Shattered Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 3)

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  “Nope!” I intervened without hesitation, pulling Rain away from the door and slamming into it, shattering carved oak into kindling—

  —And blocking the way in the nick of time. I shielded my eyes against the dual burst of gunfire as everything went to hell in an instant, but bullets weren’t enough to stop me from pushing forward.

  Two probable Sanguinarians stood on the far side of the barely-furnished living room, holding what looked like MP7s and frowning at how useless they were against me. One wore all black with a mask pulled up around her face, just like the Sanguinarian assassins we’d fought before. Inside the next room, a modern dining room-kitchen mix, sat Silvia and another Moroi. Silvia had exchanged her back-and-white dress for red-and-black, while the other wore an untucked white button down and black slacks, her features and figure a near carbon-copy of Silvia’s. They rose abruptly from their seats, Silvia with a start that sent her chair backward to the floor, the other one with a casual grace.

  “Petra!” Silvia snapped the name, worry in her tone and gleaming hazel eyes. “You’re the carrier! Get out of here!” She grabbed her sibling’s arm and shoved her toward the front door, but not before Petra’s eyes shifted like liquid, and she paused a moment to gently touch the side of Silvia’s face.

  Then she smiled an abrupt, amused smile, her eyes suddenly dark and hard, and darted toward the exit.

  Meanwhile, I slammed into the closest Sanguinarian like a bulldozer, crushing him against the wall. I pressed one arm against his throat, leaving his Oxfords dangling a foot off the ground, and swiped across the doorway at the female Sanguinarian. My claws burst free just as she wheeled back toward the sundered door and raised her SMG; supernatural iron punched easily through the MP7’s frame and magazine, abruptly reducing its usefulness as an instrument down to “awkward paperweight.”

  She produced a set of her own serrated blood claws just as Charles’ magic pinned her to the wall, a howling blast of winter wind from his staff smashing her into the wall just beside the doorframe and coating her in a light layer of ice and permafrost, leaving her struggling to pry herself free. The other blood vampire manifested his own long, narrow claws from one hand and swiped at me, but I reached up and bent his wrist backward the wrong way before he could put them to use on my face.

  He squawked in pain, his other arm busily trying to keep me from choking him or crushing his throat, but I paid him little mind as Tamara darted past all of us and into the next room, her cousin’s name on her lips.

  Dammit, Tam! You’re no match for her by yourself!

  “Silvia!” Tamara ducked an awkward swipe from the half-trapped Sanguinarian by the door, skidding into the kitchen in a practiced fighting stance. “Goddammit, Sil! Stop this!”

  Silvia dropped into a combat-ready pose of her own. “I can’t, Tam.” Her eyes were huge, liquid, hazel—and pleading. “It’s already gone too far! You shouldn’t have come here!”

  I winced away and almost dropped my Sanguinarian as Charles stepped up, lighting a spear-shaped flame on the end of his staff, the whole weapon taking on the appearance of one of his trademark lances of conjured fire. The big, elegant eagle feather at the end twirled and spun crazily, but seemed unaffected by the hungry orange flames.

  Then he shoved it into the vampire’s gut, digging upward as if seeking her blood organs. Her piercing screams fell on Charles’ impassive ears as her flesh blackened and split open.

  Even I turned away at that, and the vampire I had pinned to the wall cringed and followed suit.

  In the next room, Tamara kicked the kitchen table at Silvia, who swatted it aside. Tamara stepped forward, following up with a quick, brutal roundhouse, but her cousin stepped into the blow, stopping the kick and lifting Tamara off of the ground, then slamming her into the wall and grabbing her by the throat.

  I figured I had about half a second to get in there before the super-strong Moroi snapped Tamara’s neck.

  Unfortunately, going through the open doorway would put me perilously close to the screaming, flailing Sanguinarian Charles was burning to death. It’d only take one wayward spark or ember to ruin my night, and I knew the voracious flames would be only too happy to oblige.

  So I went through the wall instead.

  I used my Sanguinarian as a battering ram as I shouldered through the wooden wall, although he wasn’t durable enough to survive the process, crying out once before expiring as I muscled through the barrier. Studs snapped and flung themselves into the kitchen in a shower of splinters and insulation as I threw him aside and rammed Silvia at full speed, tearing her off Tamara.

  The breath burst from her lungs as we hit the next wall and halfway dismantled that one too, making a crater in the stained wood. I didn’t dare let up, driving my fist into her gut to keep her gasping for breath and doubled over. Following up on my momentum, I drove a knee hard into the side of her thigh, and this time I was rewarded with the snap of breaking bone, and she slumped, gasping in pain. Tamara had just picked herself up off the floor as I grabbed Silvia by the back of the neck and the waist of her black and red dress, then slammed her head first into the wall.

  I heard the sickening crack as her neck snapped on impact.

  Eyes wide, I dropped her, stunned.

  Lightning-quick, Tamara knelt by her cousin, as the screams from the other room finally burned away. Putting an ear to Silvia’s chest, Tamara listened for what I could already hear: a slowing thud...thud...thud—the decaying half-life of a dying heartbeat. The fallen Moroi’s rich, liquid hazel eyes swirled, lowly losing their luster and hardening.

  “Sorry...Tam…” The words came out in a strained whisper; Silvia’s eyes were unfocused, her neck bent to the side at a gruesome angle, but her lips still managed to move and form the words, somehow. “Tried...to warn… In over our...heads…. Watch...your…back...”

  The last few words rattled their way out of her throat, then Silvia breathed no more. I could feel her spirit dissipate from her body, those bright eyes turning to frozen, lifeless glass.

  It took a moment, but Tamara looked up at me, shock still lingering in her lambent sapphire eyes. “Ashley…You killed her.”

  I took a step back, glancing at my hands as if expecting crimson on them. “I thought…” Silvia had been our enemy, yes, but my gut twisted with how wrong this felt. I’d hit her full force, with all the wrath and fury I could muster, because I’d honestly been terrified of what the Moroi could do.

  Instead, she’d felt nearly defenseless against me.

  “I thought she was going to…” I blinked. Glancing back, I saw where Rain, Jason, and Kitty clustered at the doorway. Kitty looked both satisfied and sickened, while the two boys simply looked confused.

  “She wasn’t going to hurt me,” Tamara said, a note of confusion in her own voice. “I could see it in her eyes. She wanted to...talk, I think.” The Moroi looked up at me, her eyes shimmering, but the blame I expected to see wasn’t there. A hint of pain, yes, but no blame.

  “I’m...sorry, Tam.” I croaked, at a loss and confused. “I don’t—”

  Charles whacked me in the shoulder with his staff. “Snap out of it,” he said harshly. “Save it for later. The important question right now is why she suddenly lost her superpowers and died.” He glanced toward the still-open front door, tilting his head at the sound of sirens. “And where her sister went.”

  “Guys,” Rain looked really nervous. “The police...”

  Tamara grabbed my arm, and I let her haul herself to her feet. “Ashes,” she captured my attention with her eyes, her touch lingering on my arm. “Take Rain and Jason and chase Petra down. You three are the only ones fast enough to catch her now.” The Moroi shook her head, worry in her eyes. “Whatever’s going on, we can’t afford to lose the trail for another damn week.”

  I nodded. It went unsaid that hauling ass now would also keep Rain and Jason away from police scrutiny—at least, if we moved quickly enough.

  I forced my feelings back down for
later. “You guys ready to run?” I glanced at the boys.

  “The hunt is on.” Jason grinned and thumped Rain in the shoulder, jarring him into motion. With two pops of displaced air, the forms of the two teenagers snapped out of existence, imploding on themselves quicker than even my eyes could follow, replaced by a pair of small, Southwestern, gray-and-brown coyotes. The two animals fell to the ground and scrambled immediately for the front door, sniffing for an instant before running back through my legs the way we’d come.

  “Uh, didn’t she…” I pointed toward the front door.

  “Yo, you trust our noses or not?” Jason-ote responded from near my ankles, darting over. “Let’s beat feet already, chica!”

  I took the change of direction in stride and went for the door, passing a lost-in-thought Kitty, then stopped at the shattered portal and looked back. “You guys be okay?” The sirens were getting rapidly closer.

  “Better if you’d actually leave,” Charles replied. “I don’t feel like trying to run from the police. Easier to let her deal with it.” He jerked a thumb toward Tamara. “Even easier if we don’t have to explain a dead girl and her two domesticated coyotes.”

  He had a point.

  “Tail her,” Charles continued. He drug a kitchen chair over with his staff and took a seat. “Don’t let her get away, don’t engage, and we’ll meet up soon.”

  I’d already wasted enough time arguing. With a nod, I fled the scene of the crime, one coyote at my heels, the other running ahead.

  My conflicted feelings still lingered over Silvia’s death, despite the legitimacy of the circumstances that had caused it. I wondered how Tamara could possibly explain away the dead bodies to the authorities, but knew the answer was probably just Moroi. I also had no idea what the hell was going on and even less clue what the two Moroi had been discussing before we’d interrupted.

  Hopefully Silvia’s sister would be able to shed some light on the subject.

  We raced through the darkness, across the back lawn behind the string of matching townhouses, with me keeping well to the side of the long in-ground swimming pool behind them. I kept my eyes darting from shadow to shadow, roof to roof, everywhere. As powerful as Silvia had been—and then not been—I wasn’t about to take any chances with her sister-in-arms. In fact—

  A sudden pulse of flashing blue and red on the nearby street captured my attention for an instant, and my foot caught on something long and ropey hidden in the thick, cropped grass, sending me stumbling.

  Click. Click-click-click-click-click!

  As the sprinklers snapped on, water sprayed me in the face, blinding me with an electric jolt.

  Flailing and flapping my arms like a frantic, flightless bird, I fell into the swimming pool.

  Soaked to the bone in an instant, static burned along flesh that went rapidly numb as the water greedily enveloped me. Overhead, darkness closed in as I tangled myself in the pool’s protective tarp, and I briefly considered panicking.

  My muscles locked up, my joints going stiff and nearly immobile. Within seconds, my limbs grew so heavy that I was afraid I’d sink to the bottom, wrapped in a thick, blue, plastic cocoon. But instead, like most proper corpses, I bobbed back to the surface after a moment’s wait.

  “Ashes? You okay?” Rain’s voice came close, sounding alarmed and tense.

  I couldn’t answer. I tried to manifest claws to tear free of the Ashes-devouring tarp, but they wouldn’t come, just a meager spark of pain in my fingertips. I couldn’t see to teleport out, and even if I could have, I figured it would’ve been about as successful as trying to produce my claws.

  Aside from the very real danger I could be in if someone found me, and the fact that our one lead was rapidly disappearing, I also felt ridiculous. For crying out loud, I'd taken on a demigod, two angry trolls, and an ancient Strigoi, but here I was, being overcome by one careless moment with an automated lawn care system. I floated there for a few moments in silence, completely immobilized by someone’s backyard pool in the middle of Homewood, basking in how stupid I was.

  There was a tiny splash, ripples gently rocking my cocoon. Then something started dragging me slowly toward the side of the pool. My shoulder bumped into the concrete edge, and I heard the sound of water being shaken from fur.

  Focusing my whole world down to one arm, I twitched and spasmed until my fingers latched onto the edge of the pool, and I started dragging. Inch by inch I emerged from the dripping tarp, Rain grabbing hold of my lightweight cardigan and pulling with his teeth. It got easier by degrees, until I finally rolled onto my back, staring at the sky.

  Of course, I was still soaked to the bone, and the sprinkler system was still going off all around me, attacking me with clear, malicious vengeance. I wondered what I’d ever done to it.

  I rolled over again—careful not to roll right back into the damn pool—and started crawling, army-style, through the sprinklers and toward the safety of the sidewalk.

  Rain bounded alongside me, easily keeping pace. “Ashes?”

  I shook my head slowly, keeping my eyes on the prize, stubbornly moving one arm after another.

  This time, I collapsed five feet from the street, face-first in the grass, my muscles locking up once more. My clothes clung tightly to my frame, dripping, magnifying the effect as the energy animating me continually grounded out into the grass and earth.

  With a barely audible growl, I jabbed out one arm, dug my fingernails into the very edge of the concrete sidewalk, and heaved.

  I’d barely managed to drag myself onto the concrete, curling into a ball and wishing I was dry, when tires squealed, grinding to a halt next to the sidewalk, throwing up gravel a mere couple of feet from my face. I heard another car follow suit as the door in front of me popped open; I tried to look around, but it was a pointless endeavor. I couldn’t really fight the near-electrical jolts running along my body, nor the painful twitches and spasms as my nerves seemed to fire off randomly. But I could follow the general movements as the legs of someone in a dark, well-made suit got out of the vehicle and stepped over me, then hoisted me off the ground and carried me toward the vehicle.

  From my fresh vantage point, I saw another suited man approach Rain, and to my surprise, the coyote froze, eyes wide, for a moment too long. By the time he turned to scamper away, the man had already gotten close enough to scoop him up, tiny furry limbs still churning frantically at the empty air.

  I tried to curse, but only managed to spit out a little pool water before my captor stuffed me into the back of a big black SUV.

  The engine roared once, like a wild animal, and we took off into the night.

  Chapter Eight

  Family intervention

  I sat in the backseat of an all-black SUV limo, dripping liberally onto the polished leather interior.

  Despite the spasms and my locked-up muscles, I didn’t fall over as we drove; the suited men to either side of me made sure of that, squishing me into place like a pair of well-dressed bookends with broad shoulders. One was in his forties and sported a noticeable bit of gut, with dark hair, medium skin, and light blue eyes that watched me like a hawk.

  The other, the man who’d retrieved me from drying out peacefully on the sidewalk, I recognized as Muscles, the door guardian from Abyss.

  But it was the tall, imposing man seated across from me who captured most of my attention. Confidence and self-assurance rested securely in his sharp, smart eyes, eyes whose color landed somewhere between worn steel and a calm ocean blue. Every detail of his appearance showed a man in control of himself and his environment, from his perfectly tailored, ebony Italian dress suit and black satin tie, to the line of his well-cut jaw and the set of his broad shoulders.

  His hair, cut fashionably short and professionally tidy, was a deep, dark brown save for the streaks of gray highlighting it and gathering at his temples. He had the fit frame and strong hands of a man that was once powerfully built, but beginning to soften, another indicator of his age. Still though, with
his strong build, chiseled facial features, and sun-kissed skin, I would have assumed him “handsome,” even despite the beakish, oft-broken nose, the shallow scar on his chin, and rough knuckles that pointed to a man who’d been in more than his share of fights over the years.

  We rolled onward for a few minutes in silence as my body slowly stopped betraying me. Everyone kept a watchful eye on me, except for when the guy across from me occasionally glanced at his phone or swiped out a quick text. Then we eased to a stop, and he put the phone away entirely and folded his hands in his lap.

  “Paulie, would you and Franklin step outside, please,” the man said, eyeing me calmly, levelly. His voice was deep, educated, lacking in identifiable accent, and carried an undeniable expectation that everyone else would listen when he spoke.

  Muscles opened his door and got out without hesitation, but the heavy-set man to my left paused, half in and half out of the SUV. Past him, I could see a sliver of blackened sky and the expanse of an abandoned parking lot, but I still had no idea where we were. I thought I glimpsed the bright yellow lettering of a Pancake Hut sign a couple of streets over, but that didn’t narrow things down at all.

  I wondered where Rain was and hoped he was okay.

  “Boss,” Paulie replied, his voice layered in a thick Brooklyn accent mixed with a hint of something else I couldn’t recognize—along with a note of honest concern. “That really a good idea? Ain’t she some sorta vampire?”

  I’d like to think so, I replied silently, but then I fall into backyard pools and have to be fished out by tiny woodland creatures.

  “Paulie,” the man responded with a smile, “as much as I appreciate the thought, if I’m correct, she could snap you in two like a toothpick.”

  Paulie stepped fully outside the vehicle, but leaned heavily on the frame instead of going away. “Pfft. Mitch, don’t you remember me beatin’ that white-skinned one in a boxing match?”