Kelly Meding - As Lie the Dead

A loud splash above surprised me. Gremlin piss sloshed over the edge and hit the floor near my feet, toxic in its sweetness. I held my breath, listening. The voices were gone. No footsteps. No whisper of clothing or squeak of footsteps. I wasn’t being chased.

That was … bad.

The image of rats fleeing a burning apartment complex came unbidden. When your quarry goes to ground … Shit.

I ran. Two of the conveyor belts emerged from squares in the far wall, each at least four feet wide. I concentrated on them, on closing the distance of thirty feet as quickly as possible. My heart hammered in my chest, my ears, my throat. I leapt onto the nearest conveyor, scraped both arms on the twisted metal, and dove through to the other side.

Behind me, the vat of alcoholic gremlin piss exploded in fire, odor, heat, with enough force to shove me forward into something hard. My head cracked against it. Lights sparkled. Heat and pressure swirled all around, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

Couldn’t think.

I don’t know how long I was unconscious. Probably minutes, because the fire hadn’t spread all the way to my side of the separating wall. The heat surrounded me like a blanket, suffocating and thick. Seared fumes filled the air, mixed with smoke, and made it almost impossible to breathe.

I’d landed on my back. Bent and fractured equipment loomed above me in gloomy darkness, threatening to fall under its own weight. I rolled onto my right side, ribs aching, head throbbing, and searched for another exit. Anything that didn’t require braving the vat room and its spreading fires.

The fumes caught me, and I began to cough. Deep, wrenching coughs that turned my stomach inside out and left my throat raw.

A second explosion followed the first, shaking the ground with its force. Metal screeched and bent. Potential shrapnel loomed everywhere, no place safe. I scuttled forward on my hands and knees as a third blast toppled the wall inward. Scorched metal slammed into me and knocked me sideways.

Searing heat and agony mixed with intense pressure as the dying factory fell down around me. Burying me alive.

6:25 A.M.

I don’t think I lost consciousness after the final blast. I just floated for a bit, trying to breathe. It didn’t hurt, and it should have. On my back in pitch darkness, I couldn’t move.

With bruised and swollen fingers, I traced the edges of rough stone and smooth metal that started around mid-thigh. The fabric of my jeans was damp—probably blood. I couldn’t see to check. I just hoped the crushing debris hadn’t cut an artery. Severe cuts and broken bones would heal, thanks to my body’s Gift, but not if I bled out first.

Crackling fires continued to burn out of sight, feeding on every ounce of fuel the decimated factory had to offer. The air was humid and thick, like a closed-up basement, and reeked of burned alcohol. It made me want to cough or sneeze or both. But doing so would probably hurt like hell, so I fought against the sting in my nose and tickle in my lungs. My throat was raw, and my head felt like it weighed fifty pounds. I just had to hold on until help arrived.

If help came. The two people most likely to help me were otherwise occupied. Wyatt was likely being babysat on Kismet’s orders, and Phin was busy playing superspy with the bad guys.

I shouldn’t have been so blithe. I should have sucked it up, played along, and pretended to be on the Triads’ side. But no, I was too damned confident in my ability to escape. I hadn’t expected them to come in with a backup plan pulled from a favorite Hunter mantra: what you can’t capture, kill.

I thought I’d get away.

Funny how things never work out the way I plan. Instead of being miles away, I was flat on my back with both legs trapped beneath several hundred pounds of concrete and steel rubble, and several tons more tottering above, waiting to fall and smash the rest of me into pulp.

A tiny flicker of orange grew in the periphery of my vision. I tried to turn my head, to see its source. Somewhere past the twisted ruins of the conveyor room, the fire had found me. It licked its way across the floor, over chunks of cement and steel and debris of all sort. So slowly, like it hadn’t a care in the world.

Not like I was going anywhere.

I tested my toes and thought I felt them move. Needles raced up my left ankle, but went no farther. I couldn’t feel my right leg at all. The floor beneath me was damp and sticky. It reeked of blood and grime and old grease. Every inhalation begged me to cough, to expel the noxious fumes from my damaged lungs. Coughing would bring pain, but it might also bring the rest of the teetering roof down and end it all.

No! I couldn’t let them win. I was right, dammit, I knew I was right. I had to prove it. If I died, I couldn’t prove it. Other innocent Clans could be slaughtered.

“Hello?” I tried it as a shout, but my voice didn’t carry over the roar in the next room.

Staying put would kill me. Teleporting had a good chance of same. I didn’t know where I was relative to the outside. I didn’t know how far, or where things were placed. Had fire trucks responded yet? Were Kismet and her people standing outside watching it burn with me inside? Had she already called Wyatt and told him there’d been a terrible accident?

Bitter fury lit my belly. I had to risk it. I might materialize inside a chain-link fence, but at least I wouldn’t suffocate on the fumes of burning gremlin piss.

I inhaled as deeply as I could manage, then exhaled. In and out, gathering my courage. At some point, the deep breathing mixed with tears and turned to sobs. Sobs of pain and fear and anger. With sobs came a keening sound that pitched into a scream. A desperate plea. An exhalation of despair. Another scream tore from deep down, this one propelled by hate. Hatred for myself—for not being strong enough to do what needed to be done.

Hatred for giving up.

A new sound answered my scream. Shrill and far away, it seemed familiar and completely foreign. I listened, ears straining over the roar and crackle of the fire and the distant groan of metal. It repeated, closer. A bird.

Not just a bird. It was no robin or sparrow crying out for me. It was a bird of prey.

“Phin!” I screamed as loudly as I could, sure it wasn’t loud enough. Not for a figment to hear.

For several long beats, I heard nothing. I’d imagined it, I was sure. Heard what I wanted to hear out of some desperate need to believe in rescue. There was no white knight for me. No one to dash through the blaze and save me.

The bird cried out, its lovely song nearly in my ear. I shrieked under a flurry of wings and feathers, and the most beautiful sight came into focus in the dim orange light. A white head and throat, a slash of black across both eyes and around the head, a sharply hooked black beak. It cocked its head to the side so one perfectly round eye was looking right at me. Not yellow or brown as I expected a bird’s eye to be. No, this majestic hunter had eyes of perfect blue.

“Phin?”

The osprey winked. Shuddered. If even possible, looked sick to its stomach.

I started laughing, positive of my insanity. The fumes were making me loopy, seeing things I wanted to see. No way he’d found me in the middle of this burning rubble. No reason he’d be looking for me in the first place.

“You’re not real,” I wheezed. God, it hurt to breathe.

He cried out. Less than six inches away, the sound pierced my skull like a knife. Okay, not my imagination.

He hopped around, testing the ground with impressively taloned feet. There was a pocket of open space an arm’s length away. He stopped there … and grew. Feathers faded into smooth, tanned skin. Claws receded into feet and toes, wings into arms and hands. In seconds, Phineas crouched in that precarious spot without a stitch of clothing on. He immediately started retching.