Kelly Meding - Wrong Side of Dead

It was something—way better than the big fat nothing we’d had just a few minutes ago. “Hey,” I said, “any news on Autumn and Sandburg?”

The pause made my heart sink. “Sandburg will be fine. Autumn’s hanging on. Dr. Vansis has done all he can.”

“They’re not infected?”

“By the Lupa? No. Their bite has never been known to affect other Therians.”

I expelled a deep breath, glad for that bit of clarification. “Okay, thanks.”

We arrived at the old factory site a few minutes later. Police tape hung in tattered shreds across the main parking lot. The rubble was mostly gone. Only a blackened steel skeleton remained. Tybalt parked a few yards from the side entrance and idled there. He glanced at me, one eyebrow arched high.

I mirrored his expression, remembering the last time we’d both been at this particular location and the explosion that had decimated the structure.

“Okay,” Paul said from the back, “what did I miss?”

“Nothing,” we said in stereo.

“Wait here,” I added.

The air reeked of char and oil. I navigated an archipelago of water-filled potholes, reasonably sure I wasn’t being watched. Hunters often gain an overdeveloped sense of paranoia, and mine was quiet. Thackery had been one step ahead of us all night long. Maybe luck was on our side this time.

Reasonably sure that the two steel pillars I stood near had once been the side entrance, I turned in a slow circle. The lot was quiet, with no immediate sign of the gremlin that I was here to meet.

So I was mildly startled when it emerged from the other side of a support beam clutching some folded paper in its hand. It crawled on all fours, body slunk low to the ground. Gremlins didn’t much like daylight, and it probably felt exposed coming out like this. I allowed it to approach me.

It dropped the folded paper at my feet, then inched backward until it found a shadow to melt into. I snatched the paper. Unfolded a drawing of a squiggly Y with a couple of dots here and there. No, not a Y … the rivers. Three red dots littered the area that was probably Mercy’s Lot. A single black dot was very, very close to our current position.

I turned the drawing around. “Explain?”

The gremlin pointed a gnarled, clawed finger at the paper. “Red. Many infected. Black. Animal men.”

“Animal men?” What the holy hell did—?

“Prisoners.”

My heart slammed against my chest. “Shape-shifters? Therians? There are Therian prisoners at the black dot?”

It took a moment to process my words. “Yes.”

“Are there infected at the black dot, too?”

“Yes.”

“It’s somewhere along the Black River, right? The docks?”

“Yes. Sit on water.”

Gremlins were completely literal creatures. I dug through my own vocabulary to figure out what it meant. “It floats? The place where the captured Therians are? It floats on the river?”

It blinked at me. I took that as a yes, which likely meant a boat. Some of the still active docks had cargo ships coming and going. A few rusted, abandoned ships were docked here and there, slowly becoming part of the waterfront’s permanent landscape—those were very likely locations to stash dozens of Halfies.

Wind in the walls . Token’s rough, garbled voice repeated the description of the place he’d been imprisoned. I hadn’t consciously thought of the missing goblin/human hybrid in weeks. He’d tried to kill me, then tried to help me, only to disappear with no reported sightings these last two months. If our initial plan had worked as expected, he might have led us to this location ages ago. If only.

“Thank you,” I said. “This is more than worth the price I paid for it.”

It nodded, then turned and slunk away. I gazed at the map, hand trembling slightly. It was the break we needed. My desperation to find the kidnapped Therians before any more were killed threatened to overtake my good sense. I wanted to charge down to the docks, procedure be damned, and start hurting things. And I’d succeed only in getting myself killed. Or kidnapped. Probably the latter, then the former.

Dammit .

I jogged back to the waiting car; Tybalt looked ready to climb out of his skin. As I slid back into the passenger seat, his expression switched from pensive to curious.

“Good news?” he asked.

“Great news.”

By the time Tybalt and I returned to the Watchtower twenty minutes later, two things had happened. Astrid called demanding a noon meeting in the War Room of all available squad leaders. My gremlin information got me an invite, but she didn’t offer any hint of what she’d learned from Zeigler’s lawyer. And I found out that the Assembly of Clan Elders was officially in their emergency session discussing what was to be done about Michael Jenner’s murder.

I handed the map over to Tybalt for delivery to Operations. Smarter people than me could go over the Black River waterfront and decide the best places to start looking for a target. The only thing I could think was to call the place where the Therians were being held, and Thackery’s possible headquarters. My curiosity as to the condition of Isleen and her fellow vampires took far second place to my need to see Wyatt, so I ignored the questions being thrown at me from various sources and beelined for the infirmary.

Dr. Vansis was in Wyatt’s room, making notes on a chart, his body blocking my immediate view. He glanced up, eyebrows arching in surprise. “Ms. Stone,” he said.

“Hi.” I also noted with rising annoyance that we were the only ones in the room. “Where’s Gina?”

“Restroom. She’ll be back shortly.”

I stepped around the bed, really taking in Wyatt’s appearance for the first time. His skin was blotchy with fever—deathly pale in some places, marred by spots of red and pink on his face and chest. He’d been intubated, and the various tubes and wires were awful reminders that Vansis had induced a coma to try to save him. He was so still. Even asleep, Wyatt had always seemed vibrant and alive. Now he looked much like he had three months ago, dead in my arms in the mountains north of the city.

“I’m doing what I can,” Vansis said, “but next to nothing is known about how the Lupa virus interacts with human physiology. No one has seen its effects in centuries.”

Wyatt’s hand was cool in mine. I held it tight between my palms, hoping to warm it just a little. “What do you know about rabies, Dr. Vansis?”

“It’s treatable, if caught early. However, this virus is acting more like rabies that has gone undetected and traveled to the brain. Once it reaches that stage, cranial inflammation begins, and it’s often fatal.”

Vansis turned, as if to leave, then paused in the doorway. “I know it’s little consolation now, Ms. Stone, but the Lupa are alive and well, and anything we learn from Mr. Truman’s illness may help us treat the next human they infect. If we’re lucky, his is the only life we’ll lose to them.”

His is the only life we’ll lose . Pragmatically, it was a nice thing to hear. In reality, the idea of losing him to the Lupa’s bite broke my heart into sharp, frozen pieces. I didn’t want to be pragmatic, or to look at the bigger picture. It was Wyatt, goddammit, and I wanted him alive.

Vansis left, and I perched on the narrow space between Wyatt’s arm and the edge of the bed. “Hey,” I said. “We’ve got good news. We might even have Aurora, Joseph, and Ava home by dinner. I want you there when we bring them home.” Wanted him there so badly that my chest ached with the need.

Or was that with unshed tears?

“I’m an idiot. Did you know that?” I could almost see him nodding at me, agreeing with a teasing smile. “Of course you do, but I’m going to share this little epiphany with you anyway. Most of my life, I thought love was just something people did in movies. That in real life, people hurt each other and left and you just picked up the pieces for the next person who came along to hurt you. I mean, let’s face it. My role models have sucked.