Season of Ashes Ch. 01-02

The elegance the woman had once displayed was tempered now with the blood staining her dress and the bruises around her throat. She didn't seem to be too bothered by it; she fixed Fujiwara with a pearly smile and bright laughter. His gaze didn't soften — he certainly didn't offer her a hand as she slowly stood.

Fujiwara could understand the giddy laughter. Adrenaline and fear were powerful sensations, and the instinct was to redirect those into other things after the danger had passed. He was not immune to those either; even now, his eyes threatened to slip from her face to admire the way her blood-soaked dress clung to her hips. Just the adrenaline, he told himself. After a fight, it was human nature to want to fuck, to drink, anything to celebrate how alive the victor was. He no longer got the jitters after a fight, but some things never changed. This was one of them.

The slight breeze tossed at her hair and her dress. Were it not for the crimson smears along her golden skin and the corpse beside her she could have been a film starlet, with the casual disarray that served only to highlight her elegance. As it was, she was more Valkyrie than virgin, a goddess of violence descended from Artemis herself. It was impossible not to admire the way she wore the spray of blood, taking it in stride as if it were merely another facet to her costume.

Oh, yes. If Fujiwara hadn't been so irritable about almost having his payday snatched away...

It didn't help that she was sizing him up in turn, her gaze wandering down his frame with obvious appreciation. He assumed she was feeling much the same as he was, awash in the chaotic surf of adrenaline, with nowhere to direct the giddy energy but arousal. She took her time, drinking in the sight of him in much the same way he had. He wasn't certain how much of it was appraising him as if he were a particularly delectable morsel, or how much was sizing up a potential target.

His grip tightened on the hilt of the knife; he distracted himself by wiping the blade on his slacks and tucking it back into his waistband.

The voice that caressed his ears was husky — and Dominik wasn't certain how much of it was due to the bruises around her throat. Her eyes certainly weren't on the binder tucked against his side.

"It's not about money — not only about money," He corrected himself, holding her gaze as he continued, "We're professionals, that much is obvious. I've got a reputation for delivering; I'm not going to jeopardise that for a pretty face." A very pretty face, he added silently.

Fujiwara smirked, prodding the body with his foot. "Take it up with them if you want to make a deal. I doubt you have half a million to spare like my client does, anyway." His voice was dryly amused as he stared down the slim woman, "It would be easier for me to leave you here, give the police a perpetrator to grill." He gave a humourless chuckle, still hoarse from his earlier struggle. Injured as she was, there was little doubt in his mind that he'd be able to overpower her if it came to that. He was sore, but otherwise unharmed. She wasn't quite as limber, based on the way she'd climbed to her feet.

"I'm sure you wouldn't hesitate to do the same, would you?"

They didn't have long. Someone on the floor below might have heard the struggle, and Newland would be back soon enough. He would not be happy to discover the mess that the Grisaille had become. Sure, both of them had been ambushed—and Fujiwara had a feeling they were being played—but honour was a concept from his military career. He was here to get a job done.

His eyes narrowed, "I'll make a deal with you: Tell me who hired you, and I'll take it up with them. It's that or I leave you for the police or whoever gets here first." The corner of his mouth quirked in a cool smirk, "It's just business. I'm sure you understand."

Leaving her free could still prove to be a mistake. Whoever she was, she'd proven herself to be shrewd and capable — a trait to be admired in allies and reviled in rivals. Still, intelligence could prove to be even more valuable than the risk she posed. He held her gaze, his eyes burning with the intensity of the moment as he waited for her reply.

She wasn't given a chance to reply. The thud of a boot on the door rang out from within the suite. Through the gauzy drapes, enough light filtered out to the balcony for Fujiwara to see the form of a police officer bursting into the suite. He couldn't have been a day over twenty-five, and he gaped at the body on the floor. His service weapon wavered as he looked around the suite, only for his gaze to alight upon the two figures silhouetted on the balcony.

"Reste où vous êtes!" The man's voice was shrill, with the raw edge of someone on the verge of panic. It was almost enough for Fujiwara to feel bad for the kid.

There was no way the police had been called as a result of their scuffle. Despite the time-dilation effect of combat, it had been a few scant minutes since Fujiwara had entered the suite, and scarcely sixty seconds since he'd left the body cooling on the floor. Either the woman had been seen as she skulked in the dark suite, or they'd been set up in more ways than one. He was banking on the latter.

The words had scarcely left the doomed officer's lips when scarlet blossomed on the wall behind him. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The stately windows of the Grisaille shattered as a bullet pierced the thick panes. The man's hat was thrown askew as the back of his skull exploded into a bright cloud of gore.

"Fucking shit!" Even Dominik, as experienced as he was, flinched as the night was shattered by the crack of a high-powered rifle. The whistle of the tranquiliser darts and the resultant bite of the needle in his neck didn't register until he was clutching onto the railing for support, fighting against the allure of lethargy.

It didn't matter where, he needed to be anywhere but here. Anywhere but the ruined suite, surrounded by corpses. His fingers fumbled with the binder, clutching at it as it fell from his grip, suddenly too clumsy to keep hold of it. Time flickered by and Fujiwara slumped to his knees, still struggling to remain upright as he relied on the railing for support. He needed to move, but his body wasn't responding to his demands. His vision was hazy; shrinking down to a dark tunnel as blood rushed in his ears, his eyes focused only on the mystifying figure of the woman before him. Her hair caught the glow of the city lights, strands of gold tossed by the wind.

It was hypnotic enough that the dark figure behind her didn't register as it climbed over the balcony rail.

The last thing he noticed was how clean the floor of the balcony was as he fell to the ground. It was cool against his cheek, somehow comforting as a backdrop to the violence that had shattered the night. In the tiny sliver of vision that he still had, there was no blood, no corpses, nothing out of place. Just the calm tranquility of the Paris evening, with headlights flitting to and fro like fireflies. It was peaceful, almost.

He knew he should be upset, should be worried about something, but the thought was difficult to cling to. Things swirled around his head with dizzying uncertainty, each thought slipping through his fingers as soon as he tried to grasp hold of it. What did the job matter? All he'd ever gotten from his work was more scars, and more stories that he couldn't tell.

There was no sense in worrying about such things. That took too much effort. It was easier to just let his eyes slide shut, and let the comforting darkness of sleep overtake him.

Milicent

The man had a guarded manner of speech that made his intentions difficult to parse — a predictable enough feature in a seasoned operative, but frustrating all the same. The threat of leaving her to the injudicious caprices of the metropolitan police evoked a flare of alarm; Milicent clenched her jaw and kept herself from making a hasty retort. The chuckle that followed the threat augmented his erratic persona. Milicent simply didn't know him well enough to produce a competent ploy, and no amount of ill-advised, rapid phrenology would plot the uncharted vagaries of his character. And he had a point — she would turn on him in a heartbeat if the right opportunity came along; the evening just happened to be bereft of such opportunities to begin with.

Then he presented an opportunity of his own: betray the identity of her client. An unthinkable divulgence. Failing the mission was one thing; burning bridges in the intelligence community was quite another. She didn't want a target on her back, didn't want to spend the rest of her life feeling the shadow of an axe dangling above her neck. But if the alternative involved surrendering herself to the police? Well. The choice there was obvious.

She took a breath, hands rubbing her elbows as she kept them crossed over her chest. She didn't know the name of her client, but she could start parceling out information about the intermediary. Nothing too definitive — not to begin with, at least — but enough to captivate him, buy some time, maybe even encourage him to relinquish her from this awkward hostage situation so she could nurse her hurt pride in the comfort of her own hotel room. She opened her mouth.

They both turned in the direction of the sudden noise from the Grisaille. Milicent's entire body tensed; her hands dropped to her sides, her fingers instinctively snapping the blade free from the handle. She'd overestimated him. He hadn't even managed to properly dispatch the intruder — but no. This wasn't a reanimated corpse. Through the window, she recognised the faint outline of a uniformed official. Milicent's heart raced as she remembered that a few strands of her hair were now pinned to the pages of a book in the drawing room, just begging to be noticed. But the stranger noticed the two of them first, calling out in his tremulous voice.

Milicent cocked her head, sensing a new possibility. Male, young, inexperienced, alarmed. Finally. An opportunity. She could easily garner the sympathy of a young officer, point her fingers at the man standing in front of her and accuse him of all sorts of heinous —

— The knife dropped from her hands and bounced on the balcony. Her arms wrapped around her head, fingers spider-webbing through her hair as she sought to protect her skull from the sudden hail of glass that sprinkled around them. Her mouth was open and her neck was taut as though she were suspended in the motion of a scream — but no perceptible sound rushed from her bruised vocal cords. She blinked, eyelashes fluttering, and opened her eyes just in time to hop out of the way when the man leaned forward and crashed against the railing, slumping in slow motion, his eyelids and chin drooping like a melting wax figure.

Milicent's sense of terror soared beyond known limits. Nothing mattered anymore; nothing but raw survival at any costs. The binder was no longer a concern. She turned on her heel, twirling in a flutter of red-and-white, only to collide with a brief shriek against some shadowy apparition. She smelled the faint trace of a man's cologne — the hiss of citrus and the smoke of a campfire — but she failed to discern any facial features in the hulking mass of blackness that now enveloped her, crushing her in a tight embrace before tossing her against the wall like a scrap of paper.

"Uunngh..." Milicent groaned, fingers scraping the ground as she scrambled to get upright. Why was gravity so strong? She was bound to the ground, the atmosphere too heavy to overcome. She settled for a crawl, wincing as her gloved palms swept over broken glass. No...not here...not like this. She blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice. Everything was dark. Why couldn't she open her eyes? Her cheek collided with the floor. There was a sharp pain in her neck. Her pulse was singing, each tortured heartbeat more laboured than the last. She could feel the lure of oblivion circling her like a shiver of sharks. Maybe there'd be no more pain after this.

So this is what it feels like, she mused. This is what it feels like to die.

❦❦❦

Chapter Two

Milicent

THE AFTERLIFE, as it turned out, was hardly the stirring experience it was advertised to be. No chorus of angels, no auriferous light, no imagery reminiscent of Dante's Paradiso. And if this were hell? Well, there were no eternal fires, no pestilent demons, no scenery corresponding to Dante's Inferno. There was, in fact, nothing but nothing. Darkness. A void. An eternity of boredom.

After a few millennia, which may have actually been seconds or centuries, Milicent began to recover some of her wherewithal. She remembered who she was. She recalled faint images of her last living moments, like the after-trace of a blazing firework on the scorched retina. She began to feel things — things that seemed awfully suggestive of her earthly senses. The rich fragrance of treated leather. The hypnotic rumble of a car's engine. The bitter aftertaste of overroasted espresso. The binding touch of starch-stiffened clothing. Surely there was something to see as well?

Her eyes crept open, forming a tiny slit of blurred light. Bit by bit, the surroundings sharpened into focus. She was sitting in the back of a car. Immediately ahead of her, occupying the front passenger seat, was a figure with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair that poked out past the headrest. To this figure's left sat the driver, part of his profile visible from Milicent's angle: gaunt face, aquiline nose, chin tucked in a black turtleneck. A Peugeot lion was emblazoned in gold on the steering wheel. The steady whoosh of windshield wipers broke the otherwise silent monotony of the vehicle's interior. Milicent could see the deluge of rain that poured in front of the car, the droplets shining like jewels in the beams of the headlamps.

Without moving her head, she glanced down, noticing the brittle mess of her dress, which was now crusted with patchwork splotches of dried blood. The incidents in the hotel couldn't have happened too long ago. Her gloves, she noticed, were missing. She flexed her fingers and felt her left wrist strain against the clasp of something tight. She was handcuffed. With infinitesimal adjustments of her neck, she broadened her sightline to take in the sight of the car's fourth occupant next to her; it was him, her mysterious rival, rigid and unmoving, his right hand bound in the same pair of cuffs.

Milicent glimpsed at the rear-view mirror; she couldn't see the reflection of his face in the glass — not without adjusting her body and inviting notice. She closed her eyes, regulated her breathing, and surreptitiously inched her hand nearer to his, moving slowly to keep the cuffs from clinking loudly. Once she was close enough, she began tapping her forefinger against his knuckle in a fixed pattern, alternating between lingering and fleeting touches that repeated over and over again. Dash-dot-dash-dot. Dash-dash-dot-dash. CQ. A general call. Are you awake?

Dominik

The soft thrumming of an engine slowly nudged Fujiwara awake. His mind was sluggish, but a sense of wrongness prickled in the back of his mind. He had to fight the instinct to start awake and take his attackers by surprise. That was one of the easiest ways for things to get even worse. Instead, he listened. He felt.

The wipers squeaked as they ran over the windscreen, accompanied by the soft spattering of raindrops on the roof. The car was quiet, its interior soft and comfortable. His fingers ran over the surface of the seat under him, feeling the soft grain of rich leather. Not cheap vinyl, or shoddy construction. An expensive car. There were no voices, but Dominik waited. He listened.

The car rumbled, the wheels vibrating as they drove over cobblestones. There was the bounce and clunk of the car passing over intersecting train tracks. The blare of a horn from an oncoming car, distorted by the Doppler effect. Fujiwara remained still, forcing himself to breathe and take in his surroundings. One muscle at a time. Make sure you can still fight first. He wiggled his toes, then his fingers. One limb at a time, he worked his way up to ensure that he could feel everything, that nothing was too injured to respond when he needed.

The tap of a finger on the back of his hand made him crack his eyes open.

From the corner of his eye, he saw a blur of scarlet and ivory. The world about him was fuzzy, but he could see well enough to make out colour and shape. The woman. Whoever she was, she was in the same situation as he was — and shackled to him, if the weight around his wrist was anything to go by. His mind was still hazy; it took him another two repetitions before he recognised the pattern and responded. Dash-dot-dash-dot. C. Affirmative.

His mind was still hazy, he forced his thoughts into some sort of order, but it took effort. He had to think, had to find the angle that would get him — them? He supposed it would have to be both of them; she was in the same mess that he was. They could sort out whatever the issue was with the binder later — he had a feeling that they would have worse problems than the money soon enough. His fingers tapped out a question. TGTR. Together?

An offer of a truce — it was the only opportunity they had to escape this alive. If she was feeling anything like Dominik was, she might as well have been hit by a train. Tranquilisers did that; they were never gentle. They couldn't afford to be. He pondered their course of action; they didn't have time for small talk, not with such an inefficient means of communication.

He could see their captors now, as his eyes managed to regain their focus. The oncoming headlights were still bright smears of light, sparkling in the rain, but it was enough to illuminate the two men in the front of the car, staring steadfastly ahead. He couldn't make out their features, but he doubted they'd be anyone he recognised — low-level goons, rather than anyone important. Whoever had set them up used their people as disposable tools. Dominik doubted that the two attackers had intended to kill them. No, if anything, they were there to frame both him and the mystery blonde.

He tapped on her palm, his fingers rough against the velvet of her skin. N BKP. No backup? Both a question and a confirmation — he wasn't expecting any of his own.

Milicent

An electrifying thrill surged in Milicent's chest when her abortive attempt at communication finally yielded a reply. She quashed her urge to exhale in relief.

An enquiry followed. She concentrated on the rhythmic tap of the fingers, the sounds in her ears muffling as all her other senses ebbed, elevating her focus on the warm pressure of his touch. He proposed an alliance. She responded: C; yes. The night had turned into a neverending nightmare of concatenating conspiracies. A little cooperation would undoubtedly increase the likelihood of survival.

"Ici." The front passenger's voice was low and gravelly; a growl on cobblestones. An inexorable force goaded Milicent's body to lean against her ad hoc ally; the car was changing lanes, curving toward an exit, its velocity modulating in the process. She could hardly make out any details on the road — not in this wet-obscured darkness — but from her angle, she could see the fluctuating flash of the digital speedometer, which winked between numbers in the high 40s. Carriageway speeds during rainfall. Were they orbiting along one of the ring roads surrounding the city? Or had they already launched into the countryside?