Kelly Meding - Wrong Side of Dead

Shitfuckhell .

“The Lupa.”

“Yes. Always have a contingency plan.”

“Let me guess,” Astrid said. “You in exchange for them?”

“Not quite. Myself in exchange for the child.”

“And her mother?”

He pressed his lips together, thoughtful. “I believe the mother’s life is a fair trade for all of the Halflings you slaughtered today.”

Phin’s knife hand jerked. Even through the camera’s lens, his control was obviously slipping. My own hands were fisted in my lap, fingers numb, my entire body vibrating with hate for the man in that room.

“Those Halflings, as you call them, were dead the moment you allowed them to be infected,” Baylor said.

Thackery clucked his tongue. “You forget your old Hunter friend. They were not like the half-Bloods who roam the streets and mindlessly infect and kill. My Halflings were controlled. I found a way.”

How do you control the bloodlust, Felix? What’s Thackery giving you?

“You call emotional blackmail control?” Baylor asked.

“Felix was a special case. He had unique insight that I found valuable. As for the rest, if they didn’t wish to earn the right to their stability by joining us … well, they were dealt with.”

“They were executed.”

“I couldn’t allow them free to mindlessly infect others. I need them to stay close, controlled, until I can cure them.”

Goddamn, the nutjob still thought he could cure the vampire parasite. Thackery had moved beyond obsession to absolute fanaticism—a perfect belief in his own superior intelligence.

“And you offered this nonexistent cure to Felix, just in case blackmail wasn’t enough,” Baylor said.

“Of course. He hated what he was. The dream of one day being free and returning to his loved ones was the perfect incentive.”

Next to me, Tybalt let out an impressive string of expletives.

“I gave all of them a purpose,” Thackery said. “A mission. Direction, which are things our young people sorely lack.”

“You really think you’re the hero here?” Baylor asked. “You changed their basic nature without their consent. Making someone sick and then offering them treatment doesn’t negate the original crime. It only proves intent and ill will.”

“Call it what you like,” Thackery replied. “But the vampires you’re so eager to help started this plague. I did what I had to do in order to further a cure for our people and to put an end to theirs. My Halflings proved that there can be life after infection. They don’t all have to die because of what those vampires have done to us.”

“The vampires you infected today did not kill your wife and son.”

Thackery flinched and, for a moment, he looked sad. Wore the appearance of the broken man he was inside. Then he blinked hard and the weakness was gone. “Have you ever lost someone you care about to the parasite?” he asked.

Baylor nodded. “Two Hunters. I put them down myself.”

Ouch .

“And the half-Bloods who infected them?”

“Killed one on the spot. One got away.”

“Do you ever think of the one that got away?”

“I like to think that some other Triad hunted him one night and killed his ass dead.”

“But you don’t know.”

“It’s the past, Thackery. I don’t live there. My life’s in the present.”

That irritating, thoughtful face came back out. “You think I’m living in the past, then,” Thackery said.

“Hell yes.”

“You may well be right, but my actions today are to preserve the future for our kind. There is nothing, save the ruling hand of a few, to prevent the Dregs you used to hunt from taking this world from us. One bite from a vampire, and it’s over. And the shape-shifters? An army of animals capable of higher thought?”

Baylor snorted loudly and threw his arms wide. “And what the hell do you think we’re doing here, jackass? We’re working together for all of our peoples, so we don’t have to fight or fear one another.”

Astrid touched his elbow, and he backed up a few steps. I hadn’t even noticed how close Baylor had gotten. He was as angry as the rest of us, with more direct ability to take his frustration out on Thackery. And as much as I wanted ten minutes alone in a room with the bastard, we needed him to keep talking.

“You’re a fool, Thackery,” Astrid said. “You profess to protect the longevity of the human race, and yet you are a puppet to those who seek your destruction. You’re just too blinded by grief and vengeance to see it.”

He frowned, seeming genuinely offended by that. “And whose puppet am I, pray tell?”

Don’t tell him, don’t tell him, don’t tell—

“What’s this cure you supposedly discovered for your Halflings?” she asked, switching topics perfectly.

“Good,” I whispered. No sense in showing Thackery our last card, either. If he didn’t realize the breadth of Amalie’s deceptions, we gained nothing by enlightening him.

“Whose puppet am I?” he asked again. The idea distressed him. He liked being in control, the man in charge. Seeing him squirm for a damned change made me all warm inside.

“What’s the cure?”

“Whose puppet?”

“The cure?”

They glared at each other. Phineas stepped forward. He reached into his jeans pocket and withdrew a bundled handkerchief. Shook it out. Little pinkish sausages tumbled to the floor by Thackery’s feet. No, not sausages. Fingers.

“These belonged to your werewolves,” Phin said. “To the two I killed this morning. They chose not to cooperate with questioning. How many of yours would you like added to the collection?”

Thackery gazed at the fingers, and when he looked up, his face was blank. “I’ll tell you nothing else.”

Phin twirled his antique blade as he took a few steps closer to Thackery. “Do you believe I’m bluffing?”

“No.”

“Excellent. You tortured me. You tortured a woman I care about. You kidnapped my family. Cutting off a finger is only a small portion of the pain I wish to heap upon you, Walter Thackery.”

In that moment, I hated my distance from Phineas. I’d seen him enraged, but I had never before seen this quiet menace he exuded in both posture and words. It frightened me. I half expected him to reach out and rip Thackery’s head clean off his neck and laugh while doing so. Phineas had lost his wife. He’d lost his entire Clan except for three members. We’d recovered one. Two were still missing.

He had very little left to lose.

I was up and out of my chair before I made the conscious decision to leave. Tybalt shouted my name, but I ignored him. Ignored the words still being traded on the projector. Dodged past bodies trying to get inside Operations and listen, and finally burst into the corridor.

My entire body was rubbery, used up, not quite up to the task of figuring out which room Thackery was being held in. Thankfully, a small crowd stood outside a storefront about a quarter of the way down the northern corridor, toward the gym. Nevada stepped away from the quartet of—I assumed—guards once he realized my intended destination.

“Stone, you can’t—” he started.

“Are you kidding me?” I said with more oomph to my tone than I felt. I gave him a solid glare. “You can let me in, or I’ll just teleport through the wall anyway.”

The bluff worked. He let me in through a papered-over hinged door. I kind of expected something like in the movies, where the whole room is dark except for a circle of light hanging right over the suspect. Instead, the store was mostly empty, save a few metal clothing racks, and brightly lit. The video camera was mounted on a tripod, which was balanced on a table to give it height.