Three Days to Dead

by Kelly Meding

  “Evy—”

  “Argue, and he eats you for lunch.”

  “Fine, but I can’t resurrect you twice.”

  “You won’t have to.”

  The butterfly knife would take too long to retrieve and open. The hound shifted its eyes back to me. It drew a lazy tongue across its fangs. The creature’s intense gaze sent a worm of fear down my spine. Adrenaline surged. Every sense felt sharper, keener. It growled again. I tensed and rose up on the balls of my feet.

  “Now!”

  Wyatt pivoted and raced for the car. I bolted three steps to the right, using my body as a barrier between him and the hound, and dropped down into a one-kneed crouch. My fingers found the serrated knife’s handle, wrapped around it, and pulled.

  Falling back to four legs, the hound moved, in a blur of fur and teeth and stink as I raised my left arm in a vain attempt to shield myself. The creature bit and held tight, rending skin and muscle to the bone. Blood spurted into my eyes, coloring the world crimson. An agonized scream died in my throat as the horrific wound went instantly numb. I lunged forward with my right hand and buried the serrated knife in the hound’s soft belly. I pulled upward, slicing its abdomen like a fisherman gutting his catch.

  Gunshots popped. One, two, three, four in a row. The hound screamed, inhuman and guttural. Thick, swampy blood poured down my arms, into my mouth. It tasted like ash. The teeth released my arm. Bladelike claws swiped across my exposed thigh as the hound fell, shredding skin. Its sheer bulk toppled me. I hit the pavement on my back, buried beneath blood and fur and muscle.

  My thigh and arm shrieked, the hound’s blood like acid on the open wounds.

  “Evy?” Wyatt shouted.

  “It’s dead,” I said, screaming to be heard beneath my prison. “Get this fucking thing off me!”

  A lot of tugging from him and pushing from me levered the hound’s corpse—already decaying—enough for me to slide out. I crabbed backward, getting clear of it. No amount of sputtering or deep breathing would dislodge the nauseating stench of its blood from my nose. Head to toe, I was covered in a slimy mixture of my own blood and its, painting me red and black.

  I spat into the road, desperate to keep from upchucking all over the street. Wyatt squatted in front of me, eyes wide. He wasn’t hurt—small favors.

  He lifted my left arm up by the elbow, avoiding the gaping flesh. I looked away, sickened by the sight of it. White hot pain lanced through the shredded muscle and bruised bone. My head spun. I wanted to lie down.

  “Hell, Evy,” he said. “That’s going to need more than just stitches.”

  “Do you have something to wrap it in? We need to get off the road before another one shows up.”

  He stood and looked at the car. I didn’t care if he used a blanket or a greasy rag, as long as I didn’t have to look at that arm. He bolted to the car and yanked open the rear door. He rummaged in the backseat until he found what he wanted. The shoulder holster came off, and he tossed it inside. He returned to me with a bottle of water and nothing else.

  He crouched down as he unscrewed the bottle cap. “Hold your arm out and try not to punch me when I do this.”

  I did as asked, hissing through clenched teeth when he poured the water over my arm. The pain was indescribable, but it washed away the hound blood irritant until only my red, human blood oozed from the torn flesh. Wyatt put the half-empty bottle down and began unbuttoning his shirt.

  “You just got that,” was my meager protest.

  “I’ll get another.”

  I decided to focus on his abdominal bruises while he ripped the shirt down the middle. Something thin and hard had made those, and they were too precise to have been an accident. I battled away the pain-induced mental image of a faerie one-third his size whacking Wyatt with a pencil. Really not funny. The makeshift bandage from earlier was still there, relatively unbloody. One half of the shirt went around my arm, and I hissed as he cinched it tight. The dark material darkened further. My vision blurred.

  He wrapped the other half around my thigh. It hurt less. Those twin gashes were superficial, less serious. Strong arms curled beneath my armpits and lifted. I tried to stand, slipped, and fell back against his chest. He grunted—probably because I stank to high hell. I stepped on his feet three times on the trip back to the car.

  “Where are we going now?” I muttered, eyeing the backseat. It looked so comfortable. Nice to lie down on.

  “My place.” He put his hand on my head and guided me into the car. Like a cop arresting a suspect. So nice he didn’t want me to bop my head.

  Still, his place sounded like a bad idea. “They know where you live, dummy.”

  “I have a new place, dummy.” He slammed the door shut.

  I settled into the backseat, tempted to stretch out and take a long nap. My entire borrowed body felt numb, worn to the bone. My head thumped against the seat as Wyatt peeled onto the road. I closed my eyes, appreciating the new position.

  “Evy?” Wyatt asked, his voice distant. Muffled. “Stay awake, you hear me?”

  “Wanna sleep,” I said. At least, I thought so.

  Even as the rumble of the car rocked me to slumber land, I felt the lancing pain in my forearm and thigh turn to an intense itch and hoped it was a good sign.

  Chapter Six

  58:01

  The warm, pungent aroma of frying bacon roused me from darkness. I peeled apart sticky eyelids and took quick stock of my new—and exceedingly unfamiliar—surroundings. I was on a bed in one corner of a studio apartment. At the foot, an open door peeked into a tiny bathroom. Beyond it was the living space. A small sofa shared room with a fridge, stove, and a freestanding cabinet. The front door was directly opposite the bed, secured with two dead bolts and a chain.

  Wyatt hovered over the stove—the source of the bacon smell. He’d changed clothes again, this time into black jeans and a black T-shirt, and seemed oblivious to my presence. Two things felt immediately out of place: the stink of the hound’s blood was missing, and I no longer felt funky and damp. In fact, I felt downright clean.

  My left arm was still blessedly numb, wrapped up in white gauze and medical tape. I flexed the muscles in my left thigh and felt the familiar twinge of healing flesh. My hair was damp, as was the pillow behind my head. A green sheet came up to my waist, covering the lower half of my body. I was dressed in a large T-shirt. I clenched my right hand around the top sheet that covered me. Annoyance flushed through my chest, heating my cheeks. Not only had Wyatt undressed me, he had apparently bathed me, as well.

  Son of a goblin’s bitch!

  I sat up, squeaking the bedsprings, and was struck by a wave of dizziness. My vision grayed out. It passed, and I blinked into a pair of familiar, coal-black eyes.

  I lashed out by instinct, whacking my open palm across Wyatt’s cheek. His head snapped sideways, and he stumbled back from the bed, his hand rising to his face.

  “What was that for?” he asked.

  “For seeing me naked.” Considering everything he’d done for me, it was a ridiculous thing to say. He could have dumped me in the tub fully clothed, turned on the shower, and left me there to wake up and do it myself.

  “It wasn’t exactly an erotic experience for me, Evy. You are damned hard to carry up six flights of stairs when you’re covered in slimy goo, you know. I could have left you in the car.”

  Busted. “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve had worse from a girl than a slap on the face.” A half smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “And if it helps, I’ll swear on my life that I didn’t cop a feel while you were unconscious. You’re healing on your own now.” Back to the stove and the crisping bacon. “The arm should be good as new in a few hours. It’s pretty amazing, actually.”

  I swung my legs off the side of the bed. The oversized T-shirt barely hung to mid thigh, but it was modest enough. And it wasn’t like Wyatt would care if I started skipping around the apartment in my underwear, since the sight of my
naked flesh didn’t seem to trigger anything in him but his inner medic. I stood up, sans dizziness this time, and put weight on my left leg. The bandaged cuts twinged, but did not pull or scream.

  “Well, I guess this means one bit of good news,” I said.

  “What’s that?” He forked slices of the bacon and put them on a paper plate.

  “I can’t be permanently wounded until my seventy-two hours are up.” I observed the room, but didn’t see a clock. Or windows. “What time is it anyway?”

  He turned his wrist and consulted his watch. “A little after six.”

  “At night?”

  “In the morning.”

  Hell, I’d been unconscious for almost twelve hours. A good chunk of time down the drain.

  “Have a seat,” he said. “I’ve got breakfast ready. We have a lot of work to do today.”

  “No kidding.” I plopped down at the small, plastic dinette set against the wall by the front door. The chair was hard and the table’s surface covered in scratch marks, but it was clean. No signs of ants or roaches. The wall behind me had a rectangle the size of a movie poster tacked to it, something I’d earlier mistaken for bad artwork. Close up, I identified thin rows of heavy rope, frayed over time. Bits of it were scattered on the floor. It looked like a scratching post.

  Chalice’s cross necklace lay next to my fork. I put it back on, unsure why I wanted to keep it close.

  “So whose place is this?” I asked.

  Two slices of bread popped out of a toaster. Wyatt added those to his plate of food. “A were-cat who owed me a favor. Do you want me to butter your toast?”

  I blinked, realizing too late that it was a real question, not some clever double entendre. “Um, no, I can do it.”

  He started bringing things over to the table—a tub of whipped butter and a knife, a glass of milk, and finally the plate of bacon, toast, and sliced apples. I was amazed at how domestic the scene felt. And out of place. I rarely saw this side of Wyatt—the side that nurtured, that showed small cracks in his professional veneer. I was used to his sarcasm and teasing.

  “Aren’t you eating?” I asked when he sat down without a plate of his own.

  “I already did.”

  I took him at his word and started buttering a slice of toast. The food smelled wonderful, and my stomach grumbled in anticipation of being fed. “So roughly fourteen hours of my afterlife are gone,” I said, folding a few slices of bacon in the buttery toast. “Any ideas on how to spend the remaining fifty-eight?”

  “A few.”

  Butter and grease dribbled down my chin. The flavors of the bread and bacon burst against my tongue. I chewed slowly, savoring each morsel.

  “Care to share?” I asked, delving into bite number two.

  He made a face—probably of disgust, but I was enjoying my breakfast too much to give it any thought—and threw a paper napkin at me.

  I snatched it off the table and wiped my chin. “So? Ideas?”

  “That depends. You remember anything new?”

  I stopped, an apple slice halfway to my mouth. A dark void still loomed over part of my memory. I didn’t remember anything new. I don’t think I even dreamed last night. “No.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s memory loss, Wyatt. It’s not like flipping a switch.”

  “Never is with women.”

  I threw a piece of apple at him, which he easily deflected. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

  “And yet somehow untrue?”

  “No, but it’s still a shitty thing to say.”

  “We’re under the wire here, Evy. I don’t have the time or patience to be polite.”

  “Then be helpful. This is my life—afterlife, whatever. I’m the one who will be dead again in two and a half days, not you.”

  Wyatt froze, going completely still, like someone had hit the Pause button on a DVR. Seconds ticked by. He stood up, each movement precise and measured, pushed his chair in, and strode to the bathroom.

  “Wyatt, I’m sorry.”

  Nothing. He went into the bathroom. The door slammed shut with a wall-rattling bang. No single swear word in my rather lengthy vocabulary seemed appropriate, so a slow string of them tumbled out of my mouth.

  I had forgotten that Wyatt had negotiated for my resurrection. The price he had paid remained a secret, but I could guess at its cost. He’d put his neck on the line by going against the Triads and the Council. He had saved my life with the hound. Hell, he even cooked me breakfast. And had I ever even said “thank you”?

  Breakfast no longer seemed as wonderful, but I forced it down. I needed the energy, especially if we ran into another hound or a goblin patrol. No sounds came from the bathroom, not even angry stomping or pounding. He must be superpissed if he couldn’t even vent his rage.

  Wyatt had the physical training and temperament (read: quick to anger) to be a Hunter, not to mention the added advantage of his Gift. The only time I dared ask why he was a Handler instead of a Hunter, he assigned me to a two-day stakeout in the dead of winter. I didn’t ask again.

  I finished my breakfast, polished off the rest of the milk carton, and scarfed two slices of untoasted bread, but still there was no sound from the bathroom. I washed the dishes in the spotless sink and placed them in a sparkling metal dish rack to dry. The entire kitchen area was unnaturally tidy—in my rather messy experience—for a male were-cat living alone.

  Still nothing from the bathroom, even as more minutes passed. Concern overruled my better judgment. I crossed the small apartment and banged my fist against the bathroom door.

  “I’m not dead in here,” came the reply.

  “Say it to my face, then.”

  The door pulled open. I stepped back, startled. Wyatt stood with one hand on the knob, the other limp by his side. No tears, no redness, still no real emotion cracking through on his face. Just a study of calm.

  “I’m fine,” he said, brushing past me. He stopped in the center of the apartment, observing the cleaned-up kitchen. “I didn’t know you were so domestic.”

  “Neither did I.” I put my hand on his forearm, surprised to find his skin warm, almost feverish. “Wyatt, I am sorry.”

  He stepped away, withdrawing from my touch. “There’s one of those plastic storage things under the bed. Dylan’s girlfriend stays over and keeps stuff here, so something may fit.”

  I ducked around him, getting directly in his path, forcing him to look at me. “Thank you,” I said. “For all of this. You keep saving my life and all I can do is insult you.”

  “You gotta go with your gifts.”

  I stared until I saw the glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “I really am sorry.”

  “I know, and it’s really okay. I think I’d be angry, too, if someone disrupted my eternal rest because they had a question.”

  I laughed, and so did he. It felt great.

  * * *

  Dylan’s girlfriend wore Petite; I now wore Tall. Her jeans fit at the waist, but rode up to mid shin like Capri pants. The gashes in my leg had healed completely by the time I dressed, so those bandages came off. The light, six-inch scars would probably fade in a few hours. My arm, on the other hand, itched like a bitch. I refused to look at the wound until that damnable itching stopped, but Wyatt peeked and said it was healing well. Bully for me.

  The storage drawer only had two nice, button-up blouses in it. I grabbed the royal blue one, rolled up the sleeves, hooked the center three buttons, and tied the tails just above my waist. Not ideal, but better.

  We still hadn’t addressed the “What next?” issue. My instinct was to follow up on Amalie, since she was our only real lead. Smedge had said she was consolidating her power within the Fey community, in preparation for something big. The sprites were powerful and did not startle easily. They also didn’t overreact to potential bad news. Much like the logically thinking vampires, they waited for said news and then reacted appropriately. The only major hitch: the Fey didn’t live in the city. Unlike their D
reg counterparts, they preferred the solitude of the northern mountains.

  “So let’s go over this again,” I said, joining Wyatt on the apartment’s small sofa. “I met you the night of the thirteenth, right after the Triads attacked Sunset Terrace. I wanted to turn myself in, but you talked me out of it.”

  “Right so far. One of my informants told me of the alliance forming between goblins and Bloods. I wanted to check it out. You agreed.”

  “Where did I go?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was a Hunter, Wyatt. The goblins and Bloods wouldn’t have just told me about their dastardly plan, and I didn’t know any of them socially. After we met up, did I say where I was going next? What was my plan?”

  His mouth puckered and his eyebrows furrowed. “You said you were going uptown to Fourth Street, but wouldn’t give me details.”

  My lips parted. I only knew one person uptown. “I must have gone to see Max. If he hasn’t migrated yet, he could still be there.”

  “Max?”

  “He’s a gargoyle that lives on the library.” I bounced to my feet. “Gargoyles never forget, so he’ll be able to tell me what we talked about. Clues, Wyatt. Come on, let’s go get them.”

  He grinned and, for a moment, seemed eager for the hunt. More like his old self. He stood up. “All right, then, let’s go see about a gargoyle.”

  Chapter Seven

  56:40

  I call him Max because gargoyle language has no direct translation into English. Or any human language, for that matter. Names don’t translate. Like birds, the sounds they emit change in pitch and pattern to communicate. Few gargoyles bother to learn the intricacies of human speech; fewer humans learn theirs.

  This season, Max was perched on top of the Fourth Street Public Library. Most of his people preferred downtown locations closer to the other Dreg populations. He preferred uptown. Birds flocked there in spring and summer, because of the lower threat. Pigeons were a gargoyle delicacy and, for some inexplicable reason, pigeons love libraries.