Three Days to Dead

Chapter 13

53:02

Heavy boots landed near my head, crushing broken glass into the thick carpet. I lunged upward and drove my balled fist into the intruder’s groin. Hard bone met delicate flesh, which gave way under the blow. The man howled and doubled forward. I thrust upward. Knuckles connected solidly with his chin. For a split instant, I looked into Tully’s shocked eyes, and then he was toppling backward.

I rose into a crouching position and spun toward scuffling sounds. Alex and Wormer were on the ground, wrestling for control of a revolver. Wormer had used his advantage in bulk to roll Alex onto his back. The gun shifted above their heads. Someone squeezed off a wild shot that took out a vase on the counter. Glass shattered and pinged.

I grabbed the closest weapon within reach—an iron candlestick sporting a half-melted red pillar—and swung. It connected with the side of Wormer’s head. He grunted and lost control of the gun to Alex. It was more of a glancing blow than the knockout I’d hoped for, but it did its job. Alex gripped the gun by the barrel, eyes wide, like he couldn’t believe he wasn’t dead.

“Get off him, asshole.” I shoved Wormer with my foot, and he fell sideways. The bloody footprint left behind on his shirt surprised me. I didn’t even feel the glass.

I readied the candlestick again, hoping to deliver a coma-inducing blow.

“Watch out!” Alex shouted.

Too late. Something hit my neck, sharp as a knife thrust. Lightning exploded behind my eyes, and every nerve ending was on fire. My heart raced, and I could barely breathe fast enough to compensate. I lost muscle control and fell to my knees. A hot flush broke across my skin. Then the agony ended as abruptly as it began, and all I felt was cold. I shrieked as I fell.

Broken glass cut into my right arm. I smelled sizzled flesh. A flash of something long and black entered the periphery of my vision. Cattle prod. Nice move. Didn’t see that one coming.

“We’re better trackers than you realize, little girl,” Tully said.

Little girl? I rolled onto my back, hoping for a good opening, but he gave me none. He stood out of arm’s (and foot’s) reach, the cattle prod in his left hand and a revolver in the other. Pointed not at me, but past me. Over my shoulder, Alex was sitting up with both hands braced around the butt of his acquired gun, muzzle pointed at Tully. His hands trembled ever so slightly.

“Put it down,” Tully said.

“Hell no,” Alex replied, but without the necessary force. His fear was betraying him. “You broke into my apartment. You’re intruders. I can shoot you.”

Tully’s nostrils flared; he didn’t like the threat. “My superiors know where I am. If I don’t check in on time, they come here looking for me. You don’t want that.”

“He’s not kidding,” I said. My hand investigated my neck and found a quarter-sized burn.

The gun’s aim didn’t move, but I came under Tully’s scrutiny. “We know you’re helping a fugitive named Wyatt Truman. Why? Who are you?”

He didn’t know me, which meant the brass didn’t know about my resurrection. I didn’t know how Wyatt kept it secret, but he had. Advantage one for my team. Behind Alex, Wormer groaned. He seemed to be struggling to sit up. Maybe I’d whacked him good after all.

“Where’d they take Wyatt?” I asked.

Tully’s nostrils flared. “Do you really think you’re in a position to ask me questions, lady?”

“Yes.”

He fired. I felt the heat of the bullet as it passed by my cheek. Behind me, Alex cried out. I twisted around, coming up on my hands and knees, stomach knotting as I prepared for the worst. Alex lay on his side, one hand pressed against his right temple. Blood oozed between his fingers, but he was very much alive. Alive, aware, and swearing colorfully enough to make even me blush.

I lunged for the gun he’d abandoned. More lightning, this time in my lower back. Cursing my own idiocy, I collapsed by Alex’s feet. My stomach muscles spasmed. Bile scorched the back of my throat and left a sour taste in my mouth. An unexpected whimper tore from between clenched teeth.

The jolt ceased. I didn’t move, choosing instead to simply breathe. Stupid; goddamn stupid.

“Still think you’re the one asking questions?”

A sardonic retort formed in my mouth, but thankfully died a quick death before I could utter it. I needed my wits about me, not volts of electricity coursing through my body. “No,” I hissed. “You’re in charge.”

“Good girl.”

I drew my knees up to my chest and rolled, hoping to sit up. A sharp kick to the middle of my back felled me again. I took the hint and stayed low, choosing to roll onto my back and prop up on my elbows. I disliked the prone position, but at least I could glare right into Tully’s eyes. It also gave me a better view of the room.

Pale, but very much alive, Alex scooted closer to me. Blood stained the side of his face, neck, and shirt collar. Wormer loomed above us, once again in charge of his own firearm, and apparently very much in favor of using it.

“Now,” Tully said, “let’s try answering my questions. Who are you?”

Smug. I hated that. Self-preservation took a backseat to annoyance. “I’m the thing that the shadows fear.”

Confusion creased his forehead. It was a line Triad members used jokingly amongst ourselves. We hunted the creatures that haunted others’ nightmares. Tully seemed to understand the reference. I could see imaginary wheels turning in his mind.

“Truman tell you to say that?” Tully asked.

The burn on my neck began to itch. If I was lucky, it would heal fast and freak Tully out just a little bit. “Wyatt didn’t tell me to say anything. He never expected us to be separated.”

“That right?” Tully circled to my left, positioning himself closer to Alex and farther from me. The cattle prod bounced in his hand. “Don’t make me ask your name again.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “I’m disappointed in your partner, Wormer,” I said, tossing the silent Hunter an over-the-shoulder look. “He doesn’t recognize me. That hurts my feelings, Tully; it really does.”

They exchanged looks, sharing their confusion. Time ticked onward. They couldn’t stay and question us for very long. The scuffle and gunshots should have aroused the neighbors. Surely someone in the building would know to call the police and report suspicious activity.

“Her name’s Chalice,” Alex said. “She works in a coffee shop. We’re not who you think.”

“You’re not?” Wormer said. “Guess we’ll just have to kill you, then.”

“Cut it out,” Tully admonished. “We don’t kill humans, and you know it.”

Tactical slip. Wyatt would have reamed me a new one for saying that in front of a civilian. Admitting to not killing humans blatantly said that you killed something else.

Tully studied me, still trying hard to see past the unfamiliar exterior to the person hiding inside. “We’ll take them with us. We can’t break her here; we’ve already made too much noise.”

“No, leave her here,” Alex said. “I know things; you want me. Not her.”

Wormer nudged the back of Alex’s head with the muzzle of his gun. “What things do you know?”

Alex glared at Tully, but wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I know that the downtown power outage two years ago was caused by gremlins, and not what the public was told.”

My mouth fell open, but the pair of Hunters misinterpreted my annoyance as shock. Tully crouched down, putting himself at eye level with Alex. Still out of my range, though. The candlestick lay nearby, within arm’s reach.

“Who told you that?” Tully asked.

“I’ll tell you everything,” Alex said. “Just leave Chalice here. She doesn’t know anything.”

“Oh hell no,” I said. “Alex, I know you feel terrible about Chalice, but trying to be a hero and save me isn’t the way to atone for it. She wouldn’t want you to get yourself killed.”

Tully pointed the gun at me. “I thought you were Chalice.”

“And I thought you were an asshole. Too bad only one of us is right.”

Tully swung the cattle prod toward my left arm. At the last moment, I blocked it and kicked him square in the groin. The second direct hit in five minutes sent him to the ground like an anvil. I twisted the cattle prod out of his grasp with the intent of using it on Wormer. Turned out I didn’t need it.

Alex had grabbed the abandoned candlestick and cracked it across Wormer’s jaw. The trigger-happy Hunter squeezed off a round that shattered the room’s only other window before he slumped to the floor. Satisfied, I shoved the tip of the cattle prod into the hollow below Tully’s Adam’s apple. He gurgled and twitched. When I pulled it away, he lay still.

I watched and waited, expecting a miraculous recovery and second attack. It never came.

“Oh my God,” Alex said.

“You okay?”

“I’ll live.” He dropped the candlestick. It cracked against bits of glass. Still sporting a frightening pallor, he studied me with the eyes of a trapped deer. “You’re bleeding.”

“So are you.”

We helped each other stand and wade through the sea of broken glass. The sole of my cut foot stung and left prints on the carpet. My trail followed us back to the sofa, a safe distance from our disabled attackers. Alex sank into the cushion. His slight tremble turned to full-on shaking.

“Who were they?” he asked, the tremor reaching his voice.

“People I used to work with, others like me, only in the bodies they were born in. I’m so sorry; I don’t know how they followed me. I thought I was careful.”

“And you’re sure that you’re the good guy?”

“I know I didn’t do what they’re accusing me of doing.”

“Murder?”

“Right.”

He hung his head. I pawed through the first aid kit. Found more gauze and a small bottle of peroxide. I sat down on his right side.

“I need to clean you up so we can get out of here,” I said.

“And go where? This is my home. Where am I supposed to go?”

“Look, you can call the police, only I won’t be here when they arrive. And good luck trying to explain how you took out a pair of intruders on your own, not to mention the bloody footprints I’ve left all over the place.”

I dabbed at the drying blood with a peroxide-soaked cotton ball. He hissed and pulled away from my touch. I grabbed his chin and held him still.

“This isn’t going to go away, Alex. As much as I know you want to curl up in bed and wake up last week, with Chalice alive and your life not in shambles, it’s not going to happen. This is reality, pal.”

“So says the reincarnated dog hunter.”

“Dreg.”

“I know.” Heartache tinged his words. He grasped my hand, pulled it away from his chin, and squeezed. His liquid blue eyes held steely determination. Bright spots of color had flared in his cheeks. “I believe you, Evangeline Stone. So what’s our next move?”

“We clean up and change. Tie them up, gather whatever cash you’ve got around, then get back to the east side of the river.”

“Why the east side?”

“Because that’s where Wyatt is.”

His nostrils flared—an odd reaction. “And we need to save Wyatt, correct?”

“Very correct.”

“Do you have a plan for that?”

“Working on it.” I released his hand and continued cleaning his face. “Now hold still so I can get this done.”

The response time for reported gunshots was idiotically slow. We were in Alex’s Jeep, emerging from the underground parking garage and into daylight, before I heard the first siren. He turned north and chose a roundabout way back to the Wharton Street Bridge. It took us deeper into the heart of Parkside East, past high-rise apartment buildings and the first hints of residential houses.

The bullet graze had oozed through the bandage, which barely covered swollen skin. His eye would blacken eventually. During the five minutes it took to fill a backpack with supplies, lash our houseguests to the dining room furniture, and put on a fresh shirt, he’d lost the deer-in-headlights look, and adopted the attitude that must make him a good med student—stern rationality in the face of insurmountable odds.

I just kept an eye out, waiting for hints of a mental breakdown. God knew he was due.

The burns no longer itched, and my skin was as smooth as it had been before the attack. The dozen or so glass cuts on my arms were also healing. I’d shed my borrowed clothes and slipped into fresh jeans and a T-shirt. The change made me feel mostly human again. The only thing I couldn’t help was the bloodstained sneakers. It was that or leather sandals—not great for kicking and running.

“Where are we going?” Alex asked.

“Back downtown, eventually.”

He turned down another residential street, lined with trees that sported dog-proof fences, sidewalks without cracks or weeds, and houses that cost more than an entire block of Mercy’s Lot real estate. I felt intimidated by the wealth. While Chalice and Alex belonged in such a high-class area, I did not. I grew up in the city; I felt out of place in the suburbs.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked.

“About six years. St. Eustachius has one of the best orthopedic centers in the country, and that’s what I wanted to do.”

“Wanted?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Something tells me I’m not making it to class tonight.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not …”

“It’s not what?”

Another right turn angled us south, back toward the river and bridge. He gripped the steering wheel, seeming to debate his reply. “I was going to say it’s not your fault, but in a way, it is. It’s just not your fault on purpose, if that makes sense.”

“It does.”

It wasn’t as if I’d chosen Chalice’s body. But everything that I’d done since waking up in it—including taking my shit fest into the middle of Alex’s mundane life—was most definitely my fault. He was missing class. He was being chased by the Triads. Glass and blood and two men tied up with Lycra exercise pants decorated an apartment to which he couldn’t return.

“You’re right, Alex,” I said. “This is my fault. I want to tell you that when it’s over, your life will go back to normal, but I can’t. I can’t promise you anything.”

“Then how about we make a deal? I’ll help you to get Wyatt away from the people holding him and if, by some miracle, we manage to survive it, you two disappear. Just get out of the city and forget this thing about clearing your name.”

The pleading tone of his voice hurt, but it wasn’t a deal I could make. And it had little to do with my tarnished name.

“I’m sorry, Alex, but I can’t agree to that, and it’s not because I don’t want to now. I have two much bigger reasons why I can’t leave town, and foremost is the alliance. You cannot imagine how devastating a united uprising would be to humanity. If the goblins and the vampires go against us, other races will divide, and not everyone will be on our side. It would be like the United States standing alone in a world war against the entire eastern hemisphere. We would lose, and we would become no better than the domesticated animals we keep as pets and food and labor. Exposing this truce before it happens … I have to try. Do you understand?”

“I’m trying to,” he said after a prolonged silence. The Wharton Street Bridge loomed in the distance, gray and stark. “It’s a little difficult to accept the idea of goblins running around the city, much less warmongering with vampires.”

“I know it’s not as exciting as dissecting a cadaver for anatomy class, but bear with me.”

That elicited a tentative smile. “What’s the other reason? You said you had two.”

I considered asking him to pull over, not knowing how he’d react. And the last thing we needed was a fender bender. “Because I’m running on borrowed time. Resurrection is temporarily stable at the best of times, but it’s not permanent. I’m only borrowing Chalice. I had seventy-two hours from the moment I woke up yesterday afternoon at quarter after four. That’s all I get.”

He stopped behind an idling Honda. Opposing traffic flowed across the bridge while we waited to make a left turn. He shifted his upper body to face me more directly. I didn’t see the expected surprise—only sadness. “Why so short?”

“Like I said, the magic is unstable.” I chewed on my lower lip. “Anytime magic is used, it upsets the natural balance of things. Usually it’s self-correcting, but this is different. I died three days ago because I was meant to die. It was my time, no matter what Tovin said.”

“Who’s Tovin?” Alex asked.

I waved one hand in the air. “Never mind, because that’s not the point. It happened because it was supposed to happen, but when Wyatt brought me back, it upset the balance. Everything I do, everyone I interact with, is affected by my presence. There are consequences, and they compound with every extra hour I’m alive.”

“What sort of consequences?”

A car honked. The Honda had made its left. Alex hit the gas. We shot forward and barely managed our turn before the light changed back to red. Up onto the bridge, and toward the heart of downtown and Mercy’s Lot.

“What sort of consequences, Evy?”

“You, Alex. You should be busy planning a funeral right now, and while that’s depressing and terrible, it’s a far cry from being on a Triad hit list. You never would have been dragged into this if I’d stayed dead.”

“So what happens when your time limit is up? What happens at four o’clock, the day after tomorrow?”

“You get to bury Chalice. And I go back to being dead. Heaven or Hell or limbo, I don’t know, but I go back and the world turns without me.”

“Wyatt?”

A chill wormed down my spine. “He made a freewill deal with an Elder.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means that when I die again, Wyatt loses his free will to an elf named Tovin.”

“I still don’t—”

“In some ways, he’ll be no better than dead. Does that simplify it? Imagine losing your ability to make decisions; to take a piss without permission; to fucking love someone.”

Alex had paled considerably during my mini rant. “For how long?”

“Forever. There’s no statute of limitations on this particular brand of magic bargain.”

On the other side of the bridge, I directed him to go south. The background static, all but gone while in Parkside East, tickled the back of my mind. I concentrated on it, somehow comforted by its presence. Like an invisible security blanket.

We managed three more blocks before Alex spoke again. “You said you lost part of your memory, right?” he asked.

“The final three days of my life, yes.”

“Have you tried hypnosis?”

“Are you serious?”

“Chalice believed in it.”

“I’m not her.”

He flinched. I regretted the barb. I wasn’t Chalice, but I didn’t have to be insensitive to his suggestions. I believed that all manner of creatures roamed the earth and that we were on the brink of a species apocalypse, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe in something as small as hypnosis? Tragic.

“Have you ever seen it work?” I asked.

“At a carnival once.”

I snorted. “Not exactly a ringing endorsement.”

“What have you got to lose?”

Respect? I bit my tongue. Being around Alex encouraged me to curb the more serious side of my sarcastic nature. It was as inexplicable as it was annoying. But he seemed so gentle—pain-induced cussing aside—that I hesitated to bring out the big guns.

“This isn’t a crystal ball psychic, right?” I asked. “Just a hypnotist?”

“Sure, yeah. How about your shrink?”

“My what?”

“Sorry, Chalice’s therapist. She was going to counseling for a while. She never told me what for, and I was too self-absorbed to ask, but the lithium prescription kind of gave it away.”

Depression. Yikes. But the shrink gave me an in that—

Shit. The gremlins. “I don’t think that will work.”

“Why not?”

I explained. He pulled his lips into a taut grimace. I patted his knee. “Sorry you asked?”

“A little bit, but even if there’s no record of her being a patient, the doctor will remember her.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have time to make an appointment. I’ve only got two days. I like the idea, but let’s table it for a while. I need to concentrate.”

“On Wyatt?”

Was I wearing a sign? “Yeah, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Evy. He’s important to you.” Jealousy dripped from his words. His brain still had a difficult time distinguishing me (Evy) from the body that I inhabited. The befuddlement tempted me to just ditch him at the next block, but that was a death sentence. As soon as Tully and Wormer were found, Alex Forrester would be a wanted man.

Just like me.

But he was correct—Wyatt was important to me, and not just because of the investigation or our past. My resurrection bound me to him in a way I still didn’t understand. Since the moment he entered that burger joint, I had missed him. Physically missed his presence, like an amputee misses a leg or an arm. He was gone, and I was incomplete.

“He’s more than that,” I said.

“I figured.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He looked straight ahead, eyes on the traffic in front of him. “I’ve heard women talk about guys like that, with that tone.”

“We have a tone?”

“Forget it.”

“Oh no.” I turned sideways in the seat, giving my full attention, and he squirmed. “What tone?”

“You’re like a dog with a bone, that’s all.”

“You should see me when I really want information from someone.” I cracked my knuckles for effect; he winced.

“I just …” His fingers flexed around the steering wheel. “I mean, I’ve never even met the guy and I’m a little jealous. Just ignore me for a while, okay?” Humor speckled his words, so I let it go. “Where are we going again?”

“Lincoln Street Bridge. I need to check on a friend.”

He nodded and moved into the right-turn lane. “Lincoln Street it is.”