Chapter 9
Ash, the Anguished Drunk, Part I
Ash nearly tripped face down into the cobble at the next darkling they ran into.
No way among the stone buildings and cramped streets did he ever imagine seeing the sight before him again. No matter how much alcohol he downed before this ongoing disaster of a night – Dead Man’s Run pure and gut roaring, mulled red wine strengthened by rum and mint …
Or even the Final Chug.
The screams of distant victims too sharp for his dulled drunk senses to dismiss the sight as mere delusion.
He would never forget that sweet smell of cherry bathed in mild vanilla.
Even if it didn’t fit within the stinks of blood and terror drenching the night. The dark shuttered windows of the buildings around him. The lampposts and moon were all bright enough to allow his drunk eyes to see the street clearly enough. Hear the gasps of the two lycan girls behind him, no longer pushing him onward.
To see Amber standing tall and proud. Hands on lush hips that jutting out to greet her unfaithful Ash.
And dressed as queen of the femme fatale darklings.
In an outfit that showed every inch of her six crisp peachy foot body, as she once called it so long ago, a body that put those supposed perfect goddesses to shame.
A strap of white translucent silk around those heavenly bulges from her chest. Hugging her like a single, loose bandage. Another silk strap crisscrossed around her hips and up her groin, the long ends hanging loose to the side like sheaths to deadly legendary blades. Two more around her heel and zigzagged up her shins. A final two around her forearms, with very long loose ends hanging easy.
Like tooth vines about to snap prey and drain it of blood.
Penny would try to kill Amber out of spite.
Because two bone wings came out of Amber’s back. Not bird wings. Or dragon wings. Like a pair of spines but with only one side of ribs. Spines that flowed as elegantly as snakes. Ribs that curved and twisted as elegantly as the spines.
And thinned to razor sharp tips at the end.
Ash couldn’t help but gulp. Her cherry taste even reached his mouth. Filled it like a sweet desert.
Despite it being completely closed.
Words escaped him completely.
Her skin as peachy crisp and unmarred as the day he last saw her, stolen by those vicious lycan, to be broken and enslaved. Her long blond hair still the same lush golden color.
Especially the long lush lock combed over the left side of her face. Framing her oval face. Giving her pouting cherry lips an extra haunty zip. Electric blue right eye, narrowed yet smiling, ready to zap Ash dead.
As if unaware of the horrors standing beside her.
Two, thirteen-foot bucks. Carnivorous, judging by their deformed mouths baring fangs. Waving antlers as jagged and sharp as a pile of bloody swords chopped to a bunch of razor shards. Their long straggly hair twisting and twisting as if searching for an unwitting victim to grab and strangle.
Even if every dark brown strand shined and smelled like a chocolate – the exact kind of grooming nonsense some nobles did with their pet mutts.
And their noses were as red as a cherry tart.
The quiet deep mew beside Ash – it came from Mandy. Definitely sounded as sharp as her claws.
Followed by another growl, from the girl behind him. The bestial undertone different than a wolf or a tigress, yet definitely of vicious lycan.
A very vicious lycan. Really to tear apart anything in its path vicious.
Her finger jabbed his back extra hard – one of the very same fingers that kept Ash running despite his legs wobbling refusal at times.
Now it let him sputter out his first words to Amber in years. Ever since his cowardly self failed to save her from the lycan so long ago. Back when he was a growing teen full of young pride and dreams instead of a young man full of alcohol and regrets.
“Amber …” he said, “I … sorry. I. It’s so good to see you.”
Her pout turned to a small sardonic smirk. Sardonic. That’s the type of good, many-coin word he saved up for only when she was around.
“Captured by lycan,” Amber said. Her voice as lyrical as any songbird. “Pity.”
And cocked her head up a bit. Giving him that bitchy chin up, nose up, look normally only born nobles managed to perform to full effect.
A look she admitted, during the epic drinking contest after their fifth successful show together, was as much to chase away boring, weak-willed guys as to mess around with guys too arrogant to know better.
“Yeah, uhm,” he said, regretting overindulging in alcohol tonight, again.
And probably not for the last time.
“Not quite yet,” he said, “Mandy and I have … a drinking contest first. Our fight, well, it’s complicated. I take it you’re a darkling now. A true femme fatale, right? Dressed snazzy, slinky, and sexy evil.”
Her bucks lowered their heads and stomped the cobble. Their hooves cracked so hard against the road that he expected them to break it.
The road, he means.
She also lowered her chin back to normal. Without the sinister stomping to go with it too.
“And you’re a bit of a hero yourself,” she said, “Dressed so snazzy. That saber – long, sharp, yet beautifully made. Just like a brave Paladin should. Definitely fitting for a hero’s role. Think you can end me with it?”
The mews and growls coming from my lycan companions demanded he try.
In the most literal way possible.
The screams and cries from a distance too.
“End you?” he asked, “Not what I had in mind. Anyway, that’s too predictable. Don’t tell me going darkling made you go all cliche too.”
Her smirk lost the sardonic edge. Grew a bit too.
But kept the sweet tartness of a cherry tart.
“Of course not,” she said, “A girl revived from the dead can’t be all old news. I got to set three conditions for my revival. Eternally youthful healthy beauty, absolute artistic license, and a certain weakness that’s …”
Her smile turned to a perverted grin as she lowered her head sinisterly. Raised her hands palms up letting the long straps hang off her wrists. Puffed out her divinely endowed chest till the translucent fabric stretched enough to show coin-sized red spots for her nipples.
Then arched her wings high like an undead swan about to impose its dark will upon a lowly worm.
“Quite dramatic. And silly,” she said, “But befitting my ambitious nature.”
“It better be,” he said playful yet serious. A lesson, one of the few he remembered from the Earth Wizard, popping into his head.
She had to be a vandread. Both living yet undead. With the undead’s hunger for the living. Their great strength, speed, and agility. Possibly some magical powers too.
But her soul dwelled inside her body too. Complete with the mind, temperament, and personality of her original living self.
Able to heal or regenerate her body quickly unless her weakness was found and exploited.
But she was enslaved to her creator’s will.
Outside of three conditions she set upon creation – including the exact nature of her weakness, the one thing that could either kill her or, even more secret, the additional part to bind her to a new master – the magic that revived her also compelled her to serve and obey her current master loyally and faithfully.
Yet he couldn’t help but smile at her conditions.
“Greedy as always,” he said, roguish smile matching my teasing voice, “Bet you’re aiming to be the sexiest, scariest vandread in history.”
The glint in her eyes somehow cleared his head better than it’d been in hours. No weeks.
No years.
The warm air crisp. His eyes, his limbs, no longer sluggish or wobbly. Everything was clear in the amber ale light of the lampposts, the milky white of the full moon.
So he rested the palm of his sword hand on his saber’s hilt.
His hand even found it on the first try.
“Hate to cut your ambition short,” he said, “But one of the darklings here will tell me about everything she knows about this attack on Chemarin. The first one gets the best deal. Love it to be you, Ambie Bambie, but that offer includes your fawns. And they’re starting to look a bit twitchy, if you know what I mean.”
The giant bucks snorted. Heads lowering. Steam puffing out their mouths and noses.
Her hands returned to her hips so quick Amber slapped herself.
“Oh, Twitchy and Scratchy always look like that,” said Amber.
Cocking her head slightly to the side. Her hips shifted even more to follow.
But the rest of her curved trying not to.
Including lips pouting almost into a cherry sweet kiss – one of her sexier S poses reserved for diva roles and smutty posters.
“They’re way too eager to feast on your flesh,” she said, “Me? I’ll stick to your lycan pals. The whole living undead part means I gotta eat the living. Might as well eat the race that tortured and killed me. No hard feelings, Ashtray.”
“None taken,” he said.
Curled his fingers around his sword’s hilt.
“As long as there’s none when I beat you,” he added.
“Beat me?” she asked, “You gotta find my weakness first. A little hint –”
Her arms swept up. Her hands out at shoulder height. Palms point up to the sky.
“If you survive long enough, that is,” she said, “Gotta grab life’s fruits when you get the chance, or else, you know, a second chance ain't ever guaranteed –“ her hands clenched into fists – “a first chance isn't either.”
* * *
Amber smiled that cherry vanilla smile as sweetly as her scent. Her arms up, body curved in a sensual S. The ends of those silk straps of hers starting to flutter from her hips and forearms.
Yet Ash didn’t feel a single breeze in the warm night air.
Not a single sound rang out across the street.
Only the screams and cries of distant innocents running into merciless darklings.
Her giant buck already shifted sideways. Spreading their feet. Leaving no space between them, Amber, and the buildings for anyone to pass through except under their legs.
Under their twitching long fur.
Not that Ash or his temporary lycan allies could turn around and run. The alleyways between buildings were far too thin to escape quickly. Not to mention the spidora and its hatchlings.
Take too long here and they’d catch up.
When the chorus of moans erupted behind Amber, Ash did reconsider a tactical retreat. As his fake dad Denzel Cole called it.
Even if it meant risking another encounter with the spidora.
Since the moment Amber revealed her weakness and its nature, her powers would grow. Or at least gave a very good hint of it. Even if it was just the three living people here. It counted. She’d become as much as three times as strong. If the bucks counted, then five times as strong.
And she’d probably announce it with a confusing riddle.
In fact, Felix, during a rarest of rare moment of getting drunk and actually opening up instead of sulking, admitted he’d avoid facing a vandread face on if he could – despite defeating a vandread was the mark of any legendary champion.
Because a vandread was one of the few darklings that required both facing a nearly immortal being head on and defeating it with its specific weakness.
So that fact Ash was still alive, in front of Amber the Vandread, warmed his heart to no end.
Behind Amber, the few human corpses that once laid quietly in the street began to climb to their feet. Their bodies swaying to an unheard, slow, but steady rhythm. Their hands wringing out toward us. Their pale distorted faces twisted in unholy hunger. While the gashes that ended their lives closed and healed over.
Then they all lumbered toward him and his lycan … whatever’s.
A good eight or so animated corpses.
That then halted behind the bucks. Split into two groups of four. Marched underneath the giants. Lurching fast as if whipped to speed up.
Two glassy thunks came from Ash's right – the clanks of Mandy putting two bottles, mostly full, down on the cobble.
The buck lowered their heads to charge. Antlers racks of razors capable to shredding all three of us to shreds.
Yet his legs didn’t wobble this time.
Not yet.
The fact Amber, with her right eye, jolted his spine with its electric blue gleam. That cherry vanilla grin too. Even her legendary lock of blond hair hiding the left side of her face. Hiding it all except for her mouth and bottom of her rosy cheek –
Ash drew his saber and saluted her. Pointing his blade’s sharp tip right at her divinely endowed chest.
Careful not to stare too long at those nipple spots.
“Mere ghouls won’t stop me,” he said. Going for the cheesy to irk Amber up a bit.
Not that her ghouls slowed.
Even when they neared the front legs of her monster bucks.
But Ash knew her weakness would involve either her own body, those straps, or both.
A vandread had a few basic limitations regarded choices for a weakness. The body part or object involved always had to remain “on her person” in wizard speak – basically, something she kept with her nearly all the time.
Like her own body.
Or those straps of silk.
Even if the weakness itself could be anything from eating a certain food to getting cut in a certain place.
Knowing her it would be as zany as her outfit.
Maybe kinky too.
“Oh really?” Amber said. Arching her nectarine eyebrow again. “Nice of you to let me know.”
Then flipped her hand back and forth once.
“Try this then,” she said. Adding a pert jiggle of her chest and hips.
A move he would of teased her on.
But his gut suddenly got socked by an iron ram of utter terror. One that racked his cowardly body with shivers.
With sweat.
With chills.
All so fierce his mouth tasted more raw bitter fear that cup of olive extract Penny forced down his throat thinking it was an olive oil latte during her rare urge to try cooking for him.
The ghouls themselves grew paler. More steady on their feet. Their movements less jerking.
Even grinning like cats spying a cripple mouse. Slowing down enough to drench Ash in their presence.
Sending his heart right through the hard cobble ground.