Wrong Side of Dead

by Kelly Meding

  “And with the vampires busy trying to fight this new illness,” Marcus said, “our Watch is effectively divided.”

  “Not yet it isn’t,” I said with a sharp shake of my head. “How long does it usually take the Assembly to make a decision on something like this?”

  “It depends on the situation and how the Elders are likely to view it. The Equi are greatly respected, and Elder Dannu’s words will hold great power among the others. Eight votes are a majority.”

  “So are we talking days? Hours?”

  “Given the fact that other Clan members disappeared at the same time as Jenner, hours is optimistic.”

  Damn. “We aren’t sure yet how Jenner died. The Assembly still has to rule on the Equi’s request, and we don’t even know what that will be, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “We also know the Lupa live around here somewhere, and considering what just happened, they’re probably not coming back. But if we get some noses out here, maybe we can find the house and some sort of lead.”

  Kyle, who’d been completely silent until that moment, spoke up. “I’ll volunteer for that. My true form is a dingo. On first glance, most humans assume I’m some mixed mutt.”

  Dingoes were beautiful animals, and I’d seen Kyle’s true form once. Thick golden fur with a dusting of white on the paws and chest, and an intelligent face. He did look a bit like a mix between a golden retriever and an Akita.

  “Good,” Astrid said. “Check in every fifteen minutes.”

  “Will do.” Kyle didn’t waste a beat. He started to strip.

  “Marcus and I can assist on foot. I don’t think a pair of big cats will go unnoticed on these streets.”

  I grunted. “What about—?”

  Before I could voice my question, a utility van pulled up behind Astrid’s car. Two Therians I knew by sight, if not by name, got out.

  “They’ll take Jenner back to the Watchtower,” Astrid said.

  “I need to get across town to meet with the gremlins soon,” I said.

  “Take the car. And them.” She pointed individually at Paul and Tybalt.

  “Fine.”

  Kyle trotted into the middle of the group and shook himself, his golden coat gleaming in the morning sun, and then snorted. His way of saying he was ready to go. Astrid conferred with the newest pair of Therians. Afterward, she tossed me a set of car keys.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  “You, too,” I replied. “And I’m sorry about Jenner. He was a good man.”

  She gave me a long, assessing look. “Yes, he was.”

  Kyle whined softly. At first, I thought it was impatience—a theory laid to rest as soon as I looked at him, facing north, nose in the air. He sniffed with purpose, then turned his head and whined at Astrid, seeming to ask Do you smell that? I didn’t.

  “Something’s burning,” Marcus said.

  Oh hell.

  Chapter Sixteen

  11:10 A.M.

  With my deadline looming to meet the gremlin, I got an update on the fire about fifteen minutes later via a phone call from Marcus. Tybalt was driving, and doing an impressive job in rush hour traffic with his prosthetic hand. I put the phone on speaker so I didn’t have to repeat the conversation.

  “House was one block up, two over from that old lady you talked to earlier,” Marcus reported. The faint sounds of raised voices and sirens still hummed over the line. “The fire was going so hot and hard, it nearly took out a neighbor’s house. All the fire department can do is control its burn.”

  “Do we have any information on who owns it?” I asked.

  “Yes, and it wasn’t on your list. You’ll never guess, so I won’t even ask you to try.”

  Thank God for small favors. I wasn’t in the mood for guessing games; I doubted anyone else was, either.

  “Winston Zeigler,” he said.

  The name seemed familiar, yet I couldn’t place it. Paul saved me from looking like an idiot by asking, “Who’s that?”

  “Former head of the biology department at the university.”

  Of course he was. “Don’t tell me,” I said. “He was there at the same time as Thackery.”

  “Bingo.”

  “How the hell did Reilly miss that connection?”

  “He didn’t. Zeigler’s name wasn’t on the deed. It was his late wife’s family home and under her maiden name, so unless Reilly dug extra deep on all the homes, he wouldn’t have found it.”

  Good. It saved me having to rip him a new one for the oversight. “How’d you find it?”

  Marcus made a huffing sound that might have been laughter. “Reilly’s a PI, but he’s only been in the city a few months. My sources are still better.”

  “So Winston Zeigler is our only lead?” Tybalt asked.

  “At the moment, yes, but it isn’t a great one.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Astrid already called the university. Mr. Zeigler quit his position—”

  “Three and a half years ago?” I said.

  “Yes. He was diagnosed with a rare kind of cancer, and even with treatment he was given just a few years to live. He told colleagues he inherited a bit of money from a recently deceased relative”—

  “I just bet.”

  —“and wanted to travel the world before he died.”

  “So Zeigler is living out his last days on a cruise ship somewhere, while an old pal uses his house to raise werewolves.”

  “It seems so.”

  “Which means Zeigler is a dead end?”

  “Not entirely. Someone was likely put in charge of maintaining the home while Zeigler’s out of the country. Astrid and I are going to pay a visit to the family lawyer and see what they have to say.”

  It was something—way better than the big fat nothing we’d had just a few minutes ago. “Hey,” I said, “any news on Autumn and Sandburg?”

  The pause made my heart sink. “Sandburg will be fine. Autumn’s hanging on. Dr. Vansis has done all he can.”

  “They’re not infected?”

  “By the Lupa? No. Their bite has never been known to affect other Therians.”

  I expelled a deep breath, glad for that bit of clarification. “Okay, thanks.”

  We arrived at the old factory site a few minutes later. Police tape hung in tattered shreds across the main parking lot. The rubble was mostly gone. Only a blackened steel skeleton remained. Tybalt parked a few yards from the side entrance and idled there. He glanced at me, one eyebrow arched high.

  I mirrored his expression, remembering the last time we’d both been at this particular location and the explosion that had decimated the structure.

  “Okay,” Paul said from the back, “what did I miss?”

  “Nothing,” we said in stereo.

  “Wait here,” I added.

  The air reeked of char and oil. I navigated an archipelago of water-filled potholes, reasonably sure I wasn’t being watched. Hunters often gain an overdeveloped sense of paranoia, and mine was quiet. Thackery had been one step ahead of us all night long. Maybe luck was on our side this time.

  Reasonably sure that the two steel pillars I stood near had once been the side entrance, I turned in a slow circle. The lot was quiet, with no immediate sign of the gremlin that I was here to meet.

  So I was mildly startled when it emerged from the other side of a support beam clutching some folded paper in its hand. It crawled on all fours, body slunk low to the ground. Gremlins didn’t much like daylight, and it probably felt exposed coming out like this. I allowed it to approach me.

  It dropped the folded paper at my feet, then inched backward until it found a shadow to melt into. I snatched the paper. Unfolded a drawing of a squiggly Y with a couple of dots here and there. No, not a Y … the rivers. Three red dots littered the area that was probably Mercy’s Lot. A single black dot was very, very close to our current position.

  I turned the drawing around. “Explain?”

  The gremlin pointed a gnarled, clawe
d finger at the paper. “Red. Many infected. Black. Animal men.”

  “Animal men?” What the holy hell did—?

  “Prisoners.”

  My heart slammed against my chest. “Shape-shifters? Therians? There are Therian prisoners at the black dot?”

  It took a moment to process my words. “Yes.”

  “Are there infected at the black dot, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s somewhere along the Black River, right? The docks?”

  “Yes. Sit on water.”

  Gremlins were completely literal creatures. I dug through my own vocabulary to figure out what it meant. “It floats? The place where the captured Therians are? It floats on the river?”

  It blinked at me. I took that as a yes, which likely meant a boat. Some of the still active docks had cargo ships coming and going. A few rusted, abandoned ships were docked here and there, slowly becoming part of the waterfront’s permanent landscape—those were very likely locations to stash dozens of Halfies.

  Wind in the walls. Token’s rough, garbled voice repeated the description of the place he’d been imprisoned. I hadn’t consciously thought of the missing goblin/human hybrid in weeks. He’d tried to kill me, then tried to help me, only to disappear with no reported sightings these last two months. If our initial plan had worked as expected, he might have led us to this location ages ago. If only.

  “Thank you,” I said. “This is more than worth the price I paid for it.”

  It nodded, then turned and slunk away. I gazed at the map, hand trembling slightly. It was the break we needed. My desperation to find the kidnapped Therians before any more were killed threatened to overtake my good sense. I wanted to charge down to the docks, procedure be damned, and start hurting things. And I’d succeed only in getting myself killed. Or kidnapped. Probably the latter, then the former.

  Dammit.

  I jogged back to the waiting car; Tybalt looked ready to climb out of his skin. As I slid back into the passenger seat, his expression switched from pensive to curious.

  “Good news?” he asked.

  “Great news.”

  By the time Tybalt and I returned to the Watchtower twenty minutes later, two things had happened. Astrid called demanding a noon meeting in the War Room of all available squad leaders. My gremlin information got me an invite, but she didn’t offer any hint of what she’d learned from Zeigler’s lawyer. And I found out that the Assembly of Clan Elders was officially in their emergency session discussing what was to be done about Michael Jenner’s murder.

  I handed the map over to Tybalt for delivery to Operations. Smarter people than me could go over the Black River waterfront and decide the best places to start looking for a target. The only thing I could think was to call the place where the Therians were being held, and Thackery’s possible headquarters. My curiosity as to the condition of Isleen and her fellow vampires took far second place to my need to see Wyatt, so I ignored the questions being thrown at me from various sources and beelined for the infirmary.

  Dr. Vansis was in Wyatt’s room, making notes on a chart, his body blocking my immediate view. He glanced up, eyebrows arching in surprise. “Ms. Stone,” he said.

  “Hi.” I also noted with rising annoyance that we were the only ones in the room. “Where’s Gina?”

  “Restroom. She’ll be back shortly.”

  I stepped around the bed, really taking in Wyatt’s appearance for the first time. His skin was blotchy with fever—deathly pale in some places, marred by spots of red and pink on his face and chest. He’d been intubated, and the various tubes and wires were awful reminders that Vansis had induced a coma to try to save him. He was so still. Even asleep, Wyatt had always seemed vibrant and alive. Now he looked much like he had three months ago, dead in my arms in the mountains north of the city.

  “I’m doing what I can,” Vansis said, “but next to nothing is known about how the Lupa virus interacts with human physiology. No one has seen its effects in centuries.”

  Wyatt’s hand was cool in mine. I held it tight between my palms, hoping to warm it just a little. “What do you know about rabies, Dr. Vansis?”

  “It’s treatable, if caught early. However, this virus is acting more like rabies that has gone undetected and traveled to the brain. Once it reaches that stage, cranial inflammation begins, and it’s often fatal.”

  Vansis turned, as if to leave, then paused in the doorway. “I know it’s little consolation now, Ms. Stone, but the Lupa are alive and well, and anything we learn from Mr. Truman’s illness may help us treat the next human they infect. If we’re lucky, his is the only life we’ll lose to them.”

  His is the only life we’ll lose. Pragmatically, it was a nice thing to hear. In reality, the idea of losing him to the Lupa’s bite broke my heart into sharp, frozen pieces. I didn’t want to be pragmatic, or to look at the bigger picture. It was Wyatt, goddammit, and I wanted him alive.

  Vansis left, and I perched on the narrow space between Wyatt’s arm and the edge of the bed. “Hey,” I said. “We’ve got good news. We might even have Aurora, Joseph, and Ava home by dinner. I want you there when we bring them home.” Wanted him there so badly that my chest ached with the need.

  Or was that with unshed tears?

  “I’m an idiot. Did you know that?” I could almost see him nodding at me, agreeing with a teasing smile. “Of course you do, but I’m going to share this little epiphany with you anyway. Most of my life, I thought love was just something people did in movies. That in real life, people hurt each other and left and you just picked up the pieces for the next person who came along to hurt you. I mean, let’s face it. My role models have sucked.

  “I never wanted to fall in love. Not before I died, and not after, but I guess we don’t get to decide who we love. Whoever I am—this person I became the night you died and this body switch was made permanent—this person loves you. I love you. I haven’t said it much, but I like to think you believed me when I did.”

  My throat closed; hot tears stung my eyes. “I didn’t want to love you, but I do anyway. And I think I finally grew up and realized a few things. I realized being in love doesn’t exempt you from hurting each other, but when you do, you don’t give up. You fix it. With Thackery … I was a coward, and I didn’t want you to see that side of me. I didn’t want to admit I’d been so weak. That I was weak with Felix. Pushing you away was easier than talking about it, and I’m so sorry for that.”

  Warm wetness splashed my hand. I allowed the tears to fall, not caring anymore who saw me cry. “We flirt with death every single day. It’s always around the corner, Wyatt, waiting to take one of us away. And I can’t keep allowing death to control my life. Not anymore. Loving doesn’t make me weak, Wyatt, I know that now.”

  Images of him, of Alex and Phin and Aurora and Ava, even of Jesse and Ash—they telegraphed through my memory, reminding me of people I cared about. Loved. Some I’d lost. Others I was still battling against all odds to protect.

  “Loving makes me stronger.” I laughed, choked, and wiped my nose on my arm. “That sounds like a fucking greeting card, I know. But it gives me something more powerful to fight for than just honor and nameless, faceless innocents. There’s real power in loving someone, and I know it now.” I leaned down and pressed my forehead to his, aware of the heat of his skin, the machine that drew his breath, the monitor that ticked off the beats of his heart. “I just hope I didn’t learn it too late.”

  I sat like that awhile, pretending he felt my presence and could feed off my strength. Sat until my back hurt and my neck ached, and I simply had to sit up again and stretch. He hadn’t moved; I hadn’t really expected him to.

  “I have a meeting,” I said. “A meeting that will hopefully lead to a plan that includes reconnaissance, invasion, extraction, and lots of enemy decimation.”

  “That was kind of poetic,” Milo said.

  His voice startled me right off the bed. I barely had my balance back before snapping, “Make s
ome noise or something next time.”

  He leaned in the doorframe, hands in his pockets, wan and fairly simmering with untapped energy—rage, grief, frustration. He wanted to be out in the field, part of the solution, instead of left behind due to his recent gunshot wound.

  “Everyone’s buzzing about your information and wondering where you got it,” he said.

  I blinked. I hadn’t asked Tybalt, Astrid, or anyone else in Baylor’s squad to keep my informants a secret. They’d just done it. In the Triads, we’d often operated on a version of “don’t ask, don’t tell” when it came to acquiring information. The more people who knew about your informants, the less likely you were to get good info when you asked them. Nice to see that the policy was still alive and well.

  “Doesn’t matter where as long as it’s accurate,” I said.

  “I know, but the Therians aren’t used to working like that. I did float the idea that you probably got the info from the gremlins.”

  “You what?”

  He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Shelby didn’t believe me. The Felia he was with thought it was a ridiculous idea, that the gremlins are nasty little creatures who don’t help anyone except themselves.”

  I very nearly laughed. Apparently, humans weren’t the only ones with hidden prejudices against other races. Recalling Phin’s violent reaction to the odor of vats of gremlin urine, I imagined that Therians and gremlins didn’t mix it up very often.

  “That is where you went, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “With Tybalt, no less.”

  “How was that?”

  “Nostalgic.”

  “Things have a funny habit of blowing up when you’re nearby.”

  A sharp retort died on my tongue. He was right. Rufus’s first apartment, the potato chip factory, the half-Blood in the hospital parking garage, Felix … “They do, don’t they?” I said. “I’m sorry you had to see that happen to Felix.”

  Milo frowned. “Felix died two—”

  “I know, he died two weeks ago. But that doesn’t make seeing his shell explode any easier, right?” It certainly hadn’t made shooting Alex Forrester in the back of the head any easier for me. The Halfie I’d killed wore the face of a man I’d once cared about; the Halfie who’d blown up in our jail wore the face of a man Milo had once cared about. Loved.