As Lie The Dead (4 page)

Such an innocuous door. It was painted ivory and made of that hollow, fake wood that slams hard in a gust of wind. Not a hint of red or pink on its smooth, unmarked, and chip-free surface. No sign of the horror once contained behind it. Everything of
me
said to go inside and stop being a wuss. The lingering knowledge that, only four days ago, Chalice had gone inside and drawn a hot bath and slit her arm open kept me rooted outside.

You’re being ridiculous, girl. Get your stupid ass in there and clean up
.

I grabbed the brass knob with a steady hand and turned my wrist. The gear squealed softly. I pushed. Warm, musty air drifted out, tinged with the lemon scent of cleaning solution. My hand went to the switch plate left of the door and flipped the first two switches. Like an old habit.

Light flooded the small bathroom, which was as sparkling clean as it had been before. The only real difference was a blue bath towel, half falling off its
hanger. Alex must have left it there. The day I dragged him out of his safe little world—

Nope. Couldn’t think about that.

I put my clothes on the closed toilet seat, grabbed a towel from the small hutch behind the door, and stripped. Added the knife and ankle sheath to my collection of clean things. The ruined clothes—not even mine but borrowed from a were-cat’s girlfriend—went straight into the trash. At the last minute, I fished out the cell phone Kismet had given me and put it in a basket on the back of the toilet, secure among a couple of clean hand towels and extra rolls of toilet paper.

I reached for the water knob, my fingers closing over the angled plastic. Something sad and determined crept through my mind, made suddenly more powerful by the spray of hot water through the showerhead. The dried blood on my skin and clothes smelled stronger in the moist heat. Grief tightened my throat. A phantom pain raced down my left arm from elbow to wrist.

Water pooled around the drain, and I realized I’d pulled the stopper. I slapped it back down and released the water, sick to my stomach.

Disgust overwhelmed the nagging sense of grief and coiled tight around my other emotions.
You are not her. This is all in your mind, Evy! Take a fucking shower!

I embraced the disgust—
she gave up, dammit!
—adjusted the water temperature to something more bearable, and stepped in. I showered quickly, slogging blood and grit off my skin and out of my hair. There was no chance of enjoying it now.

As I washed, I checked my wounds. The gashes on
my stomach were thick red scars that would fade to white, then into nothingness by tomorrow. The bite on my shoulder was a cross of white tooth marks I no longer felt. Other scrapes and bruises from my fights with Kelsa and Tovin were gone. I scrubbed hard on my left forearm, as though it would cleanse the memory of Chalice’s suicide. All it did was leave my skin pink and sore.

The water finally ran clear. I toweled off and dressed quickly in clean jeans and a black baby-doll T—one of the few dark items in Chalice’s wardrobe. I rummaged around in the sink drawers for a hair tie, and my fingers closed around a pair of scissors. I held them up, letting light from the overhead fixture gleam across their surface.

I liked short hair and had always kept mine above my shoulders. No fuss, no muss, and less for an attacker to grab. In the foggy mirror, long brown hair hung nearly to my waist, heavy and wet and thick. Cutting it off would feel so good. Lighten the load. Make me feel more like me again.

Only it wasn’t me anymore. The thin, blond Evy liked her hair short and clothes black. This new conglomerate me, shaped by two strong personalities and a teleporting Gift, protested. She had long brown hair and rounder hips and colorful clothes. Except for the suicide backwash, I kind of liked her.

The scissors went back into the drawer. I found a pair of hair chopsticks and used them to mound my damp hair up and away from my neck. Strapped the knife sheath back on my right ankle—a familiar, comforting presence. Presentable again, I stuffed the cell
phone into my rear jeans pocket and exited the bathroom in a cloud of steam.

The scent of coffee, bitter and strong, greeted me. I paused to inhale the rich aroma. A long sleep was preferable to a caffeine jolt, but if Phin needed to talk to us, it was the least I could do for him. And I needed to be awake for it. The Owlkin in question was nowhere in sight—a development that might have worried me if my attention hadn’t immediately been drawn to the dining room floor.

The glass and wood shards were gone and the ivory carpet blood-free, although still darker tan in some spots. Two white trash bags were tacked over the broken door and sealed with duct tape—the only remaining evidence of our scuffle with Tully and Wormer.

A cabinet door slammed somewhere behind the kitchen counter. Wyatt stood up with a skillet in one hand and a lid in the other.

“When did you become so domestic?” I asked, waving my hand at the clean floor.

“Thank Phineas,” Wyatt replied. “He swept it up, scrubbed out the bloodstains, and took out the garbage. He even cleaned some spoiled stuff out of the refrigerator.”

Laughing, I strode across the damp carpet to the counter. “An Owlkin who’s also a compulsive neat freak. Who knew? You didn’t happen to find any keys lying around?”

“No, sorry.”

Damn. “It’s possible someone in the Triads took them when they untied Tully and Wormer.” The thought did not please me.

Wyatt put the skillet on the stove, then started rummaging around in the freezer.

“What are you cooking now?” I asked.

“I was thinking steak and eggs,” he replied. His voice was muffled by the freezer door, which itself was covered with an assortment of magnets. Different states, arranged as close to the U.S. map as possible. Many from the south, many more from the northeast. I wondered who they belonged to.

On the other end of the counter, I spotted a framed photo I’d noticed once before. I reached for it, overcome by a wave of sadness as I studied Alex’s face, smiling back at me. Chalice had known him for years and loved him dearly. I felt it in my bones—an odd connection to a man my brain told me I’d really known for only three days. I didn’t want to grieve his death any longer. Mourning Alex wouldn’t bring him back or make his death any less tragic. I wanted to move on and focus on the now.

“I don’t even know if he has family still around,” I said. The statement surprised me.

The freezer door shut. A chilly hand closed around my right wrist and squeezed. I looked up and met Wyatt’s gaze. Smoldering. Sympathetic. “You can’t get involved in his life, Evy,” he said. “Chalice has a lot of personal baggage here, but you can’t let it cloud your judgment.”

I yanked my hand free. “I’m not letting it cloud anything, Wyatt. You think I want to share her feelings and memories? I’ve got enough shit to deal with without getting stuck with someone else’s, too. But I’ve got it now, thanks to you, and I can’t make it go away.”

He flinched. “You going to make me apologize for that again?”

“No, you’ve done enough apologizing for a lifetime.” I eyed the cling-wrapped steaks he’d put into the sink. “Just never mind. Go take a shower. I’ll work on breakfast.”

The argument seemed over before it began in earnest. He circled the counter. As he passed, though, he said, “I can’t ‘never mind’ it if you keep bringing it up.”

I let his statement hang until the bathroom door slammed. Something on the wall rattled. He seemed determined to drive me crazy, and not in the orgasmic, “I love you” way. Rather, in the pull-my-hair-out, argue-until-we-kill-each-other way. One day, just a simple conversation would be nice. One that didn’t involve guilt, death, or Dregs in any capacity.

“You clean up well.”

My head snapped up and to the right. Phin stood in the doorway. I hadn’t even heard the door open, dammit. He came in and closed it. His wings were still gone, morphed away in whatever strange manner shape-shifters manipulated their bodies. He’d put on a black polo shirt, and as he walked toward me, my temper flared.

“You make it a habit of taking things that aren’t yours?” I asked.

He stopped near the sofa. Cocked his head to the side, puzzled. “I took out the trash,” he said. “It didn’t occur to me you’d have a vested interest—”

“The shirt, Phin.”

He looked at it, then at me. Puzzlement melted
into understanding. Thin lips drew into a sympathetic half smile. “I’ll take it off. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Dammit, I
was
upset and didn’t want to be. He’d taken a shirt from Alex’s room. So what? Alex was dead. He wouldn’t care if someone else wore his clothes. Hell, Wyatt was going to need a change of clothes, too, even though Alex’s pants were probably a few inches too big. No personal attachments; no object sentimentality. That kind of shit would get me into trouble.

“Keep it,” I said. “Doesn’t matter now anyway.”

“It matters to you.”

“Not really.”

He blinked. Tilted his head in the opposite direction—a very birdlike thing to do. I’d seen Danika do it a dozen times in as many interactions. But I’d never associated the trait with her species. Hell, I knew humans who did it. Only with Phin it seemed different. Definitely more animalistic.

“I should have asked first,” he said, “but you two aren’t being all that generous with information right now, so I’m kind of feeling my way around.”

“Well, to be fair, we weren’t expecting your company.”

“Touché.”

“Thank you for cleaning the floor. I don’t know how you got the blood out.”

“I used what you had under the sink.”

I almost corrected him, but it didn’t matter whose sink it was or who had done the shopping. I circled the counter to the tune of the bathroom water rushing to life. Steaks were easier to cook thawed, but I was flexible. I started by hunting down a blue mug and filling
it with some of the pungent black coffee. Needed energy before my body started shutting down.

“You look tired.”

I blew across the coffee’s steamy surface. “That’s because I’ve had about twelve hours’ sleep in the last seventy-two, and most of those were two days ago. I spent last night battling goblins, Halfies, an elf, and an ancient demon. And instead of falling over and sleeping for a week, I have to stay awake and see what the hell you want.”

The last bit came off sharper than intended. My cheeks heated. I looked over the edge of the mug. Phin stood across the counter, eyebrows arched. He didn’t seem surprised or angry. More curious, if anything. Almost apologetic.

“My timing is inconvenient for you,” he said. “I’m sorry, but for me it’s been a week since my people were slaughtered, and I’m tired of waiting.”

“For what?” I put the coffee down, still too hot to drink. “What do you want from us, Phineas?”

He jacked a thumb over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t we wait?”

I shrugged, then started unwrapping the steaks. They went into the skillet with some water and a few spices. Burner on. Lid on. Done. I tossed the wrap into the garbage can—empty and neatly relined with a new bag—washed my hands, and returned to my coffee. I guzzled it without thinking. The bitter liquid scorched the back of my throat and settled in my stomach like fire. My eyes watered.

Note to self: Avoid steaming-hot coffee.

“Evy?”

“I’m fine.” But my raspy voice said otherwise. I
put the mug back down. Too hard. It cracked against the counter and sloshed coffee over the rim. “No, I’m not. We don’t have to wait.” Wyatt wasn’t my boss anymore; I didn’t work for the Triads. Phin needed something, so I could decide whether or not I’d offer it. “What do you want?”

He stood straight, shoulders back, chest forward, like an eagle puffing itself up. Or an osprey, as I was beginning to suspect. His jaw worked, as if preparing to spew forth some long, practiced speech. Instead, what came out was a single, surprising word. He said, “Protection.”

“Try Trojans.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Never mind.” I placed my palms flat against the countertop, watching his body language for any hint of lying. “I don’t work for the Department anymore, Phin. If you want protection, ask the Triads. They’re better equipped.”

I said it too late to censor my words.
Fucking idiot
. His mouth drew into a thin line. Eyes narrowed just enough to hint at danger. An invisible thundercloud settled over him. “The Triads have done enough. That’s why I’m asking you,” he said.

“And the other Clans?”

“We’ve been offered shelter by the Felia Pride, but shelter isn’t enough. The Clans are furious at the humans and Fey for what happened to my people, certainly; they just don’t want to help us. Assembly decisions always rule in the best interest of the Clans as a whole. We were not well liked by some of the more influential Elders. We chose peaceful coexistence and conformity over living as hunted rogues. The
Cania and Kitsune don’t respect us. They don’t give a shit about our revenge.”

That was a one-eighty turn in the conversation. All of the proper nouns were making my head spin, and I had no idea which weres he was talking about. “Okay, I’m confused. Do you want me to protect you from something or help you enact some sort of vengeance plot?”

“The vengeance is already in motion. There are only three of us left who survived the slaughter. Three.”

“Weres exist elsewhere, in other states. Surely you aren’t—”

“We are the last of what you call Owlkins, those who remember how to live among humans. Any of the Clans that live beyond here are not my kin. We were different. The Cania run in packs with little time for one another outside of mating. The Felia are loyal to their Pride, though many wander and roam.” He shook his head, some of that thundercloud dissipating. Leaving him empty, sad. “No, I need someone further outside of this, someone who has as much at stake in the outcome as we do.”

Okay, things were starting to make a little more sense. Cania were were-dogs; the Felia, were-cats. Right; got it. “So … what? You picked me because I was friendly with Danika?”

“I picked you because they would be alive if you had let yourself be caught.”

My entire body went cold. His simple tone, devoid of accusation, tore at my heart more sharply than stinging jibes and venom. It hurt because he was right.
I’d told myself as much in the hours following the initial slaughter, when I didn’t know in which direction to go next. I’d only known I couldn’t change it. Life didn’t work that way.