As Lie the Dead

Chapter Thirteen

Saturday, 12:44 A.M.

Leo’s station wagon was across the street, half a block down—a sore thumb among dozens of shiny, late-model cars and trucks. In the dark, it could have been tan or yellow, with dark brown paneling on the sides and rust spots near the rear wheels. The cargo area was stuffed with suitcases, cardboard boxes, paper shopping bags, and a plastic laundry basket. Similar items packed the backseat.

I didn’t do more than observe the oddity of it. My back burned, and the blood loss was making me dizzy. The jaguar must have cut me deeper than I thought.

Leo fumbled his keys with trembling hands and unlocked the passenger-side door. “You’re bleeding,” he said again.

“Yeah, sorry,” I replied.

He shrugged out of his jacket, took the carry-on away from me, and draped the coat over my shoulders. I hissed when he brushed one of the open wounds.

“You need a hospital.”

“It’s fine. We just need to get the hell out of here.”

Sirens punctuated my statement, too close for comfort. Leo tossed my bag into the backseat while I slid inside. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, head on the dash. Nauseated beyond belief. I closed my eyes. The driver’s door opened and shut, then the engine roared to life.

“Where—?” he started.

“Your motel.” I could patch up, clean up, and lie down for a minute. Catch my breath.

We moved away from the sounds of sirens. Leo impressed me with his silence. I had no energy for fielding a hundred questions on the whos and whys and what the hells. Just wanted to rest until—shit. I would have banged my head on the dash if it weren’t too heavy to lift.

My cell phone was still under the pillow.

I groaned.

Leo must have mistaken it for pain or discomfort, because he asked, “You okay over there?”

“Just trying to not bleed on your upholstery. We almost there?”

“Yes.”

He made a left turn and, a few seconds later, pulled to a stop. The engine cut off. I mustered the energy to raise my head, expecting some garish neon sign and peeling exterior. I blinked hard, confused by the brick wall and near-dark to my right, and the long, narrow alley stretching out in front of the wagon.

Panic set in, cold and quick. I was in a car with a man I didn’t trust, in a blind Mercy’s Lot alley. I cleared my throat, hoping to keep my voice level. “This isn’t—”

“I don’t have a motel room. They cost money.”

I forced my head to turn and look at him. He seemed smaller behind the wheel of the massive station wagon, and not just from the shock of shooting two were-cats. He was ashamed.

“Oh” was all I managed.

“I’ve got first aid.” He flipped on an overhead light, unlocked his seat belt, and reached into the backseat. He produced a large fishing tackle box, grimy from wear and faded with age. “You really should—”

“No hospital. Not for this.”

“Those scratches could get infected.” He snapped open the lid and started rummaging around inside.

“They won’t.” I swallowed, suddenly thirsty. “Leo, what were you doing there?”

“You told me to leave the apartment, so I left. Didn’t have anywhere to go, though. I guess I just hoped Alex would turn up, so I waited.” He put cotton bandages and medical tape on the seat between us, then looked at me. Confusion was etched all over his face. “I saw your friends leaving with three people. The girl looked scared. I knew you hadn’t left, so I went back up.”

“You saved my life.”

He shrugged and dipped back into the tackle box. Scissors, gauze, cotton balls, and peroxide were added to his pile before he snapped the lid shut and settled the box on the floor.

“Don’t you want to know—?”

“Hell no.” He shook his head emphatically, wire glasses sliding to the tip of his nose. “Because if I even entertain the notion that I saw what I saw, I’m going to want a drink. And then I’ll want another drink, and then five drinks, and then I’ll be off the wagon for the first time in six years. So I didn’t see what I saw.”

Fair enough.

“Take off your shirt,” he said.

It took some doing—every time I moved my shoulder, the gaping wounds shrieked at me—but we got the shirt off. I shifted to face the window and watched Leo’s partial reflection in the glass. He soaked a cotton ball in peroxide. I closed my eyes, clasped my hands, and clenched my teeth until the painful process was over and he was taping down the last of the gauze pads.

“It’s the best I can do, but they need stitches,” he said.

“They’ll heal. Can you get my bag?”

He retrieved it, then put it on the seat between us. I rummaged inside for a clean shirt. Put it on with a little help from Leo. The pain was lessening but still present, as was the need to vomit. I was eager for the familiar itch of the healing process. His bloodstained jacket was on the floor by my feet, ruined.

“Thank you for this,” I said.

“You’re in some bad trouble, aren’t you?”

“It’s not good trouble.”

“Was Alex in trouble, too?”

I turned to look at him. He had the framed photo out, clenched in his hands. He looked so miserable, I wanted to spill the truth right there. I didn’t. If he thought accepting that he’d just shot two shape-shifters would dump him off the wagon, the real truth would send him on a fatal bender. “Alex isn’t involved in this,” I said, as close to the truth as I could manage. “How long have you lived in your car?”

“About four months.” He continued to speak to the photo. “Alex doesn’t know.”

“Why not?”

“Me and Alex, we were talking and trying to fix things. I lost the job he helped me get, then I lost my apartment. I was too ashamed to tell him. That’s why it took me so long to get here. Had to hustle some cash for gas.”

“He would have understood.”

Leo shook his head and put the photo back in the bag. “No, not about this. I’m an old fool, thinking he’ll ever forgive me.”

“You might have been surprised.” Forgiveness is a tricky thing—a lesson I’d learned the hard way, many times. A lesson I was still learning—especially when it came to forgiving myself.

We didn’t speak for several minutes, and I was grateful for the silence. I needed to think. The relationships among the Clans were beyond confusing, and I still couldn’t reconcile my feelings for Phineas. He could have been playing me this entire time, using me to get inside information on the Triads’ plans. Setting me up so Belle could take me out and be a hero to the Clans for protecting their secrets. Facts and events pointed toward his treachery.

My gut told me otherwise.

I hadn’t a clue where to start looking for Joseph and Aurora. Part of me wondered if they’d be safer with Belle’s people. She seemed to have resources beyond that of a simple diner waitress, and I didn’t doubt her hatred of me. Or her sincere belief in protecting the identities of the other bi-shifters at any cost. Including my murder.

My hand jerked. She hadn’t mentioned Wyatt, but he also knew about the bi-shifters. Had she sent people to silence him as well?

“I need a phone,” I said.

“There’s a cell in the glove compartment,” Leo said. I gave him a sideways frown. “Borrowed it from a friend, but the battery’s low.”

It was also about five years out of date, but it was still a cell phone. I waited for it to power up, my anxiety mounting. Wyatt would already be in fits from our interrupted phone call. The Triads would have heard about the throw-down at the apartment by now.

I pulled the antenna, punched in the number I’d called back earlier, and waited. It rang and rang. No one picked up. “Shit.” I canceled the call and tried to drum up Kismet’s phone number. My mind blanked. “We need to go to St. Eustachius.”

“Now you want the hospital?” Leo asked blankly.

“My friends are there. They can help us.”

He seemed poised to argue—or beg against it, I couldn’t be sure—but started the engine. I leaned gently against the seat as he drove, concentrating on the alternating sensations of pain and itching as I fed Leo directions.

The city quieted as we left Mercy’s Lot for downtown, moving closer to the Anjean River. Everything seemed still, as though it were holding its collective breath. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. I hated that feeling. It left me tense, on edge, ready to burst out of my own skin.

I directed Leo to the same side street Phin had parked on. “You don’t have to wait for me,” I said as he parallel parked on the curb opposite the river.

He gave me a wan smile. “If I don’t, then I’m likely to go find the first all-night bar I can, and I’d rather avoid that temptation.”

“It might be safer.”

“Maybe.” He paused. “Chalice, can I ask you a question and get the God’s honest truth?”

I almost said no. I didn’t want to give him a truthful answer, especially if he asked about Alex. Maybe the were-cats hadn’t sent him off on a bender, but learning his son had been turned into a vampire half-breed was the perfect excuse to end a six-year sober streak.

“Please?”

The reply leaked out. “Okay.”

I braced for the question I didn’t want him to ask. He surprised me with, “You’re not really a barista, are you?”

I blinked, almost relieved. Granted, the question opened up a whole nother set of complications, but these I could handle. “No, I’m not. I help deal with things that most people don’t see and don’t want to see.”

“Like tigers who turn into girls?”

“Yeah, like that.”

He blew hard through his nose. “And Alex found out? Is that why he left?”

In a roundabout way … “Yes.”

“Is it really more complicated than that?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

I wished he did, but complicated didn’t even begin to cover my world. “What time is it?”

He glanced at his watch. “Almost quarter to two.”

“I’ll be back before three. I need to be somewhere at sunrise.”

“Be careful.”

With the most confident smile I could muster, I climbed out and jogged to the corner, gritting my teeth the entire time. The block was quiet, save the gentle rumble of the river. Even the hospital seemed to be sleeping, despite dozens of windows blazing with light. I turned the corner, out of Leo’s sight. I just hoped he stayed in the car.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on Wyatt’s hospital room. The open space near the window. The Break caressed me with static fingers, no longer hindered by that strange force field. I pulled on the power, and the world around me dissolved. I floated. Felt smashed flat as I moved through the solid walls of the hospital—uncomfortable, but not as painful as the first few times.

Motion ceased, and solid linoleum formed beneath my feet. The scratch wounds smarted and stung, and a dull ache pressed between my eyes when I opened them. The room was dark, empty, the bed stripped. Equipment put away.

“She was right.”

Heart thudding in my ears, I spun around, fists clenched. Felix stood in the shadows of the far corner, hands in his jeans pockets. He looked bored.

“Christ, you scared the shit out of me,” I snapped, trying to get my racing pulse under control.

“Sorry. That was a really cool entrance, though.”

I rolled my eyes. “Who was right about what?”

“Kis. She said you’d probably show up, so she told me to wait and give you a message.”

“Which is?”

“Truman and St. James were moved from here to a more secure location.”

“Why?” The question slipped out, even though I could guess.

“Because someone sneaked in and tried to kill them. Well, tried to kill Truman.”

My stomach quailed. “Is he all right?”

“He’s fine. He had a silver cross that knocked her for a loop long enough to get help in here.”

“Were-cat?”

Felix tilted his head, considering me. “Yeah.”

“When?”

“About an hour ago.”

Son of a bitch. “She alive?”

“And being detained for questioning.”

“I can save you the trouble. My would-be killer fell into overconfidence mode and spilled right before the tables were turned.”

“Yeah, we heard something about that over the wire. Morgan’s team was sent in to check it out.”

Morgan would have a hell of a time wrestling Jag Man’s corpse away from the police. It was the third time in a week that the cops had been called to that apartment. My guess was it would take more than a Handler’s flashy Special Cases badge to get access. Or a call from the brass.

“So what do they want?” Felix asked.

“Same as us. Security for their people.”

He snorted. “By trying to kill ours?”

“It’s what we do to them.”

“Whose side are you on?” he asked, shooting me a queer look.

I bristled. “Right now? Mine, because I’m the only person who hasn’t tried to kill me at some point this week.” We could have this argument anywhere and at any time. I had better things to do. I still had to stash my new shadow and then get to Rufus. “Do you have any cash on you?”

“Some. Why?”

“Because I need it. Now, where did you take Wyatt and Rufus?”

Leo started awake when I knocked on his car window. He’d fallen asleep with his head against the glass, breath puffing a cloud of vapor the size of my fist. He blinked at me, momentarily confused, then rolled the window down with a hand crank.

“You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Scoot over. I’m driving.”

He complied without question—which surprised the hell out of me—and gingerly inspected the back of the passenger seat before settling in. Probably checking for blood. I slid in behind the steering wheel as headlights flashed into the alley. I started up the car and pulled out. Felix fell in line behind.

At first, Leo didn’t notice. After five blocks and two left turns, he twisted around in his seat. “We’re being followed,” he said.

“He’s a friend.”

Three blocks later, we pulled into the lot of the Palm Tree Inn, a white-painted brick motel nestled between two fast-food joints. It was U-shaped, its garish sign marking the open end of the lot. I parked near the office. Felix pulled in next to me, then darted inside.

“Is something happening here?” Leo asked, gazing around. Confused.

I turned to face him. “No. Leo, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to stay here for a few days while I take care of some things.”

His expression morphed from concern to anger and back again, unsure which to choose.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” I continued, “and I can’t do my job if I’m trying to protect you. When this is over, we’ll talk. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

Understanding dawned. His face went slack. “You mean about—”

“Three days, Leo. Just promise me you won’t go near alcohol or the apartment.”

A silent war waged in the ensuing silence, lasting the several minutes it took Felix to return with a key and room number. I climbed out with my bag and handed the car keys to Leo. He stared at them, then at me. “Fine,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said, then followed Felix back to his car.

We waited around the corner, lights off, until Leo retreated to his room with a suitcase and shut the door.

“He your old man or something?” Felix asked when we were back on the road.

“Just someone I’m trying to help,” I said.

“You can’t help everyone, Evy.”

“Nope.” I’d lost too many friends to think otherwise. “But the day I stop trying is the day I take a header off the Wharton Street Bridge.”

He grunted.

“Do you have any extra weapons?” I asked after a brief silence. “I’m feeling a little naked over here.”

“Not in the car,” he said.

I kept my eyes forward. It was his hesitation in replying, more than the answer, that unnerved me. I wasn’t asking for an arsenal. Just a knife or gun. Even a dog whistle would have made me feel better. Every Hunter carried extra weapons.

My overbearing tendency to question Wyatt’s orders had gotten us into many fights in the past. I latched on to that bullheaded curiosity—the impossibility of simply accepting an answer—and let it guide me. “How many were-cats attacked the hospital did you say?”

“Just the one.”

“And he attacked Wyatt first?”

“Yeah, he did.”

He. I watched the city fly by as Felix drove us west, back across the peninsula of Mercy’s Lot. Through quiet streets dotted with the occasional homeless wanderer or brave adventurer. Toward an unknown destination. I didn’t know what was waiting, but instinct told me it wasn’t Wyatt. “Not a very smart would-be assassin,” I said. “With Rufus recently shot and suffering from third-degree burns, the were-cat goes after the man who’s most likely to fight back and win?”

The leather on the steering wheel creaked. Felix had a white-knuckle grip, but his profile revealed nothing.

I laughed, pretending to be unbothered by my own comments. “His stupid mistake, right?”

Felix smiled and seemed to relax as he pulled to a full stop at a four-way intersection. “Yeah.”

“So how come you said earlier she was female?”

His reaction time was too slow. I ducked his flying elbow and threw my left arm up to block any further blows, while my right fist landed a kidney shot that took his breath away. His foot came off the brake, hit the gas, and we careened forward. I reached into his coat as we crashed.

My ribs slammed into the dashboard. I slid sideways toward the door, thumbing the safety off his gun. Felix glared at me, still holding his side, a little dazed from our sudden stop against a metal street-lamp.

“No one attacked the hospital, did they?” I asked. He didn’t reply; I chambered a round.

“No.”

“Where were we going, Felix?”

“An apartment across town.”

“Why?”

“Kismet wants to talk to you.”

“Bullshit. Why?”

He fixed me with a poisonous stare. “You don’t quit the Triads, Stone. You don’t get to run off and ignore your duty and make up the goddamn rules as you go along. You report all activities to your superiors.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” My hand trembled, but I kept the gun steady on him. “You lied about the hospital just to get me into a room so Kismet could lecture me about duty?”

“She doesn’t like being left in the dark. None of us do. You’re in the middle of something that affects all of us. You don’t get to keep it to yourself. We need to know what’s going on.”

“She could have asked.”

“Would you have told her the truth?” He snorted when I hesitated. “Didn’t think so.”

I bristled. “If I’d even considered letting her in on the full story of what’s going on right now, you can be damned sure that after this little performance, she’s getting nothing from me.”

“You’re a Hunter, and she’s your superior—”

“I was a Hunter. That woman died.”

“So what now? You’re going to go freelance and turn your back on the people who made you what you are?”

“They turned their backs first.”

“And this is your revenge.” It wasn’t a question, and Felix held my gaze intently, his dark eyes full of accusation and frustration.

I was struck dumb. This wasn’t about my getting revenge on the brass for ordering me neutralized. It was about the Owlkins. It was about finding out if someone up the food chain meant to slaughter the other bi-shifting Clans. It was about someone with power finally taking some fucking responsibility.

It wasn’t about my vengeance.

It’s not about me.

“Nothing personal, Felix,” I said, “but give Kismet a message for me.”

He quirked an eyebrow in silent question. I smashed the gun butt into his temple. His head dropped against the steering wheel, eliciting a brief honk from the horn. I rifled through his jacket until I produced a cell, slipped it into my pocket, and tucked the gun into the waistband of my jeans. With my bag on one shoulder, I climbed out of the car and bolted.

Back into my city. Alone.

It took time to get across town without a car. I’d managed fifteen blocks of ducking in and out of alleys, avoiding known Dreg hot spots, and generally melting into shadows—not terribly easy with a carry-on strapped to my back—before Felix’s cell rang. I ducked into the gloom of a gated storefront and fished the phone out of my pocket.

“You get my message?” I asked.

“What the hell are you trying to prove, Stone?” Kismet snapped.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“Not until I have proof.”

“And you think you’re likely to find proof?”

“Give me until noon today.”

“I can’t do that.”

I stomped a foot on the ground. “Dammit, Kismet, trust me.”

“I did, Stone, but my trust goes only so far when you’re acting like the rogue you tried so hard to prove you weren’t. You need to come in.”

“Not happening.” I wanted to tell her about Phin, about Leonard Call, and our meeting with Black Hat’s crew. Not yet. It was too much to explain over the phone. “I’ll call you at noon.”

“Stone—”

I hung up and turned the phone off. No more interruptions. Kismet didn’t want to listen to reason, which meant Triad backup was off the table. Getting access to Rufus now would be beyond tricky—nearly impossible was a better assessment. My only real option was to go forward with Plan A and meet up with the gremlins. And hope they had my promised information.

With another dozen blocks to go before I made it to their factory, and the time inching ever closer to sunrise, I started jogging. The stab wound in my stomach was mostly healed—only the faintest ache remained. My back continued to itch and smart, punctuated by the occasional flash of real pain. I briefly considered a couple of teleports, anything to get me closer in a hurry, but chose to hoof it instead. I hadn’t tested my teleportation powers in such a manner; I didn’t know how far I could jump and with what consequences.

The sun was peeking rays of pink and gold over the skyline when I finally reached the factory. The weed-spotted parking lot was empty, the surrounding buildings quiet. I crouched by the perimeter fence, partially hidden behind a cluster of unkempt bushes. Thirty yards of open pavement to cross before I reached the safety of the entrance.

Wyatt and Phin were the only people who knew I was coming here. Neither had any reason to report my activities to one of the other Handlers. Still, better safe than sorry.

I closed my eyes and imagined the little room just inside the factory’s back entrance. The same foyer I’d entered twice before, right next to the stairwell. The Break sparked and spit. Loneliness was easy to find, and then I was moving with the familiar sensations of being smashed and twisted into nothingness. A sharp twinge between my eyes marked passage through the solid wall. I felt the floor beneath my feet and the cool dampness around me.

The room tilted briefly. Fatigue and hunger were catching up to me faster than I liked. When this was over, I was so taking a vacation. I needed to get out of this damned city for a while. My entire life I’d never been farther than twenty miles away. I’d never seen the ocean; I wanted to see the ocean. That settled it—once this was over, road trip to the coast.

I almost believed it would happen.

After another moment’s rest, I left my bag on the ground floor and began my long ascent.

On the fourth-floor landing, I paused and listened. Not because I heard anything amiss but because I heard nothing at all. During my other two visits, I’d heard the distant hum and scuffle of gremlin activity moments after entering the factory. Thousands of the small creatures lived here; silence was next to impossible. But the factory felt hollow, empty.

I retrieved my borrowed gun and checked the ammo clip. Regular rounds—Felix had probably expected trouble from me. Gun by my side, I pressed my ear to the landing door. Tried the handle. It moved without hesitation, squealing sharply as old metal moved for the first time in years. From the layers of grime on its surface, I couldn’t imagine the gremlins used it.

It opened into a narrow corridor. The dim shaft of light from the stairwell did nothing to illuminate its interior. It carried the faint, familiar alcohol odor of gremlin urine, with no signs of gremlin activity. I let the door squeak shut, then went up to the top floor.

Faced with a familiar door, I paused, every sense on alert. No one was waiting for me. I heard no movement from behind the door. Something was very wrong. Had someone come after the gremlins without my knowledge? Had they vacated on their own whims, without any thought to the deal I’d made with them? The latter was less likely, given their literal tendencies.

Did I shout the proper greeting? Try the door first? Everything about it felt wrong, but if I turned and left, I might never get the information I wanted.

I was doing everything a Hunter was told not to do: entering an unknown situation alone, without proper weapons, and without backup en route. Not much I could do about the circumstances, with all my allies either hospitalized or against me. Circumstances that hadn’t much changed since my resurrection four days ago.

I retrieved the cell phone and turned it on. It was just something Kismet had said, something she seemed to imply during our last conversation. I hit Redial.

Something musical rang out on the other side of the steel door.

I turned and bolted back down the stairs. Sixth floor, fifth floor. On the fourth-floor landing, the door swung open. I sidestepped but wasn’t fast enough to miss the plank of wood that swung at my head. Vivid lights exploded behind my eyes, and then darkness.