by Kelly Meding
One of the original Triad Handlers, he was a solidly-built guy with a background in the Marines, and the man knew how to handle a crowd. My group joined the line, and I sidled up next to Nevada.
“Nice to see some backup,” he said.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re at a standoff here. Every time we move forward, some of them moves toward the hostages. I have two people still clearing the rest of the mall, but there are probably more innocents that need help.”
“We were attacked by a pocket of dwarves on the way in.” I sent Boone and Nestor off to help clearing the mall. Plus Phineas wasn’t here yet so he was probably flying people to safety.
The image almost made me smile.
“We can’t stand here all night,” Shelby said. “We need to end this before more police show up. Explaining ourselves to a SWAT team isn’t high on my to-do list.”
“Mine either,” I said. “I can teleport to the other side of the dwarf line with up to three people.”
“You can?” a nearby cop asked. She was young, her smooth face spackled with red, and she was holding her baton with shaking hands. “That’s impossible.”
“Sweetie, you’re staring at a few dozen dwarves, and not all of my people are human. Trust me, it’s not impossible.”
She paled.
Was I ever that innocent?
A ruckus and an echoing cat roar told me more backup had arrived. Moments later, Astrid, in full spotted leopard mode, stole into the room. One of the cops screamed and reached for their gun. She disappeared into the shadows of one of the restaurants, followed quickly by the golden lioness that was probably Lynn.
Phineas flew into the room, staying high near the ceiling, his muscled chest splattered fuchsia. Wyatt, Jackson, and five others joined the line. Wyatt was already in half-beast mode, and the female cop near us nearly fell over when she saw him.
His bi-shift wasn’t sexy at all, but power thrummed off of him like a live wire.
“Oh good, you can come with me,” I told him.
“Where are we going?”
“You, me and two other volunteers are gonna teleport to the space between the dwarves and the very scared people, so that we can finally engage and end this.”
Wyatt glanced at Nevada, who nodded his agreement. Kyle and Shelby quickly volunteered. We moved to the back of the crowd, so I could concentrate. Teleporting hurt every time, but at least we weren’t teleporting through anything solid. That hurt like a motherfucker. Thirty feet through empty air was a cakewalk next to some of the things I’d teleported through in the past.
I picked my location, sheathed my butterfly swords, and then got everyone to stand in a circle, holding hands. Wyatt was on my right, Kyle on my left. “This is gonna feel weird.” I closed my eyes and sought the Break. That magical tether that allowed my unique power to work.
It tried to hide from me, hovering just out of reach. Either a Fey trick or we weren’t very close to a Break source, I didn’t know or care. I caught a tendril of magic, then reached for my emotional tap. Loneliness was hard to find in such a crowd, so I focused on the idea of Phineas going to his death tomorrow. On Marcus leaving Milo behind, and that was enough. My connection snapped to life, and a hot tingling sensation spread through my body. I imagined our destination in my mind, and then we were moving.
Four people—human and other—were taken apart by magic and put back together again on the other side. I fell to my knees, dizzy and in pain, oblivious to the eruption of movement around me. It took a lot of energy to teleport with that much baggage.
Human hands grabbed me and pulled, and I let them yank me away from the surge of fighting.
“What the fuck? Chalice?”
I blinked a kind-of-familiar face into focus. A young man was staring at me like he’d found his long-lost sister. “Huh?”
“It’s me. Shawn? We worked together at Baxter’s Coffee Shop up until this past spring when you went AWOL.”
“Oh, hi.” I remembered him now. A gangly, awkward kid who’s recognized Chalice on the street outside the Fourth Street Library. A lifetime ago. I’d told some quick lie to get him away from me, and now the poor guy was a dwarf hostage.
Now that I’d found my center again, I surveyed the battle raging. Astrid and Lynn attacked with vigor, big paws slicing and batting the smaller bodies of the dwarves. Wyatt was doing the same with an almost gleeful snarl on his face. Mostly the police kept to the edges, slipping in to help protect the innocent on my side of the line.
“Are you some kind of ninja?” Shawn asked.
I almost laughed. “Something like that. Keep your head down, okay?”
“Chalice—?”
I pulled my swords, snapped them apart, and plunged into the battle. Blood spurted. Furry bodies piled up around us. They had us outnumbered, but these dwarves weren’t trained in battle. All they knew was instinct. Amalie had sent them to die by our hand, and I’m sure she’d done it without remorse.
The death toll didn’t matter for her. She’d delivered first blood, and we were openly fighting Dregs in front of the innocent. All of the things we’d tried to hide from the public were being recorded on cell phones by a brave few, and by tomorrow, nothing would be the same.
Phineas swooped overhead, his wing beats gusting the air around me. He dove in to assist where needed, occasionally flinging a dwarf at the ceiling for fun. He moved like the battle-worn warrior he was, uncaring of his audience, knowing that victory was our only option.
I surged onward, delivering death blows as needed, the stink of dead dwarves making my stomach churn. The blood coating my bare skin and clothes felt like the worst kind of slime, and I wanted it off me. Adrenaline kept me moving. Utter exhaustion of killing and fighting put an awful taste in my mouth, and several times I swallowed back the urge to vomit.
Someone screamed nearby. I spun, seeking the source. Two dwarves had the female police officer on the ground. I charged at them. Her vest seemed to be protecting her torso from the worst of their claws, but her neck and face were bleeding. I swung hard with both hands, plunging my swords into the backs of their necks. Simultaneously severing their spines. Both collapsed on top of the cop.
I helped her roll them off, then extended a hand. She took it with a firm grip, breathing hard but somehow not panicking like I expected.
“What are they? Really?” she asked.
“They’re the stuff of nightmares,” I replied.
“What are you?”
“Same answer.” I glanced at her name tag. “Watch your back, Officer Hendrix.”
Only a handful of dwarves were still alive, and they’d be dead very soon, judging by the way Astrid and Lynn were sneaking up in their position. My people were joining the cops in a defensive perimeter around the innocents. As I passed Nevada, I shouted out, “Gonna do more recon and make sure the mall is clear.”
He saluted his understanding.
Wyatt would snarl about me running off alone, and that was a problem for later. Swords at the ready, I stuck to the center of the corridor and picked my way down the west side of the mall. Many store fronts were closed, gates down. If the workers were still inside, they were doing a fantastic job of hiding.
One length down, and no signs of dwarves or my people—not counting the occasional dead dwarf.
Glad I don’t have to clean this mess up.
The mall was going to be closed for a while.
A group text from Rufus came through: Cops have sealed off the mall, no one going in or out until they can assess what’s happening inside.
Good news for us. Fewer cops inside meant fewer chances of one of us getting accidentally shot.
In the distance someone screamed. I charged forward, taking the next right into a new corridor. At least a dozen dead humans scattered the ground in front of me, their bodies ripped and gaping. The larger concentration of deaths suggested I was close to the start of the slaughter. The heavy odors of blood and death suffocated me.<
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I picked my way around the dead, avoiding puddles of blood and bits of flung gore. I didn’t want to be there anymore but lives depended on quick action. Someone had screamed and they might still be alive.
A shadow moved. I slowed to a crawl until the moving object came into focus. A wounded dwarf was crawling on its belly, useless legs dragging behind it. As much as I wanted to hate the beast, to leave it to suffer a slow death, the dwarf was only a soldier following orders. All of these dwarves were on a suicide mission, whether they wanted to kill or not. The creature on the ground might be my enemy but I didn’t have to be cruel.
I pierced its spine, and it went still. A quick death.
As I picked my way forward, I killed three more dying dwarves and stumbled over two more human corpses. The death toll of innocents would make me cry if I thought about it too hard, so I didn’t. I kept moving, seeking. Listening for clues.
A low moan came from the interior of a clothing store. The emergency light gave me very little work with as I picked my way around racks of overpriced clothing no one would want to wear in four months anyway. Past two dead dwarves.
“Who’s there?”
Boone.
I rushed forward. He was on his back near another dead dwarf, both hands pressing a shirt against his abdomen. Sweaty and pale, he looked at me with pleading eyes. I yanked another shirt off a hanger and dropped to my knees. “How bad?”
“Bad.”
I texted an alert of my location and that I needed help ASAP. “We’ll get you out of here, okay?”
“Can’t host.”
“What?” I tried to pay attention to him but I couldn’t let my guard down. Couldn’t stop scanning the room.
“Demon. I’m jacked up. Can’t host like this.”
“Fuck the demon, pal. Concentrate on staying alive, okay?”
He wasn’t coughing up blood, which gave me a smidge of extra hope. I hadn’t known Boone long, but he was a fierce fighter and super-protective of his Clan.
“We took care of the dwarves in the food court,” I said. “Saved a bunch of people but the cops are so confused right now I almost feel sorry for them.”
Boone shook his head. “Don’t. They’ve seen things. They pretend they don’t but they do.”
He was probably right about that.
Two sets of footsteps moving fast in our direction put my hackles up, until Jackson and Wyatt appeared in the dim store. Wyatt was back to man-mode, and he did a silent assessment of the damage. Jackson disappeared into the back of the store, using his phone as a flashlight. A minute later, something squealed its way toward us.
Jackson pushed some sort of flat metal cart over to Boone. It was big enough to hold him with his knees bent, so between the three of us we got him arranged on the cart. Wyatt pushed it into the corridor.
“Do we have an exit strategy yet?” I asked.
“North exit has the least amount of cops right now,” Wyatt replied. “It’s also where all of our vehicles are, so it’s our best chance of getting out without too much violence.”
“Too much violence?”
“The cops are going to want answers that we can’t give them.”
“Joy.”
By the time we made it to the north entrance, all of our people had reassembled. Some were wounded, and everyone was blood-splattered. Thankfully most of it was fuchsia, not red. Astrid and Lynn had shifted back and were wearing clothes that still had price tags attached. The one face that surprised me was Officer Hendrix. She was talking to Nevada and Astrid, flashing red and blue lights from outside washing over them.
Time to insert myself into the conversation.
“—what happened or who you people are,” Hendrix said, “but you saved a lot of lives. Thank you.”
“This shouldn’t have happened,” Astrid said. “I wish I could explain what’s going on, but I can’t. You’ll sleep better at night not knowing.”
“I understand.”
“I have wounded that I need to take out of here.”
Hendrix glanced at the exit. “I’ll do what I can to help that happen.”
“That’s much appreciated. We don’t have time to stand around answering questions. All your fellow officers need to know is that lives were saved. You and your companions were very brave in the face of so much confusion.”
She smiled. “Thank you, ma’am.”
Hendrix led the way toward the entrance and, for a moment, I thought the fading red and blue lights were my imagination. By the time we reached the glass exit doors, we were watching the taillights of three police cars driving away.
“What the hell?” I said.
Wyatt’s phone pinged. He laughed as he read the message. “Good old Rufus hacked into the police communications board and had all cars move away from this location to the south side.”
“Smart man.”
“Glad he’s on our side.”
“Says the man who once locked the poor guy in a freezer.”
Wyatt shrugged. “At the time he deserved it.”
Hendrix looked at us both like we were crazy.
Maybe we were, a little bit. After all of the insane shit we’d seen and done in our short lives, we deserved to go a little mad sometimes.
Chapter Seven
11:15
“We’re going to need another volunteer to host,” Astrid said.
Her announcement didn’t surprise me at all, nor did it seem to surprise any of the other two dozen Watchtower members in the War Room. Astrid stood at the head of the U-shaped table with Marcus and Phineas flanking her, both of their expressions completely neutral.
Okay, so not totally neutral. Marcus looked perkier than he had in weeks, despite having completely missed out on the battle at the mall.
Elder Rojay was the only Clan Elder in the room, and his quiet stoicism probably kept Astrid’s words from sending anyone into a panic. “How long do we have to find a replacement?” he asked.
“About eight hours,” she replied.
It was almost eight o’clock, and we were doing this around six tomorrow morning. This was totally cutting it close.
“However,” Astrid continued, “if we don’t get a third volunteer, then the elves will only summon two Tainted.”
“Won’t our odds be better with all three?” Wyatt asked, his voice still unnaturally growly and deep.
“Of course they will, but we can’t force anyone into making this choice.”
Boone was alive but he wasn’t going to be part of the demon army tomorrow, which meant someone else had to make the agonizing decision to take his place.
I squeezed Wyatt’s wrist, mostly to keep him grounded. He was still wound up from the fight. His Lupa side reveled in the bloodshed and destruction, and he had a harder time coming down from that after each new battle.
“As for what happened at the mall,” Astrid continued, “we can’t save it. Too many people, too many smartphones. One video of Phineas tossing dwarves around like popcorn has already been shared ten-thousand times. In less than three hours. Rufus tried but it’s out there. Along with a lot of your faces.”
Oh great.
“So for right now, anyone who was at the mall tonight is forbidden from leaving the Watchtower until it’s necessary for us to engage the Fey. Is that understood?”
House arrest. Lovely. I nodded along with everyone else. It’s not as if I had anyplace to be before Armageddon.
Astrid surveyed the room full of nodding heads before saying, “Dismissed.” And then adding, “Truman? A word in private?”
With Wyatt still high from battle lust, no way was I doing anything except sticking close as the rest of the War Room emptied out. Astrid barely glanced at me as she put herself in front of Wyatt, shoulders back, a stance that suggested she was about to say something he wouldn’t like.
“Bi-shifters are the strongest candidates for hosting a Tainted,” she said. “It’s why Boone volunteered, and why Phineas is one of our best choices. Aft
er speaking with Brevin, he agrees with me that Lupa boys are our next strongest options.”
“No,” Wyatt snapped with no hesitation, on the same breath that I said, “Fuck that.”
Anger rolled off of Wyatt like a physical force, and in his completely silver eyes I saw impending violence. I grabbed his bicep and held tight.
“They’re teenagers,” I said, trying my hand at being Wyatt’s voice of reason for once. “Even if they’re physically strong enough to endure a demon, they don’t know how to fight. They’re terrified of almost everyone in his place. How the hell do you expect them to engage in an actual battle?”
“I’m broaching a discussion,” Astrid said. “Brevin handed me a fact, and I’m acting on it.”
“There is no discussion.” Wyatt yanked out of my grip and crossed his arms. His steely determination made my insides watery. “None of the boys will be housing a Tainted. I volunteer.”
“What?” I squawked. “You are not.”
He wouldn’t look at me, the bastard. “I have to.”
“No you don’t.” I grabbed his cheeks with both hands and forced him to look at me. With silver hiding his eyes, his emotions were harder to see, and I kind of hated him for that. I hated him for making this split-second decision without discussing it me first. He hadn’t given me a chance to talk him out of it, and even as I stared at the face of a man I loved with my whole heart, I knew he was right.
Something deep inside me churned, burning hot and freezing cold all at once. Understanding that, in some ways, everything had led us to this moment in time. Every choice we made, every decision that had influenced us over the last six months. From the murders of Jesse and Ash to Wyatt’s infection, to tonight’s battle at the mall. Every drop of blood we shed, every tear we wiped away, was for this.
Preparation for the final battle that would decide our fates, not only as a couple, but as a species.
“I hate you for this,” I said, my voice as hollow as my heart.
“I know you do.” Wyatt blinked hard and some of his black iris returned, ringed in silver. “I hate myself for doing it.”
