Another Kind of Dead

250 Pages·2016·1.1 MB·English

by  Meding Kelly

Annotation
She can heal her own wounds. She can nail a monster to a wall. But
there's one danger Evangeline Stone never saw coming.
Been there. Done that. Evy Stone is a former Dreg Bounty Hunter who died
and came back to life with some extraordinary powers. Now all but five people
in the world think she is dead again, this time for good — immolated in a factory
fire set specifically for her. Evy and Wyatt, her partner/lover/friend, can no
longer trust their former allies, or even the highest echelons of the Triads — the
army of fighters holding back from an unsuspecting public a tide of quarreling,
otherworldly creatures — they can trust only each other. Because when the
Triads raided a macabre, monster-filled lab of science experiments and hauled
away the remnants, they failed to capture their creator: a brilliant, vampire-
obsessed scientist with a wealth of powerful, anti-Dreg weaponry to trade for
what he desires most of all — Evy Stone: alive and well, and the key to his
ultimate experiment in mad science.
Another Kind of Dead
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Another Kind of Dead
(The third book in the Dreg City series)
A novel by Kelly Meding
For Mom and Dad—
there aren’t enough ways to say “thank you”
Acknowledgments
As always, special thanks to the usual suspects who’ve helped shape this
series into what it’s become—my fabulous agent, Jonathan Lyons; my equally
fabulous editor, Anne Groell; the awesome David Pomerico and the amazing and
patient folks at Bantam/Random House and Suvudu.
Lots of love to Nancy and Melissa for listening to my rants, frustrations,
and shrieks of joy when something goes right, and for being terrific friends.
Thanks to my family for loving me no matter what, ignoring my mood swings,
and for being my biggest fans.
A shout-out to Wendy and the Newark crew—because you didn’t think I
would! Your support has meant the world to me.
And of course, hugs and kisses to my readers, I wouldn’t be here without
you. Thank you for exploring Dreg City with me.
Chapter One
On the day of Alex Forrester’s funeral, the sun gleamed high in the sky. I
wanted it to rain, if only to prove that the heavens really opened to mourn our
tragedies and the friends we lost. Instead, the sunshine mocked our grief from on
high, watchful and seeing nothing.
It was a simple affair in a small cemetery five miles outside the city,
orchestrated within a day of the official death declaration. We had no body, so
there was no casket—it’s damned hard to find the ashes of a half-Blood vampire
amid the rubble of an apartment fire. But his father, Leo Forrester, wanted a
small memorial. He needed to believe his son was at peace, even though Alex
had died at war with himself. And what better way to offer postmortem peace to
the dead than with an ancient burial ritual meant to comfort the living?
I wanted the comforting commiseration of rain as I followed Leo through
the cemetery, but rain would have revealed me to the prying eyes of people who
still thought me dead. We were all safer for the deception, Wyatt had insisted,
and I agreed.
A sleepy minister already hovered next to the simple marble marker, laid
flat on the earth. “Alexander Forrester, Beloved Son, Best Friend,” above the
years in which he was born and died. It was all we could afford. Part of me
wanted something grander to show he’d been here and touched our lives. The
other part of me knew this was enough, maybe more than was necessary, and not
to waste good money on sentimentality.
Especially with me and Wyatt both out of jobs.
Leo stopped across the marker from the minister. Wyatt Truman, my partner
and constant companion, flanked his left side as we had agreed. I shifted to Leo’s
right and brushed his elbow to indicate my presence. The minister acknowledged
the two men with a nod and began to recite a prayer. He wasn’t ignoring me.
Thanks to an orange crystal shard and a bargained favor from a human mage
named Brutus, the minister couldn’t see me. No one could, due to the invisibility
spell contained in the crystal.
I tuned out the words of the prayer and closed my eyes. I reached up and
held the plain silver cross looped around my neck on a thin chain—a gift Alex
had once given to his best friend Chalice. I tried to picture Alex’s face in the
short time I’d known him—friendly blue eyes, broad shoulders, an innocent
smile that didn’t belong on a twenty-eight-year-old medical student. I caught the
memory and enjoyed it briefly until another superimposed itself. Hair mottled
with silver and iridescent eyes, baby fangs that had punctured his lower lip.
Sniveling and crying and begging me to kill him.
And I had, a little over a week ago. I’d shot him in the back of the head.
Just another on the long list of sins I’d never atone for.
I wanted to cry, but I had no tears left to shed.
No, that was a lie. I’d mourned Alex as best I could, and I was sick of
crying. It was time to stop punishing myself for Alex and move on with my life.
The life I wanted to start with Wyatt. Burying Alex, putting this chapter of my
afterlife behind me, was the first step.
I hoped.
“… and I will dwell in the house of the Lord. Amen,” the minister said.
I opened my eyes and stepped back, barely missing Leo’s elbow as he
reached out to shake the minister’s hand. It was over that quickly. A few
mourners, a smattering of words, and the well-wishes of a man who didn’t know
us or the dead man he’d just prayed over.
Rituals were so odd.
The minister hustled off, probably racing away to his next gig of offering
empty comfort to those willing to pay him for it. Once he was out of earshot, I
said, “That was nice,” and could have smacked myself for it. It was a stupid
thing to say.
“It was,” Leo said. He turned, seeking a face he couldn’t see, and fixed his
attention on Wyatt instead. It was probably easier to have a conversation with an
invisible person when you had a visible one to look at. “That’s it, then.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Leo removed his wire-rimmed glasses and wiped the lenses on the corner of
a wadded tissue. His eyes were red. He seemed to be choosing his words as he
cleaned the glasses, then returned them to the bridge of his nose. “Simple words
for a simple fact, Evy,” he said. “I’ve buried the last of my family. I have no
home. That’s it for me.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. He jumped under the unexpected touch but
didn’t pull away. He seemed to easily accept the notion that I was invisible and
yet standing right next to him. We’d talked yesterday for hours. Well, I’d talked
for hours, feeding him details of my old life as a Dreg Bounty Hunter, the
circumstances of my death and resurrection into the body of a woman who
happened to have magical teleporting powers, and Alex’s brave and tragic desire
to help me, all the way through my second “death” in a factory fire last Saturday.
All in all, he was handling his newfound education with amazing aplomb.
“Those of us who survive owe it to our loved ones to make our lives count,”
I said. Words I’d come to believe in more and more since the violent deaths of
my former Triad partners, Jesse and Ash, two weeks ago.
But my disembodied words didn’t sink in. I considered removing the crystal
from my jeans pocket and speaking the phrase meant to reverse the magic early,
before its six-hour time limit wore off. I could force Leo to look me in the eye,
get him to understand why he had to keep going.
But training won out over emotion. All but five people in the world thought
I was dead—burned to death in a factory fire started, on purpose, to kill me—
and I couldn’t risk exposing myself. I had more enemies than allies now, and that
meant preserving every advantage I could find. Being dead had worked in my
favor once before.
Besides, I couldn’t possibly hope to understand Leo’s perspective. I knew
much of his story—enough to realize he would never get to ask Alex’s
forgiveness for past sins, and that was eating him up inside. A son had died
blaming his father. No, I couldn’t relate—not to that—but perhaps Wyatt could.
Wyatt had, after all, been the unwitting pawn in the game that had killed my
partners, killed me, then brought me back only to further a plot to unleash an
ancient demon on the world. He’d once destroyed the life of one of his former
Hunters in a misguided effort to save it, and that Hunter had returned with a
vendetta that led to the deaths of sixty-four people. So many un-forgiven sins.
“I’m fifty-six years old,” Leo said. “I can’t see making my life count for
much of anything now.”
“You can stay in the city and help us.” I ignored the strangled sound Wyatt
made from somewhere behind me. “I can use all the allies I can get.”
Leo shook his head, the lines around his mouth deepening in a frown. “No,
I don’t think I can do that. I’ve accepted what you’ve both told me about the
things in this city, but I don’t want any part of it.”
I guess he still wasn’t over shooting a jaguar that had morphed into a naked
man. I had mental images of him ending up drunk in a gutter, dead of alcohol
poisoning, gnawed on by stray animals. I wanted more for him than I’d been
able to do for his son.
“Your motel is paid up for another couple of days,” Wyatt said.
Leo nodded. “I appreciate that, but—”
“Someone’s coming,” Wyatt said. He’d twisted his head around to look
behind him. From the direction of the cemetery’s narrow road, a man strode
toward us. He was lean, of average height and looks, with a narrow nose and
wild, curly hair sporting more gray than brown. Older, in his mid-forties by the
looks of him, he walked with the tired gait of someone who’d seen too much.
Probably a cop.
“I’m on your right, Leo,” I said softly. I maintained proximity while staying
out of his way if he turned suddenly. I didn’t want to try to explain Leo’s
elbowing an invisible obstacle, or the splat in the grass I’d make if I fell.
The stranger smiled pleasantly as he approached, both hands tucked into the
pockets of his khaki trousers. He wore a blue collared shirt without a jacket,
sleeves rolled up in the day’s heat. Wyatt tensed and took up a defensive position
between the stranger and Leo, hands loose at his sides.
“Mr. Leo Forrester?” the man asked, looking right past Wyatt. His voice
was pleasant enough, nondescript and polite.
“Yeah,” Leo said. “Why?”
The stranger’s already gentle expression softened further, as though Leo’s
gruffness demanded he pour on the honey, only it didn’t seem to be an act. “I’m
truly sorry for your loss, Mr. Forrester.”
Leo grunted. I smiled and could almost hear Wyatt’s internal monologue—
wondering who had the potential to be ruder, me or Leo.
“And you are?” Wyatt said, asking the question on all our minds.
“Apologies,” the man said. “My name’s James Reilly. I’m a private
investigator, Mister …?”
“Truman.”
“Mr. Truman.” Reilly offered his hand, the same affable smile firmly in
place.
Wyatt observed Reilly’s hand. I couldn’t see his face, but the tilt of Wyatt’s
head hinted at what was probably his own special brand of distrust mixed with
interest. “A P.I., huh?” he said, giving Reilly’s hand a brief, loose shake. “What
are you investigating, Mr. Reilly?”
“Real estate, mostly.”
“Looking into a plot of your own?”
“Oh no, not that sort of real estate. I’m more interested in apartment
buildings.”
And he’d come here on the day of Alex’s funeral. Alarms clanged in my
head. This guy had to be investigating the building where Alex had “officially”
died. The fire that had consumed the entire fifth floor of a low-rent apartment
building had been ruled an accident, or so all the official reports said. But that
never squelched speculation. Especially when the fire had actually been set by a
were-osprey intent on revenge for his slaughtered Clan, and Alex had been long
dead by the time the blaze began.
“I haven’t got one to sell you,” Leo snapped. He stepped forward, across
the marker, and stood shoulder to shoulder with Wyatt. “If you don’t mind, I just
buried my son.”
“I realize this is bad timing, Mr. Forrester, and I apologize,” Reilly said.
The words were scripted, but the delivery was genuine. Annoying. “But police
were called to your son’s own apartment three times in the last nine days, with
one of those calls coming a day after he died. I’m sure you agree that those facts
are a bit strange—especially the third call.”
“He had a roo—”
I kicked Leo in the calf before he could blurt out the word “roommate.” His
right leg buckled, and he stumbled a bit before catching himself. Reilly’s
eyebrows arched into twin peaks.
“Are you all right, Mr. Forrester?” he asked.
“Leg cramp is all. Old injury, it’s nothing.”
“You were saying he had a what?”
Leo stayed silent. He was smart enough to recognize when discretion was
needed, but not a good enough actor to come up with a better lie on the spot. He
chose a blank stare.
“Do you have to ask your questions now?” Wyatt asked, affecting a nice
snarl. It was almost protective.
“Again, I do apologize for the venue,” Reilly said, “but Mr. Forrester is a
difficult man to find.”
“Side effect of being homeless,” Leo said.
Reilly’s genuine sympathy and nice-guy attitude were starting to grate on
my nerves. People just weren’t that kind. “I’ll be brief, I promise,” he said. “You
see, I spoke to the leasing agent at your son’s building, and the very helpful Ms.
Young said she was sure that two names were on the lease. However, computer
records only showed Alexander’s name, and the hard copy was missing several
pages. The ones with the signatures on them, as a matter of fact.”
Leo didn’t have to fake his confusion. “So? Maybe this mysterious second
name moved out?”
“Perhaps. But, you see, I also spoke with the young couple next door in
505. They’d been neighbors the entire two years Alexander lived in the
apartment, and Mrs. Gates told me he lived there with a pretty brunette named
Chalice.”
“Probably his girlfriend,” Wyatt said.
“Mrs. Gates didn’t think so. Her daughter, Angie, claimed to be good
friends with Chalice Frost. She said they shared secrets.”
Angie was the little girl I’d met in the elevator. The inquisitive child had
given me a spare key and let me into a strange woman’s apartment on my first
day of resurrection. A meeting that was coming back around to bite us in the ass,
and I was helpless to direct the conversation.
“What sort of secrets does a child have?” Leo asked.