Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

“And I was right,” Rufus said. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, Truman. I should have helped you sooner.”

“I didn’t give you much reason to trust me, pal,” Wyatt said. “But at least I didn’t shit on my friends for nothing. We finally got the answers we wanted, and none of them are good.”

“About the alliance?”

“More like a conspiracy,” I said.

Wyatt and I took turns narrating the events of the last twenty-four hours, right up through Horzt leading us out of First Break, and Wyatt ended with our arrival at their doorstep.

Rufus had gone impossibly paler during our description of Tovin’s ultimate plan for Wyatt’s free will. His breathing seemed erratic, almost panicked. Nadia remained a sphinx, her internal thoughts impossible to guess by her body language. I might as well have told her the grocery store had a half-price special on laundry detergent, for all of the interest she displayed.

“That’s unbelievable,” Rufus said after a brief pause. “I mean, I knew it had to be something big, but from the elf? I never would have guessed.”

“He’s playing everyone,” Wyatt said. “Putting up a concerned front about a possible alliance that was all bullshit. He’s been using the Halfies, and the goblins, too. The Bloods are on to him, but the Families won’t act without proof. No one will.”

“Are we not overthinking this?” Nadia asked. Her chilly voice sparked goose bumps across my skin. “Save lying, Tovin has committed no real crime. All we need do is void your contract. Simple, no?”

Wyatt glared at her with unmasked fury. “No, not so simple, Nadia. And if you even contemplate putting buckshot into either one of us, I’ll summon your heart right out of your chest.”

Her eyes widened to comical proportions. The threat worked; she backed off. Lucky for us she didn’t know Wyatt couldn’t summon living tissue.

“We need to find Tovin,” I said, “but he could be anywhere in the city, and we don’t exactly have time for a door-to-door.”

“You can always have a go at the babbler,” Rufus said.

I blinked. “The what?”

“The babbler in the next room.” He waved his right hand at a door to the left of the kitchen. “The Halfie who tracked me to the hospital. Nadia brought him with us, but he’s pretty useless. Must be newly turned, because it didn’t take well. He’s losing it.”

“Lost it,” Nadia said.

One in five humans infected by a Blood doesn’t take to the change. Most adapt to their new cravings and lifestyle and limitations and powers, but some don’t. They can’t quite grasp that life will never be the same, and often lose their tenuous grip on reality in a mighty scary fashion. I’d cleaned up after many feral Halfies who turned their insanity against helpless innocents.

Rufus wiped his hand across his chin. “Keeps on muttering about his lost goblet, or some such nonsense. Can’t get anything else out of him.”

“Lost goblet?” Wyatt asked. “You sure know how to pick useless hostages. But I’m surprised that just one Halfie came after you. They tend to travel in packs.”

“Not if one of them’s gone feral,” I said. “Usually they kill them outright, to prevent them from weakening the group.”

“You want a go at him?” Rufus asked. “See if you can get something else out of him besides ‘goblet’?”

“Chalice,” Nadia said. “He said chalice, not goblet.”

My lips parted, and every muscle in my face went slack. Blood rushed down and set my heart pumping hard and fast. “Chalice.” The word slipped from my lips without thought.

“What is wrong with her?” Nadia asked.

Wyatt’s hand looped around my wrist. I forced my head to turn. Concern lined his face. I stood up and tore my hand away from his. He matched my steps to the bedroom door. I spun around and put a hand out that nearly clipped him in the jaw.

“Stay,” I snapped. “I’m not going to freak out. I’m going to talk to him. See if I can help him find his missing chalice, and maybe get a few answers.”

I opened the door, slipped inside, and closed it before Wyatt could drum up a good retort. I didn’t need him talking me out of it or following me inside. Help appreciated, but not necessary.

The light was off. I palmed the wall until my fingers found a switch. Harsh yellow light filled the room, courtesy of a garish floor lamp, all bulb and no shade. The bed was pushed to the far wall against a mirrored closet door. A wooden dining chair lay on its side, a naked body strapped to it with a queer tangle of shoelaces and ripped sheets.

Covered in bruises and dried blood, his skin red and rashed wherever it touched the chair, Alex Forrester was easy to recognize. I had never expected to see him again, much less tied up, sporting a pair of gleaming fangs, and babbling to himself. Spittle ran down his chin and had pooled on the scuffed wood floor. Everywhere, he was surrounded by unfinished wood—one of the greatest irritants to vampires and their kin.

I crouched in front of him, but he didn’t seem to notice. His eyes remained wide, staring straight through me.

“Alex? Can you hear me?” Not even a twitch. “I’m going to get you sitting upright, okay? Don’t, you know, bite me or anything.”

He didn’t react to the change in elevation. I expected something during the fiasco, but amid my groaning and straining, he made no noise. Nothing. His lips continued to move, but no sound came out. Old wounds on his arms and legs were swollen and infected from contact with the chair, some weeping and others necrotic. All looked extremely painful.

I touched his shoulder, and he blinked. Nothing else. “Alex, it’s Chalice,” I said.

He stopped muttering. He looked up at me, really saw me. Wonder and awe softened his features and widened his eyes.

“You’re dead,” he said. “Am I in Hell? Am I finally dead, too?”

“Almost, Alex.” I inhaled, held it, let the oxygen strengthen me. It wasn’t really Alex. He had died yesterday. This was a shell that had information I needed; I just had to manipulate it out of him. “You’re in a place where you can still do some good before you pass on. I can help you.”

His face crumpled. “I should have known you were depressed. I should have seen the signs. It’s my fault you died.”

“I killed myself, Alex. It’s no one’s fault but mine.”

“Friends don’t let friends commit suicide.”

Heartbreaking though it was, the conversation wasn’t helping us. “Do you remember my friend Evy? You gave her a ride once, did her a favor?”

He pursed chapped lips. Shook his head.

“She looks kind of like me. She was looking for someone she loved. You helped her find him, but you got hurt. That’s why you’re here.”

“You do look like her, Chal. It’s creepy. Is she dead, too?”

“No, but she could die if we don’t help her.”

He chewed on his lower lip. His fangs punctured the skin and drew blood. Glittering eyes flitted to the bedroom door, to the ceiling, the covered window. “They’re in the walls,” he said.

I tensed, listened hard, but heard nothing save the occasional creaking floorboard from the living room. I imagined Wyatt standing there with his ear pressed to the door, straining to hear every word.

“Who’s in the walls?” I asked.

“Them. You know.”

“I don’t know, Alex. Who are they?”

“Millions of them, crawling through me, Chal. Making me want to hurt people. Making me want blood, but I don’t want blood. Can I please just go? I want it to stop.”

The vampire infection; that’s what he saw in the walls. The parasite that turns them into monsters. He was trying to fight those instincts, to reclaim his body again by disassociating. I hadn’t the heart to tell him it was a losing battle.