The Night Before Dead

by Kelly Meding

  The screen shifted to a shaky video that was obviously taken from someone’s cell phone, showing a giant chunk of stone hitting the pavement and cracking.

  “No other earthquakes have been reported in other parts of the city, and it is unknown exactly what caused the thousands of years old structure to collapse. Emergency crews are already on the scene. Tune in to our regularly scheduled newscast at four for further updates.”

  The screen flashed to the news logo, then returned to the program.

  The pups looked up at us. I met Wyatt’s gaze. “Trolls?”

  He nodded. “You boys stay here.”

  Wyatt was on the phone with Astrid before we left the apartment. A general alert went out to quad leaders to meet in the War Room. By the time everyone arrived, including Phineas and Brevin, more reports of destruction had come over. The Karnak Temple in Egypt, the Mogao Caves in China, and the Western Wall in Jerusalem had all been toppled by unexpected, unexplainable earthquakes.

  Religious symbols for different religions, all across the world.

  “Amalie is striking first blood,” Phineas said.

  “But how—?” Marcus started.

  “Trolls,” I said. “She’s using the trolls still loyal to her.”

  It hurt knowing a former ally of mine, a bridge troll named Smedge, could have been one of the trolls destroying ancient landmarks. He’d saved my life once, and then helped a gnome reach out and provide us with a cure for the infected vampires. I hadn’t had direct contact with him in weeks, though, and most trolls were loyal to the Fey.

  “If she’s using trolls to attack from below, then we can’t wait,” Astrid said. To Brevin she said, “When your kin arrive, how long do you need to prepare for this ritual?”

  “Several hours, at least,” Brevin said. “Sunrise is the ideal hour, for it is when magic is at its strongest. The birth of the new day. We will also require access to First Break.”

  First Break was the place where magic originated from, and there were two points of access that I knew about. The first was the underground city where Amalie and her Fair Ones once resided beneath the Anjean River. Instinct told me they no longer lived there, especially since Wyatt and I knew about a tunnel that opened up deep in Mercy’s Lot.

  The second point of access wasn’t much to look at. A round hole in the ground that looked like shiny black water, deep in an underground cave close to the Fey city. After Tovin tried to pull a Tainted over, we’d bulldozed the building hiding the Break and slathered the ground with asphalt so no one could get down there.

  Point number two would be easier to get to, and had Tovin seemed okay with using it, as opposed to the magic pool in Amalie’s backyard.

  “That’s going to take some time,” Kismet said. “We buried that place earlier this year.”

  Brevin fixed her with a bland look. “Then I suggest someone un-buries it.”

  “Already on it,” Rufus said. A lot of heads turned his way, including mine. He shrugged. “Clearly Astrid and I were the only ones thinking ahead that far?”

  The idea of returning to the location of Wyatt’s death sent a funny chill through my chest. For a brief time, I’d lost him, and I never wanted to feel that spearing pain again.

  “You’ll have access by midnight tonight,” Rufus told Brevin.

  “Excellent.”

  “So what do the rest of us get to do in the meantime?” I asked.

  Brevin’s bland expression was starting to irritate me. “Prepare yourselves for the final battle against the Fey. I have no doubt that once we begin the process of freeing the Tainted, Amalie will take notice and send her people to stop us. We will be at war.”

  At war. Humans, vampires, and shifters against sprites, fairies and dwarves. Humanoids versus magical beings.

  Fucking fantastic.

  Chapter Six

  13:30

  Milo wasn’t at dinner, and he wasn’t with Marcus, because Marcus, Phineas, and Boone were meeting with the now-two elves currently haunting our hallways. With the excuse that the gimp needed to eat, I took a plate back to his room at the dorms and wasn’t surprised to find him on his bed, earbuds in, listening to something on his phone.

  I tapped the foot of the bed with my boot.

  He glared at me but didn’t otherwise move.

  “I brought you food.” Obviously, since I had a plate with a hamburger and bag of chips in one hand and bottle of water in the other.

  He closed his eyes.

  Okay, we’re doing it the hard way.

  I put the food down on his side table, then climbed onto the bed to sit cross-legged by his left hip. He opened his eyes again, then tugged out the earbuds.

  “I’m not in the mood, Evy.”

  “I bet you aren’t.” I hated the anger and grief in his eyes. “No one is.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not your boyfriend who’s about to house a demon, is it?”

  “No, but my best friend is—wait, boyfriend?”

  He sat up with a bit of a struggle, resisting my help with an unexpected snarl. “I can do it, fuck.” When he got himself settled again, he looked near tears. “It’s not fair. Not after Felix and then Tybalt. I can’t lose Marcus, too.”

  We’d both lost a lot of people we loved in a very short amount of time, and we’d both grieved a lot. But in the year and a half year since I’d known Milo, I had never seen him so emotionally vulnerable as in that moment. He’d buried two of his brothers, and now he was facing the loss of a man he cared for a great deal—maybe even loved.

  I found myself in the odd position of being the one to offer hope. “We don’t know that the Tainted will destroy them. Not even Brevin is certain of the outcome.”

  “Not knowing makes it worse. At least if we were sure, we could say goodbye and mean it, you know? I could start letting him go, instead of clinging so tightly it hurts.”

  I grabbed his hand, and he let me, squeezing back. In some ways, I wanted to know with certainty what would happen. Certainty meant saying goodbye to our loved ones properly. Even though uncertainty gave me hope for a good outcome, it also meant the opposite. I couldn’t reconcile the idea that in roughly twelve hours, Phineas would be the physical host to a demon. All three men who volunteered were fighting for the good of every species, yes, but at a personal level, all three were fighting for the people they loved.

  “Marcus volunteered in the heat of the moment to protect Astrid,” I said. “But I know he’s doing it to protect you, too. Anyone with eyes in their head can see how much you mean to him. He wants to give you a better world to live in.”

  “Without him.”

  “Maybe.” Marcus’s words about it being best this way, about his own mortality, flittered past but I didn’t voice them. Milo wasn’t thinking about ten years from now, when Marcus’s lifespan would be at its end. Hunters didn’t think that far ahead. We lived for the now, and right now, Milo was in so much pain.

  I didn’t know how to help him.

  “There’s still so much we haven’t done.” Milo’s whispered words seemed more for himself than for me.

  Didn’t stop me from being nosy. “Like what?”

  His cheeks pinked up, and he looked away.

  Oh? Oh! Duh.

  If I’d only had a few hours left to say goodbye to Wyatt, you’d better believe that making love was on the agenda. Milo had admitted to one unexpected kiss before the beating from Vale, and then the one I’d witnessed in the infirmary after the fight with Vale. I couldn’t imagine Milo had been in any shape to do physical stuff with Marcus since then. Milo’s embarrassment also held a lot of longing, and I resisted the strange urge to hug him until he felt better.

  Nothing was going to make him feel better except a safe, healthy Marcus back in his arms after this war was over.

  “I want him so badly, but he treats me like I’m made of glass,” Milo said after a moment of awkward silence. “And yeah, maybe it wouldn’t be super gymnastical, but it would mean something. It woul
d mean so much for it to be him.”

  That one hit me like a sledgehammer. “You’re a virgin?”

  Milo covered his face with a pillow, which said yes for him. It was both incredibly adorable and kind of sad, considering how many close shaves with death he’d had lately. Anyone with that much pain and life experience under their belt deserved a good fuck once in a while.

  “Dude, I’m not laughing at you, I promise.”

  “Yes, you are.” Muffled but audible.

  “No, really.” I yanked the pillow away.

  He glared. “Look, I’ve fooled around and gotten off with guys, but it never felt…safe being that vulnerable.”

  “We are talking about fucking, right?”

  The glare went up a notch. “Yes.”

  “Just checking.” I folded my arms and had a moment of What Would Evy Do? “Want my advice?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell him. Sit Marcus down and tell him you want to make love before he becomes a demon holder, and that you won’t take no for an answer.”

  “He won’t, will he?” Marcus’s deep voice bounced around the small room.

  Milo flushed bright red, and I swear he nearly covered himself with the pillow again.

  Since Milo seemed to have trouble standing up for what he wanted in regards to the big were-cat, I stood up for him. Literally and figuratively. “He likes you a hell of a lot for some reason,” I said. “So much so that he’ll ignore some aches and pains in order to be with you, even if only for one night. He deserves at least that much, Marcus.”

  Marcus regarded me for a moment, his neutral expression never changing.

  “Do me a favor,” I continued. “Turn off your phones, lock the door, and then spend some time fucking each other’s brains out. Give yourself something to come home for. Give Milo something to hope for.”

  That neutral look softened into a smile, and I gave a silent cheer. “If Astrid wonders where I am?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell her you’re busy and are not to be disturbed unless the end of the world is nigh.”

  “The end of the world is nigh.”

  “We’ve got a few hours yet before dawn. Go with it, big guy.”

  I let myself out and shut the door behind me. I’d done my duty as Milo’s best friend. Whatever else happened was between them.

  An hour later I was busy helping Shelby and Kyle stockpile weapons into one of our vans when all of our phones alerted at once.

  911. Goblins loose in Briar’s Ridge Mall. All hands on deck.

  “This can’t be serious,” Kyle said. “What the hell are goblins doing in the mall?”

  “It’s not early Christmas shopping,” I retorted. “Shit.”

  Shelby climbed into the front seat, and I took shotgun. The van could comfortably fit six more bodies, but we squeezed in nine, including Boone and Phineas, before Shelby hit the gas. I texted our numbers to Astrid, who sent back that Nevada’s quad was en route and two minutes away. Exact goblin numbers unknown, but they were attacking openly.

  This is going to be bad.

  Over the years, the Triads had gotten very, very good at hiding the existence of vampires and other species from the general public. Mutilated bodies blamed on animal attacks, unexplained events pushed under the rug by the police officers on our payroll.

  The Watchtower didn’t have those cops in place, and with goblins attacking more and more openly, it was getting harder to hide them. It would next to impossible this time. Rufus was good, but even he couldn’t take down every single photo or YouTube video in time. Not before something went viral.

  It’s the end of the world as we know it.

  And I felt sick to my stomach. So far from fine it wasn’t even funny.

  Less than three minutes from the mall, another group text chimed over. The hilarity of ten people checking their phones at once was totally lost to the image I brought up on my screen, along with a simple sentence: These aren’t goblins.

  The photo made my insides clench. The same size and general shape as a goblin, with shaggy black hair all over its body. The damned things looked like chimps from Hell, and their eyes burned red.

  “What the fuck is that?” someone asked.

  “A dwarf,” I replied.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No. Christ.” I tried to call Nevada, but he didn’t pick up. I sent over a text in case: Diamonds distract them. Break into a jewelry store or something.

  He’d probably think I was crazy, but I had to try. I had no idea if Wyatt had shared his information on dwarves and fairies with anyone except me. And the fact that dwarves, and not goblins, were attacking a mall full of humans meant that this was truly a first blood strike by the Fey.

  My phone rang. Wyatt.

  This won’t be fun.

  “Hey, handsome.”

  “Where are you, Evy?”

  Not even a hello. He was pissed. “Almost at the epicenter of our latest disaster, why? Where are you?”

  “Getting into a car as we speak. You couldn’t have waited?”

  “Suck it up, buttercup, I was already near a van loaded with weapons. You’ll be here in no time.”

  “Be careful. Those are dwarves.”

  “Yeah, no shit. Maybe I’ll get to wear that tiara after all.”

  “I’d pay money to see you kicking ass in a tiara.”

  “I bet you would. See you soon.”

  “See you.”

  Evening traffic across the city had Shelby swearing a blue streak that made me a little envious, and it took way longer than we’d hoped to get across the Black River to the uptown mall. The sight of police cars and emergency lights already near the mall entrances dashed all hope of us getting inside with any ease. The mall’s basic shape was a square, with each of the four corners anchored by a big department store, and two main entrances opposite each other. Not counting the four department stores.

  Six points of entry and exit.

  People were racing out of the entrance nearest us, some of them bloody, others assisting their wounded companions. The cops didn’t seem to know what was happening. Four rushed inside, leaving one on the sidewalk to the guard the big glass doors.

  “How should we play this?” Shelby asked.

  Phineas was wedged into the van near the front and he leaned forward. “With as little violence against humans as possible. Pull up closer. I’ll use my wings to distract the officer, so the rest of you can rush inside. I’ll join you as soon as possible.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said.

  I texted Nevada and Astrid that we’d arrived and were about to join the fray. We piled out of the van, an odd assortment of shapes and sizes, all armed to the teeth.

  The uniformed cop took one look and his eyes went wide. One hand pressed against his service weapon, while he raised his other in a stop gesture. “We have a situation,” he said. “No one’s allowed inside.”

  “We aren’t just anyone,” I said. “We can deal with your problem.”

  “How?”

  Phineas tugged off his t-shirt, and seconds later a beautiful set of mottled brown and tan wings spanned out on either side of his body.

  I jacked a thumb. “That’s how.”

  The cop started stuttering, so I took that our cue to head on inside. He didn’t try to stop us.

  “I’ll get a lay of the land,” Phineas said, and then on a hard gust of air, he was flying overhead. Straight toward the sounds of screaming and gunfire.

  The entrance emptied into a short corridor of store fronts that had already pulled their gates down. Main power was off, and only a few sparsely placed emergency lights gave us a shadowy idea of how to proceed. A few smears of blood led the way toward the main corridor ahead—the source of all the noise.

  “What are they?”

  “Just shoot the fucking things!”

  “Is that a goddamn angel?”

  “What’s going on?”

  The city’s finest were freaking the
fuck out.

  I separated my butterfly swords. We turned the corner and walked into a war zone.

  Broken store front windows. Glass all over. Pools of blood. Mangled human bodies next to the occasional dead dwarf. Fake plants knocked over. A blue-tiled fountain held a dead body that was turning the water red. The familiar stench of old seawater that came with goblin blood, which only solidified the fact that the two species were related.

  “There’s a bunch of people cornered in the food court!” Nevada’s voice carried from somewhere ahead.

  We were close to the food court, so our group started to run. Someone’s flashlights—probably the police—bounced off walls. Boone paused long enough to spear a writhing dwarf in the head with his machete. The sight of fighting ahead urged me faster, and the sudden slam of a body into mine knocked me onto my ass. Everyone started shouting at once as more small, hairy bodies flung themselves out of a candy store and at our group.

  A hair-covered face snarled at me, its red eyes burning with hate even in the dim light. I buried a sword into the side of that thing’s head to the hilt. Blood spurted on my hand and dribbled out of its mouth. I shoved it aside, a little grossed out that dwarves apparently liked to run around totally naked, and the shaggy hair didn’t do a lot to cover the gnarly bits.

  I speared one that had Boone on the ground, then helped him up. Blood smeared his shoulder but he wasn’t gushing red yet. All around us, the dwarves lay in bits and pieces, easily killed despite the ambush. None of my people were dead, so I called it a win.

  “Keep moving,” I said.

  “Someone help us!” a woman screamed.

  I directed two of my people toward the sound, which was coming from a lingerie store, with a terse, “Get them outside.”

  The rest of us plunged forward, through a dark mall, toward the chaos of the food court, which was at the interior of the mall. It only had one way in from the main corridor, and as we turned, the scene made my gut roll.

  At least fifty people were crowded into the back of the food court, huddled together against different counters, many of them wounded. A small army of dwarves stood between the humans and the combined Watchtower/police forces. The cops were holding their batons instead of their guns, probably so they didn’t accidentally shoot a bystander, and it was quickly clear that everyone was deferring to Nevada.