Kelly Meding - Wrong Side of Dead

All I saw was an empty cell. Two more windows stretched past us. I checked each one; neither was occupied. “Goddammit!” I said.

A metallic bang echoed from the far end of the corridor. I didn’t wait; I just ran. Past other doors that led to unused engines and storage rooms, past newer-looking doors that probably hid whatever horrors Thackery had been conducting down here these last few months. Or maybe years. The lit bulbs thinned out to every third or fourth, and the air took on a slightly danker feel. We were moving out of the used portion of this deck, toward the bow of the ferry, which meant—

“He has a way out,” Phin said, keeping pace behind me.

A lot of snarky retorts— no shit, ya think? —died before they made it past my lips. I wasn’t angry at Phin. I was angry that Aurora and Ava were still missing, and that Thackery had a head start on us. Assuming he was on board in the first place.

The corridor ended at a T junction. To the right was a hatch marked Buoyancy Tank, and to the left another heavy door. Probably a stairwell. I had only a vague idea that a buoyancy tank wouldn’t make a good escape route, but the stairwell should take us back up to the sundeck and navigation. If Thackery was getting off the boat, it was from above.

We thundered up the stairs, once again in pitch dark. Light sprinkled down briefly from two decks above, and an upper door banged shut. The narrow, twisty stairwell made it impossible for Phin to fly straight up, and I didn’t have the concentration to attempt another teleport—not with zero idea of what to expect on the sundeck.

I burst out into bright sunlight, heedless of how stupid a move it was. We faced west, over the river, nearly at the bow of the ferry. Behind us was a slightly elevated platform and the wheel room. The deck was warped with age and covered in piles of dried bird shit.

Movement to the north caught my attention.

Walter Thackery stood on the sundeck of the next ferry, drawing the last corner of a plank of wood over to his side. Tall, lean, and movie-star handsome, he looked a bit like a wannabe spy preparing a hasty getaway. Too bad he wasn’t the hero in this little adventure. A good ten feet of water and a three-story drop separated him from me. But not from Phin.

Phin snarled. Thackery raised his right hand. We both dove to the nasty deck as Thackery fired. The shot pinged off the metal door. I lurched to my knees and returned fire. Thackery ducked and shot back. White fire grazed my shoulder. I didn’t stop, just peppered the deck all around him.

Taking advantage of my distraction, Phin dropped his Coni blade and his pants, shifted into a smaller target, and flew across to the next boat. Hovered. I stopped shooting, having run out of bullets. He shifted in midair as he dropped right down on top of Thackery with a rage-fueled battle cry.

“Stone!”

I didn’t stop to identify the person calling my name. A fourth teleport so soon after the others was going to hurt like hell, but I grabbed the blade and did it anyway. My tether to the Break was wide open, sharp and agonizing. My wounded shoulder shrieked in agony as I fell apart and came back together on the deck of the other ferry. Everything tilted and spun, and I crashed to my knees.

The skin-on-skin sounds of two men wrestling kept me from pitching into a serious faint. I inhaled several deep breaths, and exhaled hard through my mouth. Sometimes the physical price of magic sucked.

“Where are they?” Phin snarled.

I blinked the pair into focus. Thackery was on his stomach, both arms twisted behind his back and up so high that I half expected one to pop out of its socket. Phin straddled Thackery’s waist and held his wrists tight between his shoulder blades, Phin’s own weight keeping the man facedown on a rough bed of sun-baked bird shit. His black-streaked wings stood up high, arched, looking as angry as the rest of the warrior.

“Stone!”

Tybalt’s voice. He and Paul stood on the other ferry, watching us with weapons drawn, clothes speckled with blood.

“They’re on the bottom level, near the engines,” I said.

Paul nodded, then turned and bolted.

“Where are they?” Phin asked again, pulling harder on Thackery’s wrists.

Thackery grunted.

The skin on the back of my neck prickled. The last time I’d been this close to Thackery, I was strapped to a table having my left pinkie hacked off in the name of science. I held out my hand, a sight both familiar and foreign—four digits instead of five, a healed bump instead of a joint. Bastard did that to me.

I inched closer and extended the Coni blade toward Thackery’s face. His eyes latched on and followed the twin blades, nearly crossing as I pressed one sharp tip against his cheekbone. “You owe me a finger,” I said.

Utter fury blinked across his face. “The vampires you protect owe me a wife and son,” he replied.

“One vampire killed your wife, not the entire race. Not the people you infected today.”

“They aren’t human.”

“Neither am I,” Phin said. “But which one of us is a cold-blooded killer?”

“By my own hands, I’ve never murdered a human.”

I pressed the blade until a bead of red formed on the ridge of his cheekbone. “They don’t have to be human for it to be murder.”

“What of the human Rhys Willemy?” Phin asked.

Thackery grunted. “His death was at the hands of my protégé. I merely assisted in carrying out his vision.”

“An accomplice to murder still makes you guilty.”

“In your book.”

“And your supposed friend Bastian Spence?”

Something dark flickered across Thackery’s face. “What of him?”

“You set your hybrids and hounds loose at Boot Camp. He was still on-site. Do you feel no responsibility for his death?”

Clearly that wasn’t the answer Thackery was expecting, and the barest hint of grief peeked through his cold façade. “I told him to leave.”

Thackery was officially insane. Six years spent plotting his revenge against vampires had warped his idea of right and wrong, cause and effect. He didn’t even see the world in terms of black-and-white. It was simply his way and our way—and according to his way, his hands were clean of all the deaths he’d left in his wake, including a man he’d once considered a friend.

“Bastian saved my life,” I said, feeling no pride in it. “I bet that makes you all kinds of happy.”

He glared.

“Just like it probably makes you happy to hear that I stabbed your protégé through the throat not long after,” I said.

Fury flashed in his eyes. Oh, he didn’t like jabs at his precious werewolves? Too fucking bad.

“We killed three more of your precious protégés earlier today, too,” I added. “And let me guess. You didn’t murder Michael Jenner, either?”

“Of course not. Why waste the blood?”

Phin pressed his weight down hard. Thackery groaned.

“What about all the half-Bloods you’ve made?” I asked. “You were an accomplice to their deaths the minute they were infected.”

“The lesser of two evils, child.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means you’re too young and ignorant to truly understand the scope of my vision. But you will see part of it come to fruition.”

Ignorant my ass. “Not if you’re in custody, pal.”

“The wheels are in motion. Capturing me now doesn’t stop what is to come.”

Oh joy .

“The Coni female and her child were not with the others belowdecks,” Phin said. “Where are they?”

“Alive, for now,” he replied.

“Where?”

“Come now, shape-shifter, I never put all my leverage in one place. By the way, you might want to tell your cohorts to begin abandoning ship.”