“This is it,” I rasped. I could feel the creature’s heart-like inner sanctum just around the corner. “What do we do now?”
“All the way to the back, in the room where all of the cages were.” He seemed to know exactly what we were here for, so I didn’t hesitate. “And keep sharp.”
Charles displaced me as leader as we reached our destination, passing through dark, silent chambers now devoid of the flickering, ghostly blue light that had animated them before. My supernatural sight cut the dark perfectly well, but everyone else was bound by the limits of the lights we’d brought in with us. I took it upon myself to scan this way and that, searching the dark corners all around for any sign of the demon.
We stopped before the obvious destination: a tall, heavy mirror once more draped with thick, dry cloth like a death shroud. At Charles’ nod, I ripped the heavy, molded cloth from the object and threw it aside. “What now?” I reiterated.
“Now,” the wizard said, closing his eyes in concentration, “we shut up for a minute and watch.” The mirror rippled like molten steel at his touch, seeming to resist his mortal magic. Charles’ face furrowed in concentration, beads of sweat breaking out across his forehead, his staff resonating with a low tone I felt in my gut, but couldn’t hear. Slowly but surely, obscure geometric shapes grew across the metallic mirror like spreading frost, and an image came into view in their wake.
Ghostly shapes began to move inside the frame, emanating whispers of sound. “Don't touch it!” Charles snapped, without opening his eyes. “I need a strong connection first.”
I lowered my hand.
Shapes and forms began to resolve in the mirror, cast in black and white save where the lamps and flashlights revealed their colors. Inside the frame, a monster and a woman stood together, both of whom I knew. The monster was a charred wreck, wrapped in bloody bandages and cloaked in a loose-fitting black robe. The still-intact half of her body, rendered hideous instead of beautiful by the grotesque contrast, ran like wax where it shifted into a charred husk of broken flesh. The wisps of blond hair that had survived the contact with Corey’s magical flame drifted in the wind like slender weeds poking through wasteland terrain.
The woman… For the second time I looked upon the vampire that Dana had called “Ariande.” Now that she was unhooded and not busy stalking me, I could take the time to study her features. She was older than Dana, just shy of middle age by the look of her, though I knew that was nothing more than a well-preserved deception. But despite the age, the gauntness around the eyes, and the stitches climbing her neck, she was pretty. Pretty in a reserved, refined, Gothic “I had a crush on Morticia Addams and Emily from Corpse Bride when I was little” kind of way. Her long coat hugged her too-narrow middle and rose into a hood that had fallen back and revealed her face, dark hair spilling out all around her face. The eyes were the same as I remembered: extremely dark, intelligent, and obviously dead with an icy, uncaring veneer.
There they were: my new supernatural family. And in a few minutes, I was going to try my damnedest to kill them.
Together, the pair presided over what could only be more ritual magic, set atop a raised, rounded platform. Their ceremony was a far cry from Charles’; the drugs and meditation were replaced with a dozen naked girls, bound and gagged, kneeling in a massive arcane symbol that pulled at the core of my being. Another Death Mark. Ariande stalked the inner edges of the circle, yellowed nails flicking with unnatural precision through page after page of an ancient text. The sound of the image never rose above the vagaries of a whisper, but I could still make out the regular intonations of a rolling chant.
The younger Strigoi moved from prisoner to prisoner, adjusting their bonds, repositioning them, and backhanding them when they struggled too much. To the youngest ones, she exhibited the most cruelty, jerking harshly and painfully on their bonds or raking claws along exposed flesh, leaving trails of fresh crimson before bending to whisper into their ears. I flinched instinctively as she looked up at the mirror’s perspective, even though the vampire obviously couldn’t see us. A merciless smile spread across her face and split the ruined side of the woman’s mouth like a butcher’s knife, showing twin sets of double fangs exactly like mine.
The worst part wasn’t the incinerated flesh or the nightmarishly cruel grin. It was her eyes: dull, dead, and gleaming glassily with barely-restrained savagery. The traces of humanity that lingered in those blue-hued orbs were few and far between, and I shuddered to think that her fate might be the same one that awaited me.
“They’re starting. We have no time.” Charles rolled up his sleeves.
“Then let’s do this,” I growled, my nod mirrored by Corey and Tamara. If I still had two intact sleeves, I would have rolled them up as well.
“The connection is strong enough,” the wizard’s voice deepened, along with his concentration. “I’ll drop us on top of them; Ashley goes first, Corey last.” I nodded, unable to smother my nervous eagerness. “We’ll take them by surprise and I’ll break the ritual, then turn my magic on them while Ashley and Tamara hold the Strigoi back. Meanwhile, Corey removes the girls from danger. But be careful, they’re—”
The older Strigoi’s head snapped up, pinning Charles with her frozen gaze as the mirror suddenly resolved into razor-sharp clarity. The tall magician reeled as if struck, shielding his face with an arm and interposing his staff between them defensively. I stared into Ariande’s cold, calculating eyes for the second time as she cut her lifeless gaze to me. Her face sported a mirthless, inhuman smile that bared weathered fangs far more bestial than my own.
“Baellabarsiruk.” Now the mirror delivered full sound; her words hissed through as dry as sand and sharper than shattered glass. “Dispose of them.” No anger or hate hung suspended in the ice of her words, just the grim promise of death.
I moved to act, but there wasn’t enough time between the Strigoi in the mirror speaking and the massive impact that flattened me to the ground. The metal street pole flew from my hands as something drilled me into the bone floor with a reverberating crunch and billowing whoosh of air, striking me down like a mighty avalanche.
I felt my own undead bones flex and bend from the tremendous pressure of the Rawhead’s ambush, but nothing quite gave way. At least, not yet. I lost a moment to the stunning force and pinning impact, leaving me confused for a few precious seconds as to what was going on. Fortunately, the feeling of rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth closing on my neck and shoulder jolted me back to my senses. Inside One-Horn’s gigantic mouth was not where I wanted to be.
The demon’s weight on me would have been suffocating had I still been a breather. As it was, it was still pretty restricting; One-Horn weighed more than I could easily lift. Especially since I was compressed into the floor and expertly pinned by a paw the size of my skinny torso.
I refused to go down like a bitch, though. I strained with monumental effort in the most important push-up of my life, dead muscle and tendon going taut like iron support cables. I forced those muscles to the limit, and it took every ounce of determination and supernatural strength I had to simply raise that heavy paw a couple of feet.
One-Horn leaned his weight on me, trying to bury me in bones by virtue of mass and leverage alone. The human remains littering the chamber floor refused to support the full force of our struggle, cracking and rearranging beneath us, and we both fought to retain our advantage amidst the shifting terrain. Before the creature could grind me back into the ground, I suddenly rolled to the side, dropping one shoulder to upset his balance. A multitude of teeth scraped off my skin to the sound of tearing cloth.
I was free, for all the good it did me. The Rawhead loomed over me, teeth bared and ready to strike, and then reeled as a young man’s voice shouted arcane defiance. A foreboding heat flared, then faded just as quickly as a flaming serpent smashed into the monstrosity’s side, throwing the creature off balance and littering its furry hide with hungry, glimmering embers. As I sprang to my feet, the Rawhead
caught its own balance and roared, the very air distorting with the supernatural power behind the bestial bellow.
A quick assessment showed me just how much trouble we were in. Corey and Tamara reeled from the sheer volume of the Rawhead’s gut-wrenching howl, while Charles knelt near the now-dark mirror, fumbling for his staff, clutching his head, and struggling to rise.
With everyone else vulnerable, I took matters into my own hands. “Come on, you meat-faced asshat,” I spat. I flipped it off, right in front of its ugly face. Radioactive green eyes nearly crossed, trying to track my motion, then snapped back to me as its mouth unzipped with a throaty, angry growl. “What?” I put a hand on my hip, pretending I wasn’t concerned about the many-ton abomination in front of me at all. “I already kicked your shit once. I knew you were hungry, but I didn’t think you were a glutton for punishment.”
Well, I had its attention now. Huge eyes bore down on me like lambent pools of liquid hatred. The growl descended deeper into its throat, turning ominous as it planted all six feet, pawed the ground once, and rushed me, just like before.
That was okay. I wanted this fight. One-Horn had gotten away once, but I’d be damned if it was going to happen again.
Confidently, I braced myself for the charge, just like I had before—and promptly discovered it was neither stupid nor angry enough to underestimate me the same way twice. Instead of trying to spear me or stuff me into its mouth, the Rawhead twisted at the last instant, shoulder-checking me at an angle with its massive body. The monstrosity carried me across the chamber like a rag doll, and my unfeeling body slammed into the wall with terrific force, stones and bones raining from the ceiling. My ribcage creaked as it threatened to give way, though the wall behind me went first, splitting and cracking beneath One-Horn’s strength.
The creature squirmed, and I just barely managed to slap my hand onto its remaining horn, pressing my other hand to its weird, gross face as hard as I could. It was just enough to keep it from squishing its face full of sharp-ass teeth right up against me and gnawing on my unprotected guts.
For the moment, we were at an impasse. I didn’t have the leverage to push it away, muscles creaking like iron cables and bones promising eventual failure, while it couldn’t twist its ugly meat-muzzle around far enough to ingest me. I grinned down at its wet, bloody face. All I had to do was hold the line long enough for my three companions to recover, then they’d light it up like a bonfire while it was busy with me.
It grinned right back. Like it knew something I didn’t. Then it started whispering.
At first, I didn’t know what it was saying—the words themselves made no sense to my ears, some ancient, guttural language that hammered my mind. Then, suddenly, its meaning snapped into place, sliding revoltingly into my brain as I started hearing its bone-grinding voice from yesterday inside my own thoughts. It was a pressure along the sides of my skull, a sick discomfort sinking like a brick into the pit of my stomach. I wanted to heave and vomit, to scrub myself raw and clean, to tear at my own flesh if that was what it took to get it out of my head. But there was nothing I could do except endure it.
“Why do you fight me? Why do you struggle against the inevitable, dead one?” Its voice slithered through my thoughts like the mythical serpent from Genesis, corrupting everything it touched. “One day, you will be like the rest of your kind, soulless, dead, and hungry. One day it will be you taking girls off the streets, trading favors with demons, eating and selling others’ lives for your own selfish benefit.” It was one of the very thoughts that lurked in the deep recesses of my mind since discovering what I was, now given horrible voice. Even the repulsive realization that it was plucking those very thoughts from own mind did little to detract from their painful truth, and I shuddered. As it spoke, my concentration faltered, the edges of my vision grew dim, and my death grip on its horn began to slip ever so slowly away.
My eyes frantically scoured the room for the help I hadn’t expected to need so soon, and I discovered why it wasn’t coming: everyone else was worse off than I was.
Charles staggered his way across the chamber, gripping his staff in one white-knuckled hand and his short brown hair in the other, as if trying to pull it out. He stumbled doggedly over to Corey’s side and knelt beside the boy where he lay flat on the skeletal ground. The younger magician writhed in what seemed like absolute agony, grasping with desperation at his head and clawing at his temples until blood caked under his nails. His mouth was open, but I couldn’t hear his screams; the Rawhead’s foul, invasive voice smothered all other sound. I didn’t see Tamara at all, which scared me, because I knew if she was even remotely able, she’d have been on her feet helping.
“Why do you resist? Why do you delay? I know you already feel the hunger beginning to gnaw at you, heightened with each night you reawaken, with every exertion of supernatural power. Even as you fight me, you lend ever more weight to that which will claim you in time. Who will die to feed you, fledgling? Whose blood will you spill, and who shall you slay so that you might live a dozen more unholy nights?” The fact that its too-wide mouth no longer moved along with its words was the least disturbing part of the whole ordeal. Instead, it just grinned at me patiently, rows of razor teeth bared in hungry amusement—held at bay for now, but only barely.
My hopes spiked as Charles lurched to his feet, leaning against the wall for support, cinnamon eyes a mix of agony and anger. His mouth moved in a rebuke I couldn’t hear, lips stretched in a snarl. The wizard thumped his staff down, shattering bone, twisting his hand to call forth magic—but nothing happened. My optimism faltered along with his gestures and concentration as Charles doubled over, racked by an overwhelming spasm of pain.
Lantern eyes glanced from crippled Charles back to me. Its unspoken, unclean voice slithered around my own thoughts, entwining briefly and leaving them feeling sour and tainted in its wake. “Or perhaps, we both know who you want to taste most. She of the pale skin, whom we have both held close. She who is so dear to you, but of whom you understand so pathetically little.” I growled back at it, gritting my teeth as rage began to bubble irrepressibly to the surface. “Do you not wonder at her rejection? Do you not doubt yourself and fear how you will HAVE nothing, BE nothing, when she is again gone?” Its hideous face was full of inhuman triumph. “She will never again accept you. She cannot. Monster. Murderer. Betrayer.”
My footing started to give, and my arm trembled like I was mortal again: exhausted, weak, and pushed far beyond my limits. Logically, I knew this asshole had its vile hooks in my head. But that fact didn’t mean what it said was wrong, either. I had no answers, no rebuttals, and no solutions. And while I wavered, those demonic, shark-like teeth moved ever closer, my dead flesh on the cusp of yielding. I couldn’t beat this thing, eons old and unknowably powerful. What mad delusion had ever made me think I could?
“Succumb. You have already lost everything, Ashley the Strigoi. Family. Friends. Future. Life. There is nothing left for you here.”
I looked down at the monster, the demon, the Rawhead, victory gleaming in those repugnant, glowing eyes, and I knew it was right. It was time to give up.
Then I looked over again at Charles, trying to help his young apprentice to his feet, concern creasing his face deeper than his own pain as he clutched his staff tight and struggled valiantly to rise. At his feet, Corey’s struggles weakened, and I could smell the blood that ran from his eyes, ears, and raw temples. I caught my first view of Tamara, the pale Moroi struggling listlessly, looking wholly dejected. Her grip on her whip was feeble as she leaned against the tunnel wall; tears streaked her flawless cheeks, running liberally from her normally vibrant eyes, now wide, dull, and hopeless.
Slowly, my trembling arms turned to steel. Laboriously, I summoned the will to speak, to move. Obstinately, I turned my head and stared it straight in the eyes, facing its all-knowing, self-satisfied, alien grin. “Hey,” I rasped. “Asshole.”
It twitched, an instant of puzzlement washed away as eigh
teen inches of blood-rusted iron burst from my fingertips, splattering its face with droplets of my own dark blood. Strips of rancid meat tore free as I sunk those claws directly into the top of its meaty, steaming, stupid head, cutting and cutting until I could see the pitted, yellow bone beneath. “Go fuck yourself,” I snarled.
The Rawhead reeled and roared, both out loud and inside my skull, drowning out my thoughts, the sound powerful enough in its own right to rattle bone and fracture rock. But I didn't let go, opening up long, gory rents down its face that spewed sizzling blood on to us both and into its own enormous eyes. One-Horn ducked its head and slammed me into the wall, but I braced myself and the action only drove my claws deeper into its flesh.
Howling madly, it reared back to do so again, but this time I was ready. I fell off of its great head, grabbed hold of its fur, and pulled along with its momentum, slammed it face-first into the stone with our supernatural strength combined. With my assistance, it headbutted the wall with enough force to leave a bloody imprint in the chamber wall, caking its ruinous wounds with the crushed stone of ages past.
The monster staggered, dazed; its insufferable grin blasted away by blunt force trauma, foul voice banished from my thoughts. In my peripheral vision, my friends stirred, battered but not broken, regaining their feet as if roused from a nightmare.
Maybe tomorrow I’d wake up a monster. Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe I would lose my Lori. But for now, I was still me, and I was damn sure going to finish what I’d started, save the people who needed it, and stop these particular villains from ever hurting anyone like this ever again. And maybe, just maybe, all of that was even more important, if one day I was going to be like those monsters we were hunting today.
Shaking off the stunned daze after ramming the chamber wall, the Rawhead wheeled to face me, deep wounds dribbling generous streams of ichorous blood down its great, terrible head and onto the age-old remains of its previous victims. Its rictus grin trembled as it snarled, its voice scraping at the edges of my conscious mind. “WHY DO YOU FIGHT? WHY DO YOU PERSIST AND STRUGGLE AGAINST WHAT IS NOW YOUR TRUE NATURE?” The creature’s volume was deafening, physically and mentally, resonating through me as it threw the words harshly into my face and into my mind. Eyes gleaming, it padded heavily and silently closer to me as I backed away, dogging my steps like the huge, bloody predator it was.
Dead Girl's Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 1) Page 23