Pledge of Ashes Read online

  Pledge of Ashes

  Amy Sevan

  This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Pledge of Ashes

  Copyright © 2018 by Amy Sevan

  ISBN: 9781641970679

  Cover Design by Teresa Sarmiento

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  NYLA Publishing

  121 W 27th St., Suite 1201, New York, NY 10001

  http://www.nyliterary.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Dedication

  To all those amazing characters, fictional and otherwise, who compelled me write.

  You know who you are.

  Epigraph

  “Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus”

  We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes.

  ~ Detroit City Motto

  Chapter One

  The smell of burnt oil hung in the air, and rap music blasted from a boombox covered in grit and dust. An ancient Chevy Cavalier hoisted over her head, Sydney Hoven muscled a rusted drain plug. She was sweating under her Carhartt, but as soon as she stopped moving, the October chill would catch up with her. For all the activity going on around her, Syd worked alone. Partly her choice, partly their fear.

  Her teeth gritted and bicep straining at the stubborn bolt, she startled when a hand tapped her shoulder.

  Scowling, she flipped off the bolt and glanced over. Her ponytail definitely needed an adjustment, but she didn’t care enough to fix it. “Yeah?”

  Benji, one of the heavy techs, pointed behind him. “Ay, so, we got this ‘vette over there. Guy says there’s a knocking in the engine, but we can’t find it. Thought maybe you could take a look.”

  Holding up her hands, Syd smiled at him. “Just an oil-change tech.”

  Benji huffed out a laugh, and his white teeth gleamed. “Never heard a larger load of bullshit, Hoven.”

  Benji was one of the guys who remembered Syd’s father, a Detroit muscle car legend. Benji was a couple years older than her, maybe pushing thirty, but Syd had been wrenching far longer than he had. Her dad had begun teaching her as soon as she could say the word ‘horsepower.’

  Still chuckling, Benji added, “You’re just an oil-change tech, and I’ma ’bout to go get a pumpkin spice latte.” He wagged his eyebrows and flashed his wide smile.

  Syd studied him a moment more. “Yeah, sure, I’ll take a look.” She glared and pointed at the Cavalier. “I’ll be back for you.”

  Benji shook his head. “How long you gonna change oil, Syd, seriously? Damn waste a’ talent.”

  “It’s all they had open. Gotta pay the bills, Benj.” Syd shrugged.

  Benji dropped his voice. “You got other skills.”

  Syd avoided his gaze and looked ahead, spotting the bright yellow Corvette like a beacon across the service bay. She assessed the performance add-ons, the generation of ‘vette, the rumble of the engine. Likely, naturally aspirated. Which meant it wouldn’t even almost touch her GTO. Or her dad’s car. She smiled. The size-up was automatic.

  “Changing oil is fine. It’s better than…my other skills,” Syd muttered.

  Benji glanced at her but said nothing.

  The memory flashed. The House of Cards, her previous employer, the lavender room where she gave psychic readings. The forlorn woman sinking into the chair across from her. Syd letting down her mental wall, giving out a real reading, instead of the ‘you’ll find love in the next six to twelve months’ bullshit she and Brie had usually peddled. She’d wanted to help, knew she could, and that was her error.

  Then the rest of it.

  A chill slithered up her spine, and Syd rolled her shoulders.

  Benji walked on her left, and he suddenly cut away toward the overcrowded bulletin board. “What the hell, guys?”

  Damn. She’d forgotten, but Benji, under the gruff and grease, was actually pretty cool. For some reason she didn’t understand, he had a soft spot for her.

  He stomped over to the bulletin board and ripped down the newspaper clipping, then the invitation to the Baptist Church next to it. ‘Devil worshippers can be saved’ was written in red Sharpie. Syd smirked at that. Seriously? Inviting her to church? Like that was going to be enough to help her? Her mother had tried that for years. But, hey, maybe the Baptists had some special juice on the Catholics.

  “Benj, don’t bother,” she said, not slowing her walk. “Not worth the effort.”

  “The hell, Syd.” Benji looked around at the other mechanics studiously working and avoiding him, and his eyes blazed as he lifted the papers in the air. “Jus’ quit it with this shit.”

  He ripped up the papers, letting them flutter to the ground and stalked back to her.

  “Ignore it.” Syd halted and watched him, wondering why he was so upset on her behalf. Every few days of the couple months she’d worked here, some version of this message had been on the bulletin board. She’d become immune. Why hadn’t he?

  “Nah, Syd, it ain’t like that. You helped that family. Don’ let anyone tell you different.”

  Syd shrugged. They could agree to disagree. Finding a missing child was one thing. Locating a body something totally different. She hadn’t helped the family bring their little girl home. She’d given them the sick evidence of everything the girl had been through. The mother’s shrill voice rang through Syd’s mind for the bazillionth time. “I wish I could still have my hope!”

  That’s what Syd had done. Taken their hope and replaced it with horror.

  Syd put a hand to her shoulder and massaged the tight rope of muscle leading to her neck. “Thanks, Benj, really. But you don’t need to get involved in this. I’ll change oil.”

  She turned around and nearly ran right into Nina, one of the cashiers. A blonde, pixie-cute glitter bubble in human form.

  “Syd! I was looking for you!”

  Syd managed a half-smile. Syd and Nina had known each other since high school, though they hadn’t been friends. An ov
erstep Nina seemed compelled to rectify, despite Syd’s lukewarm reception to the requests to go out. In the ten years since she’d graduated, Syd hadn’t spoken to anyone from the struggling Catholic high school she’d attended. Her life was vastly different now, punctuated not with a husband, career, or babies, but death, struggle and isolation. The last was by choice; the other two had been the impassive card dealer of life.

  “Hey, so we’re all going to The Dive tonight, you should come.”

  Syd glanced to Benj, who held up his hands. “I’m out, Syd. You white girls, you do your thing.” He paused and nodded. “Although, you could use a night out.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  Smiling, he shrugged and sauntered away.

  Traitor.

  Syd turned back to Nina’s smiling face.

  Nina clapped with excitement. “What do you say? Come on, it’ll be fun. Some of the crew from St. Clarence will be there. They’d love to see you!”

  Nina kept up with the list of reasons Syd should come out. Syd filtered it out and stared at Nina, wondering alternately when she would stop to take a breath and why she seemed so excited. It wasn’t like Syd had been overly friendly with her. Syd wasn’t good at it, the friend thing. It didn’t come naturally, though there were plenty of times in her life that having a shoulder to lean on would’ve come in damn handy.

  Syd interrupted the chatter. “Why me?”

  Nina blinked, stymied into silence for a moment. “Why not you?”

  Syd could love the girl for that comment alone. It was a comment of commonality. All the same. No one different because of weird abilities. A vision of herself dancing with a drink in her hand popped in her head. Loud music thudding through her chest.

  “Why wouldn’t you want to come out with us? What do you do in that big old house all by yourself?”

  If Nina was embarrassed at the reminder Syd’s parents had died in a car crash a few years earlier, it didn’t show. Syd had been adopted with no siblings. Then Detroit had heralded the economic crash before the rest of the country, and, despite her efforts, her dad’s performance shop had gone the way of so many things in the city: the slow death of starvation. Abandonment. Nina was right; Syd didn’t have much left.

  “Just say ‘yes’ this once, and I won’t bother you again, for, like, at least a month.”

  Syd tapped the wrench in her hand and studied the dirty work boots she wore. The reality was her psychic abilities were going nowhere. She controlled them, sure. She could build a life with them in one corner, and good things in the other. Separate. Always separate. She could do it. She had to. Her dad would’ve wanted that for her. Thinking of him, she smiled faintly and looked up to Nina. “Yeah, I’ll go.”

  As Nina giggled with excitement and jumped up and down, Syd’s psychic intuition growled despite the wall she’d built.

  Nina’s smile faded around the edges. “Damn, forgot the reason I came back here in the first place. Some lady up front wants to see you.”

  Syd’s mental wall strained further, a trickle of intuition leaking through, sending a shiver down her back. Nah, just sweat. Just sweat. She reinforced her wall, and the feeling subsided.

  “What does she want with me? No way I screwed up an oil change.”

  Nina shrugged. “I dunno. Didn’t ask. But she asked for you specifically. She’s waiting at the cashier’s desk.”

  Syd rolled her shoulders, deposited the wrench with a thunk, and grabbed a shop towel, making a half-hearted attempt to get the grease off her hands. She strode up front, pushing into the front half of the dealership. She mostly avoided it, with its polished surfaces, purified air, and people with clean nails.

  She leaned a hip against the cashier’s reception desk, wiping her hands. “Someone wanted to see me?”

  “I did.”

  Syd swiveled her head around. In the waiting area, a woman in a black trench coat stood up. Everything from her sensible pumps, to the hair pulled into a bun, to the piercing green eyes told Syd she’d never met the woman before.

  Yet.

  Something about the woman rang too familiar.

  Syd crossed her arms over her chest and tamped down on her mental wall. She didn’t encourage her psychic abilities. She never had. She’d never needed to. On the rare occasions she used them, they were there. Waiting to be used like an eager puppy. A scary, rabid puppy.

  “Can I help you?” Syd asked in a voice that was decidedly unhelpful.

  The expression on the woman’s face didn’t budge. She approached, heels clicking smartly on the ground. She stopped five feet away, her gaze cataloguing Syd.

  Syd stayed leaned against the cashier’s desk, but her breath stopped. Her mental wall strained. Something about this woman triggered all her abilities.

  “What do you want?” Syd’s voice was flat, and she gave zero fucks if she came across with none of the appropriate customer-centric attitude the dealership tried to ingrain in her. She wanted back in her service area; she wanted another shot at that stuck bolt.

  The woman extended a hand with a business card. “My name is Dr. Blair Byrne.”

  Syd lifted a brow and accepted the card, glancing down.

  “I’m studying gifted individuals.”

  Aaaaand…we’re done.

  Syd extended her hand back out. Byrne didn’t make a move to retrieve the business card.

  “I’ve upset you.” The doctor shifted in her heels.

  Syd cleared her throat. “Look, Doctor. You read the article in the paper about the missing girl, I get it. But I’ve got a good thing going here. I keep my…abilities…under lock and key, we have an agreement. They only come out to play when I say it’s okay. And that’s not often. I don’t want anything more from them.”

  Dr. Byrne considered her. “You could make the world a better place. We could make the world a better place.”

  Yeah, once upon a time, Syd had thought she could, too. Now? She wasn’t so sure the world wanted to be better. But the words of the doctor pulled at her, more than she cared to examine.

  Sensing the hesitation, Byrne advanced a step. She reached a hand out but stalled before contact was made with Syd’s arm.

  “You may have capabilities you’ve never dreamed. I want to help you.” The intelligence in Byrne’s eyes was keen, like looking into a razor blade. “I want to understand how it works.”

  Syd held the business card between her fingers like it had teeth. “And I want a mint ’69 Camaro Zl-1 in garnet red. We can’t always get what we want,” Syd retorted, then felt bad. The doctor was trying to help the world; she was wrenching on a Chevy. On a scale of zero to hero, the doctor was approaching cape status. She was…not.

  “Look,” Syd sighed, glancing down at the card. “I’m trying to find my life. I’m happy here, wrenching, paying the bills.” Or almost paying the bills, she amended to herself. “Whatever capabilities I may have—”

  “Lights turning on before you need them to, lost objects appearing—” the doctor cut in, watching Syd closely.

  Syd’s brow furrowed. “How did you— Actually, it doesn’t matter.”

  Syd thought about the night out with Nina. How would this fit into the party conversation? Hey, you know what I did today? I went some doctor’s lab and learned my mind is a freak of nature, cool, amiright?

  Nope.

  She had precious few people in her life that accepted her now. If Syd had learned anything, it was that life was only worth the people you could trust. If no one trusted or cared about you? Life was damn empty. Hard fought, but she was finally accumulating people in her life. Brie. Benj. Nina. She wouldn’t risk that. Not again.

  She pushed the card farther out. “Sorry, Doc. I’m not who you’re looking for.”

  The doctor inclined her head, lips pulled down, eyes averted. “Please. Keep it.”

  Fine, whatever. Syd slid the card into the pocket of her Carhartt and turned to go.

  “Wait, Sydney.” There was a plea in Dr. Byrne’s voice. r />
  She turned back to meet the doctor’s eyes. “It’s Syd. Only my mom ever called me Sydney.”

  Byrne blinked and swallowed, and her outstretched hand lowered. “I’m not the only one.” Her voice stalled. She cleared her throat. “Please. Call me if anyone else comes looking for you.”

  Under her heavy coat, goosebumps rose. Syd’s wall slipped. She cocked her head. “Who?”

  Byrne shook her head, and her eyes took on a far-off look. “You wouldn’t believe me. Just please, call me. I’ve tried to keep you away from them, but I think they know.”

  The look in Byrne’s eyes…haunted. Syd swallowed.

  “Whatever this is, Doc, I’m not a part of it.” Trembling, Syd turned away.

  She pushed against the steel door, the business card in her pocket weighing her down, slowing her steps.

  Back to the safety of a stuck bolt.

  Chapter Two

  Detroit came alive under the cover of darkness. Noisy clubbers laughed raucously, ear-deadening bass pounded from cars with twenty-four-inch rims, and thick steam billowed from the sewer grates.

  Syd slammed the door of her cab and glanced around. Damn straight she took someone else’s ride. Like she’d risk door dings on the GTO? That’s a firm no. The Dive, looking exactly as the name would imply, leered at her with its crumbling concrete and prison-style windows, the electronic music reverbing through her chest even as she stood outside. Her booted feet seemed content to plant themselves on the broken pavement, but she couldn’t stay out here forever. In seconds, the October chill had already worked through her cropped leather jacket.