Three Days To Dead (8 page)

Chalice’s cross necklace lay next to my fork. I put it back on, unsure why I wanted to keep it close.

“So whose place is this?” I asked.

Two slices of bread popped out of a toaster. Wyatt added those to his plate of food. “A were-cat who owed me a favor. Do you want me to butter your toast?”

I blinked, realizing too late that it was a real question, not some clever double entendre. “Um, no, I can do it.”

He started bringing things over to the table—a tub of whipped butter and a knife, a glass of milk, and finally the plate of bacon, toast, and sliced apples. I was amazed at how domestic the scene felt. And out of place. I rarely saw this side of Wyatt—the side that nurtured, that showed small cracks in his professional veneer. I was used to his sarcasm and teasing.

“Aren’t you eating?” I asked when he sat down without a plate of his own.

“I already did.”

I took him at his word and started buttering a slice of toast. The food smelled wonderful, and my stomach grumbled in anticipation of being fed. “So roughly fourteen hours of my afterlife are gone,” I said, folding a few slices of bacon in the buttery toast. “Any ideas on how to spend the remaining fifty-eight?”

“A few.”

Butter and grease dribbled down my chin. The flavors of the bread and bacon burst against my tongue. I chewed slowly, savoring each morsel.

“Care to share?” I asked, delving into bite number two.

He made a face—probably of disgust, but I was
enjoying my breakfast too much to give it any thought—and threw a paper napkin at me.

I snatched it off the table and wiped my chin. “So? Ideas?”

“That depends. You remember anything new?”

I stopped, an apple slice halfway to my mouth. A dark void still loomed over part of my memory. I didn’t remember anything new. I don’t think I even dreamed last night. “No.”

“Really?”

“It’s memory loss, Wyatt. It’s not like flipping a switch.”

“Never is with women.”

I threw a piece of apple at him, which he easily deflected. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

“And yet somehow untrue?”

“No, but it’s still a shitty thing to say.”

“We’re under the wire here, Evy. I don’t have the time or patience to be polite.”

“Then be helpful. This is my life—afterlife, whatever. I’m the one who will be dead again in two and a half days, not you.”

Wyatt froze, going completely still, like someone had hit the Pause button on a DVR. Seconds ticked by. He stood up, each movement precise and measured, pushed his chair in, and strode to the bathroom.

“Wyatt, I’m sorry.”

Nothing. He went into the bathroom. The door slammed shut with a wall-rattling bang. No single swear word in my rather lengthy vocabulary seemed appropriate, so a slow string of them tumbled out of my mouth.

I had forgotten that Wyatt had negotiated for my
resurrection. The price he had paid remained a secret, but I could guess at its cost. He’d put his neck on the line by going against the Triads and the Council. He had saved my life with the hound. Hell, he even cooked me breakfast. And had I ever even said “thank you”?

Breakfast no longer seemed as wonderful, but I forced it down. I needed the energy, especially if we ran into another hound or a goblin patrol. No sounds came from the bathroom, not even angry stomping or pounding. He must be superpissed if he couldn’t even vent his rage.

Wyatt had the physical training and temperament (read: quick to anger) to be a Hunter, not to mention the added advantage of his Gift. The only time I dared ask why he was a Handler instead of a Hunter, he assigned me to a two-day stakeout in the dead of winter. I didn’t ask again.

I finished my breakfast, polished off the rest of the milk carton, and scarfed two slices of untoasted bread, but still there was no sound from the bathroom. I washed the dishes in the spotless sink and placed them in a sparkling metal dish rack to dry. The entire kitchen area was unnaturally tidy—in my rather messy experience—for a male were-cat living alone.

Still nothing from the bathroom, even as more minutes passed. Concern overruled my better judgment. I crossed the small apartment and banged my fist against the bathroom door.

“I’m not dead in here,” came the reply.

“Say it to my face, then.”

The door pulled open. I stepped back, startled. Wyatt stood with one hand on the knob, the other limp by his side. No tears, no redness, still no real
emotion cracking through on his face. Just a study of calm.

“I’m fine,” he said, brushing past me. He stopped in the center of the apartment, observing the cleaned-up kitchen. “I didn’t know you were so domestic.”

“Neither did I.” I put my hand on his forearm, surprised to find his skin warm, almost feverish. “Wyatt, I am sorry.”

He stepped away, withdrawing from my touch. “There’s one of those plastic storage things under the bed. Dylan’s girlfriend stays over and keeps stuff here, so something may fit.”

I ducked around him, getting directly in his path, forcing him to look at me. “Thank you,” I said. “For all of this. You keep saving my life and all I can do is insult you.”

“You gotta go with your gifts.”

I stared until I saw the glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “I really am sorry.”

“I know, and it’s really okay. I think I’d be angry, too, if someone disrupted my eternal rest because they had a question.”

I laughed, and so did he. It felt great.

*    *    *

Dylan’s girlfriend wore Petite; I now wore Tall. Her jeans fit at the waist, but rode up to mid shin like Capri pants. The gashes in my leg had healed completely by the time I dressed, so those bandages came off. The light, six-inch scars would probably fade in a few hours. My arm, on the other hand, itched like a bitch. I refused to look at the wound until that damnable
itching stopped, but Wyatt peeked and said it was healing well. Bully for me.

The storage drawer only had two nice, button-up blouses in it. I grabbed the royal blue one, rolled up the sleeves, hooked the center three buttons, and tied the tails just above my waist. Not ideal, but better.

We still hadn’t addressed the “What next?” issue. My instinct was to follow up on Amalie, since she was our only real lead. Smedge had said she was consolidating her power within the Fey community, in preparation for something big. The sprites were powerful and did not startle easily. They also didn’t overreact to potential bad news. Much like the logically thinking vampires, they waited for said news and then reacted appropriately. The only major hitch: the Fey didn’t live in the city. Unlike their Dreg counterparts, they preferred the solitude of the northern mountains.

“So let’s go over this again,” I said, joining Wyatt on the apartment’s small sofa. “I met you the night of the thirteenth, right after the Triads attacked Sunset Terrace. I wanted to turn myself in, but you talked me out of it.”

“Right so far. One of my informants told me of the alliance forming between goblins and Bloods. I wanted to check it out. You agreed.”

“Where did I go?”

“What do you mean?”

“I was a Hunter, Wyatt. The goblins and Bloods wouldn’t have just told me about their dastardly plan, and I didn’t know any of them socially. After we met up, did I say where I was going next? What was my plan?”

His mouth puckered and his eyebrows furrowed.
“You said you were going uptown to Fourth Street, but wouldn’t give me details.”

My lips parted. I only knew one person uptown. “I must have gone to see Max. If he hasn’t migrated yet, he could still be there.”

“Max?”

“He’s a gargoyle that lives on the library.” I bounced to my feet. “Gargoyles never forget, so he’ll be able to tell me what we talked about. Clues, Wyatt. Come on, let’s go get them.”

He grinned and, for a moment, seemed eager for the hunt. More like his old self. He stood up. “All right, then, let’s go see about a gargoyle.”

I call him Max because gargoyle language has no direct translation into English. Or any human language, for that matter. Names don’t translate. Like birds, the sounds they emit change in pitch and pattern to communicate. Few gargoyles bother to learn the intricacies of human speech; fewer humans learn theirs.

This season, Max was perched on top of the Fourth Street Public Library. Most of his people preferred downtown locations closer to the other Dreg populations. He preferred uptown. Birds flocked there in spring and summer, because of the lower threat. Pigeons were a gargoyle delicacy and, for some inexplicable reason, pigeons love libraries.

Wyatt parked on a meterless side street and we hoofed it three blocks back to the library. Its impressive stone steps rose up like the front of a Greek theater, and the four-story building was just as impressive. A statue of a lion guarded the front entrance, clasping a sign in its marble claws that said: “Enter All Ye Who Seek Knowledge.”

Fit us to a tee.

Fortunately for us, the library opened early, and we were among the first to go inside. An elderly woman with reading glasses attached to her head by a gold chain gazed at us from the front desk. I smiled, and she smiled back. The familiar scents of leather and old books filled the main foyer.

I strode toward the staircase and bounded up to the third floor. Wyatt followed at a slower pace, constantly tossing furtive looks over his shoulder even though we were pretty much alone. None of the librarians paid us any mind. On the third-floor landing, the corridor branched left into the fiction room. Directly ahead, the marble steps became a metal spiral that continued upward. A red velvet rope hung across, sporting a sign that announced: “Employees Only.”

After double-checking that we were still alone, I stepped over the rope and continued up. Our footsteps echoed in the enclosed space, and it seemed to get smaller the higher we went. At the next landing we were presented with two doors—one marked
PRIVATE
, and the other
ROOF ACCESS
. We picked door number two and went up again.

I pushed open the exit door. Bright morning sunlight glared into my eyes. Facing east, the sun sat above the city’s horizon like an orange ball of flame. A cool breeze tickled my cheeks. I inhaled the odors of gasoline and exhaust and asphalt—the scent of my city.

Wyatt touched my elbow; I moved out of the way.

The exterior of the door was painted to match the exterior stone, which rose up like a castle turret to create a faked fifth floor. It was all alcoves and empty space inside, the perfect resting place for a gargoyle.
A gravel path surrounded the hollow upper section. It was the only barrier between the building and a four-story drop to the asphalt below.

We crunched across the gravel and turned the corner to the north wall. One of the window insets had been smashed in, allowing a four-foot-wide access to the shadowy interior.

“Think he’s home?” Wyatt asked.

“Should be,” I said. “It’s well after sunrise, and Max is more allergic than most. Just talking about the sun makes his skin crackle.”

A common misconception about gargoyles: they don’t turn to stone during the day and fly freely at night as some myths suggest. A stone gargoyle is a dead one. Like their vampire cousins, gargoyles are highly allergic to direct sunlight. Exposure dries out their skin and turns it slowly to stone. Five minutes or more of direct sunlight changes them completely. A difference in genetics makes the vampire less stable, easier to shatter into dust. Gargoyles, on the other hand, are solid.

Ever since the first stone gargoyles were discovered and placed on churches and cathedrals, humans have been creating their own, modeling them after cats and dogs and every other animal imaginable. Real gargoyles look more like squared-off humans, with block heads, fangs, wide mouths, long front arms, and short wings. How they manage to fly with those little wings is beyond me, but they do.

“Is he going to recognize you like Smedge did?” Wyatt asked.

“I hope so. I don’t feel like taking a flying leap off this building if he gets testy.”

“Ditto.”

I climbed through first, eyes adjusting quickly to the dim interior. The faint, sweet odor of rot hit me first, but not strong enough to create a sense of dread. Max liked cleanliness in his nest. Even without looking, I knew a pile of bird bones was heaped in the left corner of the man-made cave—mostly pigeon bones, but Max would settle for a swallow or robin if nothing else presented itself.

The far right corner was cast in deep shadow, farthest from the entrance. Our bodies blocked the thin shafts of sunlight, creating a prison-bar pattern on the stone floor. Something shifted in the shadow, a sound like sandpaper on metal. A deep growl filled the space, vibrating in my chest. The short hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

“Max?” I said. “It’s Evangeline Stone and Wyatt Truman.”

Snuffling, and then a thick baritone, full of clicks and rasps, asked, “Why the new look, Evangeline?”

“I died and rose again. We just had a few minor hitches. You gonna come out and say hello?”

He withdrew from the shadows, lumbering forward on thick haunches. His back was curved slightly, thanks to the weight of his massive, muscular forearms. His head was almost perfectly squared, and his mouth nearly as wide as his entire face. Two thick fangs hung down over his lower lip. A sharp brow ridge accentuated his large, luminous eyes. Gargoyles had no hair, only pointed ears and a smooth head.

Max walked forward, into the dim light. Behind me, Wyatt shifted, becoming defensive. I reached back, found his arm, and squeezed. He stilled, but
tension rippled beneath his shirt. I didn’t blame him. Most people freaked at the sight of a seven-foot-tall gargoyle.

“Hello,” Max said. “I had heard through the Clans that you died, Evangeline. I am pleased you have risen and shall rejoice in it.”

“Don’t rejoice too much, it’s just temporary,” I said. “I have a puzzle to solve, and I was hoping you’d be able to give me a few of the pieces.”

“You have only to ask for my assistance, and you shall receive it. You know this, as you have come to me many times.”