Kelly Meding - Requiem for the Dead

"If our situation changes, or if we acquire information that is useful to your cause, you will be contacted."

"I appreciate that."

Eulan nodded. "I assume that I do not need to ask for your discretion in regard to this facility."

"You don't," I said for myself and Milo. "And I'll make sure the person who gave us this location knows better than to open his mouth."

"Thank you. Shall I walk you out?"

"No, we're fine."

"Then be well, Ms. Stone. Mr. Gant. It is said that even the darkest chapters of our past may hold the key to the brightness of our futures."

"Said by whom?" Milo asked.

Eulan only smiled and walked away. The cryptic message didn't make me feel any better about anything. One of the darkest parts of my personal past was coming back to haunt me in the form of "Kelsa" scratched into dead people's legs. Vampires weren't known to be psychic, so I didn't read too much into it.

My cell rang on our way back to the car. I fished it out of my pocket. "Stone."

"It's Baylor. I need you to meet me under the Lincoln Street Bridge. Someone left you a note."

The Lincoln Street Bridge extended over the southernmost leg of the Anjean River, right before it fed into the larger Black River that bisected the western side of the city. The pedestrian and vehicular bridge ran parallel to a train bridge, and it was the only way to cross from Mercy's Lot and Downtown into the East Side. Since we were Uptown, on the other side of the city, we had a trek to get to the location.

I didn't have to ask Baylor on which side of the river I needed to go. I knew exactly where to meet him. On the northwest bank, the first exit off the bridge wrapped around to a narrow one-way street that ran along the bank of the river. The road was barely wide enough for a single car to pass, and two other cars were already parked on the thin shoulder near our location. Milo pulled up behind the last car.

"Yes," he said, as though we'd been in the middle of a conversation.

Hand on the door pull, I stared at him blankly for several seconds until I realized he was answering my second question from earlier. He wished he'd kissed Marcus back. I grinned. "Okay."

He gave me a shy smile—so unlike him—then climbed out of the car.

I followed him along the shoulder with the constant thunder of cars passing overhead a head-splitting soundtrack to the afternoon. The ripe odors of the river mixed with motor oil and tar to create a toxic stink that made my eyes water. Wyatt, Marcus, and Adrian Baylor stood on the other side of the chain link fence that protected the underside of the bridge from trespassers like us, and the dozens of graffiti artists who'd already visited. Milo and I slipped through the same hole in the fence.

Once upon a time, I'd come here to talk to a bridge troll named Smedge. He wasn't a friend, exactly, but we were friendly. He gave me information when he had it, on almost anything I asked pertaining to the supernatural races of the city. I hadn't spoken to him in months. The last time I'd come here, someone had poured tar all over the cement to prevent Smedge from rising.

Trolls are made from the very earth themselves, and they can move through any natural dirt or stone material. Things like tar and metal, though, stopped them cold. Trolls were also part of the Fey, who were now our enemies, and even though Smedge couldn't rise through the layer of tar still clinging to the ground, being here again made me nervous.

"You've had a busy morning," Wyatt said as he came to join me.

"No kidding," I replied. "I owe Reilly a black eye for that stunt he pulled with Chalice's parents, but I may forgive him for the tip on the vampires."

"Anything useful?"

"Just that the Bloods are keeping to themselves until they find a cure for those Thackery infected."

"They're still alive?" Baylor asked. Another ex-Triad Handler and long-time friend of both Wyatt and Kismet, Adrian Baylor had an easygoing personality that contrasted sharply with his fierce fighting skills. He was the kind of guy you wanted to have leading you into battle—or helping you figure out random, cryptic messages.

"Kind of. From what we were told, they're in some sort of frozen stasis for the undetermined future."

"That's something."

"Yeah. So where's this message that couldn't be left on my cell phone?"

Baylor pointed at the underside of the bridge. I moved closer, studying the spray-paint splattered concrete that angled up in steep slabs, all the way to the steel bottom of the bridge. In glittering silver paint someone had written "Stony" with an arrow pointing to the right. Curious now, I walked in that direction, until I found a spot on the ground where the tar had been scraped away. Not a large spot, maybe the size of a manhole cover, but it was there. In that same glittering paint "knock three times" was written on the stone.

"Why do I feel like I just fell into the plot of a horror movie?" I said to no one in particular.

My backup had fanned out into a wide circle. Baylor produced his sidearm and held it pointed at the ground, his finger braced on the trigger guard. Milo stood next to Wyatt, whose eyes had gone silver. Opposite them, Marcus's hands hovered near the waist of his jeans, just in case he had to strip and do a fast shift. No one gave me advice.

"Let's see who's home," I said.

Knocking your fist against solid rock hurts like hell. Doing it three times was just plain cruel. I stepped back from the circle, heart kicking a little harder, both excited and scared to see what came out of the ground.

A deep rumbling rose up from below my feet almost immediately. I tensed, but didn't move. The stone inside of the circle fell in on itself, like someone had let the bottom out. It swirled down like water into a drain, the opposite of what I usually saw, which was a big fist or face growing up out of the ground. A rabbit hole of some kind had formed, deep and too dark to see down.

"You are not going in there, are you?" Milo asked.

"Not a chance in hell," I replied. I'd jumped into Smedge's mouth once before and ended up in the middle of the Fey's underground city, and I had no idea where this particular troll's gullet stopped.

Disappointment over not actually seeing Smedge again was quickly brushed away by the appearance of a tiny bald head with tufts of white hair fluffing up from the perimeter. More hair poked out of his pointed ears, framing his whole wrinkled, ancient face like a cotton cloud. Small, sparkling eyes peered at me from beneath bushy white eyebrows, and he leaned forward on a spiraled wood cane. He kept rising up until the he was completely above ground, the earth beneath him solid like it had never moved.

"Horzt," I said, recognizing the old gnome immediately.

He nodded, but did not smile. His sharp eyes took in his audience, and he didn't speak until he seemed satisfied that he was among friends. "Greetings from the Apothi, Evangeline," he said.

"Greetings." I knelt down to get eye-level with him, curiosity beating against the inside of my skull like a hammer. "I never expected to see you again."

"Nor I you, child."

This was the creature I had to thank for even being alive today—the one who'd gifted (or cursed) me with my healing powers. The powers Thackery never believed were magical. So much pain because this little gnome had been tricked by an elf. And so much joy, I realized, with a quick glance at Wyatt.

Wyatt watched us with a wary expression, and I understood. This could easily be a trap from the Fey.

"Sorry to be blunt, but why are you here?" I asked.

"A war is coming," Horzt replied. "The Fey are quiet now, but Amalie is cunning and she is planning. Always planning. You confound her, Evangeline, but not for much longer."