Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

“A few.”

Butter and grease dribbled down my chin. The flavors of the bread and bacon burst against my tongue. I chewed slowly, savoring each morsel.

“Care to share?” I asked, delving into bite number two.

He made a face—probably of disgust, but I was enjoying my breakfast too much to give it any thought—and threw a paper napkin at me.

I snatched it off the table and wiped my chin. “So? Ideas?”

“That depends. You remember anything new?”

I stopped, an apple slice halfway to my mouth. A dark void still loomed over part of my memory. I didn’t remember anything new. I don’t think I even dreamed last night. “No.”

“Really?”

“It’s memory loss, Wyatt. It’s not like flipping a switch.”

“Never is with women.”

I threw a piece of apple at him, which he easily deflected. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

“And yet somehow untrue?”

“No, but it’s still a shitty thing to say.”

“We’re under the wire here, Evy. I don’t have the time or patience to be polite.”

“Then be helpful. This is my life—afterlife, whatever. I’m the one who will be dead again in two and a half days, not you.”

Wyatt froze, going completely still, like someone had hit the Pause button on a DVR. Seconds ticked by. He stood up, each movement precise and measured, pushed his chair in, and strode to the bathroom.

“Wyatt, I’m sorry.”

Nothing. He went into the bathroom. The door slammed shut with a wall-rattling bang. No single swear word in my rather lengthy vocabulary seemed appropriate, so a slow string of them tumbled out of my mouth.

I had forgotten that Wyatt had negotiated for my resurrection. The price he had paid remained a secret, but I could guess at its cost. He’d put his neck on the line by going against the Triads and the Council. He had saved my life with the hound. Hell, he even cooked me breakfast. And had I ever even said “thank you”?

Breakfast no longer seemed as wonderful, but I forced it down. I needed the energy, especially if we ran into another hound or a goblin patrol. No sounds came from the bathroom, not even angry stomping or pounding. He must be superpissed if he couldn’t even vent his rage.

Wyatt had the physical training and temperament (read: quick to anger) to be a Hunter, not to mention the added advantage of his Gift. The only time I dared ask why he was a Handler instead of a Hunter, he assigned me to a two-day stakeout in the dead of winter. I didn’t ask again.

I finished my breakfast, polished off the rest of the milk carton, and scarfed two slices of untoasted bread, but still there was no sound from the bathroom. I washed the dishes in the spotless sink and placed them in a sparkling metal dish rack to dry. The entire kitchen area was unnaturally tidy—in my rather messy experience—for a male were-cat living alone.

Still nothing from the bathroom, even as more minutes passed. Concern overruled my better judgment. I crossed the small apartment and banged my fist against the bathroom door.

“I’m not dead in here,” came the reply.

“Say it to my face, then.”

The door pulled open. I stepped back, startled. Wyatt stood with one hand on the knob, the other limp by his side. No tears, no redness, still no real emotion cracking through on his face. Just a study of calm.

“I’m fine,” he said, brushing past me. He stopped in the center of the apartment, observing the cleaned-up kitchen. “I didn’t know you were so domestic.”

“Neither did I.” I put my hand on his forearm, surprised to find his skin warm, almost feverish. “Wyatt, I am sorry.”

He stepped away, withdrawing from my touch. “There’s one of those plastic storage things under the bed. Dylan’s girlfriend stays over and keeps stuff here, so something may fit.”

I ducked around him, getting directly in his path, forcing him to look at me. “Thank you,” I said. “For all of this. You keep saving my life and all I can do is insult you.”

“You gotta go with your gifts.”

I stared until I saw the glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “I really am sorry.”

“I know, and it’s really okay. I think I’d be angry, too, if someone disrupted my eternal rest because they had a question.”

I laughed, and so did he. It felt great.

Dylan’s girlfriend wore Petite; I now wore Tall. Her jeans fit at the waist, but rode up to mid shin like Capri pants. The gashes in my leg had healed completely by the time I dressed, so those bandages came off. The light, six-inch scars would probably fade in a few hours. My arm, on the other hand, itched like a bitch. I refused to look at the wound until that damnable itching stopped, but Wyatt peeked and said it was healing well. Bully for me.

The storage drawer only had two nice, button-up blouses in it. I grabbed the royal blue one, rolled up the sleeves, hooked the center three buttons, and tied the tails just above my waist. Not ideal, but better.

We still hadn’t addressed the “What next?” issue. My instinct was to follow up on Amalie, since she was our only real lead. Smedge had said she was consolidating her power within the Fey community, in preparation for something big. The sprites were powerful and did not startle easily. They also didn’t overreact to potential bad news. Much like the logically thinking vampires, they waited for said news and then reacted appropriately. The only major hitch: the Fey didn’t live in the city. Unlike their Dreg counterparts, they preferred the solitude of the northern mountains.

“So let’s go over this again,” I said, joining Wyatt on the apartment’s small sofa. “I met you the night of the thirteenth, right after the Triads attacked Sunset Terrace. I wanted to turn myself in, but you talked me out of it.”

“Right so far. One of my informants told me of the alliance forming between goblins and Bloods. I wanted to check it out. You agreed.”

“Where did I go?”

“What do you mean?”

“I was a Hunter, Wyatt. The goblins and Bloods wouldn’t have just told me about their dastardly plan, and I didn’t know any of them socially. After we met up, did I say where I was going next? What was my plan?”

His mouth puckered and his eyebrows furrowed. “You said you were going uptown to Fourth Street, but wouldn’t give me details.”

My lips parted. I only knew one person uptown. “I must have gone to see Max. If he hasn’t migrated yet, he could still be there.”

“Max?”

“He’s a gargoyle that lives on the library.” I bounced to my feet. “Gargoyles never forget, so he’ll be able to tell me what we talked about. Clues, Wyatt. Come on, let’s go get them.”

He grinned and, for a moment, seemed eager for the hunt. More like his old self. He stood up. “All right, then, let’s go see about a gargoyle.”

56:40

I call him Max because gargoyle language has no direct translation into English. Or any human language, for that matter. Names don’t translate. Like birds, the sounds they emit change in pitch and pattern to communicate. Few gargoyles bother to learn the intricacies of human speech; fewer humans learn theirs.

This season, Max was perched on top of the Fourth Street Public Library. Most of his people preferred downtown locations closer to the other Dreg populations. He preferred uptown. Birds flocked there in spring and summer, because of the lower threat. Pigeons were a gargoyle delicacy and, for some inexplicable reason, pigeons love libraries.

Wyatt parked on a meterless side street and we hoofed it three blocks back to the library. Its impressive stone steps rose up like the front of a Greek theater, and the four-story building was just as impressive. A statue of a lion guarded the front entrance, clasping a sign in its marble claws that said: “Enter All Ye Who Seek Knowledge.”