Of Cinder and Bone Read online

  Of Cinder and Bone

  Kyoko M

  For Tyger

  You were my dragon and you always will be

  Rest in peace.

  2004-2016

  Of Cinder and Bone

  Copyright © 2016 Kyoko M

  Copy edited by Eeva Lancaster

  Book Interior by The Book Khaleesi

  Cover art by Marginean Anca

  Poem by Elisabeth Hewer

  Other Works by Kyoko M

  The Black Parade

  The Deadly Seven: Stories from The Black Parade series

  She Who Fights Monsters

  The Holy Dark

  Visit http://www.shewhowritesmonsters.com for more

  They sent a knight to save you once

  And found you curled up with the dragon

  Crown askew, skirts singed

  They tried marrying you,

  Couldn’t hack it, went home,

  You liked the acoustics much better

  In empty castles.

  (the dragon was teaching you to roar.)

  Six wars they waged against you—

  Disgruntled princes with their

  Silent knights.

  Blood in the fields, in the water,

  In the snow, on their crowns,

  When you added them

  To your collections.

  Rarely smiled, laughed only with the dragon,

  Looked so often over your shoulder

  You almost forgot to watch ahead.

  Here’s the secret you took to your grave;

  You were holding whole kingdoms

  But your palms were made of sand.

  - Elisabeth Hewer, “Obituary for the princess who forgot to be a fairytale”

  CHAPTER ONE

  ASK DNA

  “I swear to Vishnu, if this doesn’t work, I’m going to stab you in the throat with a Pipette.”

  To the average person, this threat would have been worrisome, but not to Rhett “Jack” Jackson, Ph.D. He merely removed his sinhalite-hued eyes from the microscope and arched an eyebrow at his companion.

  “Um. Please don’t?”

  Dr. Kamala Anjali rolled her own smoky-quartz eyes. “No promises. How’s it look?”

  Jack sighed and massaged his sinuses. “Not any better than yesterday. Or the day before. Or the month before.”

  “Your optimism is what I like best about you,” she said, nudging him aside to have her own look at the incubator. She examined it for a moment or two before echoing his sigh. The sperm and genetically modified egg might as well have been middle-school kids at their first dance. Neither of them would even come near each other, let alone combine.

  “Alright, I’m calling it. What time is it?”

  Jack checked his watch. “Ten ‘til eleven.”

  “Damn. Come on, let’s pack it up for the night.” She removed the sample and tucked it carefully into the cooler beside it, flipping off the light. She tapped her laptop and stared into the built-in camera, not bothering to disguise the scowl on her face. “Trial Number sixty-one proved negative results. Will reconvene for Trial Number sixty-two at eight a.m. tomorrow.” She closed the program and then stuck the samples on a shelf in the nearby walk-in freezer.

  Jack scooped together their mountain of paperwork and closed her laptop, before slipping both into her brown leather briefcase. The two moved smoothly in their nightly ritual of replacing all the lab equipment, to prepare them for the next students.

  He went over to the whiteboard at the far wall and started erasing the equations they’d written on it. There were enough that it looked like a wall of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt, and for all intents and purposes, it might as well have been. It told stories of seemingly impossible things—things that couldn’t be explained, except through faith.

  Jack’s brush-strokes with the eraser were hard and quick. Kamala observed them out of her peripheral, as she pushed their stools in towards the table. When the board was clean, he tossed it down next to the markers and ran a hand through his dark hair, hesitating before joining her again.

  “So…I’m going to a party,” Kamala said brightly, grinning up at him as he helped her out of her lab coat. “You should come.”

  Again, his right eyebrow rose. “Uh. You’ve met me, right? Two left feet. Made of clay. Attached to an absurdly uncoordinated frame.”

  To emphasize this, he brandished both large hands at himself, drawing her attention to his six-foot-two gangly body. He looked right at home in a laboratory, with his brunette hair sticking up in random directions, crisp white button-down shirt, and charcoal grey slacks over black wing-tip Cole Haans.

  Kamala shook her head, her short dark hair framing gracefully round cheekbones and delicate features. The nose-stud helped break up her doll-like qualities, though her five-foot-four height did not. “No one said you had to dance. Drink. Flirt with girls. You know, things college guys do?”

  Jack’s cheeks colored a bit. “That’s not really my deal. Besides, we’ve got an early start tomorrow—”

  “We always have an early start, Jack,” she said impatiently. “Doesn’t mean we can’t have fun between now and if we ever accomplish our ridiculously ambitious project.”

  He scratched the back of his neck and avoided her eyes. “Still, though. Maybe tomorrow will be the big breakthrough. Can’t have a breakthrough if you’re hungover.”

  “Fine.” She turned on her heel, marched to the door, and opened it for him, her smile fierce. “We’ll see what Faye has to say about it.”

  He groaned as he walked out, his feet dragging across the tiles.

  “Great.”

  ~ * ~

  The second Kamala opened the door to her two-bedroom apartment—a single-level smushed in a row a mere three miles from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s main campus—Slayer poured out into the night to assault the ears of anyone nearby. Jack winced as he toed off his shoes and left them next to the welcome mat, shutting the door behind them. He caught the sharp scent of butter in the air as well as some form of greenery—probably sautéed kale, since Kamala was vegetarian—and walked in further to investigate.

  A tall, leggy blonde stood in the kitchen, her hips swaying back and forth to the frantic drumbeats of “Angel of Death.” Her shoulder-length hair was tied high and bounced against the nape of her neck. Her blue-grey eyes stayed focused on the pan until the pair walked into her line of sight.

  “Kam-Kam!” she grinned. “Back just in time! I’m almost done and then we can bounce to the party.”

  She then glanced at Jack and her face sobered significantly. Jack’s wincing deepened. “What’s the Stiff doing here?”

  Jack sighed. “I’m here at her request, Faye. Won’t be long, I swear.”

  Kamala swept past her roommate and gave her a swat on the backside as she went. Jack tried not to notice, but it was difficult, considering Faye only had on a pair of green girls’ boxer shorts and a black tank top.

  “Stop it, saheli. He just walked in the door. At least let me get him a drink before you verbally assault him.”

  She tossed Jack a Coke from the pantry and popped open a can for herself, ignoring Faye’s scowl in her general direction. She then reached over the counter and turned the radio down to a dull roar. “Besides, you’re going to convince him to come to the party with us.”

  “Ha!” the blonde exclaimed, switching off the stove and spooning the kale onto a plate. “Him? At a party? Like they’d even let him in.”

  “Not the point. You are going to explain the scientific benefits and advantages of partying to our guest, and that’s final.” Kama
la garnished the command with a glare, and grabbed the plate from her. She plopped down on the stool in front of the breakfast nook and started eating, while staring pointedly at the pair.

  Faye drummed her long fingers on the countertop, letting her gaze drag over Jack, who shuffled from foot to foot and idly sipped his soda. “We can’t take him looking like that.”

  Kamala waved the comment aside. “We’ll make him change.”

  Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Kamala’s glare silenced it. He pinched the bridge of his nose instead. Faye continued to examine him.

  “Alright, Stilts…” Faye opened the fridge and withdrew a Granny Smith apple, biting down before continuing. “So, who are you?”

  He stared at her. “Beggin’ your pardon?”

  She brandished a hand at him. “Who. Are. You? I mean, you’ve been Kam’s partner for a whole year, and the only things I know about you are you’re tall, awkward, you like science, and you’ve got an ass that won’t quit.”

  He flushed pink. “That’s…I’m not seeing how this has anything to do with the party.”

  “It has everything to do with the party. It’s not about the drinks or the girls or the music. It’s supposed to force you to open up and be social. It’s about having fun. I assume you’ve read about fun before, right?”

  Jack exhaled through his nose and counted to five before responding. “Yeah, and I’ve also read about peer pressure.”

  Faye rolled her eyes. “Work with me here, Stilts. You’re a scientist. You like to learn. You like new experiences. Is one night of partying going to wreck your whole life?”

  “…well, no, but—”

  “Butts are for Sir-Mix-a-Lot. Consider this part of your research. You are going to study two insanely beautiful women going to a party to decompress and have a good time. And, maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll crawl out of that shell and have a good time too.”

  Jack glanced between the two of them, only to be met with matching walls of determination. He thought of several counterarguments, but got the sense that it’d be as effective as throwing a temper tantrum. “Alright, fine.”

  He paused for an additional second and pointed a finger at her. “But I get to pick my own clothes, dammit!”

  Faye smiled and patted his cheek. “No, you don’t.”

  “…I don’t like you very much.”

  ~ * ~

  “I look ridiculous.”

  “You are ridiculous.”

  “I swear, if you two don’t stop sniping at each other, I’m going to slam this car into a pole and kill us all.”

  Silence.

  “Cry-baby.”

  “Harpy.”

  Kamala groaned and parked the car, tossing glares into the passenger’s side and backseat consecutively. “Behave.”

  Faye batted her eyelashes. “I like it when you get mad. Your accent gets all thick and adorable.”

  “Get out of the car before I hurt you.”

  The trio exited Kamala’s powder-blue Volkswagen Beetle and walked two blocks down to the club. For once, the northeast didn’t have its icy claws set into the Cambridge area. It was a warm summer night, and the town had lit up with life as a result. Teenagers clustered around the local movie theaters to giggle and chat and flirt. Couples sat outside the diners and cafes, sipping their cocktails and discussing their future plans. Older folks held hands and walked along the storefronts to window-shop for their grandkids.

  As they got closer, Faye’s hips automatically started swaying, which did interesting things to the fluttery bottom of her blood-orange mini-skirt. The white halter-top shirt lifted in the back as she raised her arms to pump both fists. In Jack’s opinion, Faye could be the poster child for a head cheerleader or prom queen: full pink lips, flawless skin, natural blonde hair that fell in a perfect fluffy shower to her shoulders, legs that would have made Goldie Hawn jealous, and curves that shamed the English countryside. The even funnier part was that Faye was far more likely to beat up a cheerleader than actually be one.

  “Oh, they’re playing my song,” she said with a happy sigh. “I can already tell this is going to be a great night.”

  “Yep. Great,” Jack muttered under his breath, staring at his unfamiliar red Chucks as he walked. His mother had bought them for him last Christmas, and was blissfully unaware he’d hidden them in the back of his closet. Kamala and Faye had unearthed them, as well as a leather jacket, some blue jeans, and a scarlet t-shirt with the Flash insignia on the chest. He’d complained that he looked like a sixteen-year-old going to comic con, to which both women said, “Get over it.”

  Kamala bumped his arm with her elbow. He glanced over, expecting a glare, but she smiled instead, and the overhead lamp made her lovely brown lips gleam. “Don’t worry.”

  She slipped her fingers between his, leaning in as if sharing a secret. “I’ll never let go, Jack.”

  He threw his head back and howled in annoyance. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that before?”

  Kamala cackled. “It was worth it for the look on your face.”

  But she did squeeze his hand before letting go, and he had to admit he didn’t mind. Kamala and Faye were like night and day. Faye loved loud-colored clothing that showed off what a bombshell she was, while Kamala preferred a more subtle style. She had thick, glossy hair cut in a layered bob just below her chin, entrancing lips, long lashes, and a voice that reminded him of warm honey in a cup of hot lemon tea. She’d chosen a burgundy dress with silver jewelry and platform heels so she could see through the crowd easier. The ensemble was just as devastating as Faye’s bright colors.

  A couple of burly men in black stood outside the club checking IDs. Jack flipped his wallet open, but the guy waved him through with a smirk, somehow sensing from his discomfort that he was well over twenty-one. Then, he followed Faye up the steps into the club and was instantly swallowed in dub-step.

  The stairwell led to a loft-style club, currently packed to the rafters with partygoers. Pink, purple, and blue lights slashed through the darkness and shocked Jack’s pupils momentarily. He felt Kamala grip his hand again and tug him towards the bar against the far wall, where Faye had led the way. She sidled up to one corner and gave the bartender a Cheshire cat grin, raising her voice over the pounding music to order three beers: one Samuel Adams and two Coronas.

  She scooped the drinks up and beckoned her friends to one of the tables against the wall overlooking downtown, and all the mischief that had kicked up on a Friday night. Jack found himself relieved that the stools were high, meaning he wouldn’t have to hunch over the table to be level with the girls.

  Faye uncapped the beers and passed them out. “So, what are we drinking to? World peace? Cure for cancer? Zombie apocalypse?”

  Kamala raised her bottle. “Here’s to the semester. We’ve got less than a month to turn in some results or we lose the grant.”

  Jack grimaced, holding his out as well. “I’ll drink to that.”

  Faye shook her head. “No way. We’re not going to start down that road. I have no doubt in my mind that you two eggheads will find a match. It’s going to happen. May God strike me down if I—”

  She started coughing violently. Kamala rolled her eyes. Even Jack cracked a smile. “Excuse me. What was I saying?”

  Kamala shook her head. “She’s right. Forget about the project. Let’s just enjoy the night for once. Brahma knows how many more of them we’ll get.”

  They clinked the bottles together and drank deeply. Faye’s eyes darted around the room with laser precision and her smile widened. “I’ve spotted my quarry. Kam, are you with me or do you want to entertain the Stiff for a while?”

  “I’ll catch up, troublemaker.”

  Faye tossed her golden hair, took one last pull that emptied the bottle, and stalked off towards some unsuspecting gentleman for a dance. Jack watched, resting his head on one hand.

 
“I still can’t believe she’s an electrical engineering expert. A section of my brain implodes every time I think about it.”

  Kamala chuckled. “Mysteries of the universe. Speaking of which…”

  She leaned in a bit. “Why don’t you like to go out, Jack? Still pretending to be a good little Christian boy?”

  “Ha!” he said after another mouthful of beer. “No, I, uh, just don’t seem to mingle well. Not much of a conversation-starter.”

  “Nonsense. You get along with me just fine.”