Cheat the Grave

24

I knew the Tulpa had survived Skamar yet again when Helen returned to the compound, acting as if she’d never been gone.

I knew Mackie had also escaped when Carlos didn’t.

Of course, with a force equivalent to a small tornado having swept through the mansion, neither Helen nor I could pretend nothing had happened. So I tucked Tripp’s words about still being a high roller aside and used my cell to call the police while moving the quirleys and weapons and binder back out to the guesthouse. Then I returned to wait in the secret room for Helen to find me. I hated leaving Tripp’s body where it was, but Helen would never let it be discovered by mortals. Sure enough, as she and the first officers on the scene led me blinking like a newborn back into the destroyed office, both Tripp and Alex’s severed arm were gone. Not even blood marked the floor.

“I think they were after my father’s financial information,” I told the investigating detective, aware Helen was listening intently from over my shoulder. “They tore the room apart, and the only thing they stole was a binder he’d given me upon his death. It contained everything he wanted me to know about his affairs, the company, and its financials. That means the money,” I explained earnestly.

There. That would get back to the Tulpa, first thing, and I’d be off the hook for the missing binder. As for the rest…

“I hope you have a copy somewhere,” Officer Greenlaw replied, jotting in his notepad.

“And how did you get away?” Helen butted in, earning dual glances of irritation from both Greenlaw and me.

“I hid in the room where my father apparently liked to pray,” I said, shifting to train my gaze on hers. “I stayed there even after the noise outside had stopped, just in case the scary man was still there.”

“And you said he was wearing a bowler hat?” asked the cop, again taking notes.

“That’s right, a dusty one. In fact, everything about him was strangely musty.” I shuddered in the girliest move I could think of. The officer gave me a sympathetic nod. Helen didn’t look as convinced. So as the interview continued, I shivered and sighed, explaining I’d gone to the office because I was missing my father, that I’d been alone the entire time-in keeping with the Tulpa’s hypnotic suggestion, which Helen would also relay- and remembered very little after hitting my head. Then I started crying, switching subjects to mourn Suzanne’s ruined rehearsal dinner, nerves making it easy to produce the tears that had the detective planning his own getaway.

Yet enduring an interrogation wasn’t all bad. For one, it got me out of the sleepover. The other guests were methodically interviewed and dismissed, including Cher, who had left her dinner at some point to come looking for me. The police interviewed her separately, but came to the conclusion she’d gone upstairs to my bedroom and seen even less of the destruction left in the tulpas’ wake than the guests mingling off the foyer.

Suzanne, meanwhile, was beside herself. She left in tears, bottom lip quivering, apologizing to me as if it were her fault, and wondering aloud if the dinner’s interruption was bad luck in either American or Indian culture. In contrast, Arun simply looked unaccustomed at having anything upset the natural order of his world. Yet he did his best to soothe his distraught bride, one arm draped protectively over her shoulders, whispering soothing platitudes in her ear as he guided her to the door.

“Let’s hope the wedding goes more smoothly tomorrow,” she sniffled before kissing my cheek, tears staining her worried and disappointed eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, squeezing her hand, and I truly was. No bride should have to remember chaos when marking her wedding anniversary. I caught Cher’s glance over her shoulder, and she nodded, signaling she’d accompany her stepmother home and remain with her through the night.

As for Arun, there was no opportunity to corner him, and no reason we should be seen conferring alone. So I followed the trio out onto the steps of the marble entryway and waited until Cher and Suzanne had their backs turned, arms tucked consolingly around each other’s waists. Leaning against a white pillar, I whispered, the words immediately lost to the night-soaked air. Arun still turned at his name.

“I’ll kill you if something happens to her.”

Arun merely tilted his head and smiled up at me. Then he replaced Cher’s supporting arm with his own, and allowed Suzanne to lean into him. I made sure their car had been whisked away before I allowed my sigh of despair to perfume the air. I had to stop that wedding.

After the guests left, and the household crew was busy whispering among themselves, Helen excused herself, muttering something about a migraine. I knew she’d be desperate to discover the status of her leader-that nasty unrequited love again rearing its head-and seek instructions on what to do next.

So I disappeared as well. Throughout Cher and Suzanne’s whimpering concerns, the police’s questioning, and Helen’s looming suspicion, Tripp’s final words kept rattling through my mind. You’re a high roller, girl. Still sittin’ at that table. Still in the gam… .

Because of the other men’s chips.

Also because I was headstrong, stubborn, and I was right. So his final sentiment took hold, grew roots, and sprang up fully formed in my mind.

If someone’s keeping you from your reasons, you’d do damned well to question theirs.

And more than Mackie, more than the Tulpa, more than Solange and everyone else who would have me caving to their whim, one man had kept me from being anything more than useful in this world. Warren, the leader of the Light, the man who saved, introduced, and initiated me into the world of the Zodiac, had also consistently manipulated me into doing his will. Instead of telling me the truth, instead of trusting I’d want to do all I could to advance his goals and the goodwill of the troop, he kept me in the dark. In shadow. And he’d done it all while holding his own reasons tightly to his chest.

He’d known of Solange’s deeds, that she had stolen a changeling’s aura all those years ago to safely cross into Midheaven, thus he also knew it was possible to use another person’s soul for that purpose. Yet he kept me in ignorance, allowing and even encouraging me to give up mine in thirds!

Worse, knowing Hunter had been pursuing Solange, he shared nothing of Midheaven with him. He could have prevented Hunter’s defection and disappearance step by aching step, but had driven him to that ultimate decision instead, then banned him from the troop.

“And locked away the man I love.”

The one, I’d just learned, who still loved me.

So I changed into head-to-toe black, crossed to the guesthouse by the light of an uncertain moon, and encased my body with weapons. I removed safeties, cocked back hammers, and sharpened blades. I took Xavier’s fastest Ferrari to the warehouse Tripp had convinced me to leave unlocked and unguarded, picked up one more vitally important weapon, then raced directly to the tunnel where Skamar had sucked the sentience from Luna’s pulpy body.

Then I called that bitch out.

The way you call a tulpa to you, the way you direct them like a satellite tracking enemy warheads, is to think upon them and their looks, their actions, and especially their name. The Tulpa gained power from his followers in this way. He demanded an around-the-clock rotation of meditative prayer and ritual, all focused on providing him with greater life force. Hence, Xavier’s hidden room.

But Skamar had a given name, and a person’s mind could latch more easily onto a being with a name than without. It was hard to pinpoint something’s relevance in the world without knowing what to call it. That was the Tulpa’s main problem…and it was the reason I screamed Skamar’s name at the top of my lungs now.

With a bunch of curse words interspersed in between.

I heard her first, though the blast of energy accompanying her flight thrust me back against the curved, mildewed wall. When I opened my eyes, she was caught in the flashlights I’d brought in from the outside-in case cursing her wasn’t enough to lead her to me-and glaring like I’d interrupted her midnight nap. Like I was a minor nuisance, I thought, even more pissed. Without warning, I lifted the saber, and used its small, antiquated side firearm to take out a chunk of concrete beside her.

“What the-”

“The last time we spoke, you told me I smelled of despair.” I reloaded, tilted my head, and caught her in my sights again. “What do I smell like now, Skamar?”

The skin over my face no longer thinned to allow my skull to rise eerily to the surface, my eyes no longer burned tar-black like my birth father’s, but the bile in my belly surely still stained the air, and my heart pumped wildly, overriding my fear.

“Put it down before you hurt yourself,” she said, meaning before she burst forward and yanked it from my grasp.

I redirected the barrel on the center of her chest. “You chose to chase the Tulpa over helping me. After you told me you’d watch over me.”

“I said I’d help when I could.”

“You could have helped me tonight! And your choice cost a man his life!” The image of Tripp’s bubbling chest and melted palms angered me all over again. “An independent agent who was finally about to claim his life on his own terms. He had a right to that, Skamar. Instead he gave it to protect me because you-someone who is practically immortal-would not.”

“Hey, you came to me for help!” Unused to being challenged or questioned, she was angry now too. “If you’ve a bone to pick, first remember I’m not obligated to assist mortals at all.”

“A ‘bone’ to pick?” I said disbelievingly. “Obligations? Skamar, I’m talking about weighing your options and then doing the right thing. Even if it means you don’t get what you want.”

She laughed harshly, though the sound was hollow, and not entirely because of the tunnel. “You want me to grow a conscience?”

“Since my mother clearly didn’t imbue you with one, yes. It’s a basic personality trait in a friend and ally.”

She sneered, perfect teeth almost radiant in the spotlights. “Well, I’m not burdened with such bad habits.”

I lowered my chin and voice. “You mean you’re not blessed with them, you bitch.”

A quiver went through her body, like the words actually stung. And that was where I was the more powerful. Maybe I’d just given her another name. I grinned as evilly as she had a moment before…and found I couldn’t stop. “You think you have consciousness? Why, because you can breathe and move around freely in this world?”

I didn’t have to smell her anger to know it stained the air. Her eyes bulged, wide and wild, like her gaze wanted free of her body. Her body stiffened like a petite petrified board, fingers making fists without her willing it. “I can control people! I can break things on whim.”

“So can a toddler,” I retorted, and had the satisfaction of seeing her face fall slack.

She tilted her head gently, dangerously. “My every action reflects the noble purpose your mother created me for.”

“Exactly my point.”

“Which is?”

“You mistake animation for a life.” My saber was heavier, so I readjusted, refocused on her. “You might as well be Mickey-fucking-Mouse because right now you’re just a clump of walking tissue, and always will be unless you let something touch you.”

“Like what?” she demanded, fisting her hands on her hips. “A knife with someone’s soul inscribed in the blade?

Because this is what happened two days ago when I kept Mackie from following your mortal ass!” And she lifted her shirt to reveal a screaming red scratch on the soft white flare of her hip.

I regarded the injury coolly, though dialed it back a bit since she had, at some point, tried to assist me. So Mackie’s blade could even injure a tulpa. It made him the most dangerous being I knew, at least on this side of Midheaven. And that was saying something.

“I’m not talking about that.”

“Then what?” she screamed, causing me to jump, and the tunnel to shake. “The Tulpa? The Shadows? Who do you think I should allow to touch me?”

“How about letting a poem touch you, Skamar. How about a song to lift you up and reassure you that you’re alive. How about love?”

“Weakness!”

“Life!” I screamed, because those were the things she, and everyone who wanted to point me in a given direction like some wind-up toy, were trying to take from me. “You’re not really alive, Skamar. You know things because my mother knew them. You think you know me because you’ve mined her thoughts and come up with your own emotionless conclusions about what makes me tick. You think because you have stolen memories, because you ruminate, that you’re entitled to walk around this world as you fucking please.”

Her vocal cords stretched in her throat as she leaned toward me. “I’m entitled to that and more! I was birthed to reign over the underworld. I’m a tulpa!”

“You’re a leech.”

A scurrying behind her drowned out her gasp-a sound that could have been anger, injury, or insult-before another figure, followed by more still, slipped up behind her. Warren stepped into the circles of light.

“Oh, good. I’m glad you’re here.” I turned my weapon on him and recocked the hammer. “If you haven’t already heard, I’m in the mood to pick some bones.”

“Where did you get that?” Warren, thinking me harmless, jerked his head at the aging conduit in my hand.

“Some new friends gave it to me. You like?” My voice was cold, hard, and unwavering. “Admittedly not as shiny as the ones Hunter used to make, but since he’s locked up tight in another world, you won’t be getting any more of those either. Too bad, huh?”

Warren’s eyes narrowed and he licked his lips. He knew I was getting at something, but not yet sure what. Gratifyingly enough, the Taurean glyph on his chest began to glow faintly. “You’ve been keeping things from us again, Jo,” he had the nerve to counter. I almost laughed, except there was nothing funny about this man’s need for control. “You failed to mention the appearance in the valley of Sleepy Mac.”

“Oh, you know how Midheaven is, Warren.” I shrugged the concern away. “You can’t speak of things or people in that world to someone who has never been. In fact, there’s no explaining the absolute and debilitating horror an agent-and a man, especially-has to endure once there.” I clenched my jaw. “I mean how could you possibly understand the pain of being reduced to an object for someone else’s use? How could I begin to even tell you what it costs in terms of mental and physical anguish to enter that world? Or,” I said, widening my stance, “the myriad of ways it might be achieved?”

I was depending on the troop at his back to regulate his composure, but if I thought my words would have him on his heels, I miscalculated. He was suddenly in front of me, a breath away though I hadn’t even blinked. I suddenly realized, as I unexpectedly stared into a face of controlled fury, that here was the being without a conscience. “Let me see your fingertips,” he whispered, lips barely moving.

When I stayed still, he grabbed my palm so roughly the bones rubbed together.

“How sweet,” I said, matching his tone. “You want to hold hands.”

We held the stare as he rubbed the smooth pads of his fingertips over my newly printed ones. “The fuck you playing at?” he hissed harshly, pushing my hand away. It forced me three full steps back. “You’re mortal.”

“And no use to you, right?”

A woman ain’t put in any world for her usefulness. You got a purpose beyond the things you can do for others.

“Well, I count,” I told him, and raised my voice so Skamar and the agents behind her could hear me clearly as well. “And Hunter does too. We may not be agents of Light, but we have our own reasons for existing.”

Warren sneered. “Tell me your reasons, Joanna. I’d love to hear them.”

I smiled thinly. “Why? So you can strip them from me too?”

If someone’s tryin’ to keep you from your reasons…you’d do damned well to question theirs.

“It’s enough that you know I can still touch magical weapons.” And while Warren pondered that, my expression brightened as though I’d just remembered something, and I gave a signal behind my back. “And speaking of weapons, there’s one other thing you might find of interest…animals love me.”

Buttersnap’s low growl throttled through the tunnel and Warren jolted. His eyes darted from mine to the warden I’d retrieved from the warehouse, suddenly at my side and baring canines sharper than switchblades, salivating as she waited for my signal. Now his glyph fired like a lit wick.

“Don’t,” Warren warned, barely daring to breathe.

I lifted my saber so the tip was touching his chest, and his heart thrummed through the long blade. Power pulsed through me in a heady rush. Sure, I’d probably die in this tunnel. Buttersnap could take Warren, but there were half a dozen other agents fanned out behind him, and a tulpa who’d already proven she didn’t overly care what happened to me. But Tripp had told me to honor my own reasons, and if revealing the truth about Warren’s actions wasn’t a reason, I didn’t know what was.

“I’m not afraid to die again, Warren,” I told him, weary as someone who’d just climbed from a car wreck.

“There’s nothing more to strip from me in this world. An unstoppable demon wants me dead, and not even one of those who call themselves Light-not even the tulpa created by my own mother-will lift a finger to help me. So my finger is on this trigger, poised there because you brought me into this underworld only to throw me away. In a way, as much as my mother and the Tulpa did, you created me.”

“Not for this.”

I tilted my head so a blond lock fell over my eyes. I blew it away. “No, because this is out of your control. You wanted someone you could manipulate, which makes you no different than the Tulpa.”

“Bullshit,” he said roughly.

“Really? How else would you explain why you erased the memory of a man-an agent of Light-from the minds of an entire troop, just so you could reinvent him into a superhero more to your liking?”

“I discussed it with them ahead of time. They agreed it was for the best.”

“Though no one would remember that. ”

His weather-beaten face hardened, the lines deepening. “You’re making shit up, Joanna. I suggest you be careful.”

“Or what? You’ll alter my memory too?” I laughed, and its harshness surprised even me. “What you-and the Tulpa, for that matter-don’t seem to realize is that while thought can be manipulated and controlled, emotions cannot. They’re willful. Unpredictable. They’re what you really wish you could dampen and tame. Emotion threatens your authority. It inspires change.”

“Nothing’s changing,” Warren replied, but his teeth were again clenched.

“You set Hunter up.”

Warren’s eyes slitted, his nostrils flared, and his mouth went flat. “Don’t.”

“You let the troop believe Jaden Jacks was another man entirely, a Shadow even, and that he’d disappeared years ago. You arranged the Hunter identity, kept his past from everyone who trusted you to tell the truth, and ordered him silent as well. And when you found he was still searching for Solange, you decided to rid yourself of him for good by locking him in Midheaven.”

“Jacks cost a mortal child his life!” he said, protesting way, way too much.

“Solange tricked Hunter.” I raised my voice, using the name the rest of the troop associated with the man they’d once counted as their friend, ally, and brother. “She stole the child’s aura from him, knowing he would never destroy an innocent. She used it to escape into a world the Tulpa could never follow, but let Hunter live.”

“Why?”

The voice popped up behind Warren, surprising us both. He half turned to shoot a warning look at Vanessa, who was frowning like a kid trying to puzzle out a word problem. Her dark eyes darted from him to me. “Why wouldn’t she just take Hunter…I mean, Jaden’s life?”

“Because she really did love him, inasmuch as a Shadow can love anyone beyond themselves.”

And recalling Tripp and the lengths he’d gone to attain vengeance for his own family, I knew it was possible. Which made me fear for Hunter all the more. And to get to him, I was going to have to get others to believe it too. So I delivered the final truth. “And because she was pregnant with his child.”

Gasps rocketed into the air-even Skamar hadn’t known that-and in the glare of the dimming flashlights, faces bloomed with shock. But none was more jarred than Warren’s, and I was glad. It was nice to see the man who hoarded secrets outwitted by Hunter. It was fucking poetic.

“That’s right, Warren. There’s a girl child on the other side of your impenetrable lock.” I snarled those last words, letting him know it was anything but that. “A child who is, by all accounts, both Shadow and Light. And you know what that means.”

“Another Kairos,” Tekla whispered, and even in my weakened mortal state, I felt the shift in the troop. This was something they should have known, if Warren had trusted them enough.

“The only Kairos,” I said, before returning my flat gaze to Warren, who was still focused on me, though he’d gone unnervingly still. “After all, I’m just a useless mortal. Right?”

“And not even that for much longer,” Warren whispered, and I didn’t even see him pull back his fist. The image was imprinted on the air in front of me, however, because that’s where the impact between him and Carlos occurred. If I lived through this, the homicidal fury in Warren’s frozen gaze, burning like a negative before me, would haunt my dreams. Then the image melted away and chaos overtook the small tunnel.

Rogue agents whizzed past me so fast the only way I knew they were grays and not Shadow was because I still lived. Conflict sounded, face-to-face, hand-to-hand, because the rogue attack was sudden and unexpected, the agents of Light too crowded to even lift their conduits, much less fire them. But their chests were lit down to the last.

Without weapons, all the rogues had were their bodies, and those-visible during the spotlit collisions-were coated in Micah’s protectant, which he belatedly realized when he plunged his surgeon’s blade into Vincent’s chest, only to receive an unexpected blow to the jaw in return.

The action was jammed, like dust devils banging into each other, so when one of the agents of Light wrested free-a sole glyph lit up in the foreground where the spotlights shone brightest-I saw only the lift of a deadly blowgun in my direction. Kimber, the Libra of Light who’d always hated me, sucked in a deep breath.

“No!” Vanessa screamed, pushing the weapon aside. The impact developed, then dissipated, before my eyes. A scrape against the curved wall behind me-Kimber had actually fired!-and I scurried behind Buttersnap, though it would’ve been too late had Vanessa not intervened. “It’s Joanna!”

“She’s not ours!” Kimber countered, pushing her away, pointing again.

Vanessa punched her so hard I expected the word “Pow!” to appear over Kimber’s blond, dreadlocked head.

“She’s not theirs either!”

“Somebody just shoot!” Warren ordered, his voice choked beneath Carlos’s tensile fingers.

But Buttersnap reared up in front of me and let out a ripping, ragged howl. Nobody shot, though I didn’t know if it was because they were afraid to hit her-making her even stronger and larger than she already was-or reluctant to hurt me. I wasn’t about to split hairs either way, and neither was Buttersnap. Lowering to all four paws, she corralled me backward in the direction the grays had appeared, and away from the Light. The fight continued in front of me, sweeping gusts and flashing images, though the accompanying sounds of battle were constant.

But one thing stood out clearly: Vanessa, still immobile where she’d knocked out Kimber, grays on the defense around her, the stunned Light battling a foe they hadn’t known existed. A curious look of pity and wonder marred her lovely face, and remained that way until I disappeared from sight.

At the roll of the dog’s muzzle, and the accompanying rumble in her throat, I straddled the giant back, holding tight to the skin where a bitch might scruff her pup. Buttersnap raced forward, breaking from the tunnel like a Kentucky Derby winner. I kept my head low until I was sure we weren’t being directly followed, then relaxed enough to look behind me. I tried to make out the tunnel entrance, the chaos inside, but it had vanished. Fleeing on the warden’s back, the entire city was reduced to a blur of colorful outlines. Streetlamps whizzed by overhead, before smooth pavement gave way to rough, and then to the packed desert floor.

I felt good, I realized, as the cold winter wind numbed me. Sure, Mackie was still out there, and my threats against Skamar didn’t amount to much more than a temper tantrum, but it was gratifying to know I’d finally tallied a mark in my favor against Warren’s manipulative scheming. From the look on the faces of the rest of the agents of Light, he was finally going to have to provide some answers.

No, I wasn’t a lot better off than I’d been that morning, I admitted, escaping into the desert, cactus and rocks reaching for me beneath a vast dark sky. But in a world ruled by beings who only paid attention to those who could move and manipulate and control events and outcomes, who had power and the means to use it, and who undeniably counted, I had come out of this altercation alive and on top.

And they were certainly paying attention to me now.