Three Days to Dead

Chapter 3

70:33

Once I crossed the Black River and retreated to the east side of the city, I lost the keen sense of displacement that had haunted me since waking up in the morgue. In its place, I discovered something new and barely detectable. The air around me seemed alive, energized, like an impending lightning strike. It might have been a side effect of the resurrection, but I doubted that. It hadn’t started until I crossed the river again—until I found myself downtown, in the neighborhood known as Mercy’s Lot. It was where I belonged, among the hopeless and the damned. Angry human souls without privilege, living side by side with creatures they couldn’t comprehend and chose not to see.

The real cause of the city’s sharp contrasts between prosperity and decay isn’t unemployment or a police department impotent to stop rising street gang violence. It’s the Dregs: creatures of nightmare and legend, eking out their existence with the rest of us. Some are friendly to humans—gargoyles, the Fey, and most of the were-Clans are tentative allies. Other races, like gremlins and trolls, just don’t care; they leave us alone and we leave them alone.

But vampires, goblins, and some weres longed to see us wiped out, and that’s where people like me came into play. Dreg Bounty Hunters. Enlisted young and trained hard, we are the only defense between the violent Dregs and innocent humans. Our credo is simple: they break the law, they die.

The fun part was deciding how they died.

I took the Wharton Street footbridge across a spiderweb of intersecting railroad tracks. The heavy odor of metal and burning coal tingled my nostrils, familiar and welcoming. Far away, a train whistled. I paused and looked at the tracks, the warehouses on both sides of the stretch of sandy ground, and the rows of abandoned boxcars.

My first kill as a trainee had been down there. Six months of Boot Camp hadn’t prepared me for working as part of a team. It taught me to defend myself, to think on my quickly moving feet, and to kill. Teamwork is learned in the field or you die fast.

Two days after being assigned to Wyatt and given a room in a shabby apartment above a hole-in-the-wall jewelry store, our Triad went hunting. Physically, we were an odd group. Ash Bedford was senior Hunter, but she barely hit the five-one mark; black hair and almond eyes hid a wealth of savagery always tempered by a sunny smile, present even when killing. Jesse Morales, conversely, towered at six-one—with dark hair, dark eyes, and smoldering cynicism that hid his marshmallow center.

I hadn’t known those things at the time. My impressions were less than sparkling, as were theirs of me—the skinny, blond-haired, blue-eyed bitch from the south side, with a huge chip on her shoulder and enough ice around her heart to sink a luxury liner.

Our first assignment: two rogue vampire half-breeds had crashed the local prom. We had to kill them before they could turn their dates into midnight snacks.

I hadn’t expected much from my new partners that night, so I ignored Ash’s plan and barreled into the open, blades flashing. I never expected one of the two unsuspecting victims to hit me in the head with her rhinestone clutch. Teenage girls are, apparently, protective of their boyfriends, vampire or not.

Jesse had yanked me out of the way before Halfie Number One could sink his half-formed fangs into my elbow and leave me to a fate worse than dying.

Halfies are easy targets for a rookie, because they’re often young, always dumb, and, once in a while, completely insane from the infection. Creating half-breeds, though, is a major no-no, and the vampire Families, like the Hunters, make it their business to thin them out. Even more than humans, they disdain the mixing of species. Tainting bloodlines, so to speak, and it’s one thing on which I actually agree with them.

For almost four years, Jesse, Ash, and I had been the most feared Hunter Triad in the city, our kills more than double that of the next team. The Dreg populations knew our faces and our reputations, and for the first time, I had a family. The first family to truly accept me.

My mother had ignored me in favor of a string of live-in boyfriends and, later, a heroin addiction, leaving me to fend for myself at the ripe old age of ten and a half. Seven months after my stepfather left us, she became Jane Doe Number Twelve, dead a week before the body was found. I became a ward of the state, and their rules and I did not get along. Bitterness was my only friend for seven years, until the Triads found me.

Ash showed me how to apply mascara. Jesse taught me how to whistle. For all their trouble, I watched Ash get stabbed in the throat, and then I shot Jesse in the back. Nothing puts your allies on you faster than being accused of turning traitor and murdering your teammates.

Even if that’s not what happened.

The only advantage to walking around the city in Chalice’s body was anonymity. If both Triads and Dregs knew Evangeline Stone was dead, they’d never see me coming.

Unless Chalice was a klutz, and I couldn’t get her body to do what needed to be done.

At the far end of the bridge, a sharp tremor tore up my spine. I grabbed on to the handrail, certain I’d been attacked, but no one was within a dozen yards of me. Traffic continued past, paying me no mind. I looked for shadows, strange shapes, prying eyes, anything out of the ordinary. Nothing.

“You’re being paranoid, Evy,” I muttered, and kept walking.

Four blocks from the train yards, the ground began to slope. On the east side of the river, the city had dozens of hills and dips. Some streets followed the natural curve of the ground, and others crossed above the city on elevated bridges, in a maze of over-and underpasses.

Cars and trucks drove past. Once or twice I earned a honk. I discounted hitching on the grounds that, in the middle of a fight, I didn’t need to discover that Chalice had a glass jaw.

My progress took me into a residential area on the north side of Mercy’s Lot, full of weekly apartment rentals and cheap motels that advertised hourly rates. Many of them rose ten or more stories into the sky. Already elevated on hills, they appeared to tower over the rest of the city. Then a gap appeared in the distance, a block to the west of my current position. As I continued up the sloping street, the gap became more pronounced, like a missing tooth in an otherwise perfect mouth.

Yellow tape cordoned off the block. Sawhorses stood a weak sentry line across the sidewalk that ran parallel to the wreckage. It looked like no one was willing to pay to have the site bulldozed, so a mass of burnt wood and brick and metal lay where the Sunset Terrace apartment complex had once stood.

I stopped across the street, hands shaking, overcome by a wave of grief. Many were-Clans lived together, finding comfort and safety in their own kind. The Owlkins—a race of gentle shape-shifters who took on the form of owls, falcons, eagles, and other birds of prey—had once lived in Sunset Terrace. The community had thrived, because they chose neutrality over hostility. Levelheaded and fair, they often served as negotiators between disputing weres.

Now, because of me, they were gone. I didn’t know if any had survived the Triads’ assault.

I could still hear their screams. Feel the scorch of the fire on my face. The smell of burning wood and flesh. Danika’s voice telling me to run. Three hundred dead. It was the price they paid for harboring a fugitive Hunter. Fugitive for a crime she didn’t even commit.

I hadn’t understood it then, and I still didn’t. We’d been lured to Halfie territory and attacked. So why come after me less than ten minutes after I reported the assault? Why was I dodging the bullets of other Hunters, instead of working with them to learn who set us up in the first place?

If I knew any of that before I died, it was lost to a well in the Swiss cheese mess of my memories. All I recalled was going to the Owlkins for protection, being tracked there by the Triads, and running yellow while three hundred gentle souls were burned alive for their kindness. A hostile and over-the-top reaction I just did not understand. And I couldn’t imagine how the Triads had justified it to themselves.

“Now what?” I asked the wreckage. The faraway beep of a car horn was the only response given.

Behind me, a door slammed. I jumped, pivoting on one foot with a surprising amount of grace. A woman in a short skirt, wearing makeup piled on with a shovel, clacked down the sidewalk in high heels, away from the building behind me. She paid no attention to me, but even from a distance, I sensed something off about her. It was the way she walked, holding herself a little too upright, too stiff-legged—the way a goblin female walked when she was trying to pass as human.

Only goblin females could pass and, even then, it was a rare feat. Goblins had naturally curved spines, which accounted for their hunched-over appearance. Some females were able to overcome the curve and maintain a straight posture. Contacts covered red eyes, dye took care of the blue-black hair, and files flattened sharp teeth. Males were incapable of passing. They had more severe hunches, oily skin, pointed ears, and rarely grew taller than five feet—even when standing straight up.

On a normal day, I would have slipped into the shadows and tailed Madame Goblin until I discovered why she was wandering around the city in broad daylight, dressed like a hooker. But today was hardly normal, and I had no proof she wasn’t just bad at walking in heels.

She disappeared around the block. On the same corner stood an old-fashioned telephone booth. Dialing Wyatt’s number should have been as natural as breathing, but even if I could remember it, what would he say? When had I last spoken to him? What did we say? He had been a driving force in my life for the last four years. At once fiercely supportive and shatteringly critical, and somehow he always made it work. We worked as a Triad because of him.

Only now his team was dead, and nothing was how it used to be. Now I had no one to turn to, except for Chalice’s roommate, and he was likely to have me committed if I tried to tell him the truth.

At some point, I’d started walking toward the phone. I stopped halfway there. Turning myself in to the Department was giving up. It meant that the Owlkins died—no, not died, they were slaughtered—for nothing.

No. They died for something: me. A debt worth more than I could possibly repay.

The wind shifted, pushing the acrid stench of burnt wood and tepid water in my direction. I sneezed and bit my tongue. My eyes watered.

Overwhelming loneliness—something I hadn’t felt in a very long time—crashed over me like a wave. I was crushed beneath it, helpless and alone. The world grayed out, at once fuzzy and keenly electric. I held on to consciousness until the dizzy spell passed. Fainting in the street was not on today’s To Do list. Getting answers was.

I grabbed the pay phone’s handset, unaware that I’d entered the booth until I touched the grimy plastic. I lifted it, then dropped it back into the cradle. Was getting those answers worth probable execution? The Department would file me away as Neutralized. Normally they allowed Triads to operate under our own rules, answerable only to our Handlers, who answered to the brass—three key people in the Metro Police. Until someone really, truly screwed up.

The phone rang. I yelped and jumped back, slamming my elbow into the corner of the door. Needles lanced up my right arm, numbing the nerves. Fucking funny bone.

Two rings, sharp and clear.

I spun in a complete circle, halfway in the booth, surveying the surrounding buildings. No one came running to answer the call. The street was quiet, empty.

Three rings. Insistent.

My fingers closed around the mouthpiece.

Four.

I picked it up, silencing the offending noise. Gingerly, I held it to my ear. The line was open, but I heard nothing. Not even heavy breathing. Seconds ticked off, each one stretching out in a lengthy silence.

Frustrated, I swallowed my doubt, and said, “Hello?” Silence. I took a chance, not daring to hope. “Wyatt?”

Click.

Shit.

I dropped the phone and backpedaled out of the booth. My foot stamped down on something hard. The warmth of an arm wrapped around my waist, while a hand clamped over my mouth. Panic hit like ice water. One of my hands came up, clutching at what my eyes couldn’t see. Years of training told me that screaming was futile, but Chalice’s body refused to cooperate.

I shrieked against my human (I hoped) gag, and tried to bite the palm and failed. I ground the heel of my sneaker down, longing for my heavy combat boots. My captor grunted, but didn’t loosen his ghostly hold.

Broad daylight. He was attacking me in broad daylight.

I hooked my left ankle around his, shifted my weight backward, and pulled. We fell over. I drove my elbow into his ribs just as he hit the sidewalk. The pained grunt it elicited was music to my ears. I landed a second jab. His hold loosened.

“Will you stop? I won’t hurt you.”

I froze, surprise replacing my fight instinct, and marveled at the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. Rolling sideways, I dropped into a crouch and found myself face-to-face with—

Dead air. And the sidewalk. Lots of empty sidewalk.

“Wyatt?” I asked. Had I hallucinated the whole thing as preparation for my loony bin audition?

Warmth brushed my hand. I jerked.

“Evy?” asked Wyatt’s disembodied voice. He could have been right in front of me, as the direction of his voice implied.

Wherever he was, he shouted a sudden warning. “Behind you!”

The air behind me shifted, and I flattened myself to the sidewalk. Something sailed over my head, “oofed!” as it hit a person who wasn’t even there, and skidded on its scaly ass until it slammed against a trash can.

The goblin was young and stupid to be attacking me alone. He scrambled to his feet, standing barely four-foot-five hunched over, which made him tall for a goblin. Ruby eyes glared at me from beneath bushy black eyebrows. He snarled, lips pulling back over jagged teeth.

Bile scorched the back of my throat. The unexpected reaction came without explanation or emotion—just immediate and profound revulsion at the sight of the angry goblin male, a simple leather loincloth the only thing between him and immodesty.

Goblins never attacked in the open, or during the day.

Air swirled behind me. I spun around, anticipating an attack from behind. The assumption proved correct, but the additional pair of goblins who appeared to assist their friend were already sprawled on the sidewalk. Like they’d run headfirst into an invisible brick wall.

I pivoted again, but turned too late. Two inches of a dagger blade sank into my left shoulder, just above the cleft of my armpit. Pain shrieked through my chest. I spun the other way and clipped the goblin square in his pointy nose with my elbow. His head snapped backward. Fuchsia blood spurted from his nostrils. I continued my pivot and landed a roundhouse kick to the side of his head. He tumbled ass over teakettle into the street.

Chalice’s untrained legs almost tangled together, but I kept myself upright. Inner thigh muscles screeched, protesting the acrobatic move. I grabbed the narrow hilt of the goblin’s blade and yanked. It slid out neatly and with only a minor amount of additional pain. I charged the downed goblin, intent on slitting him from sternum to scrotum.

Wyatt cried out—a pained sound I knew too well. Attacker forgotten, I fixed my attention on the other two goblins, who appeared to be hanging in midair, attached to some invisible object. An object that was bleeding from a dagger, which dangled from nothing about four feet off the ground. The smaller goblin’s head was snapped back by an invisible blow, followed by a second that dislodged him. He hit the pavement and took off running.

The remaining goblin snapped his cone-shaped teeth at the air. The blade of the embedded dagger became suddenly visible, coated in red blood. It turned and buried itself to the hilt in the throat of the trapped goblin, splattering fuchsia blood across what looked like a pair of human legs. The dead goblin was tossed to the sidewalk.

Blood-soaked shoes took a step toward me. I stepped backward. Red, human blood continued to ooze into thin air, outlining a man’s torso.

It couldn’t be. He was Gifted, sure, but his power was summoning inanimate objects. Since when could Wyatt turn invisible?

The retreating goblin had almost reached the end of the block. I stepped into the quiet street, took aim, and with every bit of concentration I could muster, loosed the knife. It sailed straight, but arched down at the last instant. Instead of hitting the goblin square in the back, it buried itself in the creature’s leg. He stumbled forward, into the road, and was flattened by a speeding pickup truck. Brakes squealed, and the truck fishtailed out of sight.

From a distance, the mess looked like the remains of someone’s dog, all black and pink and grotesquely inhuman. The truck’s engine continued to rumble just out of sight. I waited for the driver to back up or walk over, to see whose pet he’d just mangled. Instead, the engine roared and was gone.

Typical.

“Where’s the third?” Wyatt asked.

Shit. The one who stabbed me had gotten away.

“We need to get off the street,” he said. “Now.”

I wasn’t about to argue. I followed the free-floating bloody torso toward the nearest apartment building, trying to reconcile my eyes with my senses. I smelled the blood, both human and goblin, and something else, so familiar—a spicy aftershave, like musk and cinnamon, unique to Wyatt. The continued invisibility frightened me, even though I’d never admit it. I wasn’t the only one who had changed.

He led me through a narrow, musty lobby, past a row of mailboxes, toward a door marked with a laundry machine symbol. I followed him into a dank stairwell. Down we went, into a gray and damp world of concrete floors and cement-block walls. A chill wormed down my spine. At the bottom of the stairs, the room opened up. Four washing machines lined one wall, with four dryers opposite. A long, wooden table divided the room. There were no windows and no chairs.

“It is really you?” his disembodied voice asked.

I nodded at the blood. “It’s me, and if it’s really you, I could sure as shit use some answers. Maybe a face to talk to.”

“Right; sorry.”

He spoke words I didn’t recognize. The air around him shimmered and rippled, like heat off the surface of a desert road. A body materialized, faded, and then appeared with perfect clarity. One hand pressed against his wounded side; the other clutched a glowing yellow jewel. He desperately needed to shave the dark stubble that shadowed his chin and cheeks—as black as his short hair and intense, thick-lashed eyes. Blood of two species had soaked the legs of his jeans, staining them purple.

Hurt and surprised and staring at me with open curiosity, Wyatt Truman smiled. It was such a familiar gesture of affection that my reaction to it was entirely unexpected. Something started in my stomach and surged upward, then came back down to settle deep in my abdomen—an instant and instinctive reaction to the mere sight of him, unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

Wyatt had been my boss, my friend, and my confidant. Besides Jesse and Ash, he was the closest thing to family I’d ever known. I crossed the short space that separated us and flung my arms around his shoulders, ignoring the blood as I hugged him. Hard. One arm snaked around my waist. His breath tickled my ear.

“You have no fucking idea how glad I am to see you,” I said. “I thought I was going crazy.”

“I’m sorry, Evy,” he whispered. “I am so sorry.”

“For what?”

He stiffened. I pulled away to arm’s length. He pressed his lips into a thin line, black eyes searching mine for … something. Bright spots of color darkened his cheeks, and the intensity of his stare sent little niggles of doubt worming through my stomach.

“Evy, what do you remember?” he asked.

I didn’t like the sound of that. I backed up, putting another few feet of space between us. “I remember the Triads attacking the Owlkins, slaughtering them because they were hiding me. I called you, because I didn’t know what else to do.” But the memories still ended with me sneaking through a city street toward our meeting place.

“That was a week ago,” he said.

“No kidding. Do you mind filling in the blanks?”

Despair crumpled his face. I bit the inside of my cheek, clenching my fists to resist the overwhelming instinct to hug him again. Something had happened to me, something very bad.

“Wyatt, what happened? How did I die?”

His eyes flickered toward my shoulder. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.” Strangely enough, the knife wound didn’t hurt anymore. It sort of itched. “How did I die?”

He limped over to one of the dryers and opened the door. Wrinkled laundry spilled onto the floor. He put the yellow jewel on top of the dryer and began sifting through the clothing. I eyed the precious gem, wondering if that was the source of his invisibility cloak, and how much he’d paid for it.

“Wyatt?”

“Nice necklace.”

I fingered the cross around my neck. “Don’t change the subject.”

He checked the waistband of a pair of jeans and, determining them appropriate, tossed them onto the room’s center table. “I should have been there when you woke,” he said, returning to his search. “But you didn’t come back where we thought you would. Even dead, you’re pretty damned contrary, you know that?”

I smiled at the familiar jab. I always preferred questioning his orders over following them, and it drove him bat shit. Drove my partners bat shit, too, when they were alive. Even if I was wrong, the fun was in the argument.

“Next time leave a better trail of bread crumbs, and I’ll try resurrecting to the appropriate body,” I said.

He threw a cotton shirt on top of the jeans and stood up. Pain bracketed his eyes and pinched his mouth. My stomach tightened. I was such a bitch. Here he was, bleeding to death in front of me, and I kept nagging him for answers.

“Take off your shirt,” I said, closing the distance between us.

Wyatt arched an eyebrow.

I rolled my eyes. “Let me see the wound, jackass.”

I reached for his shirt, but he caught my hand. A tremor danced up my arm, awakened by his touch. I looked up, startled. Something dangerous flashed in his eyes, there and gone in a blink. Warning bells clanged in my head.

“I did it,” he said.

“Did what?”

His shoulders drooped. Agony radiated off him. He dropped my hand, and I mourned the loss of his touch. Only for a moment, though, because he spoke three words that shattered everything.

“I killed you.”