Body of Ash

by Eli Constant

  Then I’m overcome, the sexual release like barreling down a roller coaster that’s out of control. Kyle’s fallen against me, his body shaking slightly, the length of him pulsing inside of me.

  We pant, sweaty and naked and caught in that glorious afterglow.

  It’s only after the sensation of orgasm fades that I remember the spirits, the cold air, my power.

  I try to sit up, but Kyle is heavy against me.

  I move my sweaty hair out of my face and I stare, trying to see every part of the room.

  The spirits are gone. The air is cool, but not deathly cold.

  Well... that was new.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “YEAH, I’M SORRY, TERRANCE. Kyle’s been really sick. I haven’t been able to get away.” It’s nine AM. Crow arrived about an hour ago and a shipment of microbrews came in shortly after. Kyle still insisted on washing my dress and trying to save it. It’s sweet, but I plan to toss it no matter what and buy a new one. The beauty of online shopping—I can replace supernaturally-ruined clothes with a few clicks of the mouse. Plus, then I don’t have the reminder of my blood-pouring body. What the hell was that about, anyway? Liam said...

  Screw Liam.

  Adam’s jacket is another story. I’m glad I took it off when my power went haywire, but it didn’t completely escape the blood seeping from my body. The outer shell wiped away well, but the inner stain is a lost cause.

  I wait as Terrance rails at me. That I was shirking my responsibilities, that the town was in danger, that the arsonist killer witches were out there and could strike at any time. Like I could possibly forget any of that.

  “I get that, Terrance. Again, I’m sorry. If it was your wife that was on her deathbed, or one of your kids, would you have left them?”

  He tells me that’s different. I tell him it’s not. I let him yell some more.

  And then he finally calms down and apologizes and tells me what’s really wrong.

  He’s scared.

  And, God, he’d be an idiot not to be scared. Everyone should be scared.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just need to make a pit stop at home.”

  He doesn’t say goodbye, he just hangs up.

  “WILL I SEE YOU LATER?” Kyle hugs me, and his arms are tight and solid.

  “That depends. Are you going to run away again and sulk at Jim’s house, or can we go back to normal?”

  “We still need to be careful,” Kyle lets go of me and crosses his arms over his chest.

  “Careful, together,” I qualify.

  He smiles. “Together.”

  I wave at Crow as I’m walking through the bar. He nods at me, his face stoic. I don’t trust him. I just don’t. But that’s a problem for another day.

  When I pull into the driveway of the Victorian, I’m once again struck by a feeling of distrust. Yet, I know this must be my paranoia seeping into innocent things. Of all the things in my life, all the inconstants and steady forevers, the house has been a beacon of steadiness. It has never harmed me, never betrayed me with a power loss in the middle of a season finale of one of my few, beloved shows. It has never leaked in foul weather, or refused to warm the water for my shower.

  It is, for all intents and purposes, the last family member I have in this world.

  However, the niggling feeling that something is wrong will not leave me.

  How do you know your life has gone off the rails? I think to myself. You’re even suspicious of your own home.

  I park and walk in. There’s no work, so no Dean. Though, it’s past his normal arrival. Maybe he’s spending the morning with Mei. Maybe they spent the night together. I really need to call her. I need to see her. I was so grateful to make, or remake rather since we knew one another in high school, a true friend. And I’m basically brushing her to the side.

  Not that she easily fit into my life of ghosts and murder and magic.

  I take off Adam’s jacket. Despite the new stains, I can’t give it up. I’ll keep it until it rots around me—like it is a second skin I wear against the world. Folding the leather coat gently, I set it on my bed and then slink out of the giant sweat pants and old shirt. I hadn’t even checked to make sure the curtains were pulled before stripping.

  They weren’t, so thankfully there’s not many houses nearby to see me in my naked splendor. Really wishing I’d have done wash, I dig out another pair of granny panties and quickly remember that my one-and-only clean bra is now dying in a trash can.

  So I do what every girl in the world does on wash day when they don’t have anything to wear—I dug through the pile until I found the least stinky bra available, I sprayed it with deodorizer, and I stuffed my big boobs into it.

  Jeans, a tank top, and button-up blouse that had the dreaded chest gap came next, followed by the same combat boots I’d had on, which had been surprisingly spared by my... blood expulsion. I found that strange, because feet sweat. Like... a lot. So I’d no idea why blood hadn’t poured out of my feet as well. Not that I wasn’t grateful. They were a favorite go-to shoe.

  Leaving the house, I felt the same way I had returning to it. Something was wrong. Again though, it couldn’t be the house. Maybe it was the fact that the entire town was in peril. That someone was out there doing the darkest of magics to summon the darkest of things.

  An army of demons to destroy the world and everything alive and lovey.

  Nothing looked different around the town though. People were walking around, holding coffees from the local diner. The community garden was the scene of a smiling couple posing for engagement photos. The burned building where the family had died is a scar on the town. The yellow police tape a neon sign that says ‘things aren’t as perfect as they seem’.

  Otherwise, though, Bonneau is just... Bonneau. It’s hard to imagine that the world might end as we know it, and sometime soon.

  I park at the station and see Andrea outside talking with Scotty, her fiancé. He looks flustered, and her mouth moves a mile a minute. The poor guy looks like he wants to run away, rather than walk down the aisle.

  I paste a smile on my face as I walk forward. “Morning, Andrea. Hey, Scotty.”

  Andrea shoots me a death glare, but Scotty smiles like I’m his potential savior. “Hey, Ms. Cage. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Scotty. I’m surprised you remember me. We only met that once and for like two seconds.” I study his face as I talk. I suppose he’s not all that bad looking. He’s definitely got a boyish twinkle in his eyes. Not exactly my type, but I can appreciate a good boy toy.

  “Nah. I couldn’t forget a person like you.” He says sheepishly, then blushes as he realizes what he’s said whilst his fiancé stands right beside him. “I mean, Andrea just talks about you so much. I feel like I know you really well.”

  I give a sharp laugh. “Ha! Well, I can’t imagine she has the most endearing things to say about me. I’m sure all of its true though.”

  “Come on, Scotty, let’s get out of here. We’re keeping Ms. Cage too long.” Andrea speaks quickly and her nails are digging into Scotty’s upper arm. When she says my name, I can almost hear the deeply-seated disgust she holds for me. And I find that almost as amusing as her fiancé being slightly flirtatious and forgetting she exists. Boy, if she didn’t hate me before... she was really going to hate me now.

  Steve is leaning against the front desk when I enter, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand. He smiles and hands it to me before I can say anything. “Here, I saw you out there talking to the odd couple. Thought you might need a jolt of caffeine after.”

  Smiling, I take the coffee and immediately take a long sip. “Thanks. Honestly, Scotty’s not bad. I mean, he’s definitely got that salesmen air about him. Always ready to sell something. It’s Andrea. I mean, that woman has hated me from the minute she started working here.”

  “Yeah,” Steve grins, “she doesn’t like you very much.”

  “Understatement of the freaking century,” I reply and start walking
down the hallway that leads to the inner sanctum of the station. I find Terrance quickly, in the same room as last time I was here—with the map of Bonneau and the surrounding counties. The pentagram stares at me, and it feels a lifetime ago that I was standing here pointing out the obvious pattern to the fires.

  Terrance has his eyes closed, and he’s leaned back in a chair with his legs crossed and stretched outward in a long, thick line. I don’t want to disturb him, maybe he had a long night with the kids, so I start going through the case information splayed out across the room like brains after a shotgun-in-mouth crime scene.

  I’d seen one of those before, in what the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division called their BARF book. The photos hadn’t been what I expected.

  The brains had been more gray than pink. The blood had dried a deep, crusty brown.

  The man had a great cavern in his skull and his face was frozen in shock.

  After searching the map for new clues, and the case file, and anything else available, I turned my attention to a laptop that was open, but in battery saving mode. I pressed the spacebar and the computer came to life. There wasn’t a password, so I immediately saw a paused video. Pulling up a seat, I scrolled the video back to the beginning and pressed play. The coffee Steve had given me was already cooling to the point that it wrinkled my nose to drink it, so I set it aside and watched what appeared to be the station evidence locker, which was housed in a separate building behind the running track.

  I recognized the deputy who was on shift, but couldn’t think of his name. He was sitting, reading a magazine and looking bored out of his mind, but then he stood and his mouth was moving—talking to someone who wasn’t in view of the security cameras. He held a hand up after a few moments, and placed his right hand on his gun holster, undoing the clasp. He motioned forward, as if to tell someone to stop advancing.

  And then she came into view. The video was in color, so I could see a shock of black hair streaked with white. Her back was to me though. “Come on, turn around,” I muttered.

  She also held up her hands, both of them, and I wish I could see her mouth moving. Seconds later, the deputy was lowering his hand and securing his weapon. He stepped aside and made room her for her to walk past him. And then he followed her. I wanted to see where they went, and what they did, but this video was only from the one camera. After a long time, the deputy reappeared with the woman behind him. In her hands, she held a large transparent bag. I could see the glint of green.

  The Lazarus Eyes.

  She was clever, always staying just so behind the deputy so that her face wasn’t fully seen. I could see the large chest Terrance had mentioned. Like, too big to be natural boobs. That wasn’t enough though. You can’t ID someone by their tit size.

  But I had an idea. A reckless, stupid idea. It might get us the information we needed though.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  TERRANCE IS ON HIS third cup of coffee, trying to wake himself up and understand what I’m proposing.

  “Spirit location. It’s... sort of like astral projecting with a defined traveling point. We don’t have enough information to find these people, Terrance. And I’ve done this before. I almost connected with the male arsonist. Now that I know more about the woman, can visualize her better, I think I can track her too. He was too powerful, I don’t want to try him again. But when I did it before there was this... shimmering there. This lightness. A spark of goodness. Maybe that’s her. Maybe we could convince her to help.”

  “I don’t like it, Tori. It sounds too damn dangerous.” He pushes his now-empty cup away from him. “I don’t want to risk you.”

  “From what I can tell,” I motion at all the documentation behind me, “you’ve hit a dead end. Unless you’ve got some magic human ace up your sleeve, I think you need to take advantage of your supernatural secret weapon.”

  The door is closed to the room, and I start when someone knocks briskly on the thin pane of glass inset into the steel entrance.

  “Hey, Chief. Your buddy from the next county’s here to see you. He’s waiting in your office.” Steve’s voice is muted by the barrier.

  “Dammit,” Terrance groans, running a hand across his face. “He was beyond pissed over the phone, Tori. He’s going to rip me a new one.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Terrance.” I lean forward across the space between us and place a hand on his leg. “You’re only—”

  He cuts me off. “Human? Yeah, I know. But I should have been smarter. I know what you are now. I’ve got an inkling of what happens below the surface in this town. I know that necromancers aren’t the worst thing out there, that humanity would have a fucking field day with what actually goes bump in the night. So I should have been smarter. That’s the end and the beginning of it. I need to be smarter now. I can’t afford to be ... only human.” Terrance stands up and walks towards the exit.

  Before he opens the door though, he looks back and me. “Tori, do not do anything yet. Wait for me and we’ll try and think of something else. I’ll consider your plan, but not until we exhaust other options.”

  “There aren’t any—”

  “There’s always another option, don’t matter if you’re magic or man.” He leaves me, and his parting statement is like a brand on my brain. Magic, or man, there’s always another way. But I couldn’t see one, not that would help us in time.

  I feel for Terrance. For how hard all of this must be. But I don’t have time to help him process his feelings. I have a spirit to track. And now is as good a time as any.

  I pass Andrea on the way out. “Can you tell the Chief I had to go home to do the thing we talked about? I’ll get in touch with him as soon as I can.”

  She shoves a pad of paper and pen at me. “Tell him yourself.” And then she turns around in her chair and completely ignores me. What. A. Bitch. I should have hardcore flirted with Scotty, you annoying jerk.

  Scribbling quickly, I walk back to the room with the evidence and slap the note onto the laptop keyboard. Hopefully Terrance won’t miss it there.

  On the drive home, all I can think about is my first try at spirit location. That it nearly had awful consequences. I don’t know how to protect myself whilst projecting. And I don’t have anyone to ask for help from, because Liam is gone. I made him leave. For good freaking reasons, but still... I hated that I was thinking about him, that I was needing him. I wanted to hold onto my anger, hold onto the sting of his betrayal.

  He’d become an integral part of my life now though.

  And he was also basically fae married, with children, and he’d lied for months about how he’d ‘escaped’ the Light Court. But I need him now. I need him.

  Well too damn bad, idiot. He’s gone. So keep on task. You know what to do, and if it gets bad you can yank yourself back.

  I park poorly and too close to the side entrance. For the first time since the Bronco perished, I’ve driven the sedan and not lamented every second about needing a replacement. I guess a vehicle loses its importance when you’re faced with hell on earth.

  Back home, I mimic everything Liam had me do the first time. I get comfortable—changing back into Kyle’s giant sweats and a tank top. I settle myself onto the bed and close my eyes. I force the world away and empty myself.

  And then I think of her.

  The long black hair.

  The streak of snow white.

  The body—or as much as I’d seen of it.

  Her connection to the fires, and the murders.

  And I think of the Lazarus Eyes, each stone representing a captured soul and strangled power.

  I feel my conscious mind pull away from my physical body. I expect to find fire and sparks and burning, but this time the path is a silver fog, and the only sparks are starlight discarded from a midnight sky.

  “I can feel you there,” a soft voice pulses in the mist. “He warned you might try for me next. I am surprised you survived him. He is an inferno. He is Dante on the final level of damnation. He bu
rns all he touches.”

  “Who are you?” My voice seems normal, whilst hers travels through water and over great distance.

  “I am the ash he leaves behind. The child of his destruction. The memory of what was.”

  “Are you the Eve?” To anyone else, my question might sound strange, but I knew in my gut she’d understand.

  “Yes. I am the Eve. The ruined womb of life. I hold the dead in my belly and feel their cries.”

  “Why do you sound so strange? When I contacted... him... he sounded normal. Like we were having a conversation.”

  “Because it is too late. My time has come. The final sacrifice. The original sin come full circle. The fall of man is the seed. And the seed is the womb. And the womb is woman. I am preparing.”

  “What do you mean it’s too late?” Everything around me is still fog and starlight. I have to see where she is, and what’s happening.

  “Beneath the center of it all, at the heart of it all, at the core of it all. The sin is satisfied. The mouth to hell will open. All will be destroyed to cleanse the world. You will see. You are the key, and I am the gate.”

  Before I can speak again, I feel heat flood around me like someone has opened the proverbial dam to the River Styx, which is flowing lava instead of dark waters as some lore claims.

  “It’s too late for second thoughts, my love.” It is the arsonist’s voice, the male coven leader. The murderer. For now I know, the woman has done his bidding, but she is no killer. She is the nurturer of this device.

  “I do not regret my part. You have taught me the truth, given me knowledge beyond. To carry this seed is my fate.” Her voice sounds weaker in his presence. It feels backwards—wasn’t it Eve that gave Adam the apple? Wasn’t it Eve that had the strength to question everything and break the singular law of the garden?

  Fire touches me and it burns. I can feel my skin begin to char and crack with the heat. The silvery mist around me is transforming into a fireworks show of dangerous size. Brilliant flashes of licking flame pop and sizzle. I scream as what seems like a ball of fire slams into my chest. I cough as smoke replaces the harmless fog of Eve’s paler evil.