Cheat the Grave

23

I abandoned the idea of killing the Tulpa in lieu of finding a way not to get killed. But he wasn’t going to make that easy.

“Tell me what you know of this emblem,” he ordered.

“You’re right-I saw it the other night, my friend took a picture of it for me because it looked familiar, and now I know why. It was in the binder.”

He remained unmoved. Literally. “Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did Xavier tell you?”

I blinked. “Teal and lavender are my best colors?”

The Tulpa’s eyes narrowed into slits while his nostrils widened. “Let me be clearer, Olivia . What has he told you about this image?”

I opened my mouth to reply but nothing came out. I stretched my vocal muscles but they only thinned in my throat, aching like the worst case of strep I’d ever had.

The Tulpa’s eyes flashed, sunlight burning over onyx, and his voice lowered about five octaves below Barry White’s. “You are dreaming, understand? When you wake, you’ll remember nothing of this conversation. But you will, always, tell me what I want to know. Now. What did Xavier reveal of the Serpent Bearer?”

I let my gaze lose focus, though my mind was as sharp as his tone. Serpent Bearer? My genuine confusion seemed to infuriate him. He moved a fraction of an inch-really just an extension of his neck-and willed his personal energy forward. I went airborne, sucking in a breath just in time for the fireplace to knock it back out. Muscles cringing around my spine, my legs shorted out, dropping me to my ass on the stone hearth. The next inhalation brought me no relief, but it did bring me a big fat wallop of mental manipulation. My eyes drained of moisture, the lids refusing to shut. I then rose like a marionette willed from above to slump before the Tulpa, while the power holding me there snaked like fingers in my brain.

“What do you know of the Serpent Bearer?” he repeated, voice rumbling, hypnotic and infuriated.

“Nothing,” said the probing power slipping out in my voice. But even through the tingling mental fog, I could see he didn’t believe me. There were too many small coincidences, things that didn’t add up-or worse, that did. Olivia shared a father with Joanna Archer, a penthouse in the same building, she had stumbled into this hidden room, possessed this symbol both in a book and a photo. Taken all together, it was probable I knew something. The Tulpa was intent on figuring out what.

His refinement was gone, replaced with an aggressive warrior’s stance, and the illness that forced him into a wheelchair last week, and to carry a cane today, shed like a cast-off blanket. His aura flickered and bulged, and his true visage flashed: the barbed shoulders and spine, the whipping tail, the teeth like daggers and eyes of fire.

“Tell me what you know!” The too-low baritone thrust like shrapnel, pinning me back to the fireplace. The leaded windows shattered behind their heavy draperies. Yet he didn’t whip the door clean off its hinges a second later.

No, that was done by another monster altogether.

Fear hit me like a natural disaster, and the cry that burst from my mouth echoed through the room to thrust the Tulpa’s probing power from my body. Seeing the direction of my petrified stare, the Tulpa whirled just in time to avoid Mackie’s viciously curling blade. Clearly mistaking him for some sort of defender, Mackie ignored me for the moment and faced off against someone who also wanted me dead.

I doubted the Tulpa had ever seen anyone like Sleepy Mack before…I wasn’t even sure he knew who he was. But he bared teeth as sharp as Mackie’s were jagged, and power burst like an A-bomb as he tackled him. Smoke poured from his malleable body, and vibrations whipped at me in waves, not threatening to smash me against the wall-I was already there-but to send me right through it. Mackie soared backward too, body half catching on the door frame before the power flipped him back outside. The Tulpa strode forward, but paused to shoot a warning growl at me.

It cost him. Mackie plowed into his stomach like a line-backer, and the thing that was my father distended to absorb the blow like putty. Mackie’s face twisted and he wailed like a tornado siren before redoubling his efforts. Feinting like a madman, he flicked the blade from one hand to the other before swiping upward in an unlikely blow.

The Tulpa was fast…but he lost two fingers.

I screamed again involuntarily, not out of any sort of empathy, but because a magic that could injure a tulpa was that frightening. The Tulpa’s fingers twitched on the ground, before steaming and dissolving into nothing. All that remained was black blood streaming from his left hand. Then the Tulpa’s own surprised and infuriated cry joined mine.

Mackie leapt away, hunching his back like a startled caveman, his head jerking with quick, audible sniffs. He had no eyeballs, so they couldn’t widen, but his mouth did, and a dried and blackened stump of a tongue licked air. He scented out me, my father, and our shared bloodline. Again, mistaking the Tulpa for my guardian, he lunged.

He struck at the knees this time, and while the Tulpa could morph, there was little he could do about being swept completely off his feet. Mackie literally bowled him over before he pivoted to thrust the Tulpa through the air and onto Xavier’s thick antique desk. In the same motion, he swiped at me. I could only watch as his weapon appeared before my face, the sharp blade cutting air, the last of his soul singing in the iron.

It struck…and an invisible wall sparked with the blow. Mackie screamed as the blade sent sparks scratching over the wall. Lowering his head, he whirled with a snarl. Skamar, framed in the doorway like a diminutive devil, quickly calculated the situation-the Tulpa clamoring from his back on a destroyed desk, Mackie’s knife still singing my death-and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then she turned away and lunged for the Tulpa.

Mackie’s head rotated on his shoulders and he offered me a skeletal scream. My back again hit the fireplace as he began stabbing at Skamar’s wall, impaling its center over and again, causing sparks to fly and the wall to thrum with pulsing light. In the moments it took his rotted brain to understand this wasn’t the most effective approach, and I realized Skamar had chosen her beloved vendetta against the Tulpa over helping me, I found the levers leading to the secret room and pulled. The secret entry clicked open, but I couldn’t lunge. Mackie was too fast, and wall or not, he’d find his way around it if I forced a chase. For now he struck horizontally, intent on finding the edge. I inched the other way with each stroke, already knowing I wouldn’t be fast enough.

Meanwhile, the tulpas brawled. For the first time I saw Skamar’s full power, the advancements she’d received from having a recorded name in the manuals of Light, all the power that had been thrust into her body when I brought the fourth sign of the Zodiac to life. The individual move ments were too fast and blurred for mortal eyes, but when a punch landed-and she delivered twice as many as the Tulpa-light burst from her body in blinding waves, covering the Tulpa like dust, momentarily freezing his dark movements.

No wonder he was exhausted. It was like pushing the pause button on his ability to morph, and the flashes showed an uncontrolled muddle of body parts disjointed from powerful blows, his unnatural length and limbs and talons torqued into even more sickening poses. She’d blast him with light, and while he was still breaking, strike him again.

But the Tulpa was experienced, crafty, driven, and crazed. What he lacked in power he made up for in fury, reminding me in no little way of Mackie. Snarling and swiping, they punched body-sized holes in the walls before careening across the room. Then they were out the door.

I had no time to rejoice. Mackie’s blade called my name again, found the wall’s end in a squeal of sharp delight, and I bolted. Then, as expected, an explosion of weight hit my back. I cringed reflexively on the ground, but the pinning weight didn’t shift. I couldn’t hear a thing. Lifting my head, I realized there really had been an explosion behind me, and I shifted quickly to climb from under Mackie’s dead weight. Then I turned.

Harlan Tripp stood in the middle of the room, a look of fierce pain stamped beneath his ever-present Stetson. Smoke rose from an archaic conduit, the grocery bag of weapons at his feet. “Go,” he croaked out, voice strained. I frowned even as Mackie stirred at my feet, yet my expression quickly turned to horror as I realized the smoke wasn’t coming from the weapon, but from burning hands as Tripp grasped the barrel tight.

“Let it go!” I yelled, though as Mackie pushed to his hands, I thought, But plug him first!

Tripp shook his head, grimacing. “Can’t.” He blasted Mackie again so he fell flat. More smoke, and Tripp’s hands were suddenly one with the gun, his flesh sliding like molten wax before hardening, the weapon instantly a part of his body. A part, I saw, pulse hammering, that was killing him.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

“Go, for fuck’s sake!”

I bolted for the shattered windows, leaping over Mackie’s body. I had to salvage what I could of this, which meant protect my own life…yet I skidded to a stop, one hand on the heavy curtain. The binder. It was flung open on the floor from when the Tulpa’s body hit the desk. “Wait!” I yelled, already running back behind the invisible wall, past Mackie, who was stirring once more.

“Hurry!” Tripp didn’t want to fire again. I couldn’t imagine the agony each shot cost him, and I didn’t want to be the cause of any greater pain. Picking up the binder, I folded it tight to my chest and turned…into Mackie.

My eyes widened at his low, whirring growl. This close, I smelled old sweat overlaying decay, and saw every sinew in his muscular arms tense as his hand squeezed his knife. Behind him, Tripp was shaking his weapon ineffectually, gaze whipping to meet mine, helplessness etched on his brow. His skin had melted beneath the trigger. He couldn’t fire another shot.

Mackie leered, poised like a king cobra, and Tripp shot forward. All accomplished warriors have an awareness when someone is behind them, and Mackie was no different. My own warrior’s nature had me sprinting while he turned, but I wasn’t so fast I didn’t see that slim, deadly blade find a home in Tripp’s chest. It pierced the leather vest, sent a black button flying, then found his skin, and his heart. He fell still, eyes going dead while still on his feet.

Mackie ripped the blade from his body, listing toward me. We both yelped when Tripp miraculously lunged for one last blow, the butt of his gun ripping air to land on Mackie’s temple with a resounding crack. The monster went down again…and I plowed into something as hard as his petrified skull.

“Archer!” Strong hands steadied me and kept me from struggling.

I whirled, tense…and then slumped. “Carlos! Help. Tripp-”

“I smell it,” he said, motioning behind him. “Get her out.”

Fletcher and Milo stepped forward, but I pointed behind me. “No. Get Mackie out.”

Carlos saw instantly what I meant: if I fled, my Olivia Archer identity was forever lost. The Tulpa had been forced from the room before Mackie attacked me, and his bitch, Lindy, had no doubt followed to assist with Skamar. If I disappeared now, leaving the scents of rogue agents and Mackie behind, they’d put all the pieces together and know exactly who I was.

If I stayed, pretended to be an unwitting mortal whose mind had played tricks on her in a moment of stress, I’d still get my shot at the Tulpa. I had a hidden room I could take refuge in, which was a damn good cover for making it out alive. The Tulpa couldn’t say any different; he’d had his hands full upon leaving the office.

Assessing all of this within seconds, Carlos’s next order sent everyone in motion. “Attack.”

They ignored the weaponry in the grocery bag Tripp had dropped, clearly wishing to avoid his fate, and attacked Mackie with their hands, boldly pitting fists against blade-a suicide mission if done one-on-one. Yet together it was an effective example of the power of numbers.

They drove the crazed man from one side of the room to the other, the incessant whining in his throat rising to a pitch only dogs could hear as he was herded away from me. He gave one last desperate lunge-a move I didn’t even note until the men clustered around him formed a wall in front of me.

Then Alex cried out and an entire arm fell to the floor. Mackie squealed in delight, and the others continued punching, though more carefully…which wouldn’t work. Panicked, I whirled as the men lost ground and Mackie inched closer. Lunging for the grocery bag full of weapons, I didn’t care what I withdrew as long as it was lethal.

It was the saber, with its side firearm. Yet, the cluster was too tight, the movements too fast, and I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t hit one of my men. I backed all the way across the room, heels braced against the bookcase behind me, then yelled for them to clear. No one heard. But Tripp, now propped against the far wall, rolled his head, saw the weapon in my hand-one no one else could touch-and my braced stance. Fingers to lips, he let out a piercing whistle, then collapsed into himself.

I caught Gareth’s dazed expression, before Carlos yanked him back. Mackie scented me, spotted me, and lunged in the time it took to blink, and though I was ready, he was halfway across the room before I plugged him. He dropped a foot from the bookshelf and lay still.

“Eat lead, you rancid prick.” I depressed the trigger again…and the fucking thing shorted out. Pissed, I flipped the weapon around and used the flat end-and all my mortal strength-to hammer his skull. This had the surprising effect of reviving him. His head whipped up, bowler hat still perfectly affixed, and he growled.

His leap never reached me. It must have been Carlos who caught him from the side, because they were the first two out the shattered window, the others following, pummeling Mackie like schoolyard bullies in the moonstruck night.

Chest heaving, I ran to watch for a moment, catching only a glimpse of the dervish, a mass of limbs and fury, but one headed away from me, rather than toward. Within seconds the sound faded, leaving me alone with breath arrowing jaggedly from my chest, my mind numbed but whirling. Somehow, despite having been enclosed in a room with both the Tulpa and Mackie, I was also alive.

Adrenaline coursed through me, banging against the thoughts already careening through my head. How to hide what I knew? How to explain what had happened here? How to convince Lindy and the Tulpa that a sole human woman could have made it out of this room alive?

Yet every question fell away when I whirled to spot Tripp’s tortured body propped against the wall, eyes fixed on me. They were bright with the kind of pain that drained rather than sharpened the senses. He hadn’t much longer to live.

Look what he did for you. I crossed to him, tears instantly welling. More than Warren had ever done. And it was so unexpected-a fucking former Shadow! A man raised to both despise mortals and murder the Light. And he lay dying because he’d protected someone who’d once been both.

“Archer…”

“Shh…” I knelt beside him, earning a pained grunt when I accidentally jostled him, but his gaze remained on mine, aware, coherent, and unwavering. His cowboy hat had come off when he fell, and it was the first time I’d seen him without it. It made him appear naked somehow. Dark sweaty hair plastered itself to his skull in thinning strands, and I swept them back before resettling the hat on his head. His hands were still melted around the silver gun’s barrel, still steaming on his lap too, though it looked like the nerves in his palms had finally shorted out. His chest was another story.

“Oh God, Tripp. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m relieved.” His mouth quirked as I jerked my head up, and he motioned downward with his chin.

I frowned, but released his head gently, then pulled up his pant leg to reveal a bubbling mass of flesh so infected it was nearly writhing. Grimacing at the redness, I covered it again, careful not to touch it. “Mackie’s blade,” I said, suddenly understanding why he’d fought to save me, heedless of his own life. I’d seen the wound before, but hadn’t put the two together. It was already predetermined. I hoped none of the others, once outside, were struck tonight.

“Better to die fightin’.”

I thought so too. Tripp, knowing this, let his head fall back. But just when enough time had passed that I thought he was slipping away, his fevered eyes slitted back open. “Carlos believes in you.”

I averted my gaze. I didn’t want him to feel like his actions had been for nothing, but I couldn’t lie either. I didn’t believe in myself.

Despite his pain, his impending death, Tripp moistened his lips and kept talking. “I got something for you, girl. Been carrying it around with me for when this time came. If you’d please…”

He angled his head at his chest, unable to get to whatever was inside his inner vest pocket. I tried not to look at his smoldering, melted palms, and carefully unbuttoned his vest. Mackie’s inflicted wound already bulged red, like Tripp’s chest was some sort of science experiment gone wrong. His eyes were on my face, so I kept my expression unreadable as I reached inside his pocket to withdraw a plastic bag of slim brown cigarettes. I looked back up into his sweaty, rugged face. “’Cause you don’t think I’ll live long enough for lung cancer to kill me?”

“Them are special cancer sticks. Quirleys. Got ’em from Miss Sola herself.” He frowned at some memory, one that had him drifting off before he jerked his head. “I earned those babies one by one, each costing me a chip she could use to thread the constellations in her night sky.”

“Is this-”

“What I bartered your powers for?” He’d been anticipating the question. “Hell, yeah.”

Cigarettes, I thought as he began to cough painfully. I felt the old anger begin to rise, but there was no real life to it, and it resettled quickly. What did it matter? I’d have given up those powers in order to save Jasmine shortly after anyway. Besides, Tripp and I hadn’t been allies in Midheaven. Over there, it was every soul for himself.

“And it was worth it too,” he continued, anticipating an argument. “I knew one day I’d be coming back here. I knew I’d see my vengeance met…”

But now, fading, he’d seen no such thing. I didn’t correct him, figuring a man should be allowed his dreams in his dying minutes.

“What do they do?” I asked, slipping one from the bag. It tingled against my fingertips, and I released it so it slid back into the bag where bits of loose tobacco glowed.

“You’ll find out when you light one for yerself. Or you could ask your ol’ friend, Micah.”

I glanced at him sharply, hands going still over the quirleys. “This is what you used against Micah? What blackened his skin from the inside out?”

“It festers there, a constant burn beneath the skin. It’s a reminder that even intangible things can be dangerous.”

Tripp’s top lip lifted in a sneer, and for a moment all I saw was Shadow. “Just be sure ’n’ blow out, don’t suck in. You can hold the smoke in your mouth, but let it into your lungs and all that mean intent’ll turn on ya, burning you from the inside out.”

I glanced back down. I had a coating over my organs, a protective spray over my skin, and magical ciggies. All due to Tripp. “Why?” I finally asked, eyes lifting to meet his.

“’Cause I believe in you too,” he said, falling still. “You can do what I cannot. I knew it the first time you stepped foot in Midheaven. It was confirmed when I learned of your dual nature. My goal after that was to keep you alive.”

Because I was his best chance of killing the Tulpa. I fingered the quirleys in their protective pouch, though I didn’t answer.

“Ah, I see.” Tripp’s air let out of him as if through a hose. It rattled as he sucked it back in. “You got nothing to live for, is that it? Or at least nothin’ to fight for? Well, I can help with that too. Though it’ll cost you.”

I lifted a brow. “Cost me what?”

“Nothing too terrible, don’t worry. But first would you like your reason?”

Not a reason. But your reason. Something specific, then. The obvious answer would be yes, but a reason also meant a care in this world. Care meant risk. And risk meant something could be taken from me again. I sighed.

“Will it hurt if I lose it?”

“Not as much as if you lost it without a fight.”

And despite a buried unwillingness, curiosity burst inside me. He was right. I leaned so close his breath mingled with mine.

“Solange was pregnant when she first entered Midheaven. She’d been havin’ relations with an agent of Light, you see.”

I held up a hand, wanting him to save his breath. “I already know all this.”

“Well did you know that she even fancied herself in love with him? ’Course, love is relative. Solange knew the story would soon be revealed in the Shadow manuals, ’cause them pregnancy pheromones were about to give her away. It’d make her a target from both the Light and her own kind, especially the Tulpa, who don’t abide deceit. So she plotted a way to flee, and there’s only one place to go when hiding from a man who can rule your mind.”

Another world entirely. One tailored to the whims of deadly, plotting women.

“I learnt the whole story during my time with her beneath those murdered stars.”

Gaze lost to memory, Tripp’s top lip quirked. “Oh, she did so want to talk with someone familiar with our world.”

“So she escaped this world and gave birth to a child there?”

“So she said. Never saw the babe myself, but every so often we would hear a cry…”

I thought back, because Hunter had spoken of his daughter once, just after discovering I had one as well. As proof that I could trust him not to tell Warren about Ashlyn-because even then I’d known the troop leader would use the child for his own purposes-he gave me the name of his child, whom Warren also didn’t know of. “Lola,” I whispered.

Tripp licked his lips, wincing. “Never learnt the child’s name, but I do know this. She sacrificed the soul of a mortal child to ferry her and her unborn into Midheaven…”

The same way Hunter had used Regan’s so his soul wouldn’t be sliced into thirds. I shook my head, pieces of knowledge shifting, threatening to realign reality as I knew it.

It wasn’t that simple.

“Your man, Hunter, is being tortured, Joanna. Calls himself that throughout it all, too. Hunter. It infuriates Miss Sola, but he won’t answer when she calls him JJ or Jacks or Jaden. Not even when she insists.”

I swallowed hard, knowing how painfully insistent Sola could be.

Tripp’s head dropped in a nod. “He’s been through the mill since Warren locked him up tight.”

“He entered Midheaven of his own accord.”

“True. And he openly told us all how your troop turned you into your sister. But even the big ’uns open up under torture.”

“Bullshit.” He wasn’t being tortured. He was being made love to beneath a ceiling of stars, by a woman revered as a goddess.

“No, it’s true. Said you was somethin’ pretty special. Well,” Tripp paused to catch his breath. “He screamed it, anyway.”

I winced and whispered, “Why are you baiting me now?”

“Even if I were, it wouldn’t make the information any less real.” His head lolled. “Trust me, right now your former ally is beggin’ mercy from the merciless.”

I licked my lips. “Hunter searched for Solange for years. He had identities he hid even from the troop, all so he could look for a dark-haired woman. Dark-eyed. A type.”

“’Cause she stole his child.”

Just finish the manual. It will make a difference.

Thoughts fractured in my brain like a puzzle, the pieces thrown at me so fast I was having a hard time making them fit. I could believe in wacky cigarettes and demons wearing bowler hats, but I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea of Hunter seeking Solange out not because he loved her, but because he was hunting her. His real goal? Keep his child from being raised as a Shadow.

“Your man Jaden Jacks,” Tripp rasped, “didn’t leave you for her, Joanna. In fact, he confessed his love for you to her, and refused to recant it, even under torture.”

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

“Oh, God.”

“Goddess,” Tripp corrected, head rocking slowly to the side, eyes slipping shut. “Ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t confess under torture. Not to her.”

I glanced back down at the quirleys in my lap. Solange had jigsawed pieces of me into little bits once, throwing my spirit and aetheric spine down a staircase, sending my body spiraling after seconds later. And I’d only seen a fraction of her power. In her world, Mackie was a lapdog, I was a beetle to be crushed underfoot, and men were little more than batteries. But my mind had already clamped down on the idea of Hunter, my man, being tortured.

“I’ll fucking kill her,” I whispered, and I believed it. All I had were cigarettes and spray-on defense, but I suddenly wanted her death as much as I’d wanted anything in my life. “I’ll carve up her heart and fasten it to her beloved sky with pushpins.”

“Now there’s a reason to live.” Tripp managed a half smile. “So for my little present…”

I studied the speculative shine in his eyes. His last wish before death. He’d just turned my mental life on its head. His gift would have to be equally valuable. Something as rare and unique as the quirleys. Something only I could give, like…

“One kiss.”

I wrinkled my nose, but immediately replaced it with a placid face. Still, I let my eyes roll. “You’re a lech, Tripp.”

Now he did smile, damn him. “I’m a dying man.”

Because of me. I couldn’t stop that. But I could give him a kiss.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Harlan.” I bent forward and pressed my lips to his. He tasted like tobacco, sweat, and smoke. It was as chaste a kiss as I’d ever given, something that would pass between siblings, and that delivered the comfort of mortal touch, understanding, kinship…and forgiveness. It was a kiss of absolution, and it cleared the worry from Tripp’s furrowed brow.

“So that’s Light…” he replied wonderingly, and let his head drop back, knocking his hat forward again. I lifted it, moved it aside, and still he didn’t move. After the horror and messiness and pain of death, there was ultimately only silent acceptance, and stillness.

But Harlan Tripp, the stubborn bastard who’d long survived two worlds, wasn’t quite done yet. He laughed, loopy, not feeling much of anything anymore. “You’re a high roller, girl. Still sittin’ at that table. Still in the game…”

I palmed his head when it fell to the side. “What?”

His eyes didn’t open but he managed a humorless smile. “Still got them chips?”

“The ones from the warehouse?” I kept speaking so he wouldn’t have to nod. “Yeah, but you said they’re useless. I gave all my powers to Jas.”

“But you can still cash in the ones you won.” Like Shen’s sense of smell? The albino’s aether, whatever that was?

“How, Tripp?” My heart bumped in my chest. Still a player. Still in the game. “How do I cash in the chips”- the powers-“I won at that table?”

But Tripp was nearly gone, mouth barely moving, mind already skipping to some other final thought. “You said your troop kicked you out,” he whispered, without force. “’Cause you weren’t useful to them anymore.

’Member?”

I nodded.

His eyelids lifted one last time, and in the stillness of the room where he’d die, he wrapped me in his gaze. “I been fueling a matriarch’s world for years, an’ one thing I learnt…a woman ain’t put in any world for her usefulness. You got purpose beyond the things you can do for others. And everyone’s got a right to their own damned reasons.”

Was that why he’d told me about Solange and Hunter? So I’d act on the truth, and make a choice reflecting what I wanted? I’d never know. The short speech had cost him too much. “The chips, Tripp…”

He didn’t even hear me.

“I ain’t a good man, Archer. Don’ mistake me for that. But I’ll tell you this much,” Tripp slurred, eyes closing a final time. “Someone’s tryin’ to keep you from your reasons? You’d damned well better question theirs.”