Awakened, Hunted, Driven, and Blooded.
1
Felt like falling
They say nothing hurts like losing the one you love, not even death. But having endured both, I found that death came pretty close. Or, at least, mine did.
People like to think that death is this spectre, hooded and robed, stalking you till the end of your days. Or that death is predefined fate or maybe decided by some higher power.
They’re wrong.
Let me tell you what death is like.
Death is walking home, night after night, bone-tired and weary after a long shift at a dead end job. Death is knowing that you’ve got to stay alert as you trudge through the shadows of your broken city because the streets aren’t safe after dark, not here. It’s the swelling of regret as you glance down for just a moment to text your girlfriend that you’ll be home late again. It’s never seeing the hulking figure lurking in a nearby alley, and that frigid, sinking fear that you’ll never see the love of your life again.
Death came for me in bits and pieces: the strong arms that dragged me into an alley, the brilliant flash from inside my own skull as my head impacted a wall. It was in the cold trickle of blood running down from my scalp; the rough, coarse brick grating against my face. It was the oppressive weight grinding my breasts and ribs into the brickwork, and the repeated, powerful impacts to my lower ribs and my poor kidneys that caused pain to blossom and bloom, radiating all across my lower body.
Pinned against the wall, I couldn’t escape, so I fought back. I thrashed violently and frantically, trying to cry out, kicking backwards at his shins and crotch, struggling desperately to hit a sensitive area. For an instant, I was successful, scraping my heel along his shin and making him recoil with a curse. I whipped around, ready to jab my fingernails at his eyes to fend the fucker off—and froze.
They say that around eight out of ten times, murders are committed by someone that knew the victim. I wasn’t one to beat the odds. I hadn’t seen Nathaniel coming, and wouldn’t have thought much about it if I had; he was just the jealous prick of a cameraman that worked at Lori’s studio. Still, even if he’d always been a loud-mouthed asshole, especially to me, I’d never have thought him capable of murder.
Showed what I knew.
I hesitated a moment too long, and he rumbled off an angry growl as he came at me again, streetlights from the alley’s mouth glinting off of brass knuckles like bloodied, dirty lightning. I tried to back away; I opened my mouth to scream. He was ready for both, grabbing my arm and dragging me into a punch to the throat that drove me to the ground, head and vision swimming, leaving me rolling in pain amidst the dirt and garbage.
I couldn’t breathe.
I would never breathe again.
He was on top of me before I could come to my senses, straddling me, pinning my legs. His thick, strong fingers curled around my throat, constricting and cutting off any hope of breath I still held onto. I’d always thought he was too big and strong of a guy to be a photo monkey—my mental nickname for him had even been “Cam-Kong.” Funny how things like that came back to haunt you. I struggled violently, adrenaline and desperation lending me strength I didn’t know I had. But it wasn’t enough; he was too big, too strong, and I was only growing weaker.
I kicked my legs futilely, scraped my fingernails uselessly at the thick sleeves of his letterman jacket, unable to reach his face. But I might as well have been railing against the concrete beneath me, for all the good it did. Terror began to take over as a deeper darkness stole away the edges of my vision. Arms and legs hit the ground, inadequate and powerless, as my strength fled.
Finally, he decided he’d done enough, standing and dragging me out of easy sight behind a dumpster. My body crumpled listlessly to the ground next to forgotten garbage bags and overturned cans, one more discarded piece of trash.
Of course, he didn’t leave without a parting gift: his motivation. I could feel the heat of his breath as he bent low to whisper his words, almost intimately, into my ear. “Fucking dyke. Lori’s better off without a useless piece of shit like you.” A sharp kick to my injured ribs gave final punctuation to the statement as he turned away, presumably to go on about his life. Figures…
He turned the corner, and my world tried to slip away from me. I couldn’t hold onto it, but I couldn’t let go, either. With the kind of effort it took to move mountains, I flopped forward onto my chest, head kissing the unyielding cement with a flicker of agony. An eternity later, I stretched out one arm, and started dragging myself slowly toward the light. Common sense said it was pointless, hopeless; I should just give up, but I couldn’t. Inch after useless, agonizing inch, I kept moving.
That was probably what caught the attention of the monster that ate me.
I twisted, trying to look up as a shadow fell over me, a slender, slight figure silhouetted by the light from the street and the halo of my rapidly narrowing vision. I reached out a hand, feeble and shaking, toward my would-be rescuer, pleading for help that never came.
She smiled, teeth sharp and white in the fading light.
Without discernible effort, the petite young blond bent and lifted me by my ruined throat, leaving me dangling from a single, outstretched hand. Dark, dead blue eyes peered up at me as if curious, her lips forming a question I couldn’t hear, as if the sound came from too far away. I was too drained to even be surprised as she held me close and still for a moment. Then razor-sharp pain shocked its way harshly through my system, stemming from my ruptured throat, and I felt my life’s heat begin to flee my body. I shuddered and stubbornly tried to twist or move once more, a final act of futile defiance, but I was heavy like lead and had nothing to give.
Shadows swept in like starving wolves but into that final, unshakable black came a shout, then a hot flare of light and flame seemed to blossom from nothing, roaring and rippling tangibly through the air. An ear-splitting cry of rage and agony shook my bones as the blaze seemed to latch on to the thing that was holding me and devouring me. I had the final impression of the deepest red, something greater than the swirl of hungry flame or the splash of blood. She dropped me, but I never hit the ground. There were more sounds, terribly loud but impossibly far away, as I fell, fell, fell, borne on dark, feathered wings into the embrace of that great nothing...
My senses dissolved, leaving me on a short slide down a slick chute toward an endless black abyss. Beneath me, that ocean of ebony tar beckoned, irresistible, clinging to me, grasping at me, pulling me down, down, down into that vast oblivion.
I’d always been stubborn like that.
So I reached out and grasped at it like the straw it was, seized it firmly, and defiantly dragged myself upward once more. No questions asked, no consequences considered.
I chose to live.
2
Not the best wake up call
It might be odd to wake up and doubt you’re still alive. Probably not the first, or sanest, thing to come to mind. But it turns out there’s a hundred little details, minor differences part and parcel of being alive, things no one even notices until they’re gone.
Things like a heartbeat, blood thundering constantly through veins in a frenzied rush of pressure and vibration. The world was so quiet and still without it pounding on and on endlessly in my ears, so much more calm and peaceful somehow. The rush of the world’s sensations had dulled as well, city sounds muted, the feel of cold concrete on my face somehow vague. Even the vibrant reek of the alley had faded except for one potent smell that cut across all the rest: blood.
The stench of what was probably my own vital juices turned my stomach, revolting but pushing me to stand and examine myself. You’re hurt, dumbass. Get up. Fear seized me for an instant as I tried to take a deep breath and nothing happened. Sure enough, air rattled in and out of my throat, pumping my lungs like a broken bellows, but it didn’t do anything. I forced a couple of wheezing breaths in and out, but it didn’t settle me. It didn’t make me feel anything other than a dull panic, maybe just the memory of an instinct. And when I stopped trying, it didn’t seem to matter.
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