Kelly Meding - As Lie the Dead

“There’s a bomb in the sound booth at the old Parker’s Palace theater set to go off in five minutes. Better save your highest bracket of taxpayers,” I said, and hung up. My hand was shaking, and I wanted desperately to throw up. Police backup was better than nothing.

I had no idea what time it was and no patience now for subtlety. Sticking as close to the buildings as possible, I ran toward the theater, occasionally checking out the nearby rooftops. For snipers, for Cole, for anything out of the ordinary. A narrow alley, barely three feet wide, ran between the theater and the low-rent office building next to it. I darted in, ignoring the surprised shout of one fur-coated smoker, and sought a side entrance.

Halfway down the length of the building, I found an emergency exit door. No doorknob on my side. Shit . Had to get in there somehow. Emergency exits needed to be kept clear for obvious reasons. Logic told me there was a pocket of empty space on the other side. I shouldn’t mistakenly transport into a solid object—or a person.

The headache from my last transport hadn’t subsided, but I couldn’t wait. I pulled on loneliness, slipped into the Break, and broke apart, moving toward the door, only to smash into something red, electrical, and solid that smacked me backward. I slammed into the opposite building’s brick wall, oomphing all the air from my lungs. My eyes watered, my head pounded, and I slid to the damp ground. Red continued to color my vision, aftershocks of the force shield still zipping through my chest and abdomen. Bile scorched the back of my throat, sharp and hot.

A sudden inhalation cleared my vision of the red, and I worked to get my breathing back under control. Cole already had a shield in place around the theater. Shit on toast!

I crawled to my feet, using the brick wall for support, and battled a brief wave of dizziness. Not a good way to start a fight. I raced back to the street, where the lingering pair of smokers was trying unsuccessfully to gain entrance to the theater. A man in a tuxedo kept reaching for the door and yanking his hand away as though burned. The woman with him looked around, panicked, and then she saw me. Her overlined eyes widened.

“Patrick,” she said, clawing at the tuxedoed man.

Patrick turned, mouth open to say something, and froze when he spotted my bloodied, disheveled figure. And my weapon.

“Do yourselves a fucking favor,” I said, with enough menace to melt anyone’s brass balls, “and go home. The party started without you.”

He didn’t argue, just grabbed his date/wife/whatever and bolted down the street. Hopefully toward their car or limo. Maybe they’d call the police, too. As a Hunter, I had worked hard to keep the regular cops far outside of our business. Today I wanted them there.

I tested the doors myself and received the same shock. No help. The glass fronts were painted opaque, making it impossible to see inside the lobby. The music was a little louder, a new song with the same wailing trumpets. I swung my bat at the glass. It bounced off the shield with a burst of red and another dance of electricity up my arms.

This was bad.

A shadow fell on the sidewalk, swooped low, and then a familiar kestrel landed next to me.

I scowled. “I thought I said—”

Her cry was ear-piercing and seemed to tell me to shut up. She cocked her head, then took off again. I moved out from the safety of the marquee, watching her fly low to the street. She landed on the front stoop of an apartment building two doors down and across the street. Opposite end of the block from where I’d left Wyatt.

“Thank you, Aurora,” I said.

My transport to those steps left me lurching to my knees. I vomited what little was in my stomach, hands trembling, chest quaking. The constant pounding in my head was a dull roar. The nail wounds in my ass and the gashes on my ribs were starting to itch, and my shoulder still felt raw. So much transporting was using up my tap into the Break, preventing whatever healing magic I possessed from working to its fullest potential.

No longer in kestrel form, Aurora looped thin arms around my waist and hauled me to my feet. I let her help me into the tiny glass lobby of the apartment building, then lean me against rows of silver mailboxes.

“You look terrible,” she said.

“Good, because I feel terrible. Which room?”

“Fourth floor, apartment F. It faces the theater, so he may have seen you.”

“Cole?”

She nodded.

“Phin’s with him?” Another nod. “Is he hurt?”

“Yes.” Something hot and dangerous flared in her round eyes, and I realized that she was still in bi-shift mode, her long wings tucked back. As if waiting for a fight. I remembered what Phin had once said, about the strength of the Coni, and how fiercely he’d fought at the gym. She’d make an excellent partner upstairs.

Then I remembered Ava.

“You might want to get out of here. The police are on their way,” I said.

“They won’t be able to get into the theater to help.”

“They will if I can get that shield down, and I can probably do that by getting to Cole.”

“Probably.”

“Unless the protection spell is written on something inside the theater. Then we have to hope the Triads make it inside via the underground tunnels that are supposed to have been filled in years ago and somehow manage to find the spell and know enough to destroy the object it’s written on.”

She blinked, lips parting.

“Please stay here,” I said.

“All of this is happening because of what was done to my people. I feel responsible.”

“No, all of this is happening because of two crazy men’s misplaced senses of justice. None of it is your fault.”

I started toward the stairs, resigned to taking them up four flights, when the distant sounds of screaming stopped me. I darted back to the glass lobby doors, just able to see the front of the theater. Dark blobs blinked in and out of sight against the opaque glass—pounding fists? My heart hammered. It was starting.

“Fuck,” I muttered, and ran for the stairs.

Panic and pain pushed me up those steps faster than I should have been able to run, taking them two and three at a time. My lungs ached for a good breath. My head felt six sizes too large and ready to pop like a zit. I hit the fourth floor at a dead run, jamming my hand on the fire door, which opened into a dingy hallway. The walls were cement block, covered in graffiti, and the floor badly needed new carpet. It reeked of waste and humidity. No one was in the hall, and I didn’t stop to listen at apartment doors for neighbors.

All I could focus on was getting to apartment F and stopping this. I owed nothing to the people in that theater, but it was my job to protect them. I was a Hunter in my heart, if no longer in title or occupation. The brass had turned their backs on Cole first, but he’d turned his back on his own people. Delivered three hundred–plus for execution.

Over my once dead body.

One well-placed kick next to the lock snapped the cheap wood and sent the door sailing open. I dropped to a crouch against the frame, half expecting a welcoming gunshot or two. Nothing. The front room/kitchen combo was barren, nearly empty of furniture. An overturned dining table and one chair were pushed against the wall, and a plaid chair with ripped arms that spewed stuffing were the apartment’s only occupants. No people. No new bloodstains on the marred carpet. Bat back and ready to swing, I crept inside.

The room had three doors. Closest to me was a coat closet, empty save a pile of rat shit in the corner. The next door was open—a dimly lit bathroom. Toilet and sink covered with grime, the curtainless tub streaked with water stains. It smelled faintly of urine.