“I don’t though,” Rain said, the faintest hint of a blush on his youthful cheeks. “I still don’t see how a regular human can...do...all of those things. How could he even stomach to start?” His face twisted in revulsion, and Jason gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
Mama Florentine eyed him gently. “Honey child, you ain’t listenin’. Not all monsters are born Next Door. Why, we grow some of the worst ones right here at Home. This man, he let himself become something else. He wanted to, yeah. Maybe those seeds were always there, in his head, in his very soul. Maybe something caused him to become like that. It don’t matter no more, no. That man’s done dead an’ gone, an’ the spirits’ll take care of what’s left of him now, yes sir. That’s their job, an’ you can trust they’s gonna do it.” She shook her head, her voice firm but kind. “Our job is to take care of what’s left undone in this world.” She stared at me again. “An’ we gotta put that poor child to rest, whether she wants us to or not.”
I nodded. “I know she’s still active. I saw her last night.”
“Another nightmare?” Tamara asked, giving me a sympathetic frown.
“Yeah. She tried to kill me,” I shrugged. “And when that failed, she said she was going to continue the murder spree—except she’s going to pick up the pace.”
“But without a body,” Charles said, “without something tying her to a place in this world, it becomes nearly impossible to lay her to rest. Her spirit would need to return to a place here at Home where the old Maggie had a strong connection, a place of peace before her murder.”
“And that’s not going to happen, since she’s a tiny ball of hate,” I said.
“Most times,” Mama Flora said, “grantin’em vengeance’ll send’em on their way. But not her, no. She’s too warped an’ tangled. She’s forgotten what she was. Forgotten who she was.”
“She can’t move on.” Rain said, swallowing hard. “We should help her, before she hurts anyone else.”
“And if we can’t,” Charles said flatly, “you’ll have to destroy her.” He pointed a finger squarely at me. Rain looked around the table, as if for someone to protest to, but even Mama Flora’s face was grim with agreement.
“Yeah.” I nodded slowly. I probably could destroy Maggie’s specter. Track her down—hopefully not at Monument Valley—and stomp a mudhole in her, just as I had with several ghosts before her. In fact, we seemed to have a connection of our own, and I could probably find her easier than most. But, like Rain, I didn’t want to. She deserved better. She deserved peace after all she’d been through.
Maybe there was another way.
“But she’s not our only problem,” Tamara cut in. “My family received a ransom message for my sister this morning.”
My eyes went wide. “So she’s not dead?” I caught on. “She’s the other missing body.”
Tamara nodded, the emotions thick in her sapphire eyes. “But that doesn't mean she’s okay. Or even actually alive.” She took a deep, steadying breath, and I gave her hand a quick, comforting squeeze. She smiled. “I didn’t get to hear what the demand was, but I know it whipped my older sisters into a frenzy.”
“So it can’t be good,” I said.
“I’ve been thinking about what the Blood Man said last night,” Tamara said. There was the slightest tremor in her voice. “About how one of the children he kidnapped was taken from him.”
“Yeah, I remember him being really pissed about it,” Jason said dryly. “Talking about how someone was controlling him and made him hand her over?”
I sat back in my chair as realization began to dawn on me. “Salvatore,” I rasped harshly.
Charles’ eyes now glittered with anger instead of excitement. “He’s a blood magician—and a very strong one. If anyone could track down the Blood Man, it’s someone like him.”
“And he could control him too,” I growled. “But does that really mean this whole thing, all of the recent abductions and murders—”
“Was just a cover for the abduction of my sister?” Tamara said bitterly. “If I told you it wasn’t the first time, would you really be surprised?”
My fist clenched as the pieces started falling into place. “So it was the Sanguinarians all along. Kind of.” I took no pleasure in being proven right. “They worked through the Blood Man for fucking plausible deniability.”
“Now you see why I don’t like getting caught up in politics,” Charles grumbled into his tankard. His eyes were still hard like stone.
Tamara’s head dropped as some of the fire went out of her. “We tried looking for her again this morning.” My hand sought hers to give what comfort I could, and she looked up me with a melancholy burden dulling those brilliant sapphire eyes. “I was hoping that at least we could get an idea of where to direct Mother’s wrath...but we didn’t find anything.”
I nodded absently, something tickling at the back of my mind.
“We couldn’t find her trail anywhere but the scrapyard,” Rain said softly.
“It just dead-ended there,” Jason jumped in, wincing belatedly at his own choice of words. “At that blood pool. Just like all the rest.”
I didn’t say anything. My mind was too busy racing.
“I can’t say I wasn’t hoping we missed something last night, something that would lead us to her…” Tamara glanced at me, raising an eyebrow. “What is it, Ashes?”
“You didn’t find anything,” I gave her hand a strong squeeze, “because you weren’t looking in the right place.”
“It’s okay, Tam. I know where she is.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Everyone's favorite dead woman
After hearing me out—and reassuring each other that I wasn’t hopelessly delusional—my friends agreed to the tasks I’d set them. We’d need to work quickly if we wanted to act tonight. Waiting any longer would assure that the Moroi princess would be used as a pawn in a lethal game and potentially her death as well.
We’d also need a few things set in motion if I was to make it through the night without dying.
Again.
Possibly the most critical task, I tentatively offered to Rain and Jason. “So…I need you guys to steal something for me.” I held out a piece of folded notebook paper with some instructions scrawled inside it where they’d be hidden from any prying eyes. If Salvatore wasn’t using my stolen blood to keep tabs on us by now, I’d be a monkey’s hat.
“What?” Rain blinked, caught off guard.
Jason just shrugged and nodded. “You got it, chica.”
“I mean, if you guys want to back out at this point...” Even though I needed them, I kinda wished they would. They’d been through enough since I asked them into this mess. “But I figured you two’d be the most able, and…”
“Quit draggin’ your feet and hand it over.” Jason took the slip of paper from me with a snap of his wrist and a crooked grin. “Not sayin’ it’s not a helluva lot to take in. But there’s no way we could drop out now and not see this through.” He looked to his smaller friend. “Right, manito?”
Rain nodded, soft, amber and brown eyes only a little hesitant. “We can’t just leave someone to the mercy of…Y’know, after what we…” He swallowed and nodded. “We’ve got your back. You can count on us.”
That was good. I gave them an honest, grateful grin and ushered them out the door. If they didn’t turn up with something that fit what I needed...well, then I was fucked. But if they were successful, they might have just saved two lives, one of which was mine.
My own job wasn’t that hard—at least, not yet. I pulled out my phone, found a number, and typed in those six dreaded words:
Hey Hershey. I need a favor.
I hoped what I was asking for was actually possible.
Mama Flora approached as I dropped my phone into a pocket. “Now, child, you listen here. You be careful an’ watch out for that ghost.” Her lively gray eyes told me that she knew what was going to happen at least as well as I did. “The closer you g
et to her place of death, an’ where her poor poor little spirit was bound Next Door, the stronger she’ll become, yeah.”
I took a deep breath. “I know.”
“She’s not to be taken lightly,” Charles insisted firmly, donning hat and staff as he fumbled his way out the door with his one uninjured hand. Quieter, he mumbled, “I still can’t believe you figured all this out before I did.”
I flipped him off as he left.
“Now it ain’t fair o’me to ask more of you, child,” Mama Flora said with a note of sadness, ignoring Charles. “I would’ve freed her myself, if I could have. But Mama ain’t as young as she used t’be. I don’t doubt for a second she’d make easy work o’me and that would be the end of that, an’ then I wouldn’ be no good to no one, ‘cept Papa Midnight hisself, yes sir. So you go an’ you send that little soul on to Papa. You jus’ might be the only one that can.” She met my eyes. “Both them little girls… They’re trapped out there, an’ it’s wrong wrong. Someone’s gotta set ‘em free, but it won’t come easy, no.”
I smiled and shrugged. “Nothing good is ever easy, Mama.”
Mama smiled proudly, then lifted her hands and said a prayer over me in Haitian Creole. I had no idea what she said, but at least it sounded flattering. When she was finished, she reached up and patted me on the shoulder. “Go give’m Hell, sug. You got the Baron on your side tonight, and he’s eager for a reckonin’.”
- - -
A couple of precious hours burned away into the night and found us back at Bookbinder’s, gathered around the long table again, a patchwork war council if ever I’d seen one.
Jason set a lumpy canvas bag down on the long table. “Easy as taking candy from a…” he glanced around and swallowed. “Nevermind.”
I grinned. “Thanks.” I glanced around. I’d never have expected to find myself orchestrating an impromptu rescue mission. I felt like I should switch places with Charles.
Tamara leaned forward. “The house is clear, just like you asked. I just told them there was a gas main leaking.” She shrugged. “For some reason, that always works.”
“We’re almost there, then,” I rasped. I looked at Charles. “I suppose you got all of your…”
The tall, grumpy magician sat across the table from me, peering at me over a liberally stuffed duffel bag bristling with rods, candles, and who knew what else. His staff rested across his lap, and he balanced a wide, silvery-blue bowl etched with runes on top of that. Half-hidden under his coat dangled various bags and little satchels, a wizard’s equivalent of a bandoleer of grenades. He raised a sarcastic eyebrow at me.
“...Okay, yeah, you look good to go,” I concluded. I looked around at the assembled group of my friends, both old and new, and hoped that my whole idea wasn’t a giant piece of shit. The lives balanced in my cold, dead hands would have been enough to make me clammy with sweat, if I still worked that way.
“Here’s the breakdown.” I leaned over the table, resting my palms on it. “As we all saw last night, what the Blood Man and Maggie did, it damaged the walls between Home and Next Door, attuning it to blood, death, and suffering—in that order.” I glanced around. “And they hid the evidence of their bloody work in the pool out back, not knowing or intending what it would eventually become.”
“That’s why it looked like a pool of blood out back?” Rain asked. “And didn’t, you know, make sense to the laws of physics?”
I nodded. “But the torment and blood sacrifice didn't tie them to a place Next Door—instead, it created one.”
“Which is where Salvatore comes in,” Charles said. “He didn’t just find a useful set of pawns. He found a way to become like a natural vampire. Through sheer luck, he became the first Sanguinarian—possibly ever—to find a piece of Next Door that would respond to his very nature as a supernatural creature.”
“Which means?” Jason put his feet on the table. “Sorry, but I don’t speak magic yet, homes.”
“It means he can draw that power from Next Door and use it to appear and disappear easily,” Charles’ expression grew even more serious, assuming that was possible. “But it’s even more serious than that. Whoever made that realm controls it, and all that goes on there. Like a lucid dream, their whim and will shape it.”
“But that would be the Blood Man,” Rain interrupted. “And he’s, well, dead now.” He glanced at me.
“Exactly,” I said. “But the realm Next Door remained. Ready to be claimed by someone else.”
“Which is why he didn’t show up t’kill y’all while you were fighting,” Flora said.
“Yup,” I nodded. “No matter who out of us survived, Salvatore was the real winner. Either he got rid of us, or he inherited full control of a coveted place and a source of power, while potentially throwing us off the trail.”
“Which might have worked, except for you,” Tamara smiled my way. “But it still left him the ruler of his own pocket dimension. A place where no Moroi could even set foot.” Her bright smile turned grim, and colder than my skin. “A perfect place to, say, keep a hostage.”
I showed my fangs. “And that’s exactly why we’re going to break into it.”
“Um…” Jason scratched his neck. “That sounds suspiciously like suicide, chica.”
“Hopefully not,” I grunted, “if you’re already dead.”
“Don’t none of you go thinkin’ this is gonna be a walk in the park,” Mama Flora admonished. “Don’t none of you dare underestimate that man, even if you’re just sittin’ around helpin’ me an’ him cast spells.” She gestured at Charles. “This ain’t gonna be simple, and it sure as Hell ain’t gonna come without its share of danger.”
“So this is that part in the story where if your butt stays in the seat, you’re committed.” I waited with mixed feelings as no one moved except to fidget. I took a slow breath to continue. “One thing we’ve got on our side is that we’re not taking on their whole bloody army here.”
Tamara nodded. “It’s no wonder he wasn’t keen on working with others—any other Sanguinarian would gleefully backstab the shit out of him for a chance at what he has.”
“Yeah,” I continued, “if this was a new feature for the Sanguinarians as a whole, we’d be so fucked we couldn't even stay in—”
I cut off as my phone rang. Not buzzed from a text, as I would have expected from Lori, but rang. I took it out as Ballroom Blitz played quietly and glanced at the number.
I recognized it, despite only having seen it once before.
“Hey, asshole.” I took the phone away from my face and set it in the middle of the table, flicking the speakerphone on and raising a finger to my lips. “You’ll have to say that again. I think I had something crazy in my ear.”
A cultured, rich, Spanish accent drifted out of my phone’s speaker. “It’s not difficult to understand, Ashley.” Salvatore spoke my name with a comfortable familiarity that set my teeth on edge and made me want to punch him in the face until I got tired. “I’m doing you the courtesy of warning you that your current course of action isn’t safe. Neither for you, nor for anyone involved.”
“I’m sorry,” I held up a hand for silence as everyone glanced at each other. “That’s really funny considering I kick your face in pretty much every time we meet.”
In the background, Tamara shifted, pulling out her own phone and mouthing “is that him” at me. Charles and I both nodded our affirmations.
“Assuming that were as true as you tell yourself it is,” Salvatore drawled, “neither the stakes nor the forces in play are the same this time, Strigoi.” I winced a little at the name of my supposedly-extinct race coming over the speaker in a public establishment. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
I frowned. I’d already figured he’d been spying on us—or at least me—for a while now, but it was disconcerting to see how up on current events he was. “Well, if you already know I’m coming for you, shouldn’t you be packing your damn bags?”
He chuckled. “Hardly. I
f you think I’m going to abandon my plans at this stage, you’re sorely mistaken. Besides, what would your poor father think of you putting him in such danger? He may have been an officer of the law long ago, but hasn’t he suffered enough already? What about your uncle?” His voice dropped a dangerous octave. “What about your ex-girlfriend? Think about poor Lori, out there all alone.”
I hesitated, my blood caught between freezing with fear and boiling with rage as he tsk-tsked at me over the line.
“Let me make you a deal, Strigoi.” He had my attention. “Drop what you’re doing, take your friends, and simply stop. Walk away.”
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it over; I felt everyone’s eyes on me, and I didn’t look up to meet them. What would Dad think, indeed? I almost snorted. He’d probably tell me to go put my foot up the man’s ass without a second thought. My uncle would do the same. But Lori...her life at risk—and again, because of me—was a different matter entirely.
“In return, I would not tell all of my Sanguinarian friends about your existence or the wizard’s help in your little crusade against us.”
I saw Charles bristle. “‘The wizard,’ my ass.” He grumbled irritably, loudly enough to be heard, gripping the staff in his lap.
“Also,” the disembodied Sanguinarian continued, “I won’t have to destroy your little friend Rain in such a way that even his father cannot stop it.”
Rain and Jason glanced at each other. “What does he mean about my dad?” the younger shifter hissed at me, as if I knew.
“And what am I, chopped liver?” Jason commented under his breath.
“I can make accommodations for anyone and everyone who wishes to cross me.” The voice continued urbanely. “Like the vagrant Moroi daughter whom no one would miss, or the deluded old woman who should have already learned how even her best wards and fetishes do not bar my entry into her very sanctum.” His voice dripped with a tone of what I could only assume was narcissistic self-appreciation. “Or the other little Changeling. None are now beyond my reach.”
Blood Red Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 2) Page 24