Scattered Ashes Read online

  So the fact I’m not exactly human is really fucking obvious. Hello, my name is Aurelia Constantine, and I am a Phoenix.

  No offense to the almighty Harry Potter Queen, JK, but I’m not a damn bird. I’m a person. I just happen, on occasion, to burst into flames, have visions, and electrocute people with a shield that I can’t seem to control. Oh, and the wings, those are real. And they’re a bitch.

  The last phase totally ruined my favorite leather jacket. I’ve had that jacket for the last twenty years. They just don’t make leather like they used to. Replacing it was a pain in the ass, and in the end, I had to have it custom made.

  Also, I don’t age. Or die.

  I’ve looked thirty-ish for the last one hundred and fifty years or so. Since I was born about thirty years prior to the aging halt, I’m assuming my kind ages at a normal rate until we reach our bodies’ maturity. Then we stop aging altogether.

  Or it could be just me.

  I should know all these things for sure. I should be knowledgeable about my species, but escaping my Legion at twenty means I was never in the know about some important facets of my species. What I do know is that when you’re a Seer in my culture, at maturity, you get permanently blinded so your visions will be “pure” which makes a Seer into an Oracle.

  Our visions are important. Seers and Oracles alike see visions of death, and in seeing death, we can direct the Gentry to the dead or dying to send the souls on to be reborn. Seers cannot change the outcome of their visions. Oracles, however, have enough advanced warning and the power to change the future.

  In my mind, it is the only advantage from the price they paid when they gave away their eyes.

  As in, they cut your eyes out of your head and smear the wound in Morganite. We can heal from anything, and I do mean anything - beheadings, explosions, whatever - but once a wound or our ashes comes into contact with Morganite, it’s all over. Meaning, we have to heal at the regular human rate, which is the slowest freaking healing rate ever and for mortal wounds, it means bye-bye.

  And women are wearing them as wedding rings nowadays. That’s a fuckton of nope, right there.

  Since I enjoy seeing with my eyeballs securely attached to my skull, I got the hell out of there before some Oracle decided it was high time for the torture to stop and for me to join the fold. Unfortunately, I was about twenty when I left (escaped, but who’s splitting hairs). In 1855, being an widowed, wounded woman was a bit daunting to say the very least.

  I used to have a family. I used to have friends. I even had loved at one point.

  But those days are long gone.

  The problem with Oracles is the fact they believe they are omnipotent when they are not. When I refused to do what they wanted me to do, they tried to force it. By force it, I mean they had my Soldier kill my husband right in front of me.

  Remember me mentioning I was two nuts short of a full bag? Well, that’s a part of it. Not all of it, of course, but hey, you can’t live for one hundred and eighty years without some bumps in the road. And one of those bumps is the fact I wake up a sweaty, basket case pretty much every night.

  Visions are a bitch, what can I say?

  * * *

  I stare out the huge picture window in the master bedroom with its view of the mountain range below. It looks so very different from where I started my life. There are fewer trees here in the subalpine Rockies than in the Pacific Northwest, and you can see the sun more days a year. The difference helps me breathe when I wake up this way. Seeing the sun and the blue sky goes a long way to calm me down when I should be rocking in a corner after one of my visions.

  I get out of bed and immediately rip off the dirty sheets. It’s a ritual of sorts. I’d never be able to sleep tonight with the sweat of the last night’s vision still in evidence. My linen closet is full of king-sized linens with several coordinating colors to match the room. I’m an anal-retentive basket case, so sue me. I snap the clean sheets on the bed and get started bracing myself for the total freaking production tonight will be.

  I have an art show this evening, and though it’s July in Denver, I’ll be covered from neck to ankles to hide my two full sleeves and the rest of my ink. I’d rather not go at all and just get the check for any of my work that is sold. But Evan, who does double duty as the curator for the James Gallery and the poor soul who calls herself my best friend, has decided I am a shut-in enough three hundred or so days a year. Every single opening, she makes me go and pretend to look at my art like a real live person, who breathes and speaks and shit. It’s exhausting.

  She’s over exaggerating. I go out. Occasionally. To go get tattoos and groceries, but so what? That counts as out, dammit. Why she’s my friend, I’ll never know.

  I say that, but I know why. She’s my friend because when I was at my lowest, when I thought I couldn’t go on another day, she popped into my life and gave me someone to look after. She is the yin to my yang, the light to my dark, the Disco to my Heavy Metal.

  In reality, she’s a Wraith princess, the only child of John Black, the King of the Wraiths. Phoenixes and Wraiths are supposed to hate each other, but I couldn’t hate that girl if you paid me. Other Wraiths are a bit sketchy, but Evan, she is the light in the darkness. I just wish she’d let me stay home and avoid covering myself like a freaking nun.

  I draw a whole lot of attention all by my lonesome, with the eyes (even though I mask them with lenses), the tats, the boobs, and the ass. I’d rather not, but I’ve got what I was born with, and it’s a freaking bounty.

  But, no one knows what I look like, or that I’m a selling artist. I don’t advertise that I’m the one painting the pretty pictures. That’s what Evan is for - because Evan can be in the light and I can’t. Evan can move from city to city selling, curating, being an all around wunderkid, and I cannot.

  All because of my stupid Legion.

  Only my initials are on my canvases, and very few people know I’m a girl. If I’m being honest, I’d like to keep it that way. I guess it’s a throwback to the days when I had to con a guy to stand in and sell my art to galleries for me because women were not considered ‘serious artists’.

  Hey, the Brontes did it.

  Unfortunately, those days are in the recent past, not fifty to one hundred years ago. Art is my constant, my therapeutic outlet. It’s also my primary source of income. Well, that and gambling… I’m a Seer. It’s not really gambling if you know you’re going to win.

  So tonight, I’ll be covered from my neck to my ankles, I’ll be wearing color contacts and glasses I don’t need, and effing Spanx on my boobs to tape those suckers down. Then I get to wear the ugliest, baggiest suit ever, in a color I freaking detest, brown. Not just any brown, either, a lovely shit-brown. Zero makeup and hair in a severely cinched bun. The general plan is to look as unattractive as possible. I’ve been confused as a beat reporter, wait staff, a parking attendant, but no one has come up to me and accused me of being the artist, so I think the disguise is working for me.

  All because I left my Legion rather abruptly after my husband, Lucien, was murdered. And by abruptly, I mean I attacked anyone who came within striking distance like a feral fucking animal. To my credit, I was severely wounded, miscarrying a baby, and just watched my husband die, so the crazy was warranted. But still, slashing people with a Morganite knife, at least in my culture, is more than a little frowned upon.

  I found out rather quickly captivity just did not suit me. I’m not a fan of torture so much either.

  Rhys did end up helping me escape, the bastard, but it’s his fault I was stuck there in the first place, so I’m not giving him too much credit. Still, he got me out of there, putting his ass on the line and making it so he had to live in hiding, too.

  He had more to lose than I did and though I feel bad he lost it, he’s still the man who killed my husband. I still can’t stand to look at his pretty face, not that I’ve seen it in the last fifty years or so. Even so, I know he watches, as Soldiers are wont to do. I ha
te that we are bound. I hate that out of all people, he was chosen for me. I hate that my choices did not matter. And why would they have?

  Being born with these eyes meant I didn’t get any choices at all.

  I shower in a hurry because after reminiscing over my sordid past, I realize I’ve been sitting in silence, and I’m now running twenty minutes behind schedule. That right there is enough to drive Evan right out of her fool mind. She can just relax, though. She knows I would rather paint instead of attend this freaking farce.

  I get to wear my disguise, pretend I’m not at an event I don’t need or want to go to in the first place. While in hiding from a Primary who will get off her ass and look for me eventually. Stellar thinking on my part.

  Suddenly, “Shake Your Groove Thing” blasts from the speakers of my phone. How Evan thought Peaches & Herb was an appropriate ringtone, I’ll never know.

  “What?” I answer, knowing she is T-minus three seconds from an opening day meltdown of Chernobyl proportions.

  “Where in the blue fuck are you? You were supposed to be down the mountain already and driving into Denver, and your ass is probably still sitting in bed! You do this to me every single time! Goddammit Ari, get your ass in gear!”

  “I’m getting a very bad feeling about tonight,” I whisper, but I say this every single time. This time, though, it’s the whisper that catches her attention.

  “You see anything?” she breathes. Evan knows too much. Evan knows pretty much everything. I know she feeds most of the information to Rhys, but I can’t muster up the courage to tell her to stop. Evan is like a dog with a bone.

  “Nothing but a murder this morning. You know the Ness family?”

  “Yeah. I do,” comes through the line on a broken gasp. “They’re huge patrons. They were supposed to be here tonight.”

  A deep chill goes down my spine. Houston, we have a problem.

  “Well, they’re not coming. I don’t think I am either.”

  “We’ve been through this. You have to be here, Ari. You have to see how your work affects people, how it moves them. If anything, I’m begging you to be here for me. Victoria was a friend.”

  I feel horrible. I’m sad for that family, but only on the periphery. Evan actually knew her.

  “I don’t have to do anything. Especially since you’ve been ditching our sparring sessions and avoiding me for the last month.”

  “But…”

  “But, I will…for you. Give me ten and I’ll be heading down the mountain.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t make me regret it. There better be yummy snacks.”

  “Of course there’ll be yummy snacks! What kind of operation do you think I’m running here? I have to give the patrons something since the artist is conspicuously missing. Again. The things I do for you.”

  “Snacks.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I got your snacks.”

  “Thanks. See you in forty-five.”

  I hang up and rush through the disguise prep, but instead of the dowdy outfit I was planning on, I opt to dress in attire that would be easier to fight in. In lieu of the brown suit, whose added fabric would hinder movement and ease of weapon retrieval, I pick a nice pair of fitted black straight-leg slacks with a good, thick heft to them. I pair it with the matching jacket that helps conceal my tattoos, boobs, and spine holster.

  I choose a blousy, sapphire peplum top to go under the jacket (because I’m a freaking girl and I need the pretty). In the same vein, I pick my black, leather, four-inch wedge-heeled, platform booties with the weapon loops sewn into the inner lining.

  You’d think I can’t run, fight, or walk in these beauties, but you’d be wrong. These are the most comfortable pair of shoes I own. And likely, they’re the most functional.

  I still put in the emerald green contacts, but I lose the fake glasses. I put my hair up in a bun at the back of my head, but I throw in a few stainless steel spikes (or bo-shurikens) as hair sticks. I love them because they are as thin as knitting needles, are sharp as knives, and hide in plain sight.

  Just in case the shiver of fear I feel is the real thing, I slide three thin throwing knives in the holder in my right bootie. I also load and stow a Glock 19 in the specialty made left-handed spine holster.

  And Evan wonders why I don’t go outside.

  As I head out to the garage, the cool finger of dread I feel, starts flicking me in the head. I step back inside and carefully open the gun cabinet disguised as a full-length mirror and pick up a few extra mags of ammo for the Glock and stow them in the ammo loops in my left bootie.

  I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

  2

  So Much for Subterfuge

  RHYS

  Guilt is something I live with on a daily basis, but it gets worse on days like today. Today I get to play stalker to a woman I’ve been in love with for roughly one hundred and seventy years.

  A woman I cannot have.

  A woman who hates me with every single fiber of her being.

  Go me.

  As her Soldier, I’ve been bound to Aurelia for one hundred and sixty years. I thought as a young man I knew what love was. The inane notion I assumed was love as a boy is nothing compared to the iron chain tying her to me now. I’ll never love another woman, the bond assures that.

  It also ensures that as long as she hates me, I’ll never be happy. Because that’s what a Soldier is.

  A guardian, a lover, a husband.

  And as long as she hates me, I’ll never be what I’m meant to be. But at least I can keep the wolves at bay.

  I scratch my scruff and use the rearview mirror to keep an eye on the door to the gallery. It’s an awkward angle, and the collar of my shirt is digging into my neck.

  Fucking tie.

  I don’t know why I put on the damn thing. I never go into the building. Every single time I come to her openings, I hide in the car and watch the door like a damn pussy. Usually, I borrow a car from a friend, but tonight, I’m stuck in my rusted-out shit-box of a truck with no AC, and I’m in a goddamn suit. I really should trade up, but this old girl’s been with me for twenty years.

  Letting women go hasn’t been my strong suit.

  Finally, I sack up and get out of the cab, slamming the door resulting in a nice little rust confetti shower on the gutter and a loud grating shriek of metal.

  So much for subterfuge.

  I figure if I keep to the shadows, I can keep Aurelia from freaking out and keep my ass out of hot water. I’d rather not get stabbed, or shot, or worse… fried. The fried thing hurts like a motherfucker. But I suppose she has a good reason to be sore at me.

  I did kill her husband.

  Not that it was my fault, nor did I have a choice in the matter. I did kill him. I did it to save her. I did it to keep her from a fate worse than death. But some part, a big part of me, is glad he’s dead. And I’ve been trying to make up for it ever since.

  I cross the street and make my way to the side entrance. I know the door will be propped open because while Evan may be the least devious woman on the planet, she has a stupid romantic streak and has hope for me and Aurelia. She knows I’ll be close by, and she knows, eventually, I’ll man up and get my ass in there. I creak the door open just as several gunshots ring out.

  What. The. Fuck.

  I duck my head and walk in a low crouch through the hall towards the main gallery, which incidentally contains the source of the gunfire. I pause for a second and assess my weapon situation.

  I have a Smith & Wesson M&P40 in my right hip holster with backup mags at my left hip, and a Ruger SR40c in my left shoulder holster with extra mags in my right. I keep the backup gun in the shoulder holster because it requires a cross body draw, which is an uneconomical movement in a firefight. I have a thin Morganite blade in my right ankle lead-lined knife sheath and a small .38 Special five-shot at my left ankle.

  While I’m loaded for bear, I feel like I could be covered in every single weapon I own and not
be prepared for what I’m about to see. I peek past an industrial-looking I-beam and look at the wreckage of Aurelia’s show. The food tables have been knocked over, food is strewn everywhere. The detritus of cloth napkins and china plates scattered over the concrete floor. Framed paintings litter the floor or hang haphazardly on the walls, their frames cracked, their canvases gouged with bullets. The crowd is gone, save for five or so wounded patrons. Evan is missing from the melee, but being what she is, it’s probably a good thing.

  No one wants Evan to lose it.

  Including me.

  I know Aurelia is alive, and she’s here. And since I’m not bleeding anywhere, I know neither is she. It’s one of the few benefits of our screwed up bond, I’ll always know when she’s bleeding or injured.

  Still, I don’t see her.

  What I do see is the thickly tattooed arm of an Oracle’s Soldier, and as I peek further around my cover, I notice he doesn’t look so good. He’s wearing a bulletproof vest, yes, but it looks shredded from the number of rounds pumped into it. He’s covered in blood from what looks like a double tap head shot, a thick graze to the jugular and to top it off, the poor bastard has a pair of wicked-looking throwing knives where his eyes should be.

  A Phoenix can receive a wound that will ‘kill’ us for a few days, but we will regenerate and get back up once we’re healed unless we’re injured with Morganite. So wounds that are considered mortal to humans are still mortal wounds because while we’re healing, we are completely inert.

  No breathing. No heartbeat. As dead as dead can be.

  For a little while, anyway.

  I made a medical examiner nearly shit himself when I popped up on a morgue slab after I’d been declared dead two days prior. That took some explaining. Sometimes humans are a nuisance.

  With the healing required for the trio of mortal wounds, it will be a long while before he is up again.