Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

Entirely coincidence that I’d died at all the first time. The night I was kidnapped by goblins, I’d gone to meet a gargoyle informant named Max, hoping to get any information he might have on why my Triad was set up and my partners killed. Max had always come through for me before; that night, he stepped back and let the goblins take me. If I’d arrived a few minutes later or earlier, or if Max had done something to interfere … No. I couldn’t change it, and I was stuck with this freaky new body.

“Tovin picked me as his target for no other reason than because he knew Wyatt loved me enough to agree to that spell,” I said, completing my spiel.

“No other reason?” His high forehead wrinkled as both eyebrows arched. “Stone, someone loves you enough to trade his freedom—hell, his soul—to give you a chance to live. Most of us would kill—no pun intended—to have someone love us that much.”

I felt a blush coming on and tried to redirect. “Your team loves you. It takes a hell of a friend to hack off your hand rather than let you die a monster.”

“Yeah, I love ’em, too, but I’m not about to go around kissing Milo for saving my life.” He didn’t smile, but I saw the humor in his eyes. It flickered a moment, then died as the fierce hardness returned. “Besides, they’ll have to replace me sooner or later.”

“Why? Kismet said you were trying to get back—”

“Into Boot Camp?” He snorted. “That’s a long shot at best. I have one fucking arm, Stone. They’d put me back in as a trainee, and I’d be dead by the end of the first three months. The shit they put us through, the obstacle course … I’m good, but I can’t manage that anymore.”

The idea of lumping a nearly four-year veteran back in with wet-nosed trainees infuriated me. Not giving him latitude because of an on-the-job disability, basically saying he was no longer worthwhile. I relaxed my hands before my fingernails broke skin. “How about we get through this current crisis?” I said. “Then we chat about alternative career options?”

He frowned. “You starting up your own freelance Triad operation?”

“Not at all, but I’m sure Milo didn’t save your life just so you could be tossed out on your ass. So?”

He nodded. Figuring the conversation had run its course, I started for the door. Halfway there, the oddest thought struck. Something I’d wondered in the past but never had the conversational opportunity to question. “Okay, I have to ask just one more thing.”

“Which is what?” He inclined his head, interested.

“What were your parents thinking when they named you Tybalt?”

Blankness hung on his face for a split second, then he smiled. “I chose it out of a book of Shakespeare when I was eleven. I liked that he was the Prince of Cats.”

“You changed your name when you were eleven?” Why not? I knew nothing about his past. Hell, he knew nothing about mine, either. It was just the way things had always been—Triads were not supposed to fraternize.

“No, I picked my name. I didn’t have one before.”

My lips parted. “What were you raised by? Wolves?”

“Something like that.”

I had every intention of getting more details out of him, but a soft knock preceded the door swinging open. Milo poked his head inside. “Lunchtime, kids.”

Tybalt groaned. “I’m not—”

“Gina said if you don’t get your ass out here and eat something, she’ll tie you up, blend it, and force it down your throat with a turkey baster.”

I tried to hide my laughter under a cough; Tybalt glared at me. The three of us rejoined the others. The dining table held two loaves of bread—one rye, the other wheat—a jar of mayo, lettuce, and several plastic containers of deli meat and cheese. Wyatt and Felix sat at opposite ends of the sofa, already munching on sandwiches.

Kismet handed a plate to Tybalt. On it was a neatly made sandwich, cut into four triangles, each section held together with a toothpick. The motherly way she buzzed around her injured Hunter was nothing like the ballsy, bellowing Handler she played in the field.

“I don’t get a sandwich, too?” Milo asked.

“You’ve got two hands,” Kismet shot back.

Milo looked mortified. Tybalt laughed, elbowed his friend in the ribs, and wandered toward the sofa with his lunch. I reached for the rye bread. Might as well eat something before all this went down.

Five minutes or so before the call was expected, I was in the bathroom, hands braced on either side of the porcelain sink bowl, glaring at myself in the mirror. A wave of nerves had hit, leaving me completely unsettled. I’d walked into unknown situations before, faced unknown enemies alone, and even tackled one particularly nasty hostage situation involving my late partner Ash and three Halfies. I had no reason to be so scared of this phone call.

No, that wasn’t true. Thackery had something that, if released, could be truly devastating to this city. He wanted us to give him two unknown vials of liquid, for his own unknown purposes. In an unknown location, with a very uncertain outcome.

I hated the word “unknown.”

I splashed cool water on my face and patted dry on a frayed towel. Compared to the rest of their apartment, the bathroom was oddly tidy. I guess they had some standards of cleanliness when it came to their throne. Even the mirror lacked water spots or toothpaste spray. I had a clear view of my face. The tension bracketing both brown eyes, lips pursed so tightly they were almost gone. Familiar and foreign—mine and hers. Sometimes I still glanced in a mirror and expected my old face—blond hair cut short and uneven, wide blue eyes, pale skin. Not the dark-haired, curvy, freckled-nose woman I’d been for nearly two weeks.

The door opened and shut. “You okay?” Wyatt asked. He shuffled behind me, and our gazes met in the mirror’s reflection.

“If I say yes, will you believe me?”

“Not while you’re hunched over the sink like you want to vomit.”

“What happens if we don’t get the crystal back?”

“We deal with it.”

“Deal with it?” I rounded in the tiny space, long hair whipping across my face. “I saw that entity in Tovin’s body, Wyatt. I have never been so terrified as when I looked into its face and knew it could snap me in half before I could blink. It was the ugliest, most evil thing I’ve ever seen. We can’t just deal with it.”

Warm palms framed my cheeks. I wrapped my hands around his wrists. His outward calm helped, even though I imagined his insides quaked as hard as mine. No one else had seen the Tainted elf; my description could never do the terror justice. He couldn’t understand.

“We. Will. Deal. With. It.” Each word from him fell like a promise, driven home by the gentle crackle of energy around us. I tried to believe in that promise.

Then the damned cell phone rang, and my stomach clenched. We parted. I fished the phone out of my jeans pocket as I led the way back into the living room. Five expectant faces watched me.

“You’re pretty prompt, aren’t you?” I asked by way of greeting.

“I desire my property,” Thackery replied, on speaker-phone. “Do you have it?”

“What do you think?”

Kismet shot me a glare that telegraphed: Don’t piss off the bad guy. I ignored her.

Thackery said, “I think you’re too smart not to have it, and I would also appreciate simple answers to simple questions. Now, I’m certain you know where the Wharton Street footbridge is, yes?”

Do goblins bleed magenta? “Yes.”

“Be at the center of the footbridge, overlooking the river, in half an hour. Be there alone, and when I say alone, I mean no one within half a mile of your position. I have explosives rigged to the furnace of an office building Uptown that I will not hesitate to detonate if I suspect you’re being watched. Are we clear?”