Fire And Ash Read online

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One - The Ritual

  Chapter Two - Jackass

  Chapter Three - Balance

  Chapter Four - A Three?!

  Chapter Five - Kick 'Em When They're Down

  Chapter Six - Blood Vow

  Chapter Seven - He's Not A Boy

  Chapter Eight - Chicken Noodle Soup

  Chapter Nine - Hell Freezes Over

  Chapter Ten - Fight Fire With Fire

  Chapter Eleven - Liars Go To Hell

  Chapter Twelve - Thank You Ash

  Chapter Thirteen - Fireworks

  Chapter Fourteen - More Monster or More Human?

  Chapter Fifteen - Homecoming

  Chapter Sixteen - Instincts

  Chapter Seventeen - Spirit Walk

  Chapter Eighteen - An Eternity In Hell

  Epilogue

  Other Works

  About The Author

  PROLOGUE

  DEREK:

  I hear them first.

  I jump up to warn my father. My shouts as I run into the hallway wakes him. He meets me in the hallway outside of his bedroom. He barks at me to wake Mom, Bethany and Cassie. I do and we all form a semi-circle behind him and the entrance to our house. It isn’t a heartbeat later when the hunters break the door down. For every one of us they brought four of them.

  My father attacks first, just like he taught me to do. You don’t wait for your enemies to strike, it puts you on the defensive and gives them the advantage. You deal the first blow before one can be dealt to you.

  The sound of steel slicing through the air and bullets colliding with the surrounding walls and pieces of furniture ring out around me. One of them rushes me and try to run me through with a long sword. I spin away from the sharpened end and move up behind him faster than he has time to react. I reach out and snap his neck, leaving it hanging limp as his body slumps to the ground. The barrel of a gun presses against my temple, but I wrench it away from its owner before she can pull the trigger. I use her own weapon against her, firing two shots into her chest. I know she isn’t wearing a vest. Hunters normally don’t. They use guns and fancy weapons not Phoenix.

  Most of us are too lofty to, believing we are weapons in and of ourselves, and the use of guns and steel beneath us. I hold no such ridiculous notions of pride or tradition. I don’t give a shit how we traditionally fight. All that matters is me staying alive and my family staying alive. I’ll do whatever I have to to make sure of that. It is the one point where my father and I have always deferred in his combat training. I don’t fight honorable. I fight to be alive when the dust settles. By any means necessary is my personal mantra.

  I hear a scream then steel slicing through flesh followed by bullets ripping into it. I spin to my left where the sound comes from to see my older sister falling to her knees. As she coughs up blood the hunter in front of her levels his crossbow and shoots a metal tipped arrow into her heart. Her body slips to the floor, staining our beige carpet with blood. I try to scream but no sound forms. The arrow is tipped with silver. If it stays lodged in her heart, her body won’t be able to regenerate after the living flame within us consumes her. She’ll become a lost wraith. Forever trapped between this world and the one of the dead.

  I fight my way past hunters to get to her, but a strong hand wraps around my forearm and yanks me back. It belongs to my father.

  “Get your mother and Cassie out of here!”

  I look at him then back at Bethany. She’s pregnant with my niece or nephew. We just found a week ago. She told us when she returned home on Spring Break from college.

  “Now!” He barks the command at me. “I’ll take care of Bethany!”

  I hesitate.

  A bullet whizzes past our heads and Cass cries out.

  “David. Help me!” Mom yells out to Dad.

  It’s Cass’ agonizing wail and my mother’s desperate plea that spurs me into action. Me, Dad, Bethany, even Eric when he was alive, are the fighters of the family. Cass and Mom are made from softer stock. They will fight to the death if they have to, but I know they won’t last much long. Despite my dad’s efforts to turn each one of us into every bit the warrior he is, Mom is and always will be a healer at heart just like Cass is and always will be the genteel social butterfly.

  I leap over the dining room table in between me and them. I reach out and crush the throat of a hunter, wrapping my arm around his neck from behind, who has just put a new clip in his gun and is raising it to take aim at them again. I grab Cass and throw her over my shoulder, blood from the wound in her shoulder seeps into my shirt. She winces at the pain caused by the contact. I take the stairs to the basement level that leads to the garage two at a time.

  Just like we always practice in the escape drill I make my way to one of the two armored SUVs parked inside it. I lay Cass on the backseat while Mom slides in beside her. I hear footsteps coming down the stairs after us. I hurriedly close the door and rush to the driver’s side. The remote for the push start system is in the visor above the steering wheel. It always is. I start the vehicle and push the button on the rearview mirror that opens the garage. Bullets fire behind us as I speed out of it. They hit the customized exterior and bounce off of it. I push the pedal to the floor and speed off the reservation we live on.

  We have two trucks in case we ever have to split up. Dad will pull the arrow from Bethany’s chest then use the second one to get off the reservation too. Once they make it to safety, he will call us on the SUVs built-in phone. We will all meet up and regroup as a family.

  I go over the escape plan over and over again in my head as I drive without a destination. When Dad calls, we will figure it out then. I think the words even when I know he never will. I left him too outnumbered and he would never leave Bethany behind.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Ritual

  ASH:

  “Surprise!” My Aunt Farrah throws her arms out wide as she walks into my room.

  I hop off the bed and crash into her. “Oh my God! No one told me you were coming. I thought you were stuck in Europe and wouldn’t make it home for the summer.”

  “That’s because the only person I told was Mom. I wanted to surprise everyone else.”

  Aunt Farrah returns my hug then holds me out at arm’s length. “Look at you! I can’t believe how much you’ve grown up in the past year.”

  “Aunt Farrah!” I complain at her fawning over me like I’m still a little kid.

  “Sorry. Sorry. I’m just in shock. You filled out nicely babe. The last year has been good to you. You don’t look almost seventeen. You look like you could be mistaken for my twin.”

  Her compliment makes me stand up a little straighter. My twenty-two year old aunt is gorgeous. We share the same almond-shaped eyes and pin-straight black hair that will only hold a curl if you apply an excessive amount of heat to it. But where mine is cut in layers that give it the illusion of being voluminous, hers is bone straight with side swept bangs that give her an air of softness that any one who knows her isn’t fooled for a second by.

  My Aunt Farrah is a hardass. She can knock just about any guy on their ass in less than ten seconds flat. It is my single mission in life to be as badass as she is. It’s why I push myself so hard performing twice the amount of strength, endurance, and combat training that is required of me. On the days I’m not training with my grandfather at home, I drop in on a MMA class at the only gym in Laurel Springs.

  “How long are you staying?” I ask her, hoping she will be around for the entire summer. I’ve missed her and her visits are always sweet but way too short. Plus, Becca is gone which brings the number of people around that I would actually want to hang out with down to none.

  “I don’t know. W
e’ll see,” she responds not really committing to anything one way or the other. “I had a talk with your dad before I came up here, and there might be a matter he’ll need some assistance with.”

  “What kind of matter?” I ask fishing for information.

  Aunt Farrah doesn’t take the bait. “Ask me that question after tonight,” she grins at me.

  I raise my eyebrow at her. “What difference will a few hours make? It’s not like you’re a stickler for following the rules anyway.”

  “True,” she grins again flashing the same dimples I do when I smile that wide. “But it’s fun making you wait. I know how impatient you are kiddo.”

  “Argh.” I groan. “I think it’s time we stopped calling me that. I’ll be seventeen in four months you know.”

  “I know. Practically a grown woman.”

  “I’m glad somebody thinks so. Can you tell Dad that? Every body I try to date he scares away by showing them the small arsenal we keep in the basement. He calls it a hobby.”

  Aunt Farrah’s bark of laughter bounces off the walls of the room.

  “I’m glad one of us thinks it’s funny,” I tell her dryly.

  She tries valiantly to sober up but fails. “Sorry, Ash. I’ll try but I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it. I had to deal with the same thing until I left for Europe after high school and Sean and Gerard used to help him. Where are our two illustrious cousins anyway?”

  I roll my eyes at the mention of Tweedledee and Tweedledum as I like to call them. And yes I do it to their faces. They turn red and try to literally take my head off every time. It’s a good thing I’m nearly as good as my aunt and can put them on their asses too. It just takes me a little longer to accomplish it. “Probably at a bar or somewhere trying to get laid.”

  “I see nothing ever changes,” Aunt Farrah sighs. She finally hands over the wrapped package she’s been holding since she came in.

  I didn’t ask about it’s contents because I was trying to prove how patient I could be. I’m glad she hands it over when she does because I don’t know how much longer I would have lasted. It’s clearly for me and I am dying to know what’s inside it.

  “I would have had you if I’d held out a minute longer, but since today is kind of about you I decided to go easy on you.” She’s referring to a sort of game we play every time she visits. She brings me a present back from wherever it is in Europe she’s been staying at the time, but she doesn’t immediately give it to me. She doesn’t even mention it or says it’s for me. She doesn’t have to. I know it and she knows it. But she waits to see how long I can last before asking her what it is or if I can open it. It’s like a game of chicken but with a wrapped package because she is just as impatient as I am and wants to give me the gift as badly as I want to open it. I always crack first and then she gloats by telling me patience is a virtue. The playful chastisement is our own little inside joke. The amount of patience both of us possesses is small enough to fit underneath the nail of our pinky toes and we both know it.

  “Whatever,” I scoff. “I so won that round fair and square. Maybe with age comes patience.”

  My aunt snorts at me. “Yeah. Whatever you say. Like I said, it’s your day so I’m going to let you delude yourself into thinking that.”

  I ignore her and tear the brown paper bag wrapping off the box. My aunt isn’t the type to buy frilly wrapping paper or to actually wrap a present with it. I lift the lid off the plain white box. Inside is a red velvet pillow with a set of curved knives resting on it. I pick them up and test their weight in my grasp. The handle is wrapped in a supple black leather that feels baby soft against my palms. Their blades are too smooth and not shiny enough to be stainless steel, or titanium. They are pure silver. Each side of their flat surfaces sports an intricate pattern of celtic knot work that knowing my aunt was hand carved into the metal.

  “These are wicked.” I reverently watch as the last ray’s of the setting sun streaming into my open window hit and reflect off their surface. “Thanks,” I say to my aunt.

  “Don’t thank me yet. They still need to be tempered with the blood of a hunter. Since they are yours, I left that honor especially for you.”

  “Does that mean I need to wait until after the ritual tonight?”

  “Nah,” she shakes her head as she says it and her bangs sway gracefully across her forehead. Again, it’s an illusion and you’d be an idiot to believe the dainty look it affords her. “Tonight is just a formality. You were born a hunter and you will die a hunter.” My aunt repeats the words we literally live and die by, the words that will be permanently tattooed into my flesh on the spot of my choosing in a few short hours.

  I toss both knives into the air at the same time. I flick my wrists so they flip mid-air and catch them on their way down. I close my hands over their surfaces, letting their sharp edges slice into the palms of my hands. My hands do not shake and I don’t let the wince at the sting of pain escape my throat. Blood flows freely over the knot work design engraved in the knives. I feel a tingling sensation against my palms, in the spots where the open wounds are. It pulses with warmth then dies out.

  Aunt Farrah reaches into the round white box and hands be a strip of cloth hidden beneath the velvet pillow. I use it to clean the blood from the knives, leaving them as pristine as they were when I first took them out of the box.

  By the time I finish, blood has stopped trickling out of my palms. I place the knives in the box and hold my hands with their palms facing up. The vertical incisions the knives made have completely knitted closed. The only evidence that remains that they were ever there is the dried blood and the faint pink lines that will soon fade too.

  As hunters it is woven into our DNA for us to be stronger, faster, and more resilient than the average human. We evolved to oppose the Phoenix and their unchecked power. We aren’t nearly indestructible like them. Any mortal injury will do us in, but any other scrapes and bruises heal fairly quickly.

  ******

  I watched as my aunt partook in the Initiation Ritual, I watched as each of my cousins partook in it, and now it is my turn.

  I kneel on both knees before Patrick Jacobs, my grandfather and the patriarch of the Jacobs family. I am about to swear an oath to take up the duty first performed by the First One Hundred. We hunt and kill the phoenix. With each one we prevent from rising, we are bequeathing humanity one less scourge.

  “Ashley Isabella Jacobs, you kneel before me as a daughter of the Jacobs line. You kneel before me knowing the duty taken up by our forefather, Edward Jacobs, and all of our ancestors that followed. You kneel before me accepting that duty and vowing to uphold it. You were born a hunter, and you will die a hunter.”

  “I was born a hunter, and I will die a hunter,” I echo my grandfather. “We hunt the phoenix, we kill the phoenix, we prevent the phoenix from rising.”

  My grandfather nods his head accepting my vow.

  My cousin Sean, the one I refer to as Tweedledee, smirks at me then breaks the half circle consisting of him, Gerard, Dad and Aunt Farrah to prep the needle he will use to tattoo me.

  “Where do you want it? Some place painful I hope.” The mischievous gleam in his eyes as I lay on the hard table says he is going to enjoy digging the needle into my flesh then dragging it across it more than he should.

  I bare my teeth at him in a sickly sweet smile and raise my shirt a fraction while pulling at the waist of my jeans to bare my hip. I hadn’t decided where I wanted the words that would forever mark me in the flesh as a hunter until this moment. But I won’t back down from his challenge. Directly on top of a bone is supposed to be the most painful place to be tattooed.

  Sean digs into my skin, but I bite down against the pain. I remain completely still and utterly silent until it is over. After all, I’ve endured worse.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jackass

  School has only been out for a month and and I still have the rest of July and all of August to go until my BFF comes back from
New York. Her parents divorced when we were twelve. A year later her mom moved back home to the east coast. Both her parents are hunters and they let her choose how she wanted to divide her time between them. She chose to stay in Laurel Springs with her dad and me during the school year and spend the summers with her mom.

  Even though Laurel Springs itself is completely absent of phoenix both of our families live in the town because of what goes on in the heavily wooded state park in between Laurel and Highland Village, the city nearest us. Highland Village has a slew of phoenix that blend in to its large population and Red Creek State Park is their favorite playground. The numerous hikers and tourists that visit it year around make for easy prey.

  They hunt by night so we do as well. The Initiation Ritual marked the end of my heavy training, but last night was more of a formal ceremony recognizing I was ready to take the vow, than it meant I will actually get to do something. Granddad is the Patriarch but my grandmother holds the real power in our family. She is adamant about me not becoming an active hunter until I graduate. She insisted on the same thing with Dad, Aunt Farrah and my cousins. She says after I am no longer a child, I will never have the chance to be so again. Being a hunter will consume my life and there is no need to rush that.

  The lack of heavy training, the ban on me hunting, and the absence of Becca means that I have a lot of time to be bored out of my mind for the rest of the summer on my hands. Which is how I find myself driving down Highway 5 on my way to see a movie by myself.

  As I switch from the left lane to the right one to turn at the intersection ahead my Jetta blows a tire.

  “Damn it!” I curse out loud. It’s too hot today to be changing a tire on the side of the road.

  An unfamiliar black Mustang with darkly tinted windows pulls up behind my car while I am walking to my trunk. I automatically go on alert. A girl was abducted from Highland Village a few weeks ago. It is a distance away from Laurel Springs but it’s not that far.