Shattered Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 3)

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  Except maybe Jason. He seemed happy enough.

  “Well, if you don’t need me any more,” Kitty stood up, managing a smile, “I’m going to go out on the floor and dance some of this off.”

  Tamara grinned and rose to give the DJ a hug before letting her out. “I’ll probably join you later, okay?”

  Kitty smiled a little wider. “I’ll hold you to it. All eyes on us, huh?” She stepped out and closed the door behind her.

  Rain sighed wistfully.

  “You know, it’s probably part of whatever heritage she has,” Charles mused. “The way she draws eyes with dance, and song. That could fit with several different Fae bloodlines.”

  Rain glanced at him. “She...could just be good at what she does. Right?”

  Charles shrugged.

  “Hey,” I caught the changelings’ attention. “I wanted to thank you guys too. For helping out against those Sanguinarians. They were a lot more trouble than I expected.”

  “That’s what friends are for, chica,” Jason shrugged.

  Rain nodded enthusiastically. “I didn’t know if we could help, but I wanted to help...so we helped.” He smiled with a note of pride. “And don’t beat yourself up over me getting, well, beat up. It’s okay. Really,” he insisted with a sunny smile.

  I was honestly touched. It was nice to have that feeling of family after losing both my dad and uncle within the last year.

  “Yeah, but your dad’s totally onto you, manito,” Jason said, elbowing his friend in the arm. “You gotta tell him sometime.”

  “What's up? Things okay with your dad?” I rasped. I stood up and stretched, trying not to pop my back in a way that made everyone ill.

  “He picked me up on the way home yesterday,” Rain replied. “He wasn’t too happy about me being out past dawn. And I think he somehow knew I got hurt.” He frowned. “I really don’t want to let him down. And I hate lying to him.”

  “Never keep secrets from the people you love,” Charles said quietly. “It never ends well. Trust me.”

  Everyone in the room glanced at the wizard, but his face was as stoic as ever, like a stone mask. We might as well have looked at the wall for clues. He just stared back at us impassively until we all gave up.

  “You probably should tell him,” I said, turning my chair around and settling back into it. “Not that it’s my business or anything.”

  Rain shook his head, scraping messy, brown-black hair out of his eyes. “No, you’re right. I know you’re right. But I don’t know what to tell him.” Rain looked up, his brown eyes glinting with a hint of coyote amber. “He gave me a chance when no one else would. I love my dad. I don’t want him to think I’ve just been lying to him this whole time. I don’t want him to think he can’t trust me any more.” His eyes shimmered with vulnerability.

  “The best you can do is just tell him that, you know.” Tamara said softly. “All of it. He’ll understand.”

  The changeling nodded, but didn’t seem convinced. “You’re probably right.”

  “But that doesn't make it any easier, huh?” Tamara smiled sympathetically.

  Rain nodded. “I asked him if he wanted me to stop going out, since he knew. But he said he wasn’t trying to keep me from living my life, just trying to keep me safe.” He shook his head, his eyes troubled despite our best efforts to help. “I’m...actually gonna go text him. Just to let him know I’m okay, and...just to talk for a minute.”

  Ran stepped out, and Jason rose with a shit-eating grin. “And I’m gonna get something to drink while he’s distracted.” He slipped out the door before anyone could say anything.

  I glanced at Tamara. “Can’t you stop him? He’s totally underage.”

  She sighed. “I tried. I even spoke to the bartenders. I don’t know how he keeps getting around it.” She shrugged. “To be fair, he doesn't look underage. And something tells me he’s seen worse than a little alcohol in his life.”

  I frowned, but nodded. Then I glanced over at Charles and chuckled hoarsely. “Hey, your eye’s looking better.”

  He glared at me immediately. Sure enough, the back eye I’d given him yesterday was about halfway gone. “I am a conduit for pure magical energy,” he announced grumpily. “I recover quickly.” He glowered at me. “Though things like nighttime rescues and standoffs with Sanguinarians would be a lot easier if I could see.”

  I snorted, trying not to grin. “Did you manage to finish off the two vampires downstairs? I didn’t even look when I came back down and then we had to go.”

  “One, yes,” he replied frostily. “And the one that tried to kill me outside. The other escaped. Barely.”

  I grinned anyway.

  “I’m still surprised you got Sanguinarian assassins,” Tamara said. She took in my curious expression and elaborated. “You did realize they weren’t your ordinary blood-bangers, right?”

  “I noticed that around the time they ganged up on me and stuffed me in the fridge, yes,” I replied.

  “They’re specialized in taking out enemies of the Sanguinarian nation as a whole,” she continued. “Some of them may have been around since the Strigoi still openly walked the earth.” Tamara’s sapphire eyes darkened with ripples of worry. “Which means it does not bode well that they’re after you.”

  She didn’t have to tell me that. I sighed. Then shrugged. If the Sanguinarians knew about me already, there wasn’t much I could do about it—except fight when the time came. But I really had to think about what that meant for Lori, too. I didn’t want to get her hurt—or worse. Not over me, not again. And I already knew for a fact that the Sanguinarians wouldn't hesitate to use her against me or even just hurt her to hurt me.

  I’d been feeling eyes on me almost everywhere I went. I’d felt them right before the ambush; it was part of what had set my nerves on edge and gotten me listening to such things as faint supernatural heartbeats. Were they the ones following me, perhaps? It seemed likely.

  I looked back at Tamara. “Have they ever come after you? What did you do?”

  “Yeah.” To my surprise, she looked away. “Just once,” she said quietly, sadly. “But really, they were after a...friend.”

  I hadn’t expected the answer, and further questions died on my tongue.

  “What do we do next?” I said finally. “Where do we go from here?”

  “We wait,” Charles said.

  I frowned. “You can’t be serious.”

  He nodded. “Moroi business, remember?”

  Tamara smiled, seeming to have let the momentary sadness pass. “Give me a day or two. I’ll try to find something out. Failing that, we can see if Rain and Jason can track her. We can’t just let this go.”

  “We’d probably know more if you hadn’t killed that Sanguinarian,” Charles commented, eying Tamara.

  “Says the guy who killed three of them,” she shot back.

  “Mine weren’t handed to me on a silver platter, either,” he retorted.

  “Wait,” I frowned. “Are we talking about the one I threw you?” I’d forgotten about that one too.

  Tamara nodded. “I finished him off because I thought you’d capture Silvia and we could interrogate her.”

  I winced. “Yeah…. I kinda fucked that up a little.”

  Tamara shook her head. “None of us could have known what was going on with her.” She blinked. “Actually, we still don’t.”

  I leaned back, balancing my chair against the wall. “So why don’t you just report this whole thing to Liandra and let her deal with it? I thought you didn’t want any more responsibility, anyway.”

  “No way in hell.” The Moroi shook her head firmly. “This isn’t about Li. No matter what Silvia says, she made this about me. Besides, I can’t trust Liandra to follow any lead I give her. She’s too unpredictable. She might just ignore it or try to turn it into something that looks like my fault somehow, since she’s up my ass lately. That or she would figure it out and take all the credit and use it to grab even more power. I’m not going
to hand her anything I don’t have to, when I can do just as good of a job my damn self.”

  I watched as Tamara’s lambent sapphire eyes flickered through a series of conflicting emotions. When she spoke again, I could hear the undertones of those feelings echoed in her voice. “Besides, we may not all get along, but I do love my family…at least, a few of them.” She smirked. “Mostly the younger ones like Dani. And they’re the ones most likely to be hurt by something like...whatever this is.”

  I nodded. “Whatever’s going on, your cousin’s packing some serious power. And that’s without counting those Sanguinarians. How’d she even do that with the roof? I thought Moroi didn’t really do magic.”

  “They can,” Charles spoke over Tamara, “But it’s very limited and not very common. What’d she do?”

  I shrugged. “Pointed at the ceiling and made it start collapsing.” I rested my chin in my hand. “The weird thing was the lack of static. No crackle of energy coming across from Next Door and dispersing.” I eyed Charles. “What does that mean? I've never seen it happen before, and you use magic all the damn time.”

  “Nothing,” he replied.

  I raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he repeated. “Because it’s simply not possible. It doesn't happen.”

  Despite his crossed arms and impassive visage, something seemed off. Tamara and I exchanged suspicious looks.

  “You keep saying that phrase,” I replied. “I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

  Tamara died laughing.

  Chapter Seven

  Worst Bath Ever

  I lifted the loveseat easily, balancing it over my head in one hand, careful not to whack it on the ceiling.

  Lori swept the vacuum back and forth underneath, her mouth moving soundlessly.

  “What?” I asked loudly.

  Rolling her eyes, she finished and clicked the vacuum cleaner off. “I said ‘please don’t drop that on me.’ I don’t want to die by my favorite piece of furniture.”

  I grinned helplessly. “I totally think you’d win, if it came down to a fight.”

  She blinked those deep slate eyes at me, struggling not to smirk, and turned the vacuum back on, smothering anything else I might say.

  We were trying the same thing with our queen-sized bed when my phone started vibrating and didn’t let up.

  Lori was really inured to my attempts to pester her. I had to poke her repeatedly, then wave my phone in her face with my free hand before she realized I had a legitimate issue.

  “Is it the Ashes signal?” She asked quietly as I set the bed back down, her warm smile muted.

  We’ve got her. I could almost feel the vicious undertones emanating through Tamara’s text. And after a week of failed tracking and frustrating dead ends, I didn’t blame her.

  I kinda wanted another shot at Silvia the super-Moroi myself.

  I looked back up at my lover and smiled. “Something like that, I guess.” I grinned, fangs peeking through despite my best efforts. “Does that make you my Mary Jane?”

  She gave me a flat stare. “You’re mixing Spiderman and Batman? You should go to confession.”

  I snorted, laughing to myself as I grabbed my fighting clothes and makeshift armor. “I would, but there’s gotta be easier ways to burst into flames and die.” I poked my head out of the bathroom. “Like trying to cook us dinner.”

  “Any excuse will do, I guess.” She followed me into the bathroom and gave me a quick kiss, pointedly not looking at the scrapes and bruises on my near-naked body. “Just...be careful tonight. You promised.”

  “Anything for you, beautiful.”

  “So what’s she doing here?” I peered over the back of the passenger seat to where Kitty was crammed into the back of Tamara’s purple Dodge Hellcat, stuffed shoulder to shoulder with an uncomfortable-looking Charles and a quietly giddy Rain.

  I paused. “Sorry. That came out like an asshole.” I flashed the DJ, now in all-black track suit, an apologetic smile. “What I mean is, are you sure you want in on this? This is kinda dangerous stuff.”

  “Kinda?” Charles grumbled, but no one was paying him any attention.

  Kitty waved away my apology. “Honestly? I completely agree. This is a bad idea.” As she spoke, the exotic fairy worked at tying her long red-and-black hair back and up, getting it out of her way. It was an extended process. “But apparently, I can’t just let this go.” She looked frustrated. “Not anymore. This woman wronged me. I need to see her pay with my own eyes. I need to see it made right.” She sighed; she didn’t sound like the typical revenge seeker at all.

  Hell, she didn’t even sound like she wanted to be here. I gave her a sympathetic frown; I supposed being half-Fae was even rougher than I’d imagined.

  “Besides, without Kitty, we wouldn’t have found her so soon.” Tamara nodded toward the glowing windows of the row of townhouses in front of us.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, chica,” Jason chimed in, chilling out comfortably from his squashed position with a door handle in his ribs. “Wasn’t us this time. Or Tamara. New lady found the bad guy.” He winked at Kitty.

  “Kitty’s actually got a pretty wide net of contacts,” Tamara explained. “Including some people who won’t work with the Moroi.”

  Kitty shook her head. “It’s no big deal. Former clients and regulars. Admirers. Old DJ gigs. People I went to high school and college with.” She shrugged, the hint of a smile playing at her lips. “Nobody big, but it pays to keep in touch, I guess.”

  “I guess so.” I barely remembered anyone from my high school. Probably because most of them had been jackasses.

  “Anyway, once Kitty narrowed down the search area to Homewood, our two top trackers caught up to my cousin pretty quickly,” Tamara finished.

  “You could have called me days ago. I would’ve helped.” I glanced out the darkened window at the townhouses again. “Homewood, huh.” One of the nicest—and least crime-ridden—areas in the city. The rare place in town that was almost peaceful. “Don’t you and your dad live out here?” I glanced at the backseat.

  “Yeah,” Rain responded. “Kinda close to here, actually.” He seemed a little uncomfortable. I would be too, finding out a Super Vampire had moved in just down the street.

  “Which reminds me.” Tamara turned to look at everyone equally. “We have ground rules for engagement.”

  “This should be good,” Charles mumbled.

  Tamara glared at him for a moment before smiling positively at the rest of us. “So. Homewood. Pretty fast police response for the area. I can deal with it, but it’ll make everything much, much more difficult and probably slow us down. If we make too much noise, it’d be good to try and get out quick.” She seemed to be staring right at me for some reason. “And second…” She hesitated. “Please don’t kill Silvia.”

  Charles raised an eyebrow. “That’s up to her, not us. Kid gloves get you killed, Tamara.”

  She frowned. “I know, but…” Tamara took a deep breath. “We do what we have to. But I want answers, dammit.” Turning back around, she peered at the targeted townhouse across the street. “And maybe I wanna give someone I grew up with a second chance.”

  I glanced at Charles. He nodded but frowned at the same time. I knew what his expressions meant without having to trade a word: we’d do our best. But Silvia had been an extremely tough customer, and we were about to step into her house—and possibly another trap for all we knew. There wasn’t a person in the car whose blood I wanted to see on my hands because we’d gotten sloppy.

  Including my own. I’d promised, after all.

  Taking point, I simply called to the shadow around me, cloaking myself from easy detection, and pushed myself across the street, slipping from shadow to shadow in an instant without bothering with the intervening space. With a puff of fluttering darkness, I arrived at the corner of the house, already listening to the four heartbeats within.

  Everyone else went the long way wh
ile I kept watch, stuffing their hands into pockets and otherwise looking nonchalant and innocuous as they strolled down the sidewalk and crossed the street. In an urban environment, it was usually easier to look like you belonged than to try and disappear.

  Of course, that illusion faded as the group gathered around the townhouse’s side door, dodging scattered flowers and the winding snakes of a half-hidden sprinkler system. At that point, we looked like exactly what we were: a small group of people about to break into a house. The darkness blanketing the empty yard between the townhouse and its nearest neighbor provided a little cover, but it was only a matter of time until someone noticed.

  Against my better judgment, Rain put his ear to the door, listening, and held up a finger to pause us. “They’re talking,” he whispered.

  “Who?” Tamara hissed. “Is it Silvia? What are—”

  “Chill, chica,” Jason murmured. “Let him hear.”

  “Silvia,” Rain whispered, his eyes wide. “And someone else with a similar accent. Two more inside, nearby.” That confirmed what I’d heard; I might be able to pick out a heartbeat like nobody’s business, but the two changelings could probably hear them breathing and fidgeting inside. “The other’s her sister, I think?”

  “Petra,” Tamara breathed out a confirmation.

  “They’re talking about someone. Saying ‘she’ a lot. Something about a ‘problem solver,’ ‘hopping back and forth’ and ‘conducting negotiations’...”

  “What?” Charles hissed sharply, now pushing close to hear as well. “Did she say—”

  “...pushing the operation into downtown anyway,” Rain closed his eyes, seeming to repeat the conversation verbatim. “Even without her help, the area should soak up our product like a sponge. We’re easily saturating the test markets in Woodlawn and near the airport. Though it’ll take months for the emotional effects to truly show.”

  We all stared at each other.

  “So you’ll simply have to be patient on that front,” Rain continued, looking as disturbed as the rest of us. “Though, what you should really do in the meantime, Silvia my dear,” Rain’s eyes went wide, “is go and see who’s at the door.”