Another Kind of Dead

“What happens if we don’t get the crystal back?”

“We deal with it.”

“Deal with it?” I rounded in the tiny space, long hair whipping across my face. “I saw that entity in Tovin’s body, Wyatt. I have never been so terrified as when I looked into its face and knew it could snap me in half before I could blink. It was the ugliest, most evil thing I’ve ever seen. We can’t just deal with it.”

Warm palms framed my cheeks. I wrapped my hands around his wrists. His outward calm helped, even though I imagined his insides quaked as hard as mine. No one else had seen the Tainted elf; my description could never do the terror justice. He couldn’t understand.

“We. Will. Deal. With. It.” Each word from him fell like a promise, driven home by the gentle crackle of energy around us. I tried to believe in that promise.

Then the damned cell phone rang, and my stomach clenched. We parted. I fished the phone out of my jeans pocket as I led the way back into the living room. Five expectant faces watched me.

“You’re pretty prompt, aren’t you?” I asked by way of greeting.

“I desire my property,” Thackery replied, on speaker-phone. “Do you have it?”

“What do you think?”

Kismet shot me a glare that telegraphed: Don’t piss off the bad guy. I ignored her.

Thackery said, “I think you’re too smart not to have it, and I would also appreciate simple answers to simple questions. Now, I’m certain you know where the Wharton Street footbridge is, yes?”

Do goblins bleed magenta? “Yes.”

“Be at the center of the footbridge, overlooking the river, in half an hour. Be there alone, and when I say alone, I mean no one within half a mile of your position. I have explosives rigged to the furnace of an office building Uptown that I will not hesitate to detonate if I suspect you’re being watched. Are we clear?”

“Clear,” I said. My heart was pounding so hard I was certain he could hear it. I was going in very much alone and without a choice. Shit, fuck, and dammit.

“I don’t suppose I have to remind you to bring my property?”

“I’ll have it. Just don’t forget my crystal.”

“I’m a man of my word, Evangeline. The exchange will be made as agreed, but under my terms. Come to the bridge.” And he hung up.

I could barely keep my hand from trembling as I put away the phone. “I think he’s serious,” I said, but the quip fell flat.

“There are several buildings west of the river with a good vantage point,” Kismet said. “And they’re outside his half-mile limit, so we can keep visual surveillance on you while you’re on the bridge.”

“What about audio?” David asked. He looked horrified, but determined.

“He’ll probably search me, so I can’t risk it,” I said. “As long as there are eyes on me, though … I guess we should hit the road. I’ll have to walk part of the way. David and Wyatt can drop me off, then stay back on this side of the river. Kismet, you and the boys get to those vantage points.”

She nodded.

We gathered a few things from hidden places. I’d left that morning without any weapons, so I borrowed a hunting knife from Tybalt’s stash and put it in my boot strap. If Thackery found it, he found it, but I needed something close to me.

On the way out, I looked back at Tybalt. He nodded curtly, and I saw the frustration in his eyes. He hated being left behind. I hated leaving him there. But for now, it was where he had to stay. I winked with more confidence than I felt and followed the others to the parking lot. Once there, I realized something with ominous clarity—Amalie had never called.

I had no time to worry about her, though. It was time to trade the devil I didn’t know for the devil I did.

Chapter Eight

Wyatt drove David’s car to our drop-off point, me in the passenger seat with the vinyl cooler tight in my lap. David seemed just as uncomfortable in the rear, fidgeting like a kid on a sugar high. Our destination was a small grocery store parking lot just over a half mile from the river. They had no visual, but it was a more direct route there if Kismet called.

Traffic allowed for an easy trip, and we turned into the lot too soon. I checked the time—fifteen minutes until showdown. Wyatt backed into a space near the entrance. I’d patronized this store a few times, mostly for cold sodas and snacks. It was a hole shoved between newer buildings, a line of glass windows papered over with yellowed advertisements. Three roughhousing teenage boys tumbled out of the store, snapping the tabs on their colas.

“We can be there in three minutes,” Wyatt said.

Fat lot of good that would do me. I smiled anyway. “I know. And I promise to try and curb my sarcastic nature while doing this.”

“Good girl.”

We shared a look that said so many things: good luck, I love you, be careful, watch your back—and more. I grabbed his shirt collar and yanked him toward me. The kiss was brief. Not good- bye, just see you soon. I pushed him away, grabbed my bag, and leapt from the car. Didn’t look back as I walked down Wharton Street, toward the Black River.

Each step forward drove a spike of fear deeper into my gut. I tried to dislodge it with reassurances, but even in my own mind they felt hollow. All I could do was see this through. Get the crystal safely, then worry about capturing Thackery.

The bridge loomed ahead of me, all gray steel and pylons. The last time I’d walked across it was ten days ago, an hour or so after my resurrection. On this side of the river was a train yard, dozens of track lines crisscrossing the sandy ground and butting up to the river’s edge. Abandoned boxcars lined a few of the unused tracks, cracked and dusty with age. I’d hunted a lot of Halfies down there. It had been a favorite feeding ground for years until Jesse, Ash, and I started patrolling it.

I kept a steady pace as the bridge arched up. Faint odors of motor oil mixed with the heavy water scent of the river. A gentle breeze tickled my cheeks, blustering hard each time a car sped past. I continued beyond the train yard, over the rushing slate water below. I reached dead center with a few minutes to spare—according to the clock on the cell phone—and stopped. Looked around in all directions. Car traffic continued at a steady pace, going east and west across the bridge. No other foot traffic, though, in either direction.

What the hell was he going to do, fly in?

The phone rang. I flipped it open, not bothering with speaker. “Running late?” I asked.

“No, you’re pleasantly early. Look down toward the train yards, Evangeline, near that thatch of trees on the water’s edge. Quarter mile down.”

I squinted at the thick, stunted trees that had been left to grow wild on the perimeter of the train yard’s northern border. Something glinted in the sunlight, flashing a signal at me. “I see it.”

“Come to me.”

“What?”

“I wanted to give us a bit of privacy for the exchange. I know you’ll be here in mere moments. Others have seen your Gift, and now I’d like a peek.”

Son of a bitch. I put the phone away, then stared at the location. I couldn’t see anyone, just the trees and brown dirt. I focused on the spot, searched past my anxiety to find a bit of loneliness—my emotional tap into the power of the Break. I caught it and slipped in. The sensation of flying apart and melting back together again was familiar, but new each time I did it. A dull ache settled between my eyes as I teleported, centering me the moment I materialized in the train yard.

The stench of grease and coal was thicker here, almost nauseatingly so, and the roar of the river louder. Ten feet away, a stone wall separated me from a steep drop to its rushing water. The tangled, gnarly trees ahead mocked me with gray, leafless branches, daring me to try to enter them.

He didn’t emerge from the trees as I’d expected. He came around them, as at ease as a man on a Sunday