Three Days to Dead

by Kelly Meding

  “You need better sources,” I reply.

  “I haven’t heard your troll offer up anything lately.”

  I shrug, in no mood to play Who Has the Better Snitch? The goblins are no longer here, but this stretch of the Black River docks is notorious for drawing the after-dark crowd. Something worse may be along soon, and we’re one man down. Jesse split an hour ago to swing by Wyatt’s apartment. Our Handler has been out of contact all damned day—not normal behavior for him. Not at all.

  Jesse should have reported—

  Ash’s cell phone chirps. She fishes it out of her pocket and checks the screen. “It’s Jesse.”

  Think of the devil and he calls.

  She frowns, then types in a text message. Something chimes back. She puts the phone away. “He needs us at the Corcoran train bridge ASAP.”

  “Did he say why?”

  Her almond eyes crinkle with concern. “The message said he’d found Wyatt.”

  My stomach bottoms out. I’m sprinting for the car, beating back fear with a mental stick. We’re nearly a mile away on the wrong side of the river, and the drive over is interminable. Ash is quiet, stoic, so composed next to my constant fidgeting. The Korean American yin to my Barbie-girl yang. I’m grateful for her centeredness; it means I don’t have to drive.

  It occurs to me to call Jesse and demand to know exactly what he’s found, only I don’t really want to know. Triads survive the death of a Hunter; few survive intact and effective after the loss of a Handler. Wyatt is our glue. He has to be fine.

  The train bridge is a black smudge against the navy night sky, a wrought-iron overpass that towers above two intersecting alleys and half a dozen abandoned construction sites. Corcoran Place is a known Dreg neighborhood—a trashy section of downtown with no actual stops along the train route. No one goes there on purpose. Except us.

  Jesse is leaning against one of the iron pylons as we approach. He stands straight and jogs over to meet our car. Ash parks in the quiet alley, and I am tumbling out before the engine is off.

  “Where is he?” I demand, circling to the front of the car.

  “Where’s who?” Jesse asks, thick eyebrows knotting quizzically. He looks over my head as Ash’s car door slams shut. “What’s going on? You paged me half an hour ago to meet here. Did you stop for kimchi on the way?”

  Ash snorts. “Bite me, taco boy.”

  I reach up and ball my fist around the front of his shirt. “Where the fuck’s Wyatt?”

  “Hell if I know,” he says. “He wasn’t home.”

  Ash appears by my side and gently unhooks my hand from Jesse’s shirt. “Then why’d you text that you’d found him?” she asks.

  Jesse blinks. “I didn’t text you.”

  The knot in my stomach pulls tighter. “You didn’t ask us to come here?” I dread his reply.

  “I thought you paged me.”

  “Shit.”

  As if my angry curse is their cue, a swarm of Halfies descend from the shadows—from beneath abandoned cars, between pylons, seemingly out of thin air. One leaps onto the hood of the car. I count thirteen, all moving with trained ease, as a fighting unit. Not something I associate with wild packs of half-Bloods.

  Three against thirteen—bad odds.

  We create a triangle, backs to one another as the Halfies close in their circle. My gun is holstered around my ankle, along with my two favorite hunting knives. A dog whistle is on a cord around my neck, hidden beneath my T-shirt.

  My knot of fear loosens. Adrenaline surges. Good or bad odds aside, this is what we live for. They won’t get us without one hell of a fight.

  Only they aren’t attacking.

  This just won’t do. “Hey, Jesse,” I say loudly, “know what’s uglier than a dead half-Blood?”

  He grunts. “What’s that?”

  I look right at the spike-haired Halfie on the car hood. “A live one.”

  It launches at me. Without the superior speed and agility of a full-Blood, the attack is awkwardly managed, but it signals the others to converge. I drop to one knee, pull my gun, and blast an anticoag round right into Spike’s throat. Blood sprays my arms and face, heavy, and stinking of old coins. I surge to my feet, replacing gun with knives, and seek another victim.

  Ash spins between a clot of Halfies, taking down two with precision kicks to the temple. The self-proclaimed love child of an international jujitsu champion, she makes martial arts look easy. I envy that. My own moves are powerful, but always feel forced, unbalanced.

  Jesse, on the other hand, swings his double-blade ax through the onslaught like a lumberjack.

  My feet are swept out from under me, and I hit the pavement hard on my back. A Halfie is on top of me, hands clawing at my neck. It rips the corded dog whistle away. I swing a blade at its throat, but it leaps away, whistle in hand, before I can connect. I’m back on my feet and in the fray before one of the others can take advantage of my prone position.

  The Halfies’ numbers are quickly cut in two, but they are infuriating me with their collective attacks on my partners. Again and again, I pull them off or kick them away.

  What? I’m not worth the effort of trying to kill?

  A Halfie with dyed blue hair knocks Ash to the ground and straddles her stomach. I drop a knife, grab my gun, and blow the blue head out sideways. Someone stumbles into me. I lose my balance and roll, coming back up on my knees to the sound of Jesse’s surprised shout.

  Barely tall enough to hold him, a Halfie has Jesse’s right arm twisted up behind his back and the other across Jesse’s chest. My heart nearly stops when fangs sink deeply into Jesse’s neck. I meet my friend’s shocked gaze, coffee brown eyes wide with shock, narrow mouth puckered into an O, blood draining from his face. And his neck, as the Halfie feeds.

  Like a mosquito bite, the bite of a Blood requires an exchange of numbing saliva. Those not lucky enough to be drained to death become infected and eventually turn into the rogue half-Bloods that wreak havoc on the fragile peace between the races.

  “No!”

  I’m uncertain if it’s me or Ash screaming, only that we are both moving. She reaches him as the feeding Halfie lets go, her blade immediately burying between its eyes. Jesse hits his knees, eyes glazing over. A Halfie sporting a letterman’s jacket reaches for Ash; I tackle the beast, snapping its neck on our third tumble across the pavement.

  I turn back. Ash is on her knees in front of Jesse, trying to look at the wound. Babbling that we can help, tears in her voice. I try to stand, and the world slows down.

  A flash of silver in Jesse’s hand matches a new gleam in his eyes. Ash looks for me over her shoulder. I shriek at her, incomprehensible. Jesse buries a switchblade in Ash’s throat. Blood gurgles from her mouth and dribbles down her chin. Eyes that can simultaneously laugh and hate stare at me in shock, and then the life in them dies.

  As Ash dies.

  I’m cold. I can’t scream. It’s all wrong. This hasn’t just happened. It’s impossible.

  The four remaining Halfies seem to melt back into the shadows, leaving me with my partners. One dead, one infected, both of them lost to me.

  Jesse stands, his eyes glinting in the orange light cast by street lamps. Soon his hair will turn mottled white and his fangs will grow in. He’s one of them now, one of the things I hunt and destroy. He looks at me, then at the body by his feet. Back up to me, and I see something I do not expect: confusion.

  “I think I did a bad thing,” he says. “But her blood smelled so sweet, Evy. It still does.”

  A high-pitched whimper rips from my throat. Trembling from head to toe, I take two steps forward, closer to him and the place where I dropped my gun.

  He narrows his eyes at me. “You smell sweet. So sweet and pure.”

  If he smells purity in me, he needs to get his nose checked. This monster in front of me isn’t my Jesse. It isn’t the man I’d once confessed my worst sins to over a bottle of tequila, a bowl of lemons, and a shaker of salt. It only looks like him.
In my head, I scream for Wyatt to guide me. I know what must be done; I just don’t know if I can do it.

  Jesse advances, licking his lips. I retreat. I have one knife, clutched so tight in my left hand that my knuckles scream.

  “You know what I’m going to enjoy?” he asks, no longer advancing.

  I eye the gun, on the ground just behind him. Five feet from me. “What’s that?”

  “The look on Truman’s face when we knock on his door.”

  “What makes you think I’m going to go anywhere with you?”

  He grins and it’s terrible. He runs the tip of his tongue over the small points on his developing canines. “Because all it takes is one little bite.”

  “Try it,” I growl.

  He charges. I drop, tuck, and roll. On my knees and gun in hand, I spin, aim, and fire. He hasn’t managed to turn. My shot hits him squarely in the back, through his heart. He falls, head cracking off the pavement, and is still.

  I crouch in the street, body trembling so hard I bite my tongue and draw blood. How am I ever going to explain this? Will Wyatt forgive me for what I’ve done? Will I ever forgive myself?

  Do I want to?

  I have no answers. I cannot think. I need help. I don’t want to leave him, but my phone is broken. I feel the pieces shifting in my pocket. I can’t bring myself to search the two bodies nearby. Bodies I can’t bear to look at, much less touch.

  Numb, exhausted, and bordering on hysterical, I jog off and leave my family behind. The Triads will help. They have to.

  * * *

  Two days later, I welcome death. I will place a welcome mat for it, if such a thing is possible. I have paid a high price for my own selfish nature, and will never stop paying—not until I am allowed final rest.

  I crouch in a dark alley, listening to the screech of fire engine sirens. The hulking vehicles tear down the street toward the blazing apartment building, red lights flashing, announcing their presence to the sleeping neighborhood. They will arrive too late.

  Danika is dead. The Owlkins are obliterated, massacred by people I once considered friends. Murdered in their homes, punished for their silence, for their loyalty and unflinching desire to protect me—not even one of their own. I ran to them for protection after my own people betrayed me. Their deaths are my fault, and I know I will burn for it.

  But not until my betrayers join me in Hell.

  My route takes me deeper into the alley, to the service street that runs behind the buildings. I stay close to the shadows, ignoring the stench of rotting garbage. The air is heavy, already hot for May, and presses down like a blanket. Something hisses, but it isn’t a stray cat. It is something else, telling me to keep my distance. I do.

  Keeping low, faster now. Two blocks farther and I break into a dead run. Pushed by fear and guilt, I draw energy from a tapped well, and surge forward. At the end of the block, I dash across a busy intersection. A car horn honks. Leaping over a low stone wall with unfailing grace, I hit and roll and run. On through a dark park, its rusty merry-go-round tilted and broken. Swings dangle from fractured chains. The slide is warped, the monkey bars covered in grime.

  A trio of gremlins, no taller than my leg, scatter as I pass. I ignore them, unconcerned with their business tonight. The Dregs get a free pass, and I have no time to enjoy their confusion. Tonight, I have no beef with the non humans of the world. My enemy is the Metro Police Department. In one day, I have gone from their star Hunter to a wanted fugitive accused of murder.

  They never gave me a chance to explain how my partners died.

  At the far end of the overgrown park, I jump another stone fence. I land in a puddle, spraying tepid water over my shoes and black jeans. So much for not leaving tracks. I briefly consider disposing of the soaked sneakers, but I can’t run around the city barefoot.

  Once again on a residential sidewalk within eyesight of dozens of apartment windows, I reduce my speed to a fast walk. It’s a good chance to catch my breath, to consider my options. I could just keep running and never look back, get out of this damned city and away from the Dregs. Find a place somewhere else, without the sharply delineated lines. No Triads. No Handlers. Just ordinary people.

  But I can’t do that. Leaving means no justice for the Owlkins. It means no justice for Jesse and Ash, no justice for myself. And what of Wyatt? I haven’t seen him in two days. With two of his Hunters dead and a third on the run, what happens to him? Will the brass have him neutralized?

  “My first loyalty is to you three,” Wyatt told us once. “It always will be.”

  At the end of this block, I dart into a pay phone booth. I dig into my pocket for change. A few coins are all that I possess now, and I drop most of them into the slot. I dial a number as familiar as my own birth date and wait. A computerized buzzer ticks off the rings on his end of the line.

  “Be there. Come on, Wyatt. Answer your phone.”

  The line clicks, and a familiar voice asks, “Yes?”

  “It’s me.”

  Silence.

  “Don’t come here, Evy,” he says. “The brass knows what you did. I can’t help you.”

  The words hurt. My teeth dig into my lower lip to drown out that pain with another. “They killed the Owlkins. Do you hear me, Wyatt? They slaughtered an innocent Clan.”

  “It’s a dead end, Evy, I can’t help you. You have to go down this road by yourself, I’m sorry.” Click goes the line.

  I drop the phone back into its cradle, hope daring to peek through the cloud of fear wrapped around my heart. If I am right, it’s a code. Dead Man’s Street—the dirt road that runs down by the Black River and the railroad tracks. He is telling me to meet him there; he has to be.

  Believing it because I have no choice, I turn and head south. Without transportation, the trip will take at least an hour. I can’t risk the main city streets. Spies are everywhere, and they sell their information cheap. I stick to the shadows, drum up my courage, and run.

  * * *

  I crouch beneath an abandoned boxcar. It smells of human waste and rotting wood. The odors of oil and smoke join it, tinged with engine grease. The tracks around me are silent. Nothing disturbs the quiet of the moonlit train yard, save the occasional car that drives across the Wharton Street Bridge above, casting intermittent beams of light. I have been waiting for close to an hour, timed only by the ringing of a church bell on the other side of the river.

  He isn’t going to show. I’ve fooled myself into thinking I still had one ally. My hands tremble, rocked by fear, inevitability, hatred. The tracks look like a nice place to throw myself the next time a train passes this way.

  Gravel crunches. I peer out from the shadows of the boxcar. The sound draws closer, light steps trying to disguise themselves and failing. A figure emerges a hundred feet away, coming around the corner of a loading platform. He stops, waits. My heart soars, relief punching me in the stomach. Wyatt gazes around the train yard, moonlight glinting off his black hair. It accents the ever-present shadow on his face that no razor seems to touch.

  I don’t move. Not even relief overpowers my ingrained sense of survival. I am a Hunter. I won’t move until I’m sure of my surroundings. It can still be a trap.

  Wyatt steps farther into the yard and begins to unbutton his shirt. I stare. He shrugs out of the shirt, holds it at arm’s length, and turns in a slow circle. Exposed. Unwired. Asking me to trust him. I let out a breath. He puts the shirt back on, looking everywhere at once. Taking it all in.

  Satisfied, I crawl out of my hiding place. He spots me and gapes. I realize I must be a mess, with blood on my clothes and in my hair, ash and soot adding gray to the red. He takes a step forward; stops. I wave him over. He comes.

  I climb up into the boxcar, preferring its grimy, cobwebbed interior to crouching beneath it. Wyatt appears in the doorway, backlit by moonlight. I offer a hand and pull him up. His hand is so warm; I don’t want to let go. He surprises me by tugging me into a tight hug. My arms come up around his waist.

&
nbsp; “I’m so glad you understood me,” he says. “Are you okay?”

  Stupid question. “I’m pretty fucking far from okay, Wyatt. The Triads, the people I worked with for four years, won’t listen to me anymore. Why won’t they let me explain what happened?”

  He disentangles himself, holds me at arm’s length. Black eyes seem to see right through me. “You know they won’t, Evy. They don’t give second chances. You’ve been marked as a threat. They won’t stop sending Triads after you until you’re dead.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” I pull out of his arms and withdraw to the shadows of the boxcar. Dark and rot press in on me. “I’ve thought about turning myself in. Hell, I even thought about a spectacular leap off the bridge up there, because it seems easier than this. I don’t have anyone.”

  “You’ve got me.”

  The statement of singular fact unnerves me. I don’t deserve his loyalty, even though every fiber of my being craves it. Craves knowing I’m not alone in this battle. “If the Council finds out you’re helping me, they’ll kill you, too.”

  “They can try, but they won’t.”

  That certainty does nothing to settle my nerves. “You don’t know that, Wyatt.”

  “Yes, I do.” He steps forward, hints of light casting odd, angular shadows on his expressive face. Faith and concern war there, and his eyes sparkle with life. Wonder fills his smile. “Elder Tovin told me so. We get a happy ending, Evangeline Stone.”

  “Elder Tovin?” A tremor steals down from my scalp to my toes. Among the oldest and wisest of the non humans in the city, Tovin is rumored to be an elf prince banished Upside by his people for choosing a bride outside of his race. He’s also rumored to live in a mushroom, eat cats for breakfast, and fly during full moons. No human I’ve met prior to Wyatt has ever seen him, or any other elf. Neither Fey nor Dreg, elves have six-hundred-year life spans. Tovin has supposedly spent the last four centuries among humans.

  “That’s where I was that night, Evy. He asked me to come see him. Said he had important information for me. When Tovin summons, you go.”