Heir of Ashes (The Roxanne Fosch Files #1)

Chapter 20

I fell, rolled, skidded, and straightened, only to fall and roll and lurch again. After what felt like an eternity, I lay face down on the rough, rocky ground. Sharp points dug into my flesh, leaving a web of shallow cuts across my face and palms.

My head spun, the world a dizzying blur, and bile rose. I raised my head and narrowly avoided choking on my own vomit, my stomach convulsing. After dry heaving for a minute, the nausea subsided, leaving me weak and disoriented.

I looked around. It was dark, very dark. Even my enhanced vision couldn’t pierce through the blackness. The ground beneath me was rocky and cracked, parched soil that hadn’t seen water in centuries. Jagged rocks, some as sharp as needles, jutted up from the desolate soil. I glanced up and found myself facing a pair of shiny black shoes. My gaze traveled up and up until it rested on Dr. Dean. His attention was focused on the distance, and I followed his gaze, seeing nothing but the vast empty dark.

“You finished that disgusting thing. Good,” he said, startling me. His voice didn’t echo or resonate, telling me we weren’t in a cave.

How long had I been out? Back at the Hilton, it had been late afternoon. Here, wherever here was, it was night, so I had been unconscious for at least a few hours. Dr. Dean grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet. “Stay still,” he commanded, unaware the spell’s hold on me had faded. I wiggled my toes and closed my fist. Yes, I had full control of my limbs again. I remained in the position he left me, facing ahead, and searched the area with only my eyes. There was nothing but cracked soil and more rocks. No sounds of traffic, animals, or birds. It was a quiet that made my skin crawl.

Being helpless with Dr. Dean was bad enough. Being helpless in an unknown hostile environment with him was worse. The silence was oppressive, the cold unnerving. There were no lights on the horizon, no stars in the sky, no activity of nocturnal animals. I couldn’t see farther than twenty feet ahead, and what I could see told me there was nothing.

Nothing but Dr. Dean beside me. He reached into his pocket and flicked on a small penlight, the narrow beam cutting through the darkness ahead.

“We will be moving straight for now.” He gave me a not-so-gentle tug. Every few minutes, he’d check his watch, and sweep the light around. The scuffling of our feet and our breathing were deafening in the silence.

Eventually, faint noises began to emerge from the darkness, growing louder with each step. We were no longer alone. But whatever was making those scuffling noises was purposefully avoiding Dr. Dean’s penlight, never revealing itself. Once, a small shadow flitted near the light’s edge, about the size of a cat, followed by a second one.

What were they? Foxes? Hyenas? A mob of meerkats? Did we even have meerkats in America? Beside me, Dr. Dean seemed oblivious. Ten minutes later, I was certain we were being stalked. The noises continued, but whatever it was stayed far enough from the light, never crossing our path. My eyes strained to see, but they were elusive things, darting away as soon as the beam drew near.

“Don’t mind these little creatures,” Dr. Dean said, catching the direction of my gaze. “They’re fascinating. Although they’re viciously carnivorous with an insatiable appetite, in some ways, they’re as harmless as teacup poodles—provided you’re on the other side of the fence.” He chuckled. “Of course, once you try to pet one of them, that’s where the resemblance ends. Then you’re as good as a bleeding cow in a shark tank.”

Dr. Dean chuckled again, but there was an edge to his voice, a nervousness that betrayed his calm facade. “We learned this the hard way. One of our scientists, Dr. Jenkins—you remember him? No? Well, he thought they were harmless, and tried to study one up close. Didn’t end well for him. All we got from his experiment were some disturbing footage. No other scientists volunteered for the next experiment,” he continued in a monotone, “no matter how much we raised the bonus fee.”

He seemed to have finally realized he was babbling and shut up.

It was startling how much we took white noise for granted. Even in the most remote places, there would always be background noises: rustling leaves, busy insects, babbling brooks, the murmuring of wind. But here, there was nothing. No buzzing of electricity, no faint music, no traffic—nothing. It was as if the world had been swallowed by a void, leaving only Dr. Dean, our stalkers, and me.

Dr. Dean checked the time again, his fear like acid in the air. I could sense it pulsing off him in waves. He was waiting for something, dreading it, and that fear escalated with each passing moment. Maybe that’s how I would kill him: slowly suck the life out of him. Though the idea of draining Dr. Dean’s life was a disgusting concept. Still, I needed to know where I was before I did anything. I kept searching, trying to catch sight of a familiar landmark, anything that would help me identify my location or point me toward the nearest civilization.

Suddenly, Dr. Dean stopped, leaving me to walk a few paces before halting me with a hand on my elbow. “Where are my manners? I bet this is your first trip to the Low Lands.” Then he grabbed both my arms and turned me around.

An involuntary gasp escaped my mouth. What I saw squeezed all the breath from my lungs. My heart pounded, my knees buckled, and blood roared in my ears.

This was not possible. It couldn’t be real. Had they given me a hallucinogen in that spell? Even so, hadn’t it worn off already?

On the horizon, against the dark, starless sky, hung a cluster of planets—planets that didn’t belong in the solar system. They orbited each other, but I couldn’t see a sun. They glowed with an internal light, radiating an eerie, multicolored shine. Some were lit from within, radiant as if filled with liquid fire, while others were shrouded in swirling clouds. Some planets were so distant they were mere pinpricks, while the closest appeared as large as a soccer ball and looked like a rainbow had exploded inside it. The colors were unlike anything I’d ever seen, vibrant hues that I suspected didn’t exist in our spectrum, some so strange that they defined description.

It was surreal, to say the least. It felt like standing on the moon, peering through enhanced goggles into another dimension. The sight was indescribably beautiful, a spectacle that transcended words. In the pit of my stomach, a chilling realization hit: I was in a strange world … trapped with Dr. Dean.

We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

The scuffling around us took on a new meaning, and when one of the creatures ventured just a few feet closer, I reacted on instinct, jerking away. Dr. Dean laughed. “Don’t worry, my dear. Unless you come into physical contact with one, they can’t harm you.” He let me look for a second more, then turned me in the opposite direction, towards the darkness again, still unaware—or uncaring—that I had moved voluntarily. The fact that my shoulders were tense didn’t faze him either. Why would it? I had no idea where I was or how to escape.

We trudged through the barren land for what felt like days before there was a change in the landscape. The beam of Dr. Dean’s miniature penlight illuminated small slopes and black twigs and branches that clung to my pants and scratched my skin. My green blouse offered little protection against the biting cold, and each step sent fresh waves of pain through my blistered feet. I was so thirsty and hungry that my stomach kept gurgling pitifully.

As we pressed on, we began seeing more dead branches, until we entered a forest of lifeless trees.

I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to this land. The landscape might have shifted, but the silence around us remained the same, broken only by the scuffling and the scratch of rocks beneath our feet, and the sounds of the creatures behind us.

We stopped at the edge of the forest sometime later, and Dr. Dean checked his watch again.

“… Too long,” he muttered under his breath. He turned to me and said, “You’re awfully quiet. I know the spell wore off a long time ago. You don’t need to pretend. We should talk.” He waved a hand. “Time goes by faster when you have something to do.” He leaned closer, his eyes gleaming. “Unless you have something more productive than talking in mind?”

“Come near me, and this time I’ll kill you with my bare hands,” I threatened, and he laughed.

“My dear, haven’t you noticed there’s nothing here? If you kill me, you lose your only ticket back.”

“Ah, but it would be worth it. Every last breath.” I put on the cold, deranged smile I had practiced many times back in the PSS.

“You know,” he continued in a conversational tone, choosing to ignore my threat as if it were only empty words, “you would have ended up here today anyway.”

That caught my attention. I knew he was baiting me, but I couldn’t resist. “Why? What’s here?”

“A rendezvous point.”

I glanced at the barren land dubiously. “Who are we meeting?”

There was a smile in Dr. Dean’s voice when he answered, “Your new owner.”

A stunned silence followed. “My new … owner? You sold me?”

“I exchanged you. Sold is such an ugly word. It implies slavery, which I’m not fond of.”

“Exchanged me?” I repeated dumbly. “For what?”

Dr. Dean rubbed his hands together. “I got one of the most dangerous of the Rejected—one of the oldest Dhiultadh still alive today.”

Rejected. Dhiultadh. There were those words again.

I had no idea what he was talking about. General Parkinson had mentioned the Rejected before—but if I was one of them, then I really was the reject of the Rejected, because I had never heard of them.

“But why?” I asked, unsure of which part my question was addressing.

Dr. Dean seemed to have no such confusion. He leaned forward conspiratorially, his face alight with maniacal glee. Something foreign and inhuman darkened his expression. What was that black ring in his aura?

“Let me tell you a secret. When the PSS gained custody of you, there were some stipulations attached to the agreement. You were underage at the time. One of them, Clause 18 Paragraph 1, stated that ‘upon reaching her maturity at the age of twenty-one,’” he quoted, clearly reciting from memory, “‘and if the subject is found competent and capable, the subject is to be released from the custody of the guardians, free of any obligation toward the facility, free to pursue a normal life.’”

“Unless,” he continued, “’a third party intervened, preventing our research from reaching a conclusion, or if you proved to be too unstable or dangerous to be left free among mankind.” He leaned back, his eyes gleaming. “For, you see, we were also a disciplinary facility. An obedience school with benefits. Ah, I see Mommy Dearest never told you about that, but you shouldn’t blame her. Keeping these stipulations a secret from you was actually one of the clauses in the contract. You were not meant to know, lest you behave only to get free and unleash your true self upon mankind.” He snickered when he finished, obviously enjoying himself.

All I could do was stare at him in stunned disbelief. For a long time, my mind was a blank void. Then, very softly and quietly, I said, “I’ve been free all this time? All along, I have been hunted like a rabid animal, and I’ve been free?”

Dr. Dean laughed, slapping his hands together as if I had just told him the most hilarious joke. “Not at all. You see, Clause 23 (a) Paragraph 6 states that if there is any intervention preventing the PSS from conducting its research to its fullest capacity, then for each month the intervention occurs, there’s a three-month compensation penalty.”

“I was less than a month shy of twenty-one when I escaped,” I pointed out. “So, all you have is about two months and change.” Could I endure two more months of torture without breaking?

Dr. Dean grinned. “Not at all, my dear. The minute you left, the adult-age freedom clause was null. All that counted was that for each month you were away, a three-month penalty was added to your sentence.”

He spoke as if I were a convict who had committed an unforgivable felony. I never thought I could hate Dr. Dean more than I already did, but in that moment, I loathed him with every fiber of my being. It was such an intense emotion that my soul shook with its force.

You should never have left the Scientists before your time … Wasn’t that what Elizabeth had told me?

I quickly counted the months I had been away and calculated. I had been away from the PSS for about a year and seven months. Multiplying that by three, the result was … fifty-seven months more.

Almost five years.

“Did you—did you help me escape?” I asked slowly. “To prolong this penalty time, or were you just watching me interact with ordinary humans?”

“Oh, we were watching,” he said, his voice tinged with sadistic pleasure. “We watched every step. I particularly enjoyed how you handled the mage. Dr. Maxwell was also very excited about that, but he was fascinated by the vampire mind control. It was a factor Dr. Maxwell had never considered before. He wanted to keep sending more and more mercenaries after you, but I held him back as much as I could. Partly to prolong the penalty, partly because you were becoming a very costly project, and I was under pressure from funding.”

“What changed?” Because something definitely had. The last few weeks felt like a marathon for my life. I had yet to catch my breath.

Dr. Dean’s eyes shone with something—greed? “About five weeks ago, this gentleman approached me and made a very tempting offer. He would provide me with one of your kind—one that is not a mixed breed like you, but the real deal. In exchange, I deliver you to him. I must admit,” he confessed, his sincerity as wrong as daylight at midnight, “I was worried when you discovered the tracker and we couldn’t tell your whereabouts.” He tsked at me as if I were a naughty child. “But all we had to do was watch the Whitmore woman and, eventually, you were bound to come. It’s a shame though that General Parkinson couldn’t hold up his end of the deal. His ineptitude will be detailed in a long letter to his superiors.”

“So now what? I go with this so-called gentleman, to where? What will you tell your donors happened to me? Surely, they will be curious.”

Dr. Dean spread his arms wide. “Well, if I return and report that you’ve met a drastic and fatal end, what can they say? Especially when something bigger, meaner, and more dangerous is under their microscope, ready to replace you?”

Shock sank its icy claws into my flesh as the meaning of his words fully registered. “No one will believe you.” But even I wasn’t entirely convinced of my words.

“Why not? Who’s going to dispute it? Your assassin friend, the one who murdered five government officials in broad daylight? I don’t think so. They’ll believe me. Trust me on that.”

He checked his watch again and scanned the land around us. The creatures had stopped about ten feet away—at least half a dozen silhouettes.

Dr. Dean caught me glancing at them and chuckled. I promised myself I’d smash my fist into his mouth if he made that infuriating noise again.

“It’s almost time now. Don’t worry about these creatures. As I said, if you don’t touch one, it won’t harm you.” He finished by pointing his penlight at the nearest one.

I was wrong. It wasn’t as big as a cat. No, it was bigger, maybe the size of a small child. That was where the resemblance ended, though I had no right to compare the two. Its head was round, with pointed ears like arrowheads. Dark, shell-shaped eyes peered out from a face that was more a mask of bones than flesh, with nothing but two dark holes for a nose. Its lips were too thin and stretched wide. Its body was emaciated, the skin stretched taut over its skeletal frame, gray and yellow under Dr. Dean’s light. It crouched low, its knees drawn up to its chest. Its tail twitched, circling around its body and then unwinding back. Two small wings jutted from the middle of its back, far too small to support flight. It held its hands together as if nervously fidgeting—or awaiting an exciting event. The creature snarled—or smiled—its mouth stretching from ear-to-ear, showcasing an array of razor-sharp teeth. Dr. Dean quickly moved the light away, betraying how much the creature unnerved him.

“They’re harmless,” came the low, nasal voice from behind us.

We both jumped, startled at the figure who appeared—literally—out of thin air only a few feet away.

***

If Remo Drammen had terrified me when I first met him back in Vegas, he petrified me even more now, in this land of death and darkness.

It was an ancient, primal fear, the kind that once drove our ancestors to cower in caves, passing down tales that would later be recorded in religious books. It was a feeling deep within my soul, in a place fear had never touched before. It was an unreasonable fear, given that the guy was just standing there doing nothing threatening, especially dressed in a ridiculous electric-blue suit and round plastic-rimmed glasses. He looked like the eccentric town character everyone gossiped about, a harmless recluse who preferred to keep to himself.

He was anything but harmless. He was one of the most dangerous beings I had the misfortune of meeting.

The guy didn’t have an aura, for crying out loud. One couldn’t even meet his gaze without looking away. And the power he exuded … I had never felt anything like it from any one person before.

And look at that. For all the hours I had spent in this dreadful land, darkness had reigned. Now there was about a fifty-foot radius of illumination around him. He wasn’t holding anything to produce the light; it just was. The creatures that had been stalking us were now visible in stark detail, exactly as Dr. Dean’s penlight had shown.

There were about ten of them, one as close as an arm’s span behind Remo Drammen.

“They’re harmless,” Remo repeated reassuringly. “Until you get one to owe you a favor, they’re just annoying little pests. After that, they can be quite useful.” He then turned his attention to Dr. Dean, his expression flat, his tone lacking any inflection. “You weren’t supposed to bring anyone here. Your pass allowed for your travel through the paths alone. You were to secure her and come alone for us to conclude our bargain.”

Dr. Dean looked ill. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to disobey. I ran into some trouble, and it was either bring her or leave her behind. She’s a very elusive creature.” He gave a nervous laugh that abruptly cut off when Remo didn’t share his amusement.

“You are such an ignorant fool. You could have killed her in the Leeway.” Remo Drammen gave a resigned, nasal sigh as if he suffered ignorant fools every day. “I suppose I should thank you. At least now I won’t have to deal with you again.”

It was at that moment that I realized Remo Drammen was my buyer. “But you … you tried to kill me. You sent guardians after me.” I didn’t mean to sound indignant, but it came out that way nonetheless.

Remo’s gaze sharpened with interest. “You fought guardians, eh? And yet you’re here, alive and in one piece.” He gave me a calculating look, but I couldn’t hold it for more than two seconds. One, two, and my eyes looked away. “That reinforces my belief about your value.” He regarded me with clinical detachment, as if I were a horse he was considering buying.

Dread, deep and powerful, began gnawing at the pit of my stomach, quickening the beat of my heart and narrowing my vision. I had been sold like an animal to the most powerful black sorcerer on earth—probably the most powerful in all the worlds and dimensions combined.

Dr. Dean shifted beside me, and I focused on him. “You made a deal with a black sorcerer.” For some reason, this realization shocked me. Maybe it was because, despite everything, Dr. Dean was a researcher, someone handling the balance of the ordinary and the extraordinary. But here he was … with a black ring around his once plain blue aura, making a deal with the devil. I should have figured it out the moment I’d noticed the darkness in his aura, not that it would have made any difference.

“Absolutely,” he said without an ounce of shame. “And I’ll come out the winner. Mr. Drammen and I are both satisfied with the result, and no one will be the wiser. I’ve acquired a new addition to my dangerous species collection, rid myself of you, renewed a lucrative contract with ample funding, and come out on top.”

A sudden realization struck me like a sledgehammer. “You’re talking about Archer. Oh my God. You’re talking about Archer,” I repeated in disbelief.

“But of course. Mr. Drammen and Mr. Archer have been bitter rivals for a very long time. He has removed his arch-nemesis from the equation while acquiring a very beautiful, talented, and clever woman in the process. So, you see, we’re both winners here.”

Archer was a Rejected. I was a Rejected. And Logan had known what I was all along. If not from the beginning, then ever since I told him who my father was. I recalled Logan mentioning crossing paths with Remo Drammen before. Of course he did. Archer had been Logan’s mentor. Remo Drammen and Archer were enemies.

Was that what the unspoken question between Rafael and Logan had been about—the type of preternatural I was?

I’m Remo Drammen’s new toy. All those jumbled thoughts raced through my mind in a flash.

Unmoved, Remo Drammen stood, fingers laced together, just a few inches away from one of those nasty creatures. Maybe they were his pets.

“Why? Why do you want me?” I asked.

Remo’s gaze shifted from Dr. Dean back to me, and his expression was terrifying. My heart stumbled in its rhythm, leaving me light-headed. If I passed out now, I would never wake up again. Or sane, or my old self, at least. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to calm down.

Remo Drammen watched me, a fleeting glance showing his dark eyes gleaming with anticipation, the expression more frightening for its authenticity. A predator pleased with its prey.

I fixed my gaze on the bridge of his nose, stealing a few glances at his pitiless eyes. “Why?” I repeated.

“You’re very valuable, Poppet. Don’t undermine yourself. I need a disciple to teach my knowledge, and you are the best candidate. You’re untried, with untapped power you don’t even know you possess.” He cast Dr. Dean a sideways glance, a little awkward due to the height difference, and continued. “Eliminating Gerome Archer was the only way we could proceed uninterrupted. He wouldn’t have allowed this to happen. I will regret not having him on the field, providing me with exciting challenges. He’s a very formidable foe.” He sighed, his expression resigned as if he genuinely regretted it. Maybe in his own twisted way, he did. “I thought he would eventually bring down the facility, or at least that his people would come after him, but I’m afraid those fools will break him before then. It’s true that nothing is perfect.”

Dr. Dean shifted and cleared his throat. “Will you require anything else?”

“No. Our business is finished. You may go.”

Relief flickered in Dr. Dean’s eyes. He had been expecting Remo Drammen to double-cross him. The creature behind Remo stretched its legs and yawned, displaying its sharp teeth. Its wings beat, emitting a loud buzzing noise, but it didn’t leave the ground. Remo Drammen didn’t even twitch. Dr. Dean, on the other hand, saw this and quickly looked away.

“Behave,” he said to me, winked, and began to walk away.

That’s when I finally snapped. My already simmering blood boiled like hot mercury. This man had destroyed the better part of my life, inflicting both mental and physical agony, and now he was handing me over to a man who was more of a monster than he ever was, all but whistling as he got away. I didn’t think. I acted—driven by anger, anguish, and despair.

I seized his arm, whirled him around, and twisted it high up his back in one fluid motion, his limp fingers nearly reaching the back of his neck. When he cried out and began to lower himself to ease the pain, I thrust him with all my strength at Remo Drammen, who had just stood there watching. They collided like a bowling ball on a tenpin, crashing hard and falling—right on top of the little creature.

It let out a shriek of outrage—or joy—and from nowhere appeared a dozen more, hurtling toward Remo Drammen and Dr. Dean. They tore at the two with teeth and claws, their high-pitched shrieks forming a discordant chorus against Dr. Dean and Remo Drammen’s screams of pain. Blood flowed everywhere, but no piece of flesh was misplaced.

It was gut-churning. Bile kept rising in my throat, and I kept swallowing it back, caught in a dance between reflexive instinct and fear that I might accidentally touch a creature. I backed away slowly, horrified at the scene unfolding less than ten feet in front of me, careful not to bump into or step on one of the many creatures. There seemed to be dozens, with more arriving every second. None touched me, but they came close enough that I had to press my arms against my body to avoid accidental contact. Only when I was sure I had put enough distance between me and the chaos did I allow myself to turn and flee, moving as quickly as I could with a limited view of the land.