Another Kind of Dead

by Kelly Meding

  It squealed open, and he stumbled out onto the roof. I followed, maintaining distance and caution as I stepped into the humid night air. The roof was tar and metal, longer than it was wide, and dotted with dozens of vents. It sagged in places. We’d probably missed a sign warning that it wasn’t safe to walk on, but it was too late now.

  The noise of the rave was muffled, bass vibrations occasionally dancing up through my feet and ankles. The sounds of the city seemed far away, even though we were still in her midst. Maybe three blocks from here was the old potato chip factory where I’d nearly died.

  The rush of air clued me in to duck and I narrowly missed the fist aimed at my skull. I slammed my right shoulder forward and up, hitting muscle and ribs, and ejected an “oof!” of air from Felix. I drove my left fist sideways and landed a perfect kidney shot. A regular human male might have dropped to the roof in pain. Felix stumbled, and then returned the favor by driving his elbow down into the middle of my back.

  Bolts of fire blossomed from the point of contact, searing all the way down to my toes. I dropped to my knees, saw his knee coming at my face, and rolled with the blow. It glanced off my cheekbone, a flash of pain, and I tumbled sideways. I used the momentum to keep rolling, and also reach into my boot.

  I came up in a crouch a few feet away, one blade curled backward against my wrist, ready to slash at anything that came at me. My cheek smarted, and something warm dripped down my neck.

  Felix grinned, fangs gleaming brightly. “First blood,” he said, preening like it was some sort of accomplishment. Maybe in his infected deluded mind it was, but far worse (and far better) men had made me bleed.

  “Lucky shot,” I replied. The open wound concerned me. If he managed to get saliva into the wound (gross, yeah, but possible), it could spread the parasite. Even though the chance of me changing was very, very small, fighting the infection would hurt like hell, and I’d much rather avoid the agony.

  “I wish I could make this last, Evy, but we’ll be interrupted pretty soon.”

  I didn’t know if he meant by my people, or by his. “Come and get me, big boy,” I drawled.

  He lunged, and I leapt up to meet him.

  I seriously overestimated my leaping abilities.

  We slammed together in an awkward tangle and hit the roof with a dull thud, thrashing and seeking purchase. I slashed with my blade, felt it cut skin and cloth. Warm blood slicked my hands, making my grip on the knife less certain. Felix clawed with his hands and kicked with his knees, landing blows on my thighs and upper arms. We probably looked like a pair of angry chicks in a cat fight, for all the grace either of us was showing.

  Pretty sad for a pair of former Hunters.

  He snapped at my face with his fangs, and I rewarded him with a head butt that cracked his nose. He howled and reeled back, even as his grip on my arms tightened, fingernails digging into skin. It exposed his throat, but I couldn’t get my hand up. Couldn’t get the blade across his windpipe to put him out of his fucking misery.

  I got my right knee up and between us (not a small feat, considering the leather miniskirt), using it as a brace to keep him out of biting distance. My knife hand was stuck making shallow stabs at his ribs, but I was not close enough to cause real damage. We were at an awkward impasse, locked in a clinch that neither one of us was going to win.

  Interruption was inevitable. The only question was by his people, or by mine?

  It turned out to be both at the same time. An explosion of activity stole Felix’s attention first, and it loosened his grip on my arms just enough. I shoved my knee against his chest, broke his hold, and rolled away. Someone slammed into me sideways, and we went tumbling across the tarred roof, my arms and legs scraping against the grit accumulated there over many years. I ended up on top of my attacker, back to chest, and slammed my left elbow backward. Bone connected with bone and sent a jolt through my arm from wrist to shoulder.

  Plan B. I lifted my head up and crashed it back down, effectively breaking my second nose of the evening. The person below me—male, from the serious lack of breasts pressing in my shoulders—screeched and shoved. I lunged away and came up in a crouch. He tried to scuttle away. I scrambled up behind him and slit his throat. As he slumped to the ground, gurgling out purplish blood, I checked out the chaos.

  Kismet and Phineas were going two against five with some teenage Halfies about fifteen feet away. Neither of them had drawn guns. So close to the rave and hundreds of innocents, gunshots would be too damned loud. They fought with blades, and with as much skill as any Hunter I’d ever seen. Especially Phin. He moved like liquid, dancing out of arm’s reach, lunging in to draw blood then back out before the Halfie could bite.

  I’d seen him fight before, several times. The very first time, though, he’d been in bi-shift form—still human, but with man-sized osprey wings protruding from his back like a dark-haired angel. He told me once his people had been fierce warriors, and he proved it each time he went into battle.

  His wings weren’t out this time, but he was no less intense. He caught me watching, gave me a wink, then grinned. Uh-oh.

  Phin grabbed a Halfie by the neck and sent him at me like a bowling ball down a lane. I stopped the male Halfie’s progress with the sharp heel of my boot, crouched, and cleanly snapped his neck. He thudded to the roof. Kismet and Phin dispatched the other Halfies with only a bit more effort. The front of Kismet’s dress was ripped, nearly exposing her breasts, and her skin was spattered with Halfie blood. Phin, meanwhile, barely looked disheveled.

  He gave me a wicked grin, battle lust shining in his eyes. Eyes that flickered past me, then blinked. In surprise, not in warning. I turned, curious. My jaw dropped and I nearly burst out laughing.

  Marcus had shifted into jaguar form, a big black thing of beauty and power, but that wasn’t what was so funny. He was sitting on top of Felix, front paws pinning down the thrashing man’s shoulders, like a giant paperweight. The fact that Felix was struggling to remove the two hundred pound immoveable object threatened to give me a bad case of the giggles. It was just so ridiculous.

  I stared. Marcus yawned. Behind me, Phin laughed.

  Kismet appeared by my shoulder. She hadn’t seen Felix since the day he was infected. Her jaw was set, her expression hard. She had mourned him, just as Milo and Tybalt had, but that didn’t mean much when the “dead” person was still “alive” and being held down by a were-cat.

  She looked up at me, and I held her gaze without blinking. I’d been where she was—about to end the suffering of a loved one because of vampire infection. I didn’t know exactly what she felt, but I could damned well guess. She blinked, then inhaled a deep breath. Let it out. Palmed a blade.

  Felix had stopped struggling. As Kismet walked toward him, he twisted his head around to look at her. Despite his position, he smiled. “Hey, Kis,” he said. “We had a good couple years, huh?”

  She froze. Even with her back to me, I saw muscles tense and could just imagine her expression—ice and anger flashing in wide green eyes. “No,” she said in a voice full of cold fury, “we didn’t. You have his memories and body, but you aren’t Felix. Felix died the moment he was infected.”

  “Maybe. Probably. Shit.”

  He seemed so sane, so completely in his right mind, that my curiosity bubbled over. I closed the distance between me and Kismet. “How did you not go insane from the infection?” I asked before I could censor myself.

  His iridescent eyes flickered from her to me. “I can smell your blood, Evy. It smells so good, sweet even. I want to taste it.”

  Marcus growled.

  “It’s partially impulse control,” Felix said as if he hadn’t even mentioned wanting my blood. “I want to hunt and feed, but I don’t. Or if I do, I don’t let the blood lust control my actions. I don’t let it make me crazy.”

  “You just don’t let it?” I asked. “Bullshit.”

  He shrugged—or at least, he tried to shrug. “It isn’t easy. It’s like an addiction, a
craving. I was a Hunter so I know it’s wrong to feed, but I have to. I know I’m a monster, and I don’t want to be.” He sounded so … resigned. Almost sad. With the shimmering eyes and the fangs, it was pretty damned eerie.

  Half-Bloods were abominations. They weren’t controllable, hence the entire reason for our open execution policy on them. You can feed and tame a wild animal, but you live with the constant risk of being turned on and attacked.

  Marcus made a noise not unlike a bored grunt. His bright copper eyes shifted from me to Phin, then down to his trapped prey. He bared long, deadly teeth, silently asking if it was time to end this. Therians were not prone to infection, so he could crush Felix’s throat with those powerful jaws and not risk turning. But I knew Kismet wouldn’t allow that.

  Kismet squatted next to his head.

  “Tell Milo and Tybalt I’m sorry,” Felix said.

  She nodded, turning the blade in her hand …