Awakening the Fire
Page 27
“Go help them with the wolves,” Ari said when she was sure her voice was steady. “I can get back on my own.”
“No. You can’t. Not with that arm.” Mike was matter-of-fact.
She had forgotten. Glancing down, she saw the bindings were tight; it was swelling. “I guess you're right. Let’s go.”
She started off in the lead, Mike followed. He didn’t attempt conversation, and the return trip up the cliffs was completed in silence. It was harder than she had anticipated. Without Mike, she wouldn’t have made it.
When they reached the top, Ryan was sitting in his off-duty car. The door opened when he spotted her, and he stepped out. “I heard there’s been some trouble.”
“Yeah, you might say that. Who called you?” As if she couldn’t figure that one out. She wondered how much Andreas had told him.
Ryan ignored her question, looking at her arm. “You’re injured.”
He was being careful, cautious. Andreas must have said quite a bit.
“It’ll keep,” she said. “Prisoners and bodies come first.”
A brief frown crossed his face before he shrugged, accepting her answer. No barrage of questions. His restraint made it easier to stick to business.
Mike left, refusing a ride, and headed back to the vampire compound.
Ari filled Ryan in on most of the night’s events. She didn’t mention the fire salamanders. Not now, maybe never. And she didn’t talk about how Sheila died. Surprisingly, Ryan took it all in stride. Of course, he’d already been primed.
“No human bodies,” she said. “In fact, no one local. They thought they could walk into Riverdale and take over.”
“Overconfident, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess. Too bad most of them aren’t alive to learn by their mistakes.”
Ryan gave a short, mirthless cop laugh.
He drove her to the compound. Mike was already there, and no one asked her what happened. The next hour was a flurry of activity. Carmella and the four vampires arrived from the caverns with the wolves, both living and dead. Carmella took no time in letting Ryan know the caves were off limits. He was fine with that, said the delivery saved him and the police department a lot of trouble. He called in officers to take custody of the prisoners and the coroner to handle the bodies. Ari started to follow the last officer out the door.
“So this is the vampire court, huh?” Ryan stood in the middle of the security area and looked around.
Ari stopped and turned back. “This is security. The audience chambers are down the hall. Sleeping quarters are far from here.”
“Not very fancy. Somehow, I expected plush quarters.”
“They were better before the fight.” She started to shrug, grimaced at the discomfort in her arm.
“You need to see a doctor. We’re done here. Unless you’re waiting for someone.” He paused and waited for an answer.
“No, no one. Let’s go.” Now the work was done, she was anxious to get away. Afraid Andreas might appear. She couldn’t see him right now.
“Hey, Ari.” It was Mike. He walked toward them, pulling something out of his belt. He held out her silver dagger. “You dropped this.”
Ari shook her head. “You keep it. I don’t want it anymore.” As she turned away, Mike and Ryan exchanged a look, but she kept moving toward the door. “Are you coming?” she said over her shoulder.
“Right behind you.” Ryan caught up with her outside. “You’re not going to talk about it, are you?”
Ari didn’t break stride. “No, there’s nothing to talk about. The bad guys are mostly dead. The rest are in custody. Case closed. What more do you want?”
“Me? I’m satisfied, but I get the feeling you’re not.”
How could she be? Her personal life was a wreck. People she counted on had died or betrayed her. She had developed magical powers she didn’t understand. But she’d cope. She always did.
She turned to Ryan and mustered a smile. “Quit worrying about me, partner. I’ll be fine. A visit to the ER, a good night’s sleep, I’ll be a new woman.”
“I kind of liked the old one,” he said.
“Tough. You’ll get used to the new me. Now come on before your pager or mine goes off. I couldn’t face another crime scene tonight.”
As she climbed into his car, she congratulated herself for not asking why Andreas hadn’t returned to the compound. It was a start.
Epilogue
Six weeks later, Ari returned to Riverdale on a gray, gloomy afternoon. The feel of early snow was in the air, no more than a few weeks away. She was glad to be coming home. Her arm had healed, she’d undergone rigorous retraining with her childhood Sensei, and she was ready, even anxious, to get back to work. Martin was exhausted from covering both territories, but at least there’d been no vampire wars or drug outbreaks during her absence.
She hadn’t heard from Andreas, but that was a good thing. At least she thought so most of the time. The manner of Sheila’s death had stunned her, but she’d had many hours to go over the details of that night. In the honest light of day, she realized she’d reacted mostly from anger at herself, the irrevocable choice she almost made. And she’d been afraid, still was, not for what happened in the caverns, but at the compound. The magical link. The idea of such a powerful connection with a vampire, one that could break all magical barriers and wake him from his sleep…well, that was something she still couldn’t wrap her head around. What if their magics consumed each other? Or the stronger one took control? And, Goddess forbid, what if it was all her fault? Or at least the fault of her family legend?
In her brooding, Ari almost missed the turn. She drove down the lane to the woods where Yana was buried and parked the Mini Cooper. She’d come to chat. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t brought her problems to Yana. This time, she also needed to tell Yana why she’d died.
And how the story ended.
Ari got out of the car and entered the woods. The ground was hard, the brown grass brittle and crackly. It crunched under her feet. Finally, standing in the middle of a small clearing, Ari explained it all. The drugs, the deaths, Sebastian’s ambitions, the compound attack, the caverns, and how Sheila died.
“I wanted to kill her,” Ari admitted. “And I don’t know why Andreas did it instead. His own reasons? Or maybe to protect me from stepping over the line. I’m still not sure I wanted to be saved.”
With most of the story behind her, Ari began to walk. She turned onto a trail made by summer hikers and plucked a tall slender blade of grass from the edge of the path. She chewed on the end. It was dry, flavorless.
“I wish I could turn back the clock,” she finally said. “Have you back. Do things better. But that isn’t how things work. So I guess I just have to do the best I can.” She paused to watch two squirrels chasing through the trees. “But I wish you could tell me what to do about Andreas. Until I figure it out, I’m going to stay away. There’s so much about him…us…that I don’t understand.”
She fell silent, listening to the wind in the trees. The weather grew colder every day, the winds stronger, more biting. She turned to retrace her steps. It was time to go.
Ari chuckled as she rounded the last curve in the trail. “You’ll be happy to hear Sebastian is having his own problems these days. Revolts among his vampires. Zoe heard Prince Daron had a hand in it. Payback can be hell.”
Ari spotted her Mini Cooper through the trees. She’d reached the end of the path—and the end of her story. A gust of wind whipped the hair across her face. She shivered, pulled her jacket tighter, and said her good-byes. Pulling a pouch from her pocket, she tossed a handful of sweet grass into the air. It spun and twirled, scattering its seeds, ready to renew life when the ground warmed again. Spring was only a winter away. A smile tugged at her lips as she took a last look around. Yana would rest now.
Ari wouldn’t be back.
~ About the Author ~
Ally Shields is the pseudonym of Janet L Buck, a former attorney and ju
venile officer, residing in the Midwest.
Find out more about Ally Shields here:
http://www.janetlbuck.com
http://facebook.com/janet.buck1
http://twitter.com/janetlbuck
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four