Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

Unless Chalice was a klutz, and I couldn’t get her body to do what needed to be done.

At the far end of the bridge, a sharp tremor tore up my spine. I grabbed on to the handrail, certain I’d been attacked, but no one was within a dozen yards of me. Traffic continued past, paying me no mind. I looked for shadows, strange shapes, prying eyes, anything out of the ordinary. Nothing.

“You’re being paranoid, Evy,” I muttered, and kept walking.

Four blocks from the train yards, the ground began to slope. On the east side of the river, the city had dozens of hills and dips. Some streets followed the natural curve of the ground, and others crossed above the city on elevated bridges, in a maze of over-and underpasses.

Cars and trucks drove past. Once or twice I earned a honk. I discounted hitching on the grounds that, in the middle of a fight, I didn’t need to discover that Chalice had a glass jaw.

My progress took me into a residential area on the north side of Mercy’s Lot, full of weekly apartment rentals and cheap motels that advertised hourly rates. Many of them rose ten or more stories into the sky. Already elevated on hills, they appeared to tower over the rest of the city. Then a gap appeared in the distance, a block to the west of my current position. As I continued up the sloping street, the gap became more pronounced, like a missing tooth in an otherwise perfect mouth.

Yellow tape cordoned off the block. Sawhorses stood a weak sentry line across the sidewalk that ran parallel to the wreckage. It looked like no one was willing to pay to have the site bulldozed, so a mass of burnt wood and brick and metal lay where the Sunset Terrace apartment complex had once stood.

I stopped across the street, hands shaking, overcome by a wave of grief. Many were-Clans lived together, finding comfort and safety in their own kind. The Owlkins—a race of gentle shape-shifters who took on the form of owls, falcons, eagles, and other birds of prey—had once lived in Sunset Terrace. The community had thrived, because they chose neutrality over hostility. Levelheaded and fair, they often served as negotiators between disputing weres.

Now, because of me, they were gone. I didn’t know if any had survived the Triads’ assault.

I could still hear their screams. Feel the scorch of the fire on my face. The smell of burning wood and flesh. Danika’s voice telling me to run. Three hundred dead. It was the price they paid for harboring a fugitive Hunter. Fugitive for a crime she didn’t even commit.

I hadn’t understood it then, and I still didn’t. We’d been lured to Halfie territory and attacked. So why come after me less than ten minutes after I reported the assault? Why was I dodging the bullets of other Hunters, instead of working with them to learn who set us up in the first place?

If I knew any of that before I died, it was lost to a well in the Swiss cheese mess of my memories. All I recalled was going to the Owlkins for protection, being tracked there by the Triads, and running yellow while three hundred gentle souls were burned alive for their kindness. A hostile and over-the-top reaction I just did not understand. And I couldn’t imagine how the Triads had justified it to themselves.

“Now what?” I asked the wreckage. The faraway beep of a car horn was the only response given.

Behind me, a door slammed. I jumped, pivoting on one foot with a surprising amount of grace. A woman in a short skirt, wearing makeup piled on with a shovel, clacked down the sidewalk in high heels, away from the building behind me. She paid no attention to me, but even from a distance, I sensed something off about her. It was the way she walked, holding herself a little too upright, too stiff-legged—the way a goblin female walked when she was trying to pass as human.

Only goblin females could pass and, even then, it was a rare feat. Goblins had naturally curved spines, which accounted for their hunched-over appearance. Some females were able to overcome the curve and maintain a straight posture. Contacts covered red eyes, dye took care of the blue-black hair, and files flattened sharp teeth. Males were incapable of passing. They had more severe hunches, oily skin, pointed ears, and rarely grew taller than five feet—even when standing straight up.

On a normal day, I would have slipped into the shadows and tailed Madame Goblin until I discovered why she was wandering around the city in broad daylight, dressed like a hooker. But today was hardly normal, and I had no proof she wasn’t just bad at walking in heels.

She disappeared around the block. On the same corner stood an old-fashioned telephone booth. Dialing Wyatt’s number should have been as natural as breathing, but even if I could remember it, what would he say? When had I last spoken to him? What did we say? He had been a driving force in my life for the last four years. At once fiercely supportive and shatteringly critical, and somehow he always made it work. We worked as a Triad because of him.

Only now his team was dead, and nothing was how it used to be. Now I had no one to turn to, except for Chalice’s roommate, and he was likely to have me committed if I tried to tell him the truth.

At some point, I’d started walking toward the phone. I stopped halfway there. Turning myself in to the Department was giving up. It meant that the Owlkins died—no, not died, they were slaughtered—for nothing.

No . They died for something: me. A debt worth more than I could possibly repay.

The wind shifted, pushing the acrid stench of burnt wood and tepid water in my direction. I sneezed and bit my tongue. My eyes watered.

Overwhelming loneliness—something I hadn’t felt in a very long time—crashed over me like a wave. I was crushed beneath it, helpless and alone. The world grayed out, at once fuzzy and keenly electric. I held on to consciousness until the dizzy spell passed. Fainting in the street was not on today’s To Do list. Getting answers was.

I grabbed the pay phone’s handset, unaware that I’d entered the booth until I touched the grimy plastic. I lifted it, then dropped it back into the cradle. Was getting those answers worth probable execution? The Department would file me away as Neutralized. Normally they allowed Triads to operate under our own rules, answerable only to our Handlers, who answered to the brass—three key people in the Metro Police. Until someone really, truly screwed up.

The phone rang. I yelped and jumped back, slamming my elbow into the corner of the door. Needles lanced up my right arm, numbing the nerves. Fucking funny bone.

Two rings, sharp and clear.

I spun in a complete circle, halfway in the booth, surveying the surrounding buildings. No one came running to answer the call. The street was quiet, empty.

Three rings. Insistent.

My fingers closed around the mouthpiece.

Four.

I picked it up, silencing the offending noise. Gingerly, I held it to my ear. The line was open, but I heard nothing. Not even heavy breathing. Seconds ticked off, each one stretching out in a lengthy silence.

Frustrated, I swallowed my doubt, and said, “Hello?” Silence. I took a chance, not daring to hope. “Wyatt?”

Click .

Shit.

I dropped the phone and backpedaled out of the booth. My foot stamped down on something hard. The warmth of an arm wrapped around my waist, while a hand clamped over my mouth. Panic hit like ice water. One of my hands came up, clutching at what my eyes couldn’t see. Years of training told me that screaming was futile, but Chalice’s body refused to cooperate.

I shrieked against my human (I hoped) gag, and tried to bite the palm and failed. I ground the heel of my sneaker down, longing for my heavy combat boots. My captor grunted, but didn’t loosen his ghostly hold.