Page 5 of Echoes in the Void

She shook her head. “Not against this. I know he’s fought before. This will not be the same. I have read his cards.”

Visions of the sorceress, the house a burning backdrop and Minette’s body as my stone heart cracked obliterated the hidden tavern as I pushed my stool away from the bar. The witch watched me as I panted, my knees stiff, heavy.No. Not here.I couldn’t revert to my stone state in this ridiculously close space. I’d be at the mercy of whoever came alone and from what Sebastian showed me of this time and place, the people were ... .less than respectful.

Perhaps that was why he’d taken me to an inn filled with supernatural creatures where the people pretended they were from another time, pretending to be normal when they were anything but.

Because here, where my monster showed through, only my own kind would judge me.

But that was the revelation I’d had as I studied my ale dregs. There were no more ofmy kind. Not that I’d seen in 1735 when I helped Sebastian build the house. Not since I left Europe and my perch above the church in a street anchored of gargoyles and all the hideous, ugly things just like me.

And certainly I hadn't seen another creature like myself here.

I spun away from the witch, unable to bear her serpentine gaze or her strange collection of colorful personalities any longer.

In the corner of the room amidst the shadows, something brighter than any of the barwenches’ shawls emerged, if only for a moment. I looked, because that's where, had I been given the choice, I would have hidden. But Sebastian dragged me to the counter upon our arrival and that was where we had stayed and he had hosted his conversation. From what I gathered, he was a regular here, in his role as supernatural sheriff.

My eye, however, was drawn to a different prize.

Hair the color of burnished copper hung to her shoulders in the sort of blunt cut that suggested a hard and stubborn exterior. That alone should have told me to stay away from the woman who glowed with an aura like the sun rising above the Caribbean on a midsummer morning, but it was her eyes that gave her away.

Those were ember black, the sort of darkness that lit a flame from within. She allowed me a rare glimpse as I met her gaze within the shadows when everyone else in the tight, crowded space ignored the girl hiding against the wall.

Bare shoulders gleamed a radiant cinnamon, different from the dark skinned peoples of the bayou I was so used to seeing, or the bar witch who still studied me with serpentine gem eyes that both suited her and didn’t.

Not that Sebastian seemed to make the distinction as he leaned forward, engaging Tifa in small talk. I looked back at the shadow woman, but her corner and table sat empty. A survey of the room assured me that she'd taken my moment of distraction to escape.

“You were hiding,” I muttered to myself as I walked away from the bar, leaving Sebastian to flirt—an action that still left centuries old betrayal in my mouth, though he had obviously moved on. “But who were you hiding from?”

I reached the empty table, and swept my fingers across its surface, coming up with nothing but fingertips coated in the finest, dark particles. Frowning, I raised them to my nose, and sniffed.

“It’s ash, stone heart,” the witch whispered in my ear.

I jerked back with an oath, but when I checked the space beside me, Tifa still stood back at the bar, though she’d stopped speaking to Sebastian, and watched me again.

“Whenever she disappears, that’s all that is left. Makes a hell of a mess.” Her head tipped from side to side as she considered me and spoke in that voice that reached me across the room though she talked to no other. “Why don’t you try the cemetery? The largest one. I’m sure your friend will show you the way.” She gave Sebastian a prod.

He moved reluctantly off his stool as she murmured something in his ear. The vampire listened attentively, then leaned in and kissed her cheek.

I pretended not to witness their show of affection as my own heart, the organ unfortunately not stone as I wished it, pumped furiously inside my chest cavity. The betrayal I wished wouldstop and still in the world did no such thing, and the muscle beat on, forcing me to take breath after breath as I ignored Sebastian’s after-death choices and focused on the odd pile of evidence of my strange girl before me.

Proof that she existed even if I didn’t want to anymore.

Circling my fingertips in the silky ash, and leaned against the empty table, trying to work out how my strange shadow woman left the room without being seen or moving at all. I came to the conclusion I was as mad as any of the patrons in this place just as my ale glass I’d left on the bar top exploded into a thousand shattered fragments.

Glass shards littered the floor, reflecting copper highlights like the building itself couldn’t forget the woman just as I could not, long after she’d gone.

CHAPTER THREE

ASH

Every time I fell in love, they died. I mean, I wasn’t cruel in my intent; I died too. But their deaths were accidental. Mine, on the other hand…I knew what was coming, even if my poor lovers didn’t. An occupational hazard of falling for a creature who burst into flame uncontrollably every time my emotions roused.

Hormonal imbalancedidn't come close to covering it.

I curled in the top end of the shallow crypt where it stood on its stilts, the city’s protection against flooding many years before, and pretended that if I ignored the man waiting outside my locked door, he would go away.

Spoilers: he didn't.

Hour after hour he waited, he and his friend. The pale, dark haired man paced. He grumbled, then lit a cigarette. I hated the smell of those, either lit or unlit. He strode around, made some drama and finally, after an argument that I couldn’t tell if it was staged or not, he left, leaving me with the man who leaned against the crypt opposite mine in New Orlean’s largest cemetery, standing right where he had been the whole time since he had arrived.

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