Ashes Reborn

  “Is that the best you can do without your fire, Emberly? I’m disappointed.”

  I blinked, watching him fade in and out of existence—and wasn’t sure if it was him or me. He ran at me again. I dodged, but at the last moment he dropped and swept my feet out from underneath me. I somehow twisted as I was going down, landing on hands and knees and scrambling away. He didn’t pursue me. He simply waited.

  I stood up. He came at me again; again I dodged. The blow aimed at my face tore down my side, shredding my shirt and slashing into my skin.

  Distantly, I became aware of fighting, of shouting, and knew Jackson was battling the guards. But he was heavily outnumbered, even with his fire, and was no immediate help to me.

  “I can smell your blood,” Rinaldo said softly, “and its scent is sweet. Perhaps I should taste it before I kill you.”

  “Confidence always comes before a fall, Rinaldo,” I said, “and your fall is going to be spectacular.”

  “We both know that is a threat you cannot back up.” He charged me. I spun away, but he caught my arm, then kicked my legs out from under me. My back hit the ground, and something hard dug into my back. The gun. I still had the fucking gun.

  But before I could reach for it, he was on me, his weight pinning me. I tried to buck him off, but he was too heavy. I tried hitting him, punching him, clawing him, but he merely smiled and caught my arms, holding them away from him.

  “Checkmate, I believe,” he said, and then bent down to feed from me.

  I screamed in horror, screamed in pain, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything, as he drained the life from me.

  Emberly! Jackson’s urgent cry bit through my panic. Use me.

  What?

  Use our connection. Draw my fire.

  The stones will stop it.

  The witch said they won’t. Try!

  Or die. He didn’t actually say that last bit, but it was in his thoughts nevertheless. I drew in a shuddering breath, feeling my strength slipping away even as I did so. It was now or never.

  And I had no idea how to do it.

  Imagine our connection as a tunnel. Reach down through it.

  I closed my eyes, did as he suggested, then reached, as I’d remotely reached for the life of the vampires earlier. There was a brief moment of blackness and disorientation; then I felt it—felt his fire and his life, his fury and his fear. But I didn’t reach for it—instead, I reached through him to the mother, and called to her.

  She came. I grabbed her energy with two metaphysical fists and then projected outward, through me and into Rinaldo. The force of it was so strong, it tore him from my neck and threw him across the room. He didn’t immediately move, but he lived, even if his entire body was smoking.

  I pushed myself onto my hands and knees, sucked in air as my head swam and blood rushed down my neck, then forced myself onto my feet and drew the gun.

  “Die, you bastard,” I said, and pulled the trigger. And kept pulling, until the clip was empty and there was nothing left of his head. Then the gun slipped from my fingers, and I dropped to my knees.

  Someone dropped beside me; then warm fingers grabbed mine. “Feed from me, phoenix. There is still one brother left.”

  The witch, some part of me whispered. I licked my lip, and tried to ignore the siren call of her body’s heat. “It would be dangerous for me to even attempt that. I might kill you.”

  “I’d be dead if not for you,” she said. “But even so, I trust that you will not. It is not within you to kill another that way.”

  If only you knew.

  “Do it,” she said. “Now.”

  Em, please, Jackson said.

  I closed my eyes, closed my fingers around hers, and fed. It flowed through me, a molten river that chased the ice from my veins and the weakness from my limbs. It would have been easy, so easy, to keep to the connection, to drain her completely, but her words seemed to echo through her brain; I forced my grip to open, and I released her hand.

  Her whole body slumped. “Go,” was all she said.

  Hit the bastard for me before you cinder him, Jackson said.

  I became fire and swirled out of the building and back to the rooftop. I shifted shape again, then opened the door and ran down the stairs.

  But Rinaldo’s twin wasn’t there.

  I swore, ran down the rest of the stairs, and thrust the door open. A dozen men immediately swung around; I held up my hands, my gaze searching for, and then finding, Baker.

  “Did you retrieve Rinaldo from the stairwell?”

  “No, we did not,” Radcliffe said, stepping up beside Baker. “You were supposed to handle anyone attempting to escape via the stairwell.”

  I swore again and thrust a hand through my hair. “Don’t give me any of your shit, Radcliffe, because I’m really not in the mood. I’ve killed one of the twins; the other has burns over most of his body and a smashed kneecap. How about you putting some rats to good use, and hunt him down. He can’t have gotten far.”

  But even as Radcliffe snapped his fingers and the rats disappeared, intuition whispered of chances missed.

  The second brother had escaped us.

  CHAPTER 13

  “You want anything from the café?” I asked Rory, sticking my head around the door into his bedroom.

  We’d both moved back home a week earlier, and though he still wasn’t able to return to work, I suspected it wouldn’t be much longer before he did. His skin glowed with renewed health and vitality, and he was getting through a full day now without having to nap.

  “A coffee and a bagel would be good.” He glanced at his watch. “Aren’t you up a little early for a Saturday?”

  “Tell that to my stomach. It’s the one grumbling so loud, I had no choice but to get up.” I might have outwardly recovered from the injuries I’d received during our semi-successful attempt to neutralize Rinaldo, but my body continued to demand calories and fire, suggesting it might take a while yet before I was fully back to normal. Especially since I dared not draw too much from Rory until he was back to full strength. “Besides, I’ve got that damn meeting with the inspector this morning.”

  “You? Jackson’s not invited?”

  “I’m sure he wants to be there, but he’s got strict orders to remain in bed and give his leg a full chance to heal.”

  Rory snorted. “Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”

  “It will. I called in someone to make sure he did.”

  “If it’s a female someone, you know how that’s going to end.”

  “Makani is wise to his ways. Trust me, until he’s more mobile, he won’t get anywhere with her.”

  “Makani? Why don’t I know this wonder woman?”

  “She’s the air fae who gave us the SUV to use.”

  “I think she and I need to meet.”

  I snorted. “You must be feeling a whole lot better if you’re thinking about future seduction possibilities.”

  “Oh, I am.” His grin flashed. “Do you know what the inspector wants?”

  “Probably to berate me for incorrect use of the badges and for letting the other brother escape.”

  “That was hardly your fault. You weren’t to know who he was.”

  “I should have checked, Rory. I had him, and I let him go.”

  “He couldn’t have crawled out of that stairwell without help. Not in the state he was in.”

  “I know. It doesn’t alter the fact that he did escape.” And while it was somewhat comforting to know that, with the severity of his wounds and the fact we’d decimated his forces, he’d be incapable of any sort of revenge for a while yet, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t come.

  We weren’t out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.

  I pushed away from the door. “Just the coffee and croissant?”

  “Bagel, not croissant
.”

  “Oh, right.” I grabbed my purse from the coffee table and slung it over my shoulder as I headed downstairs. Though it was still only early morning, the light shining through the foyer’s glass was bright enough for me to spot the figure waiting for me near the exit.

  Sam.

  I stopped abruptly. “What are you doing here?”

  He peeled away from the wall he’d been leaning against, but didn’t move toward me. “We need to talk.”

  “I’m due in at your office this morning. We can talk then.”

  A smile touched his lips, and though it was little more than a ghost of the ones that I’d seen so often in the past, it nevertheless affected me as strongly as ever.

  “No, we can’t, because that’s business and this is about us.”

  I thrust my hands deeper into my coat pocket. “There is no ‘us,’ Sam. We were over a long time ago.”

  “I know.” He waved a hand toward Portside, the café just up the road and the place I’d been heading for the bagels. “Shall we take this discussion to a more comfortable location?”

  “There’s no point.”

  “I know, but humor me all the same. I have something that needs to be said.”

  “What if I don’t want to hear it?”

  “I’ll keep pestering you until you do. Ultimately, it would be simpler and easier to just listen now.”

  “Fine,” I muttered, and stalked past him. The morning air was crisp, but I was too aware of the man at my back to feel it.

  I selected a table away from the other patrons and sat down. He slid out the chair opposite.

  “What do you want to say?” My voice was flat—almost harsh.

  He didn’t immediately answer; instead, he smiled at the waitress as she appeared at our table, and he ordered a coffee. I ordered drinks and bagels for both Rory and myself.

  “You have until that order gets back,” I said. “Then I’m leaving.”

  “Fine.” He laced his fingers together and leaned forward. “What I attempted to say in Brooklyn—and what you obviously took the wrong way—is that I can’t have any relationship until I know, one way or another, what is going to happen to me with this virus in my blood.”

  I blinked. “You were having a relationship with Rochelle, weren’t you?”

  “And you’re well aware that she was similarly infected.” His smile was tight. “I may not be a saint, but I’m certainly not a monk—although I’ll probably have to become one now that she’s dead.”

  “So why are you telling me all this? We’re over, Sam.”

  “Possibly—”

  “Possibly?” Annoyance surged, and I thrust forward, my grip on the table suddenly fierce. “It’s a fact of every phoenix’s love life that the person they love will ultimately hurt or destroy them. We never get a happy ending; do you get that? Never. So as much as you might now want otherwise—for whatever fucking reason—it’s not going to happen. It can’t happen.” I paused, took a deep breath, and then leaned back. And oddly felt better for unleashing all that.

  He frowned. “What do you mean, ‘never’?”

  “It means, in all the centuries I’ve been alive, in all the centuries Rory’s been alive, we’ve never found lasting love. Something always happens to shatter it.”

  “Something like me finding out about you and Rory?”

  “Yeah.” I scrubbed a hand across my eyes. “And I probably should have told you about him, but your attitude to supernaturals and past history stopped me. Rebirth after being murdered is never a fun thing, let me tell you.”

  His face paled. “No matter how angry I might have been, I would have never—”

  “I know, but past loves have.” I sighed. “None of which alters the fact that you and I cannot—will not—happen in this lifetime.”

  He studied me silently for a moment, and then sat back. “I’m sorry for what I said that day, Red. I’m sorry for the way I reacted. And I know I can’t change any of that, nor can I alter fate itself. But I’d really at least like to be friends with you.”

  A somewhat bitter smile twisted my lips. “What, go out for dinners and the like, and act like there was nothing more serious than that in our past?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you really think that’s wise?”

  “Probably not. But as I said, I’m not a monk and I need—” He paused. “I need something to hold on to outside work. Something that keeps me distracted from the virus, and keeps me grounded.”

  “I’m not your ground, Sam. I can’t be.”

  “You have to be. I can’t infect you, Red. I can’t kill you—not with the virus, anyway.”

  I eyed him for a minute. “The inspector told you about my burning the virus from Jackson’s body, didn’t she?”

  “Yes. And that one fact gives me hope that a cure will eventually be found.”

  “We don’t even know if I actually succeeded in destroying the virus in his system.”

  “No, but he’d be exhibiting signs by now if he were infected, and he’s not.”

  So the inspector had said, but I wasn’t going to get my hopes up. Not until the blood tests came back and we knew for sure.

  I scrubbed a hand across my eyes. “This is madness, Sam.”

  “Does that mean you’ll consider it?”

  The waitress approached with our drinks and my bagels. I pushed up, grabbed some money, and paid for both.

  “Em?” Sam said softly.

  My gaze met his. I saw the desperation there, and the ever-threatening darkness that was the virus. I’d saved this man’s life twice now, but it was still very much under threat.

  I didn’t want to get involved with him, because I knew it could only ever end badly. That was just the way it worked for us phoenixes. But by the same token, I didn’t want to see him hurt. Didn’t want to see him lose this battle.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  And knew, even as I walked away, that the decision was already made.

  I just had to hope my heart was strong enough to take the mess I was about to get us into.

  Don’t miss the first Outcast Novel by Keri Arthur,

  CITY OF LIGHT

  Available now from Signet Select

  It was the whispering of the ghosts that woke me.

  I stretched the kinks out of my bones, then glanced at the old metal clock on the far wall to confirm what I instinctively knew. It was barely six p.m., so night hadn’t fallen yet. The ghosts were well used to my seminocturnal patterns, so something had to be wrong for them to wake me early.

  I swung my legs off the bed and sat up. The tiled floor chilled my feet and the air was cool, though slightly stale. Which probably meant one of the three remaining purifiers had gone offline again. It was a frustrating problem that had started happening more often of late, thanks to the fact that parts for the decades-old machines just weren’t made anymore. And while there was one place where I probably could scavenge the bits I needed to repair them, it was also something of a last resort. Chaos was not a place you entered willingly. Not if you valued life and limb.

  But if one of the purifiers had gone down again, then I either had to risk going there or close off yet another level. I might be able to survive short-term on foul air, but I still needed to breathe.

  Gentle tendrils of energy trailed across my skin, a caress filled with the need to follow. But it was a touch that held no fear. Whatever disturbed the ghosts was not aimed at our bunker deep underground.

  I slipped on my old combat clothes and boots, then grabbed my jacket and rose, shoving my arms into the sleeves as I walked across to the door at the far end of the bunk room. A red warning light flashed as I neared it.

  “Name, rank,” a gruff metallic voice said. Over the years I’d named it Hank, simply because it reminded me somewhat of the
cranky custodian who’d run the base exchange. He still haunted the lower floors, although he tended to avoid both me and the children.

  “Tiger C5, déchet, lure rank.”

  I pressed my thumb against the blood-work slot. A small needle shot out and took the required sample, but the door remained securely closed. Even though I’d adjusted the power ratios and cut several levels out of the security net, it still took an interminably long time for the system down here to react. But then, with only one hydrogen-fueled generator and the banks of solar batteries powering the system during the day, everything was slow. And I couldn’t risk firing up a second generator when I needed at least two running at night to cope with the main defense systems. I had only three generators in total and—with parts so scarce in the world above—I had to be careful. That meant conserving the system where I could and doing continual maintenance.

  The scanner finally kicked into gear. After checking my irises, the door beeped and swung open. The corridor beyond was cold and dark, the metal walls dripping with condensation. Ghosts swirled, their little bodies wisps of fog that drifted along in blackness.

  The sounds of my footfalls echoed across the stillness, hinting at the vastness of this underground military bunker. And yet this was the smallest of the three bases humans had used during the race war—a war that might have lasted only five years but had forever altered the very fabric of our world.

  The shifters—with their greater strength, speed, and the capacity to heal almost any wound—should have wiped the stain of humanity from Earth. But humans had not wasted the many years leading up to the war, and the bioengineering labs, which had initially produced nothing more than body-part replacements for the sick and dying, had gone into full—and secret—production. These labs had created not only an enzyme that gave humans the same capacity to heal as the shifters, but also the designed humanoid. Or déchet, as we’d become known.