by Kelly Meding
Voices shouted. Gunshots pinged the blacktop by my feet. Something grazed my ankle with liquid fire. Each step was agony, but no other shots connected. One foot on a trash can lid vaulted me up to the fourth rung of the rusty escape ladder. Up I went, scrambling for each purchase. At the first landing, a peppering of gunfire shattered the nearest window. I hurled myself through, tucking into a tumble. I hit rough carpet, and glass dug into my arms and shoulders.
I sprang up into a crouch, in the middle of a dim living room, ripe with the odors of last night’s binge. Empty bottles and paper wrappers littered the floor and tables. A trash can was piled high with garbage of every variety. But no one came running at the sound of my inauspicious entry.
The ceiling exploded bits of plaster as more bullets flew in from the destroyed window. I ran toward the front door, leaping awkwardly over an upholstered ottoman and almost tripping over my own feet. Chalice’s feet. Why couldn’t I have been resurrected into a ballet dancer? I fumbled with the door’s chain—on, so someone had to be home—and turned the dead bolt.
“What the blue f—?” A man’s voice turned into a startled yelp, punctuated by a thud. I didn’t stop, didn’t turn, simply yanked open the front door and ran.
A long, bare cement block corridor greeted me. I spotted a red “Exit” sign and jerked left, heading toward the fire door. I slammed through it and hit the cement stairs at a dead run, down two at a time, adrenaline feeding me more speed than felt natural. My ankle was numb, probably leaving a trail of blood for anyone with two eyes to follow, but I couldn’t stop to wrap it. I had to keep going. To get away before they had me cornered.
I burst through the first-floor door and emerged in a dimly lit lobby. An elderly woman stared at me over her cane. Her mouth dropped open, and a thoroughly gummed cigar fell to the threadbare carpet. I tore past her, toward bright sunlight and a pair of double glass doors. Past a row of metal mailboxes and a closed door with “Manager” printed in choppy block letters. Back outside into warm spring air.
And the wail of police sirens.
The west wall of the apartment building butted up against a grubby mom-and-pop grocery. The windows were papered with ads dated two years ago, but still advertising “Fresh! And Cheap!” produce. I stopped on the cracked sidewalk, under the protection of a red vinyl canopy, and tried to catch my breath. Calm my heart. Think straight.
My teeth ached, and I finally noticed that at some point during my flight, I’d bitten down on the handle of my serrated knife—probably right before I climbed the fire escape—and it was still clenched in my teeth. I slipped it back into its sheath, and then checked my other ankle. My shoe was soaked, but the graze had stopped bleeding, leaving behind an angry red gash. A quick sidewalk check revealed no trail.
The sirens grew louder, bouncing over from the opposite block. Distant reminders that I’d left Wyatt behind. Alone.
A figure emerged from the apartment’s lobby door, but he looked the other way first. I ducked into the grocery store, assaulted by frigid air and the yeasty odor of bread. Two ancient checkout counters marked the front of the shop. I smiled at the clerk—a bland girl no older than sixteen. She smiled and returned to her magazine.
I slipped down the first aisle, making tracks to the back room. Two rows over, I spotted a swinging “Employees Only” door. A bell jingled at the front of the store. My stomach churned. I pushed through, urged onward by fear and a feral need to avoid capture. I couldn’t help Wyatt if I were in matching handcuffs, or dead for the second time.
The stockroom reeked of rotting vegetables and stale water, thick and nauseating. But I ignored the stench and navigated a path past a small office—hearing the sounds of heavy breathing, which told me where the rest of the staff was—to another door. This one was next to a loading dock. The wires on the emergency handle were cut. The employees probably used it regularly. A tentative nudge proved me correct. I pushed it open far enough to get a peek into the back lot.
The loading dock was blocked off by three metal Dumpsters. A ten-foot chain fence, topped by razor wire, separated the narrow alley from the lot behind it. The Burger Palace was on my right, catty-corner from my position, line of sight obscured. I ducked outside, staying as close to the trash cans as I could manage without vomiting from the odor of rotting meat and produce. Then I ducked past them to the fence.
Between the scratchy branches of two unruly bushes, I could see part of the parking lot. Wyatt’s car was still in its spot, flanked by the two black sedans, all four doors thrown open. Two men about my (former) age were searching it—Hunters I vaguely recognized, mostly from instinct. The way they moved, analyzed, and searched for clues was instinctual, calculated, and deadly.
Rufus sat on the curb, holding an ice pack against his jaw. A man in a smart suit—a Handler named Willemy, if I recalled correctly—crouched in front of him, his hands moving in circles as he talked. Rufus kept shaking his head, saying little.
The one person I needed to see was missing. He could be in one of those tinted sedans, bound and ready for transport elsewhere. Would he have resisted and forced them to take desperate action? No, he wouldn’t risk getting himself killed. Not now. I just needed to see it with my own eyes.
A telephone rang. Willemy fished in his jacket pocket and retrieved his cell. His drooping frown morphed into sheer delight. He snapped the phone shut and said something to Rufus, who nodded, silent. I squinted at him. From that distance, I couldn’t tell if he was out of sorts from my punch, or if he was just a good actor. Willemy seemed finished with him for the time being. He stood up and faced the restaurant.
The side door swung open. Nadia Stanislavski and Philip Tully emerged, one on either side of Wyatt. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and he walked straight. No limping or dragging, no marks that I could see. Sharp pain lanced through my palm; I loosened my fist, releasing nails from indented flesh.
They led him toward the closest sedan. He looked straight ahead, giving nothing. If he expected me to be there somewhere, waiting for him, watching in the wings, he gave no indication. He would have yelled and cursed had he known I was crouching in the bushes instead of putting miles between us. I wanted to let him know I was there, to give some suggestion of my presence, but I remained a silent spectator, watching as they ushered him into the car and slammed the door.
Nadia slid into the front seat of Wyatt’s car. Rufus climbed in next to her. She followed the black sedan out of the parking lot, taking Wyatt away. One car remained behind, as did Tully. He was perched on the hood, waiting for … who? The person who’d chased after me, most likely. If the entire Triad had come after its Handler, that meant Wormer was tracking me. Or had already lost me; I couldn’t be sure. There were damn few things I could be certain of at that particular moment in time.
My neck prickled. I held my breath. Soft leather soles whispered across the parking lot’s cracked blacktop, kicked the occasional pebble, and came to rest close by my position. I didn’t turn to look. Looking might rustle the bushes that protected me. A cramp lanced through my thigh. I bit my tongue, trying to distract myself from the agony I couldn’t acknowledge. I needed to breathe.
The footsteps moved past me. I let out a shaky breath, then inhaled slowly. My burning lungs wanted to cough. The cramp intensified; tears sparked in my eyes.
Something beeped. Fabric rustled. A man’s voice said, “Yeah?”
Over the phone, someone replied, “You find her yet?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Tully standing by the sedan with a phone pressed to his ear.
“No. Whoever she is, she’s fast,” James Wormer said.
“Bring it in, then. We need to get back. I want to be there when they question that asshole.”
Wormer snickered, and the sound sent shivers up my spine. “I’m on my way. After what he did to Rufus, I want to hear that crazy fucker scream.”
I closed my eyes, concentrating on the exquisite agony in my leg—using it to stay grounded and ignore my urge to
leap out of the bushes and pound Wormer’s face into the pavement. Seconds ticked away. Car engines rumbled. Horns honked. Two doors slammed. I looked again. The sedan was driving toward the parking lot exit.
Briefly, I considered chasing it, but once the car made it to the road, I’d have no chance of following. Handlers and Triads didn’t have one specific meeting place—no clubhouse or police barracks or underground vault. Except for Boot Camp, which enjoyed a quiet corner of the forest south of the city, secured facilities for questioning and detaining Dregs changed on a monthly basis. They could question Wyatt anywhere in the city.
I had no Handler, no car, and no clue as to my next move. I climbed out of the bushes and stretched my aching leg. Long hours before dusk stretched out in front of me, but I couldn’t wait. I had to do something. Just not alone.
Evangeline Stone had no remaining allies. Chalice Frost had one person in her life who just might drop everything and help—if I could convince him I wasn’t nuts.
Chapter Twelve
53:25
Hitching a ride across town is not recommended, unless you know you can fight off a potential attacker. Confident in my knowledge of fighting skills—although not so confident in my ability to get Chalice’s body to do what I needed—I accepted the first ride I received and made it back to Parkside East in less than thirty minutes.
No little girls followed me into the elevator. The entire building seemed deserted in the middle of the day. As I fished Chalice’s keys out of my borrowed pants, my hands began to shake. I had no particular reason for nerves, but I also had no reason to think Alex Forrester was even home. This could very well turn into a gigantic waste of time.
I turned the key, but the dead bolt was not secured. I wrapped tentative fingers around the doorknob, but it was yanked out of my hand. I took a startled step backward. Alex stood in the open doorway, his wide blue eyes drilling holes into me. I squirmed under the intensity of his stare as relief, anger, and confusion—all meant for someone else—flashed across his face.
His lips twitched, but he seemed incapable of speaking, so I helped him out. “I said I’d come back.”
He nodded, his attention dropping to my bandaged arm, and then lower to my blood-soaked shoe. He frowned. “You’re hurt, Chal.”
“It’s just a flesh wound,” I said, shrugging one shoulder. “Can I come in?”
“Of course.”
I stepped around him, pausing in the entry long enough to take off the dirty sneakers. No sense in tracking blood and gunk all over the carpet. He closed the door and walked across the living room, right into the bathroom. For the briefest moment, I thought of Wyatt, of sending him stalking into the bathroom that morning after a careless comment.
Alex returned a moment later with a white first aid kit. “Sit down and let me take a look at that.”
I perched on the very edge of the sofa. It wasn’t my home, not really. I didn’t know this place, even though evidence of Chalice was all over the room, in the dé-cor and the photographs and the titles of the romantic comedies that lined one shelf near the television.
Alex sat down on the coffee table, directly across from me, and opened up the kit. He removed several bottles, a package of gauze, and a roll of white medical tape—precise movements that betrayed practice. I presented my ankle to him. His hands were cool, almost cold, the fingertips gently callused. He turned my foot to get a better view.
Lips pursed, he stared at the wound. “Weird,” he muttered.
Don’t let him know it’s from a gunshot. “What’s weird?”
“The blood on your shoe is fresh, but the wound’s already healing.” He reached for a cotton ball and soaked it in alcohol. “What’s going on, Chalice?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?”
“You’re lucky it didn’t get infected.” He cleaned the dried blood from my skin. The alcohol was cold; my leg tingled. He tossed the cotton and took out a bottle of antibiotic ointment. With a second cotton ball, he spread some over the cleaned area. “Where have you been?”
“Taking care of things that needed attention.”
“When you didn’t come home last night, I thought I’d imagined you. So I called the morgue, and they said one of their lab techs was under sedation after she almost autopsied a living person.” He exhaled sharply and reached for a gauze pad. “How could I have missed that? Some med student I am.”
I felt an odd instinct to protect him from the truth, but to also give him the benefit of knowing he hadn’t missed anything. He was second-guessing his medical skills, but not because he’d missed anything; because of magic. “If it helps,” I said, pretty certain it wouldn’t, “a handful of E.R. doctors and a coroner all missed it, too.”
He paused in pressing a length of medical tape against the gauze pad. “Not that, Chal.” He met my gaze, and I almost fell into the depth of anguish I saw in them. “I meant your suicide attempt. How depressed you’d been about finals, and your stress at work. I was so busy with classes that I didn’t take the time to notice. You’re my best friend in the world, and half the time I couldn’t even see you.”
Oh great. Now I get to crush his spirit and tell him, “No, sorry, you did let your friend die.” I get to break him all over again.
He applied the tape, then reached for my left arm. I flinched and pulled away. More hurt flared in his eyes. I didn’t know how to explain why a healing dog bite resided where a knife gash should have been.
“Say something,” he demanded.
I blinked. “What would you like me to say, Alex?”
He stilled. Wrong answer, apparently. With careful, calculated movements, he stood up. Backed around the coffee table, toward an upholstered chair, unwilling to startle.
“Chalice, what was the last thing we did together the night before you cut your wrist?” His voice was hollow, almost afraid. He knew something was wrong. Instinct contradicted his senses, and he was smart enough to trust the former.
Now or never. I just hoped he took it well.
“I don’t know, Alex,” I said, still sitting, making no move to approach. “This is really hard to explain, but try to keep an open mind.” I took a deep breath. Exhaled. “I’m not Chalice.”
His lips puckered like he’d eaten a lemon. Hands braced on his hips, he said, “Sorry. What?”
“Look, you seem like a terrific guy and a very loyal friend, so I hate doing this to you. But Alex, Chalice did die. You found her and called an ambulance. She was pronounced dead and sent to the morgue. None of it was imagined, nothing was a mistake. Well, except the whole suicide thing, in my opinion, but who am I to judge her?”
He backed up a few more steps. The backs of his knees hit the chair. He sat down hard, never breaking eye contact. Something else began to cloud his expression. Something angry, almost sinister. “This isn’t funny,” he snapped.
“I know.”
“Look, I get that you were depressed, and I’m sorry for my part in what you did—”
“Christ, Alex, I didn’t kill myself, okay? My name isn’t Chalice Frost, and I am not your friend. I mean, I would like to be, but I’m not her.”
He nodded. “Near-death experiences change people….”
Okay, he was so not getting it. I dug under the tape binding my arm and ripped the old gauze away. The flesh was bumpy and angry red, but healing, with no signs of the suicide scar.
“Fine, doctor-in-training. Explain this.”
He gaped. “What did that?”
“Last night, an hour after I left here, I was attacked by a creature I hope you never meet in a dark alley. It was about seven feet tall when it stood upright, had sharp-ass teeth, and it took a chunk out of my arm. But since I’m just borrowing Chalice’s body for a limited time period, I started to heal. That’s why the other scar is gone, and why the wound on my ankle—a bullet graze I got less than an hour ago—is partially healed already.”
I leaned a little closer, still displaying my arm. “That’s what di
d that.”
Alex leaned back, deflated. His face went slack, pale. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Don’t do that.” I smiled, hoping to keep him calm. “If you get sick, then I’ll get sick, and pretty soon we’ll be barfing all over each other.”
The barest hint of a smile ghosted across his lips. “You don’t talk like her.”
“That’s because I’m not.”
“You’re wearing the necklace I gave her for Christmas last year.”
I touched the silver cross. “I can take it off.”
“No.” He leaned forward, scrubbed his hands across his face, up into his hair, and back down again. Rubbing the words in, getting them to stick. After a moment he stilled, with his chin resting in the palms of his hands.
“Okay, let’s pretend for a minute that you’re not really Chalice,” he said. “And that this isn’t some grief-induced hallucination. Who exactly are you?”
“The truth?”
“Yes.”
This would be interesting. “My name is Evangeline Stone. I have lived in the city my entire life, and for the last four years, I have been employed by a secret unit of the Metro Police Department as a Dreg Bounty Hunter.”
His eyebrows arched comically high. “A what hunter?”
“Dreg Hunter.”
“It that like slang for criminal?”
“It’s a derogatory catchall for the dozen or so species of creatures that secretly live here in the city. Mostly goblins, gremlins, trolls, gargoyles, vampires, and weres. My boss is called a Handler, and I work in a three-person Bounty Hunter squad called a Triad. We hunt rogue elements, carry out special warrants, try to keep some species from killing one another and wreaking havoc in the process, and dole out punishment when lines are crossed.
“My boss’s bosses are three anonymous, highranking police officers, who work in tandem with the Fey Council—that would be faeries, sprites, gnomes, pixies, and sylphs—to keep the peace and prevent the Dregs from killing everyone on the planet. Kind of like the Mafia, but shorter and with magic and pointy ears.”
