Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

“Holy fuck,” I said, showing the photo to Wyatt. “This is Istral. It’s Isleen’s sister.”

“The one Kelsa killed?”

“Yes.” The night old-me was captured by the goblins, I’d gone to see Max, a gargoyle informant, and was blindsided. Max had been arguing with Istral about rising hostilities among the various races. Perhaps to prove she was serious, Kelsa—the goblin Queen who tortured me to death—shot Istral with an anticoagulant round that killed her within seconds. That was a month ago.

So much for Reilly investigating the apartment fire, which had happened over a week later. Four more photos of different Bloods I didn’t recognize followed, the last pictures in the stack. No names, no dates. The backgrounds had no discernible buildings.

“He knew a hell of a lot more than he was letting on,” I said.

I rummaged around in the kitchen until I found a couple of zip ties to secure Reilly. Wyatt’s cell rang. He flipped it open with a terse “Yeah?” A pause. “We have a problem upstairs that needs to be babysat.” He explained briefly, then listened, and I shifted impatiently. “Okay.”

“Kismet?” I asked when he hung up.

“Yeah. She and Milo are on their way up.”

“Nice of her to call first.”

A smile ghosted his face, pinched off by worry. We maneuvered the unconscious Reilly into a dining chair, zipped him, tied him with a length of nylon rope from under the kitchen sink, and gagged him with a stretched T-shirt. Not bad for two minutes’ work. Then we collected the few weapons we’d had on us when we entered.

Wyatt’s phone rang a second time right as the front door opened. He checked the display, then handed it to me and went to shush the new arrivals.

“Stone,” I said.

“It’s Jenner. The money is ready to be transferred. I’ll text the account number to this phone.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jenner.”

“The Assembly will not forget this debt, Ms. Stone.” For a second, I thought he meant the money. Then he said, “You honor your species with your sacrifice, and that will be long remembered.” The vehemence in his words made me want to cry.

“Are your people—?”

“Searching, yes, but the city is vast and he is not likely to be kept in plain sight.”

“Well, with any luck, he’ll be home in a couple of hours.”

“Yes. Good-bye, Evangeline Stone.”

“Yeah.” I closed the phone, and a few seconds later, the account number was saved in the phone’s memory. One hour until we’d need to use it.

Kismet was already poring over Reilly’s photos and notebook. She didn’t try to hide her anger at the surveillance pictures, or the fact that she hadn’t noticed a tail. “Too bad the asshole didn’t follow me up to the cabin. We’d have been saved the problem of dealing with him ourselves.”

I snorted. “He said he was new to the city.”

“He could have been lying.”

“Does it even matter?” Milo asked. “He knows a lot more than is healthy for him, which makes him not our problem. He’s Nevada’s problem now.”

“Nevada?”

“Yeah,” Kismet said without looking up from the notebook. “He’ll be here with his team in twenty minutes to pick up the prisoner and take him to a holding facility for questioning.”

Terrific. Nice to be told pertinent details like that. Only she probably assumed I wasn’t in the need-to-know circle anymore, and she was right. “How’s Felix?” I asked suddenly. How selfish was I that it took me so long?

“Critical, but alive.” This time she looked up, her green eyes cold. “He’s had transfusions, but he also has a raging infection the doctors have never seen before. Tybalt’s staying with him.”

“Anyone want breakfast?” Milo asked as he wandered into the kitchen.

“Whatever you can knock out,” Kismet said. “Coffee, too.”

I stared. She wanted breakfast? The idea of eating anything made my stomach churn in an unpleasant way. Even though it was probably nerves, I wasn’t about to tempt fate. I shook my head at Milo.

“You should eat, Evy,” Wyatt said.

“I’ll have coffee.” It was my compromise. We’d been up all night, hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten much, and had used our Gifts to their limits and beyond. At least the caffeine would keep me conscious for a few more hours. “When’s Baylor coming back with the computer?”

“Around the same time as Nevada,” Kismet replied.

“Okay.” Time was ticking away loudly inside my head. I hadn’t felt it so keenly since the battle at Olsmill, and, while the end results wouldn’t be quite as spectacular as unleashing demons on the world, I was still preparing to sacrifice myself to protect others. Protect the city from the whims of a madman, and all I wanted to do was hide in the other room until the problem went away.

But I just couldn’t live with myself if I did that. It would have been so much easier to fall on my sword when all I had in my life were people I’d willingly die for. Because now I had someone in my life I’d not only die for but I wanted desperately to live for.

The freshly deodorized scent of the bedroom surrounded me. I didn’t close the door, just wandered inside and sat down on the neatly made bed. Smoothed my hand across the damp blanket where I’d made love to Wyatt not a quarter hour ago. The pillows had lost their scent of us, and I longed for it. Just a small whiff as I pressed one pillow to my face. Held it tight to my chest. I shifted until my back rested against the wall and drew my knees up, locking the pillow in my lap.

The clock didn’t stop ticking.

“Coffee’s ready.”

I snapped my head up, unsure when I’d rested my forehead on the pillow and shut my eyes. Kismet stood just inside the bedroom. She’d traded her bloodstained shirt for something that belonged to one of her Hunters, judging by the bagginess on her slim frame. Her stance screamed of repressed frustration and the need to go a couple rounds with a heavy bag.

“Thanks,” I said.

“For what it’s worth, I admire you. I don’t know if I could do what you’re doing.”

I couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d said she was actually a vampire, had sucked everyone dry in the other room, and was about to eat me for dessert. It took several tries to find my voice. “What is it I’m doing?”

“Willingly giving yourself to who knows what fate at Thackery’s hands, even after everything you’ve already been through.”

My lips curled in a sneer. “You mean I’m letting myself be potentially tortured to death twice?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing Thackery could physically cook up will ever come close to what Kelsa did to me.” The only true torture he could possibly inflict was leaving Wyatt behind to wonder, and to hope for my rescue, knowing Wyatt would never rest until he saw proof of my life or death. Knowing that finding my broken, disposed-of body for a second time might destroy him.

“We’ll be tracking you,” she said, stepping into the room and pushing the door to within an inch of being shut. She fished into her jeans pocket and pulled out a small box, the size of a tin of mints. Matte black, with a single red dot on the center of the lid. She didn’t have to tell me what was inside; they’d been explained to us in Boot Camp. “We’ll do everything we can to keep tabs and bring you back, Stone, but you may want this, too.”

I took the tin, unable to keep my fingers from shaking, and tucked it into my rear pocket. As far as backup plans went, swallowing a suicide pill wasn’t my style. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Wyatt would kill me if he knew I gave that to you.”

I snickered at her poor choice of words. “We have them available for a reason, right?”