Another Kind of Dead

Chapter Four

I rummaged around in one of the drawers until I found a butter knife and a barbecue lighter, then returned to Token. He’d stopped crying. Blood still dripped from his wounded hand. He watched me squat in front of him, flick on the lighter, and heat the tip of the knife.

“Do you hurt?” I asked, choosing the simplest words I could manage.

“Yes,” Token replied. “Hurt.”

“Do you like to hurt?”

“No. Hate … to hurt.”

“Who’s your master?” Silence. I held up the heated knife. “Do you think this will hurt?” His too-human eyes flickered to the blade. Like a child who doesn’t understand about a hot stove, he just stared.

I swallowed, then pressed the tip to the skin on the back of his broken hand. He screamed. I jerked out of reach, wincing. Cruel, perhaps, but now he understood my threat.

“Hurts,” he said, betrayal in his eyes. “Why?”

“Who is your master?” After another pained, sulky glare, I started heating the blade again. “I will keep hurting you until you tell me. Do you want me to hurt you again?”

“No.” Such a human whine; it turned my stomach.

“Who is your master?”

He fidgeted, wriggled, whined, did everything except answer my question. I had no real desire to torture the thing further, but I needed this answer.

“Ask him differently,” Wyatt said. “I don’t think he understands what you want.”

Okay, fine. I waved the heated knife in front of him. “Token, what is your master’s name?”

Understanding dawned. “The … cur … ee,” he said, forcing out each sound.

I looked up at Wyatt; he shrugged, not recognizing the combination, either. To Token, I repeated it back. “The cur ee. This is your master’s name?”

“All name.”

“Come again?” No response. “What the hell does—?”

“Thackery,” Wyatt said. “Walter Thackery.”

“Yes,” Token said.

“Who’s he?” I asked.

“Master.”

“Not you.” I stood up and abandoned the knife and lighter on the back of the sofa. “Wyatt, who’s Walter Thackery?”

He held up his index finger in a “wait” gesture, dashed into my bedroom, and returned moments later with my laptop already open and booting up. He put it on the scarred table that served as our eating area. As soon as it was ready, he opened an Internet search engine and typed in the name.

“Thackery was a molecular biologist who worked and taught at the university, up until five years ago,” he said as news articles began to scroll across the computer screen. “He wasn’t even on the Triads’ radar until August of that year. Three days before classes were to resume, he cashed out all his stocks, liquidated his assets, issued his resignation, then disappeared with his wife and a boatload of cash. At the same time, the labs at the university were broken into and ransacked. A quarter-million dollars in equipment was stolen. The regular police never connected the two, but we did.”

“Why?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

“Six months after the disappearance, Morgan’s team found Thackery’s wife in an alley, sucking a teenage boy dry, and killed them both.”

“His wife was a Halfie?”

“There was no way to know for how long, but Morgan reported she had a completely developed set of fangs, so she wasn’t new. Probably turned right before Thackery quit and dropped off the radar. We had no luck tracking him down.”

I reached around Wyatt, keenly aware of the slim pocket of air between us, and fingered the mouse pad. I clicked on a photo from a university benefit; the date put it at a few weeks before the disappearance. In the image, a beaming couple radiated their love for each other. Walter Thackery was tall, lean, with close-cut dark hair and dark eyes, a sharply chiseled jaw, and ear-to-ear grin. His wife (the caption named her Anne) glowed, even in the black-and-white image. Her dress was tasteful, her makeup and jewelry simple. She held one arm loosely around her tuxedo-clad husband’s waist. The other hand was draped across her flat belly, almost protectively. Poor woman.

“So that’s our bad guy?” I poked the screen right above Thackery’s too-handsome face. “Doesn’t really look like the sort to turn humans into goblins, does he?”

“Few people seem capable of murder until they actually pull the trigger. As far as I know, he’s been completely off the grid since his disappearance, but given those circumstances, and his scientific background, he’s a damned likely candidate.”

“Not to mention the admission of our hostage over there.” I fought against quick acceptance of this information. It was too easy, having the name of the bad guy in front of me, along with an identifying photograph. I was used to struggling for info, getting frustrated when I didn’t get it, and using that frustration to drive me even harder. This was weird.

“Thackery had the money and the means, not to mention the professional experience, to set up his own lab.” Wyatt shifted, facing me more directly. His eyebrows were furrowed, but he seemed more determined than annoyed. “This is something we can give the Triads.”

“But Rhys Willemy’s been researching Olsmill since we found it. Wouldn’t someone have made the connection by now?”

“Not necessarily. Memory’s a tricky thing, and like I said, no one’s had contact with Thackery for five years. The file probably hasn’t been looked at since his wife was neutralized. I might never have thought of it without Token.”

“Which brings us to problem number one with telling the Triads anything. How are you going to explain Jaron and Token to them?” I did not want to be the one to tell Amalie her personal bodyguard was dead, and that the killer was stuck to my wall.

“Lying by omission, I suppose. Amalie knows you’re alive, but I don’t have to tell them that’s why Jaron came to us. And I’m not exactly helpless, so they’ll believe that I subdued Token by myself.”

I grinned and poked him in the ribs. “They’ll probably be amazed you didn’t kill him yet, Mr. Not Helpless.”

“Part of me’s amazed you haven’t killed him yet.”

That sobered me right up. “He was human, Wyatt. He’s a killer and I want to put him out of his misery, but I can’t. He’s being helpful.” The last was tacked on to avoid expressing just what I was feeling—sympathy. Sympathy for his being manipulated against his will. I knew exactly how that felt.

“He was, but the Triads will want him for questioning.”

I nodded. They’d do a lot worse than a tiny burn on his hand. In the past, I would have done much worse myself, and with sharper instruments. “Then let’s call them and get this thing started.”

Wyatt reached for his phone.

“This really isn’t healthy, Truman,” Gina Kismet said.

Wyatt snorted but didn’t reply.

I didn’t need to see him to know he was glaring. After hiding all traces of my existence in the oven—my meager collection of clothing, a photograph, and a handful of books was sort of pathetic when lumped together—I’d taken refuge in the dark bathroom. Even with the door slightly ajar, I had a minuscule view into the living room. Just a slice of the sofa, far enough out to see Jaron’s foot and the opposite wall near the door. Wyatt and Kismet were somewhere on my right, near the kitchenette. She’d brought over two of her Hunters, Milo Gant and Felix Diggory. The third member of her Triad, Tybalt Monahan, had lost half his forearm a week ago, but she’d yet to replace him with a rookie from Boot Camp.

Kismet had been commenting on Wyatt’s choice to live in this particular apartment. I was amazed she would get within twenty feet of Wyatt, considering she still thought she’d killed me. The tiny part of me that liked and respected Gina Kismet, the only female Handler in the Triads, hated that I hadn’t yet come out of the closet (or the bathroom, in this case) and told her the truth.

My logic and her inability to be flexible and give someone the benefit of the doubt kept me silent and still.

“How did Jaron know you were here?” she asked.

“Because I met her while she was in her true sprite form,” he explained. “Apparently, sprites can sense auras of those people, so she was able to track me down.”

“But why you? Jaron knew how to contact the Triads.”

“I don’t know. Protection from that thing, maybe?” I imagined him jacking a thumb at Token, still knifed to the wall where I’d left him with firm instructions to tell no one about me. He’d seemed to understand the order. “I checked the avatar’s license, and he lived only a few blocks from here.”

“I wonder if Amalie knows.”

“You haven’t heard anything from her yet?”

“No, and nothing’s been communicated to me by the brass, if she’s contacted them at all.”

“Has anyone checked on her avatar?” Wyatt asked exactly what was on my mind.

“No one knows where she lives, remember?” She exhaled hard. “I frigging hate not knowing what’s going on.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Three of us,” Felix said, piping up close to the bathroom door. “So did you get anything useful from that thing?”

“Just that it was sent to kill Jaron by its master, and what I told you about its possible connection to Walter Thackery.” The only thing we’d agreed to keep to ourselves was Jaron’s dying declaration of betrayal. We didn’t know who had been betrayed, or if someone was going to be betrayed, or who any of the players were. It was a lead we could follow better on our own. We weren’t strangers to betrayal, and it was easier to work with someone you knew wouldn’t betray you than with people you just weren’t sure about.

“We’ll have to do a little old-fashioned detective work on that,” Kismet said. “Looking into who’s been ordering lab supplies, renting space, getting large shipments of unusual product. Anything like that is bound to leave a paper trail.”

“Do you have an inventory of everything that was taken from Olsmill and stored at Boot Camp?”

“Of course.”

“I’d like to get a look at it.”

“Why?”

“Because if the perimeter was tested because of what’s stored there, I want to know what’s so valuable he’d send creatures to attack an impenetrable fortress in broad daylight.”

“I’ll get it to you.”

“Thank you.” After a moment’s pause, he asked,

“How’s Tybalt?”

“Out of the hospital and researching prosthetics. He’s already talking about going back to Boot Camp and learning how to fight with one good hand. He won’t quit.”

“Good.” Feet shuffled, and when Wyatt spoke again, his voice was closer. “It takes balls of brass to cut off a friend’s arm when he asks you.”

“He didn’t want to die,” Milo said, a small tremor in his voice. “And he sure as hell didn’t want to turn. He would have done the same for any of us.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

I could only imagine the volley of meaningful glances being thrown around the room. Felix had tried to kidnap me. Milo and Tybalt were with Kismet when she “killed” me. And yet they had all acted with the best interests of humanity at heart. That made it impossible to hate them, but I bet Wyatt’s outward calm in their presence had the trio thoroughly flummoxed. Probably a tiny bit terrified.

A knock at the door drew their attention. Minutes later, Jed Peters had been carted away, his body headed for the Triads’ private morgue until we heard from Amalie. We knew nothing about the sprite’s chosen avatar. Did he have family? Friends? Was he alone? Was Jaron even still alive?

“We’ll take the goblin to Boot Camp,” Kismet said, once the other team was gone. “Interrogate it, then lock it away with its friends.”

I took small comfort that she hadn’t said they’d execute it once they were finished. Maybe she saw what I saw in its eyes. Though I did wonder at Token’s ability to switch loyalties—enough interrogation and Kismet would be looking for the woman who’d helped capture him.

“Do you need me to do anything?” Wyatt asked.

“You’ve already been a huge help, Truman.” Absolute sincerity colored her words. “When I have something you can do without leading a team, I’ll let you know. Bathroom’s in there, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

It took my brain a few seconds to catch up. I leapt into the claw-foot tub, hoping to manage both quick and quiet, and gently drew the curtain the rest of the way closed. Light flooded the room; the door clicked shut. I tensed, breathing slow and deep. She had no reason to look in the tub.

I expected to hear a zipper and familiar tinkle of liquid. Instead, the faucet ran for a few seconds. Numerous small items rattled. I hazarded a peek through the curtain slit. Kismet palmed two blue capsules from a bottle I couldn’t see, then chased them down with tap water from a plastic cup. She gripped the sides of the sink and bowed her head. Tension thrummed from her slight frame, every toned muscle clenched and tight. Shoulder-length red hair curtained her face from me.

I backed away, ashamed at intruding on this private moment of weakness from the experienced Handler. I’d never seen Kismet as anything other than a woman in charge of her situation, barking orders, sure of herself and her command. We weren’t friends, and hadn’t been even before my deaths. I’d interacted with her more in the last ten days than I ever had in my old life, and we’d even come close to having a friendly conversation once. A conversation about relationships with coworkers and how they never panned out. She’d spoken from experience and I’d been curious. I still was.

I harbored no illusions that my “not dead” status would remain a secret for long, so perhaps, one day, I’d get to ask her about it.

She took several deep breaths, working to get something under control. Migraine, maybe? Her phone rang—a shrill buzzing sound that hurt my ears.

“Kismet,” she said, all business. After a pause, she said, “I’m already with Truman.” She gave someone our street address. I tensed. “Yes, I’ll wait until you arrive. Five minutes.”

She snapped the phone shut, flicked off the light, and left. The door stayed wide open, a shaft of light hitting the floor near the tub. I couldn’t get out, but I could hear their voices clearly from the living room.

“Amalie is coming here,” Kismet announced. I wouldn’t have been more surprised if she’d said a meteor was going to crash into the city. “In about five minutes.”

“Does she know about Jaron’s avatar?” Wyatt asked.

“She didn’t mention it. She just said to stay put. She wants to talk to us, and it’s urgent.”

“Too urgent to say over the phone?”

“Apparently.”

The conversation waned. My legs ached from standing still. I shifted my weight but had little room in the small tub. Getting out would make a lot of noise, too noticeable with the door wide open. My trouble could be for naught anyway if Amalie showed up and mentioned me. I had a funny feeling all our work to keep my current “alive” state under wraps was about to be undone.

I stayed put anyway until a sharp crack on the apartment door preceded the familiar squeal of old hinges. Hazarding a peek through the curtain slit, I could see part of the sofa and the wall behind it. No one was in view.

“This is Deaem,” Amalie said, her voice clear as a bell. “She accompanies me now as my second.”

My stomach bottomed out as the simple statement confirmed my fear. Wyatt further clarified it by saying, “Jaron is really dead, then.”

If Amalie nodded, I couldn’t see it. “I do not understand.” The confusion in her words broke my heart. “The moment an avatar is wounded, the sprite returns. Instead, she chose to stay and so died trapped within the human host. I wish to know the reason for my loss.”

I imagined the icy look her avatar had directed at Wyatt. As a human, Amalie was a striking figure—tall and curvy and feminine, with tight red ringlets of hair and the beauty of a fashion model. She had the body most women wanted, and it often amazed me the owner of it never realized she got hijacked a couple of times a week.

“She had a message for me,” Wyatt said. “It must have been important enough to die for, but she was gone before she really said anything.”

“You are certain?”

“She said the word ‘betrayal,’ but not who or what specifically.”

Kismet made a choking sound as she was fed this tidbit of withheld information.

“I can only guess at the meaning,” Amalie said. “However, I have further news to report. News I felt must be shared in person. Where is she?”

Fuck. I was about to be outed.

“She who?” Kismet asked.

“This concerns her more than anyone else, Wyatt Truman,” Amalie said. “Produce her.”

I produced myself. Three jaws hit the floor when I stepped out of the bathroom. Felix and Milo were standing guard around Token, who’d been uncoupled from the wall and was bound at wrists and ankles. Their expressions were nearly identical and quite comical.

Kismet recovered from her shock first and coiled tight. A thundercloud hovered around her. I could well imagine her roiling cauldron of emotions—surprise, anger, betrayal, suspicion. She was standing an arm’s reach from Wyatt, and as I stepped closer, she retreated from him, toward the safety of the sofa. Never taking her eyes off me.

Amalie and her new guard—a small Asian man—hovered by the closed door. Her expression was grim, her manner disheveled. Not as together and in control as the few other times I’d seen her in this human body.

“How?” Kismet asked, the single word practically a growl.

I forced a quasi-sheepish smile, more for her benefit than because I was embarrassed by being alive. “Handydandy healing powers, plus a little help from some friends. If it makes you feel any better, the fire nearly did kill me.”

She grunted.

“Boss?” Felix asked. His right hand had inched beneath the hem of his sweatshirt, probably close to a sheathed knife or holstered gun. He looked past me, right at Kismet, waiting for orders.

I held my breath. Kismet had wanted me neutralized because I had posed a serious threat to the established order of the Triads. While I no longer had the same goals as a week ago, her opinion of me might not have changed. And Kismet knew how to hold a grudge.

“Please,” Amalie said. “There are more urgent matters at hand.”

Felix relaxed his stance, hand going back to his hip. Empty.

Good. Giving Amalie my undivided attention, I asked, “What’s going on that concerns me so much?”

“Something valuable has gone missing,” she said.

“Gone missing?”

“Stolen.”

Alarm bells clanged in my head, telling me I really didn’t want to know the answer to my next question. “What’s been stolen?”

“The crystal in which we sealed the Tainted One.”

Wyatt made a soft choking sound. I couldn’t tear my attention off Amalie, too mesmerized by what I saw in her face—fear. Never in my life had I thought to see a frightened sprite. They could manipulate so much power because of their direct ties to the Break. It was the reason sprites, and no other race, held the most sway over the Fey Council, and why we needed to keep them as our allies.

But more than that, my ears had filled with a dull roar, and even above the fear I saw in her, I didn’t believe what I’d just heard. Heart jackhammering, I asked, “Say that again?”

She didn’t. Instead, she started in on a story. “After your initial entrapment, we devised a method to more permanently seal the Tainted One’s essence into a crystal. When the spell was cast, we sought a safe place for it elsewhere. We gave it to our brethren in the forest west of here, an expanse of mountains few humans ever hike into. They could cloak the Tainted’s draw. I believed it was safe there.”

I snorted, red fury creeping into the corners of my vision. “Why the hell did you take it out of First Break?”

“The power of the Tainted affects not only humans, Evangeline, but many of my kind as well. Having its evil so near was … unsettling. I feared its effects on our well-being. One does not allow disease to remain in one’s orchard to infect all around it.”

“So you let someone steal it?” I seethed, in no mood to understand her reasons. Only one thing was crystal clear to me. “The fucking Tainted is loose?”

She shook her head, red ringlets flying. “No, I do not believe it is. Not yet. The person who stole the crystal would need to have knowledge of our magic and the spell used to encase the Tainted within the crystal. Few outside my people can manage such a feat.”

My stomach flipped. “That doesn’t make me feel better, dammit.” We’d sacrificed so much to contain the Tainted the first time and nearly lost. I’d seen the entity take over the body of an elf, growing to horrifying and grotesque proportions, becoming a black-skinned creature of nightmares.

I’ll put my wife into you, girl, it had said. I look forward to getting to know her again.

I swallowed hard, pressed my lips together, determined not to be sick. Wyatt moved into my line of sight. He grasped my shoulders and squeezed. I stared at his throat, unwilling to meet his gaze.

“Stay here, Evy,” he whispered.

“I’m fine,” I ground out, anything but. Leaning sideways far enough to see past his shoulder, I reaffixed my glare on Amalie. “What happened to seeking out other elves who could send the damned thing back across the Break?”

“We have tried and been unsuccessful,” she replied. “I told you once that very few elves still walk this world. They are difficult to find at the best of times.”

Wyatt shifted to my right side, probably sensing I wasn’t going to fall apart or leap across the room and throttle anyone. He stayed close, though, his left hand still lingering on my hip. I was grateful for his touch.

“Who did you give this crystal to?” Kismet asked, finding her voice. She’d been there the night we’d contained the Tainted, and had seen the things we’d removed from Olsmill. She’d spilled blood with the rest of us.

“The Nerei,” Amalie said. “You would call them nymphs, or more to your specificity, wood nymphs.”

“Dryads?”

A nod. “Yes. They were the guardians of a grove of ash trees.” Her complexion darkened, cheeks glowing rosy red. “By now your people will have learned of a forest fire many miles from the nearest hiking trail. That is where my people died protecting this crystal.”

“Do you have any idea who took it?” I asked, at the same time as Wyatt asked, “When did this happen?”

Amalie blinked, her electric-blue gaze shifting between us. “Moments after the earthquake that shook the city, and no, we do not know who took it. We sent two of our Earth Guardians to investigate the earth, but there are so many conflicting auras they are unable to sort it. I will go myself in an hour’s time.”

I balked. “Alone.”

She tilted her head toward the silent Asian man. “Deaem will accompany me. It is imperative that we learn who has done this before the crystal is compromised.”

“You think?” Okay, so sarcasm isn’t the best tactic to use with a sprite. “Well, now that my not-really-dead cover is blown wide open, what do you need me to do?”

“Be wary, Evangeline. For your assistance in defeating Tovin, I believe I owed you this information in person. I cannot begin to guess if this is somehow linked to the cry of betrayal.”

“Yeah, well, things like this always have a habit of ending up connected.” Jaron may have discovered the person responsible for leaking the crystal’s location to whoever stole it. The tiny fact still bothering me was why not share the info with Amalie? Why seek me out first? It didn’t make sense. “Do you think the attack on Boot Camp was just a diversion, then? Get our attention south of town while this mystery baddie steals in the north?”

“It is probable.”

“Well, it worked like a charm.” I eyed the crack in the apartment wall. “Now we just have to wait until the crystal thief reveals his master plan or we’re suddenly overrun by demons.”

Amalie shuddered visibly.

A phone buzzed. Kismet fished her cell out of her pocket and snapped it open. Announced herself. Went absolutely still as the voice on the line spoke, a scratchy hiss barely audible in the room’s newfound silence. Already pale skin accrued a deathly pallor. Her eyes widened, glimmered, as though on the verge of tears.

I reached over and twined my fingers with Wyatt’s, holding tight. We knew it without saying it: not good news.

“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Kismet said, and snapped her phone shut. Her voice was mechanical, distant.

“Boss?” Felix asked, the one-word question coated with worry.

She ignored him; instead, her fiery gaze landed on me, as forceful as a fist. “You two are coming with us.”

“Where?” I asked.

“East Side.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why, but she’d redirected her attention. To Amalie, she said, “You may want to see this as well.”

Three Hunters, two Handlers, and two sprite avatars were going on a road trip to an unknown destination. I hoped she had a big car.