by Kelly Meding
My sarcasm rolled right off her. “What does he have to do with any of this?” she asked.
I told her about my conversation with Isleen, leaving out the details of my Dumpster rescue. “If you were listening to the whole conversation I had with Wyatt, you know about Park Place,” I said.
“Yes, and we’ve had people watching it all night. Thanks for bothering to share that tidbit, by the way. If you were one of my Hunters—”
“I’m no one’s Hunter anymore. Why does nobody understand that? It killed me once. I don’t want that life anymore, but everything around me keeps sucking me back into it.”
“This isn’t a job you get to quit, Stone,” Tybalt said, coming shoulder to shoulder with his boss. Anger blazed in his cheeks. “We all signed up for life when we went to Boot Camp. Every single day, we work to keep the innocents safe and to honor everyone who died trying to become what we are. You can’t quit and shit on all that.”
“I’m not shitting on anyone.” I vaulted to my feet. The world tilted, and I didn’t have to fake leaning on the wall for support. When I looked up, both Hunters had drawn their respective weapons. Milo’s gun was pointed at my chest. Tybalt had produced his butterfly swords. It looked like a single weapon, the blade about the length of his forearm, until he split them into a pair. Tall as he was and with one sword in each hand, he almost looked scary.
I stood up straight and squared my shoulders and glared at Tybalt, fury rising. “You think I don’t remember the name and face of the trainee I killed to graduate Boot Camp? I honored her every time I went out and killed a Halfie or gutted a goblin, or spilled blood to defend this city, and I think I really fucking honored her and all the others who died when I was raped and tortured to death last week. How about you?”
No one spoke. Tybalt had been there the day they found my dying body in the old train station. He’d seen what the goblins had done to me, and he had the gall to question what I’d sacrificed? Asshole!
Tired, hungry, and sick of not knowing who to trust, I held my ground. I’d done my duty by living and dying a Hunter. So why was everyone else so keen on pretending nothing had changed?
“Tell me something,” I said, directing my question at Kismet. “When you look at me, do you still see Evy Stone? Or do you see someone new, who’s no longer part of your world, and who you perceive as a threat?”
Her cheek muscles twitched, unable to hide her thoughts. I’d struck damn close to home. I wasn’t the Hunter I’d been, irrevocably changed by my death and my habitation of Chalice Frost. I was something very new—a stranger with the memory and training of a seasoned Hunter and with two bizarre powers that gave her a distinct advantage over every other human she used to work with. Kismet couldn’t control me. Baylor, Willemy, Morgan—none of the other Handlers had even tried.
The brass could no longer control me. I was done being their bitch.
Kismet considered my words for several long minutes, her eyes the only part of her that moved. Up and down, across my face, searching. Reaching some sort of conclusion. A conclusion that came with an annoying amount of open pity. “We don’t blame you, Stone,” she said. “The changes aren’t your fault.”
I raised both hands in a “stop” gesture. “Don’t give me the whole ‘You’d have been better off staying dead’ line, because that ship has sailed.”
“No, I wasn’t going to say that.” She reached out her right hand, and, without being told, Milo handed her his gun. She held it loosely, felt its weight. I watched every movement, dread sinking in. Icy fingers clutched my heart and squeezed tight.
I swallowed. “Then what—?”
“You’re a threat, Stone. Without the brass, the system crumbles into chaos. We can’t protect the city if we’re arguing among ourselves. Fighting one another, chasing one another. I’d hoped to talk some sense into you.”
A tremor ripped down my spine. “So you’re going to kill me.”
She winced. “Are you going to give up this obsession with the brass and come back to work?”
“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head. I also tested for the Break and found its power easily. No spark of blue or sense of disruption. Good. “Not until I find out who Leonard Call is. Not until I know the other Clans are safe from whoever’s targeting them.” Something else struck me without warning, and a small cry escaped my lips.
Kismet tilted her head and frowned. “What?”
“You were listening.” Cold fury washed through me. Not at her but at my own damned self. For utterly failing to keep Phin’s most precious secret about the Clans. “You know.”
For a moment, she stared, head shaking lightly. Then understanding dawned. Her lips parted, but the gun never fell. “About the bi-shifters? I know what you told Wyatt, about their special status and abilities. But one coincidence does not a conspiracy make, Stone. You need more proof.”
“I can get proof.”
“Through proper channels, with the help of the Triads, and approval of the brass? Going by our book?”
“If I get the proof I think I will, then the brass will be out of a fucking job.”
“What could they possibly gain by murdering the Clans?”
“I probably could have asked them if you hadn’t smashed that flash drive.”
Another standoff ensued. She didn’t want to kill me; that much was evident in her hesitation. She also didn’t want to believe me. As a Handler, she was duty bound to the Triads and to protecting the city’s innocents. She had to weigh the potential truth in my words with what she believed to be best for everyone. She couldn’t believe me without proof. I couldn’t get the proof for her without breaking every rule of conduct and exposing the heart of the Triads to outside forces.
Even if I was convinced that heart was diseased.
“What’s the move, boss?” Tybalt asked.
Kismet flinched. I had my answer.
“Leonard Call,” I said. “He’s the key to Park Place. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t,” Kismet said, raising the gun.
Holy shit, she’s going to do it. I latched on to the Break, ready to slip into it with a thought. “Tell Wyatt something for me?”
She nodded sadly. “Anything.”
“Tell him I’ll see him soon.”
Confusion twisted her mouth. I focused on the main floor of the factory—what I recalled of it, at least—and let the Break tear me apart. I heard Kismet cry out, and then the roar of the gun. Didn’t feel a gunshot, only the scattered floating of teleportation.
The eye-watering stink of gremlin piss greeted me when I materialized on the factory floor, adding to the ache between my eyes. Evidence of its recently vacated residents littered the floor. Bits of nesting material were scattered around. Fumes wafted from the tops of the open vats, as potent as a bottle of one-hundred-fifty-proof Jack.
Four levels above me, a door opened and voices shouted. I ducked behind one of the vats, with no idea how to get out of there. Teleporting again was dangerous, and my headache wasn’t going away. A maze of broken-down conveyor belts fed into and out of the main room, past the vats to other rusty machines. Any one of those holes was a potential exit.
A loud splash above surprised me. Gremlin piss sloshed over the edge and hit the floor near my feet, toxic in its sweetness. I held my breath, listening. The voices were gone. No footsteps. No whisper of clothing or squeak of footsteps. I wasn’t being chased.
That was … bad.
The image of rats fleeing a burning apartment complex came unbidden. When your quarry goes to ground … Shit.
I ran. Two of the conveyor belts emerged from squares in the far wall, each at least four feet wide. I concentrated on them, on closing the distance of thirty feet as quickly as possible. My heart hammered in my chest, my ears, my throat. I leapt onto the nearest conveyor, scraped both arms on the twisted metal, and dove through to the other side.
Behind me, the vat of alcoholic gremlin piss exploded in fire, odor, heat, with enough force
to shove me forward into something hard. My head cracked against it. Lights sparkled. Heat and pressure swirled all around, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
Couldn’t think.
* * *
I don’t know how long I was unconscious. Probably minutes, because the fire hadn’t spread all the way to my side of the separating wall. The heat surrounded me like a blanket, suffocating and thick. Seared fumes filled the air, mixed with smoke, and made it almost impossible to breathe.
I’d landed on my back. Bent and fractured equipment loomed above me in gloomy darkness, threatening to fall under its own weight. I rolled onto my right side, ribs aching, head throbbing, and searched for another exit. Anything that didn’t require braving the vat room and its spreading fires.
The fumes caught me, and I began to cough. Deep, wrenching coughs that turned my stomach inside out and left my throat raw.
A second explosion followed the first, shaking the ground with its force. Metal screeched and bent. Potential shrapnel loomed everywhere, no place safe. I scuttled forward on my hands and knees as a third blast toppled the wall inward. Scorched metal slammed into me and knocked me sideways.
Searing heat and agony mixed with intense pressure as the dying factory fell down around me. Burying me alive.
Chapter Fifteen
6:25 A.M.
I don’t think I lost consciousness after the final blast. I just floated for a bit, trying to breathe. It didn’t hurt, and it should have. On my back in pitch darkness, I couldn’t move.
With bruised and swollen fingers, I traced the edges of rough stone and smooth metal that started around mid-thigh. The fabric of my jeans was damp—probably blood. I couldn’t see to check. I just hoped the crushing debris hadn’t cut an artery. Severe cuts and broken bones would heal, thanks to my body’s Gift, but not if I bled out first.
Crackling fires continued to burn out of sight, feeding on every ounce of fuel the decimated factory had to offer. The air was humid and thick, like a closed-up basement, and reeked of burned alcohol. It made me want to cough or sneeze or both. But doing so would probably hurt like hell, so I fought against the sting in my nose and tickle in my lungs. My throat was raw, and my head felt like it weighed fifty pounds. I just had to hold on until help arrived.
If help came. The two people most likely to help me were otherwise occupied. Wyatt was likely being babysat on Kismet’s orders, and Phin was busy playing superspy with the bad guys.
I shouldn’t have been so blithe. I should have sucked it up, played along, and pretended to be on the Triads’ side. But no, I was too damned confident in my ability to escape. I hadn’t expected them to come in with a backup plan pulled from a favorite Hunter mantra: what you can’t capture, kill.
I thought I’d get away.
Funny how things never work out the way I plan. Instead of being miles away, I was flat on my back with both legs trapped beneath several hundred pounds of concrete and steel rubble, and several tons more tottering above, waiting to fall and smash the rest of me into pulp.
A tiny flicker of orange grew in the periphery of my vision. I tried to turn my head, to see its source. Somewhere past the twisted ruins of the conveyor room, the fire had found me. It licked its way across the floor, over chunks of cement and steel and debris of all sort. So slowly, like it hadn’t a care in the world.
Not like I was going anywhere.
I tested my toes and thought I felt them move. Needles raced up my left ankle, but went no farther. I couldn’t feel my right leg at all. The floor beneath me was damp and sticky. It reeked of blood and grime and old grease. Every inhalation begged me to cough, to expel the noxious fumes from my damaged lungs. Coughing would bring pain, but it might also bring the rest of the teetering roof down and end it all.
No! I couldn’t let them win. I was right, dammit, I knew I was right. I had to prove it. If I died, I couldn’t prove it. Other innocent Clans could be slaughtered.
“Hello?” I tried it as a shout, but my voice didn’t carry over the roar in the next room.
Staying put would kill me. Teleporting had a good chance of same. I didn’t know where I was relative to the outside. I didn’t know how far, or where things were placed. Had fire trucks responded yet? Were Kismet and her people standing outside watching it burn with me inside? Had she already called Wyatt and told him there’d been a terrible accident?
Bitter fury lit my belly. I had to risk it. I might materialize inside a chain-link fence, but at least I wouldn’t suffocate on the fumes of burning gremlin piss.
I inhaled as deeply as I could manage, then exhaled. In and out, gathering my courage. At some point, the deep breathing mixed with tears and turned to sobs. Sobs of pain and fear and anger. With sobs came a keening sound that pitched into a scream. A desperate plea. An exhalation of despair. Another scream tore from deep down, this one propelled by hate. Hatred for myself—for not being strong enough to do what needed to be done.
Hatred for giving up.
A new sound answered my scream. Shrill and far away, it seemed familiar and completely foreign. I listened, ears straining over the roar and crackle of the fire and the distant groan of metal. It repeated, closer. A bird.
Not just a bird. It was no robin or sparrow crying out for me. It was a bird of prey.
“Phin!” I screamed as loudly as I could, sure it wasn’t loud enough. Not for a figment to hear.
For several long beats, I heard nothing. I’d imagined it, I was sure. Heard what I wanted to hear out of some desperate need to believe in rescue. There was no white knight for me. No one to dash through the blaze and save me.
The bird cried out, its lovely song nearly in my ear. I shrieked under a flurry of wings and feathers, and the most beautiful sight came into focus in the dim orange light. A white head and throat, a slash of black across both eyes and around the head, a sharply hooked black beak. It cocked its head to the side so one perfectly round eye was looking right at me. Not yellow or brown as I expected a bird’s eye to be. No, this majestic hunter had eyes of perfect blue.
“Phin?”
The osprey winked. Shuddered. If even possible, looked sick to its stomach.
I started laughing, positive of my insanity. The fumes were making me loopy, seeing things I wanted to see. No way he’d found me in the middle of this burning rubble. No reason he’d be looking for me in the first place.
“You’re not real,” I wheezed. God, it hurt to breathe.
He cried out. Less than six inches away, the sound pierced my skull like a knife. Okay, not my imagination.
He hopped around, testing the ground with impressively taloned feet. There was a pocket of open space an arm’s length away. He stopped there … and grew. Feathers faded into smooth, tanned skin. Claws receded into feet and toes, wings into arms and hands. In seconds, Phineas crouched in that precarious spot without a stitch of clothing on. He immediately started retching.
“Don’t inhale,” I said unhelpfully. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I have to get you out of here.” Sweat formed a bright sheen over his bare skin.
“I’m stuck.”
“You need to teleport.”
No shit, Sherlock. “Was gonna try that.” Air seized in my lungs, and I coughed until I heaved. Nothing came up. Bile scorched my already damaged throat. Tears streamed down my cheeks, mixing with sweat and pooling in my ears.
“How far can you teleport?”
“Dunno.”
“Three hundred yards?”
I blinked, not understanding. My head was fuzzy. I couldn’t get his words to compute into an actual distance.
“Three football fields?” he tried again.
“Maybe.”
He pursed his thin lips, nostrils flaring, pale even in the stifling heat. “You know the perimeter fence near the entrance? The empty lot across the street?”
“Yeah. Seen it.”
“I have a VW bus parked in that lot. It looks like a relic, no
one will bother it.”
“Can’t. Haven’t seen it.” If I didn’t know where the bus was, exactly, I’d never hit the mark. Would I?
“You don’t have a choice. The back of it is empty, no seats. Can you picture it in your head?”
I tried, drumming up images of those buses from movies and television. Long and narrow, lots of windows. Sometimes curtains blocking the interior from prying eyes. Open space. So far away. “Think so,” I said.
“I need you to try for there, Evy, please. When I shift back, count to ten and then go. I’ll meet you there.”
“What if I miss?” The only time I’d ever teleported so blindly was immediately after Wyatt’s death at Olsmill. I was lucky we hadn’t landed in a tree then. I’d be lucky if I didn’t land in the bus’s engine now.
“Don’t miss.” He smiled. In it, I saw hope and comfort and an iron will. More will than I possessed at the moment, and I was glad. Glad to have someone else nearby who could be strong for me. I didn’t think I could do it, but Phin believed in me. It was enough.
“Okay.”
He wasted no time in morphing back, and then he was gone. I counted to ten, still sure I’d imagined him. No van existed. I’d end up … seven … six … inside of a Dumpster or stuck to the pavement. Didn’t matter. I was sick of coughing and sweating and … four … three … not feeling my legs. At least it would be over.
… two … one.
Ready or not, here I come.
I held my breath and slipped into the Break. Agony tore me to pieces. The horrific sounds of screeching metal pressed into me, around me, on top of me. I moved through the agony, drifting toward the image of the van. Ripped apart as I passed through so much solid steel. And fire.
Intent on a van that didn’t exist.
Blood was in my mouth, my nose, my eyes. The taste of it was on my tongue and the smell of it in my nose, and the blood and agony followed me into oblivion.
Chapter Sixteen
Six Weeks Ago
An awful smell draws me out of a restless, dream-filled sleep. Not rotting-meat awful. More like vinegar-tang awful. God, please don’t let Ash be making that Korean sauerkraut mess. Jesse eats it, but not me. Especially not when I’m five days into a never-ending bout of the flu, haven’t eaten anything thicker than mashed potatoes in four, and am tempted to just chop my own head off at the neck so my mucus can drain out faster.