Cheat the Grave

20

Dusk still came early in February, so night’s fingers slipped into the mansion before the main course was even served. I glanced surreptitiously at my watch, knowing it would be well into the midnight hours before this party was over. Suzanne hadn’t stopped beaming since I’d arrived, and damned if I was going to be the one to wipe the smile from her face by cutting the festivities short. Even Arun had eased up on the devotedly deranged husband act, swaying in his seat as Bollywood films played merrily on the wall screens.

Deciding a round of raucous toasting was needed to slip away unseen, I passed the suggestion into the ear of a bald man who’d been bouncing along enthusiastically in front of a one-dimensional Aishwarya Rai. It was akin to holding a match to a water-starved field. The idea blazed through the crowd, and a microphone suddenly appeared. Some people were sincere in their toasts, some elicited hoots of laughter and a public dialogue, while others simply vyed for the attention of a man who ruled over his own Indian principality…and for the favor of a woman who would soon be a princess. I made my escape halfway through one of these.

Footsteps light, I slipped through the heart of the house, ears pricking at the occasional bursts of laughter from the dining area, though within minutes it felt like the festivities were in a separate home altogether. This side of the estate was crypt-quiet, and just as cool, as if all the body heat and warmth were confined to the proximity of the human activity.

And here you are, I thought wryly. Baiting not-quite-dead things in the dark. Somebody cue the too-stupid-tolive music.

But I was almost there. Another corner and I’d gained entry to a room made entirely of smooth white marble, bare of floor coverings but with tiny spotlights set low on artifacts Xavier had deemed precious. Stupas, essentially aboveground tombs, traditionally housed the bones of great lamas of the past. Xavier’s stupa didn’t contain bones-not as far as I knew-but it did house a thirteen-hundred-year-old Tibetan Book of the Dead, a recessed dais complete with gold throne, a phalanx of traditional prayer wheels, and a half dozen animistic masks. Crafted of varying metals and woods, each of these featured mouths open wide in silent, monstrous screams.

Spooky. Shit.

Three medieval-style windows popped from their casements along one wall, mere eye slits compared to the giant leaded windows overlooking the front lawn. Unadorned, they also seemed to follow my progress across the cavernous room. The rest of the marble room was sparse, making the giant gold dais and throne stand out all the more. With no interest in waking the dead, I avoided the prayer wheels, my attention on the masks spaced along the white. All were antique, all mystical, and I knew all contained a spirit trapped inside the hollowed space.

I put a wide swath of space between myself and a mask I’d worn before, even while squinting at the design work, looking for the telltale depiction of a snake. The spirit residing in that mask had once tried to take over my mind. When donned unwillingly, it trapped a person’s breath inside the concave form, effectively suffocating them without ever allowing their death. I half expected it to leap from the wall, secure itself to my face, and never let go.

Finishing with the masks, I turned my attention to the etchings on the Book of the Dead, bending low so I could view the spine of the book, propped open in its protective casing. Nothing. A closer look at the dais, carved and lacquered with geometric designs, proved it absent of anything resembling a snake, and the ornate throne was covered only in faceless whorls and endless knots. Sighing, I turned around in the room’s center, trying to see the place anew, then stilled as my gaze locked on Xavier’s office opposite the stupa’s entrance.

My office now, I reasoned, eyes narrowing like those slitted windows. And one containing a hidden room where he’d ritualistically, incrementally, given up his soul to provide power and strength to his benefactor, the Tulpa. Resisting the urge to spin a prayer wheel on the way, I left the aboveground tomb for a room buried even deeper.

Pressing my back against the office door, I took in the scent of leather and old books, a faint stale whiff of the cigars Xavier had liked to smoke, and something like invisible iron lying in the air-heavy, but not readily there. Any other mortal would dismiss it-and the chill it induced in the spine-as skittishness induced by a dead man’s room. Yet I knew it for the scorched remnants of a soul, leaving Xavier a dead man even before his body had given up the fight.

Pushing from the oak door, I made my way to the giant desk, where I flipped on a banker’s lamp and sent the shadows scurrying like rats. The chocolate walls were still lined with bookshelves, their contents still untouched. Smoked mirrors and crown molding slipped along the coffered ceiling, and everything else was dark mahogany, rich and shining, yet utterly without warmth. I left the heavy burgundy curtains drawn, not wanting the light from the study to spill out and reveal my location.

Now to discover the hidden room’s entrance.

I tried all the places you see in the movies-a latch under the desk, the wall lamp shaped like a candle, individual books lining the back wall. Nothing. Yet in going through the desk drawers I discovered the giant folder Xavier had handed over to me while on his deathbed. It detailed every boring financial aspect of the family business, which is why I hadn’t missed it, though I had no idea how and when it got shoved back into his study.

Helen, I thought wryly, dropping the folder onto the desk. She must have removed it during that bleak period I’d been convalescing in the mansion. Like I said, I had no interest in its contents, but I hated when someone made assumptions about what I could or couldn’t do. I’d decide for myself if I were interested in the family business, thanks very much. So I left the binder on the desk for later and went back to my search.

“C’mon, Jo,” I whispered, looking for some freaky little symbolic mark. Everyone in the Zodiac world loved that shit. Hearing a muffled sound just outside the door, I fell still, but after a full minute I resumed my search. It was probably just one of the masks yawning in boredom.

I was about to do the same when my gaze caught on the fireplace…and more specifically the tool set perched next to it. Interesting, as I’d never seen a fire burning inside it. Then again, Xavier had been built like an ox, and had probably run hot, at least before his illness. Which made the stoking tools even more of an oddity. Bending closer, I found hinges attached to each wrought-iron tool. “Bingo,” I whispered, yanking on one.

It wasn’t that easy. They obviously had to be pulled in a specific order, and with four tools, the combinations were endless. I tried a variation of the most obvious ones, glanced at my watch, then began a second, more hurried round. By the third I was sweating. By the fourth I heard another sound outside the office door.

“Think,” I cajoled myself, closing my eyes, trying to figure out what combination Xavier would find meaningful. The man had been neither sentimental nor superstitious. He’d only gotten involved with the Tulpa out of a desire to make a boatload of money. But while that told me he was a stupid, greedy bastard-things I already knew-it didn’t help me ferret out the combination leading to his secret room. Frustrated, I yanked on all four tools at the same time, like I could force the damned thing open.

A latch handle shot from beneath the middle shelf.

I couldn’t hold back my surprised laugh. Of course it would be all four at once. Xavier Archer always had wanted it all. Grabbing the handle and yanking it up, I pulled the heavy hinged door wide and entered the secret room.

Dual scents of sandalwood and soot hit me, the molecules and motes still heavy with remnants of the rituals Xavier had performed here. Obviously no one had aired out the room since his death, and for once I was thankful I’d lost my overly keen sense of smell.

After locating and lighting a thick, squat candle-the room lacked both electricity and contemporary furnishings-I shut the false wall behind me to prevent the scent’s escape, then gave the odd room a long onceover.

It’s like a movie set. Though all the furnishings-the pillows and throws, the incense and gold Buddhist statues-had been imported directly from Tibet. Xavier’s fetish for authenticity, and undoubtedly the Tulpa’s insistence on it, was apparent in every carefully chosen item. Colorful rugs in primary colors were rolled like yoga mats in the corner of the room. Bowls of bronze, silver, copper, and wood were stacked on a shelf above those, while another held an astonishing array of incense and candles, caught in stark relief against the whitewashed walls. I held the candle and the photo out in front of me and began comparing objects.

Intricate singing bowls, originally meant to worship the Buddhist gods, sat next to simple mallets lined on a rough-hewn shelf. I compared my photo to those, again coming up empty.

Dropping to the rug I’d once seen Xavier worshipping upon, I remembered the way Helen had stood at his back, forcing him to his knees and holding him there. The look on his face had been one of fear laced with agony, and while shock and lifelong animosity kept me from feeling sorry for him then, when I knelt on the very same pillow and viewed the room from his perspective, I couldn’t help feeling a sympathetic twinge.

The air was cooler and less cloying on the floor than when standing, so I crossed my legs and reached for the sole item still propped in the room’s center, a handheld prayer wheel. I’d researched the things after watching Xavier chant with one, and I gave this wheel an experimental flick of my wrist. Its weight surprised me as the metal cylinder inside clicked and the ballasted chain whirled to release the universally revered sound “Om” into the room.

I flicked my wrist again, then again, finding it strangely soothing. A mortal mind focused on the ritual of worship would easily fall into a trancelike state, bringing them closer to the object, or personage, of their worship.

In return for a few slivers of their soul.

Despite the thought, I flicked the prayer wheel again. The tonal notes sat up in the air, not loud but with an even hum, but since I wasn’t worshipping anyone, I was safe enough. One thing I’d discovered in my year with the agents of Light was that intention was what gave a person’s actions, and life, meaning. If one lived focused on their greatest desires to the exclusion of all else, then the Universe would move and redirect energy to provide the desired results. I flicked the wheel again and caught a rhythm. The chain reeled around, sending the magic out into the Universe.

So what was my intent? My greatest desire? Certainly not to ration out what was left of my soul to the Tulpa.

But seeing him dead? Yeah, that would be nice. I’d love to watch all the negative energy responsible for the Tulpa’s powers spiral out-whirl, whirl, whirl-dissolving harmlessly into the Universe. But then what? I frowned. Leave Warren free to run this valley the way he saw fit? That no longer seemed right either.

The prayer wheel whirled steadily now; I’d caught my rhythm.

Finding my mother was an obvious driving need, maybe because her desertion hadn’t been absolute. Zoe Archer straddled the divide between here and gone, super and mortal, truth and lies. She was like oxygen to me, invisible but vital, and as long as she was out there, I would want to find her. I could admit that much-whirl, whirl-at least to myself.

And then there was Hunter.

I shut my eyes, flicked my wrist and recalled his face. “Hunter…”

Why was it so hard to let go of someone who’d so carelessly released me? It hadn’t been done in a void after all, not like Zoe, her whereabouts unknown. No, he’d left me for another woman-one he’d courted against troop rules, one he’d married, and one he’d chased after for years, even after meeting me.

So why?

Because he’d regretted his decision. I’d seen it in those underground tunnels, lurking in him like an undiagnosed disease. At the last, right before he abandoned this world, a small part of him wanted to stay, wanted me to understand. Wanted me.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Not even in the darkest corner of that beautiful soul.

Yes, Hunter had known my darkness, tasted it, and even taken it on when sharing the aureole. But ours wasn’t a onetime connection. It was a magic that reared its head every time we touched, when we made love, both of us willing it to grow stronger.

That was what Trish meant when she’d spoken of a soul connection.

So would it have lived between us if not for the aureole? How beautiful would he have found me without it?

Would I even have had a chance of capturing his interest in my current fragile, mortal, state?

Whatever the answer, it neither changed the past nor the one thing that kept bucking whenever I mentally tried to say good-bye: Hunter had offered up his body as a soft place for me to land in a season where everything was hard. I’d been on my heels in my new role as the Kairos, part of a world I hadn’t known existed. My sister’s death had rocked me back further. And, in the hours before the first time we made love, the shock of finding my childhood lover locked in the embrace of a mortal enemy had flattened my will to live.

For a while Hunter made all of that better, if not okay. And it hadn’t been a one-sided seduction. I could own up to my part in it all. I hadn’t turned to him as much as I’d fled, finding solace in his strength and peace in his acceptance. Hunter had helped steady me in my new life.

The magic of the aureole connecting us? That was just fucking icing.

“Jo?”

My hand came to an abrupt stop as I opened my eyes, the sacred sound from the prayer wheel breaking into two syllables, then down into silence. I was on the floor of what looked and smelled like a Babylonian garden.

“Oh, hell no.” The syllables scratched the air like stencils.

“That’s what you get for flinging around a prayer wheel,” I muttered, standing cautiously and trying to blink away the reality before me. But there was no blinking it away.

I was in Midheaven. Again.