Gathering Ashes Chapter 13

The dim glow of the cell phone lit the darkness like a dying fire. Ambrosia paced the small room, skirting the dim anti-magic runes scrawled across the floor. She shot occasional glares to the phone, as if her impatience fueled its speed. A single sentence glowed on the screen:

Help’s on the way.

Yeah, right.

A red battery appeared on screen, signaling her low charge. After a few minutes, the screen went black.

“You know,” Ralf had said one night when she whipped out her busted flip-phone, “someday that thing’s going to fail you, and you’ll be left in the dark.”

Ambrosia hadn’t thought he meant it literally.

Her ears perked. Footsteps. She slipped beneath a shelf beside the door and strained her hearing. The footsteps were quick and light, increasing in volume as they neared. Her mind churned as she tried to decipher them. Would the vampire allow herself to be heard? Maybe she was trying for a psychological approach—Ambrosia could think of no other reason why she would lock a bounty hunter in a closet, unless she was grabbing some barbeque sauce.

Something jiggled the handle. Ambrosia breathed in deeply, but the foul scent of bleach blocked out all other smells. A small scratching sound filled the room. The little wizard held her breath, claws digging into the floor. If she could pounce at just the right moment…

The door flew open. With a snarl, Ambrosia darted out from under the shelf and pounced.

Shrieking, Eva jumped to the side. She stumbled over her own feet and fell heavily to the floor as Ambrosia sailed gracefully past her and rolled into the wall.

“Oof!” Ambrosia said, rubbing her nose. “Keep it down, would you? It’s the middle of the night!”

“S-sorry. I don’t usually expect small dogs to pounce at me when I open doors!” Eva stammered. She glanced at her watch with a frown. “Also, it’s only ten.”

“Whatever. What are you doing here?”

“I followed the scorch marks.”

Ambrosia looked up. Black marks smears along the walls of the hallway from her previous fight with the vampire. “Fair enough. But I meant, why are you here?”

“Uh. To open the door.”

“You’re my help?”

A quiet hiss drifted into the hallway. Ambrosia hurried in the other direction. “Never mind. Just follow me.”

They jogged through the hallway, following the scorch marks. Eva slid Ambrosia’s phone into her pocket.

“You know,” Eva said with surprising calm, “you always seem to find your way into storage closets. It seems kind of inconvenient for someone without hands.”

“At least now I can use a door-opening spell. Well, when a spell isn't blocking my magic anyway. Whatever you did back there in the stream, it seemed to open up my magic a bit.”

Eva shuttered at the mention of the stream. She hugged her arms to her stomach and didn’t answer. The two made their way through the halls until they arrived at the entrance. There, Ambrosia ducked into the office and pulled out her bag from where she had hidden it beneath a desk.

“Just one question,” Eva said as the wizard rummaged through the bag.

“Just one? That’s a record.”

She didn’t rise to the teasing, merely arching her eyebrows instead. “What are you doing in my school?”

“I’ll answer your question with one of my own. Did you know,” she pulled a bottle of water out of her pack, “that your teacher is a vampire?”

Eva took the water. The label read in clear black print, ‘Saint Michael’s Holy Water: Bottled Fresh.’

She stared at it for a moment, and then shook her head. “Um, which one?”

“Can’t remember the name. Tall. Black hair. Name starts with an S.”

“Ms. Schechter?”

“That’s the one.”

“Huh. I can’t say I’m surprised. She was always hated sunny days.”

“You seem to be taking this surprisingly well.”

“I learned a few days ago that my math teacher is an angel. I’m trying not to let too much shock me. Why are you hunting her down now, though? Is being a vampire illegal?”

“I thought you only had one question,” Ambrosia muttered. “No, just being a vampire will not get you arrested. If it did, Ralf would be in big trouble. You can be a vampire in this town without causing issues. But when you start preying on students and stirring up questions, you can expect a bounty on your head.”

The wizard tugged a wooden stake out of her bag. Eva looked between the water bottle and the stake with a silent question.

“Yes, this stuff actually works! Some legends are just that, legends, but others have some truth to them.” She frowned. “Unfortunately the cross I wore during my scouting didn’t work out. It’s the faith that fuels the magic which wards off vampires, and I guess vampires aren’t fooled by false faith.”

“Do you have anything else in there?”

“What, a water bottle and a stick aren’t good enough for you?”

Eva bit her lip and slipped something out from her belt. Ambrosia stepped back. A silver knife glinted in the dim moonlight streaming into the office.

“Came equipped, did you?” she said. “I don’t suppose you have any brilliant ideas to nab that vampire as well?”

Eva rolled the water bottle in her hands. She bit her lip again, but this time she seemed to be hiding a smile. “This stuff really works?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I think I might.”




Ambrosia crept through the dark hallways. The lockers seemed bigger than they should be, looming over her in shadow. She wondered what it would be like to go to normal high school, with lockers and backpacks and teachers who might actually be vampires. The only public schooling she could remember went up to third grade, when she had gotten into a fight with a boy and accidentally sent him to the hospital.

Her dad homeschooled her after that.

Shaking off the memories, Ambrosia continued her hunt. She could not help but feel that she was the one being hunted, which was very likely considering her choice of prey. In her line of work, the line between hunter and prey tended to blur.

The scorch marks on the walls eventually led her back to the closet where the vampire had trapped her. Fresh claw marks scoured the door. Obviously, the vampire wasn’t happy about her escape. Ambrosia paused to listen, but the halls were silent. Her eyes strayed down to her paws. If she had hands she could set up a tracking spell, but in her current body such a task would take too long. Well, there was more than one way to track a vampire.

Ambrosia set her nose before the door and breathed in deeply. The predictable scent of wood, disinfectant, and hundreds of oily hands assaulted her nose, but beneath it all she could detect the subtle, distinctive smell of nail polish. She lifted her nose from the door and breathed in the air of the hallway. Immediately she was bombarded by hundreds of scents. The overwhelming attack almost sent her reeling. Brushing away floor polish, shoes, perfume, bubblegum, paper, and her own magic, she dove deeper into the complex weaving of scents. There, mixed and mashed with countless other signals, she found the faint trail of nail polish and ash.

“Found you,” she whispered, hurrying after the trail.

It eventually led her to a closed door at the end of a hallway. Beside the door sat a plaque: “Room 205, Abigail Schechter.”

“Anyone home?” she called loudly, scratching obnoxiously at the door. “Delivery service! Did someone here order twenty-two cans of butt-whooping?”

A loud hiss broke through the hall. Ambrosia jumped aside just in time to avoid being skewered by the vampire bursting from the room, her long, freshly-painted nails slashing the air.

“Must be you,” Ambrosia said.

The vampire screeched at her, too frustrated to banter. Bits of her suit and hair were scorched, and the tip of one fang was chipped where Ambrosia had slammed a locker in her face—neither of them were sure exactly how that had happened, but it certainly hadn’t done much for the vampire's mood.

“Right,” Ambrosia said as heat built up in her throat. “Sign here please.”

She breathed out. Flames leapt from her throat and rushed towards the vampire, who ducked back into the room to avoid them. Ambrosia turned and ran. Beneath the pounding of her own heart, she heard the hurried click-clack of high-heeled pursuit. Ambrosia poured her energy into running, hoping that her awkward legs would carry her fast enough to outrun an enraged and extremely frustrated vampire. She skidded around one corner, and then another. The sound of high heels on linoleum disappeared to be replaced by the cracking of leathery wings. Reaching a long stretch of hallway, Ambrosia risked a glance back. The vampire shot through the hall, the tips of her bat-like wings almost brushing the lockers on either side.

They passed a chalk mark on the floor. Ambrosia turned the corner.

"Now!" she shouted.

Eva stepped out from around the corner, pointed the water gun at the approaching vampire, and pulled the trigger.

The vampire screamed as holy water sizzled on her skin. She shot past the girls, wings crumpling to her sides as she slammed into the floor and skidded across the tiles. Screeching with anger and pain, she came to an unpleasant stop against the wall. She began to struggle to her knees, but Ambrosia was ready for her. The wizard set her paws on the floor and pumped energy into the runes she had previously drawn across the tiles. Orange light zipped through the chalk lines. Magic ropes shot up around the vampire and wrapped around her limbs. She screeched and struggled against the binds, her magic lashing out in tendrils of smoky red. Ambrosia felt the spell begin to give.

"I need more power!" Ambrosia shouted to Eva. "Just like I showed you!"

Eva stared at the struggling vampire.

"Eva, now!"

She dropped the gun and knelt down next to Ambrosia. Her hands hovered uncertainly over the runes, but a grunt from Ambrosia propelled them forward to press against two glowing circles in the spell. She closed her eyes.

Nothing happened.

"Eva!"

"I—I'm trying!"

The vampire jerked from her bonds. Orange ropes sprang from the runes at claw at her limbs, but she slashed them away and lurched towards Ambrosia, he bright nails gleaming in the magic light. She reached towards the girls.

Purple light surged through the runes. Orange and purple mixed like a kaleidoscope image as more ropes leapt from the runes. The grape and tangerine tendrils latched around the vampire, practically incasing her in a thick layer of color. The smell of grapes and new books flooded the room. Ambrosia threw one last burst of power into the spell and detached herself to grab the leather bag sitting where Eva had previously been hiding. She quickly opened it with her teeth and dragged out the silver handcuffs by rubber grip on the chain.

"Sorry, Ms. Schechter," Eva whispered as Ambrosia approached.

The little wizard tossed the handcuffs at the vampire. Before the vampire could even move, she found her wrists encased by hissing, glowing silver bands. The orange and purple glow faded, leaving only chalk marks on the floor and a struggling vampire. Ms. Schechter glared at her captor.

"Don't even think about trying anything," Ambrosia said smugly. "That silver will absorb any of your magic, and I can activate the shock-spell on those things with nothing more than a word."

The vampire bared her fangs and spit something out in an ancient tongue—something which Ambrosia didn't understand, but was certainly not appropriate for minor ears. Speaking of minors...

"Not bad, Eva," Ambrosia said, turning to her. "That wasn't as horrible as I thought it—"

The girl was gone. Looking around, Ambrosia saw a door standing wide open. The faint smell of fresh air seeped through it.

"Stay," Ambrosia told the vampire. She hurried through the door.

The trail of fresh air led her up two flights of stairs and through another door. Eva knelt in the center of the roof, staring up at the stars. Wind tickled at her hair. She didn't look as Ambrosia approached.

"How-how do you do it?" Eva whispered. Ambrosia could hear her struggled breathing.

She shrugged. "It gets easier. Usually. Sort of. I mean, it never gets perfect, but..." She trailed off, shrugging awkwardly. "It gets easier."

Eva closed her eyes and let her head droop. She had one hand to her chest as she tried to control her breathing. Ambrosia scanned the night sky.

"We should get out of here," she said. "Come on."

"Give me another minute. I just shot my science teacher with a water gun and practically melted her face. I need a moment to recover."

They sat in silence as Eva's breathing evened out. Eventually she shook herself slightly and looked at Ambrosia with a slight frown.

"Why did you have to do this now? Why couldn't you wait until you, I don't know, had hands again?"

She shrugged. "Rent's due next week. I needed a bounty. But seriously, we need to go."

"Just...just one more question. Why did you let me help you? Earlier today you seemed so adamant about not wanting anything to do with me, but tonight you didn't even try to tell me to go home. Why now?"

Ambrosia was silent for a moment, eyes scanning the sky. At last she sighed and looked to Eva. "I keep my promises."

"What?"

Thump!

They looked up. On the far side of the roof, a figure rose to its feet. Moonlight glimmered off of the icy wings attached to its back. The appendages looked like hundreds of thin shards of ice melted onto a flexible frame. The figure stepped towards them, baring its teeth.

"Found you again!" the pig demon snarled.

"Do you know when I'll take her in?" Ambrosia had said. "When pigs fly!"

She really needed to learn to hold her tongue.

"I'm pretty sure fate hates me," Ambrosia muttered. Heat built up in her throat, but when she opened her mouth all she could expel was smoke. She coughed painfully.

"Ambrosia!" Eva squeaked, holding her knife out like a sword. "D-do something!"

"I'm trying!" she snapped through a wave of dizziness. After not being able to use her magic for a time, she had overexerted herself. Perfect.

The pig charged. Ambrosia rolled to the side, seeing Eva dart towards the door from the corner of her eye. The pig streaked past where they had been and came to a clumsy halt, wings flapping awkwardly. An idea popped into Ambrosia's head.

"Hey bacon bits!" she shouted. "Over here!"

The pig turned to her with a snarl. She wagged her tail mockingly and darted towards the edge of the roof. The pig charged after her. She skidded to a halt at the edge, feeling the wind tug at her fur and try to drag her down. She turned back to the pig. It didn't even slow down. When it was practically on top of her, she rolled out of the way.

The pig charged off the roof. Its snarls of fury turned to squeals of fear as it flailed through the air. Its wings flapped awkwardly as it attempted to slow its fall, but it couldn't stop itself from slamming into the bushes with a rancorous crash. Ambrosia peered over the edge of the roof as the pig groaned in a wreckage of twigs and leaves. One of its wings had almost snapped off entirely.

"Wow," she said. "I can't believe that actually worked. I wonder where it got those things."

She looked back at Eva, who was peering from behind the door with her mouth hung open.

"Hey Eva, do you still have my phone? We're going to need a clean-up crew."

"Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Ambrosia froze as a harsh laughter rang across the rooftop. She whirled around, but they were the only ones on the roof. Below, the pig demon was still dazed.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"Uh...Ambrosia?"

She turned to Eva. The girl pointed. A crow perched above the door leading inside, its glossy feathers dully reflecting the moonlight. As they watched, it opened its sharp beak and let out another laugh.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Rolling her eyes, Ambrosia jogged across the rooftop and through the door, ignoring the laughing crow. Eva stared at the bird for a moment, and then followed. Its laughter rang after them until the door slammed shut.

The crow's eyes gleamed. It let out one last laugh, more for its own amusement than anything else, and then it took to the air and disappeared.