Blood Red Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 2) Read online

  I stopped mid-paranoia as the wall moved.

  The broad, thick, moss-and-flower adorned rock wall in front of me stirred and twisted of its own accord, swatting my train of thought completely off the tracks as it swelled and shifted. I froze, eyeing it in disbelief.

  Shaking and shuddering, the wall’s girth became height until the creature towered over me, rivulets of rock pouring off of it and disappearing with tiny pops of static. It shifted until it stood tall, head almost brushing the curved ceiling, easily half again my height and almost as wide.

  It looked a little like a huge burly man with a bit of a gut, a barrel chest, and impossibly broad, well-defined shoulders—if such a man was over ten feet tall and made of stone. Not carved of stone, like a Renaissance statue or something, but completely made up of various colors of irregular, chunky rock, like a hunk of the earth had assumed humanoid form and learned to walk. Moss grew haphazardly all over its form and tiny white and yellow flowers sprouted from its shoulders, pretty little bits of colorful regalia at odds with the ferocious expression on its blunt, craggy head and the deep-set, beady, aggressive red eyes. The fact that the only clothing it sported consisted of two heavy bracers of shaped stone and a single broad leather flap with a metal plate between its legs didn’t help it pass for human, either. You’d think that’d be uncomfortable, but I guess having literal balls of stone has its advantages.

  Oh, and it clutched a sword about as tall and broad as I was.

  I’d read about trolls about a week ago. I borrowed Charles’ books based on how interesting the cover looked, and I’d thought the ornate leather one that featured a tooled, medieval image of a troll on the cover was cool as hell. Up close and in real life, though, one could substitute “intimidating as fuck” for “cool as hell” and be much closer to the truth. Especially when I was stuck in a suddenly too-small room with one. I wasn’t scared, exactly, but I knew when something was big and bad and a significant threat, even to me.

  I yelped in surprise and sudden alarm, flailing uselessly as a Sanguinarian found me in the dark, the hungry, damaged vampire latching onto my neck from behind and trying to bite down. Startled, I panicked a little, but I also reached back, grabbed them by the coat, and slung them over my shoulder.

  Straight into the troll.

  The unlucky vampire smacked face-first into the troll-wall just as I had, but only had a moment to recover before the massive creature swatted them aside, casually crunching flesh and bone with a heavy stone hand the size of my torso. Any hope I had of it not being able to see me in the dark fluttered out the window as its beady red eyes, like embers in the pitch black, roamed the room and settled on me. The huge Fae creature fixated its gaze on me, tiny eyes gleaming, then opened a stony mouth full of jagged teeth like tombstones and roared in my face. The sound swelled to fill the chamber, making the surviving bottles behind the bar rattle and dance in their holders. Against my better judgment, I leaned up toward it and roared right back in response: defiant, raucous—and thanks to supernatural augmentation—almost as loud.

  Red emergency lights chose that moment to kick on, coloring the red room an even bloodier crimson as they flickered and struggled, crafting strobes of q lightning. My vision snapped back and forth between the monochrome tones of my dark vision and wall-to-wall shades of blood, disorienting me, almost making me miss the troll’s response to my little counter-challenge.

  I guess he’s not impressed. Instinct and unnatural reflexes dropped me prone on the floor beneath the arc of the heavy, broad blade before it could cut me in half, but he followed my evasive movement so closely I could examine the meticulous knotwork etched into the flat side of the weapon. I rose as the monster swept the blade expertly around, conserving momentum and lining up another swing.

  I didn’t consider myself smart, but I wasn’t stupid. I hadn’t survived the last nine months on the mean supernatural streets of Birmingham without recognizing when I was in deep shit.

  I turned and ran.

  CHAPTER THREE

  What happens under the bridge stays under the bridge

  I sprinted for the back exit as if my unlife depended on it.

  Or rather, I tried to.

  I made it exactly one hasty stride away before one of the squirming, hungry Sanguinarians on the floor grabbed my ankle and down I went, smacking face-first into something solid once again as my head impacted the floor. Fortunately, as one of the undead and the proud owner of a very thick skull, the impact didn’t even stun me. If it could have, things would have ended badly and abruptly for me right then and there.

  As it was, I kicked out frantically, shaking the stubborn, clinging Sanguinarian off my shin and rolling to the side, just in time for a massive executioner’s blade to fall right where I’d been lying an instant before. Chips of concrete flew as troll-powered metal fractured the floor, going right through the squealing Sanguinarian like it wasn’t even there. Blood splattered and spurted again, but I was too busy getting away to feel any shreds of pity.

  As the imposing monster tugged its blade free, I rolled to my feet and made a mad dash for the only exit not blocked by angry troll. Meanwhile, my luck took a momentary turn for the better as one of the Sanguinarians leapt on the troll’s back, their desperation for food overcoming their common sense. Can they even eat that? I wondered. An ominous, deep-throated rumble and crunching impact indicated that the starving vampire didn’t keep my new foe occupied for long, but it was long enough to give me a bit of a head start and get me safely out of immediate whack-Ashes-with-sword range.

  I barreled into the reinforced door built into the back wall of the storm-drain-dive-bar, but I didn’t let it slow me down. I demolished it like I had the first one and kept right on going. Sparks of steel on stone flew and danced like fireflies in the dark as the door sailed away, scraping and clanging loudly in protest as it leapt from one wall to the next. Meanwhile, I sprinted through the exit and tried to put together everything I knew about trolls.

  I quickly realized that everything I knew about trolls could fit in a thimble.

  Supposedly, they were violent, warlike, single-minded, and made expert craftsmen and soldiers; they were also attracted by the scent of battle: blood and gore. That seemed right so far, and no one can manipulate the scent of blood like a skilled Sanguinarian blood mage. Highly territorial, with a fondness for bridges and other stone structures, they were reputedly slow-thinking but intelligent, with a tendency to fixate on one problem and solve it—one way or another—before being able to move on.

  For whatever reason, it looked like this one had decided I was problem numero uno, but I didn’t particularly fancy being “solved” today.

  I beat feet, racing quickly down the straight channel of the storm drain, the old industrial underground in its natural, if long-decayed, glory. Further behind me, the cement wall exploded outward, the thick-skinned troll bursting through it with the same ease with which I’d flattened the door.

  Not good.

  Over the last few months, I’d been slowly getting used to the concept of being one of the strongest, toughest things on the block, but it didn’t mean I’d gotten stupid. At least, not any stupider than normal. There were definitely stronger and tougher monsters out there than me, and I was willing to bet that five tons or so of muscle-bound, stony troll would qualify. Fortunately, with my rigor mortis gone and replaced by supernatural speed, I didn’t think I’d have much trouble staying ahead of a lumbering troll.

  It didn’t take me long to realize that I was, of course, wrong again. The tunnel floor hopped a little under my feet, small quakes picking up in frequency as the troll pounded doggedly behind me. I glanced back over my shoulder to see it starting to pick up speed as it charged after me, beginning to endanger the lead I’d gained over it.

  Great. Not as slow as I figured. That’s what I get for reading picture books from the Dark Ages.

  I’d have to scribble the truth in the margins of Charles’ book later—assuming there
was a later. Ahead of me, the dark tunnel narrowed abruptly and forked left and right, and I cut the corner close and sped to the right without hesitation. The Next Door monster seemed to have almost as little trouble navigating the dark as I did, so I’d have to see if space constraints proved more of a deterrent.

  At the same time, I realized I couldn’t simply outrun my pursuer and risk the creature simply losing interest in me and going back the way it’d came. Charles had probably come in hot after the roaring match moments ago and letting the grumpy wizard stumble unexpectedly upon an armed, frustrated rock monster the size of a tool shed just wouldn’t be polite. Besides that, what if it decided to make its way up to the surface and go exploring?

  The smaller tunnel, now a completely pitch black concrete funnel stained with the forgotten runoff of the past century, was big enough that I could keep going straight at nearly top speed. I didn’t feel the floor reverberating under trollish stomps any more, and I hoped I hadn’t lost the creature already. I slowed a little and weighed my options. Best case scenario would be to lead it deeper into the underground tunnels and get it lost, then double back to Charles and let him figure out a way to stop a rampaging troll before it killed us both.

  Alternatively, I could try my luck dealing with the hulking Fae on my own, but I didn’t know any troll weaknesses, and didn’t fancy challenging it to fisticuffs. I supposed some kind of iron might do the trick, but the only thing I could think of in that department was the street pole I’d already left far behind. Does steel even count, anyway? It didn’t sound like the best idea.

  If it came to a fight, I’d just have to improvise.

  And, of course, since I needed more options, that was exactly when I ran out of them.

  Just because I could see through the deepest darkness didn’t mean I was prepared for everything my environment could throw at me. So when the tunnel abruptly ended and a vast underground cistern suddenly yawned at my feet, I promptly fell in.

  I dug in my heels at the last possible moment, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from tumbling over the edge. The fact that my claws were still out was the only thing that saved me. I punched them a few inches into the side of the cistern’s wall a few feet down and used that purchase to scramble back up onto the four-foot ledge that encircled the yawning, forty-foot-wide pit.

  I could see in the dark but not far. My eyesight had dulled since my death, and I simply couldn’t get a visual on what awaited me at the bottom of this man-made abyss. I could figure it out, though. The sound of rushing water was barely audible, echoing up from the depths of the pit, and I could see several steady streams of runoff plummeting into the well from channels high above my head.

  Those observations made me instinctively tense up; running water and Strigoi did not mix, something that always made shower time exciting. Running water grounded active magical energies of any kind, which included the innate magic animating me. Thus, the legendary issues with certain vampires not wanting to cross running water. It didn’t scare me, and it wouldn’t destroy me, but it would paralyze me if I was in it long enough. Needless to say, I didn’t have any desire to float around in a lightless cistern for a few months, which was assuming the troll didn’t fish me out while I was weakened, just for the sake of being a completionist. Watch your step, I thought to myself, moving along the wall and scanning the far side of the chamber for another way out.

  I still didn’t hear the troll chasing me anymore. I didn’t like that; had it given up back at the first split in the tunnel? That seemed way too easy. I didn’t really want to tangle with it head on, and that went double in an arena full of long drops, precarious footing, and running water. But on the other hand, Charles would definitely be in the storm drain by now, and I didn’t want to leave him to tangle with the troll solo, especially in tight quarters.

  I needn’t have worried. I spun around at a faint scraping sound and mentally added “extremely stubborn and surprisingly quiet” to my mental note of trollish traits. I hadn’t been certain the Fae could follow me through the smaller drainage tunnel, but it had—in possibly the most surprising and disturbing ways possible.

  “What. The. Fuck.” I stared helplessly in astonishment as the troll squeezed its way out of the round tunnel, through an opening only a couple of feet taller than I was, looking more like a loaf of rising bread than a creature made of stone a billion times my size.

  Dumbfounded, I waited too long to act, and the creature squished and swelled its way out of the tunnel and back into its previous, non-wall form, rising to its former height. Its beady, glowing red eyes peered at me as it settled itself into a combat stance—and one of its feet slipped off of the side, sudden, certain evidence that it couldn’t see down here as well as I could. Its balance wavered. I saw my chance and darted in. One good shove would—

  Crunch. A massive, stony arm shot out as it anticipated me, along with a big toothy tombstone grin. Not only was the damn thing quick for its size, there was nowhere for me to go to dodge, and it knew it. My head rang from the bone-crunching impact that smashed me brutally into the cistern wall, a cement-cracking blow that would have squashed a mortal—or even a Sanguinarian—like a bug.

  It didn’t just smack me into the wall; it crushed me against it, using the back of its massive hand to pin me in place. I watched and struggled uselessly as it salvaged its footing, one leg twisting awkwardly and amorphously to find footing on the inside wall of the gigantic well. It seemed to find purchase with the stone just by touching it, like a giant, disturbingly ugly Spider-Man.

  Which, I realized, was how it was pinning me to the wall with only one arm.

  Slowly raising my knees to my chest and working them underneath its enormous rocky hand, I pushed it away, chunks of rock coming free as I broke its grip on the wall. It almost tumbled into the pit as it abruptly lost its handhold. Unfortunately for me, it didn’t follow through with the fall, grabbing the ledge all too easily and righting itself, greatsword already held at the ready in its other hand. It wasted no time using it, either, chopping it across at my midsection; the weapon’s massive size and my limited footing combined to give me precious few places to go.

  My nerves were on edge as I hopped the blade and it splintered the poured concrete wall, digging a crevice as it dragged the overlarge weapon free. But my opponent wasn’t nearly finished; I’d barely gotten my feet back on the ground when it lunged forward and slammed a great, rocky shoulder into me. A thousand tons of troll took me off my feet easily, sending me sprawling on my back, scraping across the narrow walkway and desperately scrambling, trying not to go over the edge again. It followed up with a great, overhead swing—its full force behind it—and this time I truly had nowhere to go to escape it.

  So instead, I blocked it. With my arm.

  It was a gamble I lost. Strigoi were nearly immune to mortal weapons, but that “nearly” left a surprising amount of wiggle room. The notched edge of the mighty weapon came down right beside where the Sanguinarian had sawed into my flesh and bone earlier, and my thin arm flattened to my chest. The impact crushed me against the concrete; I had to turn my head to the side to avoid a faceful of blade, and I felt something I hadn’t felt in what seemed like years.

  One of the bones in my forearm snapped with a ominous crack that echoed throughout the chamber. Still ridiculously sturdy, my body held against the rest of the force, but the concrete beneath me didn’t; I felt the man-made stone cracking under the strain.

  There was no pain at least. There didn’t even seem to be any loss of function, though I fought the instinct to cradle the injury as the troll lifted its blade again, relieving the pressure. Instead, I took the opportunity to roll to my feet and leap back.

  The huge creature huffed at me, a sound that might have been appreciation for my toughness or maybe just it expressing the desire to keep hitting me. Either way, it was surprisingly quiet for such a savage-seeming foe, and it studied me continuously with its beady red eyes. I backed away, not wanting to ge
t caught by another surprise rush, and it matched me step for step, working its odd way toward me with one hand on the wall, and one foot outside the cistern, and one stuck firmly to the wall just inside the rim.

  I was quickly running out of space, and the longer the fight went on, the more certain of itself the troll became. Meanwhile, I searched my surroundings and situation with increasing desperation for a way out of the mess that didn’t end in finding out firsthand what was at the bottom of the well or in the troll’s stomach.

  Instead of finding anything helpful, I found myself watching the troll’s odd gait, the repeated flare of its nostrils and the tilting of its head between pokes with its sword, even the disturbingly hypnotic sway of its reinforced loincloth.

  Then I realized what was going on.

  Stepping forward, I feigned a lunge at the troll, and it swept the blade at me. I kept my footing stable enough to leap back to safety, sizing it up, getting a feel for the speed of its brutal swings.

  A quick glance back told me I had about twenty feet left before my walkway terminated in a long drop and a whole lot of falling water. That meant I had to get this right the first time.

  “Come on, Flowers,” I taunted. The troll seemed to understand me well enough, because he growled in response, a low, quiet, menacing sound—a warning. I flipped him off for good measure, just in case he wasn’t getting the message. “You ain’t got shit. Let’s do this.” I darted in again, pausing only for an instant before leaping back, just barely out of his blade’s reach. Then I did it again and again, each time verbally goading the troll as it came closer and closer to nailing me.

  Sure enough, after a few near misses, it pressed abruptly forward, a growl rumbling deep in its throat like the beginnings of an avalanche. I ducked and dodged back, barely keeping out of the way as it swiped at me with that seven foot length of deadly etched steel over and over, showing plenty of ferocity and precious little fatigue. And still I continued to bait it forward, grinning like arrogant maniac, even as my safe space narrowed to nearly nothing, my back almost up against the wall and falling water.