Kelly Meding - As Lie the Dead

Another murmur of conversation broke out. Had I hit a nerve? Or just overstepped my bounds?

“We cannot undo the choices of the past.” A new male voice, deeper than the first, like he was speaking through a tuba. “We must look to the future for our people and make choices for our continued survival.”

I nodded. “We aren’t much different, then.”

“We are, though,” Deep Throat said. “Because faced with the choice between the most innocent Therian and the evilest human, you will always choose the human.”

“You can’t assign that moral judgment to me.” It took every ounce of self-control to not fly at them. “You don’t know me.”

“We know Triad Hunters. We’ve seen them make their judgments for a decade now. You say you’re different, because you’ve been hunted by your own people. But those are words, Evangeline. Only words.”

“Fine. So what was the fucking point of this if you’d already decided I’m just another untrustworthy human?”

“The Assembly has decided nothing,” Breathy Female said. “You should know as well as we that speaking with a person tells much more about them than you can learn secondhand by speaking to someone else. You have several supporters among our kind, and we were curious to see the woman in whom that trust has been placed.”

I swept my arms out to my sides. “So what do you think? Faith misplaced?”

“On the contrary,” Deep Throat said. “You’ve shown you’re not blind to the errors of your people, even though you continue protecting one of their worst.” More fist clenching kept me still; I bit my tongue hard to hold back a sharp retort over all the good Rufus St. James had also accomplished. Worst, my ass. “It’s time for the Assembly to discuss your request.”

“Do you have anything else to add?” Jenner asked. He was somewhere on my right, hidden in the shadows. The tone of his voice hinted that I should say no and excuse myself.

It hovered on the tip of my tongue, but something else came out instead. “What do you know about a Kitsune named Snow, who’s been helping to recruit a militia intent on wiping out the Triads?” I asked.

No murmur this time—full-on conversation broke out, too loud and chaotic to pick out anything specific. Just familiar words flung around: “she,” “Snow,” “they,” “Triads.” I’d hit a very specific nerve and had them arguing among themselves. Less than a minute passed, and then someone shouted a word that sounded like “pizza” but couldn’t be. Because it shut them all up.

“Snow’s actions are not endorsed by this Assembly,” Deep Throat said. “If you want more answers than that, investigate his connections to the Triads. The skeletons you find will not please you.”

“Nothing about this investigation so far has pleased me,” I said. “Least of all everyone’s inability to give me a straight fucking answer. Anyone in particular I should ask about Snow’s skeletons?”

“The killer you protect.”

Well, that was something. I just needed access to Rufus again. Not easy when he was still in the hospital, guarded by Triads who thought me dead, and still potentially a day away from being turned over to the Assembly for punishment. Was it a coincidence that Rufus was connected to both the Sunset Terrace massacre and Snow? All the possible implications made my head hurt.

“One final question,” Jenner said. “Where do your loyalties lie?”

It was both straightforward and a trick question. I wanted to believe I’d always pick the right side, no matter who stood there, but I knew I was deluding myself. It was impossible to undo twenty-two years of being human and four years of being trained to distrust, hunt, and kill Dregs. I was starting to change—this last week was proof enough—but it would take time.

“Right now?” I said. “My loyalty is to myself.”

“Please wait outside.”

The trio of glaring spotlights turned off, flooding the room in blackness. Strange spots of dark noncolor danced in my vision. I backed up until I felt the door, turned the knob, and slipped out into the dim hallway. Wyatt was by my side instantly, but I ignored him for the moment, rubbing my eyes until their normal focus returned.

“Well?” he asked.

“They said to wait while they sacrificed a goat and divined an answer from its entrails,” I said grumpily.

He blanched. “Huh?”

“They said to wait.”

“Did they say anything more helpful than that?”

I shrugged and leaned against the wall, keeping my voice low in the enclosed corridor. “They want to believe they’re morally superior, because they don’t go around hunting other species, but they’ve also spent the last decade as passive observers while others do their dirty work and now they have the nerve to be annoyed at the current state of things.”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “You got all that from a ten-minute audience?”

“No, I went in there thinking that, but the audience confirmed it. They also seem to think that all Hunters are bloodthirsty murderers who will always choose the worst human over the best Dreg, and they keep using Rufus as their prime example.” My anger at their insistence on referring to him as “the murderer” returned, hot and encompassing.

“Rufus is hardly an example of the worst of us,” Wyatt said, disgust in his voice.

“Not to mention the fact that he’s a Handler.”

He scowled. “So?”

“So he gives the orders; he doesn’t actually pull the damned trigger.” I cocked my head sideways, studying Wyatt’s furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips. “What?”

“Handlers live and die with the orders they give to their Hunters, Evy. Do you know how hard it is to be the one who says it’s time for a person to die? To give the Neutralize order on someone I’ve never met and who’s never personally done me any harm? Putting people I’ve come to care about in harm’s way day after day?”

His voice had risen incrementally during the mini-rant. I put my hand on his arm and shushed him. He continued to glare, but not at me. At himself, maybe, or at his role in life.

“All I meant,” I said, “is that it seems unfair to call Rufus a murderer when he wasn’t the one who went in with guns blazing and set the apartments on fire.”

“No, but it is his job to take responsibility for his people, just like any good captain would. Maybe it doesn’t make him a murderer, but it does make him responsible. Just like it makes me responsible for everything you and the other Hunters under my command have done.”

“How many?”

“How many what?”

“How many Hunters have been under you?” He quirked one eyebrow, and I caught the subtle innuendo in my question. “I mean, how many Hunters have been in your Triad since the program began?”

“Officially? Six, including you.”

My lips parted. “In ten years? Really?”

“Yeah.” He turned and leaned on the wall next to him, his hand slipping into mine. I held it loosely while he spoke, grateful for his warmth. “Before you was Cole Randall, before Jesse was Guy Aldiss, and before Ash was Laurie Messenger. Ash replaced Laurie eight years ago, so she was my longest-surviving Hunter, but after you came, you three were the longest unit to survive intact. Four years is a damned long time for a Triad.”

I grunted, struggling to tamp down the grief that welled up when I thought about Jesse and Ash. Barely two weeks since I lost them, and I’d not given myself much time to grieve. For them or for anyone I’d lost. There just hadn’t been the luxury of time. It was easier to compartmentalize it and store it away.

“It’s funny,” I said, resting my head on his shoulder. “Except for that first night, I never really thought about the Hunter I replaced, or what his rank was in the Triad. Was Cole a good guy?”