Remnants of Ash (Reign of Fae Book 1) Read online

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “An entire coven’s version of slamming the proverbial door shut.” Bram clenched his jaw.

  “The entire coven? It, it only took two of them to open the Spree Mirror. Please, don’t tell me that means…?” But Chloe knew what it meant.

  “There’s no way back in. We’re on our own,” he said coolly.

  “Shit.” Chloe turned back to the mob outside. The group must have spotted their silhouettes when the Spree’s light flashed, or, perhaps, they’d heard the buzzing when its door snapped shut. Several flashlights were aimed in their direction, and most of the mob was headed straight towards them.

  “Tuck the pendant away, would you?” Bram asked in a rush. With his back still to the group, he quickly manipulated the air in front of him. His pointed ears and armor faded.

  Chloe had the distinct impression he was putting a glamour on, not taking one off. She did as he asked and hid the pendant underneath her jacket. As the group entered the market, she tried to swallow the lump stuck in her throat.

  “Are you two alright?” asked a large man armed with an axe.

  “Us?” Chloe was caught off guard by the apparent leader’s sympathetic question. She had run out of the Spree, fully prepared to try and save a young life, not realizing she had just put all their lives in danger instead. Several of the leader’s men flanked him on both sides as they assessed their surroundings. But more importantly, they also appeared to be studying Chloe and Bram’s threat level as well. Bram had been right. Shit! Think, Chloe; think. Fast! she thought to herself. They were all carrying multiple weapons. Most had handguns, large knives, or makeshift bludgeoning weapons; but it was the baseball bat the woman cradling the young girl gripped Chloe was admiring. A sheathed knife was wrapped around the handle. Wrapped above that was a flashlight illuminating the fat end of the bat, which had been carved into a point. Nice! she thought to herself.

  Chloe quickly realized she would have to do most of the talking. Bram couldn’t lie to them, and with the group, it seemed like the only good fae was a dead fae, no matter their intentions. Chloe shuddered. Now that the group knew how to kill scabs, she wondered what gruesome fate awaited the higher castes of fae at their hands. “Us?” Chloe started again changing the subject and the mob’s focus. “Are you guys alright? We heard screams.” She gestured to the young girl still clinging the woman with the bat. “What happened?”

  “Bloodsuckers rushed our building during the storm.” The leader paused for a minute. Lightning in the dark clouds behind him flashed. “We’re all that made it out.”

  Chloe took a closer look at the mob. It looked like the group had only enough time to grab their weapons and flee with the clothes on their backs. Many weren’t even wearing jackets. Some didn’t even have shoes on. No wonder Bram had mistaken them for a mob set on vengeance. They had no food, no supplies, and, now, no home. The thunder and lightning in the sky threatened again, and Chloe wondered what massive weather pattern the fae would set upon them next.

  “Aunt Gemma, my mo…?”

  “I know, munchkin; I know.” Gemma’s voice was strong and reassuring. “Shh, I’ve got you.” The young girl hugged her aunt even tighter, burying her head as thunder roared above them. Gemma turned away from her niece as tears streamed down her face. She was determined to stay strong for the girl. It broke Chloe’s heart. The young girl shouldn’t have to worry, wondering whether her mom was still alive or where she would find shelter as another deadly storm loomed over them. The thought filled Chloe with a rage she could barely contain.

  Bram’s bladeless sword, strapped to her thigh, seemed to purr in delight at her rage, almost welcoming it as nourishment. If it coveted her meager human anger, she wondered what the sword could do in the hands of a powerful fae.

  Chloe tried to calm herself instead of giving in to such thoughts. Focusing on something else, anything else, she took a deep breath. She could smell the familiar scent of ions in the air, which helped to soothe her building anger. She knew Seattle's weather far too well. The unusual lightning storm looming over them hadn’t been created by the fae. This one was all Mother Nature. The crispness was almost invigorating, washing away her cloud of rage, and she suddenly had a thought.

  Jessica! Bram’s neighbor. They could fight and survive together! Jessica had the fortified shelters and supplies, and the new group had the numbers and the weapons. Chloe turned to Bram with a hopeful look in her eye. She wondered if he could see her plea behind the Famke glamour.

  Bram nodded his agreement. He had.

  Chloe turned back to the group as she pulled something from her pocket. At the time, she’d thought it silly to place it with the weapons she had stowed, but had done so anyway. She had never been so thankful to be a student in all her life than at that very minute, since she took a Sharpie everywhere she went and the one she’d stowed away just happened to be pink. She bent down to talk to the young girl. “Do you like butterflies?” she asked.

  The young girl nodded.

  Chloe quickly drew a tiny butterfly on her own hand. “Want one?”

  The young girl nodded again, still clinging to her aunt. Gemma smiled.

  Chloe drew a butterfly on the girl’s hand to match her own adding Jessica’s address below. “You’ll be safe here,” she said, as she drew the antennae of the butterfly, adding hearts to the tips. “And, there’s a little girl there named Sophie that I know would love to play with you.” Chloe held out the pink marker to her. “Will you give Sophie a butterfly for me? My name’s Chloe. Tell her Peter Bram sent you, just like Peter Pan; k?”

  The girl nodded again. “Peter Bram and Chloe,” she repeated, taking the marker.

  “You’ll be tempted to walk closer to the buildings where there’s shelter. Don’t. Stay to the middle of the streets until you get there.” Bram looked at their leader. “They don’t like the rain.” His tone demanded compliance.

  Their leader glanced at the brass-knuckle handle of Chloe’s silver trench spike still tied into her jacket before nodding at Bram. He wisely decided not to question Bram and his unusual knowledge about the bloodsuckers. It was obvious he wanted to stay and ask what they were really doing, learn more about their common enemy –and their weaknesses, but keeping his displaced group safe took priority. He was ready to be on the move and started giving his men directions to Jessica’s shelter as they made plans to head out.

  “Come with us,” Gemma said, still holding tight to her niece.

  Their leader stopped, curious as to Bram and Chloe’s response and why they were staying behind.

  Bram remained stoic. To Chloe, his silence was a glaring beacon of deceit, hiding the reality that Bram, too, was one of the things they should fear.

  “We’re on a supply run with two others. We won’t be far behind you.” Thunder cracked in the sky at Chloe’s lie.

  “Best take advantage of the weather,” Bram said, glancing to the young girl before locking eyes with their leader.

  “Agreed,” the burly man said back.

  Neither of the men had said it out loud, but Chloe got the feeling they were acknowledging the young girl to be a tasty treat the scabs wouldn’t be able to resist for long. She shivered at the thought.

  The group started to walk away, but Gemma lingered and took Chloe’s hand. “Thank you,” she said and squeezed hard. Her gratitude was almost palpable.

  Chloe reached into another of her pockets. She handed Gemma a silver dagger and casually pointed at her own heart.

  Gemma nodded. “See you soon.”

  “See you soon,” Chloe said. She hoped it would be true.

  The group faded far into the darkness before Chloe let out her breath. She wished it would just start pouring rain already to keep the young girl safe. She caught Bram giving her a solemn smile as more lightning illuminated the thick clouds above them.

  “What?” she asked in a defensive tone as a few raindrops fell.

  “I just realized that hu
mans do have magical powers after all. I never knew you could lie so convincingly until now.” Bram tried to lighten the mood, teasing her. “You even had me fooled in Hadley’s office when you said you didn’t know where his journal was.”

  “I’ll trade you,” Chloe scoffed. “Any one of your magical powers in exchange for my ability to bullshit.”

  “It’s more than that. You always try and do the right thing. You’re a good person, Chloe, better than I could ever hope to be,” he stated.

  “Well, you didn’t slaughter any humans, so there’s that.” She looked at the traces of dust coating the street. It was all that remained of the two scabs who had chased down the young girl before they’d met their ends instead. Was that humanity’s fate, to simply disappear? To become nothing more than remnants of ash and fade into oblivion? Forgotten? ‘I don’t want to hurt them, Chloe, but I will, if I have to.’ Bram’s warning kept repeating inside her mind and sent a shiver down her spine.

  “Why can’t you hold your sword, Bram? Does it turn you into a monster like them?” Chloe asked, pointing to the dust as it dissolved into the few rain droplets that teased at a storm. The mixture ran down the cracks in the street.

  “A monster?” he shrugged. “Perhaps. One of them? No.”

  “When I held it, Mary didn’t say it liked me; she said he.”

  “He has good taste,” Bram evaded.

  “What is he to you?”

  “Part of me. The part I left behind long ago. The part I can’t be, here with you. I won’t.” He said the last words as if they were a promise to himself.

  “Why not?”

  “Why would you ask that of me?” He seemed horrified by her question.

  “I don’t even know what I’m asking. You won’t tell me anything! I thought fae couldn’t lie?”

  “We can’t,” he admitted.

  “Why don’t I believe you?” Chloe began walking towards the dock.

  Bram followed her. “Ask a vague question, and I can choose how to answer.”

  “So, humans got the raw end of the deal all the way around.” She huffed. “Apparently, you can bullshit just like the rest of us!”

  “Where’s this coming from? What’s the problem?”

  “Your species is the problem!”

  “Male?”

  “Stop trying to be cute and answer me!”

  “Then ask the right questions!” He yelled unexpectedly, seeming to almost be pleading with her.

  “If you can’t, or won’t, be some powerful thing that we obviously need right now, then what the hell are we even doing here? Why did we come here for a sword you can’t even touch?” The prospect of having to greet any more packs of scabs made her nauseous, but the idea of killing their way to the dock was even less appealing after watching Gemma’s group butcher the last two. The Spree had been an oasis of serenity. She had even forgotten about the apocalyptic world outside, if only for a moment. Chloe resented Bram for showing her something so beautiful that she could never even hope to be a part of. And now it was gone to them forever because of her stupid recklessness.

  “For you!” Bram shouted a little too loudly. “I did it for you.”

  “What?” Chloe stopped walking. She’d been caught off guard.

  He walked towards her slowly, seeming to calm himself.

  “Scabs are harmless compared to the true evil that’s coming. The royals are unstoppable, indestructible evil that you are hell bent on blindly running towards without any regard for your own preservation.”

  She huffed in defiance. His reminder of their current lack of transportation, due to her decision to run out of the Spree, stung.

  “By the Gods, help me! But I admire that damn fearlessness in you!”

  Chloe was taken aback.

  “These weapons,” he said pointing to her favored silver spike, “are nothing more than cheap plastic toys against that evil.” He stopped right in front of her. His eyes fell on hers, and his anger seemed to melt in the small space between them.

  They were so close. Her heart started beating faster.

  “I knew he would protect you because I will always protect you. All of this is for you. Don’t you see?” His tone softened. “Because I’m an idiot who’d rather tempt a Spree Witch, and her very real threat of eternal damnation, than to ever see you harmed if I can stop it. Because I’m misguided, to even think I’m a match against three royals. But you asked, so I have to try.” Their lips were so close now. “Because I’m a fool, to think the bravest, most selfless human I’ve ever met could ever accept me, a monster. And yet, I stay. For you.”

  Chloe knew he wanted to kiss her. But, he didn’t. He brushed her cheek softly, instead, before twisting a lock of her dark glamoured hair between his fingers. He let it fall, almost as if the glamour she still wore were repugnant, conflicting with what he was feeling. Maybe he truly believed he was a monster, or worse yet, he believed she thought him one.

  “I care what happens to you, dammit. Because I care...for you, Chloe. Can’t you see that?” Bram asked. He didn’t wait for her response to his admission. Waving his hand over her once, he put her glamour back in place along with a shield from the impending storm. As he walked away, down towards the docks, thunder cracked one last time before the rains finally came flooding down.

  Chloe’s head was spinning. Too many emotions, too many questions. She didn’t know which end was up anymore, let alone how she felt about Bram amidst all the chaos. The heart-stone’s faint double-pulse around her neck beat in opposite cadence to her own heart as Bram walked away. The pommel of the bladeless sword attached to her thigh seemed to softly whimper, like a puppy whose master was leaving him behind, growing louder the farther Bram travelled. All of it seemed to reiterate the one thing she had to know. The one thing that had been niggling at the back of her mind from the very beginning of all the madness surrounding them. The one thing she had to hear him say out loud.

  Chloe pursed her lips and yelled after him. “Bram, I need to know. Are you one of them?” His possessions stopped thrumming against her skin, and all sound seemed to stop. Even the downpour was silent as she asked him point blank, “Are you a royal?”

  Bram stopped walking but didn’t turn around. He simply turned his head to the side briefly. Rain streamed down his face, and the amber-tinged sky gave his skin an eerie glow. It served as a chilling reminder that he wasn’t human. He seemed to have chosen not to have his glamour shield him from the weather, almost as if the rain from the heavens were baptismal and cathartic somehow. He started walking away again before he answered. “Yes.”

  8

  Ships That Pass in the Night

  They walked in silence the rest of the way to Coleman Dock, which suited Chloe for the moment. She was still trying to process the fact that Bram was a royal. Her flimsy hope Bram was a clever fae rogue who’d somehow lifted a royal pendant had been washed away by the rain.

  Thankfully, the constant downpour had kept the scabs away. She wasn’t sure if her sanity could take any more tributes from them. Unfortunately, it had done nothing to aid the scorched sky. Chloe should have known it wouldn’t be that easy to affect the fae’s spell, but, Mother Nature’s shower was a promise of hope. If it could still rain, the sun could still shine somehow, and things could still grow. Life would go on. The prospect gave her hope to cling to.

  She looked back at her beloved city as they reached the shore. Even under the darkened sky, she could see the scope of the devastation the fae had caused. Countless buildings were still burning from the initial lightning strikes, others were reduced to mounds of rubble. The Space Needle looked like a broken twig that had been snapped in half.

  “Shit!” Bram said.

  Startled, Chloe turned back around and walked right into Bram. He was a solid, unmovable mass who seemed to be staring down a threat. Without even thinking, she released Bram’s sword from its sheath. With a metallic shink the blade emerged. Ready for battle, the sword caught fire and illuminated thei
r surroundings. Chloe looked passed the rows of empty cars lined up waiting to board the ferry, now abandoned. She didn’t see any signs of movement or lurking scabs.

  “Shit! Put that away,” Bram said in a hushed voice.

  “What is it?”

  “Everything’s okay. It’s just,” he said in a more relaxed tone, “I looked down every damn street trying to find a motorcycle, hoping to spare you from the scabs, and this is where we finally find one? On a big old ferry bound for Bremerton.”

  Chloe looked farther out into Puget Sound. There were only a few other boats in the area, but they were either floating out of the sound unmanned and too far to reach, or sinking. But the super-class ferry, the MV Kaleetan, was still perfectly intact, moored to the dock empty of all 1800 passengers and 140-plus vehicles, save for one lone motorcycle. The vintage looking cruiser was parked in the middle of the ferry’s flat boarding platform like it was being framed by the hull for a photo shoot. “It figures.” Chloe shrugged.

  “Yeah, it does,” Bram agreed.

  “She’s all yours!” shouted a man’s voice from somewhere aboard the ferry.

  Chloe looked around for the source of the voice as she put the sword handle away. Bram tried, casually, to alter their glamours to more human features without drawing more attention to themselves.

  “Name’s Laszlo, and I won’t be a bother. What you are is none of my business. Seems like my odds of getting to Bremerton might increase from a trade with you folks is all.”

  “Shit,” Bram hissed. The hidden Laszlo had obviously been watching and listening ever since Chloe had wielded a sword whose blade magically appeared and caught fire.

  Laszlo came out of the shadows on the ferry’s platform and stood next to the motorcycle. He put his hands up in the air in surrender. “Just want to get back to my wife is all.”