Kelly Meding: As Lie the Dead

Close up, I saw a chiseled face to go along with his toned body. Sharp cheekbones and a narrow nose; round, heavily lashed eyes of the clearest royal blue I’d ever seen; smooth skin without a hint of stubble, even though his hair was coffee brown. He looked like a predatory bird; I thought of the osprey I’d seen last night, flying through a city it had no right to live near.

“Evy,” I said.

He smiled, showing off rows of small, perfect teeth. “Phin.”

“Could we possibly take this indoors?” Wyatt asked. “The sun’s up, and two blood-soaked people and a guy with wings standing next to a smashed car are bound to attract attention. And we’ve worked damned hard the last ten years to avoid just that.”

Phin bared his teeth—definitely not smiling this time. “You think burning Sunset Terrace to the ground wasn’t going to attract attention?”

“I wasn’t involved in that.” Wyatt’s voice had gone low, quiet. Dangerous.

“Your people were.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

They weren’t within arm’s reach, but I stepped between them anyway. “I thought we were going inside?” I said.

“You’re going to scare someone if you walk in the front door looking like you do,” Phin said.

Look who’s talking, wing-man . “You got a better plan?”

“Which building?”

I pointed over my shoulder. “Fifth floor, east-side alley, I think. The balcony door got smashed in a few days ago, and I doubt it’s been fixed yet. You going to meet us there?”

Phin tilted his head like a curious bird. “I thought I’d give you both a ride up.”

“You can carry us both?” Wyatt asked.

“Certainly.” And at Wyatt’s baleful look, he added, “I can take you one at a time if you prefer.”

“I prefer.”

“Can we just go?” I asked. The longer we stood in the alley, the more sets of eyes I imagined on us. Watching and wondering, maybe snapping pictures with their cell phones. Gremlins excel at electronic interference, but if they don’t catch a download early, it can spread like wildfire.

Another of those instances of unwanted attention the Triads work so hard to prevent. Not that flying up to the balcony via Angel Express Airways was less noticeable.

“Ladies first?” Phin asked.

I looked at Wyatt. He quirked an eyebrow, his skepticism palpable. I didn’t suspect Phin would whisk me off and drop me from a great height. If he’d wanted us dead, I was certain we’d never have seen him coming. So I winked at Wyatt and turned back to Phin. “How do we do this?”

“Could you remove that first?” Phin asked, pointing at my throat.

I touched the necklace, about to ask why, when I remembered it was silver. A single touch could give him a painful rash. I unhooked the clasp and tucked it into my pocket without a word.

Phin smiled. “Thank you. Now cross your arms over your breasts and tuck your hands beneath your arms tight for support.”

The positioning was a little awkward; however, I saw where he was going with it. He stepped around behind me and pressed close. A few extra inches put his chin by my ear. Perfectly smooth arms looped around my stomach and braced just below my own crossed arms. For all the muscle and sinew, he seemed oddly soft, as though half of his mass were air.

I’d known other shape-shifters, been friendly with the Owlkins for years, and yet everything about Phineas surprised me. This was the first time I’d been held so closely by one, felt such a difference in a body that moved and looked—sans wings—just like mine.

His massive wings beat the air, swirling it around us like the backwash of a rocket launch. We lifted up, as smoothly as if on a wire, straight into the sky. Every muscle in my body clenched. I wanted to reach down and grab his arms, secure myself to something solid now that I was dangling thirty feet off the ground. But I didn’t and was able to keep my eyes on the apartment wall ahead of us, thankful for so many drawn blinds and closed curtains.

He exhaled hard near my ear. I felt his heart beat through my back, faster than a human’s. Power rippled through his body—strength unlike anything I’d seen in a were. No wonder we didn’t know about this half-shifted form.

Chalice’s patio loomed. One half of the sliding glass door was shattered, part of the frame busted out, remnants of a two-day-old battle. No one had boarded it up, which made sense if no one but the Triads had been inside in the last couple of days. They wouldn’t have cared enough to bother.

Phin landed just outside, on the narrow strip of concrete and metal that served as a balcony. It was empty of furniture or personal items—the view wasn’t much, so I can’t imagine she’d spent much time outdoors.

He let me go and stepped backward, breaking our contact. My skin felt cool and raw, like I’d stripped off a warm angora sweater on a chilly fall day, only to realize I wore nothing but a tank top.

“Thanks for the lift,” I said.

“My pleasure.”

No doubt .

He grinned. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and leapt from the balcony in a rush of air.

His back-breeze ruffled my hair and pushed around the curtains just inside the broken door frame. I put the cross back on, then stepped closer, drumming up the courage to step inside. A slab of jagged glass was stuck to the bottom of the frame like a line of teeth, sharp and knee-high. Bloodstains on the carpet had dried to black. The candlestick still lay on its side. Broken glass littered the interior.

Alex had handled himself well during that scuffle, with two other Hunters intent on my arrest. From start to finish, he’d held it together better than I expected.

My stomach knotted; I balled my hands to keep them from shaking. I was going back into that apartment. No, into our apartment. With Chalice firmly floating around in my psyche, I had no idea how I’d feel when I went inside.

I raised one leg and tucked it through the opening. Glass crunched beneath my sneaker. I drew my upper body through, mindful of the protruding glass waiting to shred my skin, pivoted, and then brought my other leg through. It left me facing the broken door, my back to her old life, but it didn’t block out the scents.

Scents I’d identified the last time—stale beer, cleaning products, a vanilla musk that might have been a candle—were not diminished by two days of airing out. The air was warm and humid, like a cellar. Just shy of ripe, and the unemptied trash can was surely to blame.

Another rush of wind preceded Wyatt and Phin’s arrival. Wyatt locked his gaze with mine, his eyes wide and cheeks a little pale. He must have seen something in mine, because his expression softened. Concern overtook his own discomfort.

“Evy? You okay?” he asked.

“Yep,” I said. Liar .

“Liar.”

Phin stepped sideways, just behind Wyatt’s right shoulder. Amazingly, his wings had vanished. Not just tucked down low but completely gone. My day was getting more and more surreal. “Is she all right?” he asked.

“Just give her a minute,” Wyatt said.

“To do what?”

“I don’t need a minute,” I said, more confidence in my voice than in my heart. I turned, took three steps deeper into the apartment, and fell to my knees. Glass pricked through the fabric of my jeans. I gasped. My vision blurred as images and odors and sensations assaulted my senses, each one building on the last.

Sitting on the sofa and eating chips; watching television and laughing at stupid sitcoms; perched at the kitchen counter with soda and textbooks; heaving those texts across the room in frustration; sobbing on the floor, exhausted and confused; drawing a hot bath while prying a blade from a disposable razor. Greasy food and red wine and blood and flowery perfume and spicy aftershave, and dozens of other odors that were imprinted in Chalice’s memory. All of the things her body had experienced in that apartment, including her violent death, blending together into a potent memory cocktail.