Accidental Ashes: or that time I found out I was a demon, and all my friends were vampires and werewolves (Xoe Meyers Young Adult Fantasy/Horror Series)

by Sara C. Roethle

  We were all silent as Chase put the truck in drive and headed towards town. I fidgeted around anxiously until I couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer.

  “Okay,” I began. “So here’s what I’m thinking. I go in and talk to the redhead, and let her lure me wherever. You guys stay out of sight, then follow us.”

  “So you’d be like . . . bait?” Lucy squeaked.

  “No,” Max interjected. “I’ll do it.”

  I turned around so I could meet his scared eyes. “Why should you do it? I’m your pack leader after all. I’m supposed to protect you.”

  Max sighed. “You’re only our pack leader in name Xoe. We don’t actually expect you to protect us. Plus, they’ve only taken witches, werewolves, and merpeople. They may not even want you.”

  “He’s right,” Chase added. “The plan has a better chance of working if Max goes in.”

  Pouting, I hunched down in my seat and glared out the front window as we exited onto the highway. Lucy cleared her throat and I turned to regard her.

  “Aren’t we forgetting something?” Lucy asked rhetorically.

  I cocked my head in confusion at the same time Max asked, “What?”

  “That woman is in a bar,” she reminded us. “None of us can get into a bar.”

  “I can,” Chase countered.

  I turned to him in confusion. “How old are you anyways?”

  “Twenty-two,” he answered simply.

  Lucy cleared her throat again. “That still brings us back to the problem of having a demon go in.”

  “I can get into a stupid bar,” Max mumbled petulantly.

  I turned back to Max. “You willing to try?”

  He met my eyes, showing me the raw fear shining through. “Yes,” he agreed.

  Chase shook his head in disbelief. “Okay,” he conceded. “We’ll try.”

  The rest of the drive was a short one. We didn’t know which bar the redhead was at, so we’d park in the same lot as before, and look for my dad.

  The bar traffic was in full swing, so we had to search for a while before we found a spot. Chase backed into the spot, for a quick get-away I assumed, and shut off the engine. I opened the door and hopped out just before the cold air really hit me. Sporadic snowflakes had begun to fall once again, and I wished I was back in my house, having cookies and coffee with my mom.

  I snuggled the zipper on my winter coat all the way up to my throat and waited for Lucy to get out behind me. Chase and Max came around the truck to fetch us.

  “We stick together,” Chase ordered. “It may take us a little longer to find Alexondre, but we can’t risk another one of us being taken.”

  I shrugged. “Why don’t you just sense him?”

  Chase grimaced. “He can block me.”

  A faint wash of hope ran through me, tainted by my current, more pressing fears. “So I could in theory block him?”

  Shrugging, Chase answered, “In theory maybe, but it takes a very powerful demon to be able to do so. I’ve only heard of pureblood demons having the ability.”

  “Can’t we just call him?” Max interrupted, impatient to get the show on the road. “It’s freezing out here.”

  I answered before Chase could. “He’s not going to tell us where he is. He didn’t want us to come.”

  Max nodded and we all began to walk towards the sidewalk. Without discussion, we strolled up the street towards Blue Moon, trying to act casual and inconspicuous. The streets were full of bar-goers and a few lingering coffee shop patrons with laptops or books in hand. People who would normally seem innocuous to me, all suddenly had hidden agendas of nefarious deeds. Was that woman in the black velvet coat looking at me funny? I stepped a little closer to Lucy, wanting to feel the comfort of being in a group.

  We were only a block away from the coffee shop when Chase took a sudden right, and gestured for us all to cluster into an alcove that housed an ATM. We all smushed in and looked at him curiously. He gestured with a nod down the street we had just turned onto.

  I peeked around the corner and saw my dad, leaning against a wall a few buildings down. As I watched, he pulled a cell phone out of his black linen trench coat and dialed a number. A second later, Chase’s phone began to ring.

  Chase cringed and reached into his pants pocket, then held the cell phone out to me. I flipped it open and held it to my ear. “I told you to stay home Alexondra,” my dad’s voice lectured.

  I shut the phone and handed it back to Chase. He looked at me wide-eyed as I flipped my hood up over my head and left the alcove, marching straight for my dad. He pretended not to notice me as I walked down the street to meet him.

  I stopped and leaned against the wall a few feet away from him. “Max is going in,” I whispered. If there were any werewolves around, they’d probably hear me, but it was the best I could do.

  My dad nodded; the barest inclination of his head. “You are staying out here with me,” he whispered.

  It was my turn to nod. I looked back towards the alcove to see Max emerging. Good, they were putting the plan into action. I casually tugged my hood down my forehead a little further, trying to mask my blonde hair in case one of the abductors recognized me.

  There wasn’t anyone checking IDs at the door, and Max strode right in. I waited, expecting Max to be thrown out any minute, but nothing happened. Another five minutes went by. Still nothing.

  I glanced around to see if anyone else was watching the bar and caught site of Chase as he crossed the street. He had produced a black winter cap from somewhere, and pulled it down a little further over his ears as he sat down on a park bench and started pretending to text on his phone. Or who knew? Maybe he was texting.

  I got my answer when my dad’s phone buzzed from somewhere within his trench coat. He pulled out the phone and quickly read the message. He began to walk towards me as he shoved the phone back in his pocket. I ignored him until he placed a hand on my shoulder to turn me to walk with him.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered.

  My dad pushed me forward to quicken our pace. “Max and the woman are behind the bar.”

  “Already?” I whispered harshly.

  “He must have followed her straight out there as soon as he entered,” my dad explained. “It was a trap.”

  I glanced to the park bench where Chase was sitting, but he had already disappeared. Standing in his place was the crew-cut man that had followed us before. He watched my dad and me as we crossed the street. Crap.

  I stopped suddenly on the median to tie my shoe and my dad came to a skidding halt. I looked up and met his eyes that so eerily matched mine. “He’s one of them, the one standing by the bench.”

  My dad glanced at the man, then pulled me to my feet to stroll a little more slowly the rest of the way across the road. We made our way to a little alley that ran alongside the bar. I glanced back in search of crew-cut man. He was walking right towards us. Double-crap.

  My dad shoved me into the alleyway ahead of him, then stayed where he was standing. I looked at him, confused.

  “Go,” he ordered. “Find Chase.” Then he turned to meet crew-cut man head on.

  I went. I could only hope that crew-cut man wouldn’t try anything too drastic in public.

  I ran full out down the alleyway until I reached the back parking lot of the bar. I felt a prickling at the back of my neck. I whipped around and looked back down the alleyway. My dad was nowhere to be seen. I turned back around and was shocked to find dark brown eyes, just inches from my face.

  I froze, heart thundering a million miles a minute. Then I realized that it was Nick standing in front of me. “You scared me!” I exclaimed.

  He just stood there as a slow smile crept across his face.

  Only then did it dawn on me that we hadn’t told Nick where we were going. I started to back up, but for every step I took back, he took one forward. “You’re one of them,” I accused.

  His smile grew as he continued to walk forward.

  I turned
to run, and caught a glimpse of someone large behind me. Then there was only darkness.

  Chapter Twelve

  I could hear an engine humming, trying to lull me back to sleep, but there was a dull ache in my head that told me I needed to wake up. I opened my eyes, but couldn’t lift my head off the floor. I groggily looked around at my metal surroundings and realized I was in the back of a van. Wait, what was I doing in the back of a van?

  Suddenly Nick’s face was once again in front of mine and it all came flooding back to me. The traitor! I tried to speak, but it felt like my mouth was full of cotton.

  Nick’s face disappeared. A moment later I heard him speak. “She’s coming to.”

  A woman’s voice responded, “What the hell is she? Her metabolism has eaten up enough tranqs to down three werewolves.”

  Tranquilizers? This was bad, very bad. I began to struggle, but my limbs felt like they were made of rubber, and there was some type of restraint holding my hands behind my back. I managed to swing my leg enough to kick someone, then there were hands holding down my legs. I took a breath to try and scream, then there was a small zing of pain in my arm. My vision began to go dark. I blinked against it; I had to stay awake. Then I was out.

  When I next awoke, I was in some sort of cell. The ground beneath me was cold, damp stone. I forced my eyes open only to find someone crouching over me. I swung my leg up as best I could in an attempt to kick whoever it was. My knee made contact, instead of my foot like I had intended, and the person fell away with a yelp.

  “What gives?” a female voice demanded.

  “Allison?” I questioned.

  “Duh,” came a sarcastic reply. “Don’t try to kick me this time.”

  She crouched back over me and put her hands under my arms to lift me into a seated position. She leaned me against the stone wall, then sat down in front of me. I felt a wash of heat and glanced to see a small propane heater in the corner of the room, near the door, which I couldn’t really think of as a door. It was made of shiny, new steel bars. There was some sort of lighting in the outer room, but the only extra lighting in the cell was the glow of the space heater.

  I turned my gaze back to Allison, who was dressed in a dirty, long sleeve tee that had once been a pale blue, and torn jeans that had soaked up blood from some sort of wound or cut on her leg. It pained me somehow to see Allison this way; she always put so much effort into her clothing.

  I looked at her bloody leg again. “What happened?”

  Allison grimaced. “I just woke up with it. Some kind of puncture wound, but not too deep.”

  I forced my eyes up to focus in on her grime-smeared face to ask another question. “Where are we?”

  “We don’t know. We just woke up here.”

  I was about to ask who “we” was, but then I saw Lela. She was huddled in the far corner with her arms wrapped around her knees. Her head was hanging forward, causing her long dark hair to fall around her like a cape.

  “Lela?” I questioned.

  “Hi Xoe,” Lela whispered back, clearly freaked out.

  I looked back to Allison. “What did they do to her?” I whispered, even though I knew Lela would hear.

  Allison shook her head. “She’s claustrophobic. We think we’re underground.”

  Come to think of it, there did seem to be a slight lack of air. Not enough to harm us, but still uncomfortable. There was a familiar sensation prickling at the back of my mind. The air felt heavy, like something was pressing down on me. Then it hit me where I had felt that feeling before. Lucy’s grandma’s funeral.

  “We’re in the cemetery . . . under the cemetery.”

  Allison’s honey brown eyes widened. “We’re where?”

  I licked my lips nervously. “I um . . . I think we’re in a crypt.”

  “Great, just great,” another voice said sarcastically.

  Wait, I knew that voice. “Brian?” I questioned.

  Brian crawled into my line of vision and sat in front of me. His gray hoodie was torn and his hair was mussed into a frizzy pouf, but other than that, he looked unharmed. “So we’re in a crypt huh?”

  I cringed at his tone, then nodded in affirmation. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  Brian shrugged, an unpleasant, sour look on his face. “First I ran into you on the street, then, as soon as you walked away, some guy pulled me into an alley. The next thing I knew, I was waking up . . . in a crypt.”

  Lela let out a small whimper. My limbs tingled as feeling returned to them. Unfortunately the feeling was returning to my head as well. I reached back and felt the tender lump that had erupted on my scalp.

  Allison and Brian were both staring at me.

  “Have either of you seen anyone since you woke up?” I asked.

  Allison was first to answer. “Yeah, Nick. The little worm told us if we used any magic, they’d know. Apparently nobody bothered to tell him that I’m human, so he just assumed otherwise.” She scowled at the room in general and then added, “They don’t know what you are either Xoe.”

  “You’d think he would have just asked, back when we trusted him.”

  Allison nodded. “Yeah, not the sharpest tool in the shed that one.”

  “He did ask,” Lela interrupted from her corner. “I told him it was your choice if and when you wanted to tell him.”

  I flashed back on Lela’s googly-eyed look for Nick. That she had kept my secret despite her feelings for him pushed Lela that last inch into my friend category. If we got out of this, I knew I could trust her.

  I gave Lela a smile she didn’t see, then turned back to Allison. “I understand them not knowing my smell, but wouldn’t they know that you smell human?” I asked.

  “Witches smell like humans, unless they’ve been doing a lot of magic.” Lela interjected softly.

  Brian was absorbing our conversation with a look of confused wonder on his face. I spared him an apologetic smile, then turned to regard Lela again. “Did you recognize what any of them smelled like?” I asked.

  “Nick is definitely a wolf,” Lela said sadly. “The other one I caught a whiff of had a smell I knew. Kind of like the smell right before it rains mixed with blood.”

  “Like ozone maybe?” I asked. “That’s what Max said one of them smelled like.”

  Lela gave a slight nod of her head in answer. “Dan smelled the same way when after he summoned demons. He said it was from the magic.”

  “Great, just great,” I replied. “So do we have any idea what they’re planning on doing with us?”

  “Kill us, probably,” Lela mumbled.

  Brian put his head in his hands, but didn’t say anything.

  I wanted to argue, but Lela was right. All but one of the other abductees were yet to be found, and the one that was found was dead.

  Allison glanced at the door, then back to me. “Can’t you blow it up or something?”

  I raised my hand to pinch the bridge of my nose. I was getting a killer headache. “I don’t know how,” I groaned. “I’ve only blown up appliances, so I think it just has something to do with the electricity.”

  “What about the space heater?” Lela asked, a little bit of the strength back in her voice.

  I looked at the heater again. It wasn’t electric, but it was flammable. “You might just have something there.”

  I stumbled to my feet and Allison stood to aide me. “How did you get over the tranquilizers so fast? It took over an hour for Lela to be able to move at all. I was on the ground for another two after that. Brian finally just started moving before they threw you in here.”

  “Who threw me in?” I asked.

  Allison shrugged. “Some big guy,” she answered. “I’d never seen him before.”

  Brian lifted his head out of his hands and looked at me standing awkwardly near the door. “What are you going to do?”

  I shook my head and glanced at the heater again. “I don’t know. Can one of you help me move the space heater by the bars?”

 
Allison left me leaning against the wall as she went to move the heater. It was a lot heavier than it looked, so she had to slowly drag it across the floor rather than lifting it. It made a horrible scraping sound its entire journey to the door.

  At the noise, a tall man with icy blue eyes and hair so blonde it was almost white came around the corner into view through the barred door. He was also the largest man I had ever seen. When he spoke, his voice was a deep bass rumble. “What was that noise?” he asked with what sounded like a German accent.

  “What noise?” I asked back.

  “That scraping.”

  “Oh,” I began, trying to think of an excuse. “We, um . . . we wanted to move the heater. We figured if we moved it in front of the door, less heat would escape. Where’s my dad?”

  It took him a moment to adjust to my train of conversation. He was big, and none too bright.

  Before he could answer, I asked, “What about the rest of my friends?”

  “There are only you four,” he responded. He turned to walk away.

  “Hold on,” I urged. “Why are we here?”

  He stopped mid-motion and faced me again. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”

  “What happened to my leg?” Allison quickly added.

  The big man had the grace to look embarrassed. “I dropped you. There was a sharp piece of glass on the ground.”

  Lela began to weep softly.

  The big man pointed at her. “What’s wrong with that one?”

  I couldn’t think of a reason not to tell him, and I wanted to keep him talking, so I answered honestly. “She’s claustrophobic.”

  “Claude!” someone shouted from the outer room.

  Claude winced, gave me a surprisingly sympathetic look, and walked away.

  Back to the space heater idea. I motioned for Allison and Brian to stand back with Lela, then stumbled to sit several feet in front of the space heater. I stared into the glowing red panel, trying to grasp at my elusive powers, and felt . . . nothing.