Heir of Ashes (The Roxanne Fosch Files #1)

Chapter 1

I had just finished chopping onions for Paul when the sky broke. It wasn’t really a kaboom, more like the deep rumble of giant boulders tumbling down a mountainside. Like a giant avalanche. Hot on its heels followed the torrential downpour I’d been hearing about for the past few days. A sense of foreboding kept nagging at me, a feeling that I was missing something that I should know.

“Do you need anything else before I go?” I asked Paul as I hung my apron on a peg and tried to shake the sensation away. I could hear some of the crowd in the main room dispersing, going home to celebrate another weekend with family or friends, or just be alone after a fulfilling meal, mingling with the booming laughter of those who lingered for a drink and the latest gossip.

“That’ll be all,” Paul said, sending me a distracted smile over his shoulder.

I went into his office and grabbed my purse, a monstrous thing my friend Michelle had desperately tried to destroy, but inside were things I couldn’t afford to leave behind if I had to make a quick escape. Dr. Maxwell’s journal was also inside. It had helped me sort a lot of things out since I’d escaped, even if it hadn’t been the journal I wanted. I never went anywhere without it.

I slung the purse over my left shoulder and let it dangle on my right side—easier if I needed to run—then slipped out the back door of the diner.

The downpour was a solid sheet of water, blurring everything beyond a few feet. Already, water was gathering on the street, herding fallen brown leaves toward the drainage system.

It was unbelievably cold for October, but having only been there for three months, I wasn’t sure if this was normal for early autumn. I shivered and tucked my gloveless hands inside my pockets. I loved autumn—the burnished gold of the trees and the scurrying animals preparing for winter—but it seemed like here, in this small town, winter had already arrived.

Another flash of lightning lit up the sky to my left, followed immediately by a loud kaboom! and the bucket of giant rocks down the mountain. That sense of foreboding returned. I glanced around but found nothing out of place.

Paul’s Diner was only two blocks away from Marian’s Bed and Breakfast, and on a clear day, the lack of tall buildings in between would have given me a clear view of both. I hurried to the small B I knew how much she hated being interrupted during her shows. Plus, I was soaked to the bone, and my appearance would only prompt her to offer me one of those awful teas she enjoyed so much. I took the back stairs in the corner and headed up to my room, the last one at the end of the corridor. I’d grab some dry clothes, then backtrack to clean the water trail I was leaving behind.

But fate had other plans.

The moment I unlocked the door to my room and reached for the switch on the wall to my right, I knew someone was inside—even before I spotted the silhouette sitting on my bed. Not a friendly someone either, considering his strange, inhuman aura. Panic reared its head so fast, it paralyzed me. I forgot all the carefully laid plans I had drilled into myself over and over for moments like this, even before I’d escaped the PSS headquarters. My mind … disconnected. For a long, terrifying moment, I couldn’t move. The icy grip of fear tightened around my heart, spreading to the pit of my stomach and up around my throat.

Then, he moved. But he didn’t attack; instead, he … flipped a page?

The casual way he sat on my bed, flipping through Michelle’s latest fashion magazine as if he hadn’t noticed me, shattered the paralyzing hold panic had woven around my limbs. My first instinct was to run. But as fast as I was, I wasn’t sure I could outrun a vampire.

Think, Roxanne, think. Identify the threat. I eyed his aura, red and a purple so dark it looked black at first sight. I struggled through the terrified haze to remember what I’d read in Dr. Maxwell’s journal. Red for a vampire who lived on blood, and only a made vampire lived solely on blood. I deduced the purple part indicated how long he’d been a vampire, assuming he’d once been human with a simple blue aura.

He was old. Very old. This was beyond overkill. It was like using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. If I ran, he’d only chase me. Made vampires, especially old ones, shed their humanity once they crossed over from life to undeath. Anyone I passed while running would only become another prey for him to play with, especially sweet, overprotective Marian.

Straightening, I tried to hide the fact that I was scared out of my mind, and did the last thing I wanted to do. I stepped into the room, flicked on the light, and closed the door behind me. I thought I saw a flicker of something in his eyes—respect maybe? But it could also have been irritation that I wasn’t giving him the thrill of a chase. Then again, he didn’t know I knew what he was, seeing as aura-reading wasn’t an ordinary ability, even among the preternaturals. Maybe I had an advantage after all.

I just had to figure out how to use it.

In a feeble attempt at bravery, I threw the key down on the dresser to my right, crossed my arms over my chest—no way near impressive with the way my hands shook—and leaned back on the door in a gesture that mimicked “I’m such a badass” but was really so I wouldn’t melt into a quivering pool of fearful goo.

A mocking, condescending smirk formed on his lips. For the first time, I noticed his unnatural features: corpse-like, he was thin, so thin he looked on the verge of emaciation. I’d been so focused on the twisted, dual-colored aura that I’d overlooked his strange features.

His bones—cheekbones, skull, arms, and ribs—were so pronounced that he seemed more like a skeleton draped in skin than anything else. And then he changed—right in front of my eyes.

Dark, lean, handsome. His hair was long, curling lazily at his shoulders. Green eyes, a thin nose that had been broken at some point during his human life, nice full lips. His once skeletal frame now looked athletic, and he was dressed all in black, from the tips of his polished boots to the V-neck of his knit shirt.

I gave myself a mental shake and for a moment, the handsome GQ vampire image stuck. Both images superimposed, causing a stabbing pain to spike above my eyes. Then the gaunt, emaciated figure returned. I wasn’t sure which was more unsettling: the stark reminder that I was dealing with something inhuman, or the disorienting allure of his polished facade.

“This room is already taken,” I said, proud that my voice didn’t crack.

His eyes glittered with cold amusement, sending a shiver through my body. And then … he laughed. A deep, resonant, and disturbingly sexy laugh.

Oh shit, I amused him. I was prey, entertaining the predator. I had to get away from him, put plenty of distance between us. But I had to distract him, incapacitate him, and prevent him from finding me again. Maybe strike him hard enough to render him unconscious … I just needed to get closer. In hindsight, it was a foolish, na?ve plan.

He tilted his head to the side in an unnatural gesture that caused my heart to stutter. He was so far from human, a tiny, frightened voice squealed inside my head. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, an expression of bliss crossing his face. “Smart enough to be afraid,” he said, his eyes tracing a slow, burning path down my body. It was like being bitten by fire ants. “Yet you are still standing.” He tilted his head to the other side, studying me with reptilian curiosity.

My heart skipped another beat, then took off like a runaway train. “If I bolt, you’ll only think I’m game—which I assure you I am not.” I shrugged, a jerky move that belied my tone. Then I added in a shakier voice, “I’m already amusing you and I’m just standing here.”

He gave that mocking, condescending smirk again. “I like you. Very brave, very courageous,” he said, and I noticed his voice carried a British accent. Of course it did. I bet he was turned at a time when native Americans were the only humans in these lands.

“You can’t have it both ways,” I replied, pushing off the door and taking a step forward. I unwrapped the scarf from around my neck. “First, you’re sniffing my fear like premium cocaine, and then I’m brave and courageous? They don’t work together.” I took another step and tossed the scarf on the dresser to my right. Just two more steps to go. “Now, like I said, this room is already taken. If you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone.” I pointed a thumb behind me, my hand jerking when a vicious kaboom blasted the air.

His lips twitched, but the humor didn’t reach his cold eyes. “You know why I am here, little one?” he asked, his tone suddenly serious.

I was glad he deemed me neither worthy nor dangerous enough to get up from the bed. He remained calm, relaxed even. I shrugged, took one more tiny step, and stopped cold when his eyes narrowed into slits. He didn’t look like an emaciated dude anymore. He looked dangerous, his eyes gleaming with merciless intelligence and awareness.

Scratch Plan A. If I couldn’t get close enough to strike him unaware, I needed a new strategy. Time for Plan B. Now, I just needed to figure out what Plan B was.

“I’m here to take you back. Enough playing the damsel in distress. If there’s anything you wish to bring along, then go ahead and start packing. You have five minutes.”

“What makes you think I’ll go back?” I asked, my mind whirling for a solution.

He showed me his teeth. Straight, nice, white teeth. It wasn’t a smile or a sneer, just … teeth.

“I have some papers for you to sign before we leave,” he said, shifting his attention back to the magazine, as if my compliance was a foregone conclusion. “A disclaimer granting the Scientists full rights for the next ten years …” He flipped another page. “Hmm-mm. Nice shoes.” Flip. “During this ten-year period, if you give them your full cooperation—”

I lunged at him, talons out, aiming straight for his throat. I didn’t know if a stake through the heart was the right method to kill a vampire, but decapitation was a surefire way to end anything—living, undead, animated, or whatever it was they called a made vampire.

I hit something hard and for a fraction of a second thought I hit the mark. Just a fraction of the second it took for my brain to process his bony fingers around my wrist, exactly where the fur and padded paw gave way to human skin.

I didn’t even see him move.

Without hesitation, I lashed out again with my free left talons, but he was just as quick this time around, trapping both my wrists in a vise-like grip. I kicked out in desperation, my boot connecting with his shin even as I wrenched my hands back with all the strength I could muster, slicing his hands with my talons.

He howled, letting go of me and getting up, fangs out. I stumbled back, and without losing momentum, kept going for the closet where I stored the broom I used to clean my room so Marian wouldn’t need to. As weapons went, it was pretty lame, but it was all I could come up with in the moment.

Despite the head start and the fact I was fast, I’d taken only two steps before he tackled me from behind, slamming me to the hardwood floor with a force that knocked all the wind out of me. I thrashed, trying to free my legs, but he was strong. I managed to gain a few inches and kicked out, eliciting a gratifying grunt of pain. Not waiting for him to recover, I put all my strength into my upper body and clawed my way toward the closet, dragging him with me, and grabbed hold of the doorframe. Every inch I gained was a battle, my body straining against his grip as I kicked and shoved with every bit of leverage I could find.

“Stop it,” he snarled, his voice guttural, his hold tightening around my legs.

Hope flared when my fingertips brushed the handle of the broom. Then something sharp pierced through the fabric of my pants, into the muscles of my calf. I stiffened when the vampire began sucking. That was how vampires controlled their prey and made them slaves: by drinking their blood.

A cry of despair and outrage tore from my throat as I pulled myself again with renewed determination, the frame of the closet creaking with indignation, the vampire’s fangs tearing through my muscles like scissors through paper. My hand brushed the handle of the broom again, but it slipped away. Finally, my left foot came free, and I stomped on his head once, twice, the muscles of my calf shredding with every kick.

My leg slid, though his fangs still sucked, caught on a frenzied feeding, now embedded in the tendons of my ankle. The pain was so overwhelming, it almost outdid reason. I pulled myself again, crying out with the agony of tearing flesh. I reached for and grabbed the broom, and with a herculean effort of will, twisted my upper body and began thwacking the vampire on the side of the head until the handle broke and I had a makeshift stake.

I quickly stabbed him in the shoulder and, as if he had just now realized I was fighting him, he let go of my leg and shot straight up and away.

I picked the other side of the broom, the one with the bristles—considerably shorter—and got up slowly, almost collapsing when I put some weight on my leg. The vampire reached back, pulling the handle of the broom from his shoulder, his malnourished face contorting in fury. There was an alien redness in his eyes, his fanged, open mouth dripping with my blood. I took a step back, careful to put as little pressure as possible on my right leg. Despite my efforts, I almost passed out when the pain zinged through the entire leg like a lightning bolt. My vision dimmed once, and I had to swallow bile twice. If I passed out, I would be waking up inside a cage—if I ever woke up again.

Then all of a sudden, there was no more weight on the mangled leg. My relief lasted for less than a millisecond, the time it took for me to realize I was dangling by the throat, the vampire’s bloody lips about two inches away from my face. It took my brain precious seconds to shift gears and process the fact that there was no longer any distance between us. He was so fast, I hadn’t even seen a blur.

When someone dangles you by the throat, it hurts. It hurts a lot. I felt like my body was trying to detach itself from my head. Gravity pulled me down while his hand kept me suspended. I grabbed his bony wrist, trying to alleviate some of the pressure, and was about to kick him again when I made the mistake of looking into his eyes.

Aside from the alien red of his sclera, the pupils had a thin red line surrounding them. It might have been there before, but I couldn’t remember. Even as instinct screamed at me to break eye contact, I wondered why I wanted to. I stopped struggling, let my hands fall to my sides, and felt my face slacken. I was suffocating but couldn’t give a damn about it. I knew my leg throbbed like a motherfucker, but the pain didn’t register. My receptors had malfunctioned. The vampire put me back on my feet, and they wobbled with the weight, but he wanted me to stand, and for him, I could endure anything.

Mind control wasn’t what I had expected it to be. I was totally there and aware; I knew it was wrong, but I just didn’t care. The vampire’s pupils dilated, swallowing the entirety of his irises before contracting into a pinpoint, trapping me inside. I was mesmerized. The warning in the back of my mind dwindled to a faint echo.

Then something happened. The feel of his control … changed. I could feel him sifting through my thoughts and memories—a tickling-prickling sensation—just as casually as he had been flipping through the magazine earlier. I felt rather than saw him laughing at the comparison inside my head. I heard my inner voice screaming at me to fight back, but I was powerless, fully aware of the violation as he rummaged through my most private memories. I was like a ghost, trailing behind him in a haunted mansion, helpless to stop him as he explored each room—fragments of my life—with detached curiosity.

He saw me as a child, perched on the yellow swing in front of the house, smiling at my mother—a striking blonde in a dark green business suit, her eyes as black as mine. She had just come from work, bearing a gift. I jumped out of the swing and ran to her, hugging her with gratitude and that innocent unconditional love only a child could give so freely. He saw me holding a big teddy bear, felt my joy at the bedtime stories about fairy princesses she read to me.

Images of my life flashed by faster, jigsaw pieces of a childhood long sealed away, kept apart from all the torment and pain that followed and practically destroyed me. Mother taking me to school the first day, the bus that picked me up the very next day, my first-grade teacher, Tommy the boy I used to have a crush on, my best friend Vicky, the trouble we got into together, me falling off a tree I climbed on a dare. Faster and faster, my memories flashed as I grew, and the vampire absorbed everything, relishing my helplessness.

The day the Paranormal Scientists Society came and took me away screaming, while my mother watched helplessly, framed by the front porch while it rained. The first time they threw me in a cell with a rabid wolf. Dr. Maxwell’s angry face the day I spat his concoction back in his face, only to have him inject it into my veins. The indifferent bleep of monitors connected through small plugs all over my chest, as I lay shackled to the cold stainless examination table. Professor Anderson, my so-called tutor during my years in the PSS.

Fear began slowly transforming inside me, growing from a quivering puke-green color … into yellow … into orange … into a seething red. And it wanted to be let go. My fury increased as the vampire delved deeper. I reached inside myself for that mounting anger, trying to seize it, to harness it—and I couldn’t. I tried again, but it remained unreachable, just a hair’s width away. For all the PSS’s claims of me being a super predator, there I was, unable to shield my mind, move my limp arm to punch him, or even twitch in defiance.

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 slowly gaining 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.