Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

A hustler’s paradise; a hooker’s best corner. The city would be teeming with life and light and sin, and things that went bump in the night—creatures I would normally be prepared to hunt. Only tonight, under the cover of darkness, I would be the hunted.

“Do you think it was murder?” Wyatt asked.

What was his obsession? “I really haven’t pondered it, Wyatt, but next time I see Alex I’ll be sure to ask him how he felt when he found his roommate with her wrist slashed. I’m sure that conversation will go over real well.”

Wyatt grunted, eyes on the road. “I’m sorry, Evy. All I was getting at is that if it was foul play, then whoever did it could get really annoyed when they find out that Chalice is alive and well and running around the city. We’ve got enough people gunning for us that we know about, you know?”

“Good point.” Lucky us, then, that Chalice’s worst enemy seemed to be herself.

Silence filled the car for the remainder of our trip. We drove past a raggedy newsstand, stuck between a Chinese take-out restaurant and a bar advertising “Adult Dancers Live.” I briefly considered turning on the radio, but changed my mind. Wyatt’s firm grip on the steering wheel betrayed his anxiety, reinforced by the slight twitch of a muscle in his lower jaw.

He drove southeast, toward the lower end of downtown where the Black River intersected a tributary of the Anjean River, before continuing south. Downtown was surrounded by water on three sides, with mountains creating a northern border. Uptown was, ironically, southwest of the Black River, and as we approached Lincoln Street, the tall, shiny buildings rose up high on the opposite riverbank. New and safe and well fortified—nothing like Mercy’s Lot.

The bridge had two lanes for traffic, and a separate train bridge that ran parallel. Wyatt turned at the last exit before the bridge that would have taken us into the industrial parks and factories that were housed on the southeast bank of the Anjean River. The side street curved down one hundred and eighty degrees, turning us in the opposite direction. Another left and the underside of the Lincoln Street Bridge came into view.

The one-way street passed beneath the bridge, leaving little space between the cement underside and the gray water of the Anjean. Wyatt pulled onto the narrow shoulder, still half on the road, but with enough room for another car to pass. I climbed out to the cacophony of bridge traffic rumbling overhead and the smooth rushing of the river. The odors of oil and rotting fish tingled my nose, as familiar as it was disgusting.

“And you wonder why I insulted his bridge,” Wyatt said.

“I never said I wondered.” I walked around the front of the car to join him. “I just knew better than to say anything to his face.”

He cocked his head to the side, regarding me with some amount of amusement. “That’s my girl.”

I smiled, warmed by his praise. Even as a rookie, I’d wanted only to make him proud. He was only ten years older than me, but was one of the rare Gifted. He could tap into the organic source of the Fey’s power and manipulate it in a limited way. One in about thirty thousand humans have that ability, many of them under surveillance by the Triads—or like Wyatt, under contract for services. The Fey can sense them, but the only surefire way for humans to identify a Gifted is the birthmark—the size of a halfpenny, usually located midway down on the left buttock.

Magical hotspots exist all over the city, undetectable by normal humans. Only the Dregs, the Fey, and the human Gifted can sense them. I’d heard once that the Gifted were all born over one of those hot spots—breaks in the world where magic bled through. Even as a rare Gifted, inorganic summoning was a talent Wyatt seemed hesitant to use, even in his role as a Triad Handler.

It was, in some ways, a curse to the Gifted. While they possessed extraordinary talents, the human body was not designed to filter that sort of magical energy. Manipulation was often painful and took a physical toll. It also (according to rumor) made them sterile. And that was something likely to remain a rumor for the time being. I knew no other Gifted, and it wasn’t a subject I was willing to broach with Wyatt. Ever.

The bridge thrummed thirty feet above our heads. A chain-link fence bordered the opposite side of the road, supposedly to prevent graffiti-happy teenagers from plastering their artwork all over the underside of the bridge. The metal support beams and concrete slope remained devoid of spray paint, but dozens of footprints marred the dust on the other side. Artists came, but something chased them away again. Something named Smedge.

Wyatt pulled back a weak spot in the fence, and I slipped through first. He followed. The fence fell back into place with a soft clang. Air moved in a constant swirl, pushed by the traffic overhead, kicking up dirt particles and grit. I stopped at the base of the angled concrete and stomped my foot on the ground.

“Smedge?” I said. “Hey, Dirt Face, it’s Stony.”

“Stony?” Wyatt asked.

“Nickname.”

“I figured.” He did a complete three-sixty, taking stock of our surroundings. “Are you sure he’s going to recognize you before he decides to pound on us with a big, gravelly fist?”

“Bridge trolls are blind, remember?” I stomped my foot again. “They don’t rely on five senses like humans. He’ll know me.”

Sure enough, the solid concrete began to vibrate. Slowly at first, like the gentlest shiver. Then it built to a roar, and what was once solid began to run like quicksand. It drew inward, gathering like a miniature tornado beneath the bridge. I raised my hand against the wind, as every bit of dirt was drawn toward its center.

An arm reached out from its whirling vortex, a hand uncurling and dividing into four fingers. Those fingers splayed against the ground by our feet. Wyatt stepped back, but I stood my ground. A second arm joined the first, and then a head pulled out, forming from the dirt and sand and stone, as large as my entire body, with pronounced eyes that couldn’t see and a mouth that couldn’t taste. A neck and shoulders grew last, until Smedge the bridge troll appeared to have pulled himself out of a giant hole in the ground, only to lounge beneath the bridge, perfectly at ease.

Sounds rumbled deep within his throat, as he remembered how to communicate with other, more verbal species. Bridge trolls were part of the earth itself and communicated through tremors and vibrations of the crust and core, rather than of wind through the larynx. Some of the largest earthquakes in recorded history were because of troll wars—something no one taught kids in geology class.

“Him,” Smedge ground out. His voice came across like sandpaper against metal—harsh and unpleasant. “Not … welcome.”

“I’ll make sure he behaves,” I said. “Smedge, do you remember me? It’s Stony.”

Sandy eyes made a show of looking at me, but I knew better. Air circled me like a cyclone, caressing my skin with fine particles of sand. He was smelling me in his own way, making sure I was telling the truth. I only hoped his unusual senses could “see” past my new appearance and identify his friend.

“Yes, Stony,” Smedge said. “Told … dead … but not.”

“No, I’m not, but that’s a really long story. I don’t have a lot of time, and we need your help.”

“What I do?”

I deferred to Wyatt. I hadn’t asked him why he needed to speak with Smedge, so I couldn’t ask the question for him.

“Do you know a sprite named Amalie?” Wyatt asked.

My lips parted. That was his question? Amalie was a Fey Council Elder, ruler of the Five Sprite Guilds. A queen bee to thousands of worker bees was the only way to describe the sprite ranks. Each Guild had a ranking Master, each responsible to Amalie for the safety of the sprites under their care. We’d never met, but I had seen her from a distance. Tall and regal, with the looks of a model and curves of a porn star, she was nothing like what the word “sprite” implied. Her bodyguard, Jaron, had the build of a weight lifter. The only detail that betrayed them as non human was the way their eyes glowed. Bright and fierce, like cobalt embers.