Three Days to Dead

by Kelly Meding

  “Wyatt, don’t,” I said.

  The tone of my voice drained away some of his fight, and Wyatt took two steps backward, hands fisted by his sides. I pivoted and looked down. Rufus gazed at me, eyebrows knitted together, lips slightly parted. His eyes darted back and forth, studying me. Understanding what he’d just seen.

  “Who are you?” Rufus asked.

  “A wanted murderer,” I said. “Nice to see you again, Rufie. How’s Tully? Still addicted to sunflower seeds?”

  His mouth curled into a silent O. “Evangeline?”

  “In someone else’s flesh.”

  Rufus closed his eyes and, if possible, went paler. When he again looked at me, grief and resignation warred for dominance. “I’m so sorry, Evy, that he pulled you into this fantasy. He should have let you rest in peace.”

  “Yesterday, I might have agreed with you, Rufus, but today? Not so much. Wyatt isn’t crazy. Something is happening; we heard it this morning from a gargoyle. The races are choosing sides, and something’s about to blow.”

  I crouched in front of him, trying hard not to shiver in the chilly room. “Now, I’m thinking one of two things is happening here. Either the brass know what’s coming down and are trying to cover it up by making an example of me and Wyatt, or—are you ready for this?—someone in the Fey Council is keeping us in the dark. They aren’t talking to your bosses, so nothing comes down to you. The Triads stay running in circles, hunting one another, while something else much more sinister takes place right under our noses.”

  Rufus sneezed, and a tremor racked his body. “Why did you kill your partners?”

  I blew air between my teeth, creating a frustrated whistle. “I didn’t; not really.” I explained it again, as it had happened. The mere fact that Jesse had been turned before death shocked Rufus as much as it had shocked Wyatt. Nothing like a dose of truthfulness to wake you up to reality.

  I sensed warmth behind me. Wyatt stood to my right side, so close I felt his heat. Tension vibrated from his body. Rufus shifted his attention between us, coming to some sort of silent decision, weighing my words against Wyatt’s actions.

  “Why would they lie?” Rufus asked. “About Jesse, I mean.”

  “Like she said,” Wyatt replied. “To keep the Triads off balance and hunting one another, instead of sniffing around what’s really going on. If the attack on my Triad was a setup from the get-go, we’ve all been played for fools. You and Baylor and Kismet have been so wrapped up in hunting—first for Evy, and then for me—that you haven’t had time to notice anything else happening.”

  “Like a consolidation of power?”

  “Precisely.”

  It made a horrifying kind of sense. Handlers had a free hand to run their Triads as they saw fit, doling out assignments and keeping tabs on the activities of their Hunters, but even the Handlers had bosses (the brass) to report to—three officers in the upper echelons of the Metro Police Department, whose identities were carefully guarded. Especially from the regular police department.

  Triads are isolated, only allies to one another. The real cops can’t help us; normal people barely notice us. Turn us against one another and we fall apart; change the status quo and the center can’t hold. As Triad Handlers, if Rufus, Baylor, and Kismet received a Neutralize order from the brass, they followed it. No questions. Just action.

  “We need to find out who got rid of the bodies,” I said.

  Rufus blinked. “Which bodies?”

  “All of the Halfies that Ash, Jesse, and I killed that night. The ones that support my version of events.” I swallowed against a lump in my throat. “I had to leave them to call for backup, but I was blindsided by Kismet’s team before I could get back to the site. They already had orders to Neutralize me for murdering my teammates. Less than ten minutes after they died, I was wanted.”

  “So someone set you up,” Rufus said.

  It was exactly what Wyatt had said a week ago. Someone on the inside knew how to get us to that train bridge, and how to get nine other Triads to turn against me. To focus all of their energies on finding and Neutralizing me, instead of paying attention to the Dregs.

  “Yeah, someone set me up.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Rufus said, shaking his head.

  “Of course it does,” Wyatt snapped. “It makes perfect sense. And it was also a terrific excuse to massacre the Owlkins, one of the largest Clans that sympathized with our species. We’ve been chasing our own asses for the last ten days, while the Bloods and goblins have been amassing power.”

  I crouched, getting eye level with Rufus. He didn’t look away. “Rufus, I need your help,” I said. “I don’t have all of my memories back. I don’t remember the final three days of my—Evangeline’s—life, or anything that happened while I was captured. We need to piece this together, and we can’t do it alone. We’ve only got two days to prove that Wyatt isn’t nuts, that I’m not a traitor, and that there is some sort of plot against humanity brewing in the Dreg world.”

  His hazel eyes captured mine for a moment, as though attempting to see past Chalice’s plain brown irises and into my soul. To see the person I’d once been, who lurked deep inside of the shell of a woman he didn’t recognize.

  “On one condition,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  He glared over my shoulder. “Hot coffee and a blanket.”

  Chapter Eleven

  54:15

  “Where’s your team?” I waited until we were back in Wyatt’s car, with Rufus wrapped up in a blanket from the trunk, and us well on our way to get some drive-thru coffee, before asking the question foremost on my mind. I twisted around in the front passenger seat to face him.

  “No idea,” Rufus said. He’d taken on a bit of color since we helped him limp out of the refrigerator. “I’ve been locked up for the last thirty-odd hours, so they could be anywhere in the city, probably looking for me. My kids are loyal, too.”

  The last was directed at Wyatt, but he kept his concentration on driving.

  “Could you convince them to help us?” I asked.

  Rufus shook his head. “I’m still not convinced I’m going to help you, so how about one step at a time? You really don’t remember anything between telling Wyatt that you were going uptown, then waking up in a new body?”

  “I really don’t, and I wish people would stop second-guessing that. Do you think I like not knowing where I was or what happened to me?”

  Wyatt grunted. Okay, so he knew what had happened to me, but I still couldn’t bring myself to ask for those details. Instinctual revulsion at those goblins had been enough to hint at the torture they’d inflicted; I didn’t need it drawn out in pictures. And yet I knew that my desire to remember everything for myself was costing us precious time. Time we couldn’t afford to waste.

  “Okay, you guys know what happened the night I was found,” I said. “Since I can’t seem to get it together, tell me your side of what happened. Who was there? Who said what? Maybe it will jog something.”

  “I got the page in the afternoon and called in, like usual,” Rufus said. “The message said you’d been found, and that my team was needed on the scene. When we arrived, Wyatt, Amalie, and her guard, Jaron, were already there. So was Tybalt, but no one else from Kismet’s Triad. Kis told me later that the others were on patrol down by the docks and couldn’t get there in time. That’s everyone.”

  “One of your team was missing,” Wyatt said. A small amount of accusation tinged his words.

  Rufus flared his nostrils. “Tully and Wormer were there. Nadia didn’t respond right away.”

  I knew the three by name and by the occasional joint operation. We’d met maybe half a dozen times in our careers, which wasn’t unusual in our line of work. Death followed us around, so it was better to maintain a distance. Befriend only your two Triad partners, and keep everyone else at arm’s length.

  And Tybalt … I think I punched him in the face once.

  “It was a train statio
n on the old track,” Rufus said. “Part of the abandoned passenger line that followed the river over the Anjean tributary and into the East Side. No one was guarding it, so they must have heard us coming….”

  “Or been tipped off,” Wyatt added.

  Rufus quirked an eyebrow at the back of Wyatt’s head. “Would you like to do the telling here?”

  Wyatt raised a dismissive hand, attention never wavering from the road in front of him.

  “We found you downstairs in some sort of basement,” Rufus continued. “Old offices or storage or something. Amalie could still sense the immediate presence of others, so I sent Wormer and Tully out on recon, just to make sure we were alone. You were …” His mouth twitched, eyebrows knitted, as if he couldn’t quite reconcile his memory with the woman watching him from behind a stranger’s face. “You were dying. Wyatt went nuts when he saw you.”

  Bright spots of color flared on Wyatt’s cheeks. His jaw clenched, knuckles stretching white against the steering wheel. In this new body that desired him and its short-term lease on life that practically begged me to do some stupid things with it, I liked the idea of him going crazy protective. Just not with so much at stake.

  “Tybalt tried to keep him back, but we couldn’t … Help didn’t get there in time. You never said a word.”

  “But I was conscious?” I asked.

  “Conscious, but I don’t know if you were lucid. You tried to talk, but nothing came out.”

  “Regardless, I saw the people in the room. You, Wyatt, Jaron, Amalie, and Tybalt.” Wyatt was convinced I’d been afraid to speak in front of someone present that night. Afraid to speak in front of either a respected Council sprite, her aide, a fellow Hunter, or a Handler. None of those thoughts was comforting.

  Wyatt loosed his grip on one side of the wheel and reached across the seat. He gently squeezed my knee—a show of support, or an effort to keep me from voicing my thoughts, I don’t know. Either way, I kept those fears to myself.

  “Where is Tybalt now?” I asked instead.

  “Probably on a routine patrol,” Rufus said. “Kismet’s Triad has kept tabs on the east side of town by the tributary. My team was the only one dispatched to locate Wyatt; everyone else is on regular duty.”

  “Locate?” Wyatt snorted. “You would have put a bullet in the back of my head, if you’d had the chance.”

  “Bullshit, Truman. Our orders were to bring you in, not kill you.”

  “Yeah, leave that job to your bosses.”

  “They’re your bosses, too.”

  “Not anymore.” He glanced up into the rearview mirror. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t exactly work for the brass anymore. I have a funny feeling my credentials have been revoked. Being labeled a danger to myself and society can do that.”

  “I was doing my job.”

  “So was I.”

  The testosterone levels in the car were reaching a dangerous high, and I swallowed a sarcastic comment about bringing out rulers. It wouldn’t help diffuse the situation, because I was staring at a pair of alpha males. Both wanted to prove their point, but at the moment, I didn’t care who was the bigger man. I needed their collective attention.

  “Hey!” I said. “Dead person here, working on a strict timetable. Can we concentrate, please, and save the shit-slinging for my after-afterlife?”

  “Evy—” Wyatt started.

  I spun in my seat, pointing one finger at him like a teacher berating a belligerent child. “And don’t think I’m ignoring what he said about a freewill deal, Truman. We’ll be talking about that at a later time.”

  He clammed up and steered the car into the parking lot of a Burger Palace. The ancient chain never installed drive-thru windows. They were notable for being the only place in town to offer a five-alarm chili cheeseburger and guarantee a refund if you ate the whole thing. Jesse did it once, and then spent the entire next day vomiting it all back up.

  “I’ll get the coffee,” Wyatt said. “Anyone want food?”

  “Turkey burger with everything, and a side salad,” Rufus said.

  I bit my lower lip to hold back laughter. Interesting choice after being locked up for a day and a half. Wyatt looked at me, but I shook my head. Watching Wyatt disappear inside of the Burger Palace’s redbrick walls, I felt an unfamiliar sense of separation. Since that moment we met outside of the pay phone booth, we had not been more than ten feet apart.

  I grasped the door handle, overcome by the urge to follow him, to maintain that physical proximity. Keep him close where I could protect him.

  I was being foolish. He’d be back in five minutes with coffee and food and a smile for me. And probably a frustrated glare for Rufus, who kept staring at me like I was a particularly fascinating museum exhibit. I picked at the corner of my bandage. The itching had stopped. It finally seemed safe to look.

  “What’s it like?” he asked.

  “What’s what like?”

  “New life.”

  Good fucking question. “Kind of like looking through a camera lens. Everything is sharp and in focus, but doesn’t feel quite real. My body is taller, and Chalice has a lot more hair.”

  “Chalice?”

  “Frost.” It still felt odd to say her name like she was an individual. More and more, we were becoming the same person. One unique identity, rather than two sharing one space.

  “Did you know beforehand?”

  I blinked. He really needed to quit with the cryptic questions. “Know what, Rufus?”

  “About the supposed union between Bloods and goblins. This thing that has Wyatt so hell-bent on breaking every single rule.”

  Oh, that. Yes. “No,” I said.

  “But you are absolutely certain now that he’s right about this secret alliance? No doubt in your mind?”

  I had doubts about a lot of things, none of which would go away until the last of my memories returned. The only thing I didn’t doubt was Wyatt, because he’d given me no cause.

  “I think Wyatt believes in this enough for both of us,” I said. “He believed enough to give up his free will in exchange for my help. I’m not the only one on this three-day timetable, and until my memory returns and I know it, too, he’ll know for me. Someone set me up for murder, Rufus, and until I find out who, Wyatt is the only person I still trust.”

  “Not even me?” It was matter-of-fact, a question with no hint of anger or surprise. Just curiosity.

  “Not even you.” Maybe Chalice’s roommate. He seemed nice and completely oblivious to Dreg dealings. Not that I had any reason to contact him again before the clock ran out.

  He blew hard through his teeth. “I feel like I need to apologize to you.”

  “For what?”

  “For my part in what happened to the Owlkins. I know you were friendly with them, and I’m sorry.” I closed my eyes, silently begging him to shut up. He said it anyway: “My team led the assault.”

  Fists clenched in my lap, I tried to keep from flying at him. “You were following orders.”

  “That doesn’t help me sleep at night.”

  “Good.”

  I glanced at the restaurant’s side door. A young couple bounced out, each carrying a supersized soda cup and matching silly grins. Still no sign of Wyatt. Rufus fidgeted in the backseat. His eyebrows were knitted, his mouth drawn into a tight line. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have guessed he was having a bowel movement.

  “You okay?”

  He flinched and didn’t look at me. “I need to use the facilities.”

  I knew it. “Go ahead. I’ll make sure Wyatt doesn’t drive off without you.”

  I smiled. He didn’t.

  Rufus slid out of the backseat, letting the blanket fall to the cracked vinyl in a puddle of blue terry. He slammed the door and limped past me, around to the front of the car—the roundabout way of getting to the building next door. He stopped in front of the bumper, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jeans. He stood there.

  The short hairs on the back
of my neck prickled. Warning lights flashed in my mind. I looked around, getting a three-sixty of the parking lot and all access points. Our side was against a slat-wood fence, ten feet tall and bordered by bushes and parking spaces. The back of the lot bordered the rear of a rotting apartment building, rusty fire escapes practically falling off the brick, and no street access. The opposite side of the restaurant—which I couldn’t see from there but vaguely recalled from driving in—was another stone barrier, the freestanding wall of a rubbled strip mall. It was a box canyon.

  I opened my door, snagged the knife from my ankle sheath, and lunged, knocking Rufus backward and pinning him beneath me. His head cracked off the blacktop. He yelped.

  “You son of a bitch.” I pressed the serrated blade to his throat. “How long have they been tracking us?”

  “I don’t know,” Rufus gasped, eyes wide and wild. He didn’t fight back. “Probably since I got out of that damned fridge. The brass is tabbing all of us, Evy. They’ll be here any minute. You need to run.”

  I blinked and pressed the knife harder, drawing a speck of blood. “Run right into a fucking trap that your pals set up for me? No thanks.”

  “Before they get here. I believe you now, and I didn’t before, I’m sorry. I can still help, but you need to get away right now.”

  I looked over the hood of the car. Two black sedans were in the opposite-turn lane, and as I stared, the first turned left into the parking lot entrance. It crept forward, tinted windows glaring with specks of sunlight. “Goddammit.”

  “Hit me. Hit me and run. There’s a pay phone on the corner of West Elm and Tierney. Be there at dusk and I’ll call you.”

  “Wyatt.” I lunged toward the restaurant, but Rufus grabbed my wrist. I stumbled sideways, nearly falling on top of him.

  “I’ll help you get him back, Evy, but right now hit me and go!”

  I did, without further thought or hesitation. Fingers numb and wrist aching, I bolted. Across the rocky pavement, toward the back of the lot, eyes on the lowest rung of the fire escape. My heart was thundering in my ears, and adrenaline surged through my veins.