Kelly Meding: As Lie the Dead

Let’s see what’s behind door number three .

It was three-quarters closed. I peeked through the crack in the jamb. Spotted a curtainless window and the very edge of a chair and the shoulder of a man sitting in it. Not good. They had to have heard my entrance. I gripped the bat so hard my knuckles ached and the old wood crackled. The visible shoulder jerked. Had he heard that?

I shoved my way through, braced for attack, heart stuck in my throat. Scanned the room. Just a man in a chair—Phin, I knew that shirt—placed right in front of one of the room’s three windows. I checked the closet, sliding the mirrored door open with my foot—no one.

Fuck, damn, and shit!

I circled around to Phin and cried out. He wasn’t tied down, as I’d suspected. He was impaled to the arms of the chair with knives driven through the center of each forearm. Blood made twin puddles on the floor. His head was down, chin to chest, eyes closed. Broken nose swollen and nearly purple. Too pale.

A shudder tore through my chest. I cupped his cheek with my hand. His skin was so cool. “Phin?”

He moaned, head tilting into my hand. He muttered something.

“Phin, where’s Cole?”

More moaning, then his eyelids fluttered. He blinked and raised his head, blue eyes swimming with agony and fatigue. I kept my hand where it was, offering what little comfort I could and knowing it wasn’t nearly enough.

“Don’t know,” he whispered, lips curling back in a snarl. “He killed Eleri.”

“He tried to. How did he know she was spying on him?”

“She isn’t as clever as she thinks she is,” Cole said. I jerked upright, pulling the bat back, ready to swing. He stood in the bedroom doorway, hands at his sides. Nonchalant, even. He had the temerity to smile at me. “Neither is Phineas, although I had hoped to convince him to truly join me. Seems he now harbors some strange loyalty to you.”

I took a single step away from Phin, putting him at a safer distance from my swinging arm. Rage jolted through me at the mere sight of Cole, so smug about the events he’d allowed to unfold and the slaughter happening across the street. Any sympathy I’d possessed died with the first scream I’d heard from inside the theater.

“You, however, continue to impress me,” he said. “Your abilities are understated, to say the least.”

“Does that mean you’re ready to fight me yourself this time? Or do you have any more underlings I should dispatch first?”

“We’d make better allies than enemies.”

I barked laughter. “Because we’re so much the same, right? Slaughtering hundreds of people and stabbing Clan Elders to chairs?”

“I promised him a front-row seat.”

“Gee whiz, that makes it okay, then.”

“You are fascinating, Evangeline, truly. Keeping your wits about you after everything you’ve suffered. I admit, I think your tenacity surpassed even Tovin’s wildest expectations. He lost because he underestimated what people in love will do to survive. He never did understand that about humans.”

I didn’t know if he was trying to get a rise out of me and make me attack, or just making small talk to prevent me from stopping the theater assault. It didn’t matter, though, because it wasn’t going to work.

“I know it counts for little, but I didn’t know what Kelsa had planned for you,” he said. “I wasn’t privy to her particulars.”

Okay, maybe it was starting to work. I had to put a metaphorical lid on my temper to keep from swinging the business end of that bat at his head. Not knowing was no excuse, considering Kelsa was a fucking goblin. They weren’t known for their niceties—especially toward Hunters.

“And I’m truly sorry about Jesse and Ash,” he continued. “They were my friends, too, but I had already agreed to help Tovin—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Heat flared in my cheeks. The rest of my body chilled. A tremor raced up my spine, spurred by rage and hate. “You don’t get to say their names or be sorry they’re dead. You could have stopped it. You could have prevented all of this!”

His joviality evaporated. He narrowed his eyes and stood straighter, mouth tight. “Perhaps, but there’s no changing what’s happened. They’re dead, and you’re not. You want to honor their memory by dying again?”

“Who’s going to kill me? You?”

“If it comes to that, yes. You’re an impediment to my vision for this city.”

I snorted. “Vision? You’re deluded.”

“Change is coming, Evangeline, whether you want it or not. And it’s up to you if you’ll be on the side making the changes or the side that gets plowed under by progress.”

Worse than the words themselves was the knowledge that he truly believed his own propaganda. He’d convinced himself his path was the correct one and he was doing this for the betterment of all the species. He seemed to have forgotten that, as a species, humans might outnumber Dregs five million to one, but their unique abilities and magical talents almost evened those odds. If we lost this city to goblins and Halfies—or worse—we’d lose others to the same. We’d lose everything.

“Can I ask you a question, Cole?”

He cocked his head. “Sure.”

“If Rain could see you today, and all the death and pain you’ve been party to, what would she say? Would she still love you?”

It was both the right and wrong thing to say. His complexion darkened with rage, and his entire body coiled to attack. I could almost see imaginary steam billowing from his ears.

“Guess that would be a no,” I said.

He advanced with a roar. I feinted to my right, as if preparing to swing. He moved perfectly, coming at me from my unprotected left side. I ducked the expected swing and jammed the nail-free end of my bat up into his gut. He staggered; I slammed it across his chin, whipping his head sideways. Continuing the arc of the wood, I drew it in a circle and cracked it across his right ankle.

He howled and crashed to the floor. One leg lashed out and caught me off guard. I tripped and fell onto my ass. Fingers of pain dragged angry nails up my back. Faster than I expected, Cole grabbed my ankles and pulled hard enough to unseat me, and the back of my head slammed against the floor. Colorful lights winked behind my eyes.

His weight settled on my hips and abdomen, low enough that I couldn’t raise my legs to kick my feet. I attempted a whack with the bat. He blocked my arm and used his free hand to grab my hair and slam my head against the floor. Everything went swimmy. Phin was shouting. Hands wrapped around my throat.

Fuck, not again .

Bracing for the agony to come, I teleported one last time. It felt like squeezing my body through a tube of ground glass. I ached and smarted, barely able to see for the roaring behind my eyes. Where was—? Just outside the bedroom door, facing in.

I blinked through blurry vision. Cole had stood. He was leaning over Phin, who shrieked when Cole pulled a knife out of one arm, its blade coated in Phin’s blood. I crawled unsteadily to my hands and knees. Cole drew his hand back to his opposite shoulder, knife blade aimed down. I knew that action, knew what he was about to do.

No!

With a primal cry torn from pain and desperation, I launched to my feet. Shot toward Cole. Didn’t feel the carpet beneath me. Barely felt the impact when I crashed shoulder-first into Cole’s gut. Was only slightly aware of glass shattering all around us. Cutting. Cole screaming. Phin hollering my name.

Then the sensation of free-falling, punctuated by an abrupt crash.

It was the awful smell that drew me out of a comfortable, deep sleep. Not rotting-meat awful. More vinegar-tang awful. Smelled like that Korean sauerkraut Ash would make for dinner. Only Jesse would eat it; I got takeout those nights. Was she making it? That what I smelled?