Rain of Ash Project Fifteen: Book One

By Rachel Elisabeth Judd

Three years ago, after a terrible fight with her father, Lydia Bradshaw vanished without a trace.

Her younger sister Gwen never gives up hope, though, waiting for Lydia to eventually come home.

But when Lydia finally does resurface, it's not what Gwen expected. Lydia's changed in her time away, in ways Gwen can barely understand. After her family home burns, Gwen gets taken in by a cadre of vampire hunters who call themselves Project Fifteen. They welcome Gwen, teaching her how to hunt and fight vampires. And Gwen embraces the opportunity to take revenge on the vampires who have hurt her family.

But not everyone is what they seem. Everyone has secrets, even Gwen. Will Gwen be able to survive her introduction into the hidden world of Project Fifteen?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rachel Elisabeth Judd
• Release date: Sep 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310598920

Rachel Elisabeth Judd

Hello, and thank you for checking out my work! Rain of Ash is the first entry into a transmedia project all about vampires, vampire hunters and the magic of the city.I currently live with my beloved partner in Los Angeles, where I enjoy craft beer, crafting with friends and being a giant nerd.

Book preview

Rain of Ash

Project Fifteen: Book One

by

Rachel Judd

Smashwords Edition

Novel Copyright © 2014 Rachel Judd

Cover Art Copyright © 2014 Devin McCarthy

Visit my website! Stolen Fire

Also visit Devin's Portfolio!

Thank you for purchasing Rain of Ash!

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

Please don't copy this and give it to other people. If you borrowed this book from a friend or your local library, please consider purchasing a separate copy. If you came by a free copy and purchasing a new license is beyond your means (and you enjoyed the book), then please consider supporting the author through social media!

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Readers who are familiar with Southern California in general and Santa Barbara in specific may notice some striking similarities to certain places in this story. I have endeavored to be as faithful to the setting as possible. However, there are (to the best of my knowledge) no vampire-owned properties within Southern California. As such, I have taken a few liberties when it comes to including some houses and other establishments; which may or may not belong to vampires and are not intended to have any real-world connection to locations which one may currently visit.

Dedication

This book could not have been possible without the unwavering love and support of Bob.

Thank you so much. I love you more than I can say!

Table of 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

Acknowledgments

Author Page

Chapter One

I'm working on a theory that police station coffee is really condensed misery. They brew it dark, thick and bitter, and somehow you always get to the coffee station right after the cream and sugar have run out. The thin paper cups scorch your hands, and the coffee stays tongue-blisteringly hot... until it immediately drops twenty degrees. No one ever drinks coffee in a police station because they enjoy it, they drink it because they need to.

As to why police station coffee behaves this way, I think the coffee pot is channeling all the unhappiness which it sees during the day. I mean, few people are ever overjoyed to be at the station house. I imagine there might be a few happy reunions or a detective experiencing the triumph of cracking a difficult case, but those are exceptions. By and large, a police station is a miserable place to be, and the bitter black coffee reflects such despair perfectly.

I first came up with this theory in high school, as I waited to be interviewed about the very recent disappearance of my older sister, Lydia. On Monday evening, she and Dad had gotten into a fight, and Lydia ended it by storming out of the house. Everyone assumed she'd be back after cooling off. As much as Dad didn't want to admit it, Lydia was an adult and could mind herself. But by Tuesday night, when no one had heard from her, and her cell phone went straight to voice mail (even when I called), we knew something had gone wrong.

The police didn't believe us at first, thinking she'd be back on her own soon enough. But after she had been gone for nearly two days, Dad managed to bully a rookie into filing a Missing Persons report. Then he bullied the sergeant into bumping this up to a kidnapping case, despite there being no evidence Lydia had left against her will.

Until that day, I hated any coffee which didn't come from a blender, fully loaded with sugar and milk. But tonight, at the station, I needed something to do with my hands or I would go completely fucking batshit. I tried playing with my car keys, but the jingling earned me several dirty looks. My phone had some games, but I was paranoid Lydia would try calling and somehow not get through.

So, I spent my time slowly acquiring a taste for black coffee. Cup after cup of bitter black swill. Mom was in the same jittery way, though she spent her time walking the twins up and down the hallway. Of course, decaf coffee just doesn't exist in a police station, so my jitters only got worse.

After the cops finished interviewing Dad and then Mom, my turn finally came. I refilled my cup and followed an officer, surprised by how unlike TV shows the station looked. I expected to be taken to a bare room and questioned repeatedly while a lieutenant watched through one-way glass. Instead, I sat down at a neatly organized desk, across from an underslept detective.

The nameplate read 'Det. Vincent Moore.' Unlike the officer who had led me in, he didn't wear a blue uniform. Instead, he dressed in in a plain button-down shirt without a tie. His salt and pepper hair stood slightly askew, and I could tell he hadn't shaved in a day or so. A picture sat prominently on his desk, a framed photograph of a girl about ten years old with a Golden Retriever. His daughter and her pet, I assumed. I liked that detail, it made the detective seem more human.

I wondered in turn how I would appear to him. I'd been raised strict evangelical Christian, and though I'd begun to rebel in small ways against a faith which wanted me to do nothing more than bow my head and say 'yes', I still very much looked like my father's daughter.

My unstyled, mousy brown hair hung halfway down my back, and I wore excruciatingly modest clothing – a long belted skirt, plain blouse, and simple flat shoes. In defiance of the warm California weather, I also wore a pair of black leggings, just to be extra modest. I had on a little makeup, too. Not much, just some lip gloss and a dab of neutral eye shadow. Nonetheless, daring for a girl like me to wear (if my father hadn't been so distracted, he probably would have ordered me to wash it off by now). Would the detective think of me as a Good Christian Woman, or a dumb religious girl?

I clung to my coffee while Detective Vincent Moore arranged a few papers on his desk. He looked at me, a warm and disarming smile which put me somewhat at ease.

You're Gwendolyn Bradshaw? he asked, copying some information off my driver's license.

Yes, sir, I answered, but I go by Gwen.

And your birthday is... oh, you just had one! Happy birthday!

Thank you, I said.

How old? he asked, I suspect more to make conversation – after all, he had my ID right in front of him.

Eighteen, sir, I replied, trying to be as polite and helpful as possible.

He made a brief note in the file on his desk. Vincent's fine, hon. My boss is the 'sir' around here. So, tell me about Lydia. She's three years older than you. What's your relationship like?

Pretty good, I said. I mean, she's my sister. She made me this messenger bag for Christmas last year.

Detective Vincent Moore eyed my black canvas bag, but apparently decided it wasn't evidence and moved on.

Did you two fight much? I know how older siblings can be, I have three older brothers myself.

I shook my head. No, not really. We've always been close. She's at college half the time, now, though, and I have my own school things going on. I'm going to Uni this fall, too, I said, before realizing the busy detective probably didn't care about my college plans. But he dutifully took my words down anyway.

How about your parents? She fight with them much? he asked.

I squirmed, a little uncomfortable. I didn't want to reveal my family's dirty secrets to a stranger, but what if I kept something from him which could help find Lydia? Yeah, a little, I finally got out.

A little? The detective was gentle yet insistent with his questioning, making it hard for me to not answer.

Well, my Dad is... he's very conservative. Our family is evangelical. So the only way Dad let Lydia enroll at university was if she still lived at home, and she hates how Dad treats her. Says it's demeaning to still have a curfew as an adult, and she's not going to live happily in the box Dad has for her.

Hmmm. Did they ever have any bad fights?

I paused. Um, I'm not going to get her in trouble, am I?

No, of course not. We all just want to find your sister, he reassured me.

So, hypothetically, if I wanted to tell you about a time when Mom might or might not have found half a joint in her purse, you're not going to care?

Detective Vincent Moore shook his head, chuckling slightly. Half a joint in this precinct isn't worth putting on shoes for, not even for the boys in Narcotics. I'm more interested in the fight it caused. When did this happen?

Okay. About six or seven months ago, around Thanksgiving. When Mom found it, she flipped out. She wanted to send Lydia to rehab, and Dad almost made her drop out. Lydia just barely managed to stay enrolled by promising to attend youth services twice a week, plus regular services. And now Mom goes through her purse almost every day. She won't admit it, but I've caught her a couple times.

Thank you for telling me this, Gwen. Do you know if your sister was involved in any harder drugs, something she really didn't want your parents to find out about? Heroin, maybe, or meth?

No, I shook my head emphatically. I'm positive. Only weed.

How about any other secrets? Anything she might not have wanted to tell your parents?

I didn't say anything at first. I wanted to find Lydia, and I didn't want to lie to a cop. And I didn't know if Dad had already mentioned it. I wasn't sure if my information could even be relevant.

But Detective Vincent Moore picked up on my ambivalence quite easily, and gently pressed me until I started talking about Emily – Lydia's girlfriend. Three months ago, Lydia had sworn me to dire secrecy before telling me she'd just started dating a girl. And I'd kept my promise, but our parents found out when a church 'friend' ratted on Lydia. Discovering Emily had precipitated the whole fight which made Lydia leave.

I could tell Mom felt weirded out, but she tried to be accepting, I told the detective. She thinks Lydia's just going through a phase. Dad, though, thinks it's gross. Or, like, sinful. They had a really bad fight. Dad threatened to make Lydia drop out, and he meant it this time. He wanted to put so many restrictions on Lydia, it was insane. Our little brothers have more freedom!

I take it Lydia wasn't happy with these developments? he asked, and I was relieved to hear no judgment in his voice.

Not in the slightest. They both got really loud. Lydia said he was a bigoted old fart, and Dad said he was a bigoted old fart who paid her bills, so she'd do as he said. He said he wasn't going to have someone living under his roof in open rebellion against God, and Lydia said that was fine by her. Then she just grabbed her keys and left.

Could she have moved out and not told anyone?

I nodded. That's what I think she's done. She can't stay away forever!

Do you know any of her friends? Anyone she might be staying with? What about this girlfriend, Emily?

We called most of them all already, but I know about some Mom doesn't. I rattled off a short list of people Lydia had mentioned, tagged faces I'd seen on her secret social media profiles.

I don't know anything about Emily, really, I said after the detective finished taking down my list of Lydia's friends. I know she and Lydia had been dating for a few months and that they'd met at some kind of campus club. I don't know which one, though. I'm sorry, I wish I could be more helpful.

You've been plenty helpful, Miss Bradshaw. He handed me one of his business cards. Call me if you think of anything else which you believe might be helpful. Day or night, doesn't matter.

I tucked the card carefully into my wallet. Do you think you'll be able to find Lydia?

The detective seemed confident when he told me yes, he thought Lydia would resurface soon. I took hope from his words.

Too bad Detective Vincent Moore turned out to be dead wrong. If you look up the newspapers from back then, you can follow the whole drama. The days wore on, one after the other, and we slowly realized Lydia wasn't just cooling her heels at a friend's.

Something had happened – but no one knew what. Even if Lydia had run away or moved out, I knew she'd at least send me an e-mail or a text message, letting me know what was up. She might not call Mom or Dad, but she'd let me know.

But, nothing. Every lead, no matter how promising at first, eventually fizzled and came to a dead end. Eventually, about two weeks into the ordeal, the police suggested going to the media.

So, in a carefully planned performance, Mom got on her Sunday best clothes and stood on the police station steps; while Dad and Aunt Becky and the rest of us stood behind her. She cried and pled in front of the cameras: Lydia, we miss you, please come home. And if you have Lydia, or know where to find her, please tell us.

Personally, I found the whole thing disgusting. Someone hardened enough to randomly kidnap a stranger wouldn't be moved by watching their victim's mother sob on TV. I hated how exploitative it all felt; like we were doing this not to find Lydia, but to help some random news station's ratings.

After the whole thing wrapped up, I hid out behind the station house. I smoked nearly half a pack of cigarettes, bullshitting and flirting with a rookie named Henry. That night, I ended up at his apartment.

I'd always imagined my first time would be some magical wedding-night experience. Instead, my first lover was a young police officer with red hair and a tattoo of St. Michael on his bicep. After that first night, we got together about once a week. And even though I never got the wedding-night magic, I nevertheless treasured what he gave me – a few hours of blissful distraction from the media feeding frenzy which eventually became known as LydiaSearch.

Lydia's picture got published far and wide, in TV and newspapers alike – her senior photo, and a picture of her at a track meet. Beautiful, with dark braided hair and a friendly personality you could pick up on just by looking at her. I set up a Facebook page at Mom's request, and spammed all my friends and hers. Since Lydia looked so pretty and photogenic, the profile went viral.

The drama had practically been tailor-made for national attention. Some news networks even put together a reward for information; enough money to pay for Lydia's college, my college and the twins' college. And probably grad school. As a result, tons of leads poured in, everything from the very plausible to outright ridiculous. Detective Moore figured Lydia probably had not been kidnapped by aliens; and if a violent gang of narco-terrorists really had taken her, they'd have asked for a ransom by now.

And then the media discovered how Lydia and Emily had met. I don't know who let the black cat out of the bag, but someone leaked to the press that they'd met at some kind of Pagan Student Alliance. Of course, the media had a field day with lesbian witchcraft, and Dad nearly had an aneurysm when he found out.

But even those friends of Lydia's were as confused and worried by her disappearance as us. I suspected them for a bit, but when I finally got a chance to talk to Emily... well, some emotions just can't be faked. She obviously cared just as much about finding Lydia as we did.

The closest thing to a clue we ever found was a video clip: twelve and a half grainy seconds of footage from a gas station in San Diego, depicting a woman who might or might not have been Lydia buying butane, cigarettes and a road map. But the manager had held onto the tape for over a week before handing it over, and couldn't tell us anything except a woman who looked a lot like Lydia had come in with a bunch of rough looking characters. His story almost revived the narco-terrorist theory, but he swore the woman he saw didn't look like she'd been kidnapped. And despite some very thorough investigation by the police, even that ended up going nowhere.

Eventually, the leads stopped coming in. A perky blonde college student disappeared in New England, and the media abandoned us to invade some other family's home and pain. The church ladies, who had come by nearly every evening in the beginning with flowers and casseroles and prayers, petered out. Even my fling with Henry ended, having run it's natural course.

The only person outside the family who still cared was Detective Vincent Moore. He called us every six months with the same lack of news. This continued for three achingly long years until I saw Lydia again. Finding her would be the catalyst which caused my whole life to fall apart, and only Tabitha and Project Fifteen would be around to help me pick up the pieces.

Chapter Two

Everything unraveled (if they ever had been raveled) the year I intended to graduate college.

I had been attending for three years; however, I always took the maximum number of courses per term. Additionally, I couldn't stand going home and dealing with the pervasive cloud of sadness there. So, after winning the war to be allowed to stay in the dorms, I always took a full load of summer courses. As a result, I completed four years' of coursework in only three.

I'd chosen Criminology as a major – not out of any particular passion for the subject, I simply seemed to fall into it. I couldn't stand the navel-gazing involved in English or Philosophy classes, and my experience with the media had soured me on a Journalism major. Dad heartily discouraged any attempt to pursue a more technical major, warning me I'd never get married with a degree in Mathematics or a hard science. I didn't necessarily believe him, but he did control my tuition money and being able to live on campus was more important to me than a degree in Biology or Computer Science.

So, Criminology. I had some vague idea of becoming a social worker after graduating, of helping knit broken families back together. Detective Vincent Moore proved to be a valuable contact, even helping me get an internship at the police station and assisting me with my senior thesis.

Though I'd done well academically, school had been difficult for me in nearly every other aspect. Everyone always spoke of college as the time to find oneself, to discover new pursuits and passions. I found myself utterly incapable of participating in this rite of passage. Any attempt at self-discovery invariably led back to Lydia. Her disappearance had left a hole in my life, and I didn't know how to build around it. I'd drifted away from the faith of my childhood, and lost that identity without being able to find anything to replace it beyond 'I miss my sister.'

As might be expected, then, I had a hard time relating to my supposed peers. I never knew if I should tell people about the pain my missing sister caused, or keep it to myself; if I should try and play the whole thing off with humor or treat it with seriousness. I always seemed to pick precisely the wrong strategy for the situation, and eventually gave up on having a social life. So I stayed in, studied, and got consistently high grades.

My parents hadn't even expected me to graduate. Rather, they assumed I'd follow in my mother's footsteps: find a good Christian man sophomore year, then drop out to get married and have his babies. But the boys at church weren't interested in the rebellious girl with the missing lesbian witch sister, especially after my relationship with Henry became grist for the rumor mill. Which was fine by me – I didn't particularly care to date any of them, either.

Near the start of my final year, I did meet someone: Nick, a Journalism major. I suspect his initial interest had more to do with Lydia's story than with me. But we discovered we liked each other, and I ended up at his place one or two nights a week. Mom liked him, and I think Dad just felt relieved to see me dating a man.

The night in question, when the unraveling began: Fall term had wrapped up, and as usual, I had gone home for Christmas break. I hated being home during the holidays, but Nick and I were nowhere near being ready to meet each others' parents. No matter how much I would have liked to spend Christmas in Aspen. And Mom usually pulled out all the stops when it came to using parental guilt to get me home for the holidays. Going along was easier than fighting, so I packed a small suitcase and planned to spend more than a few sleepless, lonely nights in the same room I used to share with Lydia.

At least I had a distraction at home, now. Shortly after we all realized Lydia wasn't coming home, Dad had gotten a dog from the shelter, Rascal. He was a rambunctious, friendly German shepherd mix – and extremely high energy. While 'home' usually meant an overwhelming sadness, I ducked the sadness by taking Rascal on long, rambling walks. Rascal loved them as much as I loved the chance to escape Mom's oppressive worry and Dad's distant ambivalence.

However, I hadn't yet taken Rascal out on the evening in question. It was Christmas Eve, and I'd been too busy helping decorate the tree, wrap presents and perform other holiday-related duties to feel a need to escape