My conventional wisdom on wizards having been drawn from things like D&D and Dragon Age instead of reality, told me that a spell-caster was screwed if the combat-guy got this close to him. Charles turned that convention on its head instantly, snapping off a last-second parry with his staff that knocked the blade wide of its mark, if only barely. His free hand conjured a flare of brilliant white light that didn’t bother me in the slightest but left his attacker reeling and blinking away tears from his dull, expressionless eyes.
Charles stepped away, crooking his hand as if gesturing for more magic as he put some distance between them, but my instincts told me it was best not to leave anything to chance. Before the dark-garbed man could recover, I grabbed him firmly by the wrist and shoulder, spun him around, and threw him face-first into the alley wall.
I regretted it immediately as I heard the gruesome crunch of bones from where his face contacted unyielding brick. My nose told me he was bleeding well before he turned around, staggering, with fresh red blood streaming from a ruined nose and deformed cheek. One eye, slightly more hazy and blank than the other, wasn’t tracking his surroundings, but he still forced himself upright and readied the knife, swapping it to his other hand.
I stepped between him and Charles, and his blade lanced out at me before I was ready to dodge. Caught flat footed and unprepared, I couldn’t avoid the weapon, and it slammed full force into the front of my chest.
Or it tried to. The blade refused to penetrate my skin as surely as if I were wearing gleaming plate armor. Instead of driving into my flesh, it twisted in his hand from the force of the thrust, the combat knife snapping in two at the hilt and its lethal edge tumbling away into the the trash of the alley.
He overbalanced from the attempt, and I bent just enough to pick up a cracked cinder block.
Before he could recover, I lashed out with it, clumsy but powerful with all of my newfound might behind it. He probably could have dodged it if only he ranked higher on the self-preservation scale, but as it was, my blow hammered him squarely in the chest, right below the collarbone, blasting the air from his lungs in an audible burst.
I felt the resistance of something rigid beneath his camo, body armor bulkier than anything my father or uncle had ever worn. But it didn’t matter; I heard bones give way with an obscene crack. The cinder block fractured on one end, and the force of the impact flung him backward like an extra from an over-the-top kung fu flick. I stood my ground, clutching the block, and expecting him to get up again at any moment.
Instead, he slumped slowly to the ground and stayed there. I heard the rhythm of his heart flutter and wane like a dying candle flame.
I felt like I should be sick. But I wasn’t.
Out of absolutely nowhere, Charles clapped a large hand onto my shoulder, my attention drawn to him in a snap. “It’s all too opportune.” He quickly removed the hand. “They may be tracking us. We need to get this done before whoever is hunting us finds a way to stop us.”
I nodded, thoughts still distant.
“And… Thanks.”
I furrowed my brow, momentarily confused. “What?”
He sighed. “Thanks. That’s what I brought you over here to tell you.” I blinked at him, stunned, and he started talking slower, as if I were mentally impaired. “Back in the apartment? I think I would have been able to deal with the next couple of shots, but… Thanks for saving me. The attempt, anyway.” He glanced back at the fallen figure; I averted my eyes. “And now it’s twice.”
Charles’ heart rate was gradually slowing. I couldn’t hear the other one any more as it faded away, permanently lost in the background noise of nighttime Birmingham. But the smell of blood remained, saturating our surroundings impossibly. I didn’t know what to say, so I just shook my head, and my eyes landed on a narrow rent in Charles’ undershirt. “Shit, are you okay?”
The wizard’s face flickered with surprise, and he looked down as if he hadn’t known he’d been hit. “Oh, this? This is nothing.” With an indifferent shrug, Charles folded up the bottom edge of his shirt just enough to reveal a thin layer of modern body armor. “You’re never too prepared when it comes to survival.” He tapped the armor, which appeared mostly unharmed. “Personally enchanted, and layered with threads of silver and cold iron.” He eyed me. “And if I’d known, I’d have had the silver ones blessed for good measure.”
“Eeeew.”
He barely smirked as he turned away and started back toward the others. “Come on. We’re wasting time.”
I paused to look back over the alley, scouring my surroundings, wondering if any other ninja assassins lurked nearby in wait, but nothing revealed itself to my vampire vision. My gaze settled on the crumpled form against the wall for a moment, the smell of his blood turning from rich and inviting to disgustingly stale. Finally satisfied, I dropped my cement block, turned my back, and rejoined the others. I didn’t know whether I should be more surprised by the sudden ambush or the sudden appreciation.
While we waited for Corey and Charles to do their wizarding stuff, I checked where the knife had slammed into me. There was a thin line in my hoodie, but my skin was barely marred, like a cat scratch. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all if my skin wasn’t so freakishly pale. I’m just fortunate it didn’t pack the same mojo as Sergeant Frankenstein’s. Maybe it’s a good thing I accidentally threw it into space.
Belatedly, I realized Tamara was speaking to me. “Earth to Ashley? You okay?”
I nodded, producing a grin. “Yeah. Sorry. Only the second time I’ve been stabbed. I’m still adjusting to the experience.” I’d have been lying if I’d said that the ability to shrug off coordinated knifing attempts didn’t make me feel a little fucking awesome.
I caught Charles studying me sidewardly. “That’s how it starts,” he commented.
Shut up, Charles.
Tamara frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but the wizard had already turned back to his work.
Once ritual preparations were complete, Charles faced us to speak, framed by the two short metal staves I’d noticed earlier. This time, instead of candles and sand, he held a big, dark feather.
“This place has a much stronger resonance than the last one.” He looked at each of us in turn. “My only thought is that this has been the location of several attempts to reach across into our world. But in the end, it doesn't matter.” I nodded my agreement. “And since we’re pressed for time, that’s where you come in.”
He gestured me over to stand between the chrome and ebony rods, pushing at me uselessly until I figured out where he wanted me and moved there on my own. I ended up with the scorched mark to my back, framed by a rod to either side, as well as the half-circle the two magicians had drawn on the concrete. “I’m going to use you as a focus.” He glanced at Tamara as she opened her mouth. “No, it won’t hurt her, but at least her...condition can be put to good use here.” Behind him, the Moroi closed her mouth again and rolled her eyes.
He looked back at me. “All you have to do is stand there and stay as still as possible.” I thought I heard him chuckle quietly. “Should be easy for you.”
Ha ha ha. Funny wizard make vampire joke. I smiled, making certain to show my fangs.
He held up a little glass vial with a cork in it. “This,” he wiggled the glass, “is a custom tincture of mine. Extract of morning glory, salvia divinorum, datura innoxia, and silene undulata, among other things. It will put me into a deeply altered state.” He eyed me. “Those are drugs, just so you know.”
I sighed. “Yes, I got that. Thanks.” I frowned at him. “So does this mean you’ll be tripping balls or whatever for this leg of our journey?” I wasn’t looking forward to that, but on the other hand, he couldn’t possibly become harder to get along with.
Tamara laughed openly. “It doesn't work like that, hun. No worries.”
“It won’t affect me while I’m Next Door,” Charles continued. “What people see while in altered states is always some version of
Next Door, though they don’t know it. The more altered their experience, the further from Home their minds travel. You can have some very bad experiences that way.”
Shaking the bottle with one hand, he fished around in a pocket of his heavy coat with the other, pulling out his keys and tossing them to Corey, who had been looking away and nearly dropped them. “However, if the ‘trip’ from this compound isn’t consumed by the trip we’re about to take, then yes, I’ll still be affected by it when we return.”
I glanced around. “So, if it's the drugs that lets you separate your mind for rituals, why do you need all the candles and sticks and shit?”
I almost thought he wasn’t going to answer. “It helps to shift the mind into a state that says magic instead of the mundane, moving you into a magical mindset instead of your everyday thoughts.” Charles shrugged. “In short, it helps the magician to overcome the innate barrier to belief in their own magic. That’s all a focus is really for. Tricking yourself.” He paused. “Well, except for the staff. That’s real power, not just slight of mind.”
“I understood about half of that.”
Charles nodded. “Better than expected.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Ready?”
I nodded.
“Then let’s get started.” He shook the glass vial until satisfied, then pulled out a stick of black sidewalk chalk.
“You’re not going to draw on me with that, are you?” I’d never been the centerpiece of a ritual designed to draw back the curtain to another dimension before. I was a little nervous.
“Only if it shuts you up,” he replied, reaching past me to draw on the wall.
The setup didn’t take long, less than five minutes, and I blamed my ability to actually keep still entirely on being a vampire. I didn’t know what he’d drawn behind me, since I couldn’t turn to see without possibly disturbing the whole process, but I felt it was safe to assume they were more magical symbols and totemic figures and not penises or “for a good time call” jokes.
While Charles worked, I worried. Not just about being the material component for a ritual that I knew little about and whose caster I didn’t completely trust, but I was also increasingly paranoid that some paramilitary bastard would suddenly round the corner with a shotgun and wipe out everyone but myself. Not only would something like that be horrifying in and of itself, it’d leave Lori stranded with no hope of salvation.
Which was another issue. When this magic was all said and done, we were going Next Door to confront some creature that had abducted my girlfriend. This wasn’t a game or a movie or a story; her life might well hang in the balance. What I and these other people did in the next couple of hours might decide whether the love of my life lived or died. Along with a bunch of strangers that no doubt deserved better than to have their fates hinging on Ashley Currigan. I wasn’t the savior they deserved or needed, but I had to try.
Charles seated himself in front of me and with closed eyes, began his ritual trance and deep rhythmic hum. A few words escaped his mouth, but they were quiet, breathy, and in some language I couldn’t place. To either side of me, each metallic rod gleamed with reflected light that I was increasingly certain did not come from any surroundings I could perceive. The wizard had already downed his mind-altering concoction; I couldn’t tell if it had set in yet. I had no way to know whether that was because of something to do with Charles’ self control, the set-in time of his tincture, or the ritual itself.
I stayed still as a statue and counted my own heartbeats. I got to three and was just getting the rhythm down when Charles suddenly stood. His dark brown eyes flew open, unfocused, staring past me at something distant. He flung out his hands like he was parting the Red Sea, then slammed his staff down on the concrete so hard the world seemed to shake with the force.
Something shifted behind me, and I fought the urge to look back, torn between curiosity and sudden trepidation. A gale whipped in from out of nowhere and rushed past me, trying to carry me with it. I caught sight of Tamara standing off to the side, her dyed hair whipping frantically around her pale face, her eyes a mix of excitement and encouragement as she met my gaze with her own. She gave me a thumbs up.
My footing slipped as the pull doubled and redoubled, boots grating across the concrete. Closing my own eyes, I made the conscious choice to relax and stop resisting—if this was the only way to Lori, I wasn’t about to fuck it up now.
The alien wind pulled hungrily at me, and my feet left the ground. I tensed reflexively in preparation for hitting the wall behind me, but I never did. I dimly heard Tamara shouting, and Charles’ bellowed reply, but the howl of the wind was greater than everything else.
Since I was the closest, I fell through first, tumbling head over heels into the unknown.
16
Never underestimate diplomacy
I couldn’t tell if I was moving, or if the world had been yanked out from under me.
Maybe both.
There was barely enough time for me to register the idea that one world was becoming another before I hit soft earth and rocks, bouncing and rolling. A few dizzying feet later I caught myself, digging dead nails into turf and stopping my momentum cold.
I’d scarcely pushed myself to my feet before a milky, wavering distortion, like the full moon’s reflection on cloudy water, sundered the air in front of me, and out came Tamara. I darted jerkily forward, trying to catch her, but it was a pointless gesture. The alabaster skinned Moroi dodged me, rolling once on the ground before throwing herself back upright, both legs outstretched to simply strike the ground squarely, platform heels driving into the alien earth and stopping her dead.
Corey was the next to be vomited forth, thumping ignominiously into the earth, his arrival punctuated by a string of indirect curses followed by a halfhearted “Ow.” Tamara moved to offer him a hand up, but he ignored it, slowly rising and dusting himself off while rubbing at one shoulder. He dodged to the side, eyes wide, as a heavy duffle bag appeared out of nowhere, thumping down right where he’d been standing an instant before. He sighed, somewhere between long-suffering and teenage-brand irritation, and bent to drag it aside.
Charles was the last to arrive, by a couple of heartbeats. One final flare before the shimmering manifestation snapped shut and out he flew, trench coat flapping lightly behind him like a cheap superhero’s cloak. He hit the ground with the ease of expectation, all three staves clutched close to his gut as he tucked into a professional-looking forward roll. He came back to his feet a short distance away, tossing both of the shorter rods at Corey, who fumbled one in his surprise. Charles turned slowly in a circle, looking warily at our new surroundings with his tall staff brandished at the ready, almost like holding a shotgun.
“Charles—” I rasped, but he gestured sharply to silence me, his eyes flickering with irritation as he turned in place, scrutinizing every detail of our new location. At Tamara’s slightly wide-eyed nod, I fell silent, soaking up our new environment like everyone else.
It was dark here, just like back in Birmingham, but a much cleaner, clearer, quieter dark than had ever existed back on the city streets. Since the darkness no longer hid anything from my eyes, I could see how beautiful it was here, especially in comparison to where we’d just been. We’d landed near the crest of a gentle, softly rolling hill covered in strange, puffy, dark grass, making this calm, peaceful strip of Next Door idyllic in the extreme. A couple hundred feet away, silhouetted against the incredibly clear night sky, a dark treeline beckoned, whose even darker roots sent an excited tingle down my spine. Its shadow was a promise of wild things, of dangers and adventures that lay hidden under its interwoven boughs.
Behind us, the hills dead-ended in a sloping, rocky wall, the base of what seemed to be either a natural formation like a low cliff or perhaps some massive set of unknowable, forgotten ruins. Directly to our back lay a yawning black mouth of a cave entrance, one that started out at least a dozen feet across, but narrowed sharply furthe
r in.
It was the tombstones that broke the idyllic feel: big ones, small ones, oddly shaped ones, ones formed into figures similar to the sigils on Charles’ staff and the Bookbinders sign. They littered the grassland outside of our immediate area, trailing off into the distance as far as my eyes could penetrate. Not a one took the form of a cross, that most iconic of ancient tombstone shapes. Though that might just have been for the best, considering my vampiric condition. A solemn, scattered few of the markers were shaped like humanoid figures, cast in creepy-ass relief by the ambiance and environment.
At least, I hoped they were statues. The alternative was that they were alive, and very, very patient.
After what was probably the fifth or sixth solid revolution of watchful turning, Charles finally seemed to relax. As much as he ever seemed to relax, anyway. “Okay. We seem to be safe for the moment.” He looked at me. “Do you see anything?”
I shook my head. When had he caught on that I could see through the darkness? “Two weirdos on a hillside? And a couple of vampires?” I shrugged. “Shit, Charles, if you’re asking me if anything here seems out of the ordinary, I wouldn’t know where to begin.” That faraway jitter of nervousness I felt probably had less to do with where we were, as much as it did with what we were about to undertake.
He eyed me seriously. “Be wary. We may have come Next Door and found a place that seems peaceful, but nowhere here is ever really safe. Drop your guard here, and you probably won’t live to regret it.” He breathed out quietly, relaxing the white-knuckled death grip on his staff. “If you don’t see anything coming our way, let’s move. Which way?”
“You’re asking me?” I blinked.
“Why else did I bring you?” He frowned. “I was able to open a Window near the proper place, but not on top of it. I’m not about to drop us into the middle of the lair of god-only-knows what kind of unholy creature unless there’s no other choice. So follow your damn nose like you did before and get us moving.” He glanced around paranoidly once more, leaning on his staff. “Now.”
Dead Girl's Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 1) Page 13