Kelly Meding - Wrong Side of Dead

I squeezed my eyes shut. It was a horrible déjà vu to what Thackery had done to me—drained me to the point of physical death, let me heal, then took more blood. What the fuck was he doing with Therian blood?

“He’ll be telling us shortly,” Astrid said.

I guess the censor button was still broken.

“The what?”

I ignored her and drifted for a while, letting my bruised and mangled brain repair itself. Didn’t wake again until movement ceased and a hand squeezed my arm.

“Evy?” Tybalt said. “We’re back. Can you walk?”

I wasn’t even sure I could sit up. “Think so.”

By some miracle, I managed to conquer sitting upright. Any other day, I might have been embarrassed into doing it on my own and risk falling on my face. Today I gratefully accepted Tybalt’s help. I leaned on him as we climbed out of the SUV, careful of his arm’s blade attachment, and I may have actually clung a little while we walked out of the parking lot and into the main Watchtower hall.

People were everywhere, chatting in clusters. I spotted Paul and Shelby among them, still bloodstained, but as eager as the rest of us to see this thing finished. The crowd knew we had Thackery. They knew we’d found the missing Therians. Well, most of them.

“Ava?” I whispered.

“Nothing yet,” Tybalt replied.

“Where’s Thackery?”

“Being secured in one of the empty stores, since the jail is still wrecked. They’ll interrogate him soon.”

“Goodie. I want in.”

“You can barely walk.”

“Don’t need to walk to watch.”

“Point taken. You want to change first?”

I took stock. My clothes were damp, but not horribly wet. The chafing I could live with. The front of my shirt was stained with blood—my own and others, I’m sure. I kind of smelled. “No,” I said. If I offended anyone, they could suck it.

Tybalt aimed us toward Operations, which didn’t seem right. “You said he was in a store.”

“Yeah, he is, but you aren’t participating in the interrogation. Astrid’s orders.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. You could have killed yourself teleporting everyone today, Evy. Relax for ten minutes.”

“Aurora and Ava are still missing, Tybalt.”

“I know that. But you can’t help them if you end up in some sort of magic-overload coma.”

Coma. Wyatt. Shit, I should go see him. But I needed answers, too. Needed to find Aurora and Ava, and to make sure they were safe. I was Ava’s godmother, her Aluli , and I had to save her. Period.

Tybalt steered us through Operations and into the War Room. Some of the seats were already occupied. I ignored exact faces in favor of what was being projected onto one of the whiteboards—Walter Thackery, bound to a chair, in the middle of an empty store.

“Oh good,” I said as Tybalt put me into a chair. “Pay-per-view.” Further proving my edit button was broken, I said, “He’s not going to blow up, is he?”

Someone at the table snickered.

“He was checked out thoroughly before we brought him inside,” Tybalt replied. “No detectable explosives or tracing devices.”

“Detectable.” We hadn’t detected anything on Felix. Then again, we hadn’t been smart enough to check properly that time—a mistake I bet no one was eager to repeat. “Awesome.”

“It is what it is.”

“Evy?” Rufus asked. His voice startled me into swiveling my chair around too fast. My ankle slammed into the footrest of his wheelchair and sent a shock up my leg.

I hissed through my teeth.

“You look lousy,” he said.

“Well, good, because I feel pretty damn lousy,” I replied.

My tone slid right past him. “We watched everything from here. I’m amazed you were able to use your Gift so many times in such a short span.”

“Ditto. I think I lost a few million brain cells in the process, though.” We hadn’t really spoken in almost a month. Since the morning Boot Camp was attacked, and Rufus told me he’d been there eleven years ago when Wyatt’s family was slaughtered by vampire bounty hunters. Rufus admitted to being one of those bounty hunters, young, the apprentice of the man who’d decided that innocent victims shouldn’t be allowed to live to repeat what they’d seen.

He still hadn’t told Wyatt. Now he might never get the chance.

“Have you been to see him?” I asked.

Rufus shook his head, hazel gaze casting downward. “No,” he said, lowering his voice. “There’s no point. You can’t confess your sins to a man who can’t hear you.”

“Might make you feel better.”

“I don’t deserve to have my conscience assuaged by a deathbed confession, Evy.”

Before I could give him a verbal smack-down for several different parts of that statement, someone closer to the head of the table said “Showtime” pretty damned loud. A hush fell over the group, which had doubled in size in mere minutes. Someone even dimmed the lights.

On-screen, we had a wide, slightly downward angle of Thackery. Three figures entered the frame, easily identifiable from the backs of their heads: Phin, Astrid, and Baylor. Phin was still streaked in black paint, his majestic wings out, Coni blade in one hand. He flanked Astrid on her left; Baylor was on her right. As an interrogation squad, they were an impressive trio.

Thackery remained stone-faced.

“He won’t talk,” I said. My voice was loud in the hushed room.

“They dosed him with Sodium Pentothal,” Tybalt said.

Truth serum meant little to someone with a strong enough mind, and Thackery had that in spades. I guessed we’d see how it worked itself out.

“Walter Thackery,” Astrid said, her Command voice sharp and furious, “you are wanted by the Assembly of Clan Elders for the kidnapping of seven Therians, as well as the murder of Michael Jenner. You are also wanted for the kidnapping and torture of Phineas el Chimal.

“You are additionally wanted for innumerable crimes against humankind, including the murder of Rhys Willemy, the deaths of thirty-one humans one month ago at the facility known as Boot Camp, and the infection of dozens of humans with the vampire parasite. You are wanted by the vampire Families for the foreign illness plaguing their membership. How do you answer?”

Thackery looked right at her. And yawned.

A few people in the War Room hissed. Someone growled.

“You are very cavalier with your life,” Astrid said.

“No matter what I say to your charges,” Thackery replied, “you will sentence me to death. I prefer to not answer.”

“This is no human court. There is no right to not incriminate yourself, nor is there a right to a speedy trial. You are guilty of these crimes, whether by your own word or by mine. The question you must answer is how quickly you wish to die.”

“I wish to go free.”

Laughter rippled through the room. I didn’t laugh, because I knew Thackery was dead serious. He still had two people very dear to me, and three Lupa were loose in the city. He hadn’t played his last card yet.

“What makes you think that’ll happen?” Baylor asked.

Thackery turned his head, aiming his quiet smile at Phineas. “The child is adorable.”

I started to stand, my only thought to wrap my hands around Thackery’s neck, and was pulled back into my chair. I wasn’t even in the same room with him. My heart pounded in my ears. My face flushed with fury.

Phin’s only sign of emotion was the slight arching of his wings. He had one of the most impressive poker faces I’d ever seen, and it was on in full force right now, even though his emotions had to be churning like a cyclone. “Where are they?” Phin asked, each word a bullet of hate.

Thackery blinked slowly, likely forcing away the effects of the Sodium Pentothal. I’d felt its effects before; it wasn’t easy to fight. “They’re safe. They’re with my boys.”