Page 3 of Heir of Ashes

My anger, the thing I had learned to fear for the past ten years, that destructive otherness I kept suppressed inside with chains and strong will at all times, had become nothing but a useless emotion. The vampire tightened his control as he began planting suggestions in my mind, making me want things. And oh, how I wanted them. Craved them, in fact. I’d suffocate if I didn’t do as he said. I wanted to follow him, to become his.

We weren’t going to the PSS. No, we were going to be a team. He was going to teach me all sorts of things. I was going to obey him. Everything he commanded, I would obey.

“Master,” whispered a voice in my head.

“Master,” my lips moved, forming the word.

An image of him feeding from my neck flashed in my mind, my eyes blank as he took his fill. As if it were a reminder, my leg gave a painful throb.

No. Nooooooooooo! Screamed that tiny voice. Louder and louder it went, until it became a roar inside my head, blocking everything else. My rage peaked, ready to explode like an active volcano. For the tiniest fraction of a second, his control wavered with surprise. It was all I needed. I embraced that raging otherness inside me, letting it explode. I started slowlygaining on him and once I got going, I didn’t stop. I gained speed and momentum like a free-falling object. I pushed him all the way out of my head, but instead of impacting and bouncing, I plunged forward, following him into the murky depth of his mind and tearing through the thick molasses-like resistance trying to stop me.

I roared with rage and triumph to the other side, to the maze of hundreds and thousands and millions of cobwebbed lights: the network of thoughts and memories. My rage had the control seat. For a timeless moment, I moved neither forward nor backward.

The mind was a beautiful thing. A sea of lights, contrasting everywhere with shadows and colors, some like dots on a map—barely significant, others shining as brilliantly as the sun. I didn’t go for his memories, his thoughts, his knowledge. I ignored the lights, the darkness, the shadows and colors. As I traversed through, I caught glimpses of the memories I came closest to: of a brunette with blue eyes the color of a summer day’s sky, dressed in a midnight-blue gown with bell sleeves. Of a man with green eyes and long dark hair, dressed in another era’s clothes. I felt the love he felt for her—Angelina Hawthorn of Bond Street, daughter to a diplomat—then the horror, the pain, and fear when Angelina turned into a nightmare with fangs and struck, such a delicate thing, sharper than a rapier. I watched as the woman drained him with needle-sharp fangs, his green eyes widened in shock. I wanted to stay and pry—intrude into his private moments—but my rage had a singular focus. It headed toward the heart of his mind, where a strange red point glowed, surrounded by a brilliant net, separated from everything else.

The vamp’s will pushed at me, trying to get me out of his mind. He was strong, with centuries of accumulated knowledge and power, learned and built throughout the years. It was like being scraped from the inside with forked claws.

I screamed, either literally or mentally, I didn’t know, but he heard me and responded with a roar of his own. I had no doubt it was his arrogance and sense of superiority, combined with my fear of being sent to the PSS—or of losing my free will to a vampire—that gave me the strength I needed to keep pushing and gaining ground.

The net looked thick—cable-like and pulsing with a dark substance that seemed to emit its own throbbing hum, which I could hear even above the roaring. It gave even my raging otherness pause, but not for long. It coiled to spring like a snake, then slammed into it without pause. This time, when I screamed, it was from the agonizing pain searing inside my head. It was like being electrocuted from the inside out. On and on it went for long seconds that felt like an eternity each. Then … silence.

The roaring was gone. The screaming was gone. The humming was gone. The cobweb of light was gone. The thick, cable-like net was gone. There was nothing left but a blob-like red ball that no longer glowed like a beacon. I reached for it. Driven by an instinct I couldn’t ignore, recognizing this was the key, the one thing that would rid me of the vampire, I began squeezing, compressing it from all sides as if I had trapped it within a shrinking iron cage. Part of me recoiled in horror at what I was doing, the part that understood what this meant, but it was quickly silenced by the otherness inside.

It was either him or me. My freedom or his life.

An excruciating pain began building between my eyes, but it did nothing to weaken the hold that otherness had on me. I was aware of the warm trickle of blood running down my nose, and the stinging in my eyes. Concern that I wouldn’t be able to wrest control back from that otherness began to surface, even as the blob faded into nothingness. Before I could fully feel the triumph, there was a violent pressure inside my head that terrified me—just as everything went black.

Chapter 2

When I awoke, dawn was already approaching. I had the mother of all headaches, and my leg was on fire. The faint light seeping from the edges of the drapes burned my eyes like acid. The soft chirp of early birds pierced my skull like knives.

I squeezed my eyes shut, the memories of what had happened flooding in. I needed to get the hell out of there. I took a deep, aching breath and forced my eyes open again. When my vision cleared, the first thing I saw was the mummified figure beside me. The faint stench of rotting meat permeated the air, mingling with the metallic scent of blood. I got up slowly, mindful of my mangled leg, and supported myself with a hand on the dresser. The pain was unbelievable, and I swayed once when the room tilted, but a couple of deep breaths helped the world—and my nervous stomach—settle again.

My next step was clear: I packed all my belongings into my duffel bag and limped out of there. As I was locking the door, I remembered my rent. I still had the envelope with the week’s paycheck tucked inside my coat pocket. It would cover the rent, plus any trouble and cleaning expenses required to deal with the blood and mummified corpse. I pulled out the envelope and placed it on the dresser alongside the key. I quickly limped my way outside to the back of the building where I had parked Thunder, the ancient truck a guy had sold to me over a year ago.

I took the I-84 south, stopping for nothing, surviving on energy bars and gas station bathroom breaks. For two weeks, I caught no tails, no familiar SUVs, no recognizable faces, no uniforms lurking in the shadows.

The relentless rain had been my only companion, pouring in torrents and flooding towns along my route. I avoided bigger cities where PSS facilities were located, and that strategy seemedto have been working well for me. In the year and a half since I’d escaped, I’d been found only three times, the vampire incident two weeks ago being the third and most recent one.

Eventually, I spotted a narrow, waterlogged road with tire marks and tufts of weeds in the middle. I decided to follow it, knowing it would likely lead to a tiny, out-of-the-way small town where I could finally rest. I needed a real bed, a substantial meal … and a hot cup of coffee. My stomach growled like an engine, and I guzzled down the last warm soda, aware that I’d need a bathroom break soon. The sky was beginning to darken, even though sunset was still hours away.

It took me a while and a bit of backtracking, but I finally found the town’s B&B, a rundown, two-story brick building that had seen better days, probably before the revolution. I glanced at the rearview mirror and winced at my reflection. Dark circles under my eyes, greasy hair, pale complexion, and—I sniffed under my armpit—an obnoxious stink to top it all off.

***

I awoke to the incessant grumbling of my stomach and the pounding rain on the windowpane. I took a quick, hot shower and drove to the laundromat I’d spotted the night before.

I fed the machine the required coins and tossed my stinky clothes inside. To give my legs some much-needed exercise, I ran the short distance to the town’s only mall in the rain. It was cold, but it was also refreshing.

I closed my eyes and savored the first bite of real food I’d had in weeks just as a deafening explosion shattered the air.Kaboom!The sound ripped through the sky like a whip lashing through air. A second boom followed, louder and closer. It felt as if the world was breaking apart. A glance up at the rafters showed they were intact; the metal sheets hadn’t come down. Yet. I had never been afraid of thunder, but this was different, filling my veins with icy dread.

Bad omen.I sipped my coffee, but the unease clung to me like a shadow. I shifted in my seat, wary of what fate had in store for me. Almost as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I shoved it away, afraid to tempt fate.

Fickle fate, always ready to throw me into an endless abyss. On the next thunderclap, I noticed the man approaching, his gaze locked on me. A chill ran down my spine, and my heart skipped a beat before I could think clearly. This was a public place; there was no cause for alarm. I was too stressed out. I took another sip of coffee, the caffeine soothing my nerves and fueling my irritation.Couldn’t I finish my breakfast in peace without attracting unwanted attention?I watched him close the distance, doing nothing to hide my annoyance, hoping he would take the hint. Yeah, right. I popped a French fry into my mouth, then took a bite of my turkey sandwich. When the guy was about fifteen feet away, his aura flickered into existence. The food in my mouth suddenly gained the taste and texture of cardboard, and I washed it down with a gulp of coffee. A nervous chill fluttered in my gut. Outwardly, I showed no signs of fear, but my heart pounded wildly, and blood roared in my ears.

Because, shit, the man approaching me was not an ordinary human. The tall man in the dark coat was a preternatural—a crossbreed between a born vampire and a werewolf.

According to Dr. Maxwell’s journal, a born vampire had a yellow aura, a thin line contouring around the body, while a were-animal had a dark green aura. The man approaching had a twisted double helix of green and yellow, like strands of DNA. Not long ago, I’d have mistaken him for something else, but I had learned to interpret people’s auras as a necessity for my survival.

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