Born of Ashes

She moved into the kitchen. She looked around. There were three knives in a wooden block.



He saw her. He had the kettle in his hand, but he put it back on the stove. He turned toward her, assessing.



“You seem different.”



“You do not. Pas du tout.”



“French?” He cocked his head. She noticed a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. The next moment he had a knife in his hand and blurred toward her at preternatural speed.



She allowed all the vibrations of Jean-Pierre’s two hundred years of warrior service on Second Earth to live, beat, and breathe within her. The knife was just suddenly in her right hand and with her left, she blocked the blurring arm, pushing the stabbing thrust away from her neck. Her blade found purchase in the soft belly of Rith’s body. She thrust up and up until his back bowed, and she pushed the blade through something meatier and pulsing.



As a warrior might, she gave a twist.



Rith’s body jerked hard. He fell backward and she released the knife so that it would stay within him.



She had no particular reaction as his head slapped the tile hard. He shook from head to toe, his eyes wild for a few seconds. But soon his body fell still and the light in his eye disappeared. Blood poured from the wound, spreading in a beautiful red blossom on the fine white line of his shirt, around the ebony handle of the knife.



But she wasn’t done.



She put her foot on his neck and looked outside. Rain now pelted the garden. The dome of mist was gone.



She sent her telepathic thread flying through nether-space, reaching for Jean-Pierre. She found him almost instantly. Which meant he was close by.



Come to me now. Help me finish this, she sent.



She understood Rith’s power. She felt in her bones that he could undo this. No, she knew he could undo this, that he was undoing it even now.



* * *



Jean-Pierre watched the mist crumble before his eyes. He did not question what he saw. He focused on Fiona and folded.



A split second later he stood beside her.



Rith lay on the floor, a knife up through his abdomen, blood seeping. But he understood at once why Fiona had sounded desperate. Rith was healing his heart and slowly pushing the blade out.



Jean-Pierre had but seconds. A vampire with this amount of power, which he understood to be a Fourth ability, would not take long.



He drew his sword into his right hand and with a single swift arcing swipe, severed Rith’s head from his body.



Only then, as blood poured from the head and from the neck, did Rith’s body finally slump into the stillness of real death.



Fiona slid her arm about his waist. He looked down at her. “Are you all right?”



“He was deranged,” Fiona said.



He folded his sword away. “Oui. At the very least, he was deranged.” He withdrew his thin warrior phone from the pocket of his kilt and thumbed it.



“Jeannie, here. How may I serve?”



“Jeannie, we have Rith at last and he is dead. I want you to transfer his body to the morgue. His head is severed but would you be so kind as to transport them separately and alert the doctor to send the head immediately into the crematorium? Do you understand?”



“Tell you what, duhuro. Let’s do the head first. We’ll leave the body right where it is until I have confirmation that the head has been disposed of. Is that okay with you?”



“Oui. A much better idea.”



“Good. I have a fix. Are you ready?”



“Do it.” Rith’s head vanished. And as though his body understood that the separation was now complete, a shudder passed through it.



He felt Fiona lean into him a little more. He slid his arm around her shoulder and held her close. Both of them stood over the gore, staring and watching. Waiting until Jeannie called back. A morbid vigil.



“I wish Parisa was here,” she said softly. “She would want to know that he’s dead.”



“Do you want to call her?”



“Yes.” He felt her nod against him.



He drew his Epic from the deep pocket of his kilt and handed it to Fiona. She sighed heavily as she put in Parisa’s number. She looked up at him. She had tears in her eyes.



“Hi, it’s me,” Fiona said. “No, everything’s fine. Better than fine.” She paused, drawing in another breath. “We got him, Parisa. We got the monster.”



Jean-Pierre was still holding his warrior phone next to his ear. Jeannie came back online. “You there?”



“Oui.”



“The doctor put the head in the crematorium personally. This boy is toast. He’s only waiting now for the rest of the corpse. Shall I take it?”



“I have a favor to ask.”



“Anything, duhuro.”



“The Militia Warriors have a different morgue, non?”



“That’s right. Are you thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking?”



He smiled, a little. “That makes no sense to me. But I would like you to send the remainder of Rith’s body to a different morgue, to Militia HQ morgue. Will you do that?”



“With pleasure. Let me make the arrangements. Hold on.”



He looked down at Fiona, who held the phone loosely in her hand. Her shoulders shook. He turned into her and gathered her into his arms, though awkwardly because he still had his warrior phone pressed to his ear. She sobbed against his chest. With one eye on Rith’s remains, he held her tight.



At last, Jeannie came back on. “Ready?”



“Yes.”



“This will be a complete cleanup job. Close your peepers.” He warned Fiona then closed his eyes.



“Ready,” he said.



The flash of light behind his eyelids was blinding, but when he opened his eyes Rith, and all his blood, was just gone. “Thank you, Jeannie.”



“My pleasure. Call if you need me.”



He put his phone away. “It is over. At long last, it is over.”



Fiona pulled back to look up at him. Her face was streaked and her nose red but she had never looked more beautiful. She was alive and she was safe. “I asked Parisa to join us here.”



“And is she coming? Now?”



“Yes. Antony as well. Parisa was held captive here for three months and this was … my home, for over a century.”



“This is good,” Jean-Pierre said. “I suppose Alison would call this closure.”



Fiona offered a faint curve of her lips as she said, “Oui.”



Review the past,



Learn the lessons,



Forgive the self,



Forgive others,



Dwell in peace.



—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth



Chapter 21



Fiona looked up at the kitchen ceiling. She had never heard rain on the house before, ever. Rith’s creation of mist had prevented the property from experiencing any extreme of weather.



A movement of air, and suddenly Parisa and Antony materialized. Because she still had her arm around Jean-Pierre, she felt his sudden tensing then release.



“Allô, Medichi. Parisa.”



Fiona put her fingers to her chin. Her lips quivered. There she was, the woman, her friend, who had made it possible for Fiona to have a new life. Her heart was suddenly so full, unbearably full, and more tears tracked down her cheeks.



“Fiona,” Parisa cried. “Is it true? Is it really true?”



Fiona nodded. “Yes, he’s dead.”



Parisa’s shoulders fell as she released a sigh. “Thank God. He can’t hurt anyone else. Ever.”



Fiona went to Parisa and took her in a tight embrace. Parisa held her equally as hard. All Fiona could think to say was “Thank you,” over and over.



Parisa responded, “Of course. Of course. Of course.”



Finally she drew back, folded tissues into her hands, and gave a couple to Fiona. She dabbed at her eyes and her face. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. But I want to know everything about your life here. Would you be willing to share that with me?”



At first, Fiona thought it would be impossible, that she felt too much, that her wounds were still too raw. But after a moment’s consideration, she said, “If you’ll tell me about yours.”



“I want to do that,” Parisa said, nodding. “I think it would be a good thing … for both of us.”



So for the next hour, Fiona walked through the house with Parisa. She took her into the basement and told her stories about the women she’d known who had died there. Afterward, climbing the stairs, Parisa showed her the perfect bedroom in which she had lived out her three months of captivity.



“It hardly seems like anything,” Parisa said, “compared with what you went through.”



Fiona let her gaze drift over the four-poster bed and the silk quilted coverlet. “I think at least fifty of the slaves died before the three-month mark. Don’t minimize the time of your captivity. Slavery is slavery.”



Parisa looked at her. “Do you know what I think? I think I was brought here to make sure you got home. That’s what I think.”



“I would never wish such a fate on anyone, but I will always be grateful that I met you, no matter what the circumstances.”



Turning, she saw that the rain had stopped. In Burma, it was morning. Through the windows she could see that the sun sparkled on the wet feathery leaves of the tamarind tree.



“Come outside with me.”



She took Parisa out into the wet garden. For a long moment, they stood shoulder-to-shoulder and stared at the teak bench beneath the enormous old tree where they had met for the first time just five months ago.



“I sat there for hours,” Parisa said, “the first day of my abduction because Rith told me to. I was afraid to move, afraid to do anything. No one came to me, to talk to me, to tell me what was expected of me.



“When I went in search of Rith, he punished me for my disobedience, piercing my mind and inflicting pain, such pain. How easily he subdued me with that pain. I hated how completely passive I was all those months.”



“Try decades.”



Parisa took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “You weren’t passive the day I met you,” she said, smiling. “That day, you fought Rith. I always wondered, why that day?”