Ashes and Ice

by Rochelle Maya Callen

  “Dejanira means the Destroyer of Man. Upon the seventh sacrifice, under the shadowed blood moon, the choice will be made. Dejanira will be strengthened and unleashed. The demon legions will rise to her command. And from her wo—”

  I raise my hand. I have no idea what this man just said. “Hold on there, Catman. Remember I am just a kid from the Bayou. I don’t have a freakin’ clue what you are talking about. Who the hell is Dejanira? And, well,” my eyes blink, wide for emphasis, my hands gesturing in a wild confused motion, “Demon legions? Like demons, real demons, will be just prancing about having a good ol’ time.”

  “Demons don’t prance.” Lynx says smoothly. “They destroy.”

  “Okay, well, I wasn’t being literal…”

  “And Dejanira is the name Lilith, the Queen of all Demons, gave her daughter before freezing her in Hell’s lake.”

  I roll my eyes. “Sounds like some serious family issues.”

  Lynx nods. “Dejanira was released from Hell’s lake years ago when Lilith first sought to use her as a weapon against humanity. That is when I met her. That is when I hid her.”

  Lynx stares at me and waits. I stare back. “So, what does this have to do with me?”

  “Dejanira is Jade, Connor. She just doesn’t remember.”

  His words slap me across the face. Jade? Jade? I think of fishnet stockings and sexy smirks, black eyes and hellish fire. Jade is Lilith’s daughter? A demon queen’s daughter?

  “Whaaat?” I jump to my feet and slam my head against a board and fall back down onto the chair. “Jade is Dejanira? The daughter of this Queen Demon? The freakin’ weapon in Hell’s arsenal? The ‘Destroyer of Man’?” My head throbs.

  “No.” He says crisply. “There is Jade and then there is a distinct being within Jade which is evil. Jade is Chimera—of two entities, two forged beings split in half, battling each other. Jade almost won once, a long time ago, but now the battle has restarted. Now Dejanira is winning. And if Dejanira wins, both Jade and the world will be in jeopardy.”

  “Wait, what do you mean the world?”

  Lynx shook his head. “We don’t have time for that now. I have given you some answers, and now I have a request for you.”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “Tell Jade to come to me. We have so little time and I am afraid the Change is already in motion. She is blocking out my voice. She isn’t listening.”

  I think of Jade and Dominic kissing next to the lockers. “She’s been distracted.”

  Lynx cocks his head.

  “She’s—she’s met someone.”

  “A man?”

  “No a leprechaun.” I deadpan.

  “Does she love him?”

  “Dammit, I don’t know. They sure like to suck face, though.”

  “Hmm, well. Love would be something that would call her heart back to her. But, lust…”

  “Wait, what do you mean about her heart?”

  Lynx looks surprised. “Her heart. She doesn’t have one. Not one that’s alive and beating.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say, “Of course she has a heart.” But then when I try to remember ever hearing the beat of it, I can’t.

  Lynx’s sympathetic look unnerves me. “Well, whatever, what about the lust?”

  “Lust not associated with love is a sin and will feed Dejanira’s strength. If she gives herself fully to it, she could easily Turn.”

  Just then, Lynx snaps his head to the side, listening to something I can’t hear. “I have to leave.” He says, standing up. “Your father found sacred texts, which not only told of the Final Prophecy, but also included vital secrets. He wasn’t aware of his Sight, of his heavenly gift until he became ill.” Lynx pulls out a leather bound book with pages slipping out. “The translations belong to you. You are his blood. You may even have gifts of your own. Even if not, this will answer more of your questions and help you prepare for what’s ahead.”

  “I—I really don’t know what this means… I—I never wanted any of this.”

  “Neither did I, Connor. Neither did I. But fate is fate.” He looks at me. “Jade wants to be good, Connor. She wants the heart she was denied. The girl you love is inside the body that is rotting and changing. We have to pull her back out, because we are losing her and soon she will be lost forever.”

  “I—I can’t love her anymore.”

  “You don’t want to love her, but you do. Only your light can save her now. Please, please don’t let her go. Not yet. Because, I love her too, but she has forgotten me. But she hasn’t forgotten you. Not yet.”

  With that, his image wavers and breaks into a thousand pieces chiming like bells.

  Dozens of gold orbs skitter on the ground. When I pick one up, dizzying warmth wraps around me and I am sitting on a couch watching a movie with Jade laughing beside me. I drop the marble and the memory flits away. I pick up another and see us in the quarry, her body tucked in my arms. Each marble is a memory. I fall in the center of them all, passing my fingers over them, seeing the flashes of laughter, of smiles, of her crinkled nose, of everything about her that made her real and mine.

  So many marbles. So many memories.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. Why did loving someone have to hurt so much?

  She told me once she would never let me go. If the Jade I love is still alive, then I won’t let go either. At least, not yet.

  Chapter 59

  Jade

  His fingers trace my ribs, swirling his fingers lightly over my skin making my body flush with want. I pull him down on me. I nip his lip and arch my back off the car seat. Desire is a drug and I am addicted. I want it to swell inside of me and spill over, I want it to soak into every pore until I overdose on the pleasure. We are a tangle of limbs and all I want is for there to be no space, for us to share our skin and sweat and want. I can feel Dominic’s desire pressed on me. I pull my legs from beneath him so my knees can be bent on either side of him. I am open to him, ready and wanting to receive him. For him to fill me and for the pleasure to expand and explode within me.

  I want to be lost in it.

  BAM. BAM. BAM.

  Someone bangs on the car window. I peer up, Dominic still woven in my arms and legs. My breath heaves. Dominic ignores the banging and presses his hips between my legs and rocks back and forth. My eyes flutter closed. I don’t care about the banging either.

  I know what I want. I nip Dominic’s ear and relish the sound of his groan. I could torture him with teasing, but I don’t think I will. I think I will let him have all of me… and then maybe I will find someone new. The thought brings a smile to my lips.

  With a loud creak, the car door is yanked open and I feel the mass of Dominic dragged off of me. My eyes snap open, desperate for his contact.

  “Real classy, Dominic.” A voice says outside the car. “It’s not like you can’t afford a hotel room.”

  “Some things are more fun in public.”

  I shift on the seat and pull my legs outside the door and see Connor waving his arms at Dominic. “Whatever, Dom. I need to talk to Jade.”

  “If you didn’t notice, Jade is busy at the moment.” Dominic smirks at him and I smirk too.

  Connor cuts his gaze to me and his eyes grow wide and his mouth falls open. I look down at myself and see my button-down shirt is completely open and nothing but my black bra and breasts exposed to the humid air. I smirk at him. “Like what you see?”

  Connor flinches and walks over to me, tugging the sides to my shirt closed. Pink colors his cheeks. “Leave us, Connor.” I leer up at Dominic. “I have some unfinished business to attend to.”

  “Jade, this isn’t you!” Connor says. “He is just using you for the sex, you have to know that.”

  “Is that so?” I say to Connor, amused. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe it was the other way around?”

  Connor’s face flushes. I giggle at his shocked expression. Dominic looks just as amused as I do. Connor stutters, before words start to make sense. “
Ja-Jade, I need to talk to you in private. Now. Please.”

  “Hmmm, no.”

  “There you have it, Connor. The lady knows what she wants.” Dominic moves to close the door and so I lift my feet into the car. “I told you, Connor. I told you I was going to be inside her before you ever would and that she would want it.”

  Connor grabs Dominic and spins him around. His punch to Dominic’s jaw is a loud pop. Dominic doubles over just as Connor lifts him back up and punches him again.

  I get out of the car. A flush of desire toys with me. Violence and strength are delicious.

  Connor knees Dominic in the groin. Dominic lets out a groan.

  While Dom is bent over, Connor turns his attention to me. With one swift motion, he jerks me up and over one shoulder and starts pounding down the sidewalk.

  “What are you doing?” I growl.

  “Carrying you away from unwanted pregnancies and STDs.” Connor says, “And bringing you home to Nanan. She’ll set you straight.”

  Irritation grates against my nerves. Why isn’t Dominic following? I want to finish what we started. We are only a street over from the house so it only takes a couple of minutes to get to Nanan’s gate. “Jade, listen. Lynx has been trying to get through to you.”

  “Lynx?” I take a vague interest before settling my eyes on a group of kids across the street. They are holding hands and singing Ring Around The Rosie.

  Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes. We all fall down.

  “Dammit, Jade, Listen to me.” Connor waves his hands in front of my face. “Lynx says you have been ignoring him and it must be because you are changing into someone else.”

  “Who?” I ask. “Someone not afraid of nightmares, of water, of desire. Someone strong. Maybe I like this change. Maybe I want it.”

  “But Jade, look at you. This isn’t you.”

  “And how would you know what I am like?”

  “Because Jade,” he says, “we were friends.”

  A laugh bursts out of me. “Were we?” I can’t imagine being friends with this weak, flustered boy with his wisps of lights floating around him. There is nothing I can feed off of him. Nothing simmering for me to drink.

  I push past him to go into the house. “Jade, please Jade wait.”

  Agitation boils over. “Stop calling me that!”

  “But,” Connor stares up at me, “that’s your name.”

  Confusion for a moment dances with my haze. My name? Jade is my name, isn’t it? But it doesn’t feel right. It feels like something sticky on my skin or like a shell I am breaking.

  “Leave, Connor.”

  “No,” he says, coming up the pathway. “I won’t leave until you tell me you are going to see Lynx. He came to me and I know there is a lot you need to know. He told me …” He lowers his voice, “That there is something evil inside you taking over, that if you Turn something terrible will happen and the Jade I know will be gone forever. He says lust can accelerate the process… And I know you and Dominic…”

  “As if you would know anything, you pathetic, stupid boy.” I snap at him. “No one tells me what to do. Especially not you and some ridiculous old man.”

  Connor tries to say something else and I imagine his lips are sewn shut with black thread. The image makes me laugh.

  “Jade Smith.” I recognize that voice and a tumble of emotions seizes me. I feel caught and ashamed just as a feeling of disregard rushes in. I don’t have to feel ashamed. I look to Nanan in the doorway. Even without shame, something else tugs so my cool, collected insides are disturbed with a twisting of my nerves. Something isn’t quite right and I don’t know what it is. “How dare you speak to Connor like that. He’s your friend and doesn’t deserve it. Look at him. He’s obviously upset.”

  “Nanan, don’t worry about him. He’s not my friend. I don’t need friends.”

  Nanan blinks. “What are you talking about? Of course you do. And you used to spend every moment with this boy… you were practically an old married couple.”

  Connor shifts and looks at the ground.

  “Well, then. The divorce papers have been served. Stay away from me.”

  I march inside the house. Nanan grabs my arm, keeping me in the doorway. “Apologize, Jade. You are being cruel.”

  I narrow my eyes at her, smirking. I twist my wrist so her hand loses its grip and grab her wrist and lean in. “No,” I say, “I won’t.”

  Her eyes change. Shock? Fear? She jerks her arm away and rubs at her wrist. A sadness pitches her features, a helplessness. I don’t like her looking that way. I reach out a hand to her and she flinches back. “I don’t know what is happening to you. You are changing.” She says and turns to walk into the kitchen.

  I look back to Connor from inside the door and slam the door shut.

  In the bathroom, I wash my face. The ice writhes inside of me, twisting the shadows into friends. I stare at the mirror, watching the water drip down my face in rivulets. No one controls me. No one. My fingers twitch, restless.

  My lips quirk up at one side ever so slightly. “Ashes, ashes we all fall down.” I say in a sing-song voice. In the mirror, my reflection changes. Cheekbones claim harsher edges, the shape of my chin tapering off into a defined jaw, my eyes change from green to crystalline gray. I look older, stronger, seductive and powerful. Yes. This is what I want. Power.

  Creeaak. Creeaak. Something creaks in the doorway, swaying back and forth. My confident gaze slowly shifts to the corner of the mirror. A large woman, swaddled in a drab gray dress swings back and forth on a noose in the doorway.

  I smile, my head swaying back and forth with the creaking. “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.”

  I look back at my reflection. The cold silence in my chest is stabilizing.

  “It is time.” My reflection says to me. I cock my head to the side. “It is time, my daughter, Dejanira.” When my reflection smiles, pointy teeth peek past my lips. No, no… past my mother’s lips? I blink quickly. Wait…

  My trance is broken by the creaking. As I shift my gaze back to the mirror’s corner. I see Nanan’s face staring at me while her limp body swings form the doorway. Dead, helpless eyes.

  Clarity screams at me.

  Nanan? Nanan! I whip around gasping, lunging for the doorway, but there is nothing there.

  I spin back to the mirror. The woman with ice eyes and pointy teeth is still there watching me. “It’s time daughter. Time to come home. Time to claim your power. Time to…”

  I don’t let the bitch finish. I scream and bang my fists against the glass. The splinters slice into me, but I don’t care. I keep smashing until there isn’t a sliver left in the frame.

  My bloody arms already healing and my breath heaving, I stagger back and brace myself against the wall. I look at the pieces on the floor and scream again. Every sliver has an image of the woman’s face. They all stare at me, slowly shaking their heads and tsking at me. “You won’t deny me, daughter. The Blood moon is waiting. You are mine.”

  I fall to my knees and scramble to put all the shards of glass into the trash bag. Giggles whisper from the shards. “Ashes, ashes we all fall down.”

  I grab the bag and barrel down the stairs. Nanan yells after me. “Jade! Jade, wait!”

  I stop on the steps. I turn slowly back up toward the front door. Nanan stands there in her grey dress, her eyebrows pinched with worry. She’s alive. Alive! And I will make sure she stays that way. I climb the steps, my feet leaden. I know that this will be the last time I walk up these steps, this will be the last time I see this woman’s face and it hurts. It hurts too much. I place the bag of glass on the step and then run to her, wrapping her in my arms. I want to cry on her shoulder. A person with a heart could cry. I bury my head in her neck and whisper. “Nanan, I am so sorry.” With that, I pull away from her arms, grab the bag and run.

  Lynx is waiting.

  I run, the breath hitching in my throat. What have I almost become? What is it that I said to Conno
r? Treachery lurks in my veins and I want to bleed it out. If I could cry, I would drown the world in tears.

  ***

  Lynx’s alley is a tunnel of frigid air. My steps falter when a shadow steps straight out of the brick wall. I squint and see Lynx walking toward me. He pauses for a moment, then, as if in afterthought, opens his arms to receive me. “Jade, you came.” His voice is like velvet.

  “Of course! Of course, I came. I—”

  I start to walk toward him and his wide-open arms when electricity seizes the air and I see a blue bolt of lightning strike the ground between us. I look up. And there he is—the same young man from outside school—the same piercing blue eyes and porcelain skin, hovers behind Lynx—flying.

  My mouth gapes open.

  The young man reaches both hands behind him and draws out two gleaming swords with fine glowing script etched down the blades. Lynx’s eyes widen before he turns to the scraping sound. His voice quivers, “No—“ The words are silenced as the young man’s blades cross in front of him, narrowing the thin divide between their sharp edges and the old man’s neck.

  “No!” I scream, I cover my mouth with my hand as the blades sever Lynx’s head from his body and it rolls on to a patch of grass beside him. His body crumples to the ground. The young man’s eyes flicker to me and then to the head bleeding onto the pavement. He replaces the blades, snatches up the head by its hair and steps toward me, his eyes blazing with a fierce intensity.

  I turn to run, but stop as my eyes fall to the body-less, glassy-eyed head in his hand. My chest deflates, the wind knocks out of me. My muscles tense as something—something sticky and black like tar—bubbles and oozes in my veins. It uncoils, reaches deeper and deeper inside me, consuming. Then the world flashes red before it distorts into shapes and light. The man in front of me steps back and when he does, I see a pulsating blue hum throb within him, like his veins are blue flame and at the core of him, where his heart should be, is a sphere of violent cobalt energy flaring out.

  Rage—terrifying, violent and unfamiliar—cripples me. I fold inward and then I feel it explode within and I see myself from very far away. I’m gone, disconnected. But my body is hungry, and vicious. I lunge forward toward the man.