by Kelly Meding
Angled low, like the bug was on the floor, it had a good view of the interior of the earthen room I remembered so well. Instead of six large crates housing hell-beasts, the room was empty except for six people. Directly ahead was Phineas, with Brevin to his left. On the right side of the screen, at an angle, stood Wyatt and the third elf I didn’t know. Marcus and Sorvin were barely visible on the left side of the screen. In the center of them all was the pool of rippling black water.
The fact that our guys were standing around in their boxers surprised me more than it should. When Tovin was possessed by the Tainted, it had warped his body. Made him grow bigger and taller. Uglier.
An impending Hulk-out made the shorts pretty reasonable.
“Marcus put the bug in his belt buckle,” Milo said. “The elves didn’t want technology in the cave, but Marcus wanted eyes down there. Just in case.”
“Sneaky little kitty cat, isn’t he?”
He handed me one of the ear buds. I tucked it in, but the only thing I could hear was very low chanting in a weird language.
“They’ve been doing this for, like, an hour,” Milo said.
“You’ve been watching for an hour and you just now told me?” I resisted the urge to smack him upside the head. He’d been hurt enough today, and the thick bandage on his left arm was still stained red. “How’s your arm?”
“Hurts like a mother fucker. You?”
“Itches like a mother fucker.” I stared at Wyatt, but the distance kept me from seeing the nuances that would tell me more about his thoughts. He stood at attention, like Phineas, but almost seemed…bored.
I’d be bored too if I’d been standing around for an hour listening to elves chanting.
Outside the sky was likely turning from black to navy, with the first hints of real light in the east. Sunrise was soon. Something would finally be happening soon.
My tether to the Break lashed and sparked, alerting me to the shift in magic. Onscreen, the rippling black pool began to swirl, faster and faster. I could only see the motion of the water, but I could imagine the vortex forming in the center—the same thing I’d witnessed when Tovin summoned his Tainted. The noise and energy in the air had to be breathtaking, if the sounds in my earbud were any indication.
His gaze was fixed on the whirlpool, but I didn’t miss the tremor that ran through Wyatt’s body—fear or adrenaline, or maybe a mix of both. The elves’ collective voices rose in pitch, speaking in another language.
I didn’t realize I’d grabbed Milo’s hand until the force of his squeezing mine made a bone creak. My tether came alive, urging me to use it. To teleport. To become part of the Break. I resisted hard, trying to focus on the screen in front of me. Needing to see this.
One elf voice rose higher than the rest, and it took me a sec to track it to Brevin. Up from the pool floated a shapeless black blob, shimmery and ghostlike, about the size of a house cat. It floated toward Brevin.
Toward Phineas.
My heart twisted tight. Bile scorched the back of my throat.
Brevin spoke. Phineas took a step forward, shoulders back, head held high, seeming to stare the black mass down.
I touched the screen by his face, hating that I wasn’t there to help. To show my friend I loved him, would always love him, and would always have his back.
Time seemed to stop for an instant—and then the Tainted slid forward, plastered itself against Phineas’s bare chest like some kind of paint splatter, and disappeared.
Phineas released a pained roar unlike anything I’d ever heard from man or beast. Hands clutching at his chest, he fell to his knees, alternately panting and groaning. His majestic wings sprouted from his shoulder blades, the once beautiful brown and white mottling now a dusky gray. Gray that darkened to pitch black leather as his body began to swell.
Bare skin darkened to a horrific shade of violet like the worst kind of bruise. His entire body mass seemed to increased at least twenty percent in both height and muscles. The pained sounds stopped. He shook out both hands, head still ducked low, and I swore I spotted black claws on his fingers.
“Jesus,” Milo said.
Then Phineas raised his head, and I nearly pissed myself. Gone was the stunningly handsome friend I’d known. His blue eyes had turned black, empty. Violet skin was oily and slick looking, and his jaw jutted out too far. His nose too long and sharp.
Marcus hissed.
Phineas snapped his head to the side, probably looking at Marcus. Assessing him.
What if the elf can’t control the Tainted? What if Phin goes nuts and kills Marcus?
Brevin said a word that sounded a lot like “bearded tree.” Phineas looked down at him, his entire body rippling with energy. And then he knelt.
He fucking knelt on one knee like a dude about to propose.
“Holy shit,” I said. “Did it work? Does this mean it worked?”
“I think so.”
One down, two to go.
Sorvin went next, and I curled both of my hands around Milo’s while we watched Marcus go through the same bone-chilling transformation. Same increase size, same shiny bruised skin. We couldn’t see enough of Marcus’s face to know how that had changed, but in the end, Sorvin said “bearded tree,” or whatever, and Marcus knelt too.
I cast around for something to throw up in. Wyatt was next.
With our attention on Marcus, I hadn’t seen Wyatt bi-shift into his half-Lupa form. Probably to help him accept the Tainted more easily, but goddamn, I hated that I’d missed one last look at his handsome face.
It won’t be your last. Stop it.
The third elf spoke the same words as the previous two, and a third black blob floated up out of the swirling pool. My tether pulled at me, demanding I use it. My love for Wyatt told me to take hold of that need and go to him. Only Milo’s tight grip kept me still, rooted to the concrete floor, while a demon latched onto my lover’s chest and disappeared.
I couldn’t stop the sob that ripped from my throat.
Four and a half years of our entwined lives flashed through my mind like a manic highlights reel: the first whiskey toast at my introduction to Jesse and Ash; my first in-field Halfie kill, down by the Corcoran train bridge; the first time Wyatt said “suck it up, buttercup” after I complained about patrolling with a sprained wrist; him nursing me through the flu this past spring; his face as I lay dying on that stained mattress in the abandoned train station.
The first time he told me he loved me.
The first time we made love.
The last time we made love.
I watched the man I loved more than myself shift and change into a monster I barely recognized. His face became more wolf-like, with sharp teeth and gleaming black eyes. Claws on his fingers. On his toes. Purple skin so wrong that I wanted to scream.
He shook himself out, then snarled in Phineas’s direction.
His assigned elf said the magic kneeling words.
Wyatt snarled a second time.
Uh oh.
The elf said, “Bearded tree skirt!” Or something. I didn’t have an elf-to-English translator on hand.
Wyatt’s head snapped in the elf’s direction, his face a twisted mask of anger and hate. “How dare you?” he said in a voice from the pit of Hell. So deep and sickeningly inhuman.
“We offer you vengeance,” said all three elves in unison, like some awful Greek chorus. “We offer a chance for you to punish those who have wronged you.”
“Your kind saw us banished, and yet you have imprisoned us here in these vessels. You are fools.”
“This world is no longer for our kind. The sprites wish to see it cleansed of humankind, the very creatures that so attract you here.”
Wyatt tilted his head, clearly listening to the elf chorus. “Humankind has such delicious emotions. This world pulses with them.”
“Amalie would see that pulse stopped. Permanently.”
“No.”
I glanced at Milo, whose wide eyes found mine. I had no
idea what to expect once the Tainted were across the Break, but this was going way more peacefully than I’d anticipated. The first Tainted had been righteously pissed off and ready to do some serious damage to the world—and to my freshly resurrected body.
These three were actually…well, calm. Calculating.
Brevin and his brothers had done something a hell of a lot better than Tovin’s original summoning, because these Tainted seemed to be under control.
For now.
“Help us defeat the Fey seeking to destroy humankind,” the chorus said.
“For what reward?” Wyatt asked.
Uh oh. They probably won’t do tricks for a handshake and a sincere thank you.
“Information,” was the reply. “One of your brethren was summoned to this world many months ago. We know where he is. Assist us, return to your realm willingly, and your brother will be returned to you.”
“The fuck he will,” I snapped at the computer.
Those asshole elves had no right to bargain with our contained Tainted.
Only Wyatt seemed to be considering it. “If he is truly here and not destroyed, why can I not sense him?”
“He is being contained by magic.”
Milo let out a sharp breath. “This is insane. The Tainted is actually considering helping us fight a war go get another of his kind back?”
“We’ve done that and worse to save our friends,” I replied. “Amalie told me that the Tainted are all emotion and instinct, unable to make moral decisions.” Then again, everything Amalie ever told me was suspect. “But maybe they make attachments like we do. I mean, they’ve been together for, like, a million years or something.”
“I wonder if Gina or Astrid know the elves are bargaining with our Tainted.”
“No idea.” The elves had been playing this part of the plan very tight and for good reason. Giving back the trapped Tainted was a huge play, and not one many of us would have backed.
“Father,” Marcus said, his hellish voice startling. “It is a chance for mayhem unlike anything we have tasted in millennia. And Darash is my husband.”
Milo squeaked.
If I wasn’t already sitting, I’d have probably fallen over. Not only did the Tainted who tried to kill me had a name after all, but Marcus was hosting a female demon.
I cannot wait to tease him about this.
In the distance, Phineas seemed bored by the entire thing.
“We agree to your bargain,” Wyatt said. “We are in your service to stop the eradication of humankind, in exchange for the return of our brethren.”
“Agreed,” said the three-elf chorus.
Something squealed—a familiar noise, like a door opening. I glanced behind me, like an idiot, but it was the door to the cave. The three Tainted men looked past the direction of our camera, while the elves remained with their heads tilted down. Still concentrating on containing the Tainted.
I waited for the newcomer to move into view, but they didn’t. “Accompany me to the surface,” a male voice said. Took me a minute to recognize Pike’s voice.
“Go,” the three elves said. “The Coni will guide you.”
Everything inside of me screamed out against the idea of the clutch of Coni warriors being exposed to three Tainted. I didn’t trust the Tainted, not even with the amazing amount of restraint and control they were showing, thanks to their hosts.
Wyatt went first, Marcus last, until only the elves remained in their triangle around the pool. The chanting resumed.
“Well fuck,” I said with a grunt. “Guess the show’s over for now.”
Milo flopped onto his back and let out a long sigh. “That sucked. Really, really sucked.”
“Yeah, it did. But they got through it.”
“So far.” Splayed out like that with a bandage on his arm made Milo look so young. Not innocent. But young. Twenty years old and so much life left to live.
“After this I’m done.” The words slipped without thought or reason, because they were the truth.
His head listed to the side, eyes scrunched. “Done with what?”
“All of this. Me and Wyatt and the boys? We’re leaving the city. We’re both ready to start a new life without all of the violence and bloodshed.”
He sat up slowly, wounded arm cradled in his lap. “Wanting it and actually doing it are two different things, Evy. Can you really leave this behind? The Watchtower and everything we’re doing to protect the city?”
“Yes, I can.” I ran fingers through my hair, unsurprised when bits of dried blood flaked out. I was holding off on a shower until my arm finished healing. “My entire life, I’ve felt unwanted. My mother didn’t want me, foster families didn’t want me. When the state kicked me out at eighteen, I was facing jail or the Triads, and if I had to make the choice again? I’d probably choose jail.”
I held up a hand because I saw the argument coming. “And yes, I know that means I’d have never met Wyatt, and I’d have never made the friendships that I have, but I also wouldn’t be living with this giant ball of guilt in my heart. Everything that has happened since my first death has somehow revolved around me. Every person who has died? Baylor, Jenner, Felix, Tybalt. Hell, the entire Coni and Stri Clan. I’m tangentially responsible for their deaths, and it fucking sucks. I don’t want my presence here to cause any more deaths, and neither does Wyatt.
“For almost five years, my entire life has been about killing. I had something to fight for. To die for. But Milo, for the first time in my life I have something to live for. Really live for. To be at peace for.”
Milo blinked hard several times, and I swore I saw moisture on his eyelashes. “Who are you?” he said with a smile. “And what have you done with Evy Stone?”
I laughed, and it felt good. “She fell in love and finally grew up.”
“It only took dying how many times?”
“Technically only twice. Demetrius slicing me open with a sword didn’t actually make my heart stop.” It had hurt like a motherfucker, though, especially when that shit started to heal. Faking my death so a revenge-bent were-cat didn’t slaughter my kind-of-parents had seemed like a good idea at the time. Pissed off a lot of people, though, and my “dying” had been the reason Aurora, Ava, and Joseph fled the city.
Aurora was back though, and damn it, I wanted to know what was going on in the mountains.
“Do you think Amalie knows you’re still alive?” Milo asked.
The abrupt conversation switch had me backpedaling fast. “Huh?”
“You said once that Amalie could sense you and Wyatt in the city, because you’d both been in the presence of her true form. But when Thackery had you, your heart stopped once. You died a second time. Do you think that death broke her connection to you?”
I blinked at him. “I have no idea. We haven’t had any contact with the Fey since the attack on Boot Camp this summer.”
Wyatt said once, when the last of the Triads were told about the idea of the Watchtower, that I had been the wild card Amalie never saw coming. I confounded her, making choices she hadn’t anticipated and ruining her plans all over the place. If she couldn’t sense me anymore, maybe I could be that wild card again.
But how could we use that to our advantage when we had no idea how or when the Fey would engage?
They couldn’t have possibly missed the huge surge in power from the Break during the three summonings. Someone was going to investigate. Hell, the location of our troops wasn’t all that far from First Break. All Amalie had to do was send a pixie to the surface to scout for her, and they’d find a few dozen Coni warriors ready to throw down.
My phone chimed with a text. 911 to Ops.
“Something’s happening,” I said.
“Figured.” Milo grunted as I helped him stand. “I hate that I can’t go with you.”
“I know.” I hugged him, then planted a kiss on his forehead. “But I like knowing at least one of my friends is safe and sound during the end of the world.”
He pulled a face. “Still. Be safe, okay?”
“I will. And I’ll do my best to bring our guys home in one piece.”
“Okay.”
I winked as I left, hoping it made the entire thing more tolerable. Milo was a warrior, same as me. He wanted to help save lives, and all he could do was remain behind and heal from old wounds. Part of me wished that Thackery had been able to find something physical about my healing ability—something he could have reproduced to help others heal faster. But he hadn’t, because it was a gnome gift. Magic.
The only thing that would help Milo heal was time.
Every able-bodied person in the place had, apparently, also been summoned to Ops. A crowd had formed in the corridor outside, full of familiar faces. Mark, John and Peter stood near the wall, a bit apart from the crowd, shadowed by Quince and Eulan. I joined them, pleased to see Quince back at the Watchtower. I’d managed one operation with him before the vampire virus forced all of our allies, sick or not, to be sequestered. He hadn’t been infected like so many others, and he stood tall and strong.
Ready to fight again.
The pups all seemed nervous, probably ready for a scolding for even being there, but I didn’t say a word. We were all waiting to know what was happening, and they had as much riding on Wyatt’s safety as I did. They were his blood now.
A commotion near the Ops doorway had heads turning. Astrid appeared to tower over everyone, probably standing on a chair, and the crowd went silent.
“We’ve received word that the three Tainted have successfully been summoned and contained within our volunteers,” Astrid said.
That’s the big news?
Oh, yeah. Milo and I had cheated.
Murmurs rippled around the large group of people. Humans, Therians, vampires, all coming together for one purpose—defeating the Fey. Saving our world.
“Nevada reports no unusual activity in or around the forest,” Astrid continued. “Our teams on patrol also report very little activity since the goblin attack earlier this evening. We’re going to mobilize four more teams in the next ten minutes so there are people in the field for faster response in case someone does decide to start something. Rufus will send out the assignments in a few.”
