As Lie the Dead

Chapter Twenty-two

6:46 P.M.

I paid the price for that stupid decision and for underestimating Snow’s defensive capabilities. He waited until I took a swing at his chin, then he ducked the blow. He simultaneously grabbed my right wrist with both hands and pivoted one-eighty, until we faced the same direction. Bastard used my momentum—and a surprising amount of his own strength—to flip me over his head and onto my back on one of the various long wooden tables. My lungs seized and my back cried out.

He spun faster than I would have guessed and drove his fist at my head. I rolled to my left in time and felt the breeze created by his sudden connection with the wood. He howled and jumped back, clutching his hand. Using the distraction, I tucked my knees and came up on top of the table. I towered over him, my eyes searching for a weapon of some sort.

Snow flexed his fist, testing the bones.

“Shouldn’t hit tables,” I said. “They tend to win.”

He bared his teeth, then darted toward the door. I watched him stupidly for a moment, until I realized he wasn’t intending to leave. He pulled a two-by-four out of the pile of scraps, its end studded with a couple of bent nails.

Shit.

The greenhouse was as wide as it was long, but it was still smaller than half a tennis court. Save for the standing tables, Snow had the majority of the scrap lumber at his disposal. Several rotting boxes of clay pots and saucers had been dumped in the complete opposite corner from us. Potential shrapnel, if I could get to them. And that damned crystal was keeping me from teleporting over.

The nail-studded wood came slashing toward my knees—damn, but he moved fast—with a whistle of air. I pushed off the table, forward and over his head, tucked my knees, and spun. It was an acrobatic move I’d perfected in my old body—not so much the new one. Instead of landing on my feet behind him, I kicked him in the head with my left foot—an unexpected bonus—and crashed to the floor on my left side and cracked my left knee on the concrete floor.

I shrieked as heat and pain tore through my knee. Snow was already pivoting, growling his annoyance, nail-bat swinging. I swept my right leg out and connected with his ankles. He toppled flat on his back, air releasing from his lungs in a gasped rush. I thrust across him, reaching for the nail-bat, and he had sense enough to punch me in the kidney.

Tears sparked in my eyes at the fiery pain that forced the breath from my lungs. I drove my aching left knee into his thigh—bad positioning for the groin shot I wanted. He yelped and snapped at my face. I head-butted him, my forehead to just below his nose, still reaching. He swung; I blocked. My arm hit his bicep—too low. Should’ve gotten him at the elbow and prevented him from half swinging. The nails smashed into my lower back, barely above my left butt cheek.

I probably screamed. Fingers of agony clawed their way through my back, short-circuiting my brain with a dull roar not unlike the sound of an oncoming train. A second head butt from me propelled the back of his head into the concrete, and the hand holding the nail-bat went limp. I wrenched it from his grasp and out of my ass. Shaking fingers lost any grip I tried for on the wide slab of wood, and it skittered out of reach behind me. I lunged for it, twisting sideways across Snow’s lap. He drove another hard blow into my ribs. I rolled, not stopping until I’d cleared him, my knee aching and butt on fire. He kicked but couldn’t reach me.

Last time I’d ever underestimate the fighting ability of a Kitsune.

He was trying to sit up, groggy from repeated blows to the head. We both eyed the nail-bat. I slipped on my own smear of blood; he got to the weapon first with a cry of victory. I scrabbled sideways, out of swinging range, ignoring my pain as best I could. Not mortal wounds, just agonizing ones. And he had the upper hand again.

The heavy odor of mold and earth turned my already nauseated stomach. Combined with the new scents of blood and sweat, I was ready to heave all over the place. I just couldn’t take my eyes off Snow long enough to manage it. I needed a weapon before he tried to take my head off with his makeshift mace. Anything to put us on more even ground. I was good with my hands; I just preferred cold steel in them during a fight.

That pile of clay pots and saucers was still my best chance. Only I had an obstacle course of old tables between me and it. Not enough room to quickly crawl beneath them. Easiest way through a labyrinth? Over the walls, of course.

I grabbed the edge of the nearest table and hauled my bloody, battered ass up. The table groaned beneath me; the stained and warped wood held. Snow charged, bat cocked and ready. I leapt onto the next nearest table. The hard landing jarred my knee and fueled the angry fire in my ass—seriously, it needs to start healing!—but I kept going. I had no choice.

As I jumped from table to table, several cracked loudly beneath my weight until I reached my destination. Listening to the stamping sounds of Snow’s shoes on the concrete floor, I bent and retrieved a handful of cracked and broken saucers, hoping to use them as shrapnel.

I wound up, ready to pitch one at my first moving target, and pivoted. Snow was out of sight. I held my breath, listening hard, hearing little over the pounding of my heart. Nothing moved. I squatted and peered beneath the tables, hoping for a pair of legs or even a crouching man-shape. Except for Wyatt’s shadowed figure on the ground several dozen feet away, I seemed very much alone. Only I knew better.

Something sharp scrabbled against wood. Too close for comfort. I shot upright as a blur of reddish orange fur flew at me. Sharp teeth closed around my left shoulder, just below my neck. I shrieked. White-hot pain seared my chest and back. Claws dug into my chest and stomach as the furious fox tried to find purchase with his feet, growling deep in his throat as he ripped at my flesh and muscle.

Hadn’t expected that—fucking stupid! Again.

I smashed the clay saucer into the fox’s back. It broke into dozens of crumbling shards, too old to keep its form or be an effective weapon. Snow-fox snarled, mouth still full of me, and tore a deep slash across my ribs. Blood oozed hot and thick. He was smaller than me, but he had teeth and claws and animal instincts on his side. All I had was bulk.

So I dropped to my knees and fell forward, smashing him into the concrete floor. He let go with a gasping growl, small body twisting beneath me. Struggling to get out. I rolled off and scrambled sideways until I hit the leg of a table, gasping. In lots of pain. Blood painted my neck and chest, and I left a smear of it on the floor. Snow twisted onto his feet and shrank back, bloody teeth bared, panting. His emerald eyes seemed to glow with fury and bloodlust. My blood coated his fur.

I probably could have crushed the small animal beneath me and ended the fight; only I didn’t want to kill Snow, even though he had no qualms about killing me to get to Wyatt. I just needed him out of the fight.

He crouched low, still panting, not a scratch on him. We stared each other down, my mind furiously processing every tidbit I knew about shape-shifters. I had the cross charm in my pocket, but with all that fur protecting his skin, unless I got him to swallow it, all the silver would do was piss him off. And swallowing meant getting close to those teeth.

I’d fought a were-coyote once and used an exposed live wire to slow the thing down. The current had sent the ferocious animal back into human form. A man would be a hell of a lot easier to subdue than a fox a quarter my size and twice as fast.

Trouble was, the ceiling fixtures were too high and too protected to be useful, and I didn’t see any outlets close by.

Snow snarled. Blood and saliva dripped from his teeth, pattering to the floor in small drops. He was sizing me up. Probably weighing his chances of successfully ripping out my jugular. Time ticked away.

I shifted my right hand a few inches, seeking better purchase if I needed to move fast. My fingers brushed something gritty and dry. Potting soil, maybe, or clay dust. An advantage. I held Snow’s angry gaze and curled my fingers around as much of the grit as I could gather. Then I sneered at Snow. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

The sound he made was half-human and half-animal, and all rage. He launched off muscled hind legs, jaws snapping. I flung the dirt at his eyes and used the momentum of the swing to roll left, out of the way of his flailing, whining form. He crashed into the leg of a table and tried to rub his eyes with his foreleg. Failing miserably with his lack of hands, he began transforming back into a man.

I didn’t wait for the show. Instead, I scrambled to my feet on a wave of nausea and pain, and when smooth, pale skin had replaced red fur, and long fingers scrubbed at blinded eyes, I smashed several clay pots down on his head. They exploded into fragments that cut my palms. Dust billowed up, watering my eyes. Snow went limp and crashed to the floor, head lolling and cheeks wet, blond hair coated with red. Not quite out. The heel of my foot stilled him.

“Sorry about your sister,” I said, “but you don’t get to win.”

It took a little doing before I got him secured to the leg of the table with a scrap of wood and his belt. My ass hurt and my shoulder was on fire. Blood stuck my clothes to my skin—one of the three sets of clothes I currently owned, thank you—and the volume of loss was making me dizzy.

I took the long way around the tables to where Wyatt was coming around. He’d turned onto his back and was working on getting his eyes open.

“Take it easy, hero,” I said, kneeling next to him.

“What hit me?” he growled as he tested one eye. It finally found me. The other eyelid flew open, and both eyes fixed on my bleeding chest. “Christ, Evy!”

“Looks worse than it is.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Why, you’re very welcome, Wyatt. It was no trouble to take Snow down and save your life.”

“He’s dead?”

“No, just unconscious, temporarily blind, and tied to a table. Babysit him. I have to go.”

“Evy—”

“Stay. Here.”

Annoyance sparked in his eyes; I held his glare, trying desperately to shatter it with my own. Make him understand I needed him out of harm’s way right now. Far from trouble so I could concentrate on stopping Cole and saving the people in the theater. Defeat finally glared brightly.

“Do I have to say to be careful?” he asked.

“No, but you can.”

“Be careful.”

I brushed his cheek with the back of my hand. “You, too.” I helped him stand—a quick glance at the back of his shirt revealed no blood, so his stitches were safe—and retrieved the nail-bat.

He refused it. “You might need it. Where’s the crystal?”

Shit. I’d almost forgotten. It still hung via chain, near the door. I reached for the slim orange shard and yelped as thousands of tingles ran through my hand and shoulder.

“Don’t touch the crystal itself,” he said.

“Gee, you think?” I looped my fingers around the chain, dropped it to the floor, and proceeded to grind the crystal into the concrete. Just like stepping on a live wire, it shot electricity up my leg and through my hip until abruptly ceasing. My sense of the Break crashed down like a tidal wave, a familiar current of power. “I hope I never see another of those fucking things again.”

Wyatt inhaled deeply, probably as grateful as I was for the reconnection, if not more so. “Only thing worse than not feeling it is feeling it too much,” he said, more to himself than me.

“Feeling it too much? That happens?” It occurred to me how little we’d talked about the way this Gifted thing worked, beyond the obvious tap. I needed to pencil that particular conversation into my over-packed schedule.

“Not often, but strong thunderstorms can seriously screw with your control.”

Huh.

He ran a hand down his face, pausing to pinch the bridge of his nose. “It’s hard to imagine Cole siding with Tovin, and that he’s been a part of this from the start.”

“Loss can make the most rational person do unbelievable things.” Not that loss excused the irrational, unbelievable stuff.

“Touché. Look, I know you’re still pissed at me—”

“Okay, this really isn’t the time.” I put the palm of my right hand flat on his chest, over the gentle pressure of his beating heart. The words I’d finally said out loud, admitted to Snow in the heat of battle, once again choked in my throat. “Just … be my Handler again and stay here while I go out and beat up the bad guy.”

“I thought we were partners.”

“We’ll be partners when you aren’t concussed and two days out of surgery. You don’t heal like I do.”

“You’re not invulnerable, Evy.”

“Trust me, the flaming aches in my butt and shoulder keep reminding me. You may have been a Hunter ten years ago, but this is my fight now. I’ll take care of Cole.”

I didn’t trust that he’d stay put, and I couldn’t stand there and debate my decision with time ticking away. I also couldn’t knock him out again—his brain had been rattled enough for one weekend. I just had to hope.

“Kiss for luck?” I asked.

He crushed his mouth to mine without further prompting. I parted my lips, allowing him in. Tasting him. Promising in actions what I couldn’t say with words. It was brief and left me tingling. Sharp. Ready to fight for even the simplest of his touches.

“Good luck,” he said.

Nail-bat in hand, I skirted the pile of wood scraps and peeked out the door. No one in the immediate vicinity. No voices, only the distant sounds of the city and, just a bit farther, music. Probably from the benefit. I slipped outside and kept close to the wall of the greenhouse, creeping toward the north side of the roof. At the corner, I peered around and nearly gagged at the odor.

Eleri was crumpled in a pool of her own blood, thick and dark and smelling like an old basement. She clutched her throat with both hands, holding the flow at bay with all of her receding strength, her violet eyes dim. Her white hair had turned red, and her porcelain complexion was nearly transparent.

Full-Blood vampires rarely die from blood loss alone, unless it’s helped along by the addition of an anticoagulant. She needed to feed in order to regain her full strength. No way in hell was I offering myself up. The last thing I needed was to be infected. I doubted even my healing ability could stave off vampire parasites.

“Cole?” I asked, hovering at a safe distance.

She nodded. Her wide eyes latched onto my blood-soaked clothes and didn’t let go. Either he’d discovered she was working against him or he no longer found her assistance necessary. The former was more likely, given his recruitment program. Weed out the traitors.

“Phin.” My stomach clenched. “Is Phin still with him?”

I decided her feeble head shake meant she didn’t know rather than the alternative. No more bodies were crumpled on the roof that I could see. No sign of the former Hunter and his Coni hostage. I couldn’t babysit Eleri, and I hoped she wouldn’t take my abandonment as a sign of hostility. Unless …

“Does Isleen know what’s going on tonight?” I asked. Another head shake I could interpret as a no. Too bad there wasn’t a Vampire Backup Flare I could use to get her attention.

I made short work of scouring the rest of the rooftop. No sign of them. At the corner of the north side, I had a good view down the block and of the spectacle that was the arts fund-raiser. The theater marquee was lit, advertising the event in tall block letters. Red and gold and white lights flared brightly from the lobby windows. Cars and limos were parked all along the street. Only a handful of well-dressed stragglers lingered outside, some smoking, others chatting. The music came from there as well—some kind of big band nonsense that always reminded me of dying trumpets.

It all looked so innocent, the people inside unaware of the threat lurking nearby. Oblivious to the fact that they were about to become a Halfie buffet. I’d felt that same false peace once, resting fitfully in Danika’s bedroom while the Triads converged on Sunset Terrace. Bringing with them the same destruction that Cole’s militia was about to bring down on Parker’s Palace.

I couldn’t watch another slaughter.

There was a pay phone at two o’clock, opposite end of the block from the theater. I focused on the corner, closed my eyes, and slipped into the Break. Every wound was on fire, every ache smarting and stinging. My head pounded, and it didn’t stop when I materialized near the phone, nail-bat still clenched in my right hand. I scooted inside, grabbed the sticky receiver, and dialed.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” the disconnected voice said.

“There’s a bomb in the sound booth at the old Parker’s Palace theater set to go off in five minutes. Better save your highest bracket of taxpayers,” I said, and hung up. My hand was shaking, and I wanted desperately to throw up. Police backup was better than nothing.

I had no idea what time it was and no patience now for subtlety. Sticking as close to the buildings as possible, I ran toward the theater, occasionally checking out the nearby rooftops. For snipers, for Cole, for anything out of the ordinary. A narrow alley, barely three feet wide, ran between the theater and the low-rent office building next to it. I darted in, ignoring the surprised shout of one fur-coated smoker, and sought a side entrance.

Halfway down the length of the building, I found an emergency exit door. No doorknob on my side. Shit. Had to get in there somehow. Emergency exits needed to be kept clear for obvious reasons. Logic told me there was a pocket of empty space on the other side. I shouldn’t mistakenly transport into a solid object—or a person.

The headache from my last transport hadn’t subsided, but I couldn’t wait. I pulled on loneliness, slipped into the Break, and broke apart, moving toward the door, only to smash into something red, electrical, and solid that smacked me backward. I slammed into the opposite building’s brick wall, oomphing all the air from my lungs. My eyes watered, my head pounded, and I slid to the damp ground. Red continued to color my vision, aftershocks of the force shield still zipping through my chest and abdomen. Bile scorched the back of my throat, sharp and hot.

A sudden inhalation cleared my vision of the red, and I worked to get my breathing back under control. Cole already had a shield in place around the theater. Shit on toast!

I crawled to my feet, using the brick wall for support, and battled a brief wave of dizziness. Not a good way to start a fight. I raced back to the street, where the lingering pair of smokers was trying unsuccessfully to gain entrance to the theater. A man in a tuxedo kept reaching for the door and yanking his hand away as though burned. The woman with him looked around, panicked, and then she saw me. Her overlined eyes widened.

“Patrick,” she said, clawing at the tuxedoed man.

Patrick turned, mouth open to say something, and froze when he spotted my bloodied, disheveled figure. And my weapon.

“Do yourselves a fucking favor,” I said, with enough menace to melt anyone’s brass balls, “and go home. The party started without you.”

He didn’t argue, just grabbed his date/wife/whatever and bolted down the street. Hopefully toward their car or limo. Maybe they’d call the police, too. As a Hunter, I had worked hard to keep the regular cops far outside of our business. Today I wanted them there.

I tested the doors myself and received the same shock. No help. The glass fronts were painted opaque, making it impossible to see inside the lobby. The music was a little louder, a new song with the same wailing trumpets. I swung my bat at the glass. It bounced off the shield with a burst of red and another dance of electricity up my arms.

This was bad.

A shadow fell on the sidewalk, swooped low, and then a familiar kestrel landed next to me.

I scowled. “I thought I said—”

Her cry was ear-piercing and seemed to tell me to shut up. She cocked her head, then took off again. I moved out from the safety of the marquee, watching her fly low to the street. She landed on the front stoop of an apartment building two doors down and across the street. Opposite end of the block from where I’d left Wyatt.

“Thank you, Aurora,” I said.

My transport to those steps left me lurching to my knees. I vomited what little was in my stomach, hands trembling, chest quaking. The constant pounding in my head was a dull roar. The nail wounds in my ass and the gashes on my ribs were starting to itch, and my shoulder still felt raw. So much transporting was using up my tap into the Break, preventing whatever healing magic I possessed from working to its fullest potential.

No longer in kestrel form, Aurora looped thin arms around my waist and hauled me to my feet. I let her help me into the tiny glass lobby of the apartment building, then lean me against rows of silver mailboxes.

“You look terrible,” she said.

“Good, because I feel terrible. Which room?”

“Fourth floor, apartment F. It faces the theater, so he may have seen you.”

“Cole?”

She nodded.

“Phin’s with him?” Another nod. “Is he hurt?”

“Yes.” Something hot and dangerous flared in her round eyes, and I realized that she was still in bi-shift mode, her long wings tucked back. As if waiting for a fight. I remembered what Phin had once said, about the strength of the Coni, and how fiercely he’d fought at the gym. She’d make an excellent partner upstairs.

Then I remembered Ava.

“You might want to get out of here. The police are on their way,” I said.

“They won’t be able to get into the theater to help.”

“They will if I can get that shield down, and I can probably do that by getting to Cole.”

“Probably.”

“Unless the protection spell is written on something inside the theater. Then we have to hope the Triads make it inside via the underground tunnels that are supposed to have been filled in years ago and somehow manage to find the spell and know enough to destroy the object it’s written on.”

She blinked, lips parting.

“Please stay here,” I said.

“All of this is happening because of what was done to my people. I feel responsible.”

“No, all of this is happening because of two crazy men’s misplaced senses of justice. None of it is your fault.”

I started toward the stairs, resigned to taking them up four flights, when the distant sounds of screaming stopped me. I darted back to the glass lobby doors, just able to see the front of the theater. Dark blobs blinked in and out of sight against the opaque glass—pounding fists? My heart hammered. It was starting.

“Fuck,” I muttered, and ran for the stairs.

Panic and pain pushed me up those steps faster than I should have been able to run, taking them two and three at a time. My lungs ached for a good breath. My head felt six sizes too large and ready to pop like a zit. I hit the fourth floor at a dead run, jamming my hand on the fire door, which opened into a dingy hallway. The walls were cement block, covered in graffiti, and the floor badly needed new carpet. It reeked of waste and humidity. No one was in the hall, and I didn’t stop to listen at apartment doors for neighbors.

All I could focus on was getting to apartment F and stopping this. I owed nothing to the people in that theater, but it was my job to protect them. I was a Hunter in my heart, if no longer in title or occupation. The brass had turned their backs on Cole first, but he’d turned his back on his own people. Delivered three hundred–plus for execution.

Over my once dead body.

One well-placed kick next to the lock snapped the cheap wood and sent the door sailing open. I dropped to a crouch against the frame, half expecting a welcoming gunshot or two. Nothing. The front room/kitchen combo was barren, nearly empty of furniture. An overturned dining table and one chair were pushed against the wall, and a plaid chair with ripped arms that spewed stuffing were the apartment’s only occupants. No people. No new bloodstains on the marred carpet. Bat back and ready to swing, I crept inside.

The room had three doors. Closest to me was a coat closet, empty save a pile of rat shit in the corner. The next door was open—a dimly lit bathroom. Toilet and sink covered with grime, the curtainless tub streaked with water stains. It smelled faintly of urine.

Let’s see what’s behind door number three.

It was three-quarters closed. I peeked through the crack in the jamb. Spotted a curtainless window and the very edge of a chair and the shoulder of a man sitting in it. Not good. They had to have heard my entrance. I gripped the bat so hard my knuckles ached and the old wood crackled. The visible shoulder jerked. Had he heard that?

I shoved my way through, braced for attack, heart stuck in my throat. Scanned the room. Just a man in a chair—Phin, I knew that shirt—placed right in front of one of the room’s three windows. I checked the closet, sliding the mirrored door open with my foot—no one.

Fuck, damn, and shit!

I circled around to Phin and cried out. He wasn’t tied down, as I’d suspected. He was impaled to the arms of the chair with knives driven through the center of each forearm. Blood made twin puddles on the floor. His head was down, chin to chest, eyes closed. Broken nose swollen and nearly purple. Too pale.

A shudder tore through my chest. I cupped his cheek with my hand. His skin was so cool. “Phin?”

He moaned, head tilting into my hand. He muttered something.

“Phin, where’s Cole?”

More moaning, then his eyelids fluttered. He blinked and raised his head, blue eyes swimming with agony and fatigue. I kept my hand where it was, offering what little comfort I could and knowing it wasn’t nearly enough.

“Don’t know,” he whispered, lips curling back in a snarl. “He killed Eleri.”

“He tried to. How did he know she was spying on him?”

“She isn’t as clever as she thinks she is,” Cole said. I jerked upright, pulling the bat back, ready to swing. He stood in the bedroom doorway, hands at his sides. Nonchalant, even. He had the temerity to smile at me. “Neither is Phineas, although I had hoped to convince him to truly join me. Seems he now harbors some strange loyalty to you.”

I took a single step away from Phin, putting him at a safer distance from my swinging arm. Rage jolted through me at the mere sight of Cole, so smug about the events he’d allowed to unfold and the slaughter happening across the street. Any sympathy I’d possessed died with the first scream I’d heard from inside the theater.

“You, however, continue to impress me,” he said. “Your abilities are understated, to say the least.”

“Does that mean you’re ready to fight me yourself this time? Or do you have any more underlings I should dispatch first?”

“We’d make better allies than enemies.”

I barked laughter. “Because we’re so much the same, right? Slaughtering hundreds of people and stabbing Clan Elders to chairs?”

“I promised him a front-row seat.”

“Gee whiz, that makes it okay, then.”

“You are fascinating, Evangeline, truly. Keeping your wits about you after everything you’ve suffered. I admit, I think your tenacity surpassed even Tovin’s wildest expectations. He lost because he underestimated what people in love will do to survive. He never did understand that about humans.”

I didn’t know if he was trying to get a rise out of me and make me attack, or just making small talk to prevent me from stopping the theater assault. It didn’t matter, though, because it wasn’t going to work.

“I know it counts for little, but I didn’t know what Kelsa had planned for you,” he said. “I wasn’t privy to her particulars.”

Okay, maybe it was starting to work. I had to put a metaphorical lid on my temper to keep from swinging the business end of that bat at his head. Not knowing was no excuse, considering Kelsa was a fucking goblin. They weren’t known for their niceties—especially toward Hunters.

“And I’m truly sorry about Jesse and Ash,” he continued. “They were my friends, too, but I had already agreed to help Tovin—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Heat flared in my cheeks. The rest of my body chilled. A tremor raced up my spine, spurred by rage and hate. “You don’t get to say their names or be sorry they’re dead. You could have stopped it. You could have prevented all of this!”

His joviality evaporated. He narrowed his eyes and stood straighter, mouth tight. “Perhaps, but there’s no changing what’s happened. They’re dead, and you’re not. You want to honor their memory by dying again?”

“Who’s going to kill me? You?”

“If it comes to that, yes. You’re an impediment to my vision for this city.”

I snorted. “Vision? You’re deluded.”

“Change is coming, Evangeline, whether you want it or not. And it’s up to you if you’ll be on the side making the changes or the side that gets plowed under by progress.”

Worse than the words themselves was the knowledge that he truly believed his own propaganda. He’d convinced himself his path was the correct one and he was doing this for the betterment of all the species. He seemed to have forgotten that, as a species, humans might outnumber Dregs five million to one, but their unique abilities and magical talents almost evened those odds. If we lost this city to goblins and Halfies—or worse—we’d lose others to the same. We’d lose everything.

“Can I ask you a question, Cole?”

He cocked his head. “Sure.”

“If Rain could see you today, and all the death and pain you’ve been party to, what would she say? Would she still love you?”

It was both the right and wrong thing to say. His complexion darkened with rage, and his entire body coiled to attack. I could almost see imaginary steam billowing from his ears.

“Guess that would be a no,” I said.

He advanced with a roar. I feinted to my right, as if preparing to swing. He moved perfectly, coming at me from my unprotected left side. I ducked the expected swing and jammed the nail-free end of my bat up into his gut. He staggered; I slammed it across his chin, whipping his head sideways. Continuing the arc of the wood, I drew it in a circle and cracked it across his right ankle.

He howled and crashed to the floor. One leg lashed out and caught me off guard. I tripped and fell onto my ass. Fingers of pain dragged angry nails up my back. Faster than I expected, Cole grabbed my ankles and pulled hard enough to unseat me, and the back of my head slammed against the floor. Colorful lights winked behind my eyes.

His weight settled on my hips and abdomen, low enough that I couldn’t raise my legs to kick my feet. I attempted a whack with the bat. He blocked my arm and used his free hand to grab my hair and slam my head against the floor. Everything went swimmy. Phin was shouting. Hands wrapped around my throat.

Fuck, not again.

Bracing for the agony to come, I teleported one last time. It felt like squeezing my body through a tube of ground glass. I ached and smarted, barely able to see for the roaring behind my eyes. Where was—? Just outside the bedroom door, facing in.

I blinked through blurry vision. Cole had stood. He was leaning over Phin, who shrieked when Cole pulled a knife out of one arm, its blade coated in Phin’s blood. I crawled unsteadily to my hands and knees. Cole drew his hand back to his opposite shoulder, knife blade aimed down. I knew that action, knew what he was about to do.

No!

With a primal cry torn from pain and desperation, I launched to my feet. Shot toward Cole. Didn’t feel the carpet beneath me. Barely felt the impact when I crashed shoulder-first into Cole’s gut. Was only slightly aware of glass shattering all around us. Cutting. Cole screaming. Phin hollering my name.

Then the sensation of free-falling, punctuated by an abrupt crash.