Kelly Gay: The Hour of Dust and Ashes

Being weightless with no sense of place or time didn’t prepare me for my face meeting the hard tile floor of Station One. I sucked in a shocked gasp as pain exploded. Blood, warm and thick, spilled from my nose and onto the floor. “Fuck,” I slurred as the sense of physical weight settled into me and the coppery taste of my own blood hit the back of my throat.

Hank cursed and groaned. “Note to self,” he rasped. “Don’t go in face-first.”

My fingers curled. I swallowed. The veins in my head pounded. I pushed up—very slowly—more nauseous than when I’d stepped through the terminal portal. Blood ran down and along the crease of my lips. I wiped it away with the back of my hand and then gazed around, finding the light very bright.

“Whoa. That’s some funky-ass shit right there,” came Kyle’s voice.

Kyle. Kyle was an ash victim. In the cell block.

We’d made it.

“You guys just appeared out of nowhere, man.”

I struggled to my feet, falling once before I got up and then grabbed the wall for support. My vision wavered. “Where’s my sister? Was she here? Did she come here?”

“Fuck you, Charlie Brown,” Kyle said, snickering at his lame joke.

I shot him the middle finger. Right back at ya, buddy.

“She came out of nowhere just like you two,” said the ash victim who’d helped me before, “with another guy. She ran out of here, and he ran after her.”

“Shit.” I shook my head, trying to clear the drunken-like haze. “How long?”

“Like a couple minutes ago. They were like you, though. Drugged or something. It took them a while to get up.”

Yeah. Not drugged; screwed up by an ancient portal. There had probably been some kind of spell or pill the traveler took before jumping into that spinning pool. Or maybe you just had to be a jinn to go through without ill effects.

I sniffed in blood and coughed, wiping at my nose again as I staggered from the cell block.

Frustration ate at me as I struggled slowly up the steps to the main floor of Station One. Brim wasn’t in the cell block. He hadn’t come with us, and I could only hope he’d made it somewhere safe. Once I reached the main floor and staggered out of the back door and onto the landing, I pushed the worrisome thought from my mind and scanned the parking lot.

Bryn stumbled across the parking lot with Rex hot on her heels. Hank burst out behind me.

“BRYN!” I ran down the steps, missing the last one, and hit the pavement in a sprawl. My palm slid over the concrete, peeling skin as they went. I kept my fuzzy vision on my sister, though, determined to not lose her. Not again.

Surprisingly she heard me, stopped, and shouted, “I have to get to—”

Rex slammed into her and they went down.

I sucked in a breath with a single-minded purpose—get to my sister—and forced myself up. Hank’s hand gripped my elbow, helping me to stand. We swayed together. He was pale. Sweat glistened on his face and his steps were more unbalanced than mine. Being Elysian, I bet he’d gotten a shittier dose of Charbydon travel sickness than me.

We were halfway across the lot when two sirens stepped out of shadows.

No.

“Don’t make me hurt you,” Rex’s words echoed over the lot as he finally got the upper hand and sat on top of my sister, pinning her front to the ground. She screamed, kicking and flailing with drunken limbs.

“Let. Me. Go!” she wailed in a tired, desperate voice.

“So it is true,” one of the sirens said as he moved to block our way to Bryn and Rex. He and his friend were as tall as Hank and their expressions held intense loathing and a gleam that said they’d just love to take him down right there.

“Traitor. Murderer,” the other one growled, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“The king got the same punishment he inflicted on every Malakim who ever served him,” Hank forced out. “He was a lia—”

The siren’s fist shot out and connected with Hank’s jaw with a sickening crack. The force sent him to his knees. The fact that he didn’t lay flat-out cold was a testament to his strength. I grabbed his bicep and tried to help him to his feet.

“The others will be here soon and then we’ll have a nice little … talk before we take you back to Fiallan. The Circe are eager to get their hands on you.”

Rex cursed, drawing my attention. He was doubled over, holding his privates. Bryn struggled out from his hold, turned to glance over her shoulder. Her eyes went wide when she saw me. And then she started running, weaving drunkenly into the darkness.

“NO!” I surged forward, but the sirens blocked my path.

I shoved one of them. Hands grabbed me as Hank tackled the one in front of him. I fought like a maniac. It wasn’t pretty or effective. I bit, pulled hair, fought as dirty as my drunken state allowed, but the only thing I managed to do was tire myself more and gain a few more bruises.

We were too weak to do anything. We couldn’t outrun them, outthink them, or outfight them. Hot tears ran down my cheeks. I screamed at them, struggling, telling them they couldn’t take him. One of them shoved me to the ground. My elbows hit the pavement hard. My eyes met Hank’s. The siren had him stomach-down on the pavement, pinning the back of his neck with a knee.

“Go, Charlie,” he ground out. “Find Bryn. Before she—”

I sat up and swiped a hand across my wet face. “I … I’ll fix this, I—”

His eyes hardened, filling up with resignation and a warning. “Don’t …” The siren jerked Hank up.

Don’t make a promise you can’t keep, he might as well have said. Don’t be that girl who had promised to wait.

One of the sirens laughed as I pushed to my feet. “Consorting with humans?” The other siren chuckled. “That is beneath even a traitor.”

Hank spun out of the hold, elbowed the siren’s nose, cracking the bone, and then used the last of his strength to slug the siren in front of me with a hard right to the jaw. Payback is a bitch. It was a brilliant hit. The guy flew back and landed hard on his back.

Hank swayed on his feet. “Go, Charlie. Hurry!”

I froze.

“DAMN IT, GO!”

I jumped.

By the corner of the station, I saw three more sirens appear. Shit, shit, shit. They ran for us. I glanced from them to Hank. “Goddammit, Charlie,” he muttered and threw himself in their path, fists flying.

“Hank.” I meant it as a shout, but it came out as a whisper. My stomach rolled. The parking lot went fuzzy.

Move, Charlie. Keep going.

Tears streamed down my face. I ran. In the opposite direction, feeling as though my heart was tearing in two. Running away went against everything I was. But I was running toward something else—my sister. Hank was giving me a chance to save her. I grabbed Rex’s elbow on my way and we hurried after Bryn.

As I ran, my strength returned with each step, each beat of my pounding heart, pushing the effects of the portal out of my system.

“Where the hell is she going?!” Rex yelled as Bryn ran ahead of us, dodging drunkenly into traffic, across streets, through pedestrians.

Christ. I had no idea who was in charge of her body, but with the cuffs on her wrists, and the travel sickness obviously hindering her, we had to catch her before she got herself killed. Accidentally or on purpose.

Block after block, street after street …

I was gaining on her. I’d always been the faster runner.

And then it hit me as we darted through a line of limos, down a familiar street, past the League’s school. Holy hell. She was going to the Mordecai House.

The League of Mages mansion shone like a beacon, lit up with festive white lights for the New Year’s Eve Party. Cars were lined up along the street and around the corner. Guests in tuxedoes and sequined gowns walked down the sidewalk and mingled within the grounds. Music poured from the house.