Ashes and Ice

by Rochelle Maya Callen

  I cannot scream. I cannot move.

  I see him: Connor. Bloody. The dead girls scrape past him, a violent, harsh sound hacking out of their blue, rotting lips: Improbus es, Improbes es. Improbes es. Improbes es.

  Stop. The thought inside me echoes in the blackness. Please, stop.

  They come closer and closer, their feet dragging on the ground until they are beside me slithering their dreadful words in my ear: Improbuses. Improbuses…

  Something starts to materialize in the blackness, new shapes. It morphs into a person… into me. A reflection of myself appears behind Connor. Eyes black. Blood smeared on my face. I look hungry. My dark self contorts and starts to reach savagely for Connor, while something holds me back. I’m clawing at him. I’m trying to devour him. I’m trying to kill him.

  His eyes wide, he chokes out my name. J-a-d-e. My dark self lunges forward and then blackness. Everything’s gone. A single tarot card flutters to the black ground.

  “Death.” Connor’s death.

  Alathea predicted it. I open my eyes and Connor’s strong arms are still around me.

  I shake my head, the whole of me trembling. I will die from drowning, drowning in my own blackness. I can’t bring Connor with me. He’s sunshine. I’m the rain—rain as violent as the August hurricanes that drown and destroy.

  As the blackness dissipates, I see Connor’s face close to mine. His arms are wrapped around me. “Jade—Jade are you okay?”

  I gasp.

  No. No one else will suffer because of me. No one else. I feel my blood coursing with something venomous, something itching to be released. A monster. I will not let the monster win. I stumble away from him.

  He’s shedding light like a beacon. He is beautiful and I love him. But he can never know that, because I don’t want him to mourn over me. I want him to hate me, despise me, curse my name because I deserve it. A monster, a demon deserves to be hated.

  I kiss him softly, tasting him. I keep my lips against his for only a moment, like a delicate promise. Monsters don’t keep promises.

  I gather my resolve, place my palms on his chest, and push back. With every inch that he leans away, I feel like I am more and more disconnected from the world, like the vitality running through it is seeping out of me and the only point of contact is my palms, which as they lift away from his chest and fall to my sides are numb and cold. “I am not right for you.” I enunciate each word so I know he hears me, he understands, because I don’t think I could bring myself to say it again.

  “But Jade, you…”

  “No.” I feel mechanical, sterile, and distant as I pull my heart away from him and tuck it back into its shadowed, lonely place—still beating, beating faster because it is afraid, just as afraid as I am. I step back; he follows. “Please.” My voice quakes. “Please let me be. I…” This is when the most brutal lie comes, this is when my heart breaks and is lost, this is when, because I love him so much, I have to let him live without me. “I don’t love you Connor.”

  His eyes change, confused and he starts to shake his head. I can’t stand looking at him anymore, his probing eyes. “I—I don’t believe you.”

  “I’m sorry, Connor.” I pull away from him and, when he doesn’t let go, I push him hard. “I am so sorry.” I turn to leave, turn to run away.

  “Jade! Jade, wait!” I don’t turn around.

  His light doesn’t falter. It expands, it reaches, blinding me.

  “Jade, I—”

  It’s time. The runes have been drawn. I step in the center of them. “I’m sorry, Connor,” I whisper.

  I watch the light around him shift colors and blaze and I am grateful that he, my Connor, my light-filled man, will be the last thing I see as my heart—that I desperately wanted—stops beating. His eyes grow wide, and he lunges for me just as I lift the glowing blade to my throat and drag it across my skin.

  Chapter 62

  Connor

  I scream her name, lunging for her. I never knew terror until now. Terror isn’t what I feel when I watch a slasher movie, or hear the messed up prophesies about the world ending, or even see possessed black eyes leering at me. It is watching someone I love, two steps too far away, dripping blood from a gash ever lengthening across her throat.

  I can’t lose her. I can’t.

  I trip forward and a sliver of relief washes over me because I think I will be able to knock the blade out of her hand, but just as I swipe for it, I collide with a wall of electricity and I slam ten feet backward, my head snapping against a tree. The pain pounds in my head. Everything is so blurry, but just as my vision starts to blacken at the edges two things happen: A voice whispers in my ear “She’s ours,” and a swift dark figure across the clearing slams into the sphere of energy with Jade.

  Chapter 63

  Jade

  I start to feel the blood spilling into my lungs, gurgling up my throat. Before I can fall to my knees, a boiling mass plows into me and knocks me out of the circle, out of the sphere of energy.

  No, no, no, no! Spitting up blood, my chest folding in on itself, I claw my way back to the symbols. I have to finish this. I have to die. Scrambling back, I feel my body sway with weak, unsteady motion.

  “Jade! Jade stop!” Someone drags me back by my foot, the first runes just out of reach of my fingertips. I whimper, desperate.

  Heat pours over me as the figure flips me over and gasps, “What have you done?”

  I cough, sputtering up blood and saliva. I glimpse the man standing over me. The blue-eyed man. Lynx’s murderer. I flinch away, but pause. Maybe he will finish what I couldn’t. I lay limp, waiting for him to unsheathe his sword and swing the fatal blow.

  He unsheathes his sword and I grit my teeth. Here it comes. The man glides his fingertips over the blade and they come away bloody. He leans in toward me and swipes the slick blood over my neck wound. Just as he does it, my chest stops heaving and I feel my skin knitting itself back together.

  Fury trembles inside me and as I lash out at the man, I grab his outstretched wrists and I squeeze. I squeeze until I see he is holding back a yelp, I squeeze until the bones start snapping in my hands, I squeeze until I feel the cold whisper past my skin, tunnel inside me, take root and start poisoning him. His skin starts to turn blue, the thin veins under his skin becoming more pronounced. I am freezing him from the outside in.

  “Jade, Jade. It’s me.” He croaks. “ Giovanni.”

  The name catches on something, something that Lynx had said. What was it?

  “Jade, stop. We have to go. Now!”

  “I won’t ever go anywhere with you.” I hiss. “You killed Lynx and now I will kill you.”

  Revenge is a bitter kind of sweetness.

  “I never hurt Lynx.” His voice strains, becoming more brittle with each word, but there is a warm and somehow familiar lilt to it I can’t place. “The thing you saw me kill was an impostor. Those were Lilith’s demons playing an illusion to lure you to them. They were going to take you back to Hell.” The bluish grey of the cold seeps up his arms, and reaches up his throat. “The demons have Lynx, Jade. We have to run, now. So we can save him.”

  With his lilting voice, recognition flutters in and the cold falters. “Who are you?”

  Even with the freeze creeping up towards his jaw, I can see a strange shift of emotion in his eyes when he says, “It’s me… Giovanni.”

  I stagger back. Giovanni and I protected you, Lynx had said. Giovanni coughs. The cuts on his fingertips are gone.

  We stare at each other, silent.

  “Well, well, well. A little reunion.” The voice is a slick, rumble behind me.

  “Too late, too late, Giovanni. Always just a little too late.” A lazy, cool voice echoes in the trees. I stiffen.

  Dominic appears between two huge oaks. What—what is he doing here? “He thinks you are a monster, Jade. He wants to change you into something you are not. Powerless and trivial,” Dominic says. “But you aren’t. You are limitless and strong and powerful.”
The words hang in the air, piercing me. “You-are-just-like-us.”

  “I am a monster.” I whisper. “I will…”

  “No, you are not!” Giovanni says. “You aren’t. Not yet.”

  “You see! He knows your two sides and he wants to change you, shape you away from us so you can’t inherit what is rightly yours…”

  The words seep into me, weighing me down. What does he mean? Just like them? Who?

  “You are not like them! They are the monsters. They are the ones that have been killing the girls, not you!” Giovanni yells.

  I can hear a growl rumble deep in Dominic’s chest. It’s a warning. “Worthy sacrifices for our princess.”

  Giovanni’s voice is a roar. “See, he admits it!”

  “And you and your kind have been taunting her—reanimating the dead so you could torture her into madness! See how far you pushed her? She was going to forsake herself with the Angel’s Execution Circle.” Dominic yells, “Who is the real monster?”

  “I never did that! I wasn’t the one tormenting her! I never wanted to hurt her.” Giovanni yells back and then he looks at me, pleading and regretful. For what?

  Dominic steps between us. “It doesn’t matter. The mark has been made.” His words send a chill of pain up my spine.

  “The mark?”

  “Remember my fingertips tracing circles on your skin?” Dominic says, smirking at Giovanni. “All over your skin? That was the mark. The mark to raise Dejanira, our Cold Princess. To make you ours.”

  “But she hasn’t consumed life, has she? The ritual isn’t complete. And the shadow over the blood moon has not passed. She still has time to choose.”

  “You are right, little Seraph.” Dominic looks relaxed, even self-assured. And I don’t understand why. “But now she will.” Dominic disappears into the trees. I hear whipping sounds as he darts at an incredible speed all about us. Even Giovanni’s eyes do not seem to find him. Dominic’s voice echoes, but it is different. Like a choir of demons scratching the air with vicious cruelty, he opens his lips and their raspy voices hiss and groan out as if in pain. Something dangles from the trees. I squint to see.

  A quick exhale escapes me, “oh no.” My body is tingling and losing feeling all at once. My heart jabs my ribs.

  Dominic hovers over the body tied between the branches. The boy’s legs dangle, his body limp and defenseless. It’s his dirty blonde hair I recognize, because his face is too bloody to see. Connor.

  .“Get away from him!” My words finally burst out with a semblance of strength, strength that is wavering.

  “Blood for power.” The voices slither into my ears like snakes coiling about me. “The seventh sacrifice.” Dominic moves quickly. His talons rake Connor’s limbs, his throat, his chest. Connor screams. His voice seems distant, like a child screaming for help down a long, narrow and dark tunnel and I am too afraid to find him, to help.

  His blood drips. I cannot move. It pulls a deadly desire from my chest, a beastly being that doesn’t care this is her friend’s blood. It is simply blood… delicious blood. I lift my head, treachery grips me. It no longer feels treacherous, but right. Natural. The desire bubbles up within, threatening to overflow and drown me. It ravages, contorts me and seems to wrap its tentacles around my core and tighten, strangling out every other emotion.

  I am freezing and it feels good.

  I forget the boy’s name, the strange distant creature hanging from the tree. All I can see and all I care about is the intoxicating dark red liquid flowing from him, which is to be mine. All of it, every last drop is mine. Its sweetness lingers and I am ready to consume it, to taste it, to get lost in its forbidden deliciousness.

  I step forward, lift my head, and open my mouth, ready to taste…

  A large, heavy mass topples me and pins me to the forest floor. Fury surges. An animalistic snarl escapes me and I dig my nails into the man on top and hurl him in the air. I scurry back to the sweet redness beckoning. A demonic laugh crackles in the night far above me. I don’t care. I just need blood. All of it. All—

  The pale man staggers forward and blocks the steady drip of blood falling from the sky and the forest floor stained crimson from its rain.

  “Get out of the way,” my voice roars, nearly shaking the world.

  My chest is met with force and I am flung back and fall into the black, reflective surface of the lake.

  A laugh erupts. “Good job Seraph, now she will find her way home.”

  “Jade! Jade fight…”

  Fight what?

  I hit the water and feel it sucking me in.

  Arms, bruised and blue, pale and scarred, claw at me. Bile and fear rise in my throat as I pry bony, bloody fingers off my arms. As I pry one pair of hands, another and another take firm hold and drag me under, pulling me into the water’s depths, and shadows and coldness. I scream, but my sound is lost in insignificant bubbles rising to the surface I so desperately want to cling to.

  I writhe, twisting and turning and flailing against the arms and the cold. But I can’t escape. Falling deeper into blackness, I feel ice settle within me. Like frost, its delicate, white tendrils creep from my toes and fingertips to coil around me, into me. At first, I’m terrified. I forget about the arms dragging me under and clench my own hands, tingling and numb. As I lose sight of the surface, I try to remember why I was so desperate to hold onto it. The cold burrows its way deeper, up my limbs, into my torso, slowly making its way to my heart.

  I feel bits of me breaking, like icicles shattering, splintering into shards, cutting deep. A smile tugs at my lips. I like the pain. I am hollowed out. I need nothing. No one. And, I realize as I let my arms float out to the side, I am hungry. Ravenous. My fingers twitch, anxious.

  Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.

  Shadows, thick as tar, suffocate and fill me.

  I am Shadow.

  I am Ice.

  I am Death.

  I am Strong.

  I am Free.

  And I am starving to see something break and burn, to wilt and decay, to lie face down in the dirt and seize it as my own. I want to destroy. Metallic blood, salty tears, smooth bone. I want to taste and to break. I want the sacrifice to fortify and strengthen me.

  A thought, so very distant and faint, flickers in my chest. I don’t recognize it. Reluctance? I swallow it down. I am sinking, sinking, sinking and I know I am going home.

  Chapter 64

  Connor

  My consciousness wavers. Blood and pain twist my vision. Dominic’s claws left jagged marks across my skin. I can feel the blood dripping down my throat. My chest spasms as I drown in my own blood. I saw Jade’s eyes change, saw the monster taking hold.

  Hope. She needs my hope. My clenched hand holds it. I inhale a short, choppy breath and let it go. It falls, the fighting creatures below oblivious to its calm, quiet descent. I watch it roll, and nearly get stuck, but as if it had a will of its own, it forges on until it disappears into the water.

  With that, I heave in one last breath, close my eyes and whisper, “Goodbye Jade.”

  Chapter 65

  Jade

  I squint as a glimmer of reflecting light slowly sinks toward me. I don’t strain to reach it, but let it fall into my open palm.

  Warmth lulls my body and I hear my body scream. The heat is too much for the coldness clutching me. But I don’t let go, because I see something.

  A girl held by a boy in a lake on a sunny day. I look closer. That girl is happy, that girl is alive, that girl is free, that girl is light, that girl is hope. That girl is me.

  My eyes snap open.

  The boy bleeding out among the trees. Remember him. Remember him. Remember—

  My mind grasps at images fleeting and blurry, images locked away. I see the boy hanging from the tree. I see his face. But his face is beautiful and clean.

  The boy’s face smiles. He wears clothes that are too big for him and somehow I know lean muscles lie beneath the fabric.

  He steals a g
lance at me from a desk beside me and looks away. His heartbeat drums in his chest.

  Then I see him at a gravestone, shedding tears in silence, alone.

  I see him reluctantly fold a guitar under his arm and strum a melody ushering me into beautiful dreams, my head nestled on his shoulder.

  I see his hunched shoulders, disguising his height.

  I hear words that cut him to shreds and I remember how I wanted to prove him wrong.

  I see his reluctance, his faith, his forgiveness, his anger, his regret and his fear.

  I see him. I see Connor. Connor. The reality of him forms in my mind. My friend, Connor.

  Fight.

  That is what Giovanni said. Fight.

  I peer upward. The surface is so far away. I catch sight of my arm and see a tattoo forming on my forearm. It curves and slashes in ugly, brutal lines.

  No, this symbol isn’t mine. This cold isn’t mine.

  I feel a molten fire hissing. It makes the tattoo glow red and then contort into something new, something smaller, something curving and familiar on the inside of my wrist. My mark. Screams echo, distorted in the water as the hands holding me are scorched and charred. I fight.

  I claw my way to the surface and kick at the hands that try to reach out and drag me down. I will not. I kick, claw, and reach; when I break the surface, gasping for air, I hear the howl of Dominic’s anger.

  I trudge out of the water and stare at Dominic, Connor’s body strung up behind him. With a roar, talons twist from his fingernails and he rakes Connor across the neck, nearly severing it entirely. Then he slashes the ropes holding his body, and Connor falls to the ground with a loud, inglorious thud. Dominic lands beside my friend’s mangled body. A wicked smile forms on his lips.

  “No!” I scream and I feel Giovanni holding me back. “Why?” My voice breaks as my legs buckle, sadness paralyzing me. Giovanni holds me up.