Cheat the Grave

21

I couldn’t tell who’d called me. Between the whirring of the prayer wheel’s chain cutting air like newly sharpened shears, it had been a fractured sound, like a computer getting a hard boot. But at least I knew where I was.

Another elemental room, I thought, glancing about, my breath echoing hollowly in the tinny air. What else could it be? It was both as shockingly ornate as the odd water room, and as mysterious as Solange’s fire room, yet singularly different than both. Weighed down beneath the scents of verdant foliage and humidity, it would have also been as dim as a late-lying sunset were it not for the twinkling lights strung across drooping boughs by the hundreds. A tentative, almost playful breeze pressed against me, and I shivered as I glanced up at a ceiling hidden by viny whips and a cover of evergreen and pine. More lights winked like stars between the branches, and I shivered again, recalling Solange’s sky of soul-encrusted stars.

But how the hell did I get here? Shen had told me on my last go-round with the elemental rooms that drugs were what allowed incorporeal passage into this world.

Apparently incense and a prayer wheel counted.

And what about calling forth the world in my mind? I hadn’t called Midheaven to me; I hadn’t even been thinking about it.

No. Just about someone living here. Rolling my eyes at my own stupidity, I searched for some other sort of exit while trying to forget Diana’s helpful addendum: that I needed someone to pull me back out of the world in case Solange found me here.

Flat, stone-topped lanterns were tucked amid the greenery, while topiaries and pyramid-shaped shrubs popped up like the heads of curious gnomes. Centered was a small lawn with a gravel pathway cutting the middle, while a small pond sparkling with refracted light sat to my right. Moss in every shade of green climbed boulders slick with algae, and a cluster of wild roses burst brightly from verdant thistle where berries also glistened with dew.

Yet all was not nature and silva. Curving chaises and concrete lounge chairs dotted the small space, and baroque chandeliers swung from the lowermost branches of the accommodating pines. Seductive statues cast inquisitive glances my way, and wrought-iron side tables were layered in lace and pastel spun silk.

The coup de grace was the giant stone table tucked beneath a Japanese cherry tree caught in full bloom. A tiered tray held finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream, quiche, and tiny pastel petit fours tucked between slivers of white cake. A mirrored side buffet sported crystal goblets and flutes, and a perfect mismatching of gorgeous bone china.

“A fucking tea party.” My metallic mutter skipped sound waves like a rock.

“You’d prefer a latte from the drive-through, I suppose?”

I’d been anticipating an appearance by the dangerous rulers of this pretty little world, and whirled to run smack into the chest of an all-too-real, and apparently bemused, Hunter Lorenzo. He quirked a brow, and steadied me with one hand.

“Of course.” I pulled away, trying to hide my shock, my alarm. My pleasure. “I’m American.”

He merely motioned to the tea set. I looked around, waiting for ambush or at least to wake up. Nothing happened, so I inched past a fern floor and moved farther into the garden. “Tricked-out pad,” I said lightly, though my heart was pounding, making my throat tight.

“The earth room,” he said, confirming my prior suspicions. His voice was as leaden as mine. “Whatever you used to induce the dream state must have been from the dust.”

I’d been right about the incense then, I thought, frowning. And the drugs Carlos had given me the first time were disguised in drink…thus calling forth the water room. I didn’t even want to know what I needed to bring on fire.

I tried to meet Hunter’s gaze, but after working so hard to push even the thought of him away, his sudden appearance was jarring. His eyes were warmly intense, destroying the illusion that I’d let go of this man emotionally. I hadn’t. Not even a bit.

As usual, I covered my discomfort with attitude. “So why are you here?” I asked, crossing my arms.

He took in my body language, blinking fast like he too was making a mental adjustment, and lifted his chin.

“We’re both a part of this world now,” he said softly.

“So that means what? I’m at your mercy? I’m trapped and have to wait until you and your wife decide to let me go.”

He tilted his head. “Don’t you have an anchor grounding you back home?”

“I didn’t mean to come here.”

“No wonder she’s so angry.” His brow furrowed, and for the first time he looked unreal, as if the expression was pressed upon his face like putty, altering a moment after he willed it. Did I look the same? “We really are connected…”

His gaze flitted to my lips, then back to my eyes. I thought about the way he’d strung me along, pulling me in until the very end. Even in the moments before forever leaving Las Vegas for Midheaven proper, when trapped in a tunnel before the rushlight that would ferry him to Solange-his wife, his grail-he’d played on our intimacy.

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

No, I thought now. There’s not. But there’s something wrong with someone who could equally want, love, two women. I didn’t believe that was possible, and getting my life back meant letting go of every impossibility. If friends were the family we choose, then it was time to let Hunter go completely. He’d been no friend to me.

“No, Hunter,” I said coldly. “We’re not even from the same world.”

His jaw clenched at that. His nostrils flared. It was a wonderful display of masculine pique. “Who’s Carlos?”

I drew back. “What?”

“Carlos. You called out his name the last time you were here. You called for him to help you.” His voice was so strained it almost made me laugh. Was he jealous? While biding in another world, locked in his new/old lover’s embrace?

“Carlos is a friend.” A real one.

“How-” He broke off and cleared his throat. I thought he was going to ask how long I’d known Carlos, but he switched it up on me. “How long have I been gone?”

“Ten weeks.” And three days.

A shudder moved through his entire body.

“Over here?” I asked, because time passed differently in Midheaven. It ran backward or sideways…by some other means than that which flipped the earth around its axis.

“I’ve counted only two days.” And the strain in his voice meant he’d been counting hard, almost as if the loss of his life on the other side of the tunnel system-the one he’d so freely left behind-pained him. It made me frown.

It made him irritable. When he opened his eyes again, the worry had already been shuttered. “Ten weeks, huh?

Shit, the weather probably hasn’t even changed, and you’ve already found a new ‘friend.’”

“Well, I’m just like the weather, Jaden. You just don’t know when it’s going to change.”

“So what’s the forecast now?”

“Cloudy,” I said. “With a good chance of fuck you.”

“So, the usual,” he said dryly.

It made me want to smile, so I bit my lip against it.

Hunter stared a moment longer before his expression cleared, and then he strode to the table…and poured me some tea.

O-kay, I thought, still casting glances into the surrounding rain forest as I followed and lowered myself to the stone bench opposite him. Inhaling deeply, I scented cloves and leaves and flowers, pressed and steamed into a pulpy death, and realized my sense of smell was still powerful over here. The strong mixture was almost as relaxing as chanting.

“Don’t you have to ask permission to enter the earth room? Get a hall pass or something from the wifey?”

His face hardened as much as it could in its strange putty state. “I stole your gem from Solange’s planetarium. All I had to do then was wait for your return.”

I gave him the same look I would have had he told me Santa was real. He’d stolen from a woman even the other matriarchs in this world feared? “And what would be worth that risk?” I asked coolly.

His returned gaze was funeral sad. It made me feel like I’d been the one to trample what was between us underfoot, which was ridiculous. I should have blurted out then what had happened to me in the time since he’d left, but for some reason I didn’t yet want to confess to him my mortal state. Maybe I’d just have some tea first.

Hunter returned his attention to his cup, but instead of pouring black tea as he had in mine, the same pot spit out a hot, sugary brew of cardamom and ginger and creamy milk. One side of his mouth quirked at my astonished stare as he returned the pot to the table’s center. “You can have anything you wish when you’re dreaming, right?”

“Is that why you look like you?” I asked suddenly, lowering my cup. He was the Hunter I’d known, lithe and coiled strength beneath burnished skin, glossy black hair pulled into a low, blunt club. Jaden Jacks was more imposing, with his shock of bleached hair above a frame so large it almost burst. He was more like what you’d think a superhero would look like. Except, I thought, for those sun-spun eyes. Those hadn’t changed at all.

“In dreams you become as you wish to be.”

I didn’t know what that meant, and it made it sound like this was as much his dream as mine. So I concentrated on what I did know.

“You should have told me who you were,” I said, setting down my cup so suddenly it clattered against its saucer.

“I told you what truth I could.”

“Which part was truth, Hunter?” The part where he made love to me but was thinking of Solange? When he claimed he could tell me apart from any other woman by touch alone? Or was it when he told me the Light inside me was magnified because of the Shadow?

I waved my hand in the air, dismissing the subject before he could answer. It no longer mattered.

Not looking at me, Hunter took a deep breath, then paused. A moment later he tried again. “I once told you drinking almost killed me a decade ago, remember?”

I nodded, but didn’t tell him that I’d read the manual called Dark Matters. That I already knew about the night Solange nearly drove a tomahawk through his chest.

Solange then. Solange now.

“Well, it was really only three years past my metamor phosis. I was twenty-eight, in my prime. I was seduced, blindsided by… her.”

He shot me a meaningful glance, which told me he didn’t want to say Solange’s name. Names had power no matter what realm you inhabited. They could call a person to you, and alert them to your presence. Since he’d stolen a gem from her sky of stars, and was now having tea with the woman whose soul he held, I didn’t blame him.

My own voice fell to a whisper. “And why couldn’t you tell me that much?”

“Warren forbade it. And no one else in the troop knew. Warren wiped the memory of what I’d done from all minds but mine.” Eyes unfocused, he ran a hand over his head, pulling loose a few strands. “That was my punishment for succumbing to a Shadow.”

I believed that. On the night I’d given up all my powers, Warren told me he’d known Hunter would be attracted to me. He said that I, a half Shadow, was just Hunter’s type. Saying nothing, I glanced around the garden-the strange amalgamation of English Victorian and Asian chic-and sighed.

“Does it help at all to know I’d have told you the truth if possible?”

I jerked my head. “It only makes me wonder what else you were lying about.”

He bit his lower lip, eyes saying, Not us.

To refute, I motioned around the room.

Hunter leaned on his forearms and closed his eyes. Opening them again, he looked resigned. “I need to tell you about…it. About that night. I have to tell you all of it.”

“Over scones?” I asked acidly before shaking my head.

“I must. I-”

“I saw it!” I pounded the pretty stone table with my fist. “I read the manual. I saw the way you met in the bar, the fight”-the lovemaking-“atop the car. Everything! It was all there.”

“It’s recorded now?” He winced, the expressive cringe a half second behind the impulse creating it. It made me wince in return. “Of course it is.”

The events were over, and the open knowledge wouldn’t affect either the Shadow or the Light. Thus Hunter had no more secrets to hide, though somehow it made him look vulnerable. He ducked his head, nodding to himself, then dared a glance up. “And what about…the rest?”

Slowly, I licked my lips. “What do you mean?”

“Doesn’t it make even a little difference?”

“I didn’t read the whole fucking manual, Hunter.” He opened his mouth to protest and I held up a palm. “I don’t want to know what happened, okay? I don’t care about your reasons.”

“But-”

“I don’t need to know why you left me, only that you did!” It was out of my mouth so fast I jerked backward. Damn it!

Hunter’s gaze softened. “Jo-”

“No!” My turn to shake my head, and I did so. Hard. “We had another conversation once. After you kept me from slaying Regan in front of Ben.”

I stared down at the dark warm liquid cupped in my palms, remembering Regan, dead and harmless now, though she certainly hadn’t been then. She’d taken on an appearance similar to mine in order to seduce my childhood love. She’d known their lovemaking would kill me. Yet the only way to stop her would have been to put an arrow through her chest during the act…and that would have destroyed Ben. Hunter saved me from the decision by spiriting me away. And that night was the first that we’d made love.

I glanced back up at him, knowing we were remembering the same thing. “I told you then that I hoped someone, someday, would feel as strongly toward you as I did for Ben.”

And Solange was rabid when it came to him.

“But that wasn’t the truth,” I went on, pushing my cup away. “What I meant was I wanted someone to feel that way about me. Strong enough to put me first. To stay. No matter what.”

His voice softened, his eyes turned pleading. “It wasn’t that simple.”

I cocked a brow, voice flat. “So you’ve said.”

And I’d heard enough. I stood, wanting out of the earth room, or the jungle book, or wherever the fuck I was. My gaze momentarily caught on a flickering movement behind a flowing willow but the tree fronds only swayed in a soft breeze, sparkling with little lights and tiny chimes.

“Just finish the manual.” He stood too, pleading with his eyes. “It will make a difference. It will matter.”

It was a dark matter, I thought, jaw clenching. And I was gray. “Here’s what matters. You told your wife I’m the Kairos, and now she’s sent Mackie after me.”

“She’s the only one here in full possession of her soul. You, me, the other women. We all have less than her. We are less than her.”

“So your wife is invincible?”

His jaw clenched again at wife but he jerked his head. “Yes.”

I raised my brows. “All-knowing, all-seeing? As close to a goddess as you can come?”

“Over here she is the goddess.”

I tilted my head, thought about it a little more, then held out my hand. “Give me my gem.”

“What?”

“The one you said you stole from her sky. I want it.”

He narrowed his eyes, and there was that strange shifting of expressions again, one below the other. “I can’t.”

“Because the goddess will know if you do?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Then how the hell did you manage to steal a gem from her beloved soul sky without her knowing?”

Hunter froze. And laughter bubbled in the trees, ringing bells, sending the lights to sway. “Very good, Archer.”

I wasn’t the Archer. But Hunter didn’t know that…and therefore neither did Solange. She sauntered from behind an elm like the goddess everyone thought she was. I knew I’d seen movement there.

She was dressed in low-cut silver or gray, it altered depending on how she moved through the light, and swept the ground cover as she walked. She held up something misshapen and tiny that winked bloodred in the meager light.

“Hold her,” she told Hunter, and before I even had a chance to bolt, he had my arms pinned to my side. Yet his grip was gentle, like a caress, which made it worse. I got a whiff of his skin as his breath rustled my hair, and an image flashed through my mind, his naked legs folded like wings over mine. Cringing, I pushed it away.

“First Regan. Now Solange.” I could almost make a paper doll chain with all his betrayals.

He drew closer, as if his touch was an embrace.

“Your boner is trespassing,” I said roughly, bringing my heel up and back. He grunted, doubling forward, but didn’t let go.

Solange’s laugh sent the bells to tinkling again. “Darling Joanna, as feminine as ever. But what on earth have you done to your aura? You look positively gray.”

I am a gray.

“You can see that?” Just keep her talking. Talk…and maybe someone would find me.

In a dead man’s hidden room. Yeah, that was likely.

Rolling my soul gem in her fingertips, Solange lifted a slim shoulder. “One’s aura is both protection and an indication of their life energy. It’s like a cloak thrown about the shoulders. You look positively naked.”

“It’s my chakras. They’re all out of balance.”

She closed a fist over my soul. “Maybe it’s the Shadow overtaking the Light in you.”

I shook my head. “I’m no longer an agent of Light. Warren kicked me out of the troop.”

Hunter jolted. Solange scoffed. “Warren would never do that. After all, you’re the Kairos, right? A perfect balance of Shadow and Light.”

And she smiled sweetly, like it made me special.

Like it made me a target.

Hunter tensed, as did I. Solange held her smile as she lifted my misshaped stone to her lips and placed it in her mouth, and with it held between her teeth, blew me a kiss. Yet it was the siren waves of her mahogany hair that blew back over her shoulders as the starlight on her breath hit me. I inhaled involuntarily and her wordless voice whistled in my lungs. It said I would die. It promised immediately. And on the exhale, I screamed.

A crack sounded overhead, drowning my voice and shaking the trees above us. I didn’t know what I’d done, but the foliage trembled and stone lanterns toppled. The lights above winked violently, the bells clanging like funeral tones. My heart caught its rhythm again…and immediately started pounding.

Hunter looked up. “That was on your side.”

Another crack, followed by a thundering rumble. The sky darkened to opaqueness and the garden grew misty, blurring around us.

“No.” Solange stood, fists clenched as if to beat the fog away. “You won’t escape that way again.”

“I’ve got her,” Hunter said, strengthening his hold and yanking me to him so hard my newfound breath was again lost. He put his forearm around my neck, and I knew I’d be unconscious in seconds. When he leaned in to squeeze, though, the sky splintered again, and in the wake of the reverberating rumble, he whispered, “Run.”

Solange straightened, eyes alight with black fury. She lifted another stone to her mouth, and I bolted, burying myself in greenery, but not before I felt the wind lash my back…and heard Hunter’s deep wail.

I saw nothing between the mist and deepening sky. I tripped over roots and rocks, but kept sprinting in one direction. If it was a room, it had to have walls, right? Meanwhile, Solange’s blown kiss chased me, surrounding me like the waves of a dozen oceans, pushing and pulling me at the same time, seeking entry to what remained of my soul.

Hitting the ground, I kept low as the alive, seeking air blasted overhead, and moved beneath the verdant ferns until I found an ancient poplar. It was so dark now that even squinting as I pivoted around the trunk I was unable to see my body below me. So I squealed when I found myself face-to-face with Hunter.

“Listen,” he ordered, darting a glance over his shoulder. “I need to choke you out. Unconsciousness is the fastest way to get out of here. Whoever’s trying to get to you may not have an anchor, but they’ve got willpower and your corporeal body next to them.”

Did I want to go back to someone like that?

Hunter wasn’t offering me a choice. “Once you’re on the other side you can’t ever come here again. Not for anything. Not at any cost. It won’t be worth it.”

“Why?”

“Because your soul is in her sky, Jo…”

No, it’s in her mouth.

“It’s just a sliver, and imperfections abound, but it’s enough to control you.”

I filed that information away for later, if there was a later, and shook my head. “I mean why are you protecting me?”

He was close enough that I saw the sadness spring up, outlining his irises. But Solange called out to him then, and though it sounded like she was still in the clearing, her voice was a bullet. It bowed him over. He fell into the mist and onto an earth as black as the sky above.

That’s what happened under Solange’s control.

I joined him, diving to where he’d disappeared. I thought he’d be unconscious himself, but his hands immediately found my neck. I startled, my first instinct to pull away, but Solange had used him to lure me here, and he’d defied her to get me back out. As his fingers tightened around my neck, I realized he was going to pay for freeing me.

And as long as he was going to pay, he was going to make it worth it. His mouth found mine like it was a target, and my eyes fluttered shut, the last strangled threads of my breath lost to his lips. The trees and bells blurred my name overhead, while Hunter’s mouth moved against mine without sound. Then his expression shifted, separated, and dissolved. Yet his final words chased me back into my world. “Don’t ever return. She wants your power, your ability to-”

A hand touched my shoulder and I located the floor beneath my back. Gasped for air.

And smelled burning sulfur.

When I opened my eyes, I froze, and thought about ignoring Hunter’s advice and calling back out to Solange. Because I’d just woken up in a tomblike room, bereft of weapon or help…and with the Tulpa looming over me like I was already dead.