“I feel like you’re buttering me up for something,” she said, her eyes narrowing.
Isaac’s eyes softened and he cocked his head. “I would like for us to… try again.”
There it is, she thought, and no sooner had the thought formed in her mind than her cheeks flushed with warm blood and her breathing began to quicken. It wasn’t like the walls were closing in or anything. Ever since the night at the museum—no—ever since she had kissed him for the first time since their reunion, Alice had known they would get here. To this point, this crossroad from which there was no turning back.
She had been so happy to see him when he stepped through that portal, and he had been so… passionate and tender with her, so caring and gentle. Ever since then, she had known what road she would pick when the moment presented itself to them. There was only one road to go down—the road with Isaac in it.
Alice licked her lips and swallowed to moisten her throat. “I want that too,” she said.
Isaac’s dark eyes lit up, and for a moment she could almost see into those deep brown pools, could almost reach the happy place he had gone to. His aura was a pulse of warm sunlight on a cloudy day, radiant and inviting, but Alice did her best to shut it out. She didn’t want to feel it, didn’t want to know any more about what Isaac was feeling than what he was showing her.
“We can make it work this time,” Isaac said, “I know we can.”
“I don’t doubt that,” she said, trailing off. Then she said, “I think I’m ready to tell you.”
“You still don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“No, I want to. I haven’t told anyone about my scars and… maybe getting this out in the open will help.”
Alice hadn’t thought she needed any help, not with the scars on her back at any rate. They were scars, and they had healed. They had left a crisscrossed landscape of broken tissue behind, but they had healed. But sleeping dogs are never best left alone. Sometimes you have to poke the dog with a stick and deal with it on your terms, before it wakes up and bites you in the ass when you least expect it to.
“I had a dream about them yesterday,” Alice said, “About the scars, I mean. Before I left the safe-house, I dreamt I was being chased by the thing that cut me up. After Nyx stole me across to the Reflection, the first thing she did was take me to the surgeon. When he cut me to the point of death the first time, Nyx fed me a soul. The soul kept me alive and knitted my wounds; it was a reprieve. But it didn’t last. The surgeon cut me again, and again, and again. Being on his table was like a constant droning dial tone of pain.”
Isaac squeezed her hand to stop the shaking.
“Time didn’t mean anything in that place. It could have been minutes or hours. I didn’t know. But I think I managed to escape once, and I ran. I didn’t know where I was or where I was going. All I knew was that I was in pain and these things were hunting me down. The nearest door I found was the one I took, but it didn’t lead me to freedom—it brought me right back to the surgeon; this creature with scalpels for fingers and needles for teeth. I forgot a lot of what happened to me back there, but not him. Never him.”
“It sounds awful.”
“What it looked like had nothing on what it did to me. I thought I had known pain before, but I didn’t… I didn’t truly understand pain until it laid me down on its operating table and began opening my back one slice at a time. I’m sure I was clinically dead for a time. I must have been. When I try to think about the pain it caused, try to imagine how it felt, I can’t. I don’t think our brains were ever meant to interpret that kind of signal.”
By the way Isaac’s eyebrows furrowed she could sense he was trying to intellectualize the sensation, but knew he would fail. That kind of pain was inhuman. Supernatural. She took a deep breath to expel the nerves and allowed herself to relax, but her back was starting to tingle and tiny spots of pain were pricking her all over. She shrugged it off and swallowed.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” Isaac said, “I just can’t understand why she did that to you.”
“She was preparing me... preparing my body to accept her essence. When we fought tonight she told me she no longer needed me. Do you believe it?”
“I don’t know what I believe.”
“Didn’t you tell me your bond with your Guardian is unbreakable? How did that legionnaire give herself to Nyx?”
“The only people capable of answering that question are other Void Weavers. This will be a secret I will have to uncover. What I do know is—”
A sudden sharp sensation pushed its way into Alice’s already hurting back. She stiffened and stood up quickly, as if she had just leaned back into a bed of nails, wincing from the pain. Isaac shot up too, and by the look of shock in his eyes he had just felt whatever Alice had felt too. Her first thought was Nyx—she’s come back! But when the room filled with a heavy, silent presence, she knew this wasn’t Nyx.
Alice watched a shadow fall over Isaac and heard the rattling of chains. Whatever had just entered the room was large enough to tower over the both of them and block the light emanating from the ceiling fixture. Isaac’s eyes were wide and alert, but he didn’t seem to be on the defensive or on the offensive. Slowly Alice turned around on the spot, turning her head over her shoulder first to see the entity that had just entered the room.
Nothing could have prepared her for the monster she laid eyes on.
Her heart rate to shot up into a wild frenzy. She staggered back a step, toward Isaac, her hands stretched to either side. Should she run? Attack? Hide? Whatever she may have wanted to do, her body had other plans. It froze, her limbs locked, and she found herself unable even to speak. All she could do was stare at the tall creature with the bald head, the blood-stained straight jacket, and the Glasgow smile standing before her.
The worst part was, she thought she recognized it.
The creature shrugged, the chains wrapped around its arms and waist rattled, and then it said something Alice had never in a million years thought it would say.
“Help.” Its mouth, which seemed to be forever locked in a wide, cut up smile filled with sharp teeth, didn’t move, but Alice heard the word nonetheless. “Help us,” it said.
“I know you,” Alice said, cocking her head, “I’ve seen you. Who are you?”
“Help us.”
Its eyes were big orange O’s of—terror—urgency, and Alice felt for it. Here was a creature that was tall and terrifying, but she related it more to a bird with a clipped wing than a cornered cat about to strike at whatever stood between it and escape.
“It’s… a Guardian,” Isaac said.
“It’s Sonia’s Guardian,” Alice said. “Aren’t you?”
The creature nodded, then it knelt, bringing itself level with Alice. “Take her,” it said, “I am dying.”
“Take her?” Alice asked.
It opened its mouth wider. Blood dribbled down its chin, but then something else came out of its mouth; a soft blue light, surrounded by flecks of silver and gold. The light floated out of its throat and gravitated slowly toward Alice. When it was all the way out of the Guardian’s mouth, the creature collapsed to its side seeming to pass right through Isaac’s coffee table.
Alice watched the floating soul as it danced before her and felt the power radiating out of it. This was no ordinary soul; it was Sonia’s soul, the soul of a mage. Nyx didn’t take it, she thought, the Guardian escaped with it. She reached for the floating ball of mist and light and it coiled itself around her arm like a snake made of smoke. For a moment the urge to eat it struck her stomach like a punch from a fist made of lead. The pain was sudden and debilitating, so much so that it dropped her to one knee, but she held herself and didn’t allow the soul to approach her lips any further than it already had.
“Isaac,” she said, “What are you doing?”
Isaac’s eyes were closed, but when he opened them another presence filled the room. Instead of a shadow f
igure, or a mere impression, this time Alice saw Isaac’s Guardian in all its glory—the large, robed, long-beaked Good Doctor was an imposing figure to be sure, and Alice couldn’t help but marvel at the sight of it.
The Good Doctor nodded and rushed to the side of the fallen Guardian. It placed a hand on the other creature’s bald head and turned to look at Isaac. “It has been infected with the Void,” the Good Doctor said.
“Can you help it?” Isaac asked.
“I can, but I will require time.”
“How much?”
“I cannot say.”
“Uh… why can I see you?” Alice asked.
The Good Doctor turned its beaked head to look at Alice and she saw herself reflected in its dark, glass goggles. “Because it chose to let you see it, and now you have the gift of sight.”
“I… don’t understand.”
“Now isn’t the time for questions,” Isaac said, “Doctor, see to our guest. Fix him as quickly as you can.”
The Good Doctor nodded and both he and the fallen Guardian disappeared into a cloud of inky, black smoke. The room immediately felt lighter, as if the shadows had backed off and returned to their original places. The soul coiled around Alice’s arm hadn’t moved, but her arm was starting to go cold.
“Why… why did it give this to me?” she asked.
“I don’t know. This has never happened before.”
“We’d better figure this out, because I can’t hold this thing forever.”
“How are you holding it now?”
“If I knew don’t you think I wouldn’t be freaking out? Call Jim. We have work to do.”
Author’s Note: Lee Dignam & Katerina Martinez
Hi again! Kat and Lee here, once more thanking you for taking the time out of your day to read this, our SECOND book set in the Ashwood universe! It feels like we only wrote and published Dark Siren yesterday, and in reality it’s only been 42 days (who’s counting, right?), but we’ve been so excited to write this second book and introduce you to the wonderful world of mages we’ve created that the words just flew off our fingers and onto the keyboard. We both really hope you think we’ve done a good job with it!
You’ll be happy to know that Book 3, Night and Chaos, is already available for pre-order (I know, we’ve been busy!) and this is probably going to be THE most exciting book in the series. Alice is back to full strength, Isaac has become a Void Weaver, and with Cameron and Jim’s help, Nyx is going to have a tough time putting whatever plan she has into motion. But she’s taken control of a mage’s body, and is somehow able to use not only her own magic, but the magic of the furious Tempest, too, making her a force to be reckoned with.
What is she up to, why is she doing it, and does Alice have what it takes to stop her before it’s too late and Ashwood turns to Chaos?
Ready to pre-order it? Here’s the link. The book debuts on the 31st of October and will be the PERFECT Halloween read - we’re gonna make sure of that.
As always, before I go, I would love to ask you to please leave a review of this book wherever you found it! Whether you have something good to say or not, I and other readers want to hear it. Without reviews no one would trust a new author to entertain them, so if you have a couple of moments to spare, I would really appreciate it if you could help me out.
Finally, if you’re on Facebook and you want to hang out, you can find us here. And if you want to get in touch with us directly, drop us an email at: [email protected] or [email protected] and we’ll get right back to you!
Thanks again!
Kat and Lee
Get Exclusive Content!
Get an EXCLUSIVE peek at Book 3 “Night and Chaos” as well as not available anywhere else Ashwood content when you sign up to the Ashwood Reader’s Group Newsletter! Flip over to the next page for details on the giveaway!
This will be the simplest giveaway you ever take part in. Are you ready? I’ve got 5 paperback copies of the Void Weaver I’m going to send out to readers in the US or the UK. If you want to put your name in for a chance at winning one for yourself, all you have to do is write to [email protected] or [email protected] and quote the first sentence on Chapter 8. I’ll then add you to a special segment of my Reader’s Group and announce winners on the 5th of September!
Pretty easy, right? Go right ahead and send that email before you start reading the book, that way you’ve secured your entry :)
Good luck, and happy reading!!
A Sneaky Epilogue
On street level outside Isaac’s apartment, a streetlight flickered on and off. On and off. Beneath it, a woman whose profile was obscured by harsh shadows was staring up at the third floor window with a cigarette burning between her lips. Her hair, which was once a purple Mohawk, was now a purple tumble shining brightly against the bright light hitting her head from above.
After a long, hard drag, the woman pulled what was left of the cigarette away from her lips and flicked it onto the road. For a moment she seemed to be contemplating something, considering. Do I or don’t I? Something was happening up there. She could feel it. But engaging them wasn’t a good idea. Not right now.
The woman shook her head lightly and then pulled her hood up. Better not. She turned away, heading for the corner of the block and walking around it. Behind her, invisible yet very much real, a tall, thin, invisible creature followed. The streetlights all flickered as it passed beneath them, caged birds fluttering against the bars to escape a predator.
There would be other nights, and this body needed breaking in before it would be ready, and her new Guardian needed taming.
half-lich 02 - void weaver Page 24