Another Kind of Dead Read online

  I opened my eyes and blinked away the dryness. Stared over Wyatt’s shoulder. The entire rear half of Kismet’s SUV was in the middle of the cabin, dripping with rainwater, a twisted hunk of metal and tires and broken glass. The stink of motor oil joined the already rank smells inside the cabin.

  “Holy fuck,” Kismet said from the bedroom door. “You did it.”

  “We did it,” I said. “Wyatt?”

  Nothing.

  I pulled out from beneath him and gently rolled him onto his back. His chest rose and fell. Blood trickled from both nostrils and stained his upper lip and chin. He was paler than his complexion had any right to be. I checked his pulse with trembling fingers—weak, but steady.

  “Is he okay?” Kismet squatted on his other side, her green eyes wide.

  “He just needs to rest.”

  She left and returned with a spare blanket and pillow. It wasn’t an ideal spot, but I tucked the pillow under his head, careful not to jostle. He’d have a big enough headache when he woke up. My own head was throbbing steadily, but I ignored it in favor of seeing to him. He’d always taken care of me. I wiped his face with a corner of the blanket, kissed his cheek, and stood.

  Dizziness nearly toppled me, so I stood still, trying to get my bearings.

  Kismet and Milo were attacking the remains of her car, attempting to get at the rear compartment. I wandered into the bathroom and shivered as I remembered the last time I’d walked out of it. Had it been only that morning? It felt like a lifetime ago.

  I rummaged in the medicine cabinet and found a bottle of ibuprofen. I dry-swallowed three. As I closed the cabinet, I caught my reflection—dark circles stood out beneath both eyes like identical shiners. The cuts from the glass had healed, but my healing power couldn’t seem to stay on top of the wear and tear of using my Gift. Unless it was from something else—something like the petri dish my body had become for Thackery’s benefit.

  My blood had the potential to fight off vampiric parasites. Too bad it couldn’t heal the wounds of others. I’d have gladly offered a pint to Felix if it meant saving his life. I didn’t want any more Hunters dying because of their association with me.

  In the main room, they’d managed to clear a path wide enough for Kismet to climb into the wreckage; sometimes being five foot two and gymnast-fit had advantages. She was passing weapons out to Milo, who dutifully piled them on the floor. Guns, clips, knives, a short sword, throwing stars, silver spikes, a few grenades—we might just have a chance at killing those hounds.

  “That’s all I can reach,” Kismet said. She wiggled her way back out of the wreck, clothes damp, and ran a hand through her short, red hair. “Now we just need an attack plan.”

  “We can’t fight them hand to hand,” I said. “Our best bet is the guns.”

  “Agreed. We’ve got frag and a-c clips, plus three flash grenades.”

  “Flash won’t do much in this weather. We may want to wait a little longer for the storm to move out. The wind and rain will make it too difficult to aim.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “I know, but we’ve seen the heart of the storm. I can feel the change. Give it half an hour to die down.”

  She nodded, then started arranging the weapons. I’d expected more of a fight.

  Wyatt was still out cold. His pulse beat a little stronger, and his color was better. I sat with him for a few minutes, watching him sleep. How I’d ever believed the trickster had been this man next to me, I didn’t know. The visual had been perfect, but even shape-shifters can’t replicate a person’s heart and soul. Can’t replicate a smell or taste. I pressed my lips to his forehead and inhaled. So familiar, so completely him.

  “Wake up for me,” I whispered.

  He didn’t.

  “Do you really think someone at Boot Camp is responsible for this?” Kismet asked.

  “I don’t want to,” I replied, “even though it makes sense. Look at the hounds outside. Someone had enough time to warn Thackery that we had Token, and I’m positive Thackery’s smart enough to have anticipated how we’d use him.”

  “Why work with someone like Thackery? His research is unnatural.”

  “Roofie rounds.”

  “What?”

  I gazed up at her from my crouched position. “We do research similar to it at R&D, don’t we? We have frag bullets that can pierce gargoyle hide and a-c’s that make even the strongest vampires bleed out. Could you imagine the power we’d have if we could inoculate humans against a vampire’s bite? Eradicating the Halfie problem would make our jobs so much easier, and no one else would have to suffer like Alex did.”

  Kismet looked at the ammunition box in her hands.

  I dropped my forehead onto my palm. The power to save other people from Halfie infection could be coursing through my veins, hiding in my blood. Or Thackery’s theory was full of shit, and I was getting my hopes way up.

  “So you … what?” Kismet asked. “You agree with this possible traitor?”

  My head snapped up, cheeks blazing. “Not even a little fucking bit. The research could be helpful, but it’s no excuse for turning on us.”

  “Doing what you think is right isn’t reason enough to turn against the people you work with?”

  I started to blast off a retort, then snapped my mouth shut. She wasn’t talking about this mystery person at Boot Camp. Her intense green eyes gazed at me, hard and piercing, daring me to answer. Goading me into denying I’d done the exact same thing.

  Dammit, I hated being called on my own mistakes.

  A groan saved me from answering. Wyatt was blinking at the ceiling with bloodshot eyes and trying to sit up. I pushed him back down.

  “Did it work?” he asked.

  “It worked.” I placed a palm flat on his chest, rubbing gentle circles. “You did good. We’ve got weapons.”

  “I think …” He swallowed hard. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  I helped him half run, half crawl into the bathroom, and I rubbed his back while he threw up. When retching turned to dry heaves, I soaked a rag in warm water and wiped his face. The pallor was back, and his entire body trembled. I sat down with my back to the wall and pulled him into my arms, holding him against my chest like he’d done so many times for me.

  “I feel so weird,” he said.

  “You channeled a lot of power through your body. Just relax.” I didn’t have a lot of practice in offering comfort. Even when Jesse and Ash were injured, I’d let them tend to each other. They’d tended to me on occasion, but some invisible thing kept me from returning the favor. From showing without words how much I cared.

  Wyatt’s head rested in the crook of my shoulder. I pressed my cheek to his temple, tightened my arms around him, and tried to do just that—show it without words. “I love you,” I whispered.

  One of his hands found mine, and our fingers threaded together, palm to palm. He kissed my knuckles, and I felt the smile on his lips.

  Another hour passed before the storm showed signs of calming. The worst of it had moved beyond us, but the air remained thick with residual energy. After I forced some crackers and half a can of soup down Wyatt’s throat, he seemed coherent enough to join me, Kismet, and Milo at the table.

  “His fever’s up,” Milo said, referencing Felix without saying so. “We can’t wait much longer.”

  “Even if we kill the hounds,” Wyatt said, “how do we get off the mountain? All our cars are smashed to shit.”

  “Someone will have to get down where there’s a signal,” Kismet said. “Make a call and get some backup.”

  I grunted. “That could take another hour to get someone up here, and then get Felix back down.” She shot me a look that asked if I had a better idea. I hated to admit I did, mostly because it was going to hurt like hell. “I can teleport him closer to the road. I’ll have more control now that the storm’s moving—”

  “But less power,” Wyatt said.

  “Yes, but with the condition he’s
in, I need control more.”

  “Is that even wise?” Kismet asked. “You’ve been through two huge power surges, or whatever you call them, already today. Can you manage one more, and with a wounded person?”

  “I can try.”

  “No.” Milo surprised me with his sharp delivery, and even more with the cold glare he leveled in my direction.

  “Milo—”

  “No fucking way, Evy. You don’t know these roads. You can’t tell me you know exactly where to teleport so you don’t land both of you inside a damned tree. You’re not going to try with Felix’s life.”

  “I’ve been up here before,” Kismet said. “It’s not as fast, but I can run the mountain, and I know a shortcut to the road. I’ll go until I can get a signal.”

  “You can make it in the dark?” Wyatt asked.

  “Yes.” No hesitation. To me, she said, “You can’t do everything, Stone. Even you have limits.”

  And I had no business testing those limits with someone else’s life. She was right. I could get us farther down the mountain in seconds, but given the dense foliage and unfamiliar terrain, I was more likely to materialize with my legs in a boulder.

  “First things first, though,” Milo said. “Gina can’t get help until we take care of the hounds outside.”

  “Back at Olsmill we hit them with a mix of frags and a-c’s,” Kismet said. “Underbelly is the softest hit when they’re standing. But they’re strong and they’re fast.”

  Wyatt nodded. “We also can’t just open the door and rush outside shooting, because they could get in here.”

  With Felix, who couldn’t defend himself.

  “So we need to ambush them,” Kismet said. “Or at least distract them enough so I can slip out and get help.”

  “Without being followed,” Milo added.

  “Right.”

  As I gazed at our stock of weapons, an idea began to coalesce. My right hand still wasn’t healed enough to hold a gun and aim properly. That left the men to handle the heavy offensive. And it left me as bait.

  Kismet had one of the guns in her hand, her cell phone tucked into her pocket, and she bounced on her heels by the front door, ready to make a run for it. We’d closed Felix into the bedroom and blocked it with the dining table for good measure. Milo and Wyatt had their guns locked and loaded, and they flanked either side of the front door.

  I’d tucked a hunting knife into my shoe and another into the back of my jeans for good measure. In my hands I held one of the flash grenades, a second in my front pocket. Rain still pattered gently outside, but the thunder was soft and far away. The raw electricity was barely there—a gentle caress across my skin that was easy to ignore.

  Next thunderstorm, I was hiding under my bed for the duration.

  “We’re sure there are just two of them?” I asked.

  “Pretty positive,” Kismet replied, as though I hadn’t asked the same question four times since we’d agreed to my plan.

  On impulse, I took a step closer, lowering my voice. “You know, I never did thank you.”

  “Thank me? For what? After everything that’s happened these last few weeks, I figure you’d rather punch me in the head than thank me.”

  My mouth twitched. “Thank you for bringing me here to fight off the infection.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You could have killed me and gotten me out of everyone’s hair.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. “I don’t think my friendship with Wyatt could have survived killing you twice. Even if the first time didn’t take.” Her voice held a hint of teasing, but nothing in her expression was amused.

  “You did it for him?”

  “Yes.” Her gaze flickered over my shoulder. “I’ve known Wyatt for a long time, Stone, and I was trying to protect what he’d helped build for ten years. Bringing you here last week? That was for him, because he believed you could fight it. He never stopped believing you’d win, and he believes you’ll win again now. So let’s use his faith and do this.”

  I nodded and faced the door, adrenaline surging through me. My heart sped up and a metallic taste filled my mouth. I clenched my fist around the grenade. Bounced on my tiptoes. “Here we go,” I said.

  Milo and Wyatt took new positions by the sofa, prepared to shove it out of the way as soon as I disappeared. I closed my eyes and felt the spark of the Break. It was fainter than it should have been, and harder to grab. I struggled for my emotional tap, but loneliness wasn’t coming easily.

  I thought back to earlier in the day—a lifetime ago in some ways—that moment in the bedroom when I’d flinched and Wyatt had walked away. I tried to imagine if he’d kept going, driven out of my life by guilt. My guts clenched. Tears stung my eyes, and the power of the Break flooded through me on a sea of loneliness. I was moving, willing myself out of the cabin, to a spot ten feet from the front door. An open area of mud, according to Wyatt, and my best destination.

  Rain passed through me with the oddest tickling sensation, then spattered on my skin as I materialized. Mud squished around my shoes. I immediately pulled the pin on the grenade and spun in a careful circle, looking. Waiting. Tiny shafts of light spilled from the blocked windows and closed door, barely enough to see.

  A roar rattled the quiet, a terrible bass rumbling in my chest, followed by an answering growl. One on either side of me, closing in. Footsteps smacked the soaked ground. I held on to my tap. Listened. A flash of black in my peripheral vision was enough. I dropped the grenade and fell into the Break. Heard a snap, then cries of pain.

  I hit the cabin floor on my knees, disoriented by something—had I been caught in the blast? I shook my head, blinking hard, aware of rapid gunfire ahead of me. Cool air wafted inside from the open cabin door. Kismet was gone. Something inhuman shrieked in agony. Wyatt shouted.

  I rushed outside, into the chilly rain. One of the hounds was dead, its hulking form limp on the ground by the front half of Kismet’s car, bleeding from a dozen holes. Even above the odors of wet earth and ozone, I could smell the stink of its blood.

  The second was trying to crawl away with one clawed hand. Its legs dragged behind it, covered in blood from two wounds in the center of its back. It gurgled and growled, leaving a trail of brackish blood in the mud as it slithered. Milo and Wyatt trailed behind it for a few feet, fascinated by the thing’s attempt to escape.

  Milo circled in front of the wounded hound and stopped. It raised its head and growled. Milo squeezed off a round that shattered the hound’s face. It fell, dead. His hand was shaking as he lowered his arm to his side. Rain slicked his face and hair.

  “That was for Felix,” he said, almost too softly to hear. He looked up, first at me, then past me. Up. His eyes bugged out.

  I didn’t ask, just pulled the knife from the back of my pants and started to pivot. The mud made my move awkward, and the undetected third hound slammed into my left side.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The hound and I toppled to the ground and skidded a few feet, my knife buried in its guts. Claws slashed at my back. Teeth snapped at my face. I thrashed like a beached fish, desperately wrenching at the knife, trying to inflict maximum damage.

  Gunshots popped. The hound screamed, deafening my right ear and numbing my senses. Silver flashed above us and sliced downward. Its weight collapsed on top of me, smashing me into wet earth. The hilt of the knife jammed under my ribs so hard I expected one or two to break.

  “Come on, pull!” Wyatt’s voice was muffled, but no less welcome.

  The body was lifted enough for me to scramble out and, finally free, collapse on the ground, breathing hard. Noxious blood coated my skin. My ribs were on fire from my left breast to the small of my back, and I could imagine the furrows that thing’s claws had left behind.

  “Dammit,” I said. “Should’ve expected that.”

  “Can you move?” Wyatt asked, kneeling beside me in the mud.

  “Yeah. Any others?”

 
“None so far. Milo’s scouting around.”

  Wyatt tried to be gentle about helping me stand, but there was no way not to disturb my new wounds. We limped into the cabin. He steered me straight to the bathroom, leaving a blotchy trail of mud, rainwater, and gore behind. The hound’s blood felt like acid in my open gashes. I clenched my fists, grateful for the ache in my still-healing right wrist. It gave me something to concentrate on while Wyatt turned on the shower. He helped me undress with the clinical detachment of the Handler he’d once been, and then he left and pulled the bathroom door shut behind him.

  I unwound the soaked and stained bandage from my wrist. The bone was tender and the skin angry-red, but the worst of the break had healed. It could bear weight. I let myself cry through the pain as the hot shower sluiced away the hound’s blood. Brown and red swirled down the drain together, and eventually the water ran clear.

  Clean clothes waited for me on the back of the toilet. Underwear and bra went on first and with extra care. I twisted to look at my back in the mirror and wished I hadn’t. Four long scores went from just below my breast down across my left side and stopped at the small of my back. The gashes still wept blood, the edges jagged and swollen. Just great.

  I opened the door and peered out. Wyatt stopped in the middle of what appeared to be impatient pacing. “I need your hands,” I said. Off his startled look, I added, “Not for that. Come here.”

  He came in and closed the door. I presented my back, and he hissed. “Damn, Evy, those look bad.”

  “No shit. Can you put some gauze on them so they don’t bleed through the last of my clean clothes?”

  “Yeah … okay.” Wyatt opened the first-aid kit. “Hold your left arm up.”

  I did, locking it across my sternum with my right. The healing ache was still present. How close to twelve hours had it been since my phone chat with Thackery? Maybe five hours? I’d lost track of time long ago and—“Shit!”