Phin finished, spat, and started to stand, only to stumble and hit his knees. I bolted over, heart suddenly beating a little faster, and squatted beside him. He held up one hand, a simple request to stay back. I acquiesced, resting my elbows on my thighs. And watched him.
His pupils were dilated so much the vivid blue was overtaken by black. Sweat ran in thin rivulets from his temples to the collar of his borrowed polo. He breathed hard through his mouth, chest heaving with each intake and exhale. A little color had returned to his cheeks, but the rest of his skin retained its pallor.
I tried to drum up something more meaningful to say, but the old classic tumbled out of my mouth first: “Are you okay?”
“Embarrassed, I think,” he said, voice stronger than his condition would suggest. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? Puking? Trust me, I’ve done it a few times.”
He shook his head, eyes forward. Not looking at me. “For not backing you up properly. I showed weakness on our side. The gremlin could have held that against you in your negotiations.”
“He didn’t.” And I seriously doubted he would have—it just wasn’t how gremlins worked. More proof Phin didn’t know much about them. “Look, it stank to high hell up there. It’s no wonder you got sick.”
“It was more than that, Evy.” He finally looked at me. A spark of blue began to appear around the wide pupils. “I’ve never felt such instinctual revulsion before. I couldn’t breathe up there. It was in my lungs and my eyes and my ears, so thick. So disgusting.”
“Gremlins tend to stick to their own kind,” I said, my sympathy meter tilting toward him. “Maybe there’s a good reason for it.”
“Perhaps.” His lips twisted into a wry smile. “I zoned out during the final bit of conversation. What’s been decided?”
“I get the passwords I need tomorrow morning around sunrise, but overpaid, so there’s another favor owed us.” That could definitely come in handy down the road.
“Tomorrow morning? What are you going to do until then?”
I stood up and offered my hand. He followed on his own steam, apparently too proud to be helped up by a girl. More color had returned to his skin—an odd little side effect of his allergic reaction, if that’s what it was. More fun tidbits about weres I didn’t know.
“I should check in at the hospital,” I said, “then swing by the apartment and see how Aurora and Joseph are doing. I should also refine my current plan, so I don’t as much feel like I’m flying by the seat of my pants.”
“There’s nothing wrong with improvisation,” Phin said.
“There is when so many lives are on the line.”
“True. And yet I sense that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”
I wandered back to his car. Even though information was forthcoming, the entire journey to the factory seemed like a waste of time. I needed the information now, not in the morning. Time was in short supply. So what else was new? More lives than just mine depended on my success. Déjà vu, really? I had no idea how I was going to pull off the impossible. I just knew I had to do it, and do it fast.
Ten days ago, I had my finger on the pulse of the city’s Dreg underbelly. Knew the players, the teams, and how to get in their way. Could find anyone I needed to question in a matter of hours, beat out the answers, and go home to a good night’s sleep. Then my friends were murdered; I was kidnapped, tortured, and killed; my world flipped upside down when I was resurrected into someone else’s body; and just when I thought the threat was over, brand-new shit storms began stirring up all over the radar.
My two best sources were unreachable. Max, the only gargoyle ever to give me the time of day, had told me he was leaving town before the shit hit the fan. I hadn’t spoken to Smedge since the homeless bridge troll (correction: Earth Guardian) vomited me up in First Break two days ago. His spot under the Lincoln Street Bridge had been tarred over; I had no idea where he’d gone to roost since.
I gazed out across the old factory’s empty, grass-pocked parking lot, toward the horizon of warehouses, low- rent apartment buildings, and half-empty strip malls. The heart of Mercy’s Lot was here, among the ruins of a once bustling part of town. Populated by the hopeless, homeless, and rejected—human and Dreg alike. I knew this part of town. Once upon a time, she knew Evy Stone.
She didn’t know the new me, but I still knew how to get answers out of her.
“What are you thinking?” Phin asked, after we’d climbed into the car.
“I’m thinking of reintroducing myself to the neighborhood.”
He turned the key; the engine roared. “Sounds like you have a starting point in mind.”
“Well, a Halfie tried to kill me this morning. Good a place to start as any.”
“Location?”
“Go back out to Banks Street, and then left for six blocks until you get to Mike’s Gym.”
“What’s there, besides a gymnasium of some sort?”
I smiled. “You’ll see.”
“You’re scary when you smile like that.”
I smiled wider. Time to make
Chapter Seven
11:53 A.M.
Mike’s Gym wasn’t the kind of place where amateur boxers looked for coaches or where wannabe tough guys worked on their muscle tone. It didn’t list in the Yellow Pages, and few people walked back out the door without leaving some blood behind. And not just because Halfies hung out there.
Phin parked a block over, his little rusty car a perfect fit for the neighborhood, set among vehicles missing hubcaps and with doors painted mismatched colors. The air seemed grayer, the world just a little darker, even though the same sun shone down.
“What’s that smell?” he asked as we walked down the grimy sidewalk, past newspapered storefronts and neon-lit porn shops.
I inhaled familiar odors: oil from cars, rot from overflowing trash bins, sweat and soil from unhealthy bodies living unhappy lives. “Smells like home,” I replied.
He looked at me sideways, as though judging my sincerity. I lifted one shoulder in a quasi shrug. Crap car or not, the Sunset Terrace Apartments had been on the border between the pretty and ugly sides of Mercy’s Lot. Something told me the Owlkins hadn’t ventured to this side very often.
At the end of the block, I went left onto a one-way street. More cars dotted the parallel spaces. The sidewalk was broken and spotted with grass and dandelions. Down to a scarred wooden door, overlaid by iron bars. Painted right on the door was the word “Gym,” the ancient black letters peeling into nothingness. The door had no handle on our side. A heavy bass line beat through the walls—the only sign of activity inside.
“Do we knock?” Phin asked.
“I never use the front door,” I said, and kept walking to the end of the building, which butted up close to the back of another grimy brick building. A narrow alley cut between them, filled with overflowing metal garbage cans, moldering boxes of waste, and a smell of rot so strong my nose tingled.
“Please tell me there’s a restaurant nearby,” he whispered.
“Why?”
“Because that’s the smell of rotting meat, and I’d like to imagine it’s yesterday’s uncooked steaks.”
I snickered and shook my head. “Sorry to burst the illusion, but it’s probably a collection of dead strays. Have you noticed this city has a strangely low population of rats, mice, stray dogs and cats?”
He blanched. For a split second, I was sure his face went a little green. “You know, Phin, for someone so hell-bent on avenging his Clan and getting involved in my work, you sure don’t know much about how the other species live.”
“So educate me.”
