by Kelly Meding
“You’re pretty prompt, aren’t you?” I asked by way of greeting.
“I desire my property,” Thackery replied, on speaker-phone. “Do you have it?”
“What do you think?”
Kismet shot me a glare that telegraphed: Don’t piss off the bad guy. I ignored her.
Thackery said, “I think you’re too smart not to have it, and I would also appreciate simple answers to simple questions. Now, I’m certain you know where the Wharton Street footbridge is, yes?”
Do goblins bleed magenta? “Yes.”
“Be at the center of the footbridge, overlooking the river, in half an hour. Be there alone, and when I say alone, I mean no one within half a mile of your position. I have explosives rigged to the furnace of an office building Uptown that I will not hesitate to detonate if I suspect you’re being watched. Are we clear?”
“Clear,” I said. My heart was pounding so hard I was certain he could hear it. I was going in very much alone and without a choice. Shit, fuck, and dammit.
“I don’t suppose I have to remind you to bring my property?”
“I’ll have it. Just don’t forget my crystal.”
“I’m a man of my word, Evangeline. The exchange will be made as agreed, but under my terms. Come to the bridge.” And he hung up.
I could barely keep my hand from trembling as I put away the phone. “I think he’s serious,” I said, but the quip fell flat.
“There are several buildings west of the river with a good vantage point,” Kismet said. “And they’re outside his half-mile limit, so we can keep visual surveillance on you while you’re on the bridge.”
“What about audio?” David asked. He looked horrified, but determined.
“He’ll probably search me, so I can’t risk it,” I said. “As long as there are eyes on me, though … I guess we should hit the road. I’ll have to walk part of the way. David and Wyatt can drop me off, then stay back on this side of the river. Kismet, you and the boys get to those vantage points.”
She nodded.
We gathered a few things from hidden places. I’d left that morning without any weapons, so I borrowed a hunting knife from Tybalt’s stash and put it in my boot strap. If Thackery found it, he found it, but I needed something close to me.
On the way out, I looked back at Tybalt. He nodded curtly, and I saw the frustration in his eyes. He hated being left behind. I hated leaving him there. But for now, it was where he had to stay. I winked with more confidence than I felt and followed the others to the parking lot. Once there, I realized something with ominous clarity—Amalie had never called.
I had no time to worry about her, though. It was time to trade the devil I didn’t know for the devil I did.
Chapter Eight
Wyatt drove David’s car to our drop-off point, me in the passenger seat with the vinyl cooler tight in my lap. David seemed just as uncomfortable in the rear, fidgeting like a kid on a sugar high. Our destination was a small grocery store parking lot just over a half mile from the river. They had no visual, but it was a more direct route there if Kismet called.
Traffic allowed for an easy trip, and we turned into the lot too soon. I checked the time—fifteen minutes until showdown. Wyatt backed into a space near the entrance. I’d patronized this store a few times, mostly for cold sodas and snacks. It was a hole shoved between newer buildings, a line of glass windows papered over with yellowed advertisements. Three roughhousing teenage boys tumbled out of the store, snapping the tabs on their colas.
“We can be there in three minutes,” Wyatt said.
Fat lot of good that would do me. I smiled anyway. “I know. And I promise to try and curb my sarcastic nature while doing this.”
“Good girl.”
We shared a look that said so many things: good luck, I love you, be careful, watch your back—and more. I grabbed his shirt collar and yanked him toward me. The kiss was brief. Not good-bye, just see you soon. I pushed him away, grabbed my bag, and leapt from the car. Didn’t look back as I walked down Wharton Street, toward the Black River.
Each step forward drove a spike of fear deeper into my gut. I tried to dislodge it with reassurances, but even in my own mind they felt hollow. All I could do was see this through. Get the crystal safely, then worry about capturing Thackery.
The bridge loomed ahead of me, all gray steel and pylons. The last time I’d walked across it was ten days ago, an hour or so after my resurrection. On this side of the river was a train yard, dozens of track lines crisscrossing the sandy ground and butting up to the river’s edge. Abandoned boxcars lined a few of the unused tracks, cracked and dusty with age. I’d hunted a lot of Halfies down there. It had been a favorite feeding ground for years until Jesse, Ash, and I started patrolling it.
I kept a steady pace as the bridge arched up. Faint odors of motor oil mixed with the heavy water scent of the river. A gentle breeze tickled my cheeks, blustering hard each time a car sped past. I continued beyond the train yard, over the rushing slate water below. I reached dead center with a few minutes to spare—according to the clock on the cell phone—and stopped. Looked around in all directions. Car traffic continued at a steady pace, going east and west across the bridge. No other foot traffic, though, in either direction.
What the hell was he going to do, fly in?
The phone rang. I flipped it open, not bothering with speaker. “Running late?” I asked.
“No, you’re pleasantly early. Look down toward the train yards, Evangeline, near that thatch of trees on the water’s edge. Quarter mile down.”
I squinted at the thick, stunted trees that had been left to grow wild on the perimeter of the train yard’s northern border. Something glinted in the sunlight, flashing a signal at me. “I see it.”
“Come to me.”
“What?”
“I wanted to give us a bit of privacy for the exchange. I know you’ll be here in mere moments. Others have seen your Gift, and now I’d like a peek.”
Son of a bitch. I put the phone away, then stared at the location. I couldn’t see anyone, just the trees and brown dirt. I focused on the spot, searched past my anxiety to find a bit of loneliness—my emotional tap into the power of the Break. I caught it and slipped in. The sensation of flying apart and melting back together again was familiar, but new each time I did it. A dull ache settled between my eyes as I teleported, centering me the moment I materialized in the train yard.
The stench of grease and coal was thicker here, almost nauseatingly so, and the roar of the river louder. Ten feet away, a stone wall separated me from a steep drop to its rushing water. The tangled, gnarly trees ahead mocked me with gray, leafless branches, daring me to try to enter them.
He didn’t emerge from the trees as I’d expected. He came around them, as at ease as a man on a Sunday stroll, the living embodiment of his photograph. Tall and lean, he wore a navy-blue suit coat that fell to mid-calf. Dust coated his leather shoes and the hem of his trousers. He smiled pleasantly, more handsome in person than he had any right to be. Boyishly so, with glittering eyes that seemed ready to laugh at anyone’s joke, whether it was funny or not.
Didn’t seem the type to slit a man’s throat, drain his blood, then nail his body to a wall. Then again, no one had ever looked at my previous waiflike build and thought I could snap their neck with very little effort.
“The great Evangeline Stone,” Walter Thackery said, a touch of humor in his voice. “The teleporting trick is quite impressive. Bravo.”
“Show me the crystal,” I said.
He clucked his tongue. “Don’t be unpleasant about this. It’s a simple business transaction. And so far, you’re living up to your end of the bargain.”
“I tend to do what I’m told when dipshits like you threaten innocent people.” Okay, so not antagonizing the bad guy wasn’t an easy skill for me to master.
“We all do what we must to ensure our survival. Now, please, show me my property.”
“You going to show me t
he crystal?”
He lifted his left shoulder in a half shrug, then reached into his coat with his right. Instead of the crystal, he produced a handgun. No … I stared at it a little harder as he raised it, pointing the barrel at my heart. It was a tranquilizer gun. At least that meant he didn’t want me dead.
I put the bag on the ground and tugged open the zipper. Turned it around so he could see the two glass containers carefully packed into cotton batting. He grinned and did a little two-foot dance that looked ridiculous for a grown man.
“Back away, please,” he said.
I acquiesced, putting five long paces between me and the bag. He whistled. Someone new came around the trees just as Thackery had. Awesome.
He was thin, blond-haired, and looked barely sixteen. Jeans and a T-shirt seemed to dangle on his wiry frame. He kept his head low and wouldn’t look at me directly as he came forward holding what looked like a blue silk scarf. Thackery took the scarf from the boy, then unwrapped it as he approached the bag. I almost wept with relief when he put a pulsing black crystal down in the dirt and picked up the bag. He didn’t back off, just stared at the crystal a moment. It seemed alive, something ominous and evil trapped beneath its hard surface, aching to be released.
“That thing should have been better protected,” he said.
“You almost let the fucking thing loose on the world, asshole.”
“But you came through like a champ and saved us all, didn’t you? I feel I should thank you for that.”
“Yeah? Thank me by telling me what’s so important about those vials.”
He fixed the bag so its strap hung off his right hand, which never dropped its aim with the gun. Odd that his henchman wasn’t armed with anything other than a sullen expression. Thackery’s left hand pulled out the larger of the two containers, full of a gelatinous red substance. “This, Ms. Stone, is my greatest creation to date. Something with which I plan to make a lot of money to further fund my research.”
“Your monster-making research?”
“Hardly. They were simply a means to an end. You see, I have managed to isolate the parasite that infests a vampire’s saliva and keep it suspended in a bloodlike substance for weaponized use.” He wiggled the red jar.
My insides quaked. OhGodohGodohGodohGodohGod.…
“I needed my second sample back,” he continued.
“What happened to your first sample?”
I felt the sting before I heard the shot and looked down. A feather-tipped dart stuck out of my chest, directly above my heart. Boiling water ejected into me. I fell to my knees from the onslaught of pain, gasping, too stunned to think.
“My first sample,” Thackery said, darkness replacing the sunshine in his voice, “I just shot into you. With these healing abilities you possess, think of yourself as my new guinea pig.”
My lungs seized. The raging heat in my chest worked across my abdomen, sending my muscles into spasms of cramps. My arms and legs were shaking, tremors snaking up and down my spine.
The other vial of amber liquid hit the dirt in front of me. “This, on the other hand, is an experimental antibiotic that targets the parasite. Good luck.”
I stared at the vial. The heat scorched the tips of my fingers and blasted down to my knees. Experimental. Up my throat. Antibiotic. It tasted like blood, smelled like bile, ached like a volcano waiting to erupt from the top of my skull.
Fucking hell, is this what Alex felt like when he turned?
I tried to pick it up, but my fingers wouldn’t cooperate. I’d never get it open. My throat felt tight, swollen. Couldn’t swallow it. I had to try something, dammit.
I smashed my hand onto the vial. Glass shattered, cutting skin and muscle. The liquid was briefly cold, ice water on my palm. Then nothing. I ground down and felt only the pain of torn flesh. Manic laughter choked me. I strained toward the knife at my ankle. Had to get it, slice my throat, fall on it, anything.
Can’t turn. Won’t be one of them.
“Wyatt!” The shriek ripped from my lungs, torn from a wave of icy fear. Trembling fingers finally grasped the hilt of the knife. Pulled.
Chalice slit her wrists once, killed herself. I can do it, too. Kill the pain before it kills me. It’s what she did.
My entire body shuddered, and I fell. The knife bounced away. Agony flared through my guts. I curled inward, afraid I’d explode if I didn’t. Splatter my innards all over the dirty train yard. My teeth ached. Eyes burned. Scalp was on fire. I smashed my skull against the ground. The pain was momentary, not nearly enough. I tried again; red lights blinked behind my eyes, but consciousness remained.
I heard voices shouting. Felt footsteps pounding. No, I have to die before I turn on them. Turn and murder them like Jesse murdered Ash. Won’t do it. Can’t do it.
I lifted my head, angled my temple, and brought it down with all my might. Beyond the fading light, encroaching darkness, and brain-splitting pain, I heard Wyatt say, “I’ve got you, Evy.”
I smell blood. Fear. Sweat. Mostly blood. All around. Above, below, inside of me, and inside of them. Heated flesh passes close; I snap my teeth, hoping for a bite. A shout.
Hold her down!
No chains. Don’t you dare chain her!
Everything aches. My toenails, my hair, my eyeballs, even my sex. Especially there. Above the blood, I smell male. Potency. I throb. Can’t move my hands to touch. There’s no relief. I howl for freedom.
If you can’t do it—
No one puts her down, you fucking hear me?
His voice. It’s him I want. I lurch. I cannot move well. Something holds me back, down, away. I jerk my hips, wail, reach for what I can’t have. He’ll stop the throb if I can get to him.
Blobs of black dance in my empty vision. Taking slow shape. Faces. Alex, Jock Guy, Tattoo Guy, even the nameless Halfie who turned Jesse. Dozens more, leering and licking their fangs and welcoming me home. Inviting me into the darkness. The coolness, empty of pain.
Alex takes my hand, so small in his. Squeezes. Tells me it doesn’t have to hurt, baby, we don’t feel that sort of pain. Don’t fight, be with me. It’s time to rest, baby.
I’m not your baby! I think I scream the words, but I can’t be sure. My fist hits flesh. Flesh! I lash again, hoping to grab. Am restrained again. Fuck!
I’ll fuck you, Alex says. If that’s what you want. Stop fighting the darkness. Embrace it, and you’ll be able to join me. We can be together. Love each other. Chalice, please.
I shake my head, try to rub my ears and can’t. I’m not Chalice. He wants Chalice, not me. I don’t want to fuck Alex. I want someone else. And he won’t want to fuck me if I’m in the dark.
Alex weeps. Chalice!
Get out of my fucking head!
The faces melt into black blobs. Blobs that shrink, fall back into one another like drops of mercury. One blob now, dark as midnight, scary as hell. It is Hell, beckoning with a frigid finger. Opening its gaping maw, welcoming me in. Warmth and darkness—so easy.
Pain and light and him. Not so easy. I want him. Need.
Wyatt!
The voices return. I strain to hear, to push toward them, away from the black blob. It blocks my path, mumbling their words. It’s a net, straining, holding, not letting me pass.
… much longer do we wait?
As long as it takes. She’ll come back.
You don’t know that.
Yes I do.
He’s still here. Holding on, holding out, not letting me go. I reach for the black net, curl my fingers around its tempting warmth. Peace floods me. Power energizes me. I scent blood and sweat and sex. I want these things, all of them. The black net promises them, if I let go.
It begins to curl around me like a grandmother’s shawl. So sweet, so loving. Embracing me like a lover.
Not my lover. He won’t want me in the dark, no matter how warm and powerful I am. He just won’t. He’d rather die than live here in the warm dark with me. I don’t want to be here without him.
&nb
sp; The shawl closes, cocooning me. I draw in deep, looking for strength. Encouragement. Anything to break this cocoon. Break out of the darkness I’ve let myself slip into.
Look at her hair.
No.
Face facts, Wyatt, she’s gone!
I’m not, I’m here! Get me out of here, please! Too many smells. Too much fear. It hurts.
The dark shawl shudders. It doesn’t like the fear. It destroys fear, covers it, buries it. I fall deeper into myself, looking for fear. Memories. Anything to wrench this from my body.
Down, down into the past. An erect goblin male sinks onto the mattress on which I lie, waiting to die. Wyatt falls in the midst of battle, bleeding to death for half an hour. Living with so much loneliness and rage that I’d rather slit my own wrist than bear another day. Becoming one of the monsters I hate so much.
The black cocoon shudders, trembles, weakens.
Keep him back, dammit!
No, Gina! Stop! Please!
They’re hurting you, Wyatt. Why?
I see it—living without him, the rest of my days alone.
NO! My shout is like a sonic boom. The cocoon shatters. Warmth drops away in shrieking pieces, smoking out of existence as they fall. I race toward the light, toward the chilling cold and pain and throbbing. Toward a body on fire with fever, wracked with chills, wrapped so tightly in sheets and blankets it can barely wiggle. Hands that can’t protect. Legs that can’t kick.
My mouth. I can work my mouth. Through the ache and scorching dryness in my throat, I force words. Stop, please.
Gina, listen to her!
Hands on my face, not his. Someone else’s. Forcing my eyelids open. The light blinds me. I hold still. Let them look. Just don’t kill me. My eyes are released. I close them gladly. Words become a rumble of noise. It hurts too much to listen. Everything fades away.
I fall into the good kind of darkness, and let sleep come.
Awareness stole in on tiny feet, adding increments of consciousness to the cold blanket of blackness I was stuck in. Not a deep, dreamless sleep, but also not restless. Stuck somewhere between awake and asleep, where the sharp odors of blood and desire lingered on the edges of thought. As awareness overtook unconsciousness, I was more alert to my body.