Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

“My boss’s bosses are three anonymous, highranking police officers, who work in tandem with the Fey Council—that would be faeries, sprites, gnomes, pixies, and sylphs—to keep the peace and prevent the Dregs from killing everyone on the planet. Kind of like the Mafia, but shorter and with magic and pointy ears.”

I stopped. Alex stared. And stared. He blinked once. His jaw twitched. Water dripped from a faucet somewhere—the only sound in the room. He stood up, and I tensed, trying to anticipate his reaction. I expected a verbal attack, maybe even a physical one. Instead, he wandered into the kitchen, as though he’d just offered to retrieve refreshments. He went straight to the refrigerator, where he opened the door and ducked down.

A drawer squeaked. Bottles rattled. He stood straight, let the door slam shut, and twisted the cap off a bottle of beer. One, two, three, four long pulls. He held up the bottle, studying the label like he’d never seen it before today. Then he took one more deep swallow and returned to his chair, the bottle still in his hand.

“Well, either you’ve gone completely insane,” he said, sinking into the upholstery, “or I have.”

“We are both very much sane, Alex. Most people don’t know about the Dreg population. They’re good at staying out of sight, and we’re good at covering up after them. Remember the downtown blackout two years ago?”

“A power grid blew.”

I shook my head. “Gremlin revolt. They did it because the Council demanded work without proper compensation. So they demonstrated their power, which put pressure on the Council from several sides, including humans. One power failure can be explained, but not the entire city. The gremlins got what they wanted.”

“A gremlin labor strike?”

“Yep.”

He downed the rest of the beer and deposited the bottle on the coffee table with a clunk. Twin smudges of color darkened his cheeks. “Gremlins.” He turned the two-syllable word into four, testing its sound and texture. “Vampires are real?”

“Very real, but more Lost Boys than Bram Stoker, and it’s forbidden to turn humans. The change is actually a physical reaction to a parasite present in a vampire’s saliva and—never mind; that’s a long story. At any rate, bite survivors are considered inferior half-breeds, and are hard to control. Not human and never fully vampire.”

“Okay, that was way too much information.”

“You need to know this stuff, Alex.”

“Why?” He leapt to his feet and stormed to the other side of the living room. He planted himself in front of the patio doors, casting his shape into a back-lit shadow. “Why the hell did you come back here if you’re not Chalice? Why are you dragging me into this crazy fantasy world you live in?”

I stood up with measured movement, taking care to not startle him. My good humor and sympathy were quickly disappearing, replaced by frustration. “Because I need your help, Alex, and I don’t have anyone else I can trust.”

“What about your team?”

“They’re dead.”

“Your boss?”

My heartbeat quickened. “He’s why I need your help. He’s been captured.”

“By whom?”

“The people he used to work for.”

Alex tilted his head to the left. “Wait a minute; you said he worked for the police. He’s been captured by the cops? As in arrested?”

More complications. I blew hard through my teeth. “Yes and no. It’s more complicated than that.”

“I don’t see how. He was arrested for a reason, right? So does that make you the good guy or the bad guy in this little melodrama?”

“Depends on your point of view, I guess.” I launched into the rest of my story, starting with the setup at the train yards and ending with the night I was kidnapped. It was all I knew for certain, and I hoped it told him that I wasn’t the villain. But I certainly wasn’t an innocent bystander, either. There was no black and white in my situation. Only varying shades of gray.

Alex listened attentively, giving no hint of his inner thoughts. He remained quiet for a full minute after I finished. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s say I believe everything you’ve told me so far and that I don’t think you’re off your rocker. Here’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

“Why am I, Evy Stone, in Chalice Frost’s body?”

“Yeah, that would be the one.”

A completely reasonable question that I felt somehow compelled to answer. Not only because I needed his help, but because I felt connected to him, on some basic level that may have been a carryover from being in Chalice. They had been friends. I needed him to believe me.

“I don’t remember anything after five nights ago,” I said. “The night I set out to prove I’d been set up, I was kidnapped. I was taken to an abandoned train station and tortured for two and a half days, and I eventually died. I was dead for three days, until a dear friend paid a terrible price to bring me back. He traded for a Fey spell that required a freshly dead body for my soul to inhabit. Only something went wrong. I went into the wrong body and without my complete memory, and now I can’t remember what I was too afraid to tell him before I died. Until I remember what I’ve forgotten, I can’t clear us.”

“Why bother?”

I balled my fists. “Why bother what? Saving him?”

“No, I understand that. Why bother trying to clear yourselves in the first place when it’s easier just to run?”

Running had never been an option. Not even that first night, fresh from the deaths of Jesse and Ash and the unexpected betrayal of my former allies. “This is my life, Alex. It’s all I’ve known since I was a teenager. It never occurred to either of us to not fight this. Besides, there’s more at stake than just our lives. Although right now, saving Wyatt’s life is all I care about.” I walked toward Alex, and he didn’t flinch. “His name is Wyatt Truman. He was my Handler and my …” My what? Lover? Not exactly. I stopped an arm’s length away. Tears prickled my eyes. “I have to save him.”

Alex lifted his right arm. His fingers stopped inches from my face. I remained still, allowing him his exploration. Tentative fingertips traced the line of my jaw, from ear to chin. Proving I was real, that he wasn’t imagining it all. Touching the face of a woman he’d seen die. Knowing that a stranger lived in her shell and that the woman he cared about was never coming home. Was he convinced? Or simply contemplating escape?

His touch dropped to my shoulder, down my arm, until he finally grasped my hand. He squeezed it; I squeezed back.

“Evy, huh?” he said.

“Assuming you believe me and we’re not both crazy.”

He smiled.

Shadows darted past the patio doors, too fast to count. I yanked hard on Alex’s hand. He yelped and tripped and fell to the carpeted floor. I dropped to my knees and covered his head with my hands.

Above us, glass and wood exploded in a shower of tinkling shards.

53:02

Heavy boots landed near my head, crushing broken glass into the thick carpet. I lunged upward and drove my balled fist into the intruder’s groin. Hard bone met delicate flesh, which gave way under the blow. The man howled and doubled forward. I thrust upward. Knuckles connected solidly with his chin. For a split instant, I looked into Tully’s shocked eyes, and then he was toppling backward.

I rose into a crouching position and spun toward scuffling sounds. Alex and Wormer were on the ground, wrestling for control of a revolver. Wormer had used his advantage in bulk to roll Alex onto his back. The gun shifted above their heads. Someone squeezed off a wild shot that took out a vase on the counter. Glass shattered and pinged.