Ashes (The Slayer Chronicles Book 3)

by Val St. Crowe

  “Can I get you something to drink?” said Riley. “We’ve got ginger ale.”

  None of us said anything. We weren’t used to being offered a drink or taken to parlors.

  “Sure,” said Naelen.

  “Be right back,” said Riley, and he disappeared.

  Naelen took off his sports jacket, revealing a tight black t-shirt underneath.

  I tried not to notice the way it clung to his skin.

  “It’s hot in here,” said Naelen.

  Logan shrugged. Gargoyles, being made of living stone, weren’t as sensitive to temperature as the rest of us.

  But I was feeling a little uncomfortable too. I could feel sweat gathering in the creases of my skin. I sat up straight. “What are we doing here, Naelen?”

  “That Riley guy says he’s got the cup,” said Naelen.

  “Really?” said Logan.

  “Yeah,” said Naelen. “I put out a few discreet inquiries amongst collectors of objects like that, and Riley got back to me. He said that he thought his father had something like that, and that he’d be willing to sell it.”

  “Where’s his father?” said Logan.

  “Oh, actually, his father recently died,” said Naelen. “So, when I said he would sell it, I meant Riley would.”

  “How much is he going to charge for something like that?” I said.

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Naelen. “I’ll cover it.”

  “Well, this seems easy enough,” I said, fingering my bow. “Maybe we didn’t need weapons after all.”

  “You never know,” said Naelen. “What if Cunningham’s gotten wind of this?”

  “Like I’d be able to lift my bow to shoot Cunningham,” I said. “He’d compel me otherwise.”

  “Not if we had the cup first,” said Naelen.

  “Listen,” I said, “the truth of the matter is that I’m your weakness. Both of you. You both gave up way too quickly last time just to save me. If Cunningham has me again, and he threatens to hurt me—”

  “We’re not letting him hurt you, Clarke,” said Logan.

  “No way,” said Naelen. “He’s done enough to you. You still haven’t come clean about that week away from us.”

  “He never touched me,” I said. “I promise.”

  Naelen exchanged a glance with Logan, who shrugged.

  “You two aren’t exactly an open book about whatever happened while I was gone,” I said.

  “Nothing,” said Naelen. “You were gone. He wasn’t interested in us.” But he wasn’t looking at me when he said that.

  A high-pitched scream rent the air.

  We all leaped out of our chairs, looking around.

  I slung my quiver of arrows over my arm and picked up my bow. “What the hell was that?”

  “Don’t know,” said Logan, creeping toward the door of the parlor.

  The scream came again, louder, closer.

  And then a woman with tangled long brown hair tackled Logan, knocking him down on his back. She perched on his chest, her eyes wild. “Get out!” she growled at us. “Get out.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Logan seized the woman by her wrists, and pushed her off his body. He didn’t use a lot of force, but the woman began screeching and struggling and spitting out obscenities. Logan scrambled backwards, letting go of her.

  She crouched on the floor, glaring at us like a caged animal. “You don’t belong here. The man who makes us dance has brought you here, but you do not belong. Leave my father’s house. You put us in danger.”

  “Um, hey,” I said, slowly approaching her. “Maybe we should try to calm down, huh? We’re here because Riley asked us to come. Do you know Riley?”

  “You are nothing but harbingers of death!” She threw back her head and howled, like a wolf. She began to claw at her own chest, her nails raking bloody furrows into her skin.

  I cringed and took a step back.

  All of us gave her a wide berth.

  And then Riley rushed back into the room, carrying four cans of ginger ale. He set them all down and knelt next to the girl. “Calliope, what are you doing to yourself?” He pulled her hands away from her chest so that she couldn’t do any more damage to her skin.

  She struggled against him. “Let go of me. You brought them here. You doomed us all.”

  “Calliope, calm down.”

  “You are not strong enough to resist, but I can. I can do as I wish, and he will not force me to dance, like he forces you.”

  Riley looked up at us. “Sorry about this. She’s my sister. She must have gotten away from her nurse.” He tried to get to his feet and to pull Calliope with him, but the girl wouldn’t budge. Riley yelled into the hallway, “Fiona! Get up to the second floor parlor, please!”

  There was the sound of footsteps running through the hallway and then a plump woman in scrubs careened through the door. Her scrubs were made of printed fabric. Kittens chased balls of string in a busy pattern. “Oh, my land!” she said, taking in the scene.

  “Did she get away from you again?”

  “She’s quick,” said the woman, who was clearly Fiona the nurse. “And then she hides from me. I think she does it purposefully to aggravate me.” She reached down and hauled Calliope to her feet.

  Calliope spit in Fiona’s face.

  Fiona huffed. She shoved the ill-kempt woman into her brother’s arms and wiped her face. Then she took out a wickedly long needle and held it aloft. “Hold her still, Riley.”

  Riley wrapped his arms around his sister’s midsection and held her tight.

  Calliope struggled. “No, no, no,” she whined, sounding like a piteous child. “Let me go. Let me go!”

  Fiona sank the needle into Calliope’s skin.

  Calliope screamed bloody murder. And then she fell limp in Riley’s arms.

  “She’s been ducking her meds again,” said Fiona. “Hiding them in her cheek. I won’t let her get by with it again.”

  “Good,” said Riley. “Good.” He passed his slack-jawed sister over to Fiona.

  Fiona lifted the smaller woman as if she was as small child and carried her out.

  Riley wiped sweat from his brow. “Phew,” he said and picked up one of the ginger ales. He held the cold can to his forehead. “Sorry about that.”

  We all just nodded warily.

  Riley gestured to the surrounding chairs. “Sit down, sit down.”

  We exchanged a few glances and then we sat down again.

  Riley sat down too. “She’s not stable, I’m afraid. We had her in a facility, but it wasn’t a good place. There were allegations of abuse, and in fact, she ended up with these bruises that no one could explain, and I could swear she came out of that place worse than when she went in. I don’t know what was done to her in there, but…” He shook his head. “I vowed never again. She’s my sister, and I won’t lock her up out of sight. I said I’d care for her myself, and I brought in help, but…” He popped open his soda. “Well, I don’t need to bother you with all that, I don’t suppose.”

  No one said anything.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m sure it’s difficult to deal with something like that. We know what it’s like to have siblings in need. You’re doing the best you can by your sister.” At least, I assumed he was. The girl seemed clearly out of her mind, but I wondered what was wrong with her. Was she schizophrenic? Bipolar? What made her behave that way? Why did she need tranquilizing injections?

  “I do what I can,” said Riley. “I wish I could do more. I wish I could cure her. It seems there’s no chance of her having a normal life now, which saddens me.” He sipped his ginger ale.

  We were quiet.

  “Oh, your drinks!” said Riley. He got up and got the cans.

  Naelen got up too. “That’s okay. Let me.”

  “Oh, no, you’re my guests,” said Riley.

  “Really, you should sit down.” Naelen took the sodas and distributed them around to Logan and me.

  We all opened them and took a lon
g drink. The cold liquid was a nice contrast to the sweltering room.

  “Well,” said Riley, “after all that, I wish I had better news for you.”

  “Did you sell the cup to someone else?” said Naelen.

  “Oh, no, nothing like that,” said Riley. “It’s only that it isn’t where I thought it was. I remember my father having something like that, and I remember where I thought he kept it, but when I went to go hunt it down, it wasn’t there. You must understand that I don’t live here full time. I have my own place up north. I’m only staying here to sort out my father’s estate. It’s temporary. Anything of value, I’m going to sell off, and I want nothing more than to get that cup to you. But I just don’t know where it is.”

  “Oh,” said Naelen. “Well, that’s… unfortunate.”

  “It’s here somewhere,” said Riley. “My father collected all kinds of magical things—talismans of all sorts, raw magical artifacts like dragon bones, objects like the cup, all of that. He didn’t have any system by which he stored it, though. He simply threw it all into rooms in the upper floor of the manor, and I’ve been having a devil of a time going through it all.”

  “I see,” said Naelen.

  Riley traced the condensation on the outside of his soda can. “Look, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love it if you helped me out. I’ve been trying to go through my father’s entire collection on my own, and I’m not having any luck with it. Once you find the cup, I’ll be happy to deduct a fair labor cost from the price of the thing, so you could get it for cheaper, and who knows, maybe you’d find something else you like too. What do you say?”

  * * *

  Of course we agreed. We needed to find that cup, and we didn’t have anything else going on.

  So, Riley took us up to the uppermost level of the house, where the temperature was truly sweltering and the fans overhead were doing nothing more than moving around the hot, muggy air, and we rolled up our sleeves and got to looking.

  Well, I rolled up my sleeves. In no time at all, the guys didn’t have sleeves, because they’d taken off their shirts.

  Sometimes, I really didn’t think it was fair that men could run around without shirts on all the time and women couldn’t. For one thing, I was hot, and I had to not only keep my darned shirt on, but a bra underneath it, which was two layers, making me even hotter. I wasn’t exactly a busty woman, but I had enough up top that I couldn’t run around without a bra, not really. Back when I was a teenager, I used to be able to get away with it. I would run around braless all the time. But these days, it wasn’t really doable.

  For another thing, I found it really distracting when there were lots of sweaty attractive men running around shirtless. It was embarrassing to be confronted with all that naked male flesh on display and have to pretend like it was nothing. If I had to deal with that, why didn’t guys have to deal with looking at my boobs? It wasn’t fair, and that was all there was to it.

  Riley wasn’t kidding when he said that there was a lot of magical junk up here. It was seriously like one of those treasure troves in the stories you read about dragons as a kid. In those stories, dragons are hoarders of gold, and they have rooms full of crowns and tiaras and statues and gold coins.

  Minus the gold coins, this was like that.

  Naelen says that dragons aren’t really hoarders. They’re all rich because they inherited their money over generations and they’re penny-pinchers because they learn that value from their culture. He says it’s offensive to call dragons hoarders. That it’s like calling Jews good with money or something.

  I agree with him. I think stereotypes like that are next to useless.

  However, I have to admit, guiltily, that, as a little girl, I liked those stories about hoarding dragons, especially the ones about dragons that stole princesses. The only part I didn’t much like was when the daring knight came to rescue the princess from the dragon’s tower. I always thought the princess should just stay with the dragon.

  Eyeing Naelen, muscles gleaming with sweat as he worked through a pile of glittering stuff, I felt a little uncomfortable. Was that what I’d ended up doing with my life? Being a dragon’s kept princess?

  But no. Because if it came down to it, I wouldn’t need a knight to save me. I’d save myself.

  And then, chillingly, I realized that the stories more closely mirrored being kept in the room by Cunningham. He was the evil dragon, collecting us and forcing us to amuse him day and night. And when he had us, we were all helpless like the princesses in the stories.

  We worked for the rest of the morning, stopping for a quick lunch of sandwiches and potato chips before going back to it in the afternoon. All we were doing was moving things into categorized boxes. We went through piles of stuff, sorted it, and then boxed it up and labeled it. It was hot, and we were sweaty, and it was tedious. But we worked at it for the entire afternoon.

  We didn’t find the cup, however.

  We didn’t find anything all that interesting.

  The things that Riley’s father had collected seemed to fall into three different categories. One was magical talismans and other objects. Things that might actually imbue a mage with power, things that would be useful. The next category was stuff that had no magical significance but was valuable just the same. Jewel-encrusted antique rings, old sword hilts, that sort of thing. The third category was just junk, plain and simple. It had no value whatsoever.

  It was obvious that Riley’s father was more of a hoarder than any dragon out there.

  At the end of the day, Riley was apologetic. “I’m sorry you didn’t find the cup. I really thought with all of us attacking this, we’d make some progress.”

  Truth was, we hadn’t even gotten through all the stuff in one of the rooms, and there were at least four like this that I’d seen.

  “I know it was awful work,” said Riley, “but if you wanted to stay and help until you did find it, I’d love that. I could use the help, I really could.”

  “Stay in the house, you mean?” said Naelen.

  “There’s plenty of room,” said Riley. “The bedrooms are air conditioned. There’s actually a little wing down here.” He pointed down the hall. “All those rooms are wired up with air conditioning, and you’d have privacy from the rest of the house. It would be better than trying to find a hotel. Trust me, there’s nothing for miles.”

  We all looked at each other. We were all sweaty and exhausted, and I don’t think any of us wanted anything besides a shower and some food.

  “Well, think it over,” said Riley. “In the meantime, you should stay for dinner. Get cleaned up, changed, whatever, and then join me in the dining room.”

  * * *

  The dining room had high ceilings covered in ornate paintings of vines and dark red roses. There were more chandeliers here, hanging over a long, long dining room table. These chandeliers were lit, but shrouded in dust and cobwebs, as if they hadn’t been cleaned in some time. The dining room was decorated with the heads of various animals, all stuff and mounted. The animals were exotic—tigers and antelope and zebras.

  It was air conditioned in here, and the room was frigid. I shivered in the clothes that I’d changed into after taking a shower. I had put on a sleeveless tunic over light pants. I was freezing.

  “Well,” said Riley, entering the room wearing a dark suit jacket over a linen shirt, “have you decided to stay?”

  “We think so,” said Naelen. “After all, we’ve already put so much time and effort into this, we might as well see it through.”

  “Good man.” Riley clapped his hands together. He went to the head of the table and pulled out a tall chair and sat down. “Join me, please.” His voice echoed a little in the dark, cold room.

  There were three place settings near Riley. Two on one side, and one on the other.

  Great, now we had to figure out how to seat ourselves. If I sat next to one of the guys, the other might feel slighted. But if I sat opposite them, they’d have to sit next to each other, a
nd I could never tell if they were getting along or not. Still, that was probably the better option. I scampered over to the lone place setting and sat down there before either of the guys could get there.

  They both raised their eyebrows at me.

  I shrugged.

  They sat down.

  Riley smiled at us. “It’s nice to have some company in the house. Calliope is hardly capable of dinner conversation these days.”

  “Where is your sister?” I asked.

  “She’s in bed,” said Riley. “Usually, no one dines in the dining room. I’ll get the staff to prepare me something to have in the kitchen. Cozier there. But it’s good to give this place a little use. Back in the day, of course, my parents used to give dinner parties and every place at this table would be filled. But that hasn’t happened since I was a small boy.”

  Doors at the end of the room opened and in walked four or five gargoyles dressed in starched white shirts and suits. They were wheeling in silver platters of food.

  “Oh, here’s the food,” said Riley, smiling.

  I had never been served by gargoyles before. I felt a bit confused.

  Logan’s wings twitched, the way they often did when he was upset. I wished now that I’d sat next to him. He probably needed me. Darn it.

  The gargoyles placed steaming bowls of soup in front of us. It was something made with a thin, brown broth. They stepped back and waited while we all took our first bites, staring blankly into space like soldiers at attention.

  It made me feel nervous.

  “Delicious, Frederick,” said Riley to one of the gargoyles, the man who appeared to be in charge. He was older than the others, and standing off to one side.

  Frederick inclined his head. “We’ll bring in the main course in ten minutes, sir.”

  “Very good,” said Riley.

  The gargoyles all trooped out.

  Riley gave us a sheepish look. “I’m sorry about all this. It was really Frederick who insisted. I said we’d be fine in the kitchen, or even in the breakfast room, which has a small table, if he wanted to insist, but I think he enjoys the pomp and circumstance. He’s of a different generation, and he’s been the butler here since before I was born.”