by Kelly Meding
Behind me, the air moved. I couldn’t duck in time. Color and lights exploded behind my eyes, then my face scraped concrete. None of my limbs wanted to respond. Stupid. So fucking stupid. Something dug into my ribs and rolled me onto my back. I blinked up at a tan blur, outlined by the night sky.
“I’d say it’s nice to see you,” an unfamiliar male voice said, “but you’re supposed to be dead.”
“Didn’t take,” I mumbled, unsure if I even managed coherent words.
He chuckled. My vision cleared as the severe ache dulled to a low roar, and a face Phin had described well came into focus. Brown hair and eyes, hollow cheekbones, stretched skin. Handsome if he’d gain a few pounds and smile. Leonard Call in the flesh. And hanging from a chain around his neck was an orange crystal the length and width of a finger. A crystal I’d seen before, several days ago in an underground jail, its infused magic cutting us off from the Break.
Call reached into the front of his knee-length black linen coat and produced a sleek silver pistol. “Upsy-daisy,” he said, and pointed the muzzle at my head.
I rolled onto my side, weighing my options and trying not to vomit on his shoes. My head felt swimmy, and I took small comfort in knowing it would go away soon. More than my temporary concussion, I was worried about the extreme disadvantage at which that crystal placed us. Was it the same crystal from the jail? Had Jock Guy given it to him? Call had to be the employer the Halfie had sneered about before blowing himself up. But had they started working together before or after I was snatched and jailed five days ago?
I couldn’t seem to focus enough to put the pieces together.
He stepped back, giving me space to stand and staying well out of striking distance. Smart bastard. It took serious effort to not wince when I finally made it upright; I did manage to give him a withering glare. He was a good half foot taller than me, almost Jesse’s height, and so wiry I couldn’t imagine how he’d been in hand-to-hand combat. Swimmer’s build, indeed.
The greenhouse door swung up, and Eleri stepped out. She froze when she saw me, expression blank. I wondered briefly if Isleen had managed to tell Eleri I was an ally—and not dead. Staying in character, she allowed her blank stare to melt into incredulity, which she then turned on Call.
“Seems I’m serving as my own protection detail,” Call said, ushering me forward. Eleri bared her fangs, stayed silent.
I moved toward the door, a little unbalanced by the loss of my tap to the Break, like a cat who’d lost half her whiskers. Eleri stepped back in, and I entered the stuffy greenhouse, assaulted by the ripe odors of damp earth and rotting wood. I felt as though I were being led to the guillotine, and any chance for clemency died with the locking of the greenhouse door behind Call. I stepped around a haphazard pile of broken tables and scrap wood that blocked the door and into the larger open area.
The remaining trio was a good fifteen feet away. Instead of focusing on Wyatt and Phin—whose expressions and reactions I could guess ranged from surprise to annoyance—I looked Snow in the eye. The Therian gaped at me. A slow flush crept into his neck and cheeks. I grinned.
Snow snarled and swung his fist. He belted Phin in the nose, and I heard the stomach-churning sound of cartilage snapping. Phin flew sideways into Wyatt, who kept both of them from pitching to the ground.
“You deceiving son of a bitch,” Snow said.
Blood dripping from between the hands that clenched his nose, Phin seemed to smile at Snow’s ire. “As I said, she has a talented mouth.” His voice was muffled, like a man with a cold. “Couldn’t let that talent go to waste.”
Wyatt scowled without comment and helped Phin right himself. Snow tensed, seeming ready to hit him again.
“Settle down,” Call said. Footsteps shuffled, and it occurred to me he’d remained hidden behind the scrap pile until now. “The time for recriminations will be here soon enough. First, let’s let old friends become reacquainted.”
Wyatt had paled beyond anything I’d seen before, his skin nearly translucent. He stared just past me to my right, at Call, so tense I thought he’d pop a spring like a cartoon windup toy. Didn’t move. Barely seemed to breathe. I wanted to run over there and shake him.
“I see you remember me,” Call said, a hint of amusement in his voice. I tightened my fist, aching to take a swing at him. “Come on, Wyatt, after four years, all you can do is stand there like a mummy?”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Cole,” Wyatt ground out.
“And the mummy speaks!” Call whooped like a delighted child. The sound sent a chill wiggling down my spine.
I shifted my stance enough to put Eleri at my back and Call just in the periphery of my right side. I hated having him behind me. Wyatt finally met my eyes; I made what I hoped was an “Oops” face. We were in the middle of an odd standoff, with Call/Cole directing the show.
“Aren’t you going to ask how long I’ve been back in the city?” Cole said. He circled closer to me, the muzzle of his pistol still pointed at my ribs. “Don’t you want to know what I’ve been up to? How I adapted to life in a strange city, with no memory of who I was or where I’d come from?”
“Not interested,” Wyatt replied coldly.
Cole snickered, then turned to me. “How about you, young lady? You’ve proved very hard to kill recently, you know that? I respect it, though. The Hunter’s instinct to fight and survive. We have something very much in common.”
My eyes narrowed. “I didn’t turn my back on the Triads to join forces with a bunch of fucking Dregs, asshole.”
“The brass turned on me first, but then again, I think that’s something with which you have firsthand experience, isn’t it, Evangeline?” The way he said my name made me shiver, as though he knew me. Knew every detail of my personal life, everything I’d been through in the last two weeks. Maybe he did, but that sure as hell didn’t mean he knew me, or that we were anything alike.
“Wyatt spared you,” I shot back.
“You think so?” he asked, as though we were discussing the use of cinnamon in a recipe in place of ginger. Banal conversation instead of life-and-death matters. “How would you feel if, right this moment, I shot Wyatt in the head and then put a spell on you to obliterate all your memories, sent you a hundred miles away, and left you there to forge a new life on your own? Would you feel spared if you woke up three years later and, for absolutely no reason any magic user you contact can explain, remembered your missing past? Is that being spared? Or would you feel violated? Raped of your entire existence, because I ordered it so?”
My temper reached a boiling point, overpowering any lingering ache in my head. “You have no fucking idea of the life I lost, or how I’d feel if I could put my hands around the necks of the assholes responsible. I’m still out here trying to protect this city, because that’s who I am.”
“You don’t think that’s what I’m doing?” Cole asked.
“By raising an army to squash the Triads? Hell no.”
“Even if the Triads need, as you say, squashing?”
“What gives you the right to do it?”
He smiled, and I was starting to hate how it made his face so innocent. “Interesting answer, Evangeline.”
“Yeah? How so?”
“You didn’t deny the Triads needed squashing, just said I wasn’t the person to do it.”
How the—? “You know who makes changes by imposing their will on others? Dictators.”
“Some dictators see themselves as visionaries.”
“Yeah, but history judges most of them as madmen and murderers.”
Again with his crazy smiling. “I can see why Wyatt cares about you. I imagine you drove him crazy as a Hunter. You seem the type to question things.”
I snorted. “Yeah, and I’m also the type to beat an uncooperative suspect to a pulp and laugh while doing so.”
“I hate to break up this little colleague interaction session,” Eleri said, “but time is of the essence.”
Cole pushed back the s
leeve of his coat and checked his wristwatch. “Curtain goes up in twenty minutes. Thank you for reminding me, Eleri.”
Was that code? Or did he mean it was twenty minutes to seven? Either way, things had to progress faster than they were so far.
“I’m here, Cole,” Wyatt said. He took a step forward. Snow put a hand on his chest to keep him back. “What do you want?”
“Me? Not a thing, really. When I first came home, I wanted to cut your heart out with a butter knife. I watched you for a long time, making all manner of plans and contacting the right people. Then I heard about your affair with Resurrection Girl here, breaking your own fraternization rules by falling in love with your Hunter, and I decided death was too easy.”
Alarm bells clanged in my head. Through the disorientation of losing the Break and having my brain rattled by Cole, random dots finally began connecting. The orange blocking crystal. All the things he knew about us. The person helping Tovin run the mad scientist lab and control the goblin/Halfie forces. The timing of everything this past week. Jock Halfie’s admission that someone besides Tovin had employed him and his pals.
Son of a fucking bitch!
“I think someone’s put the puzzle together,” Cole said. I thought he was looking at me, but all I could do was gape at Wyatt. Wyatt just stared back, not understanding what must have been the strangest expression he’d ever seen on my face. “Go ahead and tell him, Evangeline. You know you want to tell him.”
I did. Instead, I rounded on Cole, my hatred growing. Understanding and sympathy for him had just died a quick death, and I let my disgust and rage boil over. Only the pistol, pressed to the center of my forehead, stopped me from jumping Cole. The cold metal held me there but did little to quell my fury.
“What the fuck did Tovin offer you, Cole? What did he promise you to sell out your own kind?”
Behind me, Wyatt made a strangled sound, but I had eyes only for Cole.
“Protection for Rain’s people,” Cole replied, “and for all the Therians. That when Tovin brought the Tainted over and began his rule, they would be promised independence in exchange for noninterference.” His brown eyes simmered with anger. “It seemed the very least we could ask for after the destruction of Phineas’s Clan.”
He wanted to protect the Therians because he had loved one. I understood the rationalization; however, I’d never be able to excuse his methods. Helping Tovin made him a party to the deaths of my partners, of Rufus’s Hunters, of the six who’d died at Olsmill. It made him a party to my own murder. “So you save the Therians, and humans get what? Served up as the main course for a bunch of demons while the goblins and Halfies sit around and snack?”
“I was so angry I didn’t much care what happened to humanity. All I knew was that the Therians were protected, and Snow and I would have our revenge on Wyatt for what he took from us.”
“Us?” Wyatt asked.
I backed off, sure the gun had left a little circular dent in my forehead, and looked over my shoulder. Snow leered at Wyatt, as if sizing him up for a fire spit.
“Rain was my sister, you son of a bitch,” Snow said. “She was a gentle spirit who never had a cross word to say about anyone. She didn’t deserve what you did to her.”
“No, she didn’t,” Wyatt said. “I had a choice to make that night, and if I had to make it again, I’d do the same thing.”
“Choose a human over a so-called Dreg?”
Wyatt bristled. “No, I’d choose a friend over a stranger.”
The answer did nothing to placate Snow. In fact, it seemed to do the opposite. He wasn’t a large man, but his lineage hinted at the ferocity lurking beneath his sandy hair and fair skin.
“So now that Tovin’s dead and the Tainted aren’t coming?” I asked. “What’s the grand plan? Challenge the Triads without backup and hope you win?”
“Hardly,” Cole said. “Snow is far more suspicious than I am, especially of humans. After your supposed murder at Phineas’s hands, Snow had the foresight to take a picture of you before he tossed you in that Dumpster.”
Damn. If Snow had been that close to me without realizing I wasn’t actually dead, I’d been injured far worse than I first thought.
“After Snow showed me the photo, I recognized you, and I realized Phineas couldn’t be trusted. He was too smart to be fooled by you, so you had to be working together. Although his murdering you was an unexpected twist at the time, and your appearance here even more so.”
“I hate being predictable.”
The bastard actually smiled. “I could no longer rely on Phineas’s intel and realized we had no hope of a successful surprise attack large or coordinated enough to fully destroy the strength of the Triads. You never congregate en masse in one place. I’ve had time to reassess my priorities in these matters.”
“And?”
Cole circled me widely, taking an odd point position halfway between me and Wyatt. The gun stayed on me—smart man—while he addressed Wyatt. “I’ve seen firsthand how far you’re willing to go for something in which you truly believe,” he said. “And for someone you love. I no longer wish to kill you.”
I wanted to celebrate those words; instinct kept me quiet. As did his tone, which clearly said someone else still wanted Wyatt dead. Someone else standing an arm’s reach away, with bloodlust in his eyes.
“Unfortunately for you,” Snow said, “I still do, so my friend has been kind enough to grant me the kill.”
“Over my dead body,” I snapped.
“I’m sure we can work your dead body into the arrangement as well.”
I spread my arms out at my sides, an open invitation. “Go for it, fox boy.”
Snow started for me but was stayed by Cole’s terse “Stop!” He glared at Snow. “Our bargain was for Wyatt. Besides, I think Evangeline will be more entertained by the goings-on at Parker’s Palace.”
Ding-ding! “Parker’s Palace”—the magic words. He had said the curtain would go up in twenty minutes, and the clock hadn’t stopped ticking. I was running out of time. “You’re going to attack the fund-raiser,” I said.
Cole nodded grimly. “It seems a fair trade in lives, don’t you think? Ours for theirs? We balance the scales tonight, and it keeps such a thing from happening again.”
“Or humans retaliate, and this time it’s a thousand lives lost.”
“That’s the risk we take, Evangeline, when it’s an eye for an eye.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Yes, it does.” And he believed it. He was convinced of this course of action, and no amount of arguing would change his mind. Still, the Triads knew what was happening and hopefully would act fast enough to prevent any significant loss of lives. Hopefully.
“Cole,” Snow said, “I want to enjoy this and then still be there to watch the performance. Can we get on with it?”
My stomach clenched. “No fucking way.”
Snow laughed—a genuinely scary sound. “He’ll get a sporting chance, sweetheart. Killing him is no fun if he doesn’t try to fight back.”
Wyatt was two days out of back surgery. In peak condition, I wouldn’t worry as much, but now? No way would he last more than a minute in a physical fight with Snow. “Killing him won’t be much fun, since he’s in no condition to fight back,” I said. “Fight me.”
“Evy!” Wyatt said.
“Fight me,” I said again, ignoring him. “You kill me, you still get to kill Wyatt.”
Snow looked ready to deny my request, then faltered. And seemed to consider it.
“Just think of the mental anguish,” I continued, “if he has to watch me die again.” He was still hesitating. “Don’t think you can take me? Or don’t you hit girls?”
“I have no quarrel with you,” Snow said.
It wasn’t working. I fisted my hands to stop them from trembling. I would not lose Wyatt this way, not when we’d worked so hard. We were trying our best to battle our past demons and create a future. It wasn’t all for nothing.
Phin slid around so he was on Wyatt’s right side and then punched him in the side of the head. Wyatt’s eyes rolled up and he dropped like a stone, unconscious. He’d be pissed when he woke up. Snow, for his part, was pissed right now. He snarled at me, the sound an open challenge.
“Guess your quarrel is with me after all,” I said.
“Well played,” Cole said. “Eleri, let’s leave them to it. Bring Phineas along for this. We have front-row seats, and we shouldn’t be late.”
Phin met my eyes again as he passed. With the concern, I thought I spotted a little bit of admiration. Could have been wrong, though. I winked, giving him the appearance of more confidence than I felt. Cole deposited his orange crystal on a table close to the door, then the three of them left the greenhouse, and I was alone with Snow. At first, we just stared.
“I can’t decide,” Snow said after a protracted silence, “if you’re brave or just plain stupid.”
I snorted. “I can’t decide if you’ve never heard of a toothbrush or you just like yellow teeth. I mean, really?”
He snarled, flashing his nonpearly yellows. “Stupid, then. You know what that bastard has done, and yet you still protect him?”
“You betcha.”
“Why?”
“Because it amuses me.”
“Why?”
The little shit was persistent. I had a thousand reasons for protecting Wyatt. A thousand reasons why I’d volunteered to fight Snow in his place, and few of them had to do with my own scrapping skills. I couldn’t stand by while someone else hurt Wyatt—not when I could stop it. Maybe I was pissed for what he’d done to Cole and confused by my own tumultuous emotions surrounding Wyatt’s past and my own recent traumas, but I knew one thing for sure. One fact above all else.