Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows)

by C. V. Larkin

  It took less time than he'd expected to reach the room they'd come from and the three of them spilled out onto the water slicked golden floor. The flames that had been struggling along the lines of Baba Yaga's dress died as she passed through the low burning fire that had reconnected at the outer edges of the room.

  "Forgive me," Baba said, staring past them. "Forgive me. I had not thought to see salvation again after so many years forsaken."

  The crone's opalescent gaze was brimming with a wealth of complicated emotion and Sio had to wonder when it'd gone back to normal. "The darkness does not often react in such a manner," she said.

  No shit.

  "Any forgiveness that you could require, you earned when you hauled us out of the water, but given the recent information that's come to light we have to leave. Now," Tian said.

  Baba Yaga's attention flicked over to Tian. "Lost items are not so easily obtained, while others are only lost in name. Such is the nature of all things."

  Beautiful, they were back to speaking in riddles.

  "More's the pity," Tian said. Her tone implied she'd only narrowly avoided dropping a steady stream of expletives. And, while Sio was inclined to agree with her, she seemed more agitated than warranted under the circumstances.

  "Baba," Sio began. The crone turned to him, hitting him with a dazzling hundred watt smile. Her teeth were small, moon bright white, and very blunt. They had a pleasing symmetry, narrow gap between the front two notwithstanding. He was taken aback, but stumbled on not knowing how to react to her sudden change in demeanor. "We need to get to the surface where we came in."

  Baba Yaga's grin slipped, her expression turning distant and thoughtful. It returned impossibly brighter than before. "You do indeed. Perhaps a ladder to the frozen land is precisely what you need."

  She ripped a fragment of ribbon off of her dress with her teeth. It was amazing there was still enough available to keep her modest.

  "It was raining when we left," Tian said.

  "Of course it was, and yet winter is the time to dream of new beginnings. Is it not? May the road rise to meet you both."

  The ribbon shard floated from the crone's fingers, bobbing lazily through the air, dipping low enough to set itself alight with a bright pink flame.

  "May the wind be ever at your back," Tian responded mechanically.

  Baba Yaga gave a satisfied nod before turning from them, her pale curls trailed through the water as she sloshed to the center of the room and settled herself on the bench at the piano. The plastic slip cover rustled loudly as she repositioned.

  "The light dims," the crone said as she began to play.

  Tian's expression softened as if she had something she wanted to say, but with a shake of her head decided against it. She turned and took off after the shoddy half burnt strip of floating ribbon and Sio took off after her. It was back to business as usual. Only business as usual didn't normally come prepackaged with so much blatant agitation. Tian didn't say anything, but he could see her fury manifesting in the crispness of her movements.

  "So, were you planning to tell me why you're so worked up, or were you expecting me to guess?" He hadn't realized that he was irritated, too, until he'd opened his mouth.

  "The Guardians already have the marker," Tian said. "They knew that little bitch was a psycho before she got to you. You're the scapegoat."

  Tian had given voice to the strangled inchoate whispers lurking like muggers in the hidden recesses of his brain. He was pissed, no doubt, but he wasn't blindsided. He had to wonder how long he'd actually known. Sio followed her, mulling over the unnatural response in silence until the princess pink spark on the floating ribbon hit a long vertical ladder in front of them. The dubious strength of the bolted hardware was pulled further into question as it went up in flames, burning up into the darkness like Barbie-flavored neon. Tian didn't break pace, she just grabbed a rung and started to climb.

  The metal was cool to the touch under the illusion of light. Sio watched the flame as it flickered over the backs of his hands, all show and no substance. For some irrational reason the sight chaffed more than the news about the marker had.

  "So if the Wizards already have the marker why bother pointing the finger at me?" he asked.

  She grunted and Sio looked up trying to avoid staring at her ass.

  "The council doesn't have it," she said. "One piece of shit politician on the council has it and he and the rest of his brood are falling all over themselves to ensure no one else knows that the bloodline's unstable."

  "You saw all of that under the water?"

  "I wasn't on a pleasure cruise."

  Of course she wasn't. The image of her held down under the surface of the crystalline pool by writhing angry shadows flashed in his brain, sending his temper into overdrive.

  "Don't give me that shit, T. It's not like I get off on being the only asshole around here with questions."

  "Step up."

  "What?" he snapped.

  "The ledge."

  Tian nodded towards a grate suspended in the wall five inches from where he clung to the ladder. He stepped over as she slid down to meet him. Tian crowded the ledge, sending him on a maddening, desperate scramble for restraint. Sio was agitated enough that some good old fashioned angry sex sounded like the best idea he'd had in ages. Only he knew it wasn't.

  "I have a question for you," Tian said.

  She leaned into him before he had a chance to respond, shoving them both linebacker style through the stone wall behind him. The blast of sandpaper and cement particles was jarring, but they were through before he'd had time to blink the film of grit out of his eyes. The ominous sense of suffocating pressure was back and coating the last near nonexistent rays of sunlight like sludge.

  "What the fuck were you thinking wading in after me like that? You could have gotten yourself killed."

  Sio's jaw dropped. He got right up in her grill. "I'm pretty sure I was thinking 'What the fuck is she doing wading in like that? She's going to get herself killed.' Sound familiar?"

  "You've seen my life, Sio. I can't die remember?" She shook her head, turning her back on him, and started walking without waiting for a response. He started walking too, wondering if he was going to let that that last statement go. Nope, no way in hell.

  "That doesn't mean I want to watch you keep trying."

  He barely got the sentence out before a quiet shooshing sound preceded a searing pain that tore its way through his chest. He blinked trying to figure out what the hell had happened while Tian shoved him behind the monument, using the thing like a shield. Sio's breath rushed out in a hiss as his knees locked. He staggered, sagging against the stone, his bones suddenly feeling less substantial than they were supposed to. The whole world was syrup slow, surreal, and distant compared to the fucking road flare that had been set off in his torso.

  It hurt. It hurt so much it was difficult to think around. He wanted to wonder if that was a normal response, but he couldn't drag his thoughts together enough to get the bastards to confer. Tian's eyes were wide with panic. He could see the whites around her irises as she ran her hands over the dark material of Avery's jacket. They came away shaking, covered in his blood. Riding an impressive wave of expletives she palmed a holstered gun while using her other hand to tear open the outer shell of his jacket.

  Sio opened his mouth, intending to say something comforting. "It burns," was the only thing he got out.

  It did burn too. The wild acid clawing spread through his system like a pollutant. Bile rose in his throat and he spat it, along with a sickly red mass of his own blood, onto the ground.

  When he looked up again he realized that Tian had exchanged the firearm she'd pulled for a silver hunting knife the size of a machete and had it clenched in her teeth. Tian used both hands as she worked to strip him to the waist, pinning him upright to the monument with her lower body. The physical proximity would have been wonderfully distracting if hadn't b
een for the acrid taste poisoning his tongue. Sio rolled his lolling head to the side and spit out another charming mess of ruined pink fluid onto the ground. With moves like that it was a wonder she wasn't falling all over him.

  "Sio." Tian's tense rasp was right in his ear. "Stay with me."

  That was laughable. He couldn't leave her now even if he wanted to, and he didn't. Not fucking ever. He swiveled his skull towards the sound of her voice and watched with waning interest as she moved with surgical efficiency, using the dagger she'd palmed to slice open his chest. His blood welled out of the cut, bright red from the sudden exposure to oxygen. Tian sopped it up using what was left of the shirt Avery had lent him.

  Shit, he was going to owe the guy an entirely new wardrobe by the time this was over. Tian pulled a rectangular strip of metal about two inches long from the side of one of the holsters. It had writing inscribed down the side in a language he didn't recognize.

  "What is that?" he slurred.

  Tian blinked up at him as if he'd surprised her.

  "A magnet. I need to get the bullet out quick, but it'll hurt."

  Bullet.

  Sio shrugged lethargically, dizzy from blood loss even though the shot couldn't have happened more than a minute or two before. "Good," he answered. His tongue felt swollen and he was having a hell of a time forming the syllables he was working for. "Wouldn't want to change the status quo."

  For a second she looked like she wanted to kiss him, but she only nodded before bringing the pain. Tian's touch was warm, soothing if electricity had that capability. She hadn't lied to him though. The extraction was excruciating to the point of being unbearable. He had to lock his jaw to keep from crying out. He took desperate shuddering inhalations through his nose. As his vision started to dim, signaling that he was on the verge of passing out, Tian pulled the object lodged in his torso free. He felt less toxic as the thing exited his body.

  Tian turned the conical metal slug over in her fingertips. She was wearing the kind of expression he'd have expected to see if an alien had exploded from his torso. He didn't get the upset. She'd already known it was a bullet. Never the less, the look on her face said that some poor bastard had signed his own death warrant. Sio's head began to clear. His thoughts were sluggish though, his synapses no longer debating whether to end the strike or suspend the shit indefinitely.

  "Better," he coughed. "It's better."

  His voice was rough, and he still wasn't supporting himself, but he could deal. Tian stashed the slug in her pocket and the knife back in the holster he hadn't noticed on the inside of her boot. She did it all without unpinning him from the wall.

  She ran the tips of her fingers down the skin around the wound on the far left side of his chest. The contact kicked off an unearthly shivering in his muscle tissue, followed by the kind of sparks that crystalized in his cells, spreading in lacy interlocking patterns like frost on a window pane. The hole in his left pectoral throbbed in alternating bouts of hot and cold that made him feel as if he were being torn in different directions. The pain was surprisingly cleansing, as if it were working to burn away the last vestiges of whatever was ruining him.

  "Can you stand?" Tian asked.

  The concern in her voice was definite cause for alarm, even as it caused his hormones to reconsider the lack of blood pressure in his body as an obstacle to erection. Sio let out a strangled self-deprecating noise that had been intended as a chuckle.

  I'm not even good for a hard on right now, so no.

  He shook his head, still too out of it to say much. An overwhelming fit of nausea hit him and he shoved Tian out of the way doubling over, dry heaves assaulting his system as another bullet pelted the stone he'd been propped against. Tian yanked him around the corner once, twice, scrambling as he stumbled after her.

  Houston, we have a problem.

  Too much movement had thrown off his cabin pressure. He lost traction and slid down the wall behind him. Tian had drawn down at some point when she was hauling his ass around. He hadn't noticed. He had noticed that she looked more panicked than he'd ever seen her.

  She slid around behind him, wrapping her free arm around his damaged torso before flinging them back in the direction they'd come. She pitched them both head first towards the short wall that backed up to the street and further out, Saks Fifth Avenue. Bullets slammed into the pavement of the square around them like raindrops. The onset of night made it impossible to pinpoint where they were coming from. The deadly barrage stopped as they hit the wall, unable to alter angle enough to hit them. He was flat on his back as Tian swung around, keeping her head low as she straddled his hips.

  "What now?" Sio asked, drawing his last reserves to get the statement out.

  "I can't create glamor, only draw up wards that amplify or channel it, and that kind of thing takes time. If we're out in the open and there's a scene, Eamon would be forced to kill us both over the exposure. At least this way we can catch the corner edge of Baba's spell."

  "So I guess a car's out of the question."

  He was really starting to lose it. Tian choked on a laugh that sounded more like she was about to start crying. He tried to comfort her, wanted to wrap his arms around her, but he couldn't move. Well, couldn't move any more than he already was. He was shaking from cold and blood loss, but managed to squeeze her thigh. It was the best he could do. Absolute shit for reassurance.

  Tian reached over and grabbed the jacket from where they'd left it. She wrapped him in it, sliding her hands up the blood soaked contours of his torso; shoving hard against his chest to put pressure on the wound as if she could force the blood back into his body. Her touch was like being hit by 160 volts from a crash cart.

  "Sio..."

  I love you.

  He would have sworn that this time the thought hadn't been his, but all she said was, "Focus."

  "Love you too."

  Had he just said that?

  Before he had the chance to figure it out the world warped and turned over on its side. He must have blacked out because the next thing he saw coming to was Tian with her teeth buried so far into the design etched on her left wrist she'd drawn blood. He choked out her name, noticing the bite marks already embedded in the skin of her other wrist. The designs in both wrists sparked with molten silver fire; they traced themselves back into Tian's flesh like gun powder as Sio watched. She grimaced, locking her jaw as if she were in pain, but trying like hell to hide it. He mustered up enough energy to take her hand and her head shot up. She pinned him with a heart-stopping stare.

  Before he could figure out how to respond, they were crowded by Lip Ring and Hamlet, who materialized out of thin air practically on top of them. Two bullets came screaming out of the darkness one after the other. The first slammed into Royal's shoulder, the second missed Xavier's skull as the bastard hit the deck. Royals jaw tightened in furious surprise.

  "Touching," he said.

  Another bullet came whining through the darkness. It flared as a bright spot of flame, burning itself out to nothing, not even getting close to where the guy stood.

  "You know you could have called us," Xavier said. The guy seemed wholly unconcerned by the hail of bullets being lobbed at them. He was however, working like hell to look anywhere but at Tian.

  "Baba Yaga's shadows have my phone," Tian said without breaking Sio's eye contact.

  "How inconvenient for you," Royal mused. A molten stream of metal dripped down his arm, stinking like sulfur, and searing its way through the sleeve of his Versace.

  Sio flinched, fighting the spins, fighting against the slip into oblivion. Tian's eyebrows drew down with worry.

  "If you want our help later then get us the fuck out of here now."

  Xavier dropped to his knees from where he'd been crouching. The guy grabbed Tian around the waist, heaving her against his body. Sio noted that she hadn't let go of his hand, which turned Xavier a little green. The realization gave him a big warm fuzzy, made it th
at much easier not to notice the next step off into oblivion. When he clawed his way back to consciousness Tian was gone. Most of his blood spatter was gone too, along with the shredded remains of Avery's shirt. The only thing left was Royal's looming mug as the male bent down and scooped him up.

  "Let's go big boy," Royal grunted. Sio found himself slung none to gently over a pair of broad shoulders. "Don't worry," Royal told him. "I'm not going to let you die. You owe me a new suit."

  Union Square was replaced by a hell fire inferno that stretched into eternity. The torture couldn't have lasted more than two seconds, but it had been long enough to never want to go there again. When it was over they were on the familiar dilapidated steps of Tian's place in the Haight. Royal glided toward the front gate as if the extra three hundred pounds he was toting was inconsequential. A crushing wave of relief screamed through his veins and Sio gave in to the sirens' call of the blood rushing into his skull. He passed out again.

  Next thing he knew he was laid out in Tian's bed. He could still smell her on the sheets, but she wasn't next to him. She was in the room, though. He could hear her arguing with someone near the center. A male. Sio worked around the pain and struggled to track what they were saying.

  "I've told you female, taking the kind of energy that I'd need to fix him will kill you. Mierda, it might kill me."

  "Don't bullshit me, Virgil. You'd stop before you let it kill you and we both know it."

  "That doesn't change the fact that you'd be just as dead."

  "And I told you that I won't stay dead. Your argument is invalid."

  Sio struggled to sit up, but his body refused to respond. He licked his lips. They were dry. So was his tongue.