City of Souls

13

Taking a shaky step forward to be sure my legs were working properly, I realized too late that I was back where I’d started before entering Midheaven. The candle was burning again, but behind me, so it didn’t light the gaping hole directly before me…one that I dropped through with an amazing lack of grace.

My left ankle twisted over on itself as I dropped, but the short fall-and my pained grunt-was quickly followed by a joyous squeal. I’d escaped! Olivia’s curves now burst from the halter and chaps that had been merely snug on my athletic frame, another physical sign my return to Vegas had been successful. Checking for injury, I was dismayed to find a small new scar on my left forearm from Mackie’s knife, and though healed over, the fact that it’d scarred at all told me that blade was the equivalent of a conduit. I’d been lucky not to suffer a direct hit. Of course, there was also…

“The friggin’ belly ring,” I muttered, touching the stupid thing, voice resonating softly through the tunnel.

A surprised grunt echoed back at me. I froze. There was a charred growl, like something awakened from slumber, and a heavy exhalation…and a scent I immediately recognized over the stink of the tunnel. I froze like a doe, but instead of headlights, found myself staring down the concrete corridor of inked-out darkness. The serpentine tunnel system, so spacious moments ago, shrunk in on itself. It was only perception, not an adjustment of time or space the way the passage to Midheaven had been, but I suddenly felt small, and all too vulnerable. I even thought of vaulting back up into that vertical shaft, grabbing that candle by the base and giving it another good puff.

After all, I thought, what was worse? A fight against the Tulpa or a return to Mackie and his soul-infused knife? A gamble with my life or with my soul?

Damned. Hard. Call.

And in a few more moments, I thought as the scuffling sounds drew nearer, the decision wouldn’t be mine to make.

“Who’s there?” The breath was gurgled, labored and pained.

My glyph began to pulse with heat, and the drip-drip of the drain’s befouled water joined it in syncopation, as if marking off seconds of my life.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Instinct screamed to retreat, but I forced myself to inch forward instead. It was the first rule of combat, one my trainer, Asaf, had drilled into me. Always move forward. Through. Advance. Attack. It lent physical momentum, mental courage, and took your opponent off guard. Unless, I thought swallowing hard, your opponent was never off guard. In that case, the rule meant advance, attack, and if you were going to die, do it on your feet.

I could see, via my glyph, another three hundred feet of drain before it trended right. The shuffling sounds had ceased, which gave me hope as I inched past a lateral pipe, the source of that sulfuric dripping. That’s when I spotted rungs. I tested them, looking straight up into a concave hollow. If I hid there, the Tulpa might pass right beneath me. Then my path to Vegas would be open, and I’d be free. It was preferable to the head-on collision I was currently facing, Asaf’s instructions be damned. So I climbed. Once there, I used shaking hands to yank on my identity-shielding mask, then wrapped my shoulder bag around the highest rung. The chips inside clinked softly, like tiny cymbals.

I sank into the concrete pocket and widened my stance. Though tight, my costuming allowed for movement as I stretched for the other side of the drop inlet. Rock climbers stemmed from improbable places all the time; all I had to do was calm myself enough that I didn’t fall on the Tulpa as he passed beneath me.

That could give me away, I thought, and extinguished my glyph.

Even in the void, I knew when he’d gained the corner. The air was instantly harder to breathe, infused with a carbon burn and a soured hook. Stinging at my tear ducts through my mask, at my mouth, even my ears, it was as if a poisonous cloud wafted from the man, infecting and defiling anything within range. The darkness, nuanced before, was now absolute in its opaqueness. I couldn’t see the titan he became when no one was looking, or his sheer bulk, but I felt it. It was like an airplane slipping into a private hangar. Too late, I wondered if the tunnel was large enough for both of us, or if I’d soon feel the osseous scrape of horns across my naked belly.

I pushed the thought from my mind before it bloomed into emotion.

“Show yourself now…or I might just get angry.” Heat accompanied the warning, one that burned rather than warmed.

I considered revealing myself-I’d fought toe-to-claw with him before-and I itched with the need for action. I opened my mouth, but another voice startled us both.

“I’m over here.” An audible swallow. “Sir.”

A swishing, the Tulpa’s tail whipping around in the dark, and then, “You…”

“I didn’t think you’d want to see me. I thought you’d want to repair…alone.” The words ran together in a half-swallowed hiss, even without the sibilant sounds. Oh, shit.

“Regan.”

The source of her speech impediment? Fractured vocal cords and a sliced tongue, courtesy of the Tulpa. Those things, combined with her banishment and what amounted to a paranormal fatwa on her head, were supposed to keep this situation-her talking to him now-from ever happening.

“Sir. I don’t mean to intrude. I’ll wait. Until you’re more fully recovered.”

A growl. “I’m not-”

“It’s okay.” There was a slap and slide as she stepped closer, and the briny scent of her nervousness covered my own growing panic. “You need to regenerate. It was a hell of a battle.”

“The biggest yet.” I’d never heard the Tulpa sound fatigued. And I didn’t understand what they were talking about. The last battle between the Tulpa and Skamar had left razored clouds in the sky, but that wasn’t unusual. Not anymore, anyway.

“Your senses are blunted…otherwise you’d have discerned me before. I’ve been down here since my…banishment.”

Of course.

It made perfect sense. Regan hadn’t been seen since her exile, and as she’d disappeared with my conduit, I’d looked. The general stench and decay of things washed into the tunnels would help cover Regan’s stench, if anyone bothered coming in this far, which made it the perfect place for her to hide…though it couldn’t be doing much for her open wounds. I was so busy thinking of her languishing for weeks in the fetid underground that it was another moment before I realized the Tulpa hadn’t contradicted her about what he was doing here.

Oh, my God. He came here to reform, to regenerate.

And that made sense too. Skamar had taken on her own identity and features when given a name. But the Tulpa lacked a name and thus that power, so his features regularly shifted, mutated, wobbled on his face. It had always appeared to be a strength. He could evade reach, elongate his limbs, disappear altogether…but that took power. Which, right now, he apparently didn’t have.

But he also hadn’t slain Regan on the spot, as he’d promised he would if he ever saw her again. Panic joined the awe that’d wedged its way into my belly. The two beings that hated me most were blocking my exit. I had no doubt that together they could cobble together a very creative lesson in payback. I strengthened my hold.

“You’re still alive. Despite my punishment. Despite the pain.” He hadn’t thought she would be. Being flayed was a hard way to die, but an even harder way to live.

“I’m…brave.”

It was obvious even the words pained her.

“Come here.”

Yeah, do that, Regan. Because brave and stupid are exactly the same thing.

Apparently Regan was of the same mind, because there was no answer or movement. It would take a good deal of energy, which the Tulpa was clearly trying to amass, to reach out and touch her by magical means. But to step within reach? Even a glancing swipe of those claws could cleave her in half.

“You betrayed my trust, brought the third sign of the Zodiac to life, and now you’re going to cower in the dark like you even have a right to be standing there? Come here,” he repeated, and there was nothing tired in the command, “Or I’ll come and get you.”

An immediate scuffling followed. “I want only to serve.”

A little late for that, I thought…which is what the Tulpa said. “But I suppose banishment has given you a change of heart.”

No, her heart had changed the moment his index finger plowed through it.

I kept my grip strong.

Knowing the Tulpa demanded absolute loyalty from his troop, and that she’d failed him, Regan didn’t defend herself. She switched subjects. “I have a gift.”

Something metal and weighty scraped across the concrete floor, followed by a sharp click as it came to rest against what was probably a honed talon.

“As you’re the Shadow Archer, this should be just as powerful in your hands.”

And now I was trapped in a hole with my two greatest enemies and the one weapon that could totally obliterate my existence. I teetered, my knees and elbows wanting to buckle.

“This is handy,” he said, nails clacking against my conduit. I grimaced, swallowing hard as he pulled back on the crossbow. It felt like he was pawing one of my internal organs.

“I’ve also been following your daughter, gathering intel on her haunts and friends, her habits. May I share them?”

She waited, and so did I, heart slamming, a lump closing my throat. The news that she’d been following me was a surprise, but it was a concern I shunted aside for later. Because consent now would mean forgiveness, and would make Regan dangerous again. The Tulpa took a long time before delivering his verdict.

“Speak.”

I closed my eyes and fought not to sag. And Regan began telling him about the real me, the one the rest of the world thought dead, the one he knew was alive…but not how or where.

“She’s a woman of surprising regularity, coming and going from her residence like clockwork. Admittedly one with a skewed sense of time, but regular for someone who abides by the rules of two realities.”

“Where is it?”

“The Greenspun Residences. Do you know it?”

Of course he did. His main mortal ally’s daughter, Olivia Archer, lived in the same building. Crafty, I thought. Regan both was and was not telling him my identity. Her ass was in tatters and yet she was still covering it.

“You think she’d know better,” Regan was saying, “but hubris is her greatest fault.”

The Tulpa let the useless remark pass. “What else?”

The effort to speak was paining her, and as Regan swallowed, I imagined congealing blood clots sliding down her tattered throat. She might be substantially more helpless than she’d been as a Shadow agent, but her determination was still terrifying. “She visits Master Comics with shocking regularity.”

“As you said. Hubris.” His voice was noncommittal, but that he was allowing her to continue spoke volumes.

“She’s no longer in contact with her mortal boyfriend, and as far as I can tell, cares nothing for him. He has no memory of their relationship beyond their dalliance as teens.”

The romance between Ben Traina and me had popped up in the Shadow manuals over the last few weeks, now that the information couldn’t be used against me. Still, I tensed.

“Rewiring,” the Tulpa said.

“Complete.”

I couldn’t afford a sigh of relief, but the confirmation that Ben had been eliminated from the Tulpa’s mental radar was nice. A month ago he might have still gone after him. These days he had bigger fish to fry.

“She’s in constant search for a way to heal the changeling of Light-”

“That is not news.” He said it like she was wasting his time.

“And she has a daughter.”

A gasp escaped me before I could stop it. Particularly loud in the wake of the Tulpa’s shocked silence, it was no surprise that the next sound was again talons scrambling against concrete. I envisioned his tail jerking from that barbed spine as the growl slipped from his throat. His eyes pulsed in a red strobe, expending some of that precious energy to light the tunnel before him. I held as still as a corpse…exactly what I’d be if either of them saw me hanging there like a big blond bat. My eyes were closed-I couldn’t risk them reflecting that red-but through the thin lids I made out his methodical scan, like a tiny searchlight slipping along the slick walls. It paused on algae and graffiti, caught light from water crystals hanging like stalactites from the ceiling, but I remained tucked into that inverted basin, silently praying nothing of my clothing or self hung tellingly from above.

“It was probably just a rat. They’re as large as cats down here.”

“And if it wasn’t?” A step forward. I swallowed hard.

“I’ve been in this tunnel almost a week. I’d have heard anyone entering or exiting.”

Or not, I thought with smug relief as the Tulpa’s attention returned to her. Perhaps Regan had mistaken me for a very large rat that morning.

The light relented. “So where is this daughter of my daughter’s?”

“I don’t know,” Regan admitted, “but her name is Ashlyn.”

“Surname?”

“Still working on that, sir.”

I did sag then. I couldn’t help it. This was salvageable. Warren and Micah could amend Ashlyn’s birth records. They could convince her adoptive parents to move, as they’d done once before. Of course, that was when Warren had believed she was only a mortal infant targeted by the Shadow side.

I’d have to tell him, I realized. That she was my daughter. A future Archer. And Warren-a man who’d told me to venture into a soul- and power-stealing world in search of a Shadow who was really Light-would take Ashlyn, almost ten and completely oblivious of her paranormal future, away from everything she’d ever known.

“And Joanna’s new identity?” His voice was deadly soft now, like snow falling. “Who is she now, while freely roaming my city?”

Regan hesitated. “Allow me to return to the Shadow troop, and I’ll tell you.”

A soft sulfuric sigh. “Your sign has already been filled by a new Leo.”

“Kill him,” she replied without hesitation. No, destroyed body or not, Regan hadn’t changed at all.

“Tell me Joanna’s cover identity,” the Tulpa countered.

“No.”

Smoke-instant, hot and venomous-roiled in the tunnel. I fought not to cough. Fortunately, Regan’s pained hacking covered my own small sounds. The toxic smoke had to burn against those raw, festering wounds. Had it been anyone else, I’d have felt sorry for them.

“You insufferable little-”

“Kill me now,” she coughed, “and you’ll never know.”

Silence. A moment where his emotions could have tipped either way. “Clever, Regan.”

“You’ve no use for anyone who is not.” Relief oozed around the sibilant hiss of her shredded tongue. She sounded, I thought, like a different species altogether.

“True. But if this information isn’t entirely correct, I’ll make sure the rest of your days are spent as nothing more than a beating heart encased in bone.”

“But if any small bit leads to her capture,” she negotiated, “from her residence to her associates, then I’ll be allowed to return. And repair.”

A moment’s hesitation, coupled with a considering breath. “I can do that.”

I closed my eyes, head drooping.

“Additionally, I promise this: I’ll deliver her to you alive.”

“How?” The noxious scent had receded, like the Tulpa had pulled it back into his pores, but a puff of it returned in that one disbelieving word. “You can’t go out in public. Even at night she’ll scent you out.”

A shrug seeped into her voice. “Except I have a new friend.”

“A goat?” the Tulpa asked, referring derisively to our mortal helpers. “Another changeling?”

“Better. An agent of Light.”

The Tulpa sucked in a surprised breath. And I couldn’t breathe at all.

“Do we have a deal?”

There was no hesitation now, just another sharp scraping along the floor. “Take back her conduit. Use it as bait and leverage in leading her to me. She’s desperate for it.”

“Unfortunately for you both,” said another, new flowing voice, an unexpected bloom. “It has absolutely no effect on me.”

Skamar charged. Wind lit through the tunnel like a match thrown on gasoline. The two tulpas careened past me, clawing and snarling as they rolled over one another before slamming into the dead end. The impact shook the entire pipeline, and dislodged me from my hidey-hole. My feet swung down, one hand slipping from its rung.

Spotting the movement, Regan gasped.

“Oops.” My glyph burst to life.

She fired.

Too late to drop, I swung. The bolt clipped my chaps and pinned my left leg to the wall.

“No!” Skamar barreled into Regan so quickly the Shadow ricocheted off her, bounced against a wall and fell still.

I whipped my head the other way. The Tulpa’s eyes, literally, lit on me.

“Got him!” Skamar pinballed back the other way. “Go!”

As the tulpas again collided, I yanked the bolt from where it was embedded in the wall and dropped to a crouch on the fetid floor. Ahead of me, Regan was rising. Flipping the crossbow bolt in my hand, I wound up like hometown hero Greg Maddox and let it fly.

My pitching arm was no better over here than it’d been in the Rest House. I didn’t hit Regan’s torso…but I did nick her arm, and she screamed as her flesh endured yet more injury. Then she ran.

“I like these odds better.” And leaving my bag tied to the rungs, and the tulpas battling like rabid wolves behind me, I gave chase.