Another Kind of Dead Read online

  Good lord, he was starting to sound like Wyatt. Everyone wanted to protect me, but no one else saw it was the only solution. How could I not trade myself for Phin? “I won’t let Thackery kill him,” I said. “Period.”

  Was that panic flittering across Bastian’s face? “He’s one man, Evangeline.”

  “He’s my friend.”

  He went to pinch the bridge of his nose—a universal gesture of annoyance, I supposed, since it got directed at me a lot—then stopped before he made the break worse. “Thackery will bleed you dry if it means developing the cure he wants.”

  I lifted one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug, even though my insides were quaking at the idea of being Thackery’s lab rat. My mouth was dry when I said, “Maybe, but I’ve been the cause of a lot of friends’ deaths lately, and I will not leave Phineas on the chopping block. I will get him out.”

  “And give up the cure?”

  “There may not be a fucking cure!” I threw my hands in the air. “Maybe the only reason I fought off the parasite is because I was gifted healing powers by a gnome. Maybe Thackery will stick me, test me, and realize I don’t have anything useful for him.”

  “Then let us test your blood.”

  I stared at him. “Are you serious?”

  His expression left little doubt. “Perfectly serious.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Hell no, you’re not testing my blood,” I said.

  “Just a sample, please.” A spark of excitement was back in his voice, and, combined with the blood on his face, it made him look downright terrifying.

  Another denial hung on my lips. I could give Erickson’s team a sample, just to test and see if there really was anything unusual. Not that it would change my mind about trading for Phineas, but knowing for sure I didn’t have any sort of antibody might change Thackery’s demands. Might make him realize he didn’t need me and just let Phin go.

  Yeah, right.

  If nothing else, I’d get the peace of mind of knowing I was going to my potential death because I had value.

  I glanced at Baylor. He’d lowered his gun and was watching me with rapt attention. He made a face that seemed to say, “Sorry. You’re on your own with this one.”

  “Just a sample,” I said to Bastian. “So we can know for sure.”

  “Agreed. The lab is upstairs on sublevel 1.”

  As we retraced our steps to the elevator, I studied Bastian’s back. Straight posture, no shoulder slump, no falter in his steps. He walked as he had before—confident in his position within the hierarchy. Somewhere below the brass but above the Handlers.

  “Even after Olsmill,” I said, “you never said anything. You knew Thackery had helped Tovin create those abominations, but you didn’t turn him in.”

  “No,” he said, punching in his elevator code.

  “Why?”

  “You said it a few moments ago. He was my friend.”

  Sublevel 1 was another labyrinth of corridors that honeycombed around dozens of doors and oddly shaped rooms. The doors had alphanumeric designations that gave no hint as to their purpose or contents. Mixed with lemon disinfectant and chemicals was the sharper scent of a recently fired gun. Or many recently fired guns. Underground shooting range for bullet development, most likely. It was kind of cool.

  And nerve-racking. Even with Baylor watching my back, I didn’t trust Bastian. Not only for what he’d told me about his history with Thackery but because, as our recruiter, Bastian had the ear of the brass. He had influence. He knew how important a vaccine could be. He couldn’t possibly agree with my decision to trade myself for Phineas.

  Which meant he might try to keep me here.

  Bastian slid a plastic key card through the lock of a plain white door. I followed him, Baylor behind me, into a room that looked like every stereotypical biology lab I’d ever seen. I didn’t know the names of the machines or what they did. There were no chairs, no exam tables—just equipment—and the odor of blood made my stomach churn.

  “What are you doing?” I asked when Bastian reached for a phone.

  “Calling a lab assistant. Unless you know how to draw your own blood?”

  I shook my head. He made the call and we waited. Bastian took some gauze out of a drawer, pressed it to his nose, and then stared at me until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “What?”

  “Just trying to remember the fragile blond girl I first met almost five years ago,” he said.

  Fragile? “And?”

  “And I’m a bit disappointed we never managed to locate Chalice Frost and train her. This teleporting ability of hers would have been a terrific advantage.”

  I blinked. I hadn’t expected that. “I think this teleporting ability of mine has been a great advantage.”

  “An advantage you’re giving away to Thackery.”

  “Dude, even if I weren’t between a rock and a fucking hard place with Thackery, it’s not an advantage you’d get to use anytime soon. I’m not a Hunter anymore.”

  “Perhaps not in occupation, but you’ll always be a Hunter in spirit. I’ve never chosen unwisely, Evangeline.”

  The lab assistant arrived, a flighty, overcaffeinated young woman with boy-cut brown hair and black-rimmed glasses. She took one look at Baylor, who hadn’t put his gun away, and shrank back.

  “Marie,” Bastian said, “Ms. Stone here needs a blood sample drawn.”

  Marie nodded vigorously, those thick glasses slipping down her long nose. She filled two vials with my blood—such normal-looking blood. And maybe it was. Part of me hoped it was. “Do you need this tested?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Bastian said. “Priority scan for absolutely anything abnormal, no matter how small.”

  “Okay.” She took the vials to one of the other counters and put them in a rack for safekeeping.

  “If you’re determined to do this,” Bastian said to me, “then may I request one further precaution?”

  “Request away,” I said.

  “Let Marie inject you with the internal tracking dye.”

  I’d been injected with the radioactive dye a few times in the past without ill effects. Still, everything that had ever come out of R&D was now suspect. “Thackery’s probably the one who told Erickson how to develop ours and knows how to find it, so no thanks.”

  “This is a new varietal that’s improved upon the old formula. It allows us to track you within a half-mile radius now. Thackery shouldn’t be able to scan you for it.”

  “Is it detectable?”

  “You mean when he tests your blood? No, it shouldn’t be.”

  “Shouldn’t be.” I hated words like that. And yet, for all my suspicions, it was actually a damned good backup plan. As long as he wasn’t lying to me. “Okay, then.”

  Bastian smiled. “Marie, can you fetch the D-34 solution?”

  The lab assistant produced a bottle of blue liquid from a locked cabinet. I watched her insert a syringe, suck out a small amount, and flick it with her finger. She stepped toward me, and I held up my hand in a warning gesture. “Nuh-uh, him first.”

  “We don’t need to track me,” Bastian said.

  “True, but I don’t know what’s really in that bottle, or if D-34 is code for a sedative. You stay on your feet, then she can hit me with it.”

  A flicker of respect passed across Bastian’s face. He unbuttoned his shirt sleeve and rolled it to just above the elbow. “Okay, then. Go ahead, Marie.”

  She swabbed the inside of his elbow and made the injection. We stood there for a full minute afterward, everyone deferring to me. When Bastian remained upright, bemused, without showing any sign of passing out, I presented my arm to Marie. She prepped a new syringe. Heat flared outward from the injection site, dissipating seconds later. No dizziness, no nausea. So far, so good.

  “You been here a while?” I asked Marie.

  She nodded, wary of being addressed directly. “Yes.”

  “A week ago, Gina Kismet sent a sample of liquid here. She
was told it was an experimental antidote. Did you test it?”

  She glanced at Bastian first, then shook her head at me. “I didn’t test it, but I saw the file. It was a deteriorating tracking liquid, meant to last about seventy-two hours. Its tracking range isn’t impressive.”

  Damn. We still didn’t know how the pùca found the cabin, or how Thackery knew I’d survived the infection.

  “I’ll get the computer you’ll need to track her,” Bastian said to Baylor. “Meet me back at the elevator.”

  Baylor seemed poised to argue, but Bastian slid out of the room like a vapor. Marie discarded the used needles and went back to her blood work.

  “How long will your testing take?” I asked.

  “A couple of hours,” she replied, not looking at me.

  Baylor and I retreated to the corridor. The networking hallways made navigating back to the elevator difficult, but Baylor seemed to remember the way, so I let him lead. We arrived first and waited. He’d finally reholstered his gun and stood there like a statue, the modern model of a dedicated bodyguard. We’d interacted quite a bit in the last month, but I really knew next to nothing about him. Nothing except his dedication to the Triads and his bullheaded integrity.

  “Do me a favor?” I asked before I could talk myself out of it.

  “Within my power,” he replied, a curious slant to his mouth.

  “Don’t let Wyatt do anything stupid. He won’t like me going to Thackery willingly—hell, I don’t like me going willingly—but right now, I don’t see any other way to save Phineas. Thackery’s got the cards, and he knows how to play them. If things go badly and I …” My stomach clenched. “Just don’t let him do anything stupid, okay?”

  “Like try to mount an ill-advised rescue and get himself killed?”

  “Basically. Or, you know, hunt down another crazy elf and try to resurrect me again.”

  Baylor smiled warmly. “I’ll do my best. Sure you wouldn’t rather ask Gina?”

  “I think she could talk him down, but you’re more likely to actually knock him down, if it comes to that.”

  “Understood.”

  Bastian joined us a minute later, a laptop case dangling from one shoulder. “What are you going to tell the others about me?” he asked.

  “You mean the lying-by-omission thing?” Baylor took a menacing step forward. “Nothing. But you’ve got one hour to come clean about it to the brass. One hour.” He didn’t have to make a threat—the violence was implied.

  Bravo.

  We went back up to the lobby; Bastian stayed below. Wyatt was stalking the elevator doors, looking ready to burst out of his skin. Kismet stood from the chair she’d folded herself into. Both were studies of anxiety and nerves.

  “They’re all down there,” I said before he could ask. “All six.”

  “What took so long?” His dark gaze roved over me.

  “Little preemptive planning.” I told him about the tracking dye and my blood donation, but left out the details of Bastian’s confession. The latter because I didn’t need the headache of prying Wyatt’s hands from Bastian’s throat. I almost didn’t mention the blood—telling Wyatt I’d left a sample behind seemed like saying I didn’t think I’d be back. “It’s being tested downstairs, but I don’t know if they’ll have results before game time.”

  “That’s good, though,” Kismet said. “The blood gives our side a chance to look for antibodies, and if the dye isn’t something Thackery can identify, it’ll go a long way toward finding out where he’s set up his little laboratory.”

  “Exactly,” I said. And if Marie happened to learn that I wasn’t carrying anything extraordinary in my veins, so much the better. It meant I wasn’t giving Thackery anything useful, and I’d beaten the infection through good, old-fashioned gnome healing magic.

  A newly familiar clanging bell broke from Wyatt’s hip. He pulled Thackery’s cell phone out and held it to me.

  I stared at it, wide-eyed. “He’s early.” I took it, flipped it open. Hit Speaker. “Stone.”

  “Ah, excellent,” Thackery said. “When I heard about your presence at the cabin, I feared for your safety.”

  “Fuck you.”

  He chuckled, and I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him. “No sense in being vulgar, my dear.”

  “Why are you calling? Our agreement was twelve hours, and it’s been only eight. You reneging?”

  “Not exactly. The deadline stands, but I’ve decided to alter the price of your friend’s freedom.”

  “And if I don’t feel like negotiating?”

  Thackery sighed. Then a scream erupted on his end of the call, long and loud and agonized. I nearly dropped the phone. I knew that voice. Wyatt held my gaze, steely determination in his black eyes, and I didn’t look away.

  “You were saying about not wishing to negotiate?” Thackery asked.

  It took several tries to get my voice steady enough to answer. “What do you want?”

  “Two hundred thousand dollars wired to the overseas account of my choice.”

  I barked laughter, stung by the absurdity of his request. Had I left my life behind and landed in the middle of a police television drama? “How the hell am I supposed to get my hands on two hundred grand, not to mention have a clue as to how to wire it somewhere?”

  “Your friends will help you. Have it ready to go when I call at the end of our deadline. And just in case you’re planning on double-crossing me in some way, I think I’ve proved I’ll not hesitate to take it out on the shape-shifter. But if you need further incentive, I have two hounds left at my disposal.”

  My heart sank.

  “Cross me,” he said, “and I’ll release them in a populated area. Perhaps a park or inside the mall. A good place for them to hunt. Talk to you soon.” He hung up with an audible click.

  Motherfucker! The sound of Phin’s agonized scream haunted me as I tucked the phone away with trembling hands. I couldn’t stop imagining what Thackery had done to make him shriek like that. Wyatt slipped his arm around my waist, and I sagged against him, eyes closed, trying to collect my racing thoughts. Any plans I’d had to get Phin free and make a run for it were gone. I would never risk Thackery loosing those hounds on the public. The casualties would be catastrophic. Thackery had played every card right, and I had nothing to challenge his hand.

  As though sensing my defeat, Wyatt held me tighter.

  “Where are we going to get that kind of money?” I asked, focusing on the problem I could fix.

  “We’ll ask the Assembly,” he said, voice rumbling through his chest.

  “What if they pull some sort of nonnegotiation policy on us?”

  “Doubtful.” His hand stroked my arm in comforting lines. “Phin’s an Elder, Evy, and he’s one of the last of his kind. Something tells me the Assembly will pay. I’m almost surprised Thackery didn’t demand more.”

  I snorted and stood up straighter. He’d demanded plenty. In fact, his demand had cemented my course of action in a way nothing else had. Wyatt’s hand stayed on my hip, and I threaded my fingers through his, holding it there. “I’ll call Michael Jenner. He’ll be able to help.”

  Jenner was the official representative of the Assembly of Clan Elders, speaking publicly for them in matters involving the Triads and most other species. He was Therian, like Phin, but he’d never verified from which Clan. He was also a public defender. He’d helped save my life twice, and here I was about to ask him for another favor.

  The call went well, considering it was almost five in the morning and the first Jenner was hearing about Phin’s abduction. I gave him the condensed version of events and promised details later. He said to give him two hours to alert the Assembly Elders and collect the money in a transferable account. I didn’t know how he’d manage it before any banks actually opened but trusted him to get it done.

  I didn’t have a choice, really, and I despised being left without choices. With a promise to get every available Therian on the streets looking f
or Phin and inspecting potential hound hunting grounds, he hung up. I gave Kismet’s cell back to her and gazed at the faces around me. No one had left the lobby during the call, not even Bastian. He’d come upstairs, nose bandaged, and had been showing Baylor and Kismet how to use the laptop for tracking me. He got looks, but no one asked about his fresh injury.

  “So you’re really going through with this?” Baylor asked as they tucked the laptop back into its case.

  “I don’t have a choice,” I said. “Let’s pretend I could actually justify allowing Phin to be tortured and murdered in order to protect what may or may not be in my blood. Even if I could manage that, I cannot justify the dozens, if not hundreds, of people who will be killed, hurt, or maimed when Thackery releases those hounds in public. You know he wasn’t bluffing. We’ve been lucky with them so far, because they’ve been sent after specific targets”—usually me—“but when they’re let out to kill indiscriminately? No, and if we weren’t so unsure about my blood, none of us would consider any other course of action beyond trading me.”

  “But this isn’t just any other demand,” Kismet said. “If he gets his antidote, he has an effective weapon—”

  “And you’ll deal with it, if it comes to that. Just like we always deal with everything that gets thrown at us. One step at a time. We can only battle what’s in front of us.” They can only battle what’s in front of them. I had to stop thinking in terms of “we.” A chill skated up my spine as the reality of what was happening truly set in. I was going to willingly turn myself over to Thackery, and all signs pointed toward a very slow death at his hands.

  God, not again …

  “I’ll call Morgan and Nevada,” Baylor said. “Start the phone chain. We need every team we have out there scouting potential attack zones. It’s likely Thackery hasn’t placed the hounds yet, so someone may get lucky. I’m going to stay here for now and coordinate things.”

  “I’ll take the Hunters off base,” Kismet said, accepting his plan with a curt nod. “Where do you want—?”

  “Can you take Oliver to the hospital to meet up with Carly?”