by Kelly Meding
I imagined the icy look her avatar had directed at Wyatt. As a human, Amalie was a striking figure—tall and curvy and feminine, with tight red ringlets of hair and the beauty of a fashion model. She had the body most women wanted, and it often amazed me the owner of it never realized she got hijacked a couple of times a week.
“She had a message for me,” Wyatt said. “It must have been important enough to die for, but she was gone before she really said anything.”
“You are certain?”
“She said the word ‘betrayal,’ but not who or what specifically.”
Kismet made a choking sound as she was fed this tidbit of withheld information.
“I can only guess at the meaning,” Amalie said. “However, I have further news to report. News I felt must be shared in person. Where is she?”
Fuck. I was about to be outed.
“She who?” Kismet asked.
“This concerns her more than anyone else, Wyatt Truman,” Amalie said. “Produce her.”
I produced myself. Three jaws hit the floor when I stepped out of the bathroom. Felix and Milo were standing guard around Token, who’d been uncoupled from the wall and was bound at wrists and ankles. Their expressions were nearly identical and quite comical.
Kismet recovered from her shock first and coiled tight. A thundercloud hovered around her. I could well imagine her roiling cauldron of emotions—surprise, anger, betrayal, suspicion. She was standing an arm’s reach from Wyatt, and as I stepped closer, she retreated from him, toward the safety of the sofa. Never taking her eyes off me.
Amalie and her new guard—a small Asian man—hovered by the closed door. Her expression was grim, her manner disheveled. Not as together and in control as the few other times I’d seen her in this human body.
“How?” Kismet asked, the single word practically a growl.
I forced a quasi-sheepish smile, more for her benefit than because I was embarrassed by being alive. “Handydandy healing powers, plus a little help from some friends. If it makes you feel any better, the fire nearly did kill me.”
She grunted.
“Boss?” Felix asked. His right hand had inched beneath the hem of his sweatshirt, probably close to a sheathed knife or holstered gun. He looked past me, right at Kismet, waiting for orders.
I held my breath. Kismet had wanted me neutralized because I had posed a serious threat to the established order of the Triads. While I no longer had the same goals as a week ago, her opinion of me might not have changed. And Kismet knew how to hold a grudge.
“Please,” Amalie said. “There are more urgent matters at hand.”
Felix relaxed his stance, hand going back to his hip. Empty.
Good. Giving Amalie my undivided attention, I asked, “What’s going on that concerns me so much?”
“Something valuable has gone missing,” she said.
“Gone missing?”
“Stolen.”
Alarm bells clanged in my head, telling me I really didn’t want to know the answer to my next question. “What’s been stolen?”
“The crystal in which we sealed the Tainted One.”
Wyatt made a soft choking sound. I couldn’t tear my attention off Amalie, too mesmerized by what I saw in her face—fear. Never in my life had I thought to see a frightened sprite. They could manipulate so much power because of their direct ties to the Break. It was the reason sprites, and no other race, held the most sway over the Fey Council, and why we needed to keep them as our allies.
But more than that, my ears had filled with a dull roar, and even above the fear I saw in her, I didn’t believe what I’d just heard. Heart jackhammering, I asked, “Say that again?”
She didn’t. Instead, she started in on a story. “After your initial entrapment, we devised a method to more permanently seal the Tainted One’s essence into a crystal. When the spell was cast, we sought a safe place for it elsewhere. We gave it to our brethren in the forest west of here, an expanse of mountains few humans ever hike into. They could cloak the Tainted’s draw. I believed it was safe there.”
I snorted, red fury creeping into the corners of my vision. “Why the hell did you take it out of First Break?”
“The power of the Tainted affects not only humans, Evangeline, but many of my kind as well. Having its evil so near was … unsettling. I feared its effects on our well-being. One does not allow disease to remain in one’s orchard to infect all around it.”
“So you let someone steal it?” I seethed, in no mood to understand her reasons. Only one thing was crystal clear to me. “The fucking Tainted is loose?”
She shook her head, red ringlets flying. “No, I do not believe it is. Not yet. The person who stole the crystal would need to have knowledge of our magic and the spell used to encase the Tainted within the crystal. Few outside my people can manage such a feat.”
My stomach flipped. “That doesn’t make me feel better, dammit.” We’d sacrificed so much to contain the Tainted the first time and nearly lost. I’d seen the entity take over the body of an elf, growing to horrifying and grotesque proportions, becoming a black-skinned creature of nightmares.
I’ll put my wife into you, girl, it had said. I look forward to getting to know her again.
I swallowed hard, pressed my lips together, determined not to be sick. Wyatt moved into my line of sight. He grasped my shoulders and squeezed. I stared at his throat, unwilling to meet his gaze.
“Stay here, Evy,” he whispered.
“I’m fine,” I ground out, anything but. Leaning sideways far enough to see past his shoulder, I reaffixed my glare on Amalie. “What happened to seeking out other elves who could send the damned thing back across the Break?”
“We have tried and been unsuccessful,” she replied. “I told you once that very few elves still walk this world. They are difficult to find at the best of times.”
Wyatt shifted to my right side, probably sensing I wasn’t going to fall apart or leap across the room and throttle anyone. He stayed close, though, his left hand still lingering on my hip. I was grateful for his touch.
“Who did you give this crystal to?” Kismet asked, finding her voice. She’d been there the night we’d contained the Tainted, and had seen the things we’d removed from Olsmill. She’d spilled blood with the rest of us.
“The Nerei,” Amalie said. “You would call them nymphs, or more to your specificity, wood nymphs.”
“Dryads?”
A nod. “Yes. They were the guardians of a grove of ash trees.” Her complexion darkened, cheeks glowing rosy red. “By now your people will have learned of a forest fire many miles from the nearest hiking trail. That is where my people died protecting this crystal.”
“Do you have any idea who took it?” I asked, at the same time as Wyatt asked, “When did this happen?”
Amalie blinked, her electric-blue gaze shifting between us. “Moments after the earthquake that shook the city, and no, we do not know who took it. We sent two of our Earth Guardians to investigate the earth, but there are so many conflicting auras they are unable to sort it. I will go myself in an hour’s time.”
I balked. “Alone.”
She tilted her head toward the silent Asian man. “Deaem will accompany me. It is imperative that we learn who has done this before the crystal is compromised.”
“You think?” Okay, so sarcasm isn’t the best tactic to use with a sprite. “Well, now that my not-really-dead cover is blown wide open, what do you need me to do?”
“Be wary, Evangeline. For your assistance in defeating Tovin, I believe I owed you this information in person. I cannot begin to guess if this is somehow linked to the cry of betrayal.”
“Yeah, well, things like this always have a habit of ending up connected.” Jaron may have discovered the person responsible for leaking the crystal’s location to whoever stole it. The tiny fact still bothering me was why not share the info with Amalie? Why seek me out first? It didn’t make sense. “Do you think the attack on Boot Camp w
as just a diversion, then? Get our attention south of town while this mystery baddie steals in the north?”
“It is probable.”
“Well, it worked like a charm.” I eyed the crack in the apartment wall. “Now we just have to wait until the crystal thief reveals his master plan or we’re suddenly overrun by demons.”
Amalie shuddered visibly.
A phone buzzed. Kismet fished her cell out of her pocket and snapped it open. Announced herself. Went absolutely still as the voice on the line spoke, a scratchy hiss barely audible in the room’s newfound silence. Already pale skin accrued a deathly pallor. Her eyes widened, glimmered, as though on the verge of tears.
I reached over and twined my fingers with Wyatt’s, holding tight. We knew it without saying it: not good news.
“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Kismet said, and snapped her phone shut. Her voice was mechanical, distant.
“Boss?” Felix asked, the one-word question coated with worry.
She ignored him; instead, her fiery gaze landed on me, as forceful as a fist. “You two are coming with us.”
“Where?” I asked.
“East Side.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why, but she’d redirected her attention. To Amalie, she said, “You may want to see this as well.”
Three Hunters, two Handlers, and two sprite avatars were going on a road trip to an unknown destination. I hoped she had a big car.
Chapter Five
Kismet’s seven-seat SUV was the perfect size for our mismatched band of travelers. Amalie got shotgun by default of status. The man she called Deaem sat directly behind her, stiff as a board and wary as a pit bull. Milo took the other single seat, which left me in the rear, uncomfortably sandwiched between Felix and Wyatt, who’d changed his ripped shirt before we left. I was practically in Wyatt’s lap, repelled by the poisonous glare Felix couldn’t seem to lose—as though I caused him great pain by my proximity. Kismet had yet to retract her death sentence on me, but she also hadn’t ordered them to accost me. Small favors.
East Side encompassed a large portion of the city, south and east of the point where its two rivers connected into one. Kismet crossed at the Lincoln Street Bridge, and I felt a slight twinge of loss. A not-quite-friend had once made his home beneath that bridge—a troll named Smedge, who’d helped me out on assignments and been a good source of intel on various Dreg activities. I hadn’t spoken to him in nearly two weeks.
Amalie might know where he was, but it was definitely not the right time to ask. No one had spoken a word since we’d begun the trip, and I wasn’t about to break the silence first.
The familiarity of Kismet’s route startled me, and it wasn’t lost on Wyatt, either. We stared out his window at the length of train tracks running along our chosen street, taking us away from the busier portion of the neighborhood and into a section of empty lots and cracked pavement.
Ice settled in my chest as Kismet slowed and turned toward an open gate. Wyatt clasped my hand; I squeezed back. Through the gate, into a large, overgrown parking lot that was surrounded by a chain-link fence. Ahead of us was our destination. I shuddered just looking at it. A run-down, paint-peeling, gabled train station that hadn’t seen regular use in over a decade stood near a swath of crisscrossing tracks. The trains no longer stopped at the passenger station, but that didn’t prevent people from coming here.
Three other cars were parked near the building, including the stripped and tire-less car Alex and I had driven and left there once upon a time. One person paced around outside, a pistol steady in one hand. Dark clothes, tense stance—a Hunter I didn’t know. My chest ached.
“Evy, breathe,” Wyatt said.
I exhaled hard, unaware I’d been holding my breath. I tasted bile in the back of my throat. Heat flushed my cheeks, even though my entire body was numb. Cold.
This was where I’d died. What the hell were we doing here?
Kismet parked near the other cars and got out without a word. The rest of us followed. My limbs didn’t want to cooperate. I forced my feet to move forward, past the sullen glare of the Hunter standing watch by the vehicles. He barely gave me a look but had acknowledging nods for Felix and Milo. I hadn’t known every Hunter during my tenure (no one did), but those three were acquainted.
Up the steps and onto the porch went everyone except me and Wyatt. My feet just wouldn’t move. Wyatt hadn’t let go of my hand, and I concentrated on him—his warmth and stability. It was the only thing keeping me from freaking out.
“Why are we here?” I asked, finally finding my voice. Alarmed at its shakiness.
Kismet turned, and her glare softened a fraction when she looked at me. “Someone left a message here,” she said icily. “Given the location, it seemed like a message meant as much for you as the rest of the Triads.”
Oh God. I don’t want to see this. Nothing good was waiting for me inside. All signs pointed toward someone having been killed, or worse. And it was the “or worse” that nearly rooted me to the pavement. I’d been “or worse” once; I didn’t think I could witness that sort of suffering again.
Wyatt took the first step and tugged at my hand. I swallowed, gathered the last tattered remnants of my courage, and followed. One foot in front of the other, across the warped and rotting platform. Through the door and into the dusty ticket office. Following a familiar path of footsteps through grime that led toward a door marked “Stairs.”
This was the third time I’d come to this damnable place and had gone down these creaky stairs into the dank basement corridor. The first time was as a hostage, and I’d been taken out in a body bag. The second time I’d entered alone, with no memory of having been there before, seeking answers. Now I was here with the full weight of what I’d experienced. Clarity of detail had lessened a bit with time, as violent trauma often does, the sharp edges taking on a fuzzy hue like a sepia-toned photograph. Dulled, but not gone.
Another Hunter stood down the corridor, across from an open door. I didn’t have to look to know which door—the one marked with a black “X,” painted in my old body’s blood. He looked up, ebony face as blank as a coma patient, dark eyes devoid of emotion. He just stared, glazed. I’d seen him around—he’d been at the Olsmill battle, but I couldn’t remember his name.
“Perimeter’s been set,” he said to Kismet as she approached. Even his voice was detached, and I realized it wasn’t apathy—it was shock. “No one else has been inside.”
She turned with visible effort and looked into the room (although “room” was generous, as it was barely larger than a linen closet). Blood rushed from her face; her hands shook, and she couldn’t help releasing a startled cry. Felix and Milo scrambled to her. They looked in as they moved her away, protective of their Handler, and as visibly sickened by what they saw as she.
Deaem glanced at the room—probably doing his duty to check for danger—then let Amalie go in. I couldn’t go farther. Ten feet from the door, I was still too damned close. The humid basement air tickled my nose. The odor made me want to retch. Memory was trying to overcome common sense, and I had half a mind to let the former win.
Amalie emerged moments later and waved me forward. I swallowed, certain the lump in my throat would choke me before I made it to her side. Wyatt stuck close. I squeezed his hand so hard I was sure I’d break it. As expected, the telltale “X” was still on the door. Lingering odors of blood and rot and death wafted out like black fingers, caressing my skin with their awful touch. I wanted to run, as much from what I remembered about this room as from what was waiting inside for me now.
I looked.
Past did not superimpose on the present as I thought it might. The mattress I’d died on and the shackles I’d been bound with were gone. Old splatters and sprays of my blood were washed away, the cement floor scrubbed clean. The odor of old bleach made me want to sneeze. Yesterday’s gore was gone—but today’s was nailed to the far wall.
At first, I couldn’t tell who it was
. He was bare-chested, stripped down to his boxer shorts. Long metal spikes had been pushed through his shoulders, chest, abdomen, and upper thighs, but very little blood had fallen. No, the majority of his blood had come from the wide gash in his throat and was collected in a metal bucket near his feet.
“Fuck,” Wyatt snarled.
I squinted at the man’s face, hard to see from its downward angle. It dawned on me moments later—Rhys Willemy. I’d only ever seen the Handler in fancy, pressed suits and polished shoes—an odd wardrobe choice, given his profession. I also realized that the stricken Hunter outside was one of his. Or had been.
I stared, dumbfounded and sickened by the dead man displayed in front of me. Why here, of all places to leave a body? The location by itself wasn’t much of a message. There had to be something else. I took a step closer. Wyatt made a noise but didn’t try to stop me.
If the blood drips were any indication, he’d been killed and drained elsewhere, then hung up on the wall. One person alone couldn’t have done it. At least two were needed, maybe three, and strong. Willemy wasn’t a defensive linebacker, but he wasn’t a small man, either. Even dead, nailing him to the wall couldn’t have been easy.
“This doesn’t make sense,” I muttered.
“Evy?” Wyatt asked.
“What?”
“Turn around.”
I did. On the wall by the door, painted in blood, was a message: Give me back what’s mine.
An icy hand twisted my guts. I fled the room, panting, and didn’t stop until I’d reached the bottom of the stairs. Above the lingering odor of bleach was the tangy stink of blood. All around me now, in my nose and hair and clothes. I bent over, hands on the third-from-bottom stair and sucked in great lungfuls of air. Tamping down panic and overwhelming disgust.
Near the base of the stairs was a pile of what looked like dried oatmeal. As I stared at it, I remembered Alex vomiting after seeing the room in which I’d been tortured to death. He’d been here a week ago. I saw his sweet, smiling face and wanted to cry for him all over again.