Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

Like an Olympic javelin thrower, I raced toward my target. The bar pierced its skin with a squelching pop, driving down through fat, muscle, and other tissue, all the way to my hands. Spawn shrieked, glass-shatteringly high, and didn’t stop. It also didn’t whip around to try to swat me. Just huddled there over its dinner, squealing to burst my eardrums. Purple blood bubbled up from the wound. I got a higher grip and thrust deeper, until the bar popped out Spawn’s front and hit the floor.

I yanked down on the bar and twisted it sideways—anything to kill Spawn faster and shut it up. It didn’t like that. I crashed into a bench, and stars exploded behind my eyes. Then I felt throbbing in my ribs from the offensive blow. Damn and hell, that hurt. But at least the shrieking stopped. I sat up and shook off a wave of dizziness.

Spawn was slumped over the remains of its victim, purple blood swirling with human red. Vampires had purple blood, but there wasn’t anything vampire-like about that thing. Odd.

Yeah, like anything about today’s been normal .

I plucked another bar off the rack and retreated to the hall. Greg was on his feet, sweating heavily, shirt and pant leg soaked with blood.

“Remind me never to piss you off,” he said.

“I get that a lot,” I said. “Come on.”

We searched the rest of the rooms on the corridor and found nothing. No hounds, no hybrids, and no other Hunters. No more screams alerted us to trouble indoors. We backtracked to the exit and burst into the morning sunlight. Humid summer heat pressed down like a damp blanket, instantly stifling, even out here in the mountains. We were behind the gymnasium, facing the single-story dormitory and, beyond it, the Pit.

Windows in the dorm were smashed out. Half a body lay on the ground nearby, a second mangled body not far from the first. A hound’s corpse, riddled with bullet holes, was halfway between us and the dorm. The bodies of two hybrids decorated the yard in other places. A spattering of gunfire erupted behind the dorm. Another on the other side of the gym. Were we winning? Losing? Who else was alive?

Greg’s cell beeped. He retrieved it with a shaky hand. Scanned the message. “Out front,” he said. “Near Admin.”

Halfway around the perimeter of the gym, Greg faltered. While my ankle was better and starting the familiar itch-ache, he’d lost a lot of blood. I looped an arm around his waist and used my last real burst of adrenaline to keep us going. I was panting when we got back to the gym’s entrance, well within sight of the smoking R&D building.

Two more Jeeps and a sedan had arrived and ejected the last of our forces. Their forces. Whatever. With two teams still in the city, every available body was now on site. Four people stood around a laptop, talking heatedly, practically shouting at one another. Kismet was easy to identify by her build and red hair. Baylor turned his head to say something to Kismet. The third man had to be another Handler, who offered what seemed to be a scathing reply to the man holding the laptop. That man wore black cargo pants with stuffed pockets, a black shirt of some sort, and a pair of twin shoulder holsters. He practically screamed black ops, but that was ridiculous.

I stared at the back of that man’s head, and as if sensing me, he turned to look. My mouth fell open. Phineas nearly dropped the laptop, his bright blue eyes going wide. I wanted to be happy to see him alive and well—since he’d been so close to death the last time—but extreme fatigue was short-circuiting my brain.

Phin was here. Did that mean Wyatt was here? No one had seen either of them in four days. How had they heard about this? I wanted to haul Phin into a bear hug, then throttle him for disappearing in the first place.

Duty first—even if I was technically a civilian. I gave my rod to Greg for a crutch and jogged over to the huddled group. “Two hounds, two hybrids,” I reported, staring at Phin the entire time—he seemed pale but otherwise himself. “And at least six dead trainees.”

Phin typed the information into his laptop. “That means one hound and three hybrids still unaccounted for,” he said.

Joy. “Is he here?” I asked.

He nodded and my heart soared. But before he could answer in detail, Kismet’s phone chirped as a text came through. She glanced at the display. “Another hybrid down.” Her lips quirked, not quite a smile. “Tybalt’s kill.”

Tybalt was here, too?

“One hound and two hybrids against the lot of us,” Baylor said. “Not good odds for them.”

“No, but that damned wolf at the gate got away,” Kismet said. “And this is a large complex. It won’t be easy tracking them in the woods.”

Somehow it didn’t surprise me the wolf had escaped. “These things were bred to kill and destroy,” I said, finding it difficult to concentrate on tactics right then. Focus now, dammit, meltdown later. “They won’t hide for long, if they’re hiding at all. Do you know where they’re still looking?”

“West of the dorms, near the Pit.”

“Thanks.” Oh yeah. “Bastian’s hurt pretty bad. He’s on the lower track around the obstacle course.”

“We’ll get someone to him,” Kismet said. There was a question in her tone, but I was too wrung out to bother saying I wasn’t the one who hurt him.

I turned to go. Phin snagged my wrist and tugged me back. So many thoughts and emotions danced in his eyes, unfiltered and genuine, and I nearly stumbled under the weight of them. Above all was gratitude, and he didn’t have to say it. I smiled.

“Glad you’re okay,” I said, and kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t think I’m not yelling at you later for getting kidnapped and then disappearing on everyone, though.”

He grinned and released my wrist. “Take one of my guns.”

I pulled a pistol out of one shoulder holster. He’d been up to something, and I was damned sure going to find out what—as soon as our last three problems were eating dirt. Weapon in hand, I jogged back in the direction from which I’d come.

Claudia limped past me, her right leg bleeding fiercely. “Pit,” she shouted.

On the edges of the forest east and south of the main buildings, four Hunters I didn’t recognize patrolled the tree line. Two people in black gear identical to Phin’s poked around the exterior of the dorms. Milo and Scott were scouting the opposite tree line. A third Hunter emerged and gave a thumbs-up. Scott immediately texted a message on his cell. Another one bites the dust?

The Pit wasn’t a pit, exactly. It was more like an old, Roman-style amphitheater, with a center platform down low and bleacher-style seating on three sides. It descended twelve rows that were never full. The platform was a dirt floor twenty feet squared, stained black from years of fights to the death. It was also empty save for the shriveling remains of a hybrid-vampire-thing.

Someone shouted a warning too late. Weight slammed into my back, and I tumbled ass over teakettle into the Pit, shoulders and elbows and knees cracking painfully off the metal bleachers. I twisted far enough onto my side to stop forward momentum and lay on my back, stunned and panting. A shadow loomed and I rolled sideways, just fast enough to avoid being smashed by the gray wolf.

I came up on my knees, halfway to the bottom of the Pit. I’d lost my gun on the way down, so I palmed a knife from the sheath at my hip as I pivoted to face … a naked teenage boy. Thackery’s blond-haired, silver-eyed assistant. Something in my stunned expression must have amused him, because he laughed.

“I thought you’d cut and run at the gate,” I said, sizing him up. He was skinny, but I didn’t forget the way he’d manhandled me in that parking structure. “Run like a coward back to your master.”