Scorched

Read on for a sneak peek of Sharon Ashwood’s next Dark Forgotten novel, UNCHAINED Coming from Signet Eclipse in July 2010

Reynard fell to his knees in the dirt beside Ashe. He put a hand on her shoulder—a hot, firm touch. “Are you hurt?”

“Get down!” she barked, dragging him to the ground by the collar of his fancy coat.

The next shot missed his head by a whisker.

She could smell his sweat, the dirt, and the tang of crushed plants. She’d landed in a herbaceous border, destroying the gardeners’ careful work. A mound of thyme was bleeding spice into the night air.

She could hear the clock tower of the main building chiming eleven. She should have been home watching the late news, not chasing monsters around a botanical garden tourist trap. Wait, they’d bagged the monster. So why was someone still shooting at them?

Reynard gripped her arm. “Are you hurt?” he repeated.

“No.” She turned to look at him, careful not to raise her head too far. “How about you?”

“No.”

They lay still for a moment, breathing, listening to the dark spring night.

“Anyone trying to kill you these days?” she asked. “Not outside the Castle.”

His eyes glittered. It might have been humor. She couldn’t quite tell. He was too closed, too different, like a map with no street names or landmarks. Just a lot of really nice geography.

Ashe swallowed hard, willing her jackhammer pulse to slow down. “Then the shooter must be after me.”

“A common occurrence?”

“Not since I moved to Fairview.” Shit. Shit. This was all supposed to be in the past. She had relocated, given up life on the road, scaled down the hunting to almost nothing— just the odd case. She’d let the word go out that she was retired. Sure, there’d always be some unhappy campers-friends and relatives of the supernatural monsters she’d exterminated—but even they’d grown quiet.

Quiet enough that Ashe had taken the risk of sending for her daughter.

Shit.

Ashe crawled backward, a slithering motion that brought her to the shadow of a thick bush. She rose into a crouch, molding her body to the shape of the greenery, hiding in the dense leaves. She guessed at the angle the bullets had traveled. That put the shooter high up the tall column of rock that formed the lookout in the center of the sunken garden. She knew there was a nearly vertical staircase that led up to the platform at the top, but it wasn’t lit at night. All she could see was the dark spire of stone that blotted out the stars.

Reynard moved around to her left, noiseless as a phantom. Wisps of dark hair framed his face. His neck cloth had come untied. Ashe couldn’t help notice that messy looked good on him.

He rested on one knee, raising the long musket. “Stay down,” he said quietly. “I’ll take care of this.”

A sour burn of impatience caught in Ashe’s throat. “There’s no way to make the shot at this distance.”

“No?”

“It’s dark.”

“I live in a dungeon. I’ve adapted to the dark.” He sighted down the long barrel as confidently as if it had one of the supercalifragilistic nightscopes Ashe had seen in the latest mercenary’s mag.

They were wasting time. Firing would give away their position. They’d be better off sneaking up on the sniper. “That thing has a range of two feet. A crooked two feet.”

He sighed lightly and cranked back the hammer. It was at that moment she saw it had a real, honest-to-Goddess flint secured in the jaws of the mechanism. This thing relied on sparks and naked gunpowder. They’d be lucky if it didn’t blow up.

“They won’t be expecting us to return fire,” he said evenly.

“Because it’s not possible! I have a real gun, and I can’t make that shot.”

Thoroughly ignoring her, Reynard pulled the trigger, jerking as the musket recoiled. It banged like a giant cap gun and smelled like a chemistry lab gone wrong. Ashe opened her mouth to protest and got a mouthful of foul-tasting smoke.

And there was a distant, sharp cry of pain. Reynard had hit his mark.

“That’s not possible!” She realized she sounded annoyed. He made a noise that was almost a laugh. “Just a touch of a spell. I thought witches were open to magic.”

“I’m not a witch anymore.”

He gave her a look, grabbed the musket, and slipped into the darkness. Swearing, Ashe ran to catch up. The entrance to the staircase was on the other side of the tall spire of rock, forcing them to circle its base. The colored lights that illuminated the flower beds dwindled, then stopped as soon as they left the footpath. Ashe tripped, nearly going down on one knee before she bumped into Reynard.

He steadied her, and she could feel the remnants of magic in his touch. She’d broken her own magic with an unwise spell when she was still a teenager, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t feel power.

She was picking up far more than the few traces clinging to Reynard’s long, strong fingers. Right now she felt power spilling over her like sand in a windstorm, stinging in a thousand tiny bites. Whoever—whatever—had been shooting at them was hurt, and not human.

She thought again about her daughter, and knew fear.

Reynard took a step forward. Ashe grabbed his arm. “You had only one shot in your musket. I should go first.”

He pulled what looked like a very modern Smith & Wesson—it was hard to tell in the dark—from a holster hidden at the small of his back. “I could reload. I also carry a backup. As Mac is so fond of saying, shit happens.”

The obscenity sounded wrong coming from him. Of course, every assumption she’d made about him so far that night had been off base. Not a good thing when they were supposed to be covering each other’s backs.

Reynard started up the stairs, showing just how good his night vision was. Ashe brought up the rear. There was an iron railing to her right, but that was her gun hand, so she left it alone. Her skin crawled, not just with power but with vertigo. Normally she didn’t mind heights, but all that changed when she couldn’t see where she was putting her feet. She felt for the steps and counted each one. Good to know how many steps she’d climbed in case she had to reverse course in a hurry. Thinking you were at the bottom of the pitch-dark stairs when you weren’t could be a problem.

More plants and bushes grew on the rock spire. Leaves brushed her face like slick, green fingers. She fought not to jump, stumble, and finish the night with a broken leg.

They reached the landing, where the stairs took a sharp turn. Overhead was a wash of stars, thick and bright because the gardens were outside the city. Above the canopy of trees, the moon gave a thin wash of light. Ashe saw Reynard hold up his left hand, then point. His right hand was curled around his weapon. Ashe grasped her own gun with both hands, reassured by its cold, heavy weight.

They went up the last dozen stairs. At the top was a kidney-shaped platform surrounded by an iron railing. It was like another small garden. The flower bed, maple tree, and bench would have made for a lovely resting place in daylight. At night, it was eerie.

Reynard turned right and swept his gun downward to point at the fallen shooter. Ashe aimed at the figure sprawled facedown on the ground. He was twisted as if an effort to duck had spun him around.

Vampire. Now that she was close, Ashe could almost taste his essence. His energy was pouring needles of power over her like the skitter of insect feet on her skin. She glided to the left of the figure, Reynard to the right, until they stood on opposite sides of their quarry.

What happened next depended entirely on the vamp. Why had he shot at her? She wanted an explanation. She’d be happy to keep him alive—vibrantly undead?—at least long enough to question him. Longer if he played nice. Then again, he’d tried to kill her already. If he attacked, there’d be no messing around.

The vamp was male, medium height, dressed in jeans. A scatter of weapons and a tripod were strewn around him. She smelled blood, but saw only a shining stain on the back of his jacket. It was too dark for color. He was motionless, but still she kicked his rifle out of reach. It was a sniper’s piece—night scope and all the fancy fixings.

“Weapon says he means business,” she said softly.

“It seems your enemies put forward their best efforts,” Reynard replied.

“I’m so flattered.” Ashe took another quick inventory of the vamp. Short leather boots. The glint of a fancy watch. Dark hair, collar length. “Y’know, at first I wondered why someone would shoot from a place with only one escape route.”

As she spoke, she shifted the Colt to her left hand and reached into the pocket that ran up the outside of her right thigh. Familiarity, certainty, washed through her. Slaying wasn’t her happy place, but it was one she knew inside and out.

Ashe pulled out a long, straight, sharp stake. “Then it came to me. Vamps can fly. And then I thought of another thing. I was called out here on an emergency. How did an assassin know where I’d be? Somebody’s been doing some planning, and I’m going to want names.”

The vampire struck. The speed was breathtaking; he lifted himself from a facedown sprawl to a frontal attack in less than a second—but she’d been expecting that. Ashe felt the thing’s body pound into the stake, using its own momentum to drive the weapon home. All she had to do was brace her feet against all that brute force and lean into it.

The vamp flailed its arms, trying to change direction and pull away, trying to slash and bite and escape all at once. She’d judged the vamp’s height fairly well, but the stake had entered just below its heart. Ashe felt her feet skid on the stone beneath her, sliding far too close to the iron railing and the sheer drop beyond.

Reynard yelled, grabbing the vamp from behind. In a flash of moonlight, she could see the vampire’s face— features twisted in pain and anger. Reynard was managing to pin its arms, something no human should have been able to do. That seemed to scare the monster even more than the stake.

Ashe twisted her weapon, driving upward. The vampire gasped. She stopped a hairsbreadth from skewering him, praying Reynard’s strength would hold. She was taking a risk, pausing like this, but a chance at information was worth it.

“Why were you shooting at me?” she demanded.

It bared fangs, giving a rattling hiss.

“Scary, but I’ve seen better,” she said.

Reynard did something that made the vampire wince. “Answer.”

“Abomination!” it snarled, and gave one last lunge at her.

Last being the operative term. Ashe slammed the stake upward just before his fangs could reach her flesh.

The vampire was suddenly deadweight. Reynard let the body drop, wood still protruding from its chest.

“Shit.” Ashe looked down at the vampire. She knew she would feel plenty later—anger, triumph, regret, pity, self-justification—but at the moment she was blank. She’d done what she had to do. Once the adrenaline wore off, the rest could engulf her.

The vampire had called her an abomination. She had opened her mouth to comment on how strange that was, coming from a bloodsucking monster, but closed her mouth again. It was weird enough that she didn’t want to even think about it. Besides, there were other, more pressing questions—-such as why the vamp had chosen to die rather than talk.

It could be vengeance. It could be something else. Whatever it was, it was personal. That thought made her queasy. “Are you all right?” Reynard asked. “Yeah,” Ashe said, keeping her voice light, impersonal. “He went down easily enough.”

Reynard sat down on the bench, head bowed. Ashe looked away. He didn’t look happy, but skewering the enemy wasn’t a cheery kind of thing. But then again, you didn’t get into this kind of work to talk about your feelings.

Ashe turned to lean on the railing. Below was the garden, bathed in starlight. A much better view than the vampire. The body had already started to shrivel. In about twenty minutes, it would be a pile of dust. It was as if time caught up with vamps, grinding them to nothing. Once he was gone, they would search his possessions for clues.

Above, the stars glittered like sequins on a torch singer’s evening gown. Below, the gardens glowed like a fairy kingdom. It seemed distant and surreal, a pretty mirage she could look at but not touch. She was made from a different element—something dark and dangerous.

At some point along the way, when her parents died, or when her husband died, or maybe when she’d bagged her first monster, she’d let herself slide into the darkness. Now that her daughter was home, she had to snap out of it. Kids needed a bright, shiny world. Eden needed something besides a monster-slaying action figure for a mom. Too bad Ashe didn’t know how to be anything else.

She would try. Goddess knew she would try. She would try to see the beauty in the world and look away from the shadows.

She heard Reynard shift on the bench behind her. “You should come see the view,” she said. “No, thank you.” His voice was quiet. The dark made it oddly intimate. “Why not?”

He was silent for a few heartbeats. “I have to go back to the Castle.”

“So?” She turned, leaning against the rail to face him.

He raised his head, but didn’t meet her eyes. “Whatever I see out here will make me restless, and I don’t have a choice about going back. It’s best I see as little as possible.”

There was so much regret in the words, it bruised her. Regret—that she knew. She could almost taste it like coppery blood on her tongue, sharp and familiar.

Now, finally, there was something about him that she understood.

And, Goddess help her, she suddenly wanted to fix it.

“I urge anyone who is a fan of urban fantasy and paranormal romance to put Sharon Ashwood at the top of their list!” —Night Owl Romance