Kelly Gay: The Hour of Dust and Ashes

“What the hell was that thing, Sandra?”

“I told you not to summon your power.”

“What. Was. It?”

Emotions cycled through her expression and finally settled on something akin to spite. “Fine.” She leaned in close. “ Sachâth . Destroyer. Death. Call it what you will. But you brought it here.” She poked me hard in the chest. “Now you have to deal with it.”

She shoved her way around me, shouting Tuni’s name and leaving me standing there in the smoky tunnel with my mouth open.

The air on Mercy Street was blessedly cleaner than the acrid haze contaminating Alessandra’s temple and club. After several purifying breaths, I threaded my fingers through my hair and gave a hard ruffle to remove the burning smell and bits of glass and debris. My jacket came off next, and I gave it a good shake.

After I was finished rearranging myself, I tucked my jacket between my legs and brushed off Rex’s shoulders.

“Ow! Take it easy there, Nurse Ratched.” He stepped away from me. “I can do it myself.”

I shot him an eye roll as he brushed off his clothes and then bent over to ruffle his hair. Small fragments of the club hit the sidewalk. He straightened. I smiled despite being so rattled. His brown hair stuck up, making him look like a kid just out of bed.

“What?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Come on.”

I chose a path down the center of the carless street to avoid the after-Christmas-sae shoppers populating the sidewalks. January was just a few days away, but you wouldn’t know it from the temperature. The darkness hovering over Atlanta seemed to insulate everything beneath it from the winter weather. Or maybe, like some theorized, the darkness was generating its own energy, its own heat …

Whatever the case, I didn’t need the light jacket I slipped back on as I walked. But it covered my weapons, and I’d rather not be gawked at for parading around with three different firearms strapped to my body.

Without warning, the hair on the back of my neck stood. I glanced over my shoulder with the distinct feeling of being watched, but there was nothing unusual. Just your typical day in Underground Atlanta.

“You ever see anything like that before?” I asked Rex as we walked.

“Those old fairy dudes? Nuh-uh. And now that I think about it, I’ve never seen a Pig-Pen do that much damage.”

“I meant the creature.”

“What creature?”

“What do you mean, what creature? The one that came out of the wind. The one that went through me. The reason I was out cold on the dance floor.”

“I thought you just couldn’t handle the Donna Summer remix.” He reached over and patted my head.

I swatted at him. “What are you doing?”

“Checking for a bump.”

“There is no bump. It was there, right in front of me.” I used my hands to explain. “Yea big. Tall. All gray and floaty-like …”

He frowned. “That must’ve been after you made me get hit with a flying bar stool.”

Oh. Yeah. I’d forgotten about that. Might explain why he hadn’t seen the creature.

I pulled out my phone, hitting Sian’s cell number. “Hey. It’s me.” I proceeded to tell my new office assistant every detail I could remember about the creature and asked her to put her research skills to work. “Oh, and while you’re at it, access the gate logs and see if any new sidhé fae visitors have come through from Elysia within the last two months. And I want whatever you can find on their warrior classes, groups, sects, cults, whatever …”

My steps slowed as I came upon Hodgepodge, my sister’s variety shop, which catered to crafting, odd off-world items, and rare plants from all three worlds. “That’s it. Thanks,” I mumbled, hanging up. The doors were open for business and shoppers browsed the aisles.

What a relief.

I’d finally convinced Bryn to take advantage of her part-time employee’s offer to run the store while she dealt with the ash addiction. Gemma was a retired schoolteacher and had been working for Bryn for almost two years now—just weekends and some evenings, but she’d been around long enough to know exactly how Bryn liked things done. And Bryn desperately needed the sales after having been closed during the holidays.

Seeing the female figure behind the counter made my chesttighten. It should be my sister standing there, stealing M&M’s from her stash, and talking to her array of herbs and plants. My gaze traveled up to the second story. The blinds in the windows were down. No light from within. Barren.

And it was all wrong. So damn wrong.

Bryn was currently staying at the Mordecai House, the League of Mages headquarters in Atlanta. Her choice, not mine. Bryn was afraid. Afraid to be alone, afraid of what she was capable of, and more determined than ever to uncover her lost memories. Her guilt in possibly aiding or even directly causing Aaron’s death was eating away at her faster than her addiction to ash .

“Okay,” Rex said after we’d passed the store. “You can say it.”

“What? That you promised to stay in the temple?”

“No, not that part. The part where you tell me how awe-inspiring I was back there. You know”—he slid a look my way—“you might make a pretty good sidekick one day.”

Oh my God.

“Rex …” I paused, forgoing the lecture because it wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference anyway. “What am I going to do with you?”

A slow grin spread across his face. “Now that’s one hell of a question.” He threw an arm around my shoulder and picked up our pace. “So glad you asked. I have plenty of ideas. First …”

A slow, familiar zing snaked through me as I entered the crowded plaza where Mercy Street, Helios Alley, and Solomon Street converged, and made for the wide concrete steps that would take us Topside. Like the first jolt of a drug-induced high, the Charbydon genes inside of me responded to the forty-mile swath of darkness that hovered above Atlanta and its outskirts.

I hated that I was getting used to it … that, little by little, I was coming to terms with the inevitable. The Charbydon and Elysian DNA that had been given to me as I lay dying ten months ago was altering me from the inside out, changing me into something new, or something old if I believed Aaron’s “divine being” theory.

But it wasn’t the darkness that made me stop in the middle of the plaza.

It was Alessandra’s comments about Hank that had quietly tunneled beneath my confidence, making fine cracks in my trust.

Just like she’d intended.

People passed by, conversations came and went along with the sounds of traffic from the city above. And I just stood there, knowing I should keep walking, that I should have some measure of belief.

I bit down hard, grinding my teeth together with indecision. But when you’ve been burned before …

I cursed under my breath and turned away from Topside, heading toward my new path: Helios Alley. Damn her.

“Uh, Charlie?” Rex said from behind me. “We told Bryn we’d pick Em up at ten.”

Was Hank really in bed recuperating? And, worse, how totally pathetic was I for having to check? “I know. This won’t take long. I just want to check on Hank.” I cleared my throat. Since when did saying his name become so uncomfortable?

“Oh, really ?”

I didn’t need to look at Rex to know he was smirking. I sidestepped a baby stroller. “Yes, really. Someone should go check on him.”

“No one needs to check on him. You were there when the chief told us the deal. He’s in a self-induced coma. Doesn’t need to eat, drink, or take a piss … When he wakes, he wakes. What are you going to do, stand there and moon over him?”