Annie Anderson's Blog - Posts Tagged "phoenix-books"

So, updating books on Amazon is a little rough. There are those who purchased Scattered Ashes ages ago who don't have this BRAND NEW chapter, sooooo I'm posting it here and on my website for you guys!

AURELIA

Screeching into my parking spot at the gallery, I turn the car off and hop out of the seat like my ass is on fire. I’m late just like Evan said I would be, which is irritating. Somehow, despite my abilities, I still manage to get caught in traffic. Which is just par for the freaking course in my book. Of course, I have just about the worst ability on the planet that only seems to work in fits and spurts.

Did I know I was going to get caught in traffic? Technically, yes, but I thought I could go around it, not knowing that even the side roads would be backed up too. Did I know that Rhys was four cars behind me the whole way down the mountain and parked on the street to avoid me spotting him? Yes, I did. I also know he has on mismatched socks and a Morganite knife in his boot.

But none of that information is useful, and all I’m stuck with is a feeling in my gut that I didn’t pack enough weapons.

Slipping in the hidden side entrance, I try to skirt the crowd without being noticed as I make my way to the only reason I’m here. Food. Assessing the spread at the snack table, I mentally give Evan kudos. Cubed cheeses, grapes, bruschetta, those cute little cucumber chive cups, pancetta cheese tomato skewers, and a bunch of other yummy snacks decorate one massive table positioned expertly next to the open bar.

I have to give it to her. The little devil really knows how to throw a party.

Speaking of the devil, Evan pops up by my side as if she materialized from thin air. Which isn’t too far off from what she’s actually capable of. The jury’s out to if she just showed up on her own two feet, or if she materialized in a puff of smoke in front of an entire roomful of people. I’m going with option one just based on the number of humans in the room.

While it’s great my showing is well-attended, the room is far too peopley for me. But the crowd isn’t the only thing giving me pause. Despite the riot of curls and tiny stature, my pixie of a best friend is typically a little more robust than she is right now. And while I feed her until she busts every time she comes over, I have a feeling she isn’t getting sustenance from the other half of her diet — the soul-eating side.

It’s not as bad as it sounds. As a Wraith, Evan eats damned souls, transporting them on a one-way slide right to Hell. By the sharpness to her cheekbones, she hasn’t consumed a soul in a hot minute.

I want to ask her about it, but this is neither the time or the place.

“Finally decided to grace us with your presence? I thought I was going to have to send out a search party. And by search party, I mean your personal guard dog.”

Rude. After a century plus of us being BFFs, Evan has tried to get me to forgive Rhys about three billion and one times. She would love to lock us in a room together and throw away the key. I’d probably end up killing him, which would end up killing us both temporarily. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Phoenix bondings are stupid.

I pick up a plate, sliding a few of the cucumber cups onto it before moving to the pancetta. 

“Below the belt, Evangeline. Give me time to inhale some of these goodies before you start in on me.”

Using her given name makes her eye twitch which was the intended goal. She purses her red-painted lips at me, probably deciding if yelling at me in this room full of people would be worth the ass-kicking she’d get later.

“You’ve sold four already,” she offers, diverting from the thorny Rhys talk. “Simone is wheedling with two others for the dollhouse one. I think that one is going to start a bidding war in a minute.”

Nodding, I stuff a morsel in my mouth whole and chew. I don’t really care how much the paintings sell for, I just want them gone. All of them – every single one is a depiction of how someone died, an artistic rendering of the deaths that stayed with me long after I opened my eyes in the morning. The dollhouse is my least favorite, and I’ll be glad to see it go.

“Here,” she says offering me a small whiskey glass made from cut crystal.

Gratefully, I take it from her and take a healthy swig, allowing the burn of the alcohol warm me. Yeah, it’s July, but looking at these paintings make me run cold for some reason.

Suddenly, I yank Evan behind the cover of a steel column, sticking her little body in between the edges of the I-beam, not able to articulate in enough time the pictures that just rolled across my brain.

“What—” Evan squawks before the ping, ping, ping of bullets hit the metal.

Screams erupt around us, the crowd stampeding to the exits, and I wonder if I have enough cover to get Evan behind the snack table.

“When I say go, you flip that table over and get behind it,” I order, staring Evan down.

She nods, pressing her lips together so hard they turn white around the edges.

The images in my brain tell me there are two Phoenixes – Soldiers to be exact. Great. I slide out from the cover of the I-beam, pull the gun from my spine holster, and yell for Evan to go before the Soldier in front of me even has time to blink. Wasting five shots on his vest, I quickly realize he’s wearing body armor before he starts returning fire.

Taking off into a run, I move in between two free-standing walls that wouldn’t stop a BB gun, and keep moving to the next I-beam. But I can’t stay there much longer. The other Soldier is skirting around the periphery of the room ready to corner me. I’m being herded.

Moans of pain reach my ears, and it’s all I can do to block them out. Focusing on the heavy footfalls, I try to gauge their position. Reaching up, I pull one of my hair sticks from the bun and throw it like a missile. I enjoy the girly scream coming from a man’s mouth as the thin rod of metal embeds into his eye more than I could possibly say. Grabbing three more, I toss a few into the shoulder of his compatriot before giving him a matching skewer in his other eye.

Above everything – the moans of pain from patrons caught in the crossfire, the sound of a gun being reloaded, the screeching of the Phoenix who’ll have to regrow his eyes – I hear the whimpers of my best friend. Shit.

Evan is softer than I am, and not that she can’t handle herself – she can – but she hasn’t seen the things I have. She hasn’t endured. And she can’t be around the death coming for us without phasing, something she shouldn’t ever do in public. 

If I phase, I look like an angel. Evan, however...

Skirting the perimeter of the room, I manage to circle back to her, practically doing a baseball slide to dodge the bullets aimed for my head as I make it back to cover.

After a second of inspection, I realize all too quickly that Evan is about a nanosecond from losing it.

“Get out of here,” I insist as I reload my Glock.

My best friend isn’t like other Wraiths, and that fact is made all too apparent when pieces of the floor start abrading away underneath her. I’ve seen her level an entire city once by accident over a century ago. Granted her control has grown exponentially since then, but I’m not eager to push it.

Evangeline doesn’t acknowledge me at all, lost in bloodlust or fear or something I can’t name. Despite my unwillingness to hurt her, I can’t have a repeat of San Francisco. My free hand cracks across her face and the inky quality to her Wraith eyes slowly bleed back to human.

She sucks in a breath, shaking herself back to sanity.

“Get out of here,” I repeat, growling so she knows I mean business.

She scrambles back, still under cover of the table, cowering at the barest edge. Her fear of me burns, even as necessary as it might be.

“What about you?” she croaks.

Her voice is fearful even through her fangs as she tries to keep herself in check.

“Rhys is here somewhere. He’ll back me up once he finally sacks up and gets out of his truck. I’ll be fine. Meet you at the cabin?”

Evan takes two deep breaths, one after the other, before she gives me a hesitant nod.

“Good. Get the hell out of here so I can kill these idiots. Say hi to the parental units for me.”

Evan smiles hesitantly before a swirl of black smoke envelopes her and she disappears, traveling to her family’s cabin in Grand Lake and leaving me to take out the trash.

What I didn’t tell her was that Rhys probably wouldn’t get out of his truck. He probably wouldn’t come in at all, and depending on where he parked, he might not see the stream of people flooding out of here like their hair was on fire, or hear the shots from these idiot’s hand cannons.

That’s on me, I suppose. I’ve made it clear over the last century and a half that I don’t want to see him, and I don’t need his help. Typically, I don’t, and today is probably no different.

Probably.

I’m pretty sure I can take care of these two jokers on my own, but what if they aren’t alone?

A guttural gasp of pain breaks into my thoughts, and I shrug out of my jacket. A man not ten feet from me has a bullet in his gut. I try to keep my eyes closed as the vision of his death on an operating table fills my mind, little details about the man coming with it. I didn’t need a vision to tell me the man was a goner, but I lay down cover fire as I sneak out of my hidey hole to drag him to the modicum of safety the table provides.

Pressing my jacket to his wound, I whisper, “Everything is going to be alright, George. Don’t you worry. Keep pressure on that, okay? Help is coming.”

It’s a lie, but he doesn’t need to know that. All George wanted was to buy a little art for his college-aged daughter. He didn’t ask to be gunned down in the middle of an art show.

A burning hot prickle to my skin has me sucking in deep breaths for calm. The absolute last thing this poor man needs to see in his final moments is me turning into a smoldering Valkyrie.

He needs vengeance.

And he’ll get it as soon as Rhys gets off his ass and gets in here. 

Whenever that will be.

Check out Flame Kissed!