Wrong Side Of Dead (13 page)

“What was the question?”

I almost commented on curiosity and cats, but it would have been funny only if Marcus was around. Still, talking was better than awkward silences. “Back on the roof of the rave, I asked Felix how he was able to maintain his sanity, despite the infection.”

“And?”

“He said he just did, but that’s bullshit. There’s something else, and I want to know what.”

Wyatt turned onto Atlantic Avenue, which would take us north into the heart of Mercy’s Lot. Our ultimate destination was just a bit farther south, on the border of the Lot and the rest of downtown. A place I used to know very, very well.

“Shit,” Wyatt suddenly said.

I gave him a sharp look, but he didn’t seem alarmed. “What is it?”

He glanced at me, a peculiar expression on his face. “What if Thackery developed some sort of serum that helps half-Bloods maintain their sanity? Like a Halfie Prozac or something? What if that’s the other thing he’s holding over Felix?”

A chill wrapped around my heart and squeezed. “If Thackery did that, he’d have loyal and sane Halfies at his disposal.” And it made a horrific kind of sense, considering
Thackery’s need to be crowned World’s Maddest Mad Scientist. “But why the body dumps?”

“Maybe they’re failed experiments. Maybe the serum didn’t work, so he killed them. We didn’t collect samples from those body dumps. We’ll never know if there was anything unusual in their physiology.” He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “It’s also possible that some of them refused to enlist in Thackery’s private army, serum or not, so he had them disposed of.”

“That’s an awful lot of maybes and ifs, Wyatt.”

“You know, that’s usually my line.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He reached out with his right hand and squeezed my arm. “The idea of it scares the shit out of me, too, Evy, but we both know what Thackery is capable of scientifically. We can’t disregard the possibility.”

I hated that he knew me so well. Walter Thackery and his experiments had been haunting my afterlife since the first time I ran into one of his hounds. His fingerprints covered every major event since my resurrection, and he’d been as difficult to capture as an eel in an oil slick. We were no match for him intellectually, and so far he’d had all kinds of hybrid monsters doing his physical dirty work. The Halfies were just another in a long line of victims.

Just like Wolf Boy had been. Discovering that an actual werewolf had been alive and well and moving freely in the city had thrown the Assembly into a tizzy. As a Clan, werewolves had supposedly gone extinct in the early sixteenth century. No one would tell me why (“It’s Clan business, Stone, and it’s need to know” was a favorite statement from Michael Jenner); they’d say only that werewolves had been bloodthirsty, nasty creatures with no desire to adapt and live among humans. They preferred wolf form, preferred the hunt, and offered no mercy to their prey.

That Thackery had one in his employ until I killed the kid during the destruction of Boot Camp … Well, it had the Assembly on the alert for signs of others popping up. So far, none had. But that didn’t mean Wolf Boy was the only one Thackery knew about. Thackery never showed all his cards at once.

Wolf Boy, the hounds, the hybrids, his never-ending experiments—all served to remind me that Thackery was little more than a sociopath. And that he terrified me on the most basic of levels.

I squared my shoulders, more for me than Wyatt, because he couldn’t really see it anyway. “I’m not disregarding the theory. Hiding from something until it goes away isn’t my style, Wyatt.”

“I know that. Just making sure you didn’t forget.”

The temptation to knuckle him in the arm was almost too strong to resist. Childish, maybe, but dammit, he still knew how to bring that out in me. He knew my buttons better than anyone. “So Thackery knows how to make Halfies less crazy, and he’s now recruiting an army of them to do what?”

“The last six years of his life have been dedicated to curing vampirism in humans. He thought your blood would help.”

“Yeah, I was there, thanks,” I deadpanned.

He slowed for a left turn. “But it didn’t, is my point. What if Thackery got to a place where he decided if you can’t beat them, join them?”

“Fight fire with fire?”

“Whichever metaphor you want, yes. He could theoretically use those Halfies to attack the vampires. Look at how those Halfies fought for Tovin at Olsmill. They almost match full-Blood vampires in strength and speed. Their biggest flaw was being mostly bat shit insane.”

“Which Thackery has taken care of.”

“Exactly.”

I dropped my face into the palms of my hands, mind racing. This was bad on so many levels. Granted, it was all fucking theory, but it was a damned good theory. All of the pieces fit, and it did make an awful kind of sense.

Wyatt’s hand slid up my arm to squeeze my shoulder. “We’re almost there.”

I sat up. Familiar row homes and middle-class apartment buildings lined the rolling streets of this small slice of city halfway between the bustle of downtown and the desperate poverty of Mercy’s Lot. Wyatt parked near a familiar telephone booth, within view of my destination.

“Hang here while I go look,” I said.

He nodded, surprising me with his lack of protest at my wanting to go alone. “I’ll call Astrid and let her in on our new theory.”

“Okay.”

I grabbed a spare pair of sweatpants from the backseat and climbed out. I walked up the inclined sidewalk toward an empty lot half a block long and nearly as deep. The last time I was here, the blackened rubble of a major apartment building fire still lay scattered in heaps and piles. In the intervening months, someone had cleared the lot of debris, leaving behind a cement foundation and an asphalt parking lot. All other evidence of the Sunset Terrace Apartments was gone, bulldozed away. Forgotten.

But not by everyone.

A familiar figure was sitting cross-legged a few dozen yards away, back to me, easy to spot even in the gloom of faraway streetlights. I approached slowly, taking noisy steps, allowing the gentle breeze to carry my scent to him. Phin turned his head when I closed in to less than ten feet, then looked away. It wasn’t an invitation. It also wasn’t a “get the hell away from me,” so I took it as permission to come closer.

I sat next to him on the warm concrete, noting the knife-shaped object in his lap.

“Rufus called you,” Phineas said.

“Yes.”

“He’s concerned.”

“We all are, Phin. You left without telling anyone where you were going, and right now, we can’t afford to let you out of our sight.”

“Lest we lose the last of the Coni?”

“We haven’t lost the others yet. They’re just misplaced.”

The corner of his mouth quirked. He looked at me full-on, and the simmering hatred in his blue eyes startled me. “Three stories up from this spot is where Jolene and I lived. After she died, I left Sunset Terrace and moved east, closer to the river. Remaining with the Clan only reminded me of the pain. I survived the massacre because I had turned my back on my people.”

“If you’d been here, you’d have died, too, Phineas. And who would have protected Aurora and Joseph when they needed you?”

His nostrils flared. He looked away, over the landscape of cement.

“What is this?” I asked. “I’ve never seen you play the self-pity card.”

“I prefer to think of it as self-reflection.” He lifted the object in his lap—a knife. Fourteen inches from hilt to tip, it gleamed a reflective gold. The blade curved to both sides, divided like a trident missing its center prong. Intricate patterns and swirls decorated the base of the blade where both halves came together, and the handle appeared to be some sort of smooth bone carved with similar patterns.

It looked deadly.

“I told you once that the Coni were a warrior race,” he said. “Centuries ago, we left behind our savage ways
and embraced peace. We chose a life among humans rather than as mythical beings apart from others. We were one of the first Clans to integrate. One of the first to propose what is now the Assembly.”

“Do you think the Fey are punishing you for that?” I asked.

“They punished us for being powerful, and because it played well with their other plans. Two hundred and twelve of us were Coni, Evy. We were a force to reckon with, even against the Fey’s magic. To anger all of the bi-shifting Clans at once? The Fey would stand no chance in a direct battle.” He snorted. “As if they would dirty themselves to fight their own battles.”

He had a point. I’d never seen a sprite outside First Break without the use of a human avatar. A few faeries, yes, but they were less powerful than their fellow Fey. Demanding that the Triads destroy the Coni and Stri Clans could have ended with humans and Therians at each others’ metaphorical throats, on the edge of open war. It hadn’t (by some miracle), which threw a lovely monkey wrench into the sprites’ plans. Left them scrambling and improvising, which they don’t do well.

“What’s the knife for, Phin?” I asked.

“Until about five centuries ago, our elite guard carried them as symbols of their status. Only a few survived, and one has been passed through my line. The others were destroyed during the fire.”

I studied the gold knife and its twin blades—one for each branch of the Clan. Coni and Stri, separate and together. Its age surprised me.

“For me, this is no longer about the Watchtower or the city’s best interests,” Phin said, his voice cold. “It’s about my Clan. I will do whatever it takes to find them and bring them home.”

“I know you will. So will I.”

“Walter Thackery will die by this blade.”

As much as I wanted to argue and lay claim to killing Thackery, I didn’t. Phin hadn’t said who would wield that blade, after all, which left all sorts of things open for interpretation. “We have to find him first,” I said.

“Something tells me we won’t have to wait long.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes.” He turned his head slightly, giving me three-quarters of his profile. “Don’t react, but we are being watched.”

I tensed. “Wyatt’s in the car.”

“The opposite direction, about two o’clock.”

Damn him and his Therian eyesight. All I made out in the shadows between two faraway streetlights was a dark blob. “What is it?”

“A wolf.”

Terrific
.

I tried swallowing, only my mouth had gone dry. “Just one?”

“So far,” Phin replied. “He’s upwind and making no effort to disguise his presence. Larger than your average wolf.” His nostrils flared. “I know that scent.”

“Wolf Boy?”

“Yes.”

“Shit.” I still couldn’t make it out, and really, really hoped that Wyatt stayed put inside the Jeep. Werewolves moved damned fast; it could cross the distance between us in seconds. I had a pair of knives strapped one to each ankle and a switchblade in my rear pocket. I’d also been up close and personal with a werewolf, and I remembered its thick, sturdy muscles. Killing one with a single knife hadn’t been easy.

“I’m going to stand up. Stay put.”

“Okay.”

He handed me his knife, then drew up slowly. I kept my eyes far away from his naked ass as he did so, then held up the sweats when he asked for them. He got them on without incident or warning, which I took as a good sign. Maybe the new wolf was just there to spy on us.

“Slowly now,” Phin whispered, extending his hand. I took it.

We both heard the low growl—from the opposite direction.

“It’s at your seven o’clock,” he said.

The Jeep. I looked. I couldn’t fucking help it. The Jeep was barely visible, a good thirty yards away, and in between the circles of light. Smack in the middle of the light nearest the Jeep was the second werewolf, its gray coat glistening, hackles raised, attention fixed—on a Jeep with zero protection in the form of a roof or windows. Wyatt sat perfectly still behind the wheel, though I had no doubt he was preparing to summon some sort of weapon.

“Can you teleport over there?” Phin asked.

“Yes.” Easily.

“Weapons?”

“Got ’em.”

I was standing now. A third growl, distinctly different from the first two, echoed behind us. Three of them, and they had us surrounded.
Fan-fucking-tastic
.

“Can you teleport to safety?”

“Not the way they’re spread out,” I said. No matter which way I went, I’d be too close to one of the wolves.

“I can fly you out.”

“Then they’ll just attack Wyatt.”

The first wolf stepped into a pool of light. Its black-and-white pelt gleamed and its eyes seemed to wink. It came a few steps forward, head low, no longer showing teeth. I calculated how quickly I could pull out the switchblade. As the wolf drew closer, Phin’s wings appeared. He kept them tucked close to his back, prepared without showing outward aggression.

The other two wolves hadn’t moved; Wyatt remained still.

At less than ten feet away, the black-and-white wolf shifted. The familiar, faint tingle of Break power crawled over my skin. I passed the fancy Coni blade back to
Phin, who held it loosely by his thigh. Any direct threat from us would get someone killed quickly.

A teenage boy continued walking toward us, a mirror image of Wolf Boy—same narrow build, blond hair, and flashing silver eyes, right down to the straight point of his nose. Hatred hung around him like a bad smell, almost a physical presence. He stopped an arm’s length from Phin. He had no weapons in his hands and was completely naked—but I had no doubt he was the most dangerous person in our threesome.

The two males sized each other up, observing and assessing in such a blatantly alpha, testosterone-coated manner that I wanted to crack their heads together. I couldn’t check on the other two wolves without taking my attention away from the boy in front of us, and I desperately wanted to make sure that Wyatt was okay.

“Coni.” The boy’s maturing voice cracked despite his attempt to appear menacing, and he spoke as if those four letters tasted foul in his mouth.