Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust by Jessica Dalton (book series for 10 year olds txt) 📕

Dimitri trusts you than so do I.”

There was silence. The vamps just stared at me. Nobody moved, not even Dimitri or Quinn. So I nodded my head and did the only other thing to show that I trusted them all and that I didn’t fear them. I turned my back to them.

“are you two coming?” I asked Quinn and Dimitri as I walked towards the door that we had been heading to before we were cut off by the vampire barricade.

“Sure.” Quinn said, obviously happy that I had apparently invited him along to training.

I looked over my shoulder to find Quinn and Dimitri walking right behind me, Quinn on the left and Dimitri on the right.

We were nearly at the door when I heard movement right behind me. Something deep inside me, told me to go on the defensive. Before I knew what I was doing I had spun around, to face what was coming towards me.

It was one of the eight Vampires but as soon as he was in touching distance he scooted to a stop raising his hands in the universal gesture for surrender.

For a minute I was confused but then when I watched his eyes move down to my hands I realised I was holding something heavy, it weighed about the same as my Smith and Wesson. I quickly looked down and saw that that was exactly what was in my hands and I had it pointed right at the vamps chest.

What the hell? I hadn’t had a gun on me when I came down the stairs.

“Don‘t move.” I pointlessly told the already still vampire. “or I will shoot you.”

“Phoenix…” Dimitri sighed. “what are you doing?” he asked.

Once again the room was silent and all eyes were on me. Most of the vamps were staring at the gun in my hand with wide eyes, and with my new extra sensitive hearing I could hear a few murmurs of….’how did she do that?’ and…..’did you see that’

I felt Dimitri search my mind for the answer.

“oh. I see.” was all Dimitri said in a tight voice as soon as he found the answer he was looking for.

“what’s your name vampire?” I bit out.

“Svlen.” was his short reply.

“well Svlen, what was it exactly that you had planned to do as soon as you had reached me?”

Behind me Quinn shuffled from foot to foot uncomfortably.

Again, silence filled the room as Svlen refused to answer my question.

“Dimitri?” I called to him.

“yes Phoenix?” Dimitri’s voice was cold and hard but I didn’t even flinch, I knew my voice was the same.

“what was Svlen feeling when he came towards me and what is he feeling right now?” I asked.

Dimitir didn’t even pause before he answered me. “when he was coming towards you he was running on pure adrenaline and he was gathering power as he approached but right now he is feeling slightly guilty bust mostly afraid.”

“that’s what I thought.” without lowering the gun or looking away from Svlen I asked. “is he one of your men?”

“not anymore he isn‘t.” I would be deeply afraid right now if I were Svlen as well. Dimitri sounded absolutely furious. “he has only worked for me for two months. He was recommended by Julius.”

“who‘s Julius?” I asked.

“I am.” Someone in the group in front of me said.

“step forward, slowly.” I demanded.

A tall thin vamp now stood between the group and Svlen.

Dimitri, I called inside our heads. Will you ask one of the other vamps, that you know you can defiantly trust, to restrain Svlen and Julius, so we can question them and find out what the hell is going on.

“of course, Phoenix.” Dimitri answered out loud. “Baldric and Alric,” Dimitri called, two huge Vampires stepped forward. They were unmistakably twins brothers. But it was obvious that they had both been Viking warriors once upon a time.

“Yes my lord.” one of them said as they both bowed there heads at Dimitri.

“could you take Svlen and Julius and restrain them in one of the cells down bellow until me and Phoenix can come and question them?”

“straight away my lord.” the other twin answered.

I had only blinked and Svlen and Julius were being restrained by Baldric and Alric. I didn’t know which was which yet but they seemed like extremely strong vampires.
I looked over my shoulder to see Quinn starring back at me and Dimitri looking at the other vampires in the room with a hard glare.

“anyone else who dares to go against me will be executed immediately.” he said in a voice of steel.

I almost blanched at the word ’execute.’

Blinking slightly I looked from one man to the other and then back at the gun in my hand.

“who er….” I started to say.

“that would be mine.”

I looked up to see Dimiri holding a hand out for the gun.

Quinn was looking at me in amazement and shock while Dimitri’s lips quirked into an amused smile as I numbly slipped the Wesson into his hand.

“I didn‘t mean to disarm you Dimitri…“ I tried to explain to him but instead he looked away from me and addressed his men.

“And that, my loyal friends is only part of the reason why I chose Phoenix as my new Enforcer.”

**********************

The training room was huge, I would never have guessed something like this would be inside a house - well under a house, because that was where we were. Under Dimitri’s mansion/castle. This one room must have taken up at least half the size of the house above us.

As I slowly turned looking around the room Dimitri and Quinn went into a side room next to the door that we had just come through.

The whole room was outlined by a huge running track, four people wide, leaving room in the centre for a weight lifting gym, an area covered in flat mats - it reminded me of when I did self defence classes when I was in my teens - an area that had just been left carpeted, a basketball court and an area right in the middle of the room which was inside a clear glass room. I could see three columns inside, three stalls and a huge locker by the entrance to the room that was the only thing in the room that wasn’t see through, walking quickly over to that room I entered and went straight for the locker, knowing exactly what I would find inside.

Opening the unlocked doors I let out a sigh of happiness as I took in what was in front of me. I felt like I was home, after a very long time away - even though it had only been a day since I had last been at work, but if seemed as though years had passed since I had first met Dimitri - I had changed so much in such a short period of time.

“the glass is bullet-proof.” Dimitri said from right behind me. “when I designed the training room I decided that I wanted everything to be open plan, no obstruction in the way of my view, hence the see through glass in here.”

I just nodded, as I stroked the butts of the guns in front of me.

“come on Ashes. You can play with the guns when you have finished your training for the day.”

I turned to look at him to see his eyes dancing in amusement at my forlorn expression.

“that is,” he continued. “if you have the energy once I‘m finished with you.”

“okay okay, I‘m coming.” I grumbled following him out to see that in the short period of time that my attention had been taken up by the shooting range, Quinn and Dimitri had transformed the plain carpeted area into a archery shooting range and right beside the bulls eye for the archery was another bulls eye with antique looking knives protruding from the centre of it.

I followed Dimitri over to Quinn who was now taking the knives off the bulls eye. I stroked the very modern looking bow and arrow that was resting on a stand. I picked it up, inspecting its mechanism. I had never used a bow and arrow so advanced before - back home in Ireland we just used the good old fashioned wooden bow and arrow.

“so how does this thing work?” I asked the two men in front of me.

I looked up from examining the weapon to find them both looking at me in amusement.

“what?” I asked.

“first you have to warm up, then we‘ll get to the fun stuff.” Dimitri said.

“okay…. So what do I need to do?”

“you‘ll have to work out with me first, weight lifting, fighting, that sort of thing, but before any of that you have to do ten laps of the track.” he told me and then promptly turned back to Quinn to finish their conversation.

“what?” I winced when I heard the shrill note in my own voice. “you know I hate running.” I whined at Dimitri.

He laughed as we both remembered my previous experience of running track at school. I was a disaster. I would collapse after the first lap.

“you can go slow for the first two laps but then I want you to sprint the last eight.”

“what! Shouldn‘t it be the other way around?” I asked. “take it easy the first eight laps and then sprint the last two?”

“not in my training room its not. Besides you are the Enforcer now, your blood has changed and so have you. Trust me, you can do far more than the ten I‘m telling you to do, in fact you will do more. You can run twelve laps and if you whine or complain anymore than you can do fifteen.”

I silently huffed and childishly stuck out my tongue at the back of Dimitri’s head as I turned towards the starting line. Quinns laughter following me all the way.

I quickly stretched, took a couple of deep breaths and then took off running, the power running through me was amazing, I soon realised that all I really had to do was concentrate on where I was going and then I was already half way through my second lap, I had run my first lap in just over 30 seconds - which my brain was telling me was utterly impossible as I thought of the size of the race track.

As I got used to my own speed, I realised that I could go even faster without breaking a sweat. I was halfway through my eighth lap when I heard Dimitri in my head.

Now sprint the last four laps. He told me.

I concentrated on pushing myself even harder. I was almost finished my tenth lap when I felt the first signs that my legs and muscles where going to try and protest the amount of work I was putting them through. It was my own fault though.