Another Kind of Dead

Chapter Two

Besides being an enormous underground community of faeries, sprites, gnomes, pixies, dryads, and sylphs—creatures more commonly referred to as Fey or Fair Ones—First Break is also a doorway of sorts. I don’t know exactly what’s on the other side, besides banished demons and the source of magic in our world, but I do know that the Fair Ones protect it. They keep the demons—the Tainted Ones—from crossing over, and have been human allies for … well, at least for the ten years the Triads have been in operation.

Wyatt and I had both felt the tremor, which meant it had something to do with the Break and our connection to its magic. Only we had no way of contacting First Break to find out what was going on. It was miles outside the city and deep underground; I knew of only one way in that didn’t include being swallowed by a troll, and we didn’t have time to make that trek. It wasn’t like Amalie, the sprite Queen, had installed a phone after our last visit. She appeared when she wished, via her human avatar, then disappeared when her task was finished.

As soon as we returned to our shared apartment in Mercy’s Lot, Wyatt was on his cell phone. It was the same apartment I’d once shared with my old Triad partners and as close to a real home as I’d ever known, even if it was kind of a hole.

I realized I was still very invisible and pulled the slim crystal out of my pocket. It was due to lose its potency in a few hours anyway, so there was no sense sitting around like a ghost. I repeated the foreign words I’d used to activate the crystal and its spell—spells are cast in the native language of the person creating them—and felt the same stomach-churning sense of being flipped inside out. It wasn’t painful, just uncomfortable.

I blinked back into existence, once again able to see flesh and fingernails and clothing. Part of me expected something to go wrong—because, seriously, how often had things gone my way lately?—and for there to be a hole left someplace. But, no, a quick inspection showed everything was visible.

Wyatt was pacing in and out of the narrow kitchenette, lips pressed together, eyebrows furrowed. He dialed another number, then listened. He had to be getting a lot of voice mails, but he wasn’t leaving messages. Unless they were ignoring him, which was also entirely possible. Apparently, while I was unconscious and recovering from my dive out a four-story window, Wyatt had said some pretty cruel things to both of his former fellow Handlers Gina Kismet and Adrian Baylor.

I perched on the arm of the apartment’s faded sofa and watched him dial again.

His face brightened. “Morgan, it’s Truman. Look, has anyone else reported a minor earthquake this morning?” He listened. “Claudia’s Gifted, right? Yeah, thought so. I felt it, too.” Another pause. “No idea what it could be, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. If you hear anything … Yeah, thanks.”

He snapped his cell phone shut and dropped it on the narrow counter.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

He started, gazing at me with surprise. As if he’d forgotten he should be able to see me. “I’m thinking I started out the day hoping to relax after the memorial, and now that hope has been shattered.”

“How do you figure?”

“Come on, Evy. Anything strong enough to affect the entirety of the Break like that isn’t going to just go away.”

“Doesn’t mean we’ll automatically get swept up into it.” But even as I said the words, I knew how ridiculous they sounded. Ever since my resurrection, I’d been at the center of every major event affecting the city and its nonhuman inhabitants. Factor in my training-born need to protect the innocents of the city, and I’d probably get myself sucked into it anyway. “Dead” or alive.

“We’ve put up with so much these last few weeks,” he said, almost sulking. “I just want a couple of days of peace and quiet.” He didn’t have to say “with you.” The words were in his tone and in the way he was looking at me.

Three days ago, after waking up from a brief coma, I’d finally told him I loved him and hadn’t repeated it since. He didn’t push. I didn’t want the inevitable discussion that would come with a revelation of feelings. I didn’t want to talk about it or us, or anything else. Avoiding it meant avoiding any potential “next steps” in our burgeoning relationship.

It wasn’t like we’d never had sex. Well, that was half-true. We’d slept together once, two weeks ago, right before I died and left my old body behind. We hadn’t had sex since my resurrection—although we’d come close once—mostly due to my inability to figure out my own emotional chaos.

Before I’d died, I hadn’t been in love with Wyatt. I’d loved him, sure, as a coworker and a man I respected. But being born again into the body of Chalice Frost came not only with handy teleporting powers but also with a powerful physical attraction to Wyatt. My head and my heart were on two different wavelengths, and I just didn’t know how to reconcile them.

Sex with Wyatt now, as the people we’d both become, was a step I both craved and feared. I wanted him; I also didn’t think I deserved him.

“Peace and quiet don’t come with the job description,” I said.

“Need I remind you we’re both unemployed?”

I slid off the arm of the sofa and sank into the springy cushions. It was the same sofa from when I’d lived here before; nothing had changed except the inhabitants. The apartment had always been a haven of sorts, a place away from the chaos and bloodshed of our daily (and nightly) lives. It still felt like that sanctuary. But with the ghosts of my old life so firmly entrenched in each piece of furniture and carpet stain, it also felt like a prison.

Wyatt sat next to me, sinking the old cushions toward the middle. I let gravity tilt me sideways and rested my head on his chest. He draped his right arm over my shoulders in a gentle embrace. His familiar scent—spice and cinnamon and male musk—filled my senses. Relaxing and safe.

“Five gets you twenty your phone rings in the next ten minutes,” I said, “and shatters the mood.”

He chuckled, the sound rumbling through his chest, against my ear. He didn’t laugh nearly enough. Neither of us did. “You do realize you’ve jinxed us by saying that?”

“Oops.” I picked at a lint pill on the front of his shirt. “So about that earthquake—”

“It wasn’t an earthquake.”

“Yeah, okay, so about that Break-quake … any thoughts? You’ve been Gifted a hell of a lot longer than me.” Over a decade longer; he’d discovered his Gift as a teenager. Mine had technically belonged to Chalice, the woman whose body I’d inherited and who was also a part of me now. Even my healing ability was new, cleverly gifted to me by a gnome name Horzt. “Has it happened before?”

“I’ve never felt anything like it, so I don’t think it’s happened recently. Not in the dozen years or so I’ve been aware of my Gift.”

“Which rules out only the recent past.”

“Right.”

Terrific. “Too bad we can’t just call up Amalie and ask her.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

I snorted and poked him in the ribs. “Sitting around and wondering why we both felt a magical earthquake, and if it’s leading up to something bigger, is not my idea of fun, Truman.”

“Maybe you aren’t sitting right.”

I was in no mood for his teasing. I started to stand, but he snagged my left wrist. A week ago, I probably would have fought tooth and nail to get free of his grip, spurred on by fear of capture and the memory of my wrists being bound by cold, biting handcuffs. I probably would have kicked and punched, maybe drawn blood. Overreacted in the worst way to a simple attempt to keep me from walking away.

I guess I’d grown some since last week, because I simply froze in place, not fighting but also not sitting back down. He didn’t say anything until I turned and looked at him. Down at his concerned black eyes, strong jaw, narrow nose—a face I knew so damned well.

He asked, “What, Evy?”

I had no good answer, so I didn’t give him one. He tugged gently; I gave in and sat back down. He caught me around the waist and pulled me closer, practically into his lap. It was both a ridiculous and an alluring position to be in. I pressed my hands against his chest. Felt his heart thrumming steadily as his arms snaked around me.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not making light of this Break-quake, but there’s not much we can do at the moment. I reported it to the Triads. I still feel my tap to the Break, and I’m guessing you do, too. There’s just nothing left to be done, and I know that makes you crazy.”

The corners of my mouth twitched. He had me there. “I hate waiting,” I said, “about as much as I hate being on the outside of this.”

“I know. Your drive is one of the things I love about you.”

Oh God, he said the L-word. I swallowed back a tiny, blinding moment of panic. Irrational panic. Something I needed to get a fucking handle on before it drove me insane. His eyes flickered back and forth, searching mine for something—some sort of reaction. Very few people had the ability to render me speechless the way Wyatt did.

Actions speak louder than words, though. I skated my fingertips up his shoulders and around to the back of his neck, tilted my head, and brushed my lips across his. The gentle kiss worked wonders as a distraction, and, like a moth to a flame, his mouth sought mine.

The second kiss was more insistent. I parted my lips, enjoying the heady taste of him. The way he lazily drew his tongue across my teeth before probing more deeply. The sensation of his fingers running through my long hair, tangling and touching. The way my stomach quivered, and the heat that went straight to my core when he pulled me closer.

My hips ached from the awkward position on the too-soft sofa. I shifted around until I was kneeling on both sides of his hips, butt resting on his thighs, in a more dominant position now. More comfortable, too. He squeezed my waist, just above my hips, and I yelped.

“That tickles,” I said, swatting his shoulder.

“Sorry about that.” He did it again.

I giggled. As I plotted my revenge, he captured my mouth in another, more dizzying kiss. Thoughts of the Break fell away. The rasp of his unshaven skin against mine, the taste of him I knew so well, the heat of his hands splayed across my lower back. He was pushing me forward, harder against him. I teased his tongue with mine, stroking and probing. Exploring depths I’d grown to know by heart.

The kissing I could handle. The touching and holding—no sweat. Hell, we’d shared the same bed the last two nights, finding comfort in our fully clothed selves, and I’d never felt exposed or out of control. I felt out of control only when we started to move past kissing. When my body started taking over for my conscious mind, and when pleasure started mixing with memories of pain. That’s when I’d start to panic.

Only I was determined not to today. Wyatt was patient and supportive. He knew what I’d gone through—he’d seen the results with his own eyes and held me when I died the first time, raped and tortured to death by goblins. The psychological scars didn’t heal as quickly as the rest of me, but I was getting damned tired of waiting.

I raked my fingers down his chest, the cotton shirt soft and pliant and warmed by his skin. He moaned softly. I broke our kiss and pressed my forehead to his. Gazed into his eyes, his breath puffing hot and sweet in my face.

“What do you really think,” I asked, “the odds of that phone ringing in the near future are?”

He blinked. Then understanding dawned. It was quickly tempered by surprise and, deeper still, desire. Desire meant for me and no one else. One of his hands drew a lazy circle in the small of my back. “I’ll break the phone if you want me to,” he whispered.

“Nah, that requires getting up. I like you right here.”

His eyes asked the question: are you sure? I wanted to tell him I wasn’t sure, but I was hell-bent and determined. We’d bared our souls a few days ago, revealing to each other the darkest of our kept secrets. Wyatt’s had been blacker than mine, more damaging, and I was still processing some of the things he’d told me. Some of the horrible things he’d done. I should have hated him for them. Instead, they had deepened my understanding of the complex, haunted man I’d known for four years, and still barely knew at all.

I crushed my mouth to his. His response was nearly instantaneous and impossible not to feel. I urged him on by rocking my hips, adding a bit of friction, and he groaned. His hips jerked hard against me. My stomach quaked, and I matched his groan. His hands cupped my ass and held me there, pressed to him.

His lips left mine, trailing nips and licks across my cheek to my chin, then down to my throat. He found the sensitive spot, just below my ear and behind my jaw. I gasped and rocked into him. He growled, pleased with himself, and did it again. I shifted, pressed forward, hands on his chest. He groaned.

Not a happy groan. It was definitely a pained groan. I jerked back, hands off. He tried to wipe away the grimace; I saw the last edges before it disappeared. It had been barely over a week since he’d had a sliver of metal removed from his back, three inches from his spine. The wound was small but deep, and had proved quite painful as it healed.

“Did I hurt you?” I asked.

“It’ll pass.”

“The way my mood always passes?”

My intended humor hit rock bottom. His expression darkened.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Maybe we should stop.”

Mood Killer 101—your instructor today is Evy Stone. No, I wasn’t doing that again. I didn’t run from things, dammit; I chased them down, tackled them, and slammed their noses into the pavement. It wasn’t about proving anything to Wyatt. As frustrated as he got on occasion, he knew; therefore, he forgave. But just once I wanted him to get mad at me. To tell me he didn’t want to entertain himself with Mr. Righty again.

Only he’d never do that. In this new thing we were trying, we were no longer Hunter and Handler. He wasn’t my boss. He wouldn’t push me or cajole me or embarrass me into positive results. We were partners now and on even footing. He didn’t have to coax what I wished to give freely.

If only the damaged part of my psyche would let me.

“I think—” he started to say, and I silenced him by pressing a finger to his lips.

“You think too much,” I said. “I think too much.”

He nipped at the tip of my finger. I dropped my hand to his chest. He searched my face, long enough to make me squirm.

“If you’re thinking it, say it,” I said, frustrated at his stalling and inability to simply speak his damned mind.

“I’m thinking we may need to take this show on the road.”

I scowled. “To the bedroom?”

“No,” he said with the temerity to laugh at my confusion. Sweet laughter—amused, without condescension. “Out of the city, Evy. We need to get away for a couple of days, far from the Break, the Dregs, and all the reminders of what our lives were before this started. Maybe it will help.”

I swallowed a snort. He had the best intentions, but I seriously doubted a change of venue would alter how my heart reacted to his proximity, or how my guts twisted when my mind wandered back to that tiny closet at the abandoned train station. The place where I’d been tortured and left to die.

“I don’t know,” I said. Nothing else came to mind.

“About leaving, or about it helping?”

“Both. Neither. Take your pick.” The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to stop. For a man who had frustrated me endlessly in my old life, he had become the most patient person on the planet in my new life. He didn’t deserve me jerking him around like this.

I brushed my lips across his nose, a teasing kiss that made him shiver. Smiling, I grabbed the hem of my shirt and whisked it off in one smooth motion. It whispered to the floor, forgotten. His eyebrows arched.

The sofa vibrated.

Wyatt tensed. “Did you feel—?”

The second wave wasn’t so subtle. I pitched off his lap and hit the floor on my back. Both elbows scraped against the rough carpet. Glass shattered somewhere in the apartment. Everything was moving, shaking. Books fell to the floor like thunderclaps. Car alarms blasted outside.

“Is it an earthquake?” I shouted.

“Stay there and curl up.” Wyatt tumbled off the sofa and joined me on the floor, wrapping his body around mine from behind. We didn’t fit well in the pocket between the sofa and the coffee table, but I trusted him.

I’d always thought you got into the nearest doorway—I guess I was told wrong.

The shaking stopped after less than a minute. Car horns added to the mix of alarms coming from the street. Something in the kitchenette fell in a pop of noise and broke. I sat up and gazed around the apartment, taking in the fallen items. The wall by the door now sported a thin crack the length of my arm.

“Holy shit.” I clenched my fists, unsure when my hands had started shaking.

“You okay?” Wyatt asked as he sat up next to me. His wide-eyed gaze was reflective of what mine probably looked like.

“Yeah. That wasn’t just from the Break.”

“No, that was a full-on earthquake.”

The city was no stranger to earthquakes of a much smaller magnitude. Mostly they were barely felt. Earthquakes this powerful were rare and, if hidden history showed anything, usually products of troll activity. Trolls, also called Earth Guardians by the Fair Ones, were part of the Earth itself—dirt and stone and natural elements. They’d had their internal wars a hundred years ago, and the city had suffered for it.

Combined with the earlier Break-hiccup, I had no doubt something bigger was brewing belowground.

Wyatt’s cell phone jangled, no longer on the counter where he’d left it. He rummaged in the mess covering the kitchenette floor. Checked the display. The surprise on his face was hard to miss as he received the call. “Truman.”

I stood up and wandered closer, concerned as his surprise gave way to actual shock. My heart sped up.

“Hold on,” Wyatt said. He pulled the phone away from his ear, hit a button, then said, “Say that again for me.”

On speaker now, Adrian Baylor’s voice came over loud and clear. “I said Boot Camp was attacked, Truman. Unplug your ears.”

A chill wormed down my spine and spread gooseflesh across the backs of my legs. This was so not what I expected to hear. The start of a question squeaked out of my mouth. I clamped a hand over it to silence myself. Baylor was a Handler and a former colleague of Wyatt’s, and among those people who thought me dead. Again.

“That’s what caused the earthquake,” Baylor continued. “At least three trolls were systematically testing the underground security measures for about five minutes before the quake. A couple of their friends must have come along to stop them, because their fight? That’s what shook the city.”

Troll wars. Holy shit. My mind raced. Boot Camp was a secret, supersecure facility in the mountains south of the city. It was where new Hunters were trained to kill, and it was a place where only one in two people came out alive. Four years ago, I’d been one of the lucky ones.

I couldn’t imagine why a bunch of trolls would want to get at those kids and their trainers. But they weren’t the only secrets hiding behind the high, magically secured walls or the deep, oil-slicked, electricity-bound barrier beneath. After the discovery of a macabre lab of science experiments in an abandoned nature preserve a week ago, the contents of that lab had been moved to Boot Camp. Contents including scientific research notes, vials of liquids no one could identify, lab equipment and technology beyond anything I’d ever seen in person, and fourteen living, breathing creatures that had been tortured in the name of science.

Creatures that ran the spectrum from docile and harmless to vicious hellhounds created with the worst intentions. Creatures that could terrorize the public and kill without remorse if set loose.

“Has anyone heard from the Fey Council about this?” Wyatt asked.

“Feelers are out, but the brass says no word yet. We’ve got teams coming in to keep the place locked up tight, but we aren’t making the same mistake we made at Parker’s Palace.”

The mistake of thinning out our ranks to chase after minor incidents while those closest to the imminent slaughter didn’t believe it would happen. Sixty-four people were dead because of that mistake.

Wyatt puckered his eyebrows. “What do you want me to do?”

“Stay by your phone for now, at least until we have a plan.”

“Fine.”

As he snapped his phone shut, I said, “Fortunately, with the advent of mobiles, asking someone to stay by the phone no longer requires them to sit around at home and fidget.”

Wyatt gave a tolerant sigh. “You want to go out there.”

“You’d rather sit around and hope Baylor gives you an assignment? If trolls are attacking, then something’s wrong. They’ve been one of the most neutral species in this city for years.”

“Neutral or not, they seem to take direction from the Fey.”

His accusation struck me dumb. A chill settled in my stomach. True, at Amalie’s request, a troll named Smedge had once rescued Wyatt and me from a group of Halfies. The Earth-bound trolls had some sort of partnership with the Fey, but that didn’t preclude trolls from working for others given the right incentive. Or they had attacked on their own, for reasons beyond my present understanding.

“So now you’re accusing Amalie of turning against us?” I asked.

He scowled. “No, just making an observation based on fact. Amalie has been a staunch supporter of the Triads since the beginning, but she doesn’t speak for all Fey. Just for the sprites and the decisions of the Council.”

“A power play by other Fey?” Saying it aloud sounded ridiculous. The Fey seemed perfectly content to live outside the city, happily roaming the mountains and forests that surrounded us and leaving the more violent, city-dwelling species to kill one another.

“I’m just thinking out loud, Evy,” he said. “I’m not accusing anyone of anything, because I really don’t have a damned clue what’s going on.”

I nodded, knowing exactly how he felt. “Too bad I have no idea where Smedge went to ground. He’d probably know what’s happening.”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “That would make things too easy.”

“Yeah, and God forbid anything ever be—” A heavy thud rattled our front door. For a brief moment, I expected the world to start shaking. Instead, whatever had thudded slid down the length of the door until it hit the ground.

I reached under the coffee table and pulled a knife from its hiding place. Weapons were stashed all over the apartment, and this one was the most immediately accessible. Wyatt didn’t try to stop me; he didn’t tell me to be careful. I approached the door on silent feet, glad for the cement floor, and checked the peephole first—nothing in sight except the opposite wall.

Pressing my ear to the door, I listened. Heard the faint, muffled sound of heavy breathing. By my feet, something dark red caught my attention. It glistened on the floor, just under the door’s edge. Blood. I curled my fingers around the knob and snicked the lock back. Twisted. Yanked.

And leapt backward as a man’s body tumbled halfway into the apartment, landing flat on his back. Blood oozed from multiple wounds in his abdomen and had soaked through his once white shirt.

“She knew you were alive,” the man croaked, and I finally took a good look at his upside-down face.

It was Jaron, another sprite and Amalie’s most trusted bodyguard. And s/he was dying.