Cheat the Grave

16

So they took me back to Vegas to do what was previously thought impossible. Kill the Tulpa.

The opportunity wouldn’t come immediately. I was hosting Suzanne and Arun’s rehearsal dinner at the estate that night. Though far less crowded than the eight hundred wedding guests due at Valhalla the following day, it was still a big undertaking. Making sure there were enough hors d’oeuvres would be challenging. Killing the Tulpa might be a little too ambitious for cocktail attire. Which meant I had to stay alive at least until the next day.

Valentine’s Day, I remembered with a frown. Silk-lined boxes of chocolate. Intimate candlelight dinners. A body studded with weapons in order to kill a friggin’ tulpa.

Just like every other girl on V-Day, I thought wryly. Dressed to leave an impression.

I shook my head. Weaker than I’d ever been in my life and I was going to attempt to murder a being birthed through calculated thought and mean ambition. One who had taken over the Shadow organization with a virtual snap of his fingers. If it was really the thought that counted, why couldn’t I just wish him away? As it was, I had no better plan than to leap and lunge at the opportune moment.

Speaking of leaping and lunging, I glanced to the back of our stolen van to find Gareth, Vincent, and Roland all eyeing me speculatively.

“No,” I told them all. “I won’t go to the dance with you.”

Gareth and Roland shot me small smiles, and while Vincent didn’t offer me a promise ring, his scowl didn’t deepen either. Guys who looked at you and smiled, or at least didn’t frown, always wanted something, so I waited. Gareth finally held up a comic book…a manual depicting the last days of my time in Zodiac troop 175, and as an agent of Light. I assumed that’s what it was anyway. The cover art showed me drowning.

“You were the Kairos,” Gareth said, jutting out his pockmarked chin.

“So they said.”

“But you gave up all your powers for a mortal child. Someone less than even a rogue.”

I shook my head. “She wasn’t lesser than anyone.”

“And that’s why I will follow you.” Vincent crossed his arms over his beefy chest, his nostrils flaring. “Not because Carlos tells me to. Not because you’re a female and you can enter Midheaven and increase our numbers.”

“’Cuz the only number you care about is one,” Gareth snorted.

Vincent punched the kid’s shoulder so hard his entire arm went limp. I winced, but Vincent’s eyes were back on me. “Because I’m independent, and I am honorable. I don’t mask my deeds, good or bad, with lies. I won’t deceive you like that.” He jerked his head to the manual where the story of Warren’s trickery was literally spelled out. “I won’t betray you like the other one either.”

I’d wondered if Hunter’s story would show up. I swallowed hard. Now my personal life was splayed along those pages in the comic book equivalent of a gossip rag. And all these men had read it.

“Nor will I,” Gareth added solemnly, which had me glancing up despite my embarrassment. He seemed to have forgiven me for questioning his experience. Meanwhile, Oliver muttered his agreement from the driver’s seat. Carlos beamed. Tripp, gazing out the window, said nothing.

“I’ve a gift to seal my oath,” Roland said, rising from his seat. Oliver stretched to see through the rearview mirror, and Gareth leaned close. Vincent rolled his eyes before leaning his head back and closing them.

“What is it?” I asked, accepting the object. It looked like a fork that had gone head-to-head with a Roto-Rooter.

“It’s from the original Doom Town,” he said, returning to his seat. “I found it buried closer to ground zero than any other artifact to date. I want you to have it.”

How sweet. He was proving his loyalty to me with radioactive rubble. I could practically feel the ions banging against my palm. It was like the entire city of Whoville was jammed together in a metal mosh pit. Yet looking back up at the three men, I found their expressions as open as I could expect on people I’d known for fewer than twenty-four hours.

“And I want you to have these,” Gareth added, lifting a small duffel bag over the seat.

“Nah, man!” Vincent came to life then, making a grab for the bag. “I wasn’t done with the last issue!”

Showing his quickness in spite of-or because of-his size, Gareth dodged, ending up next to me before the larger man could swipe again. “She needs them more than you, bro. More than that stupid fucking cancer spoon too.”

Not a fork, then.

The van rocked as Roland lunged.

“I love the cancer spoon!” I yelled, wanting to prevent being squashed by an errant fist while trapped in a moving vehicle. I held out my hand for the manuals. “And I’ll read the issues backward, and return them as I go, okay?”

That calmed everyone sufficiently…except for me. Now I had a bag full of manuals detailing what the troop had been doing since my absence. I swallowed hard, and tucked the bag beneath my feet. Truthfully, I didn’t know when I’d get to them. My feelings were too raw where the troop was concerned. Seeing them on the pages of a comic book-even if the action no longer lifted from the page, coming to life before my eyes-might pull the scab from that mental injury before it’d fully healed.

Still, glancing over at Carlos, I found Alex, Fletcher, and Milo all smiling at me from behind him. He inclined his head, like he’d known all along they’d accept me. I turned back in my seat, and found that despite the day ahead of me, I was smiling too.

Yet, just like the clouds that’d once dotted Frenchman’s Flat, another worry immediately mushroomed. Harlan Tripp. Unnervingly silent since learning of Carlos’s plan, he was gnawing on one of those strange brown cigarettes he’d brought back with him from Midheaven, running his tongue along his teeth as he stared out the window of our stolen van. Carlos had paired us up, so while the other rogues were to observe and protect me from afar, Tripp had instructions to never leave my side. If spotted, we’d act in tandem to make either Shadow or Light believe we were together against my will.

“Is this it?” Oliver, in the driver’s seat, pulled me from my thoughts, and I leaned forward to see around Tripp’s bulk. The building was immediately recognizable, and I instinctively glanced around for signs of the Light.

“Yes.” I answered softly, and the vehicle fell oddly silent. I’d just told a band of rogue agents what building the Light used to fashion weapons and train for battle against the Shadows.

Buttersnap and Tripp flanked me as we disembarked from the stolen van, looking less for signs of the proprietors of the building than for Mackie and his unstoppable knife. That, after all, was what had made me think of the warehouse. Inside was a compound Micah had created for the Light, which effectively acted as a barrier to any conduit’s blow. A spray solution that adhered to the skin, the defen sive preservative only lasted against one strike, but the time it would buy the rogues from a first strike to a second might make the difference between life and death…and God knew we needed every advantage we could get.

The only problem? The warehouse was booby-trapped to the teeth.

“Sure you ’membered all the obstacles?” Tripp asked as we skirted the building, kicking rubber strips and broken bottles and concrete from our path.

“No,” I said honestly, blowing out a breath, and rearranging Gareth’s duffel over my shoulder. He’d handed it to me again when I’d oh-so-subtly tried to leave it in the van. “But you only need to dodge the poisoned bullets to get to the alarm panel, and I remember the pass code.”

“They coulda changed it.”

“I don’t think so.” Hunter had set up the alarm system and the lethal backup methods, and told the code to no one but me. My bet was the warehouse hadn’t been used in the weeks since his disappearance, which meant the defensive preservative was still tucked safely inside.

“A smidge more certainty would be nice,” Tripp muttered. “Since it ain’t you who’s gotta run the gauntlet.”

What could I say? He had a point. I wasn’t fast enough to dodge the poisonous missiles on the way to the panel, which left it up to my surly southern wingman. The bullets weren’t the only issue either. If he failed to disarm the system within a minute of gaining access, the place would blow. And wouldn’t that make a nice lead for the six o’clock news?

Alas, the perky local newscasters would have to fixate on another headline. Tripp picked the lock, and raced inside amidst the whiz of two-dozen bullets striking concrete. Buttersnap’s gaze fixed on the darkened doorway, ears pricked, and it was only when her tongue lolled from her mouth and those great, humping shoulders relaxed that I knew the alarm had been deactivated. Tripp appeared a moment later.

I waved backward, and a moment later the van, idling behind the warehouse block, ambled away. They’d canvass the perimeter by vehicle-with Fletcher and Milo on foot-while I showed Tripp where the protectant was.

“There should be a giant tool chest in the room’s center,” I told him, ducking past to take the lead. It wasn’t real power, but pretending made me feel better. “The solvent is in there.”

And it was so easily found I half expected a trap. Yet why would the troop hide it? It wasn’t a weapon, and until now no one else knew the warehouse’s location. This had been the safe spot when all true safe zones were inaccessible, though because of what I’d just revealed, it would never be that again.

Snatching up the canister and its spares, I whirled to find Tripp examining a template of a weapon Hunter had recently designed. It had a long slim chain with an attached leather wrist loop, though it was tied to a foam dagger-a most lethal lasso. Tripp was comparing it to the sketches laid out atop the drawing board. “Put it down,” I ordered sharply.

He did…and immediately picked up another.

“Stop it! Let’s just grab the protectant and get out of here.”

“No.” He sounded like a school kid with a new toy. “I’m curious.”

And the chances of convincing a curious former Shadow to leave a refuge of Light unexplored was next to nil. I rolled my eyes. “You’re smearing your scent all over the place,” I protested.

He responded by picking up a foam cross section of a four-headed axe, and I made a warning noise in the back of my throat. He looked at me like I was a gnat and he was tempted to swat. “Why don’t you git. Go check on Buttersnap. Make sure she don’t eat nothing.”

“They’re waiting for us.”

He turned the template over in his hand, then began searching for its drawings. “They’d do the same.”

So much for taking the lead.

I glanced around, then wandered a bit. Other than its purpose as a martial headquarters for a troop of paranor mal beings, the warehouse was unremarkable. I poked my head into the panic room, which was as utilitarian as a librarian’s desk, cabinets pressed against the wall, fluorescent lights off, doors closed. I touched nothing, knowing it would leave prints.

I slipped around a floor-to-ceiling plastic partition separating the combat area and shooting range from Hunter’s workshop to find Buttersnap inspecting the wide-open area like she was on patrol. I sniffed but smelled nothing, though if I closed my eyes I could imagine the martial dance of the agents of Light the last time we’d trained for war.

Which brought my mind around to what else I’d done with Hunter in this room. My gaze swept right, to where he’d had me pinned to the wall. Granted, I deserved it, as I’d just thrown him across the space moments before. What lay between us had always been charged, our joining elemental, like planets banging together to create a scalding eclipse. I closed my eyes and could still picture our silhouettes, sharply edged. I could hear the frenetic need of our undressing. I could taste his breath. It didn’t matter that he’d been planning to betray me even then, not in my heart’s memory. Just because a love was made up didn’t make it any less real. Illusion had its own reality.

“The weapons, Joanna. Think about the weapons.” My voice, though low, was like water splashed in my face, and just what I needed to banish the past. Because not only could I still touch another agent’s conduit, I could also handle the antique ones left by my mother, and as a mortal I shouldn’t be able to do either. My fingers skimmed the trident at my hip, which steadied my breathing. Once I was sure my emotions wouldn’t leak from me, I slipped back around the partitions, leaving Buttersnap to patrol the memories in the shooting range. I simply wasn’t up for it.

But then I spotted the secret passageway. Recessed, the alcove was practically invisible to the eye’s quick scan, and as yet unseen by Tripp. Glancing back at him, still studying Hunter’s drawings like they were key to discovering the Ark itself, I quietly crossed the room, pushed on the hinged panel, then slipped inside.

The small stairwell was as claustrophobic as any other narrow, dark space, the trapped air pressing in on me to amplify my footsteps and breath. I chided myself for having the nightmarish thought of something waiting for me at the top of the staircase, and climbed as quickly as I could, ignoring the noise I made as I clamored to the top. Feeling around blindly at the passageway’s end, I pushed open the simple shuttered door and stepped into the crow’s nest, a tiny alcove overlooking the entire warehouse.

“Masochist,” I mumbled, shaking my head. Because if the room downstairs was a reminder of how much I’d opened myself to Hunter, this one was head-on collision. It was small, holding nothing more than a bed beneath a slanted roofline and a cheap press-wood desk. I sighed, then slumped to the edge of the bed, giving up any pretense of strength…or interest in anything beyond what was left of Hunter in this world.

Were I still an agent, I’d be able to scent him everywhere, as Tripp undoubtedly could. As it was, I pressed my face to the pillow propped atop the unmade bed-a pathetically girly, lovesick, and patently unexpected thing for me to do.

“God, Hunt.” And I allowed myself a moment to do what I previously hadn’t when thinking of the man who’d abandoned this world for another: grieve.

So it is a soul connection.

Was it? I asked myself, remembering Trish’s words, uttered just before Solange annihilated the water room. And if so, how could he leave me for her with so much remaining between us? I’d dodged the thought for weeks, cringing every time it poked its head into the light, but I couldn’t dodge it now. I had fallen in love with the man, perhaps on first sight…most definitely in this workshop. I’d been so sure he felt the same that the shock of his betrayal still crashed over me in unexpected waves.

I leaned back and gazed up at the roofline angled close over the simple bed. Stars shone there, glued, but still glowing in his rendition of a makeshift sky. “Fucking pitiful.”

I hated looking at what I’d lost instead of what I’d managed to save. I had life. I had a troop again…or at least a pseudotroop. I had a purpose, and if not a real chance of killing the Tulpa or avoiding Mackie’s blade, then at least hope. If I began counting my losses, my mind could quickly become an endless game of Russian roulette.

Sniffling, I lifted Gareth’s bag from my shoulders and rifled through it until I found the manual I wanted…the one I knew would be there all along.

Dark Matters. With my heart caught in a syncopated beat, I stared at the cover featuring Hunter as Jaden Jacks. Funny, but if you’d told me even two months ago that Hunter was tiny, I’d have scoffed. Maybe it was just his presence; he was a man who knew his own body and mind, one who took over rooms just by entering them. Or maybe it was that he was a superhero, one the other agents of Light had looked up to…until they’d looked away. One thing was sure…my unswerving attraction to him had been there from the first.

In any case, Jaden Jacks was a Wrestlemania sort of giant-bronzed skin, bulging biceps, bleached military hair, squared jaw. The man I knew was all of that, though coiled in a tighter frame, along with straight mocha hair and eyes like honey over toast. Though the eyes had been the same, I realized, staring down at them now. I should have caught that when first encountering Jacks, but had been so overwhelmed by his physicality I hadn’t.

I pushed my back against the wall, but got a flash of Hunter reclined in the same place, covers draped across his naked thighs so artfully he should have been sculpted. Clearing my throat, I shifted back to the edge of the bed like some prim old maid and opened the manual to find out if becoming Hunter had been as unwilling a transformation as my own into Olivia .

But Dark Matters didn’t begin there. Instead it began with what had made the makeover necessary, and that began with the death of his parents.

I knew it had been violent; it was a death I’d experienced as though it were my own via the power of the aureole. However, what that shared magic hadn’t shown, what it’d neglected to play out in my mind like some sort of mental horror flick, was the brutality of the attack upon them. They’d been beset by the entire Shadow troop one fateful Fourth of July. They’d done well for themselves until the second wave of Shadows hit. Then they’d gone under, fighting back-to-back, until they were flattened. Hunter had watched the whole thing from his hiding spot beneath a car. He was five years old.

The Shadows left. The child emerged. And so did another one-one who was three years older, one from the shadows. One who was of the Shadows. And Solange spared his life.

Holy shit. A relationship begun in childhood? A life-debt that practically predetermined a connection? I scoffed, shaking my head. I’d never even had a chance.

Flash forward more than twenty years after that tragic beginning, and those eyes I’d recognize anywhere were dull and brittle, like burnt-out bulbs in a man ready to tune out, turn off, and shut down. The thought bubbles blooming overhead indicated he was jaded about humanity’s desire to be helped, and bitter over giving his life over to people who rarely lifted a finger to help themselves. This, more than his appearance, made him alien to me. The Hunter I’d known was a hero through and through. His life was spent in service to humanity, preserving choice for them through unceasing battle with the Shadows.

But you hadn’t known him at all, had you?

I resumed my reading, feeling like a voyeur but unable to look away.

Solange first approached him in a bar, intent on com pleting the task she’d neglected when they were both children: end his life. She seduced him at the height of a desert storm, but whatever she saw in the final flash of heat lightning, as her tomahawk was poised overhead, had her withholding her killing blow…and had him doing the same. They made love instead, and then they made a pact…public enemies, private lovers. For months he’d had an affair with a mortal enemy, one this manual revealed in embarrassingly erotic detail.

Was that why he could accept the Shadow in me? I thought, flipping pages faster and faster. Was it how he could look past my father’s mean influence and unwanted lineage, and say there was nothing wrong with me?

And why he believed my Shadow side could ultimately be overcome?

I blinked, shocked to find tears staining the pages, and slapped the manual shut. I knew the rest of this story anyway. They’d had a child together. She’d fled to Midheaven.

And I was wrong about the connection between us.

My soft thoughts of us together weren’t memories…they were recurring deaths. I hadn’t been made love to him like the woman on these pages, like a goddess. The time he spent with me had been a lie and dream. And when I was awake? I was alone, trapped by mortality.

I tucked the manual back in the duffel, glanced back up at the stars scattering the ceiling and reaching to touch what he’d called a frozen star. They were really black holes. Dead stars. He tracked them along with the others, he said, because they had the shortest lives. For some reason Hunter had been attracted to dark things. Like me.

Like Solange.

I’ve been searching for Sola for a long time, he’d said, before leaving me for her.

It was enough to harden my thoughts to him once again. Because he’d admitted this after making love to me, after convincing me that being vulnerable wasn’t synonymous with being weak. After I’d allowed his voice to wash through me, filling crevices and hollows I hadn’t even known were empty.

I gazed at the wrongly marked sky, the version of true love they shared, until my vision blurred. Then I pushed from the bed and rejoined Tripp downstairs.