Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust by Jessica Dalton (7 ebook reader txt) 📖

close to me and then I imagined a barrier between mine and Dimitir’s minds. An endless steel wall rose from the fog of my mind, it was as long and as tall as the expanse of my mind, I imagined it click into place and then sat back in my chair opposite Dimitri and smiled.

“well, well, well. Very good Ashes, you mastered that very quickly. I can‘t penetrate your mind no matter how hard I try. Can you feel mine?” he asked.

I had to try really hard at first but then it was easy. I could still access his mind but he couldn’t get into mine.

“I can hear the humming of your mind. I‘m going to ‘knock‘ on your shields, tell me what you feel.” he said.

I waited and then I felt it. It was weird and at fist I just sat in my seat frozen, but I got over the shock pretty quickly. I could feel his hand brushing against my steel wall. Then he actually knocked.

“now you will always recognise my touch when I ask for you to drop your shields. Don‘t drop them yet though ok.”

I nodded my head.

“good, now I‘m going to put up my own shields and I want you to try and knock on my shields….ok they‘re up, can you feel them?”

I concentrated on Dimitri’s mind, I couldn’t access it but I could now feel the humming that comes with the silence. I did as he asked and I tried to knock.. I decided to go with the method I had used in building my mental wall. This time instead of imaging a wall I conjured a hand and let it travel toward the sound of the humming, it was weird and I didn’t know if it would actually work, but after a couple of seconds my conjured hand collided with Dimitri’s wall. I made the hand into a fist and I knocked lightly.

Opening my eyes I looked across the table to Dimitri. He was smiling at me.

“did I do it?” I asked.

“you certainly did. Now we can practice controlling our shields.”

“what do you mean?”

“well I think that if we practice we can still talk to each other through our mental link while keeping our thoughts to ourselves.”

“okay that could come in handy, lets give it a go.” I said as I eagerly sat forward and focused completely on mine and Dimitri’s mind’s.


---TWO HOURS LATER---

I was in my leathers, my holsters where full of weapons and I was sitting in the passenger seat of Dimitri’s car as he drove us into the city.

***now that we have mastered our mind connection we can focus on our rogue hunting mission.*** Dimitri said, I could hear a note of excitement in his voice.

***you really like hunting down the rogues don‘t you old man?*** I teased.

***old man!*** tsked Dimitri. ***I‘ll give you old man, little girl. I‘ll have you know this old man could show you a thing or two that any human male your age would be envious of.***

I thanked my lucky stars that I had complete control of my mental shield as I mind talked with Dimitri, because the amount of sexual innuendo laced into his last statement had put some un - holy mental images into my head and let me just say the stars of the show in my mind were me and Dimitri.

I blinked quickly, dislodging the really really wrong image in my mind and scolded myself. I would never ever let myself think like that again, Dimitri was the King of all Vampyre, and I was his enforcer, I couldn’t allow myself to complicate my life further with a silly romantic crush on my supernatural ‘boss’.

***so where can we find ourselves some bloodthirsty rogues to kill? *** I asked to distract myself and to get my head back into the game.

***we‘ll go to Crobar tonight and then maybe if we don‘t get any action we will go across to Raven and see whats happening over there.***

***Crobar and Raven?*** I asked completely confused.

***yes, they’re night clubs. A night club to a rogue is like a childs playground. Easy pickings you see.***

***Dimitri! I‘m not dressed for going to a night club!*** I complained as I looked down at my tight leathers, and shit kickers. At least my leather jacket concealed my weapons, well except for the knives strapped to my thighs, but then again it was all black on black, hopefully they would all blend in together.

Dimitri let his eyes roam over me, I stilled under his gaze. Think of starving puppies, think of starving puppies, think of starving….

Thankfully Dimitri returned his attention to driving, he was now pulling into a parking space in an alleyway in the centre of the city.


***oh trust me you will fit right in.*** Dimitri didn’t elaborate only hopped out of the car and before I could even get my mind into gear he was opening my door for me.

***follow me.*** he instructed.

I kept close to Dimitri as we strode through a maze of back ally ways until we got to a black, heavy duty service door.

***this is the back entrance to Crobar.***

***whats wrong with going through the front door? Did you get barred our something?*** I joked as I laughed and projected to him an image of him being thrown out by bouncers, it was ridiculous.

****very funny Ashes, we are avoiding the hassle of explaining away the excessive amount of weaponry we have between us.*** I could hear the laughter behind his thoughts though as he took in the image I had sent him.

***gotcha*** I saluted him, I may have been acting light hearted but my head was fully in the game, since we had left the car my mind had been taking in every dark corner, every roof top, every dark doorway, even now as Dimitri forced the door open my eyes darted everywhere, scanning my surroundings for any danger.

Thankfully there wasn’t any so I followed Dimitri into the dimly lit hallway that was evidently only used for employees and for tossing out trouble makers.

The first thing that hit me was the smell, it was rancid and I had to hope that my gag reflex could tolerate the stench because if it couldn’t then I would be in serious trouble. I realised the smell was coming from the old carpet under our feet, over the years, urine, blood, sweet, other body fluids that I didn’t want to even think about and a cocktail of different liquors and beers had drenched the carpet. Yeah my new supernatural powers had perks but then at times like these I could really do without the heightened sense of smell and the music, well lets just say I was glad that I could talk to Dimitri through our connection because my sensitive ears were already ringing and I was finding it hard to concentrate.

***how can you stand it?*** I asked Dimitri knowing that it had to be ten times worse for him.

Dimitri looked over at me and winced.

***sorry Ashes I forgot you wouldn‘t be used to this, I can stand it because I‘ve had years of having to put up with it, you should be able to handle into in a few minutes. We‘ll wait here until you adjust.***

As I waited for my heightened senses to adjust I listened to the music, a grin spread across my face as I looked up at Dimitri.

***it’s a goth club.*** I said.

***exactly, we‘ll fit right in. Rogues love Goth clubs, because the blend right in as well, they also have easy pickings when it comes to lurring the opposite sex out the door and into a dark ally way.***

I could hear ‘The Diary of Jane’ by Breaking Benjamin playing past the double doors at the end of the hallway. I got my bearings and let Dimitri know that I was ready to go in.

As we slipped through the doors and into the club the music changed and I took in my surroundings, before me was a sea of black, and some dark reds and purples. There was a lot of leather and lace out there as well.

(listen to the music link)

***wow, so what do we do now?*** I asked Dimitri as I watched the gyrating bodies on the dance floor.

***we watch, you‘ll know what we are looking for when you see it.***

***Gee, thanks that was helpful.***

Dimitri only shrugged in response.

We watched the crowd for over an hour before anything happened. I noticed the change in the air straight away, it was like my senses had picked up on the danger that was now in the middle of the crowd in front of us.

***did you get that?*** I asked Dimitri.

***no, what did you get?***

***two male rogues just walked out onto the dance floor, there they are over there, dancing with the females. How come you didn‘t sense them?***

***that’s why you‘re the Enforcer, only you have the special ability to sense rogues.***

***lucky me.*** I responded dryly as myself and Dimitri made our way back towards the door we had come through, while keeping an eye in the rogues who were luring the two females that way. We hung back and let them have a two second head start so that we didn’t all collide at the door.

Two seconds was enough though because as we followed the rogues into the hallway they were already out the back door and in the ally way.

Me and Dimitri flitted down the hallway and out into the night.

My senses had me following the rogues without having to use my eyes, hearing or listening for sound. It was as though I had been given a new sense that was solely for hunting rogues. If they were any where near me then I could track them down within seconds.

I could feel Dimitri right on my heels as I flitted through the ally ways.

It only took a matter of seconds for us to catch up to the rogues, thankfully they hadn’t harmed the females yet, they had only tormented them and possibly scarred them for life. Without thinking I let my instincts take over me and the next thing I knew I was right up in the face of the two rogues, I threw them both away from the females.

I gave my attention solely to the rogues.

“come on boys, lets play.” I smirked as they ran right at me with arrogant looks on the their faces.

When they were almost on top of me I took one of my knives from my thigh holster and threw it at the rogue on the right, it landed right in his chest like I knew it would, I then collided with the rogue on my left and took him to the ground, he was strong and managed to get a huge hand around my throat. I used my arm to smash down on the one arm that was choking me and then I hit him across the face with my fist. His eyes rolled into