Chapter One
Friday, 5:56 a.m.
Deep red bled into the predawn sky above the defunct Olsmill
Nature Preserve, and I didn't want to be around when the sun
fully rose above the mountain treetops. Once sunlight hit
the plethora of vampire and Halfie bodies strewn around the
sea of pavement that surrounded the preserve's Visitors'
Center, it was game over. I'd smelled burning vampire
bodies-acrid and heavy, like scorched rubber. More than
forty corpses littered the ground, victims of last night's
semi-epic battle.
They'd smell it in the city all day.
I wandered away from the grisly mess, back toward the line
of Jeeps that created a barrier between the carnage and the
dense forest, past the human Hunters collecting goblin
corpses for the bonfire. I wanted out before they lit that,
too. Even dead and rotting as they were, just the sight of
the hunched, oily-skinned goblin warriors set my skin crawling.
Voices on the forest side of the Jeep trickled over.
". . . you see how she got them inside the Visitors' Center?"
"People can't teleport. That's impossible."
"Can't come back from the dead, either, but she did."
"Like a friggin' zombie or something."
"She moves too fast to be a zombie."
I was being discussed. Not surprising. How often did a Dreg
Bounty Hunter get brought back from the dead, lead an attack
on a possessed elf, discover she could teleport, and
continually heal from wounds that would kill any regular
human being? We lived in a city where magic existed, where
teenagers were recruited to kill the beasts of nightmares,
and the only way those guys could understand my existence
was to go Romero on me?
Terrific.
The two gossipers shuffled to my side of the Jeep, carrying
a goblin corpse between them. They froze when they saw me. I
knew their faces but not their names. Each Triad unit
consisted of three Hunters, with each unit working
independently of one another and overseen by a trained
Handler. Handlers kept in contact with other Handlers, but
anonymity among Hunters protected us from attack by our enemies.
Today's mass battle in the mountains north of the city was
the first time I'd seen more than three Triads in one place,
ever.
I narrowed my eyes at the pair and lowered my voice to a
guttural growl. "Mmm, brains."
The taller of the two grunted, his thickly lashed eyes going
wide. His companion, shorter by several inches and with skin
the color of strong coffee, snorted. He seemed the most
familiar, and it finally struck me where I'd seen him
before-Burger Palace. He belonged to a Handler named Rhys
Willemy and had helped arrest my own Handler two days ago.
Huh.
They continued carrying their burden toward the bonfire pit
to add more organic fuel to what was sure to be a disgusting
fire. As they wandered off to collect the next corpse, I was
glad I wasn't required to help with cleanup.
Probably my reward for, you know, stopping the bad guy and
keeping a demon from running amok.
I turned my attention back to the sprawl of dead things in
front of me. My target hadn't been collected. Kelsa's broken
body had shriveled from blood loss. The fuchsia liquid
gelled on the blacktop around the goblin Queen to create a
kind of paste. It squelched around my sneakers, which were
already stained with blood and dirt. I breathed through my
mouth, but it didn't help. The cloying seawater stench was
thick enough to taste.
The goblins would be furious when they learned of her death.
I knew little about the specific hierarchy within hidden
goblin society, but Kelsa was a rare and revered female.
She'd led a horde of warriors. She had orchestrated the
goblins' end of Tovin's plan to summon a demon. She had
power within the goblin ranks. And I had killed her-payback
for killing me last week. It was only a matter of time
before they regrouped and came after me.
Again.
"Evy?"
I did a careful one-eighty in the puddle of blood. Wyatt
Truman-my Handler and the man who'd almost become a demon
suit-walked across the pavement toward me, and I nearly
tackled him with another hug. Nearly. One sleeve of his
shirt was stained red, darkening as it dried-a constant
reminder of how I'd felt an hour ago when he'd been shot
with an anticoagulant bullet and had died in my arms. A
constant reminder, also, of the power of the gnome healing
magic that had brought him back to me.
"How're those?" he asked, pointing at my stomach.
My hand went to the torn, soaked fabric of my T-shirt. Below
it, scabbed slash marks were slowly healing-gifts from my
throw-down with Kelsa. An inch deeper and she would have
gutted me, and I doubted my healing ability could have saved
me from having my intestines stomped all over the blacktop.
An ability I seemed to have retained, even though my three
days were up. The bite on my ankle, the cuts on my cheek,
and other gashes across my torso and legs were also healing,
creating an itchy sensation not unlike rolling in dry grass.
"I've had worse," I replied. "You ready to get out of here?
Sun'll be up soon."
"Yeah, there was just one thing I wanted to do first."
"Which is?"
Another pair of Hunters strode past us. One walked with his
shoulders slumped, head turned away. Wyatt reached out and
tapped him on the shoulder. The kid stopped and looked up. I
saw his swollen lip an instant before Wyatt's fist slammed
into his nose. The kid squealed and stumbled backward, hands
covering his face. Blood streamed between his fingers and
down his chin.
"Wyatt," I said. He glared at me and I glared right back.
Like I cared if he punched that little shit in the nose. "I
already did that."
Wyatt shrugged. "Hey, you got to kill the bitch who killed
you. Give me something here."
"You have a good, if somewhat morbid, point."
"You broke my nose," the kid who'd fired that fatal
anticoagulant shot said. Though muffled beneath his hands,
it sounded closer to "You bruk by doze."
"Hey, Truman! Ease up, will you?" Adrian Baylor's question
was barked from a brief distance. The burly Handler strode
toward us from the other end of the Jeep line, bristling
like an angry dog. "The kid's a week out of Boot Camp, and
it was an accident."
"The kid," Wyatt said, "is too skittish to be using live
rounds. Who the hell'd he pay to graduate?"
"The kid has a fucking name," snarled the kid in question.
Color flamed both cheeks. He'd dropped his hands, allowing
his broken nose to bleed freely. Half a foot shorter than
Wyatt, he stood up like the class nerd facing down the
playground bully. For a rookie, he had brass ones.
Wyatt crossed his arms over his chest. "Which is?"
"Paul Ryan."
"Okay, then." Wyatt tilted his head toward Baylor. "Paul
Ryan is too skittish to be in the field with live ammo."
Paul's entire face turned beet red.
Baylor growled low in his throat-a challenge. "Yeah, I'm
sure I'll be taking training advice from a guy who got his
whole team killed."
Wyatt flinched. I tensed, expecting more punches. Or at the
very least, a couple of choice insults. When nothing
happened, I got pissed. For Wyatt and for me, being one of
the three dead people referenced in Baylor's snarky comment.
I was across the blood puddle and in Baylor's face before
anyone could stop me. I balled my fist in the front of his
black turtleneck and leaned in until we were nose to nose.
I'd just crossed an unspoken line of code among Hunters and
Handlers, but I didn't much care. It's not like I worked for
them anymore.
"Our deaths were not Wyatt's goddamn fault, understand? You
fucking asshole." I let him go, and he stumbled back a step.
"Evy, stop," Wyatt said.
I rounded on him, my hands clenched. His shoulders had
slumped. He didn't seem angry anymore, only sad, but that
just fueled my anger. "Why, Wyatt? Our deaths were not your
fault."
"Yeah." His tone said otherwise, but it wasn't a fight I was
prepared to relive in front of the others. Maybe not again
until I'd had a few days' sleep. I thought he'd accepted the
fact that Jesse and Ash, my late Triad partners, had been
killed as part of a larger plan. Their deaths-and,
ultimately, mine as well-were orchestrated, unpreventable.
Not his fault. Not my fault, either.
Yeah, not my fault. Maybe if I said that a few more times,
I'd even believe it.
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Excerpted from As Lie the Dead by Kelly Meding
Copyright (c) 2010 by Kelly Meding. Excerpted by permission
of Bantam Dell, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights
reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or
reprinted without permission in writing from the
publisher.