Dead Girl's Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 1) Read online

  4

  A shower was too much to ask

  When I awoke again, it was fully nighttime, cool and clear, with barely any trace of sunset to be seen. My head was clear, too, but that clarity only served to raise a metric fuckton of unruly questions.

  I tried to sort through my memories from right before I’d passed out, but they were a cloudy, dream-like, impenetrable haze of barely connected flashes. I remembered nothing of the time that had passed after I collapsed; no dreams, no feelings, nothing except a deep, blank blackness wrapping me up like a blanket. I might have been unconscious, but the experience didn’t remind me much of sleeping.

  Did someone...hit me with their car?

  One more query to throw on the pile. What had really happened to me in that alley? What was the thing that bit me? Why did I panic and pass out? Why was everyone that tried to kill me some kind of creepy weirdo? And, if I’d come back to life with superpowers, when would I get my costume?

  I couldn’t believe the whole day was gone. I had to go check on Lori. No doubt she was worried sick...assuming she was okay. First things first. Rising stiffly with less effort than it took the last time, I tried to take a deep breath and failed. The air I forced down my wounded, raw throat and into my lungs felt like an empty consolation.

  That’s right. Probably dead.

  I clenched down on the panic that tried to rise and uncoil, serpentine, from my gut. I couldn’t very well do the breathing practices like that psychologist from my teens had shown me, so I just gripped the edges of the dusty retail counter and powered through it. As soon as my anxiety had ebbed to normal, manageable levels, I stripped off my ruined work shirt. My life-blood-throat-fountain had soaked me all the way to the black, ribbed tank top I wore underneath, making pulling it aside to check yesterday’s stab wound an unnecessarily sticky, macabre ordeal.

  Logically, I wanted to fight the notion that I was dead, but I had little ammunition save that it wasn’t what a “sane” person should think. Not really enough to fight back the facts of my situation.

  If I was dead, did I even need to prioritize checking my stab wound? Better safe than sorry. It wasn’t burning or even bothering me so far, but considering how badly it blazed with agony yesterday, I wanted to make certain.

  Poking and prodding at the area, I applied more and more pressure. Nothing. No pain, no soreness. The wound in my upper ribs, while existentially dreadful to look at, was only a thin slit in paler-than-usual flesh with a tiny dribble of near-black blood around it. Just to be safe, I didn’t pry my tank top free of the skin it clung to, in case it might open up any wounds that had congealed shut.

  Then I froze, looking for the claws that didn’t seem to exist anymore.

  As glad as I was that I hadn’t woken up and skewered myself, I also wondered where they’d gone. Was having them or suddenly not having them the scarier prospect? Maybe I was delusional. No scars, tears, or rips in the flesh at the ends of my fingers marred my pallid skin, though smears of darker blood contrasted with crusty crimson and collected under my short, dirty nails.

  I mentally shrugged. My life had turned into a progression of weird things, each more bizarre than the last. I’d either find out in due time or I wouldn’t.

  Either way, now assured that I wasn’t about to fall apart anytime soon, I felt much better than I had earlier, if still brutalized, worried, and bloodied. That was a good sign.

  Well, I hoped it was a good sign, anyway.

  I pushed away from the counter and across the dusty, long-unused room, wrenching the weathered plywood barrier aside and stumbling back through the broken window, wary of the jagged glass daggers still affixed to the frame. I didn’t know where I was, but it was time to remedy that and get moving.

  It was time to find my girlfriend.

  My keys turned in the lock just like any other day. I slipped quickly into our apartment, trying to minimize the amount of time I was exposed to any prying eyes. It hadn’t been too hard to find my way; it wasn’t like it was the first time I’d had to cover the distance on foot. The hardest part was trying not to look like an extra in a zombie movie, with all of the undue attention it would bring.

  “Lori?” I croaked loudly, cringing as the voice that left my throat sounded nothing like the one she’d recognize. For better or worse, there was no response; the apartment remained dark and silent. I tried to flick the lights on and missed the switch, then missed a step as I realized it didn’t matter. Everything that should have been concealed by the dark was sharply visible to me. Our apartment was swathed in sharp monochrome, touched by only the faintest hints of color. The square of beige carpet in front of the window was the only contrast, painted in bright, chromatic light from the outside just like I would have expected. Normal.

  I frowned.

  Leaving the lights off, I made my way through our apartment. The place we shared was objectively middle class. Lori made pretty good money with a local modeling gig and more every year. I, on the other hand, served tables for barely more than tips at a late night food place, and our living quarters reflected a means somewhere between the two incomes. We had nice stuff, sure: a computer, my battered laptop, a game console, a nice TV, a decent if well-used loveseat. Posters from Marvel movies and Halo games hung side by side with pinups of Maxim girls and anime characters alike, annulling any need for wallpaper. Our place. Functional, not ugly, comfortable, and something that suited us. All we really needed.

  And at first glance, everything was where it should be, except for Lori herself. Her car was outside; I’d seen it on the way in. So where was she? Was she out somewhere with friends, looking for me?

  Something doesn't feel right.

  I took another slow look around, and things started not adding up. A tall stool, overturned next to the kitchen island, round wooden seat cracked from a sudden fall. An untended pot full of dead noodles that had simmered themselves slowly into a dry oblivion. The front of the stainless steel stove, tortured and warped as if by a sudden, vicious heat. Careful of the low heat, I flipped the stovetop off.

  Then I noticed the pitch-dark smear across the floor beneath the stove, right below where Lori must have been sitting. I bent, knees creaking and groaning, to examine it; it looked like a burn mark, like soot or charred hardwood floor. The sturdy floorboards were twisted in grotesque waves, much like the stove. But nothing came off on my fingers when I ran them across the mark, and there was no sign of a spreading fire, just this concentrated slash running down the stove and across the kitchen floor.

  What the hell.

  Our apartment didn’t have a phone line, so I still couldn’t contact her directly. Instead, I flipped on the computer and left her a note: Had an accident. Mostly okay tho. I wheezed out a sigh. Was I lying? I couldn’t tell. If you find this and I’m not home, stay inside and lock the doors. Don’t let anyone else in. I don’t know what’s going on, but everything’s gonna be okay, I promise. Love you. -Ash.

  I knew I should probably stay put and wait for her to show up, but a crawling worry kept the hairs on the back of my neck raised, like staying put wasn’t the best idea in the world. I also had no idea if she was safe or where she was. I couldn’t just sit on my hands in the questionable safety of our apartment and wait for things to happen.

  I quickly grabbed some clothes from our closet and headed to the bathroom, heedless of any mess I made in my haste. I’d apologize and fix it all later. First, I needed a swift cleanup. I wasn't going to make much headway looking like I should be on a gurney in the ER. Or the morgue.

  With a moment to gather my courage, I tore off my tank top, relieved that it didn’t stick to my wounds. The garment was stiff with dried blood and who knew what other unsavory fluids, crusty and crinkling in my hands, filling the air with a sickeningly sweet metallic scent as soon as I removed it. Half naked, I paused to look myself over in the mirror. What I saw there made me drop the shirt and promptly trip over it as I took a sudden step back.

  Is this what
I look like now? Untangling my feet from my pungent garments, I leaned in, captivated by a morbid sort of fascination. How does everyone not run screaming?

  Even cast in shades of gray, I could tell my skin was dangerously, unhealthily pale, the veins standing out in dark contrast like unholy marble. My hair—black, shoulder length, and layered—was matted and stringy, maybe due to more blood, maybe due to sticky garbage runoff. Dark circles around my pale green eyes set them off in a sort of clumsy, insomniac-goth sort of way, two spots of shiny life amid the sunken flesh around them.

  Dried blood streaked my face like a crappy Halloween vampire and ran in thick, still rivers from my neck down the contours of my torso and between my breasts. Everywhere I looked, I spotted new cuts and scrapes marring the skin all over my exposed torso. Livid bruises spread from the small of my back on both sides, wrapping around my too-thin waist, crawling up into my lower ribs. And my throat...

  My throat was a ruined mess, caked in coagulated gore and shreds of skin with hints of dark blood that glistened wetly from the wreckage. It looked every bit as horrifyingly disgusting as I’d imagined, if not somehow worse.

  I cringed, and it grew into a stiff, full-body shudder. No way I could let my Lori see me like this. She’d either have a heart attack or be looking for someone’s ass to kick. Probably both.

  Squirming my way out of grimy, torn work pants, I kicked them over into a corner with my ruined top. I reached for the shower handle, then froze, my hand an inch from flipping on the hot water. Motionless, not even breathing, I listened to the slow creak of the door opening, the familiar sound sharply piercing my introspection. I opened my mouth to call out to Lori, because who else could it be, but something stilled the breath before I gave it voice.

  No lights flicked on. If I had been breathing, it would have caught in my chest as the very air seemed to chill and still in anticipation of something coming.

  As slow, steady footfalls creaked from the living room, I realized what those sounds I’d been hearing all night were. That rhythmic thump-thump-thump that built to a crescendo in the man who’d tried to kill me, that echoed from every passerby I’d hurried hastily past on the otherwise quiet streets. I mentally kicked myself. They’re heartbeats.

  And the thing in the other room didn’t have one.

  I hastily pulled a long, fresh t-shirt over my head, then flattened myself behind the bathroom door, peering anxiously out through the open crack. I never heard the front door close, but I did hear the footfalls coming ever closer.

  No need to hold my breath, I held completely still as a quiet figure stalked past, head slowly turning as if scanning the dark and dim. It passed maybe three feet in front of my face, its every move a careful, predatory motion shrouded in an awkward, inhuman gait. Human-shaped, it was a little shorter than me, with a slight build, head obscured by the raised hood of a thick jacket. It moved with a casual air of strength, assurance, and menace—as if searching for prey. In lieu of fingers, short, blackened claws a few inches long protruded from the long sleeves of its clothes.

  I relaxed for an instant as it passed me by, but my relief was short lived. The thing stopped just outside the door, close enough to touch, tilting its head as it sniffed the air. The long, slanting blade of light from the window fell across one side of its face, illuminating pallid skin, a dead, dark blue eye, and a wispy lock of pale blond hair.

  I knew her face.

  I’d never forget that face.

  My vision ran red with sudden rage.

  Even as she started to turn toward my hiding place, I shouldered the door aside hard enough to jar it from its hinges, reaching out and grabbing a tight fistful of pale blond hair with a twisted growl of anger. She barely had time to squawk with surprise before I whirled her around, nearly taking her off of her feet as I slammed that familiar face into the doorframe.

  “You!” I snarled. My newfound strength crushed her face into the doorframe, but her face didn’t give; the doorframe did. “You killed me!” Heedless of the damage to wall, I pulled her free, only to brutally slam her head into it again. Her hood fell free from the impact, my moment of advantage lost to shock as she looked up and I saw her face, twisted into a hissing mask of rage.

  One half of her visage was pretty and young, blond and perfect, the teen beauty queen that I recognized from my last conscious moments of the assault in the alley. The other half of her face was a warped wreck; the flesh melted and charred, forming a figure reminiscent of Hela from Norse mythology. Her seared and raw flesh, blackened and stained with a seeping glitter of dark blood, covered one side of her head from scalp to neck and disappeared into the concealment of her loose hoodie and the thickly wrapped bandages underneath.

  My grip slipped and came free as she pulled away, strands of gold still caught between my fingers. “Bitch!” She scrambled away, spitting the words with venom equal to my own. “And you,” she rose to her feet with a fluidity I couldn’t match, “did this to me!” A quick, pained gesture with a dessicated, blackened hand tipped with savage four-inch claws indicated the destroyed side of her body as she surged toward me.

  Her bum-rush caught me off guard, my father’s self-defense lessons only a dim memory. I hit the wall with a terrific, jarring impact and the sound of breaking wood as the paneling gave way behind me. “Look at me!” she shouted, rearing back and kicking me hard in the gut, another impact I didn’t feel. Another crack heralded the snapping of a support beam as she drove me further into the wall. “I’m hideous now!” Her sleeve fell back, revealing blistered, withered tissue as she whipped claws toward my throat in a vicious haymaker.

  I snapped, red rage rushing back to flood my vision. Tearing myself free of the wall, I caught her damaged arm by the wrist before it could rip out my ravaged neck. Shorter claws like mine burst from the pale flesh of her undamaged hand, fingers questing for my eyes. I caught that one too, not even thinking as I came to grips with her, both of us straining against the other. I snarled defiance and wrath into her twisted visage, catching glimpses of the fangs that had taken my life lurking in the dark of her mouth, like the delusion that lurked in the depths of those glassy blue eyes. Rigid muscles quivered with strain, her foot digging into the hardwood with the force of bracing herself. And bit by bit, it was she who bent backward.

  Whatever she was, whatever I was, I was stronger than her.

  “If not for you…” Wrenching her to the side, I kicked her legs out from under her with a bellow of triumph and righteous wrath. “I’d be fine!” Floorboards cracked as I stomped down, driving her ribs into the floor, then kicked her across the room, sending an end table and its contents skittering and dancing across the carpeted living room. “I was helpless!” I roared the words as she slammed to a halt beside the open front door, denting the threshold, and before she could recover, I stood over her. “And you fucking killed me!” My arm raised high, and a foot and a half of curved, razor-sharp, rusty metal burst from each finger.

  From the floor, she whined with fear, shielding her face.

  I brought my arm down.

  A figure I hadn’t noticed, silent and silhouetted in the open doorway, caught my claws in her hand.

  A woman’s dark, crimson-tinged, analytical eyes met my shocked expression from beneath the hood of a sturdy, Victorian-styled coat for the instant it took for her to twist her wrist and snap my claws off just past the fingertips. She threw them to the ground, where they evaporated instantly with a surge of what felt like static. In shock, my brain decided that staring wide-eyed at her was the only proper response, and I reacted too slow to prevent her as she grabbed me by the throat and slung me like a rag doll across the living room and kitchen.

  The sound of me hitting the wall reverberated through the apartment, and the window beside me exploded in a sudden burst of glittering glass. I could hear our figurines hopping off of the shelves in the bedroom from the impact. Mentally overwhelmed and obviously outmatched, I struggled to rise as the shrouded woman stepped in fr
ont of her younger, burned companion.

  “Ariande!” The monster-girl rasped from her place on the floor, notes of desperation and relief playing tug of war with her damaged voice as she struggled to pick herself up. “Thank god you’re here! She—”

  A sharp gesture from the strange woman cut off the flow of words like a command clad in steel. I noted the motion revealed claws of her own: thick, pitted, and almost as long as mine. Clad in darkness and antiquated clothes, she studied me as she matter-of factly adjusted her stylish shirt and vest, rolling up her sleeves like a butcher preparing for work. Quietly, methodically, she stalked forward, closing the distance with the patient inevitability of Death itself. All the while, I found myself drawn in, impaled on the cold, analytic gaze from those dead, shadowed orbs. Trying to move while fixed under that stare was like defying death.

  I managed a half-grin as I threw myself out the demolished window.

  The street was two stories down, and I hit it running.

  I didn’t know what to expect from the fall, but anything was preferable to the fate promised by the icy eyes of the creature above. But instead of breaking a leg or two, I merely stumbled, body unbothered by the force of my clumsy landing.

  Someone screamed, and a couple of people cried out in surprise as the impact of me hitting the cement shuddered dully through the now-busy sidewalk. Barefoot and pantsless, clad only in my long t-shirt, I took off, moving as fast as I could through the intermittent stream of passersby. I didn’t want to hurt anyone by slamming into them.

  A quick glance back at my apartment window speared me on the distant, frosty gaze of the older monster, watching my every move as her younger, charred companion joined her at the window. My blood froze as she put her foot on the windowsill and dropped to ground, uncaring and confident, seemingly heedless of who might be underneath or how far the fall happened to be.