Through the Ashes- The Complete Series, page 38
part #1 of Through the Ashes Series
“Do you think somebody lives there? They may not welcome us.” Bells had no intention of forcing her way into someone else’s house.
Hawking rolled his eyes. “Use your senses. I don’t see any sign of life, do you? No, I think this house was taken over by a Pure, then recently abandoned. In another few months, I imagine the glyph itself will break and the illusion will be gone. But like I said, it will hold for the night.”
Jaekob shrugged and headed down the walkway toward the house. “Are you two coming? We need to get off the street, and fast.”
Bells agreed. She certainly wasn’t going to argue the point, though it still made her uncomfortable to break into a house that may have still been claimed by someone.
Jaekob tried the handle and found the door locked. He raised his leg to kick it in.
Bells interrupted him, saying, “No, wait.” She nudged him aside and held her hand over the doorknob, almost touching it but not quite. Yes, it was a simple lock. She wouldn’t even need to pick it with her plant trick.
“Aielistra,” she muttered, and heard a faint click. The knob turned easily and the door swung open. “After you, mighty dragon.”
Jaekob chuckled. “You’re just full of tricks, aren’t you? Thanks, little fae.” He stepped inside and stopped to look around, but Bells’ senses had already told her the building was vacant. After a moment, he seems satisfied of that, too, and stepped aside for the others to come in behind him before closing the door and locking it again.
Once inside, the first thing she noticed was that all the furniture was covered in white sheets. It confirmed that the house was vacant, at least temporarily. There was a fireplace on one wall packed full of firewood and kindling. Of course, they wouldn’t be using the fireplace, but if they had wanted to, they would have had to re-stack that wood off to the side.
There were also a couch and a love seat, as well as one recliner, and covered paintings adorned the wall. Irritatingly, the walls were lime green except for the fireplace wall, which was a deep burgundy.
“Ugly,” she said.
Hawking chuckled. “I’m sorry it’s not up to your standards, Your Majesty,” he said with a grin. “I don’t think we’ll be here long enough for you to have to worry about the decor, though.”
While Jaekob checked every room of the house, Bells sat on the couch. It was remarkably plush and comfortable, drawing out a smile.
Hawking sat on the recliner, pulled the lever to tilt it back and extend the foot rest, and then sighed in satisfaction. “I see what you mean. This will do nicely, yes.”
Bells tilted her head, looking at him. “What about the beds? I’m sure there are bedrooms in this house.”
Hawking shrugged. “I doubt our dragon friend is going to want us split up throughout the house. I think this is going to end up being our bedroom for the night.”
Well, that made sense. As her muscles relaxed from the day’s events, her mind wandered to the things she had seen. The dragons kicking the elf, the elves fighting the were. She tried not to think about what the open call for Jaekob’s capture might mean, though. He would know much better than she just what Darren was up to. Still, had Darren done anything so different from everything else going on out in the streets? Things seemed to be falling apart at every level, from the top to the bottom.
And for the first time, she wondered whether they perhaps deserved it. She had spent her whole life believing that there was good in everyone, and as uncomfortable as it was to consider, maybe she had been wrong. Maybe there was no good left in the world if even dragons had evil in their hearts. Clearly, Darren had.
She looked up as Jaekob came back into the living room from his room check.
He said, “All clear. We should be safe here. I made sure all the doors and windows are locked while I was at it.” He crossed the living room and sat on the couch next to Bells, close enough to be friendly and far enough away that he wasn’t crowding her or pressing her personal space. Ever polite. He smiled at her and then leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
She looked at Hawking, but his eyes were closed and his mouth was open, making a faint noise. She hoped his snoring didn’t get any louder than that, and envied him for being asleep already.
Lost in her own thoughts, she heard Jaekob’s voice but didn’t grasp the words. “What? Sorry, I was just thinking.”
“No problem. What were you thinking about?” He gave her a brief smile.
“Nothing important.” She paused. Was that true? Was it nothing important? Or was it the most important question of all?
Hesitantly, she said, “I’m just thinking about all the people we’ve seen. All the things we’ve seen them do. It’s just depressing, seeing people turning on each other and acting so badly with this crisis facing us. Yet here we are putting our lives on the line to save them.” Her mind whirled, trying to process and understand her thoughts and feelings at the same time she was trying to explain them to him.
“I know what you mean.”
She opened her eyes to look at him. His words had taken her by surprise. “What? I mean, what do you mean by that?”
With his eyes still closed, he replied, “You know that for the most part, I haven’t wanted any part of the war. I wanted us to Rise when the elves penetrated the Wards in Safeholme, but that was for revenge. When my father didn’t get that well-deserved revenge and didn’t let me do it, either, I sort of went back to my original thinking.”
“Which is?” Bells was genuinely interested, although lately, she had found herself interested in just about everything he had to say.
“What is there to fight for? The people? From what I’ve seen, they aren’t worth fighting over. People die in wars, and if my own people are no better than the other guy’s, what’s the point of getting a bunch of people killed?”
Bells pursed her lips. What he said was remarkably similar to what had been going on in her mind, and that was a little depressing. She said, “Is there really any good in this world? I thought we Pures were supposed to be it. We’re supposed to be better than humans.”
Jaekob let a huff of air out through his nose. “Have you forgotten about the Dark Court? They certainly bring no good to the world, even if everything else you said was true.”
“Yeah. But I mean, the real Pures are supposed to be different, right? But I haven’t seen any difference. From what I’ve seen, they aren’t much different than humans.”
Jaekob’s face scrunched up into a scowl. “The ‘real Pures?’ We aren’t like humans. Even the worst of us is better than a human. Have you forgotten they were once like us? But they were Pures with no purity, losing their connection to Creation. What a horrible fate, but they deserved it.”
Bells shrugged. She wasn’t so sure of that. “Did you deserve what Darren did to you? Did Jewels deserve what happened to her?”
Jaekob cracked one eye open to look at her. “Now you sound like you’re defending the hairless monkeys. Well, you always had a much brighter outlook on people than I do. Anyway, I wanted to find those who killed my friend, but even now, I’m struggling to find the anger to stay focused. You might say I’ve lost my motivation.”
His loss of faith was understandable, his loss of the fire in his blood for justice. What justice could there be when people carried so much darkness in their hearts?
She said, “I’m so sorry. None of this is fair.” When she didn’t get a reply, she glanced over and found he had fallen asleep. That sounded like a smart idea. She padded over to the loveseat and lay down, closing her eyes, and began to drift asleep almost immediately. She had a faint hope she was wrong about people and the good outweighed the evil. After all, she was a good person, right? Then again, maybe she was fooling herself.
Maybe all the villains thought they were the good guys.
Bells faced the frenzied werewolf as Jaekob wrestled with it, holding it at bay. Its claws threw sparks against Jaekob’s scales where they struck, his scales flashing in and out of view with each hit. But the were was pushing him back toward her. Its eyes glowed black like liquid pitch. It growled at her, low and faint, “Bells… Bells, come back to us.”
Then she saw another image superimposed over the struggle—Jaekob and Hawking, both standing over her. Jaekob wore a smirk while Hawking rubbed his eyes, one lock of hair in back standing up comically. Gradually, the fight scene faded out and she realized she’d been dreaming.
“Mrf. Hum. What? What’s going on?” she asked, her tongue tripping over itself as the sleep fought to keep its grip on her.
Hawking said, “I got a message from the Society. The contagion has stopped.”
She sat upright, leaning on her elbows and blinking sleep sand from her eyes. “What do you mean, stopped?”
“No one knows why, but the little tendrils that spread it have turned to dust and died away. The masses of vines are still there, but they don’t seem to be contagious. An elf threw a fae onto it to check and she didn’t get infected.”
Her stomach dropped as she imagined what the poor fae must have felt being thrown into certain death to test a theory. “That’s horrible.”
Jaekob nodded. “Yes, you’re right. People are starting to come back out onto the streets, though, and that means we’re more likely to be spotted with every minute that passes. We have to leave right now if we want to have a chance of getting out of Philadelphia.”
That wasn’t what she meant but he had a point. She nodded and rolled off the couch to her feet, running her hands through her hair. She really needed a brush, but then again, none of them looked daisy-fresh at the moment. She tried not to focus her thoughts on her appearance—Jaekob wasn’t the superficial sort anyway. Not that she cared what he thought.
Yeah, right. “Okay, let’s go already. Or would you rather keep staring at my mop?” she asked while tearing her ‘finger comb’ through a knot in her hair.
“Let’s go,” Jaekob and Hawking both said, almost together.
In five minutes, they were out the door. With more people on the roads, their original plan of heading west into the wastelands of the city before turning north made less sense. They split the difference by heading northwest, hoping to avoid most of the Pures as well as any humans.
They hadn’t gone a block before they passed an alley and Bells heard noise from inside. She looked down, squinting her eyes to see better, but then her eyes went wide with disbelief. Five fae had an elf on the ground and were savagely beating him with a stick and what looked like a car antenna. He cried out, “Stop! I’m your foreman, you monsters. I fed you and kept you safe!” The fae laughed, heads back as though it were the funniest thing ever, and kept beating the begging elf.
Jaekob saw what she was looking at and grabbed her arm, dragging her away from the scene. “That’s going to get ugly and you don’t need to see it. Chaos brings out the worst.”
She grudgingly let him drag her away. “Why didn’t you stop it? That’s an elf. Fae can’t do that, right?”
He didn’t reply, just clenched his jaw. Apparently, they could. That was a new thought.
A block later, a vast indie merchant shop came into view as Bells rounded the street corner. Weres, elves, and even fae were climbing into the store through one shattered bay window and then leaving through the other shattered window, always with arms loaded down with loot. The merchant himself was nowhere to be found. Hopefully hiding.
Jaekob let out a low whistle. “I can’t believe they’d risk stealing from an indie merchant. Not worth it.”
Bells nodded. Indies had to be tough as iron to trade between the White King and Black Court, and they were often protected by both sides since they provided a valuable service both sides needed. “I guess it’s hard to deliver punishment to hundreds of random strangers. I hope he’s hiding, not dead.”
Hawking stared at the scene even longer than Bells did. He had his own big shop to worry about, though he was a White King merchant and his store was right on the market quarter, where it would probably be well protected.
She said, “I’m sure your shop is fine, cousin.”
He didn’t reply.
They walked on in silence, and the tension was palpable. She was just as happy not to talk—the doubts she’d had before taking her long nap, about any of this being worth it, were only stronger now.
A part of her realized she didn’t actually care much what happened with the sword, the infection, Darren… None of it seemed important anymore. Ant colonies fighting over a trash can, just following their instincts and pretending it all had some nobler, higher purpose. But they were all just ants.
Even her.
For the rest of the trip to Philadelphia’s outer edge, Jaekob and Hawking tried some half-hearted small talk, but Bells didn’t join in. It was like she’d been hollowed out inside—empty spiritually and emotionally. When she realized she’d have gone home right then and awaited the end with her family if she hadn’t committed herself to this sword nonsense, she suddenly felt lost, as well. Which way was the right way? Normally, she just listened to her heart. Today, it wasn’t telling her what to do and so she just put one foot in front of the other, a robot following the heels of the person in front of her.
They reached the edge a few hours later, where the thick suburbs faded out into half-rural neighborhoods. Bells’ feet hurt, and Hawking’s aura was screaming at her that he was in pain, too. He wasn’t used to the hard work of a farmer or a warrior, so the journey was rough on him. Whether or not the world deserved saving, Hawking was her cousin and he’d been good to her and even stuck his neck way out. He was too proud, perhaps, to ask for a rest break, but Bells wasn’t.
“Jaekob, my legs and feet are killing me” she said. “My back, too, from this pack. I need to stop and rest. I could even catch a nap if we can spare the time now that we’re clear of the city.”
Jaekob didn’t slow down. “No time. Only the sword can stop the chaos going on back there and around the world. Kalvin would never forgive me if I gave up.”
“Kalvin is beyond the Veil, Jaekob. His spirit is waiting in a Spirit Pool for his turn to be reborn.”
“You think you know how it works for dragons?” he snapped, but then his shoulders hunched and he said more softly, “But you’re right. It’s not him I owe, but his memory.”
Hawking winced with each step and said, “I… think the young woman is… right, Jaekob. She could do… with a rest.” He flashed her a faint smile, which turned into another grimace as he walked.
“Fine,” Jaekob said. He didn’t sound irritated, though, but indifferent. “We can shelter in that building over there,” he added, pointing at a nice-looking house. It was almost identical to all the other houses on that long street, the only difference between the various houses being simply the sizes of their yards.
Their spacing told Bells that the houses on the smaller end of the spectrum had one-quarter acre, while the bigger properties were perhaps half an acre. The three of them would be able to see anyone coming from quite a long way away. The house he’d indicated had no lights from candles or lanterns, nor did the houses on either side of it.
“That looks good,” she said and headed toward the house.
Jaekob and Hawking fell into step behind her and then Jaekob scrambled to get in front of her, intent on going in first in case there was any danger inside. It was good to know there were people who cared whether she lived or died.
Jaekob
Jaekob led the way going in and saw that it looked abandoned inside, just as it had from the outside. The old human owner was long gone and no Pures had claimed it. It didn’t even look like a were pack had used it for a den, as the smaller, break-away packs were known to do in abandoned buildings in this part of the city.
“Odd this hasn’t been torn up,” Hawking said, mirroring Jaekob’s thoughts. He looked around the living room, nodding, and said, “Let’s make sure it’s empty before we rack out for some sleep, though. After you, mighty dragon.”
The truth was that Jaekob didn’t actually mind Hawking’s good-natured sarcasm, but it entertained him to make the fae believe it riled him up. It had become kind of a game to see how outrageously irritated he could appear before Hawking looked uncomfortable, but if he saw Hawking smiling, he pretended not to notice the comments.
In a completely deadpan voice, he replied, “Of course. If there are any weres upstairs hiding, it’s best to have a warrior in front.” He paused for only a moment, just long enough to see the edges of Hawking’s lips begin to purse together, then spun and headed upstairs.
Once they got up there, however, he was all business; surprises could be lethal, and he intended to see any threats coming in time to react. They checked each room, Jaekob going in first and Hawking staying by the door to watch his back. If a were was in the room and attacked, the fae would be close enough to join the fight. All in all, they found three regular-sized bedrooms, one master bedroom with its own bathroom, and a large room with couches, a huge television, a pool table, and a bar. He checked the bar for alcohol, but it was empty. The regular sized rooms had normal beds, but the master bedroom had a California King. No doubt about it, the big mattress would be his—rank had its privileges, and he outranked the two fae.
Once they were satisfied the upstairs was clear, he said, “Some of the houses in this area had basements. Let’s see if this had one.”
Hawking nodded. “Good idea. And the older the house, the more likely there will be one. I think these houses are pretty old by human standards.”
As Jaekob headed downstairs he replied, “It was definitely made after the last big human war against the Germans, I think about eighty years ago.”
“I stayed beyond the Veil the last time your people woke up. I haven’t actually been on Earth since the industrial revolution.”
