Body of Ash Read online

  I am angry when I am yanked back to consciousness.

  “Tori!” Terrance’s voice travels to me, slicing through whatever has just occurred. Why I am sitting in this garden floods back. The family. The fire.

  Standing, I glance around the garden—which is empty save for myself, the plants, and the hidden creatures who claim this land. I do not know why I find this strange. The garden was empty when I arrived. No one had arrived whilst I stood among the heady scent. Something nagged at me though.

  “Hey, Tori! Come on!” Terrance is stood by his squad car now, waving me over.

  “Over here!” I finally shout back, and begin walking towards the garden exit, past the herbs that will look just like any other flower to humans, past the bench for Lisa, past the fronts of the adjacent buildings.

  Terrance is by his squad car, a grim look plastered on his face. His eyes, the navy blue of them bright in the sun, are enhanced by the reddened skin around his gaze. He’s been crying. I’ve never seen him cry.

  “You were right.” Is all he says when I join him.

  “I’m sorry. I wish I wasn’t.”

  We don’t speak anything else. The ride back to the Victorian is as silent as the charred apartment building where the family had perished.

  Because someone made sure they couldn’t get out, made sure they got their pound of flesh to activate the pentagram.

  To do bad things.

  Chapter Seven

  “I’LL TALK TO YOU SOON,” Terrance says through the open car window at me. I’m stood on the lowest step of the Victorian’s front porch, thankful that Dean has left the porch light on. Dusk is fading away into true night now. Terrance has his interior car light on so that his face is illuminated. He wears a mask of pain. “I’m gonna have more questions I’m sure.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry, Terrance. I’m sorry I was right, and I’m sorry this case is wrapped up in supernatural crap. I know you accept me. You don’t know what that means in this world. But I also know you’re not happy that this kind of shit exists.”

  “But it does.” He sighs out, gripping the steering wheel with both his hands, so firmly that his brown knuckles began to pale from the strain.

  “But it does.” I agree.

  He pulls away. I don’t wave, and neither does he. As the vehicle moves, creating more distance between us, I wonder if that’s the way it is always going to be. He accepts me. He believes me. Yet, the divide between human and non-human is never going to die away. It will always be there, windows nailed down. Immovable.

  “Humans don’t understand us, Victoria. They never will.” Liam’s voice carries like silk to my ears. He’s using his intimate whisper-voice. The one that threads through me like gossamer smoke. I turn around and find him sat beautifully in one of the three rocking chairs on the porch. He’s got his legs casually crossed, his fingers tapping gently against each wooden arm. I’m surprised to see that he’s not in one of his perfectly-made suits. Today, he’s in a casual v-neck shirt and dark jeans. Somehow though, he makes that look like Armani.

  “I’m human, Liam.” I move towards the door, fishing the key out of my purse. Dean will have locked up by now.

  “Half-human. And they’ll never accept you. You’ll never be free trying to live among them.” Like liquid metal, he stands. He’s so... so damned effortless. It makes me feel awkward and gangly.

  “I’ve done fine so far.” I twist the knob and push the door inward. As soon as I do, I’m hit by a wave of icy coldness. “Crap,” I breathe out. This isn’t a ghost or a spirit pushing through me. This coldness, this Antarctic freeze, can only mean one thing. A spirit is either on the cusp of wraith-dom, or has already given into that black void. “Who’s here?” I question. “I can help you.”

  Liam is behind me in a heartbeat, sliding into the house through the small space I’ve left by stopping dead right past the threshold. “Ah. Lovely,” he comments. In a few fast movements, he’s gotten salt from the kitchen as well as one of the syringes I keep in the medical cabinet... for when I need blood, but don’t want to be bleeding when I have to use it, which isn’t often.

  “Wait, Liam. Don’t banish it yet.” Finally thawed, I step forward. “Dominique? Is that you?” The ice in the air is familiar. The spiritual imprint still hovering about the corners of wraith-like shadows. “I can help you. Please talk to me.”

  “Helppppppppppppppppppppppp,” a voice hisses. “Youuuuuuu don’tttttttttttttttttt helpppppppppppppppp. Liesssssssss. Bloodddddddddd. I want bloodddddddddddddddddddd. Payyyyyyyyyyyyy.” His voice is so garbled now, nearly unintelligible. And that’s saying something, considering the last time we spoke he was inside his dead wife’s body with a heat-desiccated mouth.

  “I am helping, Dominique. We went to your home. We saw what happened. I felt what happened. We’ll make whoever did this to you pay.” I hold my hands up slightly, pleading with the broken spirit to release the anger that’s building. He has only moments before his clouding rage will claim him for the anti-ether. He is on the cusp of eternal pain. From there, it is only a breath from wraith. “Please, we will find the person.”

  “Toooooooo lateeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Blooddddddddddddd. Dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” His last word was so disintegrated that it crumbled around the edges, disappeared into the blizzard temperatures around me.

  “Victoria, we must force him out now. He’s too far gone.” Liam opens the salt and begins to pour a circle. When he’s done, he drops the salt container to the ground and positions the syringe over his arm. His face doesn’t change expression as the needle pierces his skin. When he pulls back the bobber, the plastic tube begins to fill with his blood. And it is silvery red. Silvery red and slightly pulsing inside the new containment.

  Have I seen him bleed before? Have I? He’s fought for me, taken hits for me, but have I seen him bleed like this?

  He doesn’t miss a beat after the syringe is filled. He begins to draw runes in the salt, depressing the bobber slow and steady. The entire ring of salt begins to glow with a white-hot light. The blood is a red beacon in a sea of pale.

  The air in the room is getting heavy now. Heavier. Colder. The lights above us have dimmed. Not because of the electricity, but because of what is happening.

  The anti-ether is readying itself to welcome a new acquisition.

  “Dominique, stop! I know you loved your wife, your children! You’ll never see them again if you go to that darkness. They’ll be lost to you forever.” I’m shouting against the weight of the world around me. It slams down on my body like it is an elephant stood atop me.

  This time, when he speaks, there is no struggle. He appears in front of me, nearly fully-formed yet transparent. “They are already lost forever!” He screams, his corporeal jaw dropping like a snake ready to swallow me whole. He rushes forward and through me, lifting me off the ground so that only the tips of my shoes touch the floor.

  And then Liam is yelling. “Blood of the Earth and Spirit. Power of the very nature that draws you. Be released.” He slams his hand down on the salt, ruining all of his hard work. The glowing salt and blood lift into the air as if carried on wind. The particles swirl, the liquid floats in tiny mesmeric orbs. They room about the room with a shining force that lifts the elephant weight from my chest. They kiss my body and banish the hold the near-wraith has on me. I’m lowered to the ground with a strange gentleness.

  And then the magic of salt and crimson is a hurricane, funneling and pulling Dominique’s spirit into the center. Liam comes to kneel beside me, placing his arm around my shoulders. I lean on him unconsciously. He feels so safe as I watch the giant storm manhandle the damaged spirit, but leave everything else in the parlor untouched.

  Slowly, the glowing salt begins to darken. Ash. Then gunmetal gray. Then charcoal. It still glimmers, but with an obsidian blackness now. The smallest of disturbances in reality ripples across the floor. The anti-ether waiting on its prize.

  But it does not get the spirit. Only the impure sa
lt empties down into that pit of gloom. And left behind, when reality is righted and the storm is gone, is the innocent, harmless glow of a spirit without unfinished business, without the burden of a murdered family.

  I can see his face, shining between wispy waves of pewter smoke. Tears are rolling down his face. He is broken, broken but free.

  Spirits are not ghosts. Ghosts are not spirits. But this is the ghost of a man, a man that was. With nothing left to stay on this Earth for. As I think it, reality wrinkles again. And this time, instead of everlasting torment, Dominique is offered the quietude of the ether. And, hopefully, there is a beautiful promise beyond that for him and the family he will soon see.

  Because I have to believe he will see them. That he will kiss his wife and hold his children again.

  “WHAT WAS THAT?” I BREATHE out as Liam helps me stand. My first instinct is to get a broom to clean up all the salt that must be absolutely everywhere, but there is not one particle of salt anywhere to be seen. It has all been pulled into the dark place.

  “Magic.” Liam’s voice is flirty and teasing. Playful obtuseness is basically his go-to.

  “Really? No way.” I roll my eyes and walk away from him to pick up the salt container on the floor. “Seriously, I want to know. That was... amazing. Can I do that? With my powers? Or is it something to do with fairy blood?”

  “Sounds like it’s lesson time.” Liam grins and quirks an eyebrow. “I imagine Kyle has missed our bosom chats over coffee and an endless array of information he’ll never understand. Being basically an animal. I wonder when he’ll hibernate? I was surprised he stayed up all winter.”

  “Liam, shut up.” I sigh out, exasperated. “There won’t be any more lessons if you can’t get it through your head that I’m with Kyle. You had your chance.” What I didn’t say was: even though I know you left me to protect me and it’s really not fair to be mad at you for disappearing. You know, because I’m trying to avoid those pesky mixed symbols.

  One look at Liam told me he didn’t need me to say what I was thinking. He already knew. And that made me even more cross with the handsome son-of-a-bitch fairy.

  “Tori!” A thick-with-emotion voice yells and, shortly after, there’s the distinct sound of a fist banging on the door that leads to the hallway and stairs. The second entrance into the Victorian, the way I typically go if the business is locked up and I’m doing ‘life’ stuff instead of ‘work’ stuff. Of course, my work is nonstop. Because I’m connected to the afterlife, tethered. Steel cables wrap around my wrists, ankles, midsections and they reach into the different planes of existence.

  “Coming!” I call back, walking swiftly over to the locked heavy wood door that bars the stairs from the parlor. Throwing the deadbolt, I pull open the door to find Kyle leaning against the door frame, breathing heavily. The ghost of brown fur is flowing across his skin, yet he’s also pale. “Kyle.” His name is a rushed whisper against my lips. “Are you okay?”

  He staggers forward and I reach out to steady him. Of course, he’s nearly twice my size. As I begin to buckle under the weight, I feel Liam behind me, his body barely touching mine. His arms come around me and his hands grip the larger man.

  “Let’s get him to the mourning room,” I say, beginning to shuffle my feet backwards. Liam moves with me. Kyle drags his feet across the ground like a zombie, moaning my name as his head rests against my shoulder. It feels like it’s been hours once we finally enter the room with the burgundy furniture. Liam and I have to maneuver our bodies to push Kyle between us so that we can set him down gently. He’s trying to help, but he’s weak and fighting beast-mode.

  “I felt you,” Kyle stumbles over the words, his voice deep and tortured. “Are you okay?” He’s suffering, but all he wants to know is if I’m okay. I wonder about the bond between us, that he’d put my well-being over his own. Then again, if you really love someone, isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be anyways?

  “I’m fine, Kyle. Liam was here. He took care of it.” When I say Liam’s name, the fur that has been threatening officially sprouts, becoming a full kiss of hair across his skin. His eyes flash silver before settling back into a warm brown.

  “Liam took care of it.” Kyle’s voice is so strained. It deepens with every syllable. “It should be me.” The last is an absolute growl, the animal overtaking the man.

  “Victoria, I think we should give Kyle some breathing room.” Liam’s hand comes to rest on my shoulder. And Kyle’s Beserker eyes shift to see it. He growls and bursts off the sofa. Liam pulls me back.

  “Kyle, it’s okay. I’m right here.” His Beserker form turns towards me, the body held in a defensive position—the shoulders pulled back, the arms bent with fists, the feet spread in a fighter’s stance. I’ve only seen him in beast mode a few times, when Liam is trying to teach him how to control the animal instead of being controlled by it and the few times his animal has activated to save me. “Breathe through it, Kyle. Remember, the beast is part of you, you are not just the beast.”

  I repeat the words Liam has said more than once whilst trying to help Kyle. I say them, but I worry I don’t mean them. Because right now, in this moment, he looks all beast.

  Chapter Eight

  “KYLE, YOU HAVE TO PULL it together.” I hold my hands up, palms towards the giant bear man who is not thinking like a human being at all right now. “Liam, stop touching me. I think it’s making things worse.”

  “Victoria, I don’t think that’s wise. We should—”

  I cut him off. “I don’t care what you think, Liam. Move away from me.”

  Reluctantly, Liam’s hands move from my body, from where he’d been gripping me around the waist after pulling me back from Kyle’s savage form. Instantly, I can see a softness around his eyes. A look of humanity. “Better?” I ask, moving forward a little, my hands still outstretched towards him. From experience, I know the fur across his skin is soft and fine to the touch. I’m almost to him, almost able to touch. I hold his gaze, will him to look at me and only me.

  “Victoria, this isn’t safe. An out-of-control Beserker can do much damage, even to the person with which he’s bonded.” Liam moves closer to me again, I can feel the wind stir at my back and a burst of power that tells me he’s going fae form to meet the power of Kyle’s bear form.

  “Stop, Liam. Let me handle this.”

  I hear a sigh behind me, and I think he’s resigned himself to listening to me. I’m wrong. “I’m sorry, my Queen. But your life is too precious to play with.”

  I gasp as his arms wrap around my body again. He yanks me away from Kyle fast and without hesitation. And Kyle roars. Roars like the world will shatter at the sound. His great body bends, nearly falling to all fours, and he rushes towards us. The man is completely swallowed now; the bones of him are animal.

  Liam lifts me over his shoulders, which should be awkward considering my bum is three times the size of his head when I bend over, but it’s somehow graceful. He runs me out the open door, and it’s so fast my hair is whipping around my face in mahogany chaos. Beserker Kyle is still roaring like a mountain lion caught in a claw trap. He fills the frame of the open door moments later, his head rotating back and forth, trying to find me. Or Liam. I’m not sure now. I try to push a sense of calm through my mind, and over my body. I wonder if it will help Kyle in his animal-form realize that I’m okay.

  Every second takes us further from the house. Liam is so fast. The white ghost of a deer through the woods, his fae form like a beacon for anyone to follow. I wonder why Kyle hasn’t seen us running, why he hasn’t immediately chased after the wisp of paleness flitting through the darkness.

  He can’t see us, Liam’s voice comes to life in my mind. I’ve shielded our presence.

  That makes sense, is all I can think back as his movements bounce my body around on his shoulder. He’s not the largest man, not like Kyle. He’s tall, but compactly built. A runner’s body, which is made more apparent by the way he’s whisking me to safety.
r />   There’s a bellow of anger in the distance, but it’s not as far away as I’d have expected, given how fast we’re moving.

  He can, however, smell us. His voice is grim as he thinks the words at me.

  Great. Super glad I’m wearing that flowered-to-hell perfume he bought me.

  Do not worry. We are almost somewhere he cannot track us.

  I want to ask where we’re going, but mere moments pass before my unasked question is answered. Liam comes to a halt in front of a large tree, so large that I could not even half surround it with my arms. He sets me down, making sure I’m steady on my feet. I’m fine, save for a wedgie. Even with perfectly-fitting panties, a girl with a large rear gets ride up.

  Liam places his palm on the tree and whispers something I can’t make out. My jaw drops as little rivers cut into the bark begin to glow. It’s like a pixie crest. I didn’t know fairies did this too.

  “It certainly is not like a pixie crest,” Liam scoffs, turning to look at me. “It is a cloaking spell to safeguard a rip in reality. If anything, pixies took this idea from the full-blooded fae.”

  “Full-blooded?” I touch the bark where things are glowing and I startle as my fingers sink into the tree, which should be hard and unyielding. “Holy crap.” I push my hand further until I’m nearly disappeared to the elbow.

  “Are you quite done?” Liam asks, his voice playful.

  “Erhm,” biting my bottom lip, I pull my hand back. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine. I just thought we should get to safety before Kyle gets any closer.” He tilts his head, closing his eyes, whispering again. “He’s not far now.”

  A short while ago, during one of their ‘training’ sessions, Kyle had pushed Liam clear across the room, slamming him into a pedestal and vase. The vase had broken. The pedestal needed wood repair. Liam had been bleeding. His blood—then, when it had looked normal and without the glow of power like I’d recently seen—had gotten on my hand. It had rushed through me like an aphrodisiac and knocked me backwards. Yet, I could not sense him like I could Mei. I do not get the pangs in my heart when he is in need of help.