Page 25 of Echoes in the Void

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ASH

I knew what Dolion sacrificed in order to defeat Sebastian’s maker the first time, and the cost to them all. Three hundred years encased in stone was not my idea of a good time, nor from the way he spoke—rarely—about those days, was it his. I might only have known the gargoyle for a few short days but in my existence, time meant little compared to the connection we had carved out with each other.

Media made out that an immortal weighed years in the blink of an eye, discarding time as though passing eons meant little to the heart to the individual, when in truth, the reverse held over every one of us.

Each second cost us painful breaths, ruminating on each failure, every moment relived over and over until we were like to drive ourselves mad. That was the true weight of an immortal life—not the freedom mere humans projected upon themselves, viewing the epochs passing as some sort of glorious frolic through the ages.

What humanity failed to take into account was the culmination of a lifetime—multiple lifetimes—of eros bounding one upon the other, building and building until the frustrationand anxiety of every single flaw and frailty and imperfection culminated in a chaotic sense of madness.

Perhaps that was where my flame originated. I didn't recall a time when my panic didn’t bring on my heat, obliterating everything around me. Every one.

Until now.

Dolion alone withstood my fury, my fear. And for that, he deserved everything I could give to both him and his friend. No matter that I didn’t particularly like the vampire on sight, for no other reason than he annoyed me at a base level. I didn’t know, perhaps he reminded me of someone I’d met before, long ago.

Dolion slept over my bed, muscular thighs crouched low. Pink toes peeped over my heavy wooden bedhead, able to withstand the weight of his statuesque form. His twisted, horrific features no longer unnerved me, but offered a different sort of comfort, knowing who lay inside that stone monster as I rested.

But as before, when he awoke, I wouldn't be there, because I had work to do. And he would just have to forgive me for my sin.

I placed a gentle kiss to the corner of his lips, nuzzling my cheek to his. “We burn together, forever,” I whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear me. “Wherever we are.”

Because I wasn’t certain, after what he’d told me about the story of Minette and Sebastian and Gisella and the masquerade party at their original home, that I would be able to deal with the demoness in the way I hoped. But I would give it my best, and hoped that washing around her in the most magnificent way possible, would be enough.

Just enough. That’s all I needed it to be. To keep Dolion safe.

Because he was right. Existence and mortality meant little, if those we cared for were threatened. He had come to that conclusion well before me, I knew. He fell first. But I was hisfallen star, still burning brightly. My fall was still in progress, and I knew exactly where I wanted my end to be.

I walked out of my home, leaving my gargoyle above my bed with the knowledge that I may never come back.

But everyone in my life, after this, should be safe.

Or so I prayed, though to whom, I wasn't sure. The other gods never spoke to me, after all.

I perched on the top of my crispfied crypt, swinging my legs and drinking a Hurricane from a plastic glass with a matching, lurid green straw that was almost as long as the cup itself. I’d flashed about the city enough where Anitta had been putting on her little stage shows pretending to be me, keeping my distance but in view just enough to gain her attention. Here, then gone. There then away.

Like the flea on the dog’s back that couldn’t be scratched. Then I settled in on my burnt out crypt, and I waited.

Spoilers: I didn’t have to wait long.

The demoness had the attention span of a gnat.

“Aren’t you just the flashy one?” Anitta waltzed around my crypt as I sipped my drink.

One, hurricanes, two hurricanes, three hurricanes, too much rum in my veins…

“Says she who ruined my last three pairs of yoga pants.”

I tipped the last of my plastic glass—best oxymoron ever—back and managed not to choke. Tifa had made the drink for me under duress but cut back on the alcohol, thankfully. I’d gone off rum back sometime in the seventeen hundreds during my pirate phase and still couldn’t talk about it. But Tifa assured me this was New Orlean’s super power and I’d better get used toit, if I intended to stay. I rattled the lime colored plastic at my lover’s enemy and slung the plastic strap around my neck for safe keeping. It would all be ash in a moment, anyway.

Anitta wrinkled her nose. “I guess there's no accounting for dress sense, really. I can’t abide by pants. Or your choice of hair color. Don’t your things stink of death? Though that’s a cause I could get behind. How does your ass fit in that small space?” She peered at me and wiggled her hips.

My face fell away to be replaced by the creature beneath. All peeling skin, and yellowed eyes stared out at me, more hideous than the creature Dolion had described Sebastian to be when he first turned from human to vampire under this woman—no, this demoness, I corrected myself mental—under her watch. And now, I got to see who she really was..

Disgust roiled within me at the bones that protruded through the fine layers that couldn't really be called epidermis. Hair hung in clumps. I could bet that she didn’t tug on too hard in case it fell away and couldn't be reattached. And the smell—oh, the smell.

“I think I prefer the crypt, actually,” I said softly, trying not to inhale too hard. “Is this what happens when an immortal dies and can’t leave this world? I pity you. And also, your hair.” I waved to the misshapen clumps lumped atop her hair that looked like they had once been stunning locks, possibly silky, but not for many hundreds of years. “You really can’t go anywhere else, can you? Is it by choice,” I continued out of pure curiosity, “or is it because you can’t stand the thought of not existing anymore?”

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