Free As Lie The Dead by Kelly Meding

aren’t even down here on the streets with us? Hurting and dying alongside us?”
    “You say ‘we’ like you’re still a part of this,” Wyatt said softly. “I thought you were done with the Triads.”
    “I don’t work for them anymore, but I’m still in this mess.
We’re
in this mess, and if doing a little sleuthing and exposing my old bosses helps me keep my word to Phineas, then so be it.”
    “No matter the consequences?”
    I rolled my eyes. “We’ve both died once already, Wyatt. What’s the worst that could happen?”
    “You really just said that, didn’t you?” he asked with a groan.
    The elevator stopped on level M, below the first floor and above the basement, and the doors opened to a wide, short corridor. Dank air tinged with the odors of oil and exhaust greeted us as we exited down the corridor to the lowest level of the parking garage.
    Another elevator was on our left; I beelined for thestairs next to it. Wyatt followed behind me, in silence, to the third level. I dug the keys out of my pocket and surveyed the long rows of parked vehicles.
    “Next time,” I said, “remind me to ask what the damned thing looks like.”
    “What’s the make?” Wyatt asked.
    I looked at the symbol on the keys. A shadow flickered in the corner of my vision. My stomach clenched, senses on immediate alert. A dozen vehicles were parked on our right, and a dozen more across from them. Low fluorescent light fixtures cast a sickly orange glow on the spotty cement floor. Nothing else moved.
    “What?” he whispered.
    “Hey, bitch!”
    I fought off Chalice’s initial instinct to turn toward the snarling male voice—such a greeting is never indicative of a pleasant encounter—and went with my own first thought. I launched sideways into Wyatt and knocked us both to the cool cement floor just shy of the bumper of the first parked car. Dust and bits of stone exploded from the cement block wall near us as it was peppered with silenced gunfire.
    The same male voice started swearing loudly and violently about things he wanted to do to my personal anatomy. It was familiar without being identifiable.
    Wyatt looked up at me, and I down at him, and his eyebrows scrunched together. “I know that voice,” he mouthed.
    I mouthed back, “Me, too,” and rolled off him, sideways on my knees next to the car. Sneakers squeaked nearby, echoing off the low ceiling andwalls. Something thudded. Adrenaline surged and left a bitter taste in my mouth—Hunter’s training told me it was time for a fight. Ducking low next to a smear that stank of oil, I peered beneath the cars. No feet.
    Damn.
    Laughter, low and chilling, reverberated around the room like some awful B-movie effect. It bounced off the shot-peppered wall behind us. Not entirely as helpful as sonar.
    “See him?” Wyatt asked, his voice so low it was barely audible.
    “Nothing,” I replied.
    “Guess you can’t teleport?”
    I snorted, a little too loudly. “I don’t know where he is or where I’d end up.” I looked again, hoping I’d just missed him among the patterns of shadows and oil spots dotting the cement floor. “Can you summon his gun?”
    “I can try, but I need him in the open first, so I can see the gun.”
    “Then you’ll have to be fast, before he starts taking potshots at civilians.”
    “How’s your throwing arm?”
    I slipped my blade from its ankle sheath, tested the weight in my palm. Months of precision practice at Boot Camp had died with my old body. All this one knew was the technique, the stance, the constant drone of the instructor who taught us. “It’s been better,” I said.
    Wyatt quirked one eyebrow, seemingly unconcerned that he was about to risk his life for a maneuverI wasn’t sure I could pull off. “He’s no marksman, or we’d be dead already. Just don’t miss.”
    I nodded and shifted to a squatting position at the end of the car. Wyatt shuffled backward a few feet, giving himself some space. Every moment that