Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

The growl grew louder, and I swore it was from impatience. I took a deep breath, summoned up my courage, and climbed on like it was a pony ride. My arms tightened around its neck, fingers finding purchase in unexpectedly soft fur, my legs clamped firmly around its hard, muscled waist. It paused only a moment to let me get a grip, then bolted. I pressed my cheek into its neck and held on for the horseback ride from Hell.

The city sped past—alleys and streets and sidewalks, everything mixing together in a blur. Steel muscles rippled beneath me as it moved seemingly without effort. I saw very few cars, fewer people. Oddly, we passed what I guessed was a small group of gremlins conferring in an alley behind a bakery. Gremlins, of all damned things.

The wolf made several more sharp turns, keeping to side streets for a while, and then raced into a condemned public parking garage. It leapt over the white-and-black-painted pole permanently dropped into place across the entrance, and I nearly fell off. Not just from the momentum but also from the sparkle of orange light that flashed through my brain and body as we passed. Protection barrier. Figured.

I barely hung on as the wolf continued its breakneck pace. Up to the center level. Dirt and grime and a few abandoned cars marked our path, as well as something else—fresh tire tracks and footprints.

I tried to drum up a location and could think of only one condemned parking garage in Mercy’s Lot, as far south as you could get on the peninsula without crossing one of the rivers. Based on the length of time we’d been traveling—and the fact that we hadn’t crossed either of the rivers—it had to be where we were. Outside the half-mile limit of the tracking dye.

On the third level, the wolf came to an abrupt stop and crouched. The sudden forward momentum pitched me over its head. I hit the cement on my back, blasting the air from my lungs in a pained whoosh , sending bolts of agony up my backside. I gasped, seeing stars and winking lights in my vision. I felt, more than saw, the wolf circling me. Watching me.

“Ms. Stone?”

I bolted upright, sending more spasms through my lower back, which had tears stinging my eyes. Walter Thackery stood ten feet from me, dressed exactly as before in a long coat and snazzy suit. Behind him was a long black vehicle, and I had to blink several times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. He’d driven up here in a hearse.

The irony of it made me snort.

“Not a terribly polite greeting,” Thackery said. “But that doesn’t surprise me, given your abrupt unseating. I apologize for the mode of transportation. It seemed the most effective method of preventing you from being followed.”

“Forgive me for not bowing to your evil genius,” I said bitterly.

“What you see as evil, I see as the preservation of the human race.”

“At the expense of what?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“Even your friends? We know about Bastian.”

Something akin to annoyance flickered across his face. “Did you kill him?”

I kept my expression neutral—at least, I tried to while I continued getting my breathing under control. He didn’t like my silence. Anger tightened his shoulders and clenched his fists. I ignored it as I stood up, a little wobbly, back shrieking in protest.

“Where’s Phineas?” I asked.

“Did you kill Bastian?”

Part of me wanted to say yes, just to see his face. To cause him a fraction of the pain he’d already caused me. Only I feared his temper if he decided to retaliate. He’d use Phin as a punching bag, not me. “No, I didn’t, and I doubt anyone else will.”

“I believe you. I admit, I’m a little surprised you aren’t trying to use him against me.”

“You wouldn’t trade your science project for his life, so why bother?”

“You’re correct, Ms. Stone. The applications of my research are worth far more than one man’s life.”

“Really? More than the lives of your wife and son?”

A thundercloud stole across his expression. I’d hit a nerve. Good.

Thackery waved me toward the rear of the hearse. I kept a good-sized pocket of air between us. The wolf stayed close to me, canines still bared, probably hungry and ready to chew on my hand with one order from his master. Thackery opened the back of the hearse. I stifled a startled cry at the sight of an actual coffin.

He grabbed a handle and pulled. The coffin glided halfway out on a metal track. With a key I didn’t see him produce, he unsealed the front half of the coffin. Air hissed. I took another step forward, my entire body trembling. God help you, Thackery, if you went back on your word .…

He lifted the lid. I choked.

Phin’s skin was ghastly white, almost gray, against the coffin’s cream lining. He was bare-chested, his eyes shut, an oxygen mask over nose and chapped lips with a tube leading somewhere down and out of sight. His chest rose and fell sporadically, almost impossible to see. It wasn’t those things, though, that made tears sting my eyes.

It was the long, Y-shaped scar running lengthwise from chest to belly, sewn up with neat black stitches. Just like incisions made during autopsies. I stared, cold even as two hot tears streaked down my cheeks, remembering how Phin had screamed over the phone. Had he been conscious while Thackery cut him open?

“I’ve always wanted the chance to study a were’s anatomy.”

My fist connected with Thackery’s jaw with a solid crack. Even as he reeled, the wolf tackled me from behind. It didn’t bite or rend, just held me down, suffocating me with its bulk. I bucked and screamed, unable to dislodge the damned thing. I couldn’t even teleport out from under it with that protection spell blocking my tap. Rage crept over me.

“Let her up!”

The wolf moved, taking its musky smell with it, and after another command from Thackery, retreated to the other side of the hearse. I rolled onto my knees and pulled into a crouch, only to come face to muzzle with Thackery’s gun. This time it didn’t look like a dart gun. He glared down at me over the length of it.

“Make another move like that, Ms. Stone, and I will kill the shape-shifter. Don’t mistake my allowing him to live for kindness.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

A car door opened, then shut seconds later. Someone else from the hearse joined Thackery. It was the blond teenager from the train yards, same loose clothes, head bowed in the same submissive stance as before. Our eyes met briefly, and I flinched at the predatory hate in his—so much hate for someone so young.

Between Thackery and the boy, they lifted the coffin out of the hearse and put it on the concrete, shocking me with their combined strength. Thackery opened the bottom half, confirming my suspicion that Phin was hooked up to an oxygen tank. He’d been left in a pair of gray briefs and nothing else. Thackery removed the oxygen mask, and the pair lifted Phin out and deposited him on the chilly ground in an undignified heap.

I scooted forward and, when Thackery didn’t warn me to stay away, crouched at Phin’s side. His skin was cold and clammy, his breathing shallow. All I wanted was for my friend to open his eyes and look at me, to tell me he’d be okay. He was deeply unconscious, and it was probably for the best. I pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

“Time is wasting, Ms. Stone. Into the coffin, if you don’t mind.”

A startled cry choked me, and I looked up. “Into the coffin?”

“The oxygen will keep you from suffocating until we reach our intended destination.”

Oxygen or not, the idea of being locked into a box for the next however many hours terrified me. Stall, stall, stall . “Why did you send those hounds after us at the cabin?”