Cheat the Grave

19

“That is one nosy twunt,” Cher said, cocking her head at the closed door. Helen could be heard stomping down the hallway, and Cher’s rude amalgamation only increased the effect. I smiled and looked for Suzanne, before hearing water running in the adjoining bathroom. “She’ll probably offer to bring up some cookies and milk just so she can spy on us. We can’t let her ruin our sleepover, okay?”

Shit. I tossed the box Helen had given me on the dresser, then flopped on the bed next to Cher. I’d entirely forgotten about the sleepover. It’d been a sound enough idea in the monotonous safety of my sickbed, at a time when I believed the supernatural world had abandoned me altogether.

Cher, misinterpreting the wince on my face, smoothed the hair back from my forehead. “Don’t worry. I’ve brought enough alcohol and chocolate to last the night. We’ll bar the door with a chair back like we did when we were kids.”

“Sounds great,” I lied, because it sounded dangerous. I couldn’t allow Cher, or anyone else, to remain in this house any longer than necessary. If Mackie knew I was here- and odds were he did-he wouldn’t wait long before trying for me again.

Suzanne appeared just then, and clapped like a schoolgirl upon seeing me. “Oh, good! I was starting to get worried. And hungry. Arun flew in his personal chef from Delhi. Get ready for some Tandoori to-die-for!”

I momentarily wondered what it was like to live in that brain.

Cher, used to it-a party to it-reached over the bedside to hoist an overnight duffel. “I brought the letters too.”

“Letters?” I asked absently, watching Suzanne apply poinsettia lipstick.

“The ones I told you about before?” She crossed her arms, piqued. “On the party bus, remember?”

“Nah. It kinda fell out of my head when you got hospitalized,” I told Cher, though I did remember now-the letters her birth mother had written when she found out she was dying.

“I thought tonight would be a good time to reminisce.”

I glanced at Suzanne. Weren’t we supposed to be celebrating? Looking forward, not back? But Suzanne shrugged as she caught my gaze through the mirror, seemingly more concerned with her updo than anything else. “Oh, I think it’s a wonderful idea. We’re products of our pasts, after all. And of the people who shaped them. I’m not jealous when it comes to love. I want my baby to feel as much love as possible.”

Cher teared up. “Aw, Momma…”

“Besides, my psychic told me it’s not too late to have another baby with Arun. Fingers crossed that your replacement is on the way!” She did just that.

“Momma!”

“What’s in the box?” Suzanne asked, pointing at whatever Helen had left in there to flatten me.

“Nothing,” I lied, but she was already lifting the lid. Her movement slowed, then froze altogether, though her eyes darted to my face and away so quickly I knew I’d been right. Helen’s intent was to sully the celebratory mood. I held out a hand for the box, wondering why some people thought making someone feel bad would make them feel better.

The only blessing was that it wasn’t Olivia really opening this box. Had to give it to Helen, I thought, shaking my head. She sure knew how to hit below the belt.

Cher had told Helen that tonight’s gathering was about mothers and family…but the photo I held was devoid of either. It was of my college graduation, three people glaring into the afternoon sun with false smiles plastered over sweating faces. Olivia’s had been bright and eager, almost frantic in her hope to wring some happiness out of the occasion. Mine was as stiff as the cardboard in my graduation cap. Xavier’s wasn’t even that, just a half squint, and a meaty-jawed scowl as he gestured for the photographer to hurry up. Of course, my mother was absent entirely…just as she’d been for nearly the entire previous decade. And that was what Helen was so clearly pointing out.

Yet even before my mother left, we hadn’t been the Cleavers. Xavier was only present on this day because it was expected. He’d hopped from his limo, posed for this moment upon Olivia’s request, before tossing me this sterling silver frame and an unsigned graduation card with the down payment for my own house, then disappearing again. Both his absence and the money were readily accepted. We all knew he wanted me out of the mansion as badly as I wanted escape.

I filled that new home with items that spoke to the person I’d become-photography equipment and a darkroom, modern pieces with Asian accents-taking nothing from the mansion, including this frame. I shook my head again. Olivia had been so desperate for a normal family life that even a farcical photo of a broken, unsmiling family had moved her.

“What’s that say?” Suzanne asked, pointing to the frame’s lower edge.

I read the inscription. “‘Making an impact is easy. Making a difference is hard.’”

I scoffed at the irony, musing how he’d only ever accomplished the former, but halted in mid eye roll. “Huh. That’s funny.”

“Really?” asked Cher, tilting her head. “I think it’s profound.”

“No, I mean I know someone who used to say that.”

“Xavier?” Suzanne guessed, pointing at the quote’s attribution.

“Someone else,” I murmured, biting my lower lip. Someone I hadn’t known when this photo was taken.

Of all the agents of Light, I’d spent the most time around Tekla. She wasn’t comfortable with me at first, nor I with her. Though sparrow-slight, she was too powerful to induce relaxation, with a sense of the otherworldly about her that set her apart from even those in the Zodiac. As the purported Kairos, I’d been much the same. We were also mutually indebted to one another, having saved the other’s ass more than once.

So we were an unlikely pair, the Seer and the reluctant new Star Sign. I wondered now if she’d taken me under her wing because she’d seen Fate’s plans for me-my fall from the troop’s grace, my restored humanity, my lost loves-and wanted to prepare me, or maybe even provide a soft spot while she could. After all, with the murder of her son the year before, her mothering instincts had no obvious outlet, and I doubted it could just be turned off. Perhaps she saw me as the daughter she never had.

We had certainly butted heads like mother and daughter.

“Goddess damn!” she’d said once. “You’re birthing plant life from thought and giving it roots in the world. You’re not smashing sandcastles. Try to use a bit of finesse!”

And Tekla waved her hand over her own giant pot of soil, the gesture so elegant it was probably Kabukiinspired. I’d looked down at my pot and given it the middle finger. Tekla scowled.

“Well, maybe it’s the Shadow in me that keeps life from growing,” I said, shrugging. Bringing living things to life was a skill particular to the Light.

She’d lifted her sharp chin. “Maybe it’s stubbornness of spirit and a prideful mind.”

“Maybe it’s indigestion.”

But despite all the maybes, she did teach me. We spent hours in the sanctuary’s dojo together, sparring with our bodies and minds and words…and occasionally smiling. We never talked about our losses on or off the mats. I think we both dwelled on those too much when we were alone to indulge when there was a task at hand, and another person in view.

And then one day she took me into her astrolab. It was more geek dome than observatory, a den detailing her obsession with the stars, and piled high with the mathematical tools she used to read the sky. It may as well have been a space station on the moon for all I could tell. She’d dimmed the lights, and the night sky appeared above.

“Can you point out the twelve constellations that comprise the Zodiac?” she asked imperiously.

“No.”

“That’s okay. I only want to show you one.” She pointed to a constellation west of my own, Sagittarius. It looked like just another clump of stars to me. “This is Ophiuchus, and its brightest star is a white dwarf. It’s feeding on matter from its neighbor, a red giant, and quickly approaching its maximum possible size. It’s highly unstable.”

Like you, I remember thinking, as she craned her neck upward. “Maybe it should go on a diet.”

Tekla’s mouth firmed, but she otherwise ignored me. “It will go supernova soon. It will be a violent explosion, one that will outshine entire galaxies for a time.”

“‘Soon’ meaning thousands of years from now, right?”

She shrugged. “Or tomorrow.”

I’d eyed the star nervously because there was a reason she was telling me this. Tekla didn’t waste energy on trivialities.

“Don’t worry. It won’t affect earth in the least. And after it goes supernova, turning into the thing it was meant to be all along, all that will remain of it will be a little pulsar. Just another tiny neutron star freckling the face of the night sky.”

“So it just disappears?”

She shook her head. “It’s displaced, dispelled. The matter comprising it simply goes somewhere else, and all that work, all that energy and violence, really amounts to nothing.”

“So?”

“So it shows that against the palate of the universe, making an impact is easy. But making a difference…that’s what’s proven to be hard.”

And no matter how much I huffed, puffed, teased, and taunted, she’d refused to say more than that. Apparently I was supposed to look at ol’ Ophiuchus and be a Seer too.

Making an impact is easy. Making a difference is hard.

As Cher said, how profound. How telling that it could have such disparate meaning depending on who, Tekla or Xavier, was saying it.

“I have something too,” Suzanne said. Her cheerful voice was strained with the need to get this party back on track. I smiled, grateful for her concern, though it was unnecessary. I wasn’t Olivia, and held no soft spot for Xavier. She pulled a small jewelry box from her black clutch, handing it to me with a shy smile. “It’s a thankyou for throwing the rehearsal dinner tonight. Arun wanted to show his gratitude for allowing the wedding to be held at Valhalla too. We know how much work you’ve put into this.”

“It was no problem,” I murmured, taking the box. Open ing it, I found a bracelet in gold so yellow it was almost orange. It was studded with multicolored precious stones, obviously antique and very expensive.

“It’s called a hand flower. It’s been in Arun’s family for five generations.”

“I have the matching ring, see?” Cher clamored from the bed to join her mother and me at the mirror. “They’re kundans, one of the most popular motifs in Indian jewelry. Isn’t that right, Momma?”

Suzanne nodded. “Arun said they’re good luck. Protects against the evil eye.”

“Arun said that, did he?” I murmured.

I thought of Tekla giving me lessons and knowledge she thought would protect me, and of Caine, another Seer who gave me weapons and his body as armor. And now this woman-or more accurately, her wannabe babydaddy-was giving me a pretty, hopeful little bauble with mystical meaning from a country I’d never visit. I lifted the bracelet to the light.

“Why would Arun give these to me?”

“I told you. He’s grateful. And besides,” she said, eyes flicking to the photo Helen had tried to destroy me with.

“True friends are the families we choose.”

I looked at her for a long moment before pulling her into a hug I think surprised us both. Taking in the scents of expensive bath oil and custom perfume, I smiled against her hair. “Sometimes you are shockingly profound.”

She pulled back, eyes glistening as she smiled at me, then pulled Cher-the rest of my chosen family-into the hug. “Well,” she said modestly, “I’ve skimmed a lot of life-coaching articles in my day.”

It was perhaps the girliest moment of my life, but I didn’t mind so much. There was no one I had to defend myself from here.

“So. Shall we go celebrate?”

I nodded, then dumped the photo in my bag. I didn’t want to leave it behind and let Helen think she’d gotten to me, so I’d dispose of it outside of the mansion. I refused to let that woman make a difference or an impact on me.

Cher accompanied Suzanne downstairs to help attend to her adoring guests, Lindy left me alone, and Mackie wasn’t lurking behind my shower curtain. The night was looking up.

I made sure to don my “hand flower” bracelet, and joined them within the hour to find the secondary dining room transformed.

Into a gothic bordello.

Terry, winner of the now infamous treasure hunt, sidled up to me almost immediately.

“What’s all this?” I asked, gesturing at the unapologetic red and black scheme. Sure, the party was being held in

“my” house, but like all good social debs, I hadn’t a thing to do with the planning. Besides, if there was one thing that could give me away as Joanna Archer, it was my inability to juggle a menu and a seating arrangement.

“I know.” Terry had a camera in one hand, a red cocktail with an onyx-stemmed glass in the other, and was dressed in the basic black the invitations had requested. “It’s just one big juicy pot of pornography, right? Arun wanted to show off some of his more intricate textiles, and these are done in the colors of the family coat of arms.”

“Indians have coats of arms?”

“Compliments of the British. There weren’t any fire hydrants to piss on in the old days, so they had to mark everything with a sword and a lion.”

I glanced at the silks lining tables and chairs, the tapestries hanging from the walls and their matching footstools, the double-wide lounge chairs with their red brocade. Crystal tassels set practically every inanimate object to sparkle. I guess nothing said “home sweet whorehouse” like black teardrop crystals. I blinked until I could focus properly again, turning to Terry. “You’re the photographer?”

“Unofficial,” he sniffed, casting a glance over his shoul der. Two small dark men were snapping photo after photo of the room’s focal point, a moon-shaped table where Suzanne sat, arms linked with her groom.

“So that’s Arun Brahma.” My initial impulse to revile him upon sight reared again, but I dampened it, not wanting it to affect an accurate reading of someone who could be worse than merely slick. He could be dangerous.

For a moment I thought he also might be sleeping with his eyes open. While Suzanne laughed gaily, tossing her hair before the cameras like it was an Olympic event, he just sat there, merely altering his profile every once in a while so the photographers had to move for him rather than the reverse. Yet when Suzanne said his name, brushing her hand against his shoulder in as intimate a gesture as one could get while still clothed, his response was immediate. His regally dull expression didn’t brighten, but it altered, like one of those paintings that seemed to follow your progress across the room with a knowing gaze. He leaned toward her with such fierce attentiveness that I wanted to slap him with a restraining order.

That wasn’t love, I thought, watching him drink in her every feature as if it were the first time…and he was very thirsty. That was just creepy.

“You haven’t met him yet?” Terry sounded surprised.

I shook my head. “He’s suspiciously private. Does he move from her side?”

Terry sipped from his bloodred drink. “Only when eyefucking her from afar.”

Also creepy, but then who could blame him? The bride-to-be looked fantastic, blond hair set in siren’s waves, lips as red as the tapestry behind her, eyes glowing. Still, there was something about the way he responded to Suzanne that just felt wrong. She tugged on his arm and he swerved toward her like a weight on a chain. A few months ago I would have closed in and tried to sniff out the problem-maybe he was drugged, maybe he was Shadow-but now all I could do was keep an eye on him, alert to even the smallest movement.

Or could I?

Easing back a step so I was out of Terry’s peripheral vision, I lifted my glass to my lips. From behind it I whispered in a voice so low only those with access to other realities and realms could hear it. “Hey, Arun…”

His head swiveled before he caught himself. Eyes meeting mine, now narrowed, he paused only a moment before looking away. But he’d swallowed hard before he did it.

Suzanne sensed the absence of his attention as clearly as if she’d moved from sun to shade. She caught the arc of his quickly averted gaze, and brightened when she saw me. Her crimson smile widened as she waved, and she pointed at her wrist to indicate my bracelet.

I gave her a big cheesy thumbs-up while Arun watched her with an intensely glowing gaze. Most women would kill to be looked at like that. But some had been killed after being looked at like that. Now that I knew that he was something other than he claimed, I worried for Suzanne. I had no clue what his angle was, if he’d left me protective weapons on a scavenger’s hunt, or if he was an ally. All I knew for sure was I didn’t want her marrying him.

“Well, she looks radiant,” I said to Terry, almost forlornly. Damn. She always had such bad taste in men.

“Yes. Jewels on every digit, and each one a testament to the power of blow jobs.”

Time to extract myself from this conversation, I thought, brows raised. I turned away, caught Helen lingering in the doorway, and turned back. “Um, where’s Cher?”

“Here, I’m here!”

“All done having bulimia, darling?” Terry asked as she joined us.

Cher shuddered delicately. “This ethnic food is hell on the American digestive tract.”

“Told you to stick with vodka,” Terry singsonged, holding up his glass.

“You should at least give it a try. I practically killed myself putting this party together,” I said, knowing Helen could hear. I’d done nothing but throw the name and number of Suzanne’s preferred party planner on Helen’s desk, and I smiled, seeing her back go ramrod straight before she stalked from the room. Good. The less time she spent around my mortals, the better.

“Seriously, Olivia.” Cher’s gaze followed my own. “What does your housekeeper do other than skulk in doorways?”

“That’s pretty much it.”

Oblivious to my frown, she patted down her streaked hair with alternating black and red nails. “You should can her ass. Just because your father put up with that behavior doesn’t mean you have to.”

“No, no, no.” Terry fisted one hand on his hip. “You need to look at her contract first. Otherwise she’ll go straight to the press and reveal all your nasty little secrets.”

“I don’t have nasty little secrets.” I just had nasty big ones.

“She’ll just make it up,” he said, jerking his head. “Don’t you read People magazine? Celebrities’ nannies do it all the time. And that bitch doesn’t like you.”

I wasn’t surprised Cher and Terry had noticed…or that they didn’t care for Helen. Mortals might be ignorant of otherworldly battles and politics, but everyone had intuition. Supersenses were just extremely well-developed extensions of that.

“Oh, here. I forgot this before…” Cher reached into her ample cleavage and withdrew a rolled up photo. “It’s the one you made me take on that awful scavenger hunt. I didn’t know if you still wanted it, or if you’d rather forget the whole thing, but it was developed along with all the other party pictures, so I made you a copy.”

I held the photo in front of me, shocked at the crispness of the image. The flash had caught the intricate etchings on the old treasure chest perfectly, along with the symbol that had been stalking my waking hours. I traced it with my fingertip, wondering aloud. “But what is it?”

Terry tossed a glance at the photo and finished the rest of his drink. “A snake. Duh.”

He set his glass on a passing waiter’s tray, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and turned back to me. Seeing my surprise, he leaned closer. “It is. See? Wrapped around a stick or some sort of staff.”

Studying the photo more closely, I decided he was possibly right.

“What?” he asked, clearly offended by my pursed brow. “Snakes are present in practically every mythological system out there. Google it. You wouldn’t believe the shit they represent.”

“Such as?”

“Guardians of sacred treasures and sites-”

“Like in Indiana Jones?”

“Yeah, temples and stuff.” He sniffed, tossing his head. “And, like, medicine and healing. Renewal and regeneration-shedding skin, get it?-and vengefulness, sometimes deceit…”

But my mind had snagged on the temple connection. A stupa was a monument containing Buddhist relics, which could be loosely interpreted as a sort of temple. As tulpas had derived directly from Tibetan Buddhism, the connection seemed more than coincidental. Because there was a stupa, or an extremely realistic rendition of one, in this very house. Not a definitive clue, but it was a place to start. “Thank you, Terry,” I murmured, refolding the photo.

“Sure,” he shrugged, then brightened. “Come on. For your sake I will risk death by Naga chili pepper.”

Which would buy me time to think, not that I needed a lot of it. It was clear I was going to have to put the problem of Arun Brahma aside and canvass the stupa while I still could. If anything out of the ordinary occurred at this rehearsal dinner-and a homicidal attack by a creature escaped from another world certainly qualified-

Lindy would immediately alert the Tulpa. Then every action within these walls would be catalogued like a forensic exam. So I’d investigate tonight just to be safe, maybe during the soup course, before making sure all the guests got home safely. Tomorrow I’d stop one of my best friends from marrying a man who made her unabashedly happy despite both his stalker and otherworldly qualities. After that?

I’d gather up the arsenal my mother had left me and go kill myself a tulpa.