Ash listened quietly as the priest spoke words of comfort outside the tomb in the St. Louis cemetery where Cherise Gautier had been laid to rest. Julian, Grace, Kyrian, Amanda, Tabitha and Valerius stood to his right while Talon, Sunshine and the Peltiers were lined up on his left to pay respect to one of the finest women Ash had ever been privileged to know. He was dressed in the same clothes he'd had on the day he'd first met the woman: a pair of slouchy black pants, an oversized black sweater and a long leather coat. Cherise had taken one look at him and clucked her tongue.
"When was the last time you ate?" she'd asked him.
"An hour ago."
His words hadn't fooled her at all. Convinced he was lying to save his pride, she'd promptly sat him down in a chair and proceeded to make him a plate of Cajun hashbrowns while Nick had tried not to laugh at them.
In the last eleven thousand years, Cherise had been one of the rare people who'd treated Ash like a human being. She hadn't seen him as anything more than a young man who needed a mother's love and a friend.
And he missed her more than anything.
As he stood with the cold wind cutting through him, he could hear his own soul screaming out in rage that he'd caused this. That he had no one to blame for her death but himself. How could one sentence uttered in anger cause so much damage? But then words were the most powerful thing in the universe. Cuts and bruises always healed, but words spoken in anger were most often permanent. They didn't damage the body, they destroyed the spirit.
"I first met Cherise the day her mother bore her," the old priest said to them. "And I was there the evening she brought her own child into this world. Nick was her pride and all of you who knew her know that if you'd ever asked her what her most prized possession was, she would have answered with Nick's name."
Kyrian slid a sideways look at Ash who heard the former Greek general's thoughts. Since Nick's body hadn't been found after the vicious murder of Cherise, the consensus among the New Orleans Dark-Hunters and Squires, both former and current, was that Nick had become a Dark-Hunter himself.
They all knew better than to ask Ash for the truth. The humans who didn't know of their world all assumed that Nick had been another casualty to whatever fate had befallen his mother, while the authorities believed Nick had killed her.
That latter was why Ash knew he couldn't bring Nick back to New Orleans. Not for a long time at least. The police were looking for him and they would convict him in a heartbeat.
Not to mention he didn't really want anyone to know about Nick. At least not until Nick was ready to deal with the world. Right now the man was too hurt and too angry.
Not that Ash blamed him in the slightest.
After the priest finished, Amanda and Tabitha placed the roses they held in their hands at the door of Cherise's tomb while the priest and the Peltiers left.
Amanda paused beside Ash. "We're having a memorial service later for Nick at our house. Just the Dark-Hunters and Squires. We'd like for you to be there."
Ash nodded, but refused to meet her eyes. If he did, he was sure she'd know the truth.
He didn't move until he was alone. Sighing, he glanced at the stone monuments around him that made up the cemetery. There were so many people here whom he'd personally known. So many he'd seen live and die.
He could hear the sound of their voices on the wind, remember their faces, their lives.
Just like Cherise, they were now nothing more than memories to haunt him.
"I'm sorry, Cherise," he whispered.
Stepping forward, he created a mavyllo, a sacred black rose that had been created by his mother, and laid it beside the red ones. Unlike the red ones, it would take root here and grow in memory of her.
It was the highest honor his kind could bestow on anyone.
"Don't worry, Cherise. I won't let anything else bad happen to your son . . . I promise."
This scene is the one I'd thought to put in the back of Dream
Chaser, but again, it didn't really fit. For those who've fol
lowed the Dark-Hunter and Dream-Hunter series, you'll re
call that in Talon's book, Night Embrace, the Charonte
escape from Kalosis and vanish.
They're all assumed dead.
In Dream Chaser, we find out that they did survive. In fact,
a large group of them have taken refuge in New Orleans.
And for those of you curious, the demons will return in
Fang and Aimee's book which will be out summer 2009.
In the meantime, here's the reunion scene between Simi and
her brother.
DREAM CHASER OUT-TAKE
"Why we coming to an old stupid club, akri? The Simi wants to shop."
Ash looked hid his smile as she led Simi and Xirena toward the building at the corner of the block. "Well, it's a special club."
"Special how?" Xirena asked irritably. Like Simi, she wanted to shop and eat. "Is there food there?"