Follow the Ashes: Book 1 of the Executioner Trilogy

by Kindra Sowder

  In between ragged and shallow breaths I said, “It’s Lilith!”

  Chapter 10: Nice to Make Your

  Acquaintance

  They were both on their feet before I could say anything else, and nearly sprinting towards me. Their arms were out to catch me if I fell, which was highly likely. The world started to spin, and the taste of bile and blood overwhelmed my palate again. As I completely lost my balance I felt Gordon’s strong arms wrap around my waist. At that moment, I couldn’t help but give into the reflex to retch. Everything I had eaten that day came up without resistance, and it felt like liquid fire was burning through my esophagus. The taste of it was bitter in my mouth, making me gag even more. It hurt like there was a literal fire burning inside my stomach and throat. Thick saliva coated every inch of my mouth and threatened to make me vomit again. All I could do was swallow down the urge as best I could.

  “Water,” I requested. My voice sounding like I had swallowed a frog or a toad. The thirst was overwhelming, and I had to get rid of the scorching sensation in my throat. It had felt like someone was shoving a torch down my gullet. The feeling was threatening to take over and burn me up completely, all from the inside out. Beth walked speedily to our kitchen and came back with a glass of freezing water. As I greedily swallowed every last bit of it, I felt instant relief. If someone had asked me to describe it, I couldn’t.

  Then I ran the glass over my forehead, letting the condensation left over cool me down. It worked almost immediately, and I was so thankful for that. Sweat was practically pouring off of me and soaking my outfit like I had gone swimming with my clothes on. I instantly felt the urge to take them off, but I fought it.

  I could’ve probably squeezed sweat out of my hair. As an uncomfortable silence unfolded, I could hear drops of my sweat land on the wooden floor. Each one sounded amplified like someone was holding a microphone up to it to collect the sound. My breath was coming in ragged pulls, and my heart was racing faster than it ever had in my years of life. Why did this take so much out of me?

  I couldn’t get the shocking visions out of my mind no matter how hard I tried. That was all I wanted, to be rid of them. They kept replaying, but, thankfully, without me feeling anything at all this time. I didn’t think I could live through a second round. For that short amount of time I had completely forgotten what I had to tell them that was so important. So I decided I’d apologize for what I had just spewed all over our living room floor instead.

  “Sorry about the floor,” I said as I used my sleeve to wipe the remnants of it from the corner of my mouth as well as some of the sweat from my forehead. It didn’t help at all. I heard Gordon chortle, and Beth give a light laugh that sounded uncomfortable. I couldn’t help but grin a little, but that grin disappeared once I relived the scene of my death. Oh yeah, I thought. That was it.

  “It’s Lilith,” I said again.

  “Lilith? As in, from the Bible, Lilith?” Gordon voiced from right next to my left knee. I couldn’t help but look at his perfect face. It was twisted in concern and regret at letting me go out again. I nodded and squeezed his hand reassuringly. I hadn’t completely regained my breath just yet, so any talking I did might have been somewhat limited. I was still wondering why Beth was so okay with him as to let him hang around once I had left, but I had other fish to fry.

  Beth was standing in front of me with hands crossed over her chest. “How do you know?”

  “Visions delivered on a very suspicious poppy.” That poppy was oddly suspicious. How didn’t I realize that it probably wasn’t the best idea to pick the darn thing up?

  I saw Beth’s face reflect the confusion I was feeling. Why a poppy? There was some kind of significance there that neither one of us seemed to be able to figure out.

  “At least this time it wasn’t a message delivered personally,” I whispered as I remembered the moment I picked up the poppy. I knew something was completely wrong about it before I had even touched it. Yet, I had decided to touch it anyway. Gordon gave my hand an encouraging squeeze. “But I think I know part of the reason she’s here.” Once I had received those horrible visions I instantly knew one reason she was here. I was hoping that was all there was to it, and I wasn’t missing anything. How I would’ve hated to miss something worse than that.

  Questions filled Beth’s eyes for the millionth time. I figured I should at least answer one of them. If she hadn’t seen anything herself, then why not? She apparently hadn’t learned anything and I had learned a very tiny piece of what was going to be a very long story.

  “She’s here to kill Executioners, and I’m the first one she’s come across. I’m not sure why just yet, but I’m sure she’ll make her plans known soon enough.”

  Boy, I was sure her plan would be a doozy. I was only hoping, as Gordon looked up at me, that he wasn’t a part of that plan.

  Chapter 11: Oh, the Symbolism

  The urge to upchuck the remnants of whatever was left in my stomach had finally ceased. The fog inside my head was beginning to clear like it was rolling its way right out. Kind of like the fog that had developed outside. The water I drank wasn’t settling in my stomach well at all. It wasn’t causing the nausea to return so I wasn’t worried about throwing up again. It was more uncomfortable than anything else. I was beginning to think that no matter how thirsty I originally was, it was definitely not worth the churning of acid that was going on in my stomach now.

  Gordon and Beth were both sitting across from me on the couch with their arms crossed. The gears were turning so obviously in their heads, I could almost hear them. I thought about cracking a joke about how I could smell something burning, but I thought that would be really inappropriate. In my mind I used an imaginary key to lock my mouth shut to keep things of a highly unsuitable nature from coming out of it. To be honest, my head was probably on fire from all of the thinking as well. I would be completely honest in saying that my gears were probably a little rusty at that point. Dehydration and an upset stomach have a way of doing that to you.

  One word was resonating in my head. Poppy. Quickly followed by a question mark. What kind of significance did a poppy have? Especially when it came to Lilith? What was the connection? I was beginning to think it was an explanation so obvious that it was so easy for us to miss entirely. As far as I could tell that’s how it always worked. The most obvious of things were the hardest to figure out even though they were staring you directly in the face. This explanation was right in front of us, hopping around like a street performer, just waiting for us to finally see him and hand over our pocket change.

  That’s when Beth suddenly jumped off the couch like someone had lit a fire under her backside and disappeared into another room. This happened so fast you could swear something was chasing after her. Gordon and I exchanged confused looks as we heard her shifting things around in the room next to the one we were in. She was in our makeshift library. In a nutshell, it was just a room filled with stacks and stacks of really old books.

  We started the collection once we moved in together and noticed how many we already had. It had just continued to grow ever since. I decided to go aid her in her search. There was a sound like a stack of books falling over on top of a person. A curse slipped from her mouth, but I was reassured she was okay when she reemerged with an open book in hand. She was flipping wildly through its pages with a speed I had never witnessed. She sat down, turned another page, and I almost literally saw the light come on above her head like you saw in old cartoons. Bing!

  “I’ve got it! The poppy is her signature. Whenever you see a poppy you know she’s been there.” I let that little bit of information roll over in my mind. So she’s up and moving, and definitely after me again. That was just great.

  I let out a groan filled with aggravation, and looked down at my hands folded in my lap. I was really hoping that those visions of how she was undoubtedly going to kill me weren’t from her. If only they were from someone who wanted to help anonymously. Apparently I was wrong. I real
ly wanted to avoid a repeat of the part where she turns my head into a whoopee cushion with the use of her hands alone. I just couldn’t bear sitting and waiting any longer than I already had. Waiting around for the answers to fall in my lap was going to get me killed.

  I took off to my room as quickly as my legs would carry me. I still didn’t feel one hundred percent and I got a little dizzy from the movement. I couldn’t sit there, but I couldn’t go out there to find her just yet. Not until I knew what I needed to do to be rid of her and her wickedness. The frustration was building up inside me, and I felt that if I sat there any longer and waited for her to make a move I’d explode like a cork being let free of its champagne bottle prison.

  I could hear heavy footsteps following me. Then Gordon called out my name, which I chose to ignore. The only thing I really didn’t need at the moment was a pep talk. I had to keep moving no matter how much my body begged me to stop at the mere sound of his voice. I just wanted to turn to him, to let him take me in his arms to comfort me and tell me everything would be alright. Taking the stairs two at a time, I almost tripped. I quickly recovered and made it to the top of the stairs in a matter of seconds. So many thoughts were going through my mind and beginning to mingle with one another. The way my body reacted to him turned my mind to a huge jumbled mess.

  I finally made it into my room without stopping. Not even for a second. Those few seconds it took to get there felt like an eternity. My legs finally felt like they could stop and I stood there. I put my face in my hands and tried to keep myself from bursting out into a river of tears and sobs. I didn’t want to cry, but the frustration started to leak from my eyes like someone opened the levy holding them in. How was I going to defeat Lilith? From what I knew about her, she was Adam’s first wife who refused to submit to him. She fled the Garden of Eden in a burst of anger. Her vampire children mirrored that speed.

  God had sent down three angels to collect her upon Adam’s request. He apparently couldn’t continue on without her and her beauty. She absolutely refused to return to him, no matter how much the angels begged and pleaded. I didn’t blame her one bit. Who would want to be stuck on bottom forever?

  I thought that God’s grand design for Adam and Lilith was one he really should’ve thought through. Adam and Lilith were made of the dust from the Earth, which made them equals. Lilith wanted equality. Was that so wrong of her? I really didn’t think so, but it was so wrong in the beginnings of the Earth for some reason. It was a wonder that the human race had managed equality of any kind with origins like this.

  After Lilith refused the proposal for a safe return to Eden, she and those angels struck a deal. Well, more of a compromise than a deal. It wasn’t really agreed upon either, but she would kill God’s children. One hundred of hers would die in return every day, which was where I came in. Her children were the demons and vampires that I killed on a nightly basis. They walked the earth, slaying whomever they desired without remorse. The only ones she couldn’t harm were the children wearing a pendent that had any of the three angel’s names written on them. No exceptions. That was the rule.

  Unfortunately it wasn’t seen as necessary to adorn any Executioner, such as myself, with a special pendent to prevent their death at her hands. Then again, I didn’t think they’d think there was any way for her to return. I would’ve loved to know who made up that rule, just to kill them the way Lilith had killed so many of us, to get my point across. But it wouldn’t have been a fair trade for us to be able to kill her children so freely and her to not have any say about whether we could die by her hands or not.

  Revenge is an unfair thing. Always has been, and always will be. Nothing was going to change that.

  “Robin,” Gordon repeated as he shut my door with an almost inaudible click. There was an edge to his voice almost like he was asking a question he didn’t want to know the answer to. I couldn’t turn around and look him in the eyes. Not with tears streaming down my face that showed such weakness. I was supposed to be strong and resilient. This wasn’t my best moment. I was in a vulnerable state and couldn’t stand for anyone to see this side of me. I thought about telling him to leave me alone with my thoughts, but, considering my situation, I didn’t think alone was the best place to be. Not with Lilith after my head.

  That was when I realized that I couldn’t keep hiding from everything like I used to believe I could. I had been doing that all of my life, and it was time for a change. My father had just made it so easy for me to run and hide when things got emotional. I turned to Gordon and watched his face transform from a look of worry to a look of understanding. There was one other emotion I really didn’t think was possible to be expressed towards me.

  Was that love in his eyes? Love was a feeling I wasn’t expecting from anyone, especially him. We hadn’t known each other long. I guess it takes almost watching someone’s life end for you to be able to appreciate them. That connection we had made it so much easier for those feelings to form.

  I know I hadn’t completely scoped out the feelings I had for Gordon as much as I should have by then, but it was unmistakable. The feeling was one hundred percent mutual and it filled my heart with so much joy I began to cry again. It was actually more of a sob than anything, and it was hard to control. There were so many emotions compacted together in one, and I almost couldn’t hold onto them all. They had nowhere to go but out, and to escape down my cheeks in small rivers.

  The question surfaced again, though. “Gordon, why are you here?”

  “Destiny,” he said. The questioning look in my eyes must have prompted him further. “A dream.” The woman from my own dream flashed into my mind and I understood instantly.

  Reaching out with warm and strong arms he caressed my cheek, and then held my face in his hands. The woman from my own dream flashed through my mind again and I made a decision. If fate had a plan, I might as well play along. His touch was still so tender. It surprised me. I didn’t think someone so strong could be so kind and gentle. It reminded me of something my mother used to tell me. When you are overwhelmed with darkness, remember there are always the tiniest flickers of light that will give you hope. That hope will guide you along even the darkest of paths.

  He was the light that would guide me on this path, which was definitely my darkest. It was filled with fear. That thought sent a smile across my features that I decided I didn’t want to hide from him. He was my light in darkness, and without his radiance I wasn’t going to make it through this darkness. Nothing was brighter than him in that moment.

  The walls I had built to protect myself started to crumble under his brilliance. Until now, nothing had been able to tear them down. I think he noticed this because the affection in his eyes deepened, and the sparkle returned. I realized that no matter how dark things were at that moment, they could become worse. I could lose him to another, or much worse. I could lose him to death. No. That was out of the question now. I refused to let that happen under any circumstances.

  Without warning, I was so tired I almost couldn’t stand. I even began to sway. The visions and my body’s reaction to them had drained so much out of me. Then the thought of losing him took more of a toll on me. The thought of losing him to anything or anyone was too much to handle, and I’d be damned if I stood by and let it happen without fighting as hard as I could to prevent it.

  He planted a soft, encouraging kiss on my forehead. I wanted so much more than just one small sign of affection. Much more. But I decided that tonight wasn’t the best night for this to happen.

  I wanted to be held. To have his arms wrapped around me, to be enveloped in his warmth and to never leave. I gave him a lingering kiss that sent chills up my spine in a rush that was unshakable and unmistakable. If the darkness was there, I couldn’t see it.

  Not right now. The light had drowned it out completely.

  Chapter 12: A Dream’s

  Significance

  I was in an empty field, covered with a fog that only offered the ground seclusion. It
almost seemed to cling to my bare feet and legs like a living creature that needed protection. I couldn’t make out my feet at all in the dense coverage of it. I was dressed in a gossamer white gown. The fabric of the dress was soft, almost like silk. It was so indulgent that I barely felt it brushing up against my skin as I moved through the dense fog. It wasn’t silk though. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I felt like I was wearing something made out of the very thing that made up Gordon’s voice.

  I had fallen asleep wrapped in his arms and covered with my thick comforter that would hold in the heat his body generated. Almost enough to where it would suffocate my skin, but I didn’t care. We laid there not speaking a word to each other. The silence was perfectly welcome. I felt like we learned more about each other in those moments then if we had been speaking to each other for years. The way someone handles complete silence tells you more about them than anything else they could possibly do or say.

  The fog was so thick that I almost had to wade through it like water. It made me feel like I was going in slow motion. The temperature was very comfortable, and early morning dew was hanging on the sparse trees and the jasmine laced trellis like small diamonds shining in the dim twilight. The smell reminded me so much of my mother and all I wanted to do was bask in it. My mother was a delicate woman and had been taken too early from this world. She was the woman who created me and gave me the strength to always move on, no matter how hard it may be in the beginning. I was always challenging my emotional limits because of those very lessons in rigidity. I always held in feelings that would make me look weak to keep my enemies from using them against me. That was mostly a lesson I had learned from my father.