Dreadful Ashes Read online

  Contents

  Description

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 Right place, wrong time

  2 Probably just missed him

  3 Midnight massacre

  4 The essence of fear

  5 Sometimes you can’t sleep it off

  6 Gardens & guardians

  7 Unwelcome guests

  8 Only what you bring with you

  9 But it followed me home

  10 Lost and found

  11 Maybe I’m at the wrong table

  12 Prances with wolves

  13 Garden party

  14 Dynamic exit

  15 But where did you find it

  16 Not the only fire they started

  17 Blood will have blood

  18 The one line they won’t cross

  19 We were almost lost

  20 Moments of truth

  21 Fanning the flames

  22 Dead set

  23 Fear and self-loathing

  24 These scars aren’t just for show

  25 And not one step further

  26 Epilogue - Back to good

  From the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Everyone thought Ashes was the scariest thing in town.

  They were wrong.

  After the Ur-demon Meladoquiel tried to destroy Ashes, her best friends, and the love of her life, the Strigoi hoped things might get a little easier.

  Life loves to disappoint.

  Two strange vampires and a mysterious visitor from Next Door hound her every step. A powerful supernatural drug called Ruby is spreading like an epidemic through the streets of Birmingham. A series of brutal murders threaten a new friend while a pack of werewolves turn the city upside down in search of vengeance. And behind it all, a new foe is working a powerful magic that will change the Magic City forever.

  Can Ashes, an injured, outnumbered vampire, find a way to stop it all before it’s too late? While figuring out her feelings for Tamara? While helping the disowned Moroi survive when her own family wants her dead? And while battling with the worst mistake of her life?

  Or is it finally too much for even iron-willed Ashes to handle?

  Dreadful Ashes is the fourth novel in the Dying Ashes series, a gripping dark urban fantasy/thriller about a smart-assed dead lesbian and her adventures in the supernatural mixing pot of Birmingham, Alabama. If you like intense, thrilling action, witty banter, and deep character development, you'll love this series. Fans of Craig Schaefer's Daniel Faust series and Simon R. Green's Nightside will love this beautifully-written romp through the supernatural dark side of the Magic City.

  Join our mailing list at www.DarksbaneBooks.com for a free book plus updates and future release announcements and more!

  Reading Order:

  Dead Girl’s Ashes (Dying Ashes #1)

  Recommended: Five of Five short (Tales from the Ashes #1)

  Blood Red Ashes (Dying Ashes #2)

  Recommended: Homecoming short (Tales from the Ashes #2)

  Heart of Ashes (Dying Ashes #3)

  Recommended: Trouble on the Green short (Tales from the Ashes #3)

  Dreadful Ashes (Dying Ashes #4)

  Recommended: Haunted Motives short (Tales from the Ashes #4)

  From the Ashes (Working Title - Dying Ashes #5) - Coming Fall 2018

  To my family, for seeing this next one through. It all gets better from here.

  To Ashes, in apology for all I’ve put her through.

  And as always, to our fans, for making this possible..

  1

  Right place, wrong time

  It was four a.m. in the Magic City, and I was covered in wolves.

  As the huge, furry animals dragged me to the ground, worrying at my limbs, I wondered precisely how a date could go so wrong.

  And as the largest, dark-furred lupine I'd ever imagined pounced on my chest and closed its massive supernatural fangs around my throat, I almost began to regret breaking into a stranger’s house.

  …But let's back up.

  o o o

  Shadows flickered in and out of existence as the half-dead Pancake Hut sign overhead stuttered and clung to life. Between predictable beats, I stepped out of those same short-lived shadows and took up my customary position at the corner edge of the all-night diner.

  Tamara joined me a few minutes later. With a tired sigh, she tugged off the yellow-and-black, grease-stained Pancake Hut baseball cap, stuffing it into her sparkly purple gym bag with the rest of her work clothes.

  “You’re late,” I rasped.

  “Says the dead girl,” she replied with a smirk, completing our customary greeting.

  Tamara was always late. But then, so was I.

  It was part of our unspoken agreement. She didn't watch me feed, I didn't watch her feed. She didn’t want me to see her siphoning life from the ambient, drunken lust of the late night crowd, fresh from the two local bars and the sleazy strip club across the road. Just like I didn’t want her watching as I tore out the throat and drank the lifeblood of some hapless, helpless human. It probably wasn't healthy or sustainable, but that’s what it was all the same.

  I supposed neither of us wanted the other to see us at our most monstrous.

  With a shrug, I pushed those thoughts aside. Like always. Instead I watched, enthralled, as Tamara shook her long, black-and-silver ombre free of its restraining scrunchie. It wasn’t my personal favorite of her wild hair colors, but it did serve to make the unaging Moroi princess look older than twenty for once. And while I was still of the opinion that a sane, normal black or brown might conceal her identity better, Tamara insisted on “hiding in plain sight.”

  So far, it had worked. At least, no other Moroi, Sanguinarians, or human law enforcers had yet come knocking on the massive doors of my dilapidated church looking for her head. The only unfixable problems were her pale, unmistakably alabaster skin and the deep, liquid blue of her eyes that her colored contacts could camouflage but never fully conceal. But with the change in hair, all facial piercings removed, and a new style of dress based on borrowing my clothes and visiting thrift stores, the Tamara I knew had changed dramatically.

  Still as beautiful as ever, though.

  Like Lori.

  I winced, irritated at myself, and glanced away. Those moments, those indiscriminate helpless reminders, came less and less often these days…but still a little too often for my liking. Especially when I knew that Tamara could feel every last one of them; there was little someone like me could do to hide my emotions from a powerful psychic vampire.

  Months had passed since I’d walked away from Lori, and she’d disappeared from my life. The love of my life, gone, just like that. It hurt like hell. Time had a tendency to move on, though, whether one wanted it to or not. I’d even managed to stop asking Tamara if she knew how Lori was doing, if she was working on recovery or not. I was trying to let it all go.

  But reminders remained all the same.

  Life, and love, go on. Wounds—most of them, anyway—heal. That’s what I kept telling myself, a lie that got a little more believable every night. I liked to think I was getting over it all.

  You couldn’t erase years with months. But I’d manage.

  Tamara still bore the signs of Meladoquiel’s passage as well. No, she wasn’t as battered, dirty, and half-starved as she’d been while on the run from the demon hiding in Charles’ skin. Nor did she retain the extensive physical trauma of confronting the Ur-demon like I did.

  But, like everyone involved, she wore her own scars all the same.

  Her bottomless, once-vibrant sapphire eyes had lost some of th
eir liquid luster, faded and a little frayed around the edges—a result of her difficulty feeding, cut off from the freedom and resources of her family. That loss had hit her hard in other ways too; the loneliness and lack of support caused by almost everyone she knew turning their collective backs on her was more than I could fix alone.

  But I was working on that too.

  Tamara couldn’t see my smile beneath the skull-patterned face wrap that concealed most of my face, so I gave her an exaggerated wink instead as I offered her my arm.

  “Ready, my lady?” I rasped through the thick, coarse cloth. “Your chariot awaits.”

  With a snort, an amused shake of her head, and a thin smile of her own, Tamara took my arm. “More than ready. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Of course, I wasn’t just my friend’s vehicle of conveyance, even if I could get around town pretty damn quick these days. I was her bodyguard. While our best defense against unwanted attention on Tamara was to simply avoid it, if anyone was going to come after her because of what she’d done while possessed by the demon or because she wasn’t included under the umbrella of her family’s protection anymore, they’d have to go through me first.

  My feet stalled as a knotted mass of fresh human heartbeats spilled out onto the sidewalk across the road. Arm in arm, a bundle of boisterous, drunken patrons pushed their way through the strip club’s neon-lined double doors, still talking loudly and lasciviously about the girls within.

  “Poor girls,” I muttered.

  I knew a lot of girls were perfectly fine with pole dancing or stripping; more power to them. Tamara’s friend Kitty was an excellent example of empowerment instead of degradation. Similarly, there were many places that employed those girls in a healthy, safe environment, like The Forge.

  I also knew that the establishment across the street was neither.

  That said…life sucked, and not everyone had that much freedom of choice. That was a lesson I saw often enough for myself—usually while I was scouting out my next prospective meal.

  “Let’s go,” Tamara said softly.

  “Yeah.”

  The predictable catcalls started up as we went past, and Tamara shifted uneasily on my arm; probably because most of them were directed at her. Those same catcalls promptly died as I served the men across the road a withering glare. They might not know what I was, but their human instincts for self-preservation quickly kicked in, ushering them swiftly into the dubious safety of the brightly lit Pancake Hut behind us.

  “How was work?” I ventured as we left both late-night establishments well behind us.

  Tamara snorted, a sour expression crossing her flawless alabaster face. It didn’t suit her.

  “That good, huh?”

  “No, just…typical.” She ran her fingers through her thick black and silver locks until they floated like a cloud around her shoulders, then leaned against me. “I never liked being ‘the rich girl,’ you know?”

  “But you’re not happy now, either.” I’d known that for months, but she hadn’t wanted to admit it.

  “I'm not.” Tamara sighed; I could feel her flicker of irritation and unhappiness in the air around us. “I hate working my ass off all day for pennies while grown goddamn men grope my ass. Hell, I'm lucky if that's all they grope. And my coworkers treat me like shit cause I'm ‘too pretty’ and ‘steal’ their tips.”

  “I could always pay them a visit or something.” Garibaldi, Rain, and even Charles had offered Tamara the money she needed to keep fed and clothed and to pay the meager utilities for my church. Hell, Jason had offered to rob a convenience store in her honor—though I had high hopes he’d only been joking. But Tamara wasn’t too keen on charity, and the money to buy cheeseburgers wouldn’t keep her supernatural side fed anyway.

  “I don’t think instilling supernatural terror in three college-age girls, an eighty-year-old woman, and a half-deaf line cook will solve my problems.” Tamara rested her head on my shoulder, and I tried to keep my pace steady enough not to jostle her and cause her to move. Easier said than done with my tattered knee, the one I’d nearly destroyed saving Charles. “Though it could help…”

  “You know, they never groped me that much.” I tugged my face wrap down far enough for Tamara to see my grin. I might have died working at Gyro Express, but I’d done my time at the Pancake Hut too.

  “They didn’t know a good thing when they saw it,” the Moroi responded. “Their loss is my gain.” If I’d been capable of blushing, I would have. “Besides, you’re scary.” She twisted, playfully tapping one of my fangs through the ragged hole in my cheek.

  “I didn’t used to be.” I tugged the wrap back up.

  “Quit that.” Tamara was still strong enough to jerk me to a stop when I wasn’t expecting it, and I offered little resistance as she pulled me into the mouth of a nearby alley. “I mean, I’d have wanted you. Still do.”

  I swept aside my instant of hesitation and leaned in for the kiss, not missing the flicker of hunger that sluggishly stirred the sapphire core in the depths of her eyes.

  “Monster!”

  A stranger’s scream echoed from the end of the alleyway, cutting us off before our lips could more than brush.

  I twitched with irritation, glanced at Tamara, and started that way.

  A haggard-looking man and woman—both shirtless—huddled behind a dumpster in the deeper shadows of the alley. At the sight of me moving closer, they both screamed once more, this time at the very tops of their lungs. With unfocused, wild, bloodshot eyes, the man grabbed his alley partner and dragged her backward away from me as fast as he could.

  “What’s wrong?” The sound of my voice, rough and dead like the sound of words scraping on sandpaper, only made things worse. The woman shrieked in pure terror, and I smelled the inviting scent of fresh blood as she bit her tongue or maybe her cheek in fear. Together, the pair pressed up against the back wall of the alley, as if planning to squeeze through the solid brick dead end by will and fear alone.

  “Calm down.” Tamara stepped past me, her voice a cool wind that scrubbed some of the tension from the air. As she moved closer, her bare shoulders and arms luminous in the moonlight, my own irritation and concern ebbed, and the pair of humans stopped shaking and trying to seep through the cracks in the mortar. “Please. It’s okay.”

  “Monster….” The man whispered plaintively. Even blunted, I could almost feel his fear on the air. “Monsters…everywhere.” His eyes leapt from my silhouette to Tamara’s face, as if searching for salvation.

  I strained, but didn’t hear the sound of any supernatural heartbeats nearby, save Tamara’s and my own intermittent one. So I looked the pair of humans both over instead, noting the busted, swollen veins in both their arms and the discarded needles piled in the shadows they’d vacated. Ruby again. Along with all the other signs, the whole situation started making a lot more sense.

  “It’s okay,” Tamara repeated soothingly. From the pity in her voice, she knew what was going on as well as I did. “There are no monsters here.”

  I knew my cue when I heard it and stepped out of sight.

  The Moroi rejoined me a few moments later. “They’re asleep,” she said, answering my unspoken question. “It’s the best I can do.” She held up her crappy mobile phone and wiggled it as it powered on. “Well, that and call the police. Jail will be safer than out here on the streets.”

  Here there be monsters, I added silently. Anyone hooked on the new magically-engineered superdrug was an easy target for vampires—one Moroi subspecies in particular. “Assuming anyone shows up to check into it.”

  Tamara shrugged helplessly, and I mirrored it back at her.

  “It’s really spreading,” I rasped quietly into the silence after she finished the call.

  “Yeah,” she responded just as quietly.

  “It’s still not your fault,” I offered.

  “Yeah.” The word rang hollow.

  I frowned under my face wrap. I knew Tamara blamed herse
lf for not acting as soon as we’d uncovered the possibility of a Moroi-Sanguinarian alliance, blamed herself in part for the unchecked spread of Ruby.

  I knew there was much, much more at fault than Tamara’s delayed action, but I couldn’t tell her. Not yet.

  “Why do you think they’re doing it?” she asked abruptly. I could feel the emotion in her voice, the sharp edges of her frustration at her inability to do anything about the epidemic, as well as her sense of helplessness and the shadows of her shattered confidence. “What do they gain from making this stuff and pumping the streets full of it? A few easy-if-delicious meals? Some money, some local influence? Why even work together for that? It still doesn't add up.”

  I just shook my head. Those were the answers I didn’t have, not yet. “I wish I knew, Tam.”

  She sighed and stuck her hands in her hip pockets, her breath a warm curl of fog in the night. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tugged her close, and she managed a smile.

  Silence soaked up the next hour or so. I didn’t mind. We took the “scenic” route home, skirting some of the worst parts of town so that neither of us had to kill anyone that happened to be looking for quick cash or an easy mark.

  “Well, it’s a nice night now, at least,” Tamara finally broke the silence with a sideward glance, nuzzling against my arm.

  She’s cold, I realized. I nudged the Moroi aside long enough to shed my battered skull hoodie and threw it around her shoulders.

  Her smile looked warmer afterward, at least.

  “Beautiful night, really.” I glanced from Tamara to the moon, hanging heavy and pregnant in the clear night sky. “Beautiful scenery, too.” I nodded at a half-demolished office building as we walked past, then crinkled my nose; it smelled like a family of skunks had taken up residence there.

  Tamara laughed, mirth-like chimes hanging in the air. “Well, just look at that side of the road instead.” I nodded; this was one of those areas where one street was all that stood between patches of urban decay and a strip of stately, decently-maintained turn of the century homes.