City of Souls

20

The air was cooler on the landing, and seemingly less dense, as if the molecules were fat and inflated to dizzying effect. I’d been weighed down under the influence of drink upon my last ascension, and I wondered if this was how the women upstairs felt all the time, like they were tropical breezes off an island, the cool of a Caribbean drink in the palm. Breathing up here, I decided on my next woozy breath, was a bit like learning to walk on the moon.

The door leading to Solange’s observatory stood ajar, and its hinges squeaked as I pushed it open, letting Jacks know I was there. He remained as he was, back turned as he gazed out one of the tiny windows, a strong hand pressed to the glass so the sheen of his smooth fingertips was reflected there. Those twelve squares emitted the only light in the room, which was otherwise empty-no mine cart, no Solange.

As I approached the first bright square, Jacks shifted, moving away like he didn’t want me too near, but never fully turning my way. Attention still on him, I glanced out the first small, shining pane to see what he was studying. It was obviously another room, though fogged, with dull shapes weaving in and out of the wispy layers. None drew close enough to identify, and though obviously human, the movement reminded me of fish in an aquarium. Odd, I thought, as the shimmering landscape rippled, gray where it was nearest, melting into opacity farther away.

I moved to the next window, thinking maybe this was why he was here. Maybe there was something else he was searching for…plus, it had the added benefit of bringing me closer to him. But I halted when I discovered this was a different scene entirely. A bustling cityscape I didn’t recognize until I spotted the triangular, Art Deco building looming across from me. There was only one early-century building like that and it was in Manhattan. The stairwell I was peering from was obviously a subway station, and a steady stream of people barreled by in a full-throttle thrust before disappearing underground.

The next window, still closer to Jacks, offered up a half view of an ornate mosque, and in the following one I immediately recognized Buckingham Palace, the guards immobile like human statues. I had no cultural moorings on which to plant myself for the one after that, except to know that the concave tiles and dramatic, sweeping eaves meant it was somewhere in Asia. But if those exotic sights perplexed me, I was absolutely astonished by what I saw next, though not because it was unfamiliar.

This, I thought with a gaping mouth, was a cityscape I recognized all too well. As if through the lens of a periscope, I found myself peering out on the faux settings of New York, Monte Carlo, and a make-believe castle. It was unmistakably Vegas.

“The pipeline,” I whispered, making out the spot where I’d entered minutes before. I leaned heavily against the wall, my thoughts of Jacks momentarily diverted. What were these things? Pipelines from around the world? “Oh my God.”

I’d been right. Midheaven was a way around the restriction about leaving the Las Vegas valley once we were full-fledged troop members. This, I was suddenly certain, was what Warren had been keeping from us. This was what the Shadow agents, and Jacks, had long known. This was why there were so many lanterns spaced along the wall below.

Which explained the varied agents in the Rest House, the full bloom of women behind lacquered doors, their differing races and colors and backgrounds…yet other questions bloomed in their place. What was at the other end of each pipeline? A candle, as it was for me? And while the Old West was appropriate for Vegas, it didn’t hold for Asia or London. So was it hypothetically possible for me to get to London this way? To China?

Jacks had taken the opportunity of my distraction to place himself between the exit and me, and he smiled when I glanced sharply at him. We began to circle one another in that way, each keeping our back to the wall.

“Pretty from a distance, huh?” he said, jerking his head toward the Vegas window.

“Pretty from up close,” I corrected.

“You think?” He pursed his lips in disagreement. “I’ve always thought it looks like an old lady who went to bed without taking off her makeup. A bit sad, and in need of a good scrubbing.”

I tilted my head, continued my careful sidestep. “That why you came here? Take a little vacation from it all, play some poker…strip away part of your soul?”

I was looking for a reaction…but all I got was an admission.

“All but the last part,” he said coldly.

My heart rate snapped to attention as I stared, but I tried to play it cool, though it was taking all of my formidable acting abilities to stand in the same room as him and not swing. “She’s making you wait,” I said, like I wasn’t thinking of planting a boot-or a grenade-in his chest.

“It’s what women do.” The shrug was in his voice. He was looking at me, waiting for her, and standing in a world where he was a second-class citizen, yet he didn’t look a bit concerned. He’d killed at least two mortals so he could bounce between worlds, and it weighed upon him like cigarette ash. I inhaled, expecting to find a deadened rot, similar to a Shadow’s, but the scent emanating from his giant body was green, like money or opportunity, and so round on the air it was almost three-dimensional.

Not like the men downstairs, I thought, breathing in deeply again. Scent appeared to be attached to energy here; maybe the others had bartered away too much of both, and what was left had been watered down into an imitation of its former odor. This man’s blood was rich, like elixir, and it didn’t seem fair. It was also probably vain of me to wonder in that moment what exactly I smelled like, and if it was this heady and dizzying too.

But Jacks was here to see Solange. Beautiful, dangerous Solange, who had knowledge of the stars, who smelled sweet and frosty like ice wine, and who was also of our world.

Which reminded me. “I have a question for you.”

He began to smile, already knowing I was going to ask how to fix the changeling. Everyone in my world knew what was happening there. “And you’ll give what for the answer?”

“Your life,” I answered coolly.

He laughed, but I couldn’t tell if it was because or in spite of the threat. “And if I want yours in exchange?”

I thought of the sky falling over Vegas.

Skamar’s desperate plea for power.

An unstoppable infection festering on Li’s ravaged baby face.

It wasn’t an entirely unreasonable request.

I swallowed hard.

Jacks began circling again, and this time I stood my ground. He folded his arms when he drew to a stop in front of me, so close his body heat lapped at my skin. His rich eyes had darkened in the depths of the dim room and now resembled dry sap, with life still caught within. “Here’s what we’ll do,” he said, voice so low only the rumble escaped his throat. “We’ll trade answers for answers. But I get to ask as many questions as I want. You only get the one.”

I opened my mouth to agree, but hesitated again. What if Jacks returned to Vegas and used whatever information I’d given him against my troop? What if he asked who I really was, and my Olivia Archer cover was blown? What if he returned and told the Tulpa everything Regan was still holding close to her shredded chest?

What if I went back with nothing and the sky fell, and Li Chan died at the age of eight?

I leaned against the London window, where it was-surprise-raining. “A dance for information, then?”

“A tango,” he replied with a twist of his lips, “for things we can use to harm one another later.”

“How dysfunctional,” I remarked lightly.

“Most relationships are.” Another light sparked in his beautiful eyes. “Note, I saved you the trouble of falling in love with me first.”

“Only because you know the separation will be a bitch.” I gave him a broad smile. “Did you have an actual question?”

He cocked his head to the left. “I’d like to know what you think you’re fighting for?”

I drew back before I could stop myself. “What kind of question is that?”

His grin was an unnecessary reminder of our agreement. “One that will tell me what you risked to get here.”

It was clever. Big guy. Body like a weapon. Yet Jacks already knew, as I was learning, that not every battle was fought with bow-and-arrow, or fists. “You should be able to guess at that if you’ve done your homework. I mean, don’t you know who I am?”

“You sure that’s the question you want to ask?”

“No,” I said immediately, retracting it.

He raised his brows, then shrugged, so I’d continue wondering just how much he knew. “I know why you’re here. That’s different, though, than why you think you’re here.”

“Boring superhero crap.” I waved a hand through the air. “Save the world, all that. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Ah, but I understand that no one acts without some deep internal motivation. So why is this personal for you? What would you cross worlds to save?”

I bit my lip and stared at him so long that hours probably passed in Vegas. I don’t know what I was searching for. Maybe some inkling that the agent of Light he’d once been was still living inside that bulging frame, some show of remorse. Something I could connect to.

But the more I stared, the more I saw our differences. We’d switched lives, I realized. I’d become an accepted part of the troop he’d left. He now worked alone, and the self-will that had gotten him thrown out so long ago had calcified into unwavering self-preservation. It was all he knew, all that made sense. So trying to explain why I’d give up my very soul for the chance to save someone else was like trying to explain chocolate to a caveman. It was a decadence he’d never live to know.

“You’re morally bankrupt,” I said instead.

“Untrue. I’m as honest as a person can be while impersonating two people at the same time.” The intimation being that I was not. “Now answer the question.”

I backed up to where he’d been standing when I’d entered, and looked out on a wind-whipped Vegas. She was taking a beating on the other side of the peaceful pane. I tapped my smooth fingertips off the glass, and they chinked unnaturally. “That,” I finally answered, pointing. “I’m doing this for my home.”

“I already told you, that answer isn’t going to cut it. You can’t tell me you feel for all of Vegas. It’s not personal enough.”

I shook my head. See? I knew he wouldn’t understand. “I didn’t say Vegas. I said home.” I swallowed hard, and continued to stare out that bleak window. “It’s a place…borne out in a person.”

An awkward silence bloomed as he waited for me to continue. I lifted my hand to the window, thinking of Ben-because I’d once told him he was my home-and of Jasmine and Li, of my troop and Cher and the mortals I felt a kinship with because I’d been one once. And though I was here for all that, it was Jacks’s question that made me realize I’d come primarily for me. I wanted my city saved for me. I wanted my troop secured so I’d have security. I’d finally found a place where I fit in, felt whole, and saw-for the first time-an actual future. It included being a twenty-first century superhero. And, getting really personal, it included Hunter.

Hunter, who made my mouth dry up just by walking away. Who made it water when he came back, like I was anticipating the best meal of my life. I thought of how my fingers involuntarily twitched when I caught sight of him, how I reached for him without even realizing. Around Hunter, all my senses came to life. Not dormant ones, not long-lost ones, but present ones, brightly alive.

“I was with him just before I left.” I thought of the night we’d spent together, the madness in our lovemaking, the awareness of how fleeting precious things could be. The need to consume and rage and hold on all at the same time. I sucked in a deep breath, and the memory wrapped around my heart like a shell protecting the life within. I smiled. “Yeah. He’s why I’m really here.”

“Don’t tell me that the prophesied savior of our world is willing to forego destiny for a mere man? I mean, what is this world coming to?”

Guess I didn’t have to worry about hiding who I was.

“Don’t make fun of this.” I turned on him slowly, like a mountain lion on an elk. He’d do well to remember I wasn’t without claws. “You asked, and I’m being as honest as I possibly can. That’s how much this means to me.” That’s how much Hunter means, I realized. I’d have made the trip over here, risking soul and life and personal power, for him alone. That was about as personal as it got.

Jacks’s nostrils flared again, and I knew my discovery was pouring from me in some sort of perfumed scent. I briefly wondered what love newly realized smelled like, and was instantly frustrated by the thought that this foul being was the one to scent it for the first time instead of Hunter.

Nicely done, I silently berated myself. Taking the moment from the man it belongs to and giving it to another. To a child-killer, I thought derisively. A soul-stealer. The idea of it, though repulsive, gave me another.

I stepped closer. My voice too became more intimate as I neared him. The chasm between the man before me and the one I was thinking of was wider than Red Rock Canyon, but I could use the emotion to get what I wanted. A world ruled by women, right? So could it be as easy as Solange said? Just embrace the contradiction. Be comfortable with myself…and lull Jacks into doing the same. I licked my upper lip, tilting my head so I was gazing directly into his eyes. “How do I fix the changeling of Light?”

Jacks’s eyes flickered, watching my tongue. “You can’t.”

“I have to,” I said, stepping closer. “Otherwise the Tulpa will win. The Light will snuff out. The world will collapse.”

“Only part of it.” He lifted a shoulder, but otherwise remained still. I continued my advance.

“My world,” I said as blithely. I was so close that had I still been encased in Olivia’s flesh, my breasts would have been brushing his chest. “My home. Tell me how to fix her.”

He swallowed hard. “Haven’t you figured it out yet, Archer? Human beings are fragile creatures. What do you think happened to that girl’s chi the very moment yours invaded?”

I drew back a tad at that. “Invaded? My powers have been funneling into her, making her stronger.”

“Yeah, and if you pull them back now, there’ll be nothing to keep her upright. It’ll be like removing her etheric spine. Her soul energy is long gone, departed for deep outer space. Not destroyed, of course, but reabsorbed, re-imagined into the fabric of the Universe.”

“No.” I shook my head and swallowed hard. “Her death is not an option.” Nor was Li’s. Nor the city’s.

That careless shrug again, and he moved in, suddenly taking me up on my advances. I stiffened, wanting to vomit on his shoes. “It all depends on what you think of as death. Energy is always transmuted, and used for something new.”

I jerked away from his hand on mine, pulling back again when his index finger trailed my wrist. “Is that how you justify murdering that changeling? A child? And the woman, whomever she was, whose soul power you used for passage this time?”

He grinned, and it wasn’t at all handsome. “I was wondering how long it’d be before you snapped. It takes a lot of energy to pretend to be something you’re not. To feign being in love with someone you’re not.”

As if I could ever love a poison like you. “What would a murderer like you know about love?”

“Because that’s why I crossed over too.”

And as if on cue, the door opposite the entrance swung wide. Solange stood in silhouette, delicately draped in deep-plunging, sophisticated black, posed like Erté’s muse.

She stepped forward so that her features took focus just in time for me to catch the narrowing of her eyes. She scanned Jacks, me, the way our bodies were angled toward each other’s. She inhaled deeply…and her features grew even more pointed.

“What the hell is going on here?” Her arms dropped to her side. She advanced upon me, the seductress suddenly replaced by a warrior princess, and I stepped back even though I had nothing to feel guilty about. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Well, Jacks and I-”

Her earrings, the same fine fragile hoops as before, swung at her lobes as she jerked her head. “Jacks and you nothing! He’s here to see me, and it took him long enough.”

I held up my hands. “No. I mean, yes. I just-”

“Get out.” She pointed one slender arm at the door, black silk pooling to the ground.

“But-”

Jacks was suddenly by her side. “My wife wishes for you to leave.”

“Wife?” Shock made my voice too loud.

“Out!” Solange repeated, matching the tone.

“Not now,” he said, and there was nothing seductive left in his touch as he dragged me to the door.

“But you didn’t answer my question!” I jerked my arm away, and he grabbed it again. “I need to fix the changeling of Light and only you can tell me how.”

He spun me toward him after depositing me on the other side of the doorway, and still holding tight, leaned close. “You can’t. All you can do is take back your own energy.”

“What?”

“Kill her, Archer. It’s the only way to save everything you love.”

And he slammed the door in my face.

Only a moment of stunned silence passed, perhaps two, before I was pounding on the locked door, demanding reentry. I didn’t care who heard, what sort of energy I was expending, or who wanted it for their own. I was so desperate to get back in that room that I was only marginally aware of the women gathering to watch me at the other end of the banister. Meanwhile, my mind whirled.

Kill Jasmine? That couldn’t be the only way.

I continued pounding and yelling, therefore missed the rapid footsteps approaching from the other side, though that also could have been because they belonged to the smaller of the two persons who’d thrown me out. The door jerked wide, and I briefly saw Jacks’s silhouette by Las Vegas’s viewing window, but then Solange thrust her face in mine, her features contorted with fury.

I was clearly ruining her long-anticipated reunion with her husband.

Jacks was Solange’s husband!

She pushed into my space until she was halfway out the door, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen a woman so close to a blinding rage. Not Regan, when I’d taken the life of the last person who meant anything to her, and not even me when my bones baked closely to the surface of my skin, eyes glowing in a crimson replica of the Tulpa’s.

Because I was only part Shadow, I thought, swallowing hard. And for the first time I saw past Solange’s borrowed beauty-the adornment she put on using everyone else’s life energy-to the woman, the Shadow, that lay beneath.

Her bones were liquid, and rolled beneath her flesh. Her gaze was so white-hot it nearly sliced open the air on the way to me. Solange, I suddenly realized, was not left alone in this room and deferred to because she was especially beautiful. She owned it because she was especially dangerous. Power pooled around her like an electrical current, and I instinctively took another step back. She’d amassed more energy for herself in this world than I’d ever possessed, and it looked like she was about to unleash it all upon me.

Seeing my retreat for what it was, she inhaled sharply to rein in her anger. Clenching her jaw, those liquid bones rearranged themselves again, and she blew out a breath as hot as the air drying out the men below. It scared me more than if she’d screamed. “I’ll tell you what you want to know if you promise to leave. Immediately.”

Gladly, I thought, sighing as well. I nodded.

“To fix a displaced aura, to mend a broken human being, you must merely hold fast to one basic tenet. It’s both simple and hard. It’s also essential to your changeling’s-and your troop’s-continued existence.” She licked her lips, formulating words that I knew would be truth…but as slight and obscure as she could make it. I waited. “Put her, always, physically and otherwise, above yourself.”

I swallowed and shook my head. “I don’t know what that means.”

“That’s not my problem.” She began to shut the door again.

No, I thought, jamming my foot inside. I was too close to just leave now. “Just tell me-”

“Nobody gets anything for free here!” Her eyes fired again, like light catching on the facets of diamonds. “Now, leave!”

She thrust out a palm in my direction, and though it never touched me, a bolt sliced through my solar plexus, the shove staggering pieces inside me like a puzzle coming undone. A breeze swept over places air should never touch, and my mind, my emotion, my thoughts, and all the intangibles that made me me were pushed from my body. It was nauseating to both be there and not, and while my feet were bolted to the ground, everything that truly animated me flew backward, whistling against the wind, tumbling down the staircase to end up in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.

My body arrived a moment later. I sat up quickly-too quickly-and heard an audible snap. Sure enough, I wobbled, hesitated, then leaned over and puked on the floor. Still dizzy, room spinning, I remained on my hands and knees long after the howls of laughter and groans of disgust faded away. My vision was blurred and I had to pinpoint a solid object in order for it to clear, though when it finally did, I was sad to discover the object on the scarred wooden floor was the pendant Suzanne had given me, now broken down into four separate pieces. Slowly I gathered them up in my palm, and by the time I finally looked up, the women who’d gathered along the banister were gone, and most of the men had returned to their cards.

Not the dealers. They’d created a tight circle around me, eyes spinning like silver reels.

I used the curved banister to help gain my feet, letting go as soon as my knees would hold. It looked like I was about to get my ass kicked, because no way was I going back up those stairs. I was still dizzy, but the heat wasn’t going to make it any better, so I pocketed the jewelry, widened my stance, and readied myself to take on a handful of angry dealers.

Eyes still whirling, Boyd only held out his hand.

I glanced over at Bill. He was stroking his chin, looking amused. I took a testing step in the direction of my lantern. The circle shifted around me. Bill leaned his elbows on the bar and gave me a small shake of his head. “Solange says you aren’t to be touched.”

I took another testing step to the side, and swallowed back a second bout of nausea as the ring of men shifted with me. “Then what’s up with the dealers o’death?”

My words were sharp, but my voice was tinny and echoed in my ears. My spirit or soul or whatever it was that Solange had loosened from within me was back, but I wasn’t sure it had all settled in the right place. For the first time I became aware of a high ringing in my ears. I’d have shaken my head, but I didn’t want to be sick again.

“She wants you to leave, but she wants to teach you a lesson as well. And Solange generally gets what she wants.” He shrugged as I thought, No kidding. “One of your gaming chips will gain you passage home.”

I swallowed hard. Nobody gets anything for free here.

Despite Solange’s parting words, and being outnumbered, I might have fought it. It was the heat that decided things for me, though. I could either hand one over, or wait until I was too weak to stop them from picking my pockets clean, and though I hated the way the fight drained from me, intuition told me not to choose this battle. “Can I pick it?”

“She didn’t specify, but if you sit down for a game with the boys, I’ll throw it in the pot.” Giving me a chance to gain this chip back, along with the others.

I sighed, pulling my chips from my pocket, shaking my head as I looked them over. “I grew up in a gambling town, Bill. I know not to chase my losses.” And I needed to get out of here quickly. Thirst and heat fueled desperation, and desperation led to bad decisions.

“That’s okay.” Boyd dropped the chip I handed him into his front pocket. “Next time.”

Still wary, I sidestepped toward my lantern, surrounded by my own personal retinue. The ringing in my head pounded like a heartbeat with every step. “No. I’m never coming back.”

I’d faced multiple attacks on my life, the most recent at the hands of both the Tulpa and Skamar, but I’d never faced anything as intrinsically frightening as what Solange had just done. And that, I thought with my raised hand shaking, had only been her warning.

Bill began his endless round of polishing pretty crystal glasses again, unconcerned. “You will. Then Mackie will finish his ballad, your other name will be revealed, and we’ll own you.”

“You’ve caused us a lot of trouble, Olivia,” Boyd said, his strange eyes fixed like lasers on me. “Maybe we’ll just kill you upon your next passage and give your power over to Midheaven in one big bump. Use it to create something interesting for ourselves.”

“You mean the women will create something for themselves.” Harlan Tripp had returned to his seat, his hands empty of all but playing cards. Apparently my words had provided him with the resolve he needed to resist that drink. For now.

Boyd ignored him, and simply raised his bushy black brows above those still spinning eyes. Apparently he was in a hurry to return to his table, to slice away bits of other people’s souls one sliver at a time.

Shen, one of the divided souls, grinned. “And then Mackie will slit your throat.”

My eyes darted to Mackie, but he was motionless and slumped like a sack of bones. I paused at my lantern to take one last look over the Rest House. Why had the First Mother, that dark twin, created this place? What need compelled a person-thing, goddess, monster, whatever she was-to take human energy to fuel a world where men were forced to languish in their vices? Because though none of the men down here could voice their objections, I could feel them, restless as ghosts, in my mind. Like a city of souls, I thought with a shiver, all the emotion bottled up. Inside, though? They were screaming like banshees.

As for me? I might be the Kairos in my world, but over here I was as expendable as a wad of tissue. I felt that in my cells, a knowledge as instinctive as flight or fight. Today I chose flight.

Boyd pulled my chip from his pocket again, holding it up so the etched denomination caught light. I looked at it regretfully, and he smiled. “Not bad. I’ll have your line of credit waiting when you return.”

I shook my head, but said nothing, already mute with dread, anticipating that power being ripped from me. Fortunately, the heat dried the moisture welling in my eyes before it could give me away. At least I was still keeping up the appearance of being tough.

I was just about to blow the wick out, already bracing myself for the pain of the passage home, when I caught the gaze of the one man down there that was from my time. A Shadow agent, yes, but the only one fighting the effects of this place as fully as I. It was enough to make me feel he was a sort of ally.

“Hey, Tripp,” I said, lifting to my toes. He blinked, lifting his eyes from the cards. “Eighteen years.”

There was only his shocked gasp before the smoke from my extinguished lantern billowed and built, solid enough to ferry me back to my world, thick enough to dampen my scream.