City of Souls

8

The troop’s workshop, like most things in industrial Vegas, was hidden inside a windowless steel building that resembled a small airplane hangar. However, unlike the surrounding warehouses, this place was booby-trapped to the teeth. I suppose that as our weaponeer, Hunter considered it a moral imperative to keep the place properly secured, but every time I entered it I felt like Indiana Jones waiting for the boulder.

Felix beelined for the panic room, and I decided to give him and Vanessa a few minutes alone before joining them. But this left me alone with Hunter, who was half dressed in his Valhalla security uniform; dark pants, polished black shoes, and white undershirt that moved with his muscles. His moods lately had ranged from surly to sarcastic when dealing with me, so I only nodded in greeting, and waited to see what it would be today.

Felix’s talk about Vanessa and balance had fortified my emotions. I decided that I could stand up to whatever Hunter threw at me. I’d absorb both his anger and indifference, and give him nothing to beat against. And maybe soon, I thought, tossing my bag on the concrete floor, he wouldn’t feel the need to fight me at all.

Besides, I’d seen people and situations that were beyond fixing before-hell, I’d been one of them-and this wasn’t it. Hunter wasn’t broken. The possibility of us wasn’t broken. The silence echoing around us was only weighty in comparison to the cries and murmurs and soft sighs that had once preceded it. If I remembered that, he did as well.

“I should throw you out,” he said immediately, barely looking up from his drafting table. “Warren wouldn’t want you here.”

“Where is he?”

He lifted a shoulder. “You know Warren.”

Yes. He demanded to know where we were at all times, but disappeared whenever he felt like it. But it was for “our own good.”

“Vanessa?” I asked, jerking my head to the panic room.

“Better. You’ll see.” So he wasn’t going to throw me out. Good.

I headed to the chair next to his drawing board, careful not to wrinkle the navy dress shirt draped along its back. Yet spotting the half-finished sketches, I stood almost before I’d sat down. A conduit, drawn in varying sizes and angles, was depicted on half a dozen sheets. I knew immediately that it was for me.

“Wow.” All thoughts of romance, past wrongs, and other worlds, dropped away.

It was beautiful. Another crossbow, smaller than my original, and so sleek my palm itched to hold it. Vials of metal alloys were scattered along the table beside the drawing, along with a shiny lead crossbow bolt. Glancing around a plastic partition, I frowned across the length of the indoor firing range. The current target had bolts pinned to it as well. I gasped and turned toward Hunter.

“It’s only a model, so don’t try to take off with it. I’m still working out the kinks. Something’s off with the balance, and the bolts are more like paintballs than missiles, so you’d only bruise a Shadow, at best.” Though his tone was serious, a knowing half smile lit his face…and suddenly the sleek new conduit was in his hand. Any tension between us was immediately forgotten.

“Come to Mama,” I said, beckoning him, and the weapon, forward.

A conduit was an extension of an agent’s body and will, and once bequeathed or bestowed upon an agent, in a way became a part of the controlling agent…a fact that had been made painfully clear as soon as Regan snatched mine away. One of the few items my mother had left me in this brave new world, my conduit was perfect for the Archer sign, and its absence was almost a physical ache. Any other conduit, including this lovely little replacement, was a poor substitute-like pairing up with a partner you knew was wrong for you out of convenience, or until a better one came along-but I wasn’t in any position to be picky.

Hunter made me follow him around the shielding plastic, but instead of handing the weapon to me, he motioned me still and took his place at the shooter’s stand. Control freak, I thought, frowning, but stood back. He exaggerated his movements, demonstrating the proper stance-as if I needed to be shown-then stretched his arm to the side, one-handed, and aimed for a paper bull’s-eye fifty feet away. I’d have said he was showing off, but his facility with any conduit-though especially his own barbed whip-was physical poetry. He was pure athlete, war his chosen sport, and when he finally fired three bolts in quick succession, I had to admit I couldn’t have done any better.

The bolts dived for the target’s center, splitting air in chill-inducing hisses, as straight as if they were being reeled in…until the last moment, when they redirected-one, two, three-and barreled the opposite way. Right at me.

I ducked and the first whizzed by my head, a deadly whisper of wind trailing in its wake. The second one burrowed into my side with a white-hot pain. I cried out and instinctively dove for cover.

“Not behind me!”

So, at the last moment, I dodged the bolt by jumping into Hunter’s arms. His grunt against my neck let me know when it hit home. We froze there, both breathing hard for long moments, until I leaned back and looked into his pained face. “That didn’t hit anything important, did it?”

Wincing, he shook his head, but didn’t yet speak. When he finally caught his breath, he was succinct. “Oops.”

I eased down from him, a slow slide that let me experience all his athletic contours. I didn’t let the pleasure deter me. “You shot me.”

“No.”

I pointed at the iron dart sticking out between my ribs, the blood ruining my T-shirt, and raised my brows.

“The projectile was drawn to you. There’s a difference.”

“Well, the difference feels the same with a metal tip buried in my side.” And it didn’t feel like a mere bruise either.

“I told you I was still tweaking it,” he said, but even he looked frustrated. Still wincing, I put my hand on his shoulders as I looked down. He held me there for a moment, letting me use his body to steady myself, but shifted his gaze when I looked back up into his eyes.

Disregarding his own small injury, he stalked toward his shooting stand, simultaneously yanking the bolt from his thigh, while I relearned how to breathe. Thank God it was only a mock-up. Had that been a real conduit, neither of us would heal.

“I just don’t understand! I have the right metallic bonds…the frame is near identical. The bolts are slimmer, but that should make them more manageable, not less…fucking reactive, but I can’t get the right fit!”

He turned on me, eyes blazing, and I held up my hands in mock surrender in case he was going to shoot again. He didn’t, but he didn’t smile either. He just gazed at me in a way that made him look diminished. “Why can’t I get the right fit?”

I limped over to him, pain almost forgotten, and dropped the fired bolt on the shooting stand. “You’re going to,” I said, turning to him.

Hunter’s shoulders slumped and, turning away, he threw the replicate on the steel table. “I’m gonna get you killed.”

“You’re so arrogant,” I said, and he jerked his head up sharply to catch my smile. “Even I haven’t managed that yet.”

The tension disappeared, but the smile still didn’t come. He ran his hand over his head, then fisted it there, muttering to himself. His hair was currently medium length, shaggy again after some unfathomable impulse had him shaving it down to nothing. He didn’t look any softer now that it was growing back, though. I liked that.

“What?” he said as I continued to stare at him.

One of the things that had drawn me to photography was that the people and events framed through my camera lens were determined by my interest and discretion alone. There was no discussion about composition, no compromise on subject matter. I’d worked alone, and still had an instinctive preference for that. It was one of the hardest things to overcome upon joining the troop.

But Felix’s earlier words about balance and need made me realize something I’d been trying to ignore. I didn’t work with a camera and film and developer anymore, but I still fixated on the subjects that either interested me or mattered most. So, as I continued to stare up into Hunter’s face, I was unsurprised by the way the rest of the warehouse, the sounds and smells and sights, slid out of focus, and he sharpened like wire.

“What?” he repeated when I only continued to stare.

“I want you to let me back in.” It wasn’t a question. Coy and guarded were for people like Suzanne and Cher. That wasn’t how Hunter or I operated. We took what we wanted. Again, I liked that.

But Hunter’s face slid into a marble smoothness. I sighed and put my hand on his arm. And though he didn’t respond, he didn’t pull away either.

“I remember what you said about making a decision and not looking back, and I know I screwed up. I’m sorry. Give me a chance.”

He opened his mouth, began to shake his head from side to side.

“Please,” I said softly, stopping him cold, but I didn’t see pleading as a weakness. On the contrary, desire was also a powerful strength. Couldn’t he see that? I wondered, eyes searching his face.

He looked away, saying nothing.

I sighed. “Hunter, I don’t know how to do this. I mean, I veered off the path to normal a long time ago, and never really quite found my way back. Everyone before Ben-”

“You don’t have to tell me this.”

The thought that he might not feel the same struck dread through me. The moment felt full and weighty, like this was my chance to step into a present so vital it could finally, once and for all, put all the tragedies in my past to bed. If I didn’t go on, and quick, I’d definitely turn and walk out of there. And if I did that, I knew I’d never be back.

But I needed space to tell this story. Hunter’s physicality wasn’t just distracting, it was overwhelming. I searched for a place to sit, settling on the chair that held his shirt. Careful not to wrinkle it, I leaned back and looked at my hands. “Before last year I saw dating as a personal challenge rather than a relationship between two equals. I selected men to test my strength and determination and self-reliance. Most men instinctively ran from that-I mean, who likes feeling like an emotional litmus test?-and I’d congratulate myself when they did. I told myself they were weak. Wrong for me. Unworthy.”

I ran my index finger around the tip of my opposing thumb, the printless pads rubbing against each other with an unnerving smoothness. I still hadn’t gotten entirely used to the feeling.

“Ben was different because of our shared past, and because we’d loved each other first.” We’d shared friendship, then love. There was no going back after that. Unfortunately, though we didn’t realize it at the time, there was also no going forward.

I sighed, letting Hunter see this memory playing out in me, letting him feel it if he must. It was truth, and he should know it all. “So that’s why it took me a while to realize I didn’t know the man he’d become. The boy I’d loved a decade earlier didn’t exist anymore. Nowhere but in my own mind, anyway.”

I wondered how many relationships were like that. One person hanging on to a memory of what once was, the dream more alive than the reality had ever been…more real than the actual relationship, now wilting, unseen, on the vine.

Always one to see clearly, Hunter remained silent. I looked up at the ceiling, then realized I was doing it only to avoid his gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I took what I needed from you on a night I’d been left emotionally bankrupt-and that’s not an excuse, just a fact-but mostly that I left you in the morning. That I left you at all.”

I’d made a mistake and would take it back if I could, but that was something people said when they knew they could not. So I fell silent, watched him soak in the information, his brilliant mind whirring beneath the face I was starting to crave, the olive skin I longed to touch, the mouth that curved dangerously when considering some private, dangerous secret. I was addicted, I realized. One taste of this man and I’d become a junkie.

“I’m sorry too, Joanna,” he said, and this time he was the one who looked away. “But I can’t.”

An invisible foot planted itself into my chest. I was actually surprised the air didn’t whoosh from my chest. I shook my head. “But-”

Hunter held up a hand.

I thought about knocking that hand out of the air, controlled myself and only flinched instead. “You still want me. I can feel it. I can sense it like a second heartbeat.”

“Yes.” And, suddenly, it was there. The desire I’d been looking for bloomed so round and full I felt like I could take a bite from the air, come away with a mouthful of emotion that would warm my belly…and still be ravenous for more. I thought about kissing his eyelids until they softened, and took a step forward. I’d seen them that way before. That softness, ironically, accentuated his strength.

I bit my lip, narrowing my eyes at I watched him not watching me. “But there’s something else, isn’t there? Something you want more.”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

I flinched. “Someone?”

He sighed. “Joanna.”

I didn’t look away. “Does it have to do with that callboy identity?”

“I told you. I’m no longer doing that.”

I tilted my head, studying him. So had he found her, then? Because he’d been looking for a woman, I was sure of that much. And she’d been dark-haired and dark-eyed. She’d been someone he didn’t want anyone else to know about.

I should tell Warren.

But even as the thought visited, I showed it the door. I wouldn’t. Hunter had kept the secret of my daughter-a girl destined to follow me as the troop’s Archer; one Warren still didn’t know about-and I owed him for that.

“Hey, Jo!” The voice shot across the warehouse, startling us both. I turned to find Felix motioning me from the doorway of the panic room. He looked much better, a flush in his cheeks and a familiar spark in his eye. “She wants to see you.”

I nodded and he disappeared back inside. By the time I looked back, Hunter had turned away. I hesitated, then headed for Vanessa. I couldn’t help wondering what would have occurred between Hunter and me if I’d been raised in the sanctuary too, safe from desert predators, with a knowledge of what and who I was. Would we have had an easier time forging a relationship without old griefs standing between us? Maybe not, I thought, glancing over my shoulder. We seemed destined to butt heads-one of us high when the other was low; one positive while the other nursed bitterness like an addictive brew. If only I could turn my mind from him altogether, I thought, swallowing hard.

But addictions, I knew, didn’t work that way.

There were other places we could have taken Vanessa. Micah worked as a physician at one such hospital, where supernatural fallout wouldn’t attract the attention of the mortal population. That’s where they’d first taken me to alter my looks so I could live convincingly as my sister. Yet given the disappearance of our safe zones, we couldn’t be certain the Shadows hadn’t infiltrated the hospitals as well. Besides, precautions or not, if a person showed up with Vanessa’s kind of injuries, someone was going to notice.

So in the small, windowless panic room of the secured warehouse-where Micah busied himself in the early hours with stabilizing Vanessa-Hunter and Felix had gathered the supplies needed to turn it into the strangest one-person, mini-E.R. I’d ever seen.

“Wow.” I knew I should be more attentive to the room’s sole patient, and possibly more discreet about my awe, but the giant, clear Plexiglas tank positioned in the center of the room wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen. I bent over, peering inside, to see Vanessa’s silhouette suspended in a baby blue substance more viscous than water, air bubbles caught mid-rise. The room’s dim lighting couldn’t filter fully through the thick gelatinous substance, but I could see well enough to follow the length of her left calf to where it abruptly ended in a stump. There were bones growing from it, but they were newly formed and too small for her body, more like the talons on a bird of prey. Obviously there was still a ways to go before the foot fully regenerated. Straightening, I turned my attention to her head, which had received most of the destruction.

She looked like she’d been hit by a wrecking ball, eyes so swollen her irises were almost rimmed in red, newly grown right ear and nose tomato red, so the pigment didn’t yet match the rest of her face. This was actually preferable since the rest of her face was an unsightly mass of bruises and swollen tissue, and though she smiled, she did so with a mouth that looked overly stuffed with cotton.

Of course, the worst damage had been delivered to her skull. Drake had partially scalped her while cutting her hair, and though the skin was already healed, her entire head had to be shaved down to nothing so her beautiful mahogany curls could grow back in evenly. Though she couldn’t move much, she tilted her head slightly on her neck cushion, and rolled her eyes in my direction. “I’m not quite there yet, though my tongue has grown back nicely.”

No complaint, no anger, no blame. I clenched my jaw to hold back tears.

“More’s the shame,” Felix said, stroking the side of her head. It was the only part of her body not submerged in the gooey blue substance.

“Shut up, honey,” she said lightly, then stuck out her tongue in demonstration. “No taste buds yet, though. It feels like I gargled with habaneros.”

“That’s because you’re not drinking your reparative. I don’t care if it does taste like moldy ash.”

“Tekla!” I hugged our troop’s Seer before either of us expected it. I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t seen her since the battle in Chinatown. “Oh my God, you made it. How’d you escape the Tulpa?”

She’d been so focused, I remembered now. Her small features drawn tight on her face, like a balloon pinched together in the center. Though I’d long learned not to underestimate Tekla due to her small stature-a bird’s foot would fit better on her tidy frame-her ability to single-handedly hold off the Tulpa using nothing but her imagination and will had been outstanding.

“You were amazing,” I said, indulging in a bit of my own hero worship.

She shrugged, but I could tell she was pleased, if surprised, by my reaction. Maybe she was just used to people who were used to her. I was still new enough to this world that I recognized unusual martial skill when I saw it.

“No, really.” I touched her arm, forcing her to look at me. “You amaze me.”

She actually blushed at that.

And speaking of amazing talents…“Where’s Micah?”

“Resting in the crow’s nest,” Vanessa said, her swollen tongue giving her a bit of a lisp. “He’s been working on me nonstop.”

“And he’ll have my hide if I don’t continue to do the same.” Holding a glass in one hand, Tekla cupped Vanessa’s chin in the other and gently tilted it back. I sniffed. Water, herbs, and some sort of chalky substance I didn’t recognize.

“Not too much,” Tekla murmured, pulling the drink away. “You’re still healing on the inside too.”

“What exactly are you lying in?” I asked, bending over again.

“Sanative gel, shot with numbing cream. I’d never be able to sit still, much less manage lucidity without it.”

Frowning, I straightened. “Vanessa, I’m so sorry.”

She made a sound, halting me from speaking further. “Felix told me you’d say that. When are you going to learn? A battle-born death is always written in the stars, Jo.”

Yeah, I thought wryly, but the handwriting had been a little sloppy this time. “Then I’m happy it wasn’t meant to be.”

“And speaking of fates,” Tekla said, “Felix, if you’ll excuse us?”

Felix and I stared at her, both surprised by this abrupt, and obvious, dismissal. His need to argue-to stay put and protect and just be with Vanessa-slipped from him in waves, almost as visible as a bright pulse from a lighthouse. But Tekla raised her brows, and he finally nodded and left.

“He’s worried about you,” I told Vanessa, her gaze following him until he disappeared.

“He’s been so sweet.” She lowered her eyes and swallowed hard. “I hate for him to see me this way.”

I frowned. “You were ambushed by an entire Shadow troop. He’s not going to think anything less of you for succumbing to that.”

“No, I mean…” She ducked her head so it reminded me of a turtle retreating into its shell. In this case a very blue, viscous shell. “I mean, I look awful. Silly, huh?”

“Oh.” I was taken aback but tried not to show it. “No. It makes sense.”

She sniffed. “No, it doesn’t. I mean, all the things they did to me, and you know what I keep thinking?”

I shook my head.

“When’s my hair going to grow back?” Her voice cracked.

“It’s only because you know it’s going to take the longest to return to normal,” Tekla said reasonably. Worrying about a haircut after surviving a brutal attack wasn’t reasonable, but it was understandable.

“It’s okay,” I added, forcing a smile. “I would too, if I had your hair.”

But watching her nod, I knew it wasn’t okay. Like those men who threw acid in the faces of women who rejected them, this mutilation had been extremely personal, and of course it was designed to shame. However, unlike those mortal victims, Vanessa would blessedly heal from her injuries.

Even no-nonsense Tekla had to respond to the self-pity filling the room like waterlogged roses. At least, she tried. “Micah can make you a gorgeous hairpiece in the meantime. Nobody will know the difference.”

Vanessa closed her eyes, but a tear slipped out anyway. Sensing her embarrassment along with her sorrow, I changed the subject. It’s what I would have wanted. “So, why did we just get rid of Felix?”

“Because there are some things you can explain over and again to a man,” Tekla said, “and he still won’t understand.”

Vanessa sniffed. “Like the hair thing.”

I nodded. Because a head understanding was different from a heart understanding. I expected there were times the reverse was true as well.

“Like how you need to arm yourself differently when entering a world where women rule.” Tekla smiled as my head predictably shot up.

Even Vanessa managed a small grin. “Look, even threats of a scalping won’t deter her,” she said to Tekla, about me. “The girl does love a fight.”

“There won’t be any scalping in Midheaven. Women fight differently…in any world.”

“You don’t say,” I said dryly, thinking of Regan DuPree. Shadow agent. Leo. Bitch.

Regan had most often eschewed a direct martial approach, at least in dealing with me, taking a circuitous path instead by attacking those I loved. Fortunately, she was no longer an issue. A rogue was utterly alone. She was also a walking advertisement for skin grafts gone bad, because when the Tulpa discovered the deception, he’d raked the skin from her body in wounds that would never heal. I might have felt bad about this except that she’d once gotten me captured, tortured, and nearly killed by my greatest enemy. She’d also slept with my boyfriend.

Tekla read my mind. “You think you know what I’m talking about, but hear me when I tell you: stealth and subtlety are the most powerful weapons in our world, but they were honed on the fires of Midheaven’s core. If the myths bear out, you haven’t encountered women like this before, so don’t enter lightly. Don’t be lulled by soft looks or voices, no matter how familiar or natural they may seem.”

“Don’t worry. Femininity has never felt normal to me.” It was a joke, but it was also true. I hadn’t been raised in a female-dominated culture. The honor and respect these two women took for granted was foreign to me. I’d always had to fight for my power.

Tekla shook her head. “Those are two different things. Normal is simply what you’re accustomed to. Natural is what is, in spite of what you’re used to.”

“So, you’re saying don’t go in swinging?”

“It’s a bit…obvious,” she said diplomatically.

I tilted my head. “I think I’m offended.”

“What Tekla is trying to say,” Vanessa interceded quickly, “is don’t be fooled into thinking you’re not at war just because you’re not blowing things up. Yet don’t be intimidated by it either. You have the ability to utilize the more indirect tactics too.”

I snorted. I had the ability to fake it until I made it. “So let me get this straight. You guys are worried I can’t hold my own against, what, some chicks?”

“Chicks powerful enough to rule an entire world.”

“With a glance alone,” Tekla added.

“Looks that can kill?” I asked.

“No.” She smiled. “Just stun. Or so that’s the myth.”

I didn’t roll my eyes because that would earn me a stunning look in return. Instead, I blew out a long breath. “Well, I don’t have to worry about it at all if I can’t actually find the place. And even then I don’t know how I’ll find Jaden Jacks. I don’t even know what he looks like.”

All I had to go on were cryptic orders from Warren, part of a silly song, and useless advice about fighting like a woman instead of a man.

“I do,” Tekla said. I looked at her sharply. Unsmiling, and suddenly too serious, she stepped forward and handed me a picture.

Whoa. Not a picture, I thought, studying the man on it. A ripped out page from a Shadow manual. “Damn, he’s huge.”

“You’ll be fine,” Vanessa said reassuringly. “You’re the Kairos.”

And I was getting tired of that being the one thing I had going for me. I sighed again as I tucked the folded page in my back pocket.

“By the way,” Vanessa said, changing the subject, “Felix told us about Xavier’s housekeeper, Lindy. Helen. Whatever. Thanks for stopping him. I’d hate for all that work to be undone just because of me.”

Hiding my own disappointment at not having Helen out of the way for good, it was my turn to shrug. “We’ll get another shot at Lindy. Plenty of them. In fact…maybe you’d like to do the honors?”

“Still fighting,” Tekla muttered, returning to her chair in the corner, but Vanessa laughed, truly laughed for the first time since I’d seen her. It drew Felix into the room like a siren’s call. Her smile remained as she caught his gaze. “I think maybe I would.”

“Good. Then when I return from Midheaven,” I said, smiling, “I’ll hand you the keys to Archer castle myself.”