City of Souls

21

I arrived back in the pipeline, fists clenched, trying to hang onto the intangible. But by the time I recognized the deep well of curving concrete beneath my booted feet, the chip I’d given Boyd-my ability to create walls from thin air-was gone. Alone, there was only my breathing, shallow and uncertain. And thank God, because the last time this tunnel had been peopled with enemies. As I calmed, I sucked in the silence and cried, just a little, in the dark.

Pushing past that inconveniently timed weakness, I then went in search of my shoulder bag. The depthless black of the pipeline enveloped me as if I were going farther in, rather than out, but after retrieving the bag-and dump-ing my remaining, dwindling chips inside-I continued to inch along in the darkness, unwilling to light the glyph on my chest and turn myself into a walking target. I knew where I was, but not when.

Disoriented, I dug in the bag and turned on my phone. There were another dozen messages from Cher, which I skipped, but what was really important was the date. Three days after I’d left. Not too bad. I’d traveled to a whole new world and still made it back in time for Thanksgiving. I called Hunter, still got his voice mail, and realized he’d probably be “working” at Valhalla, so left a message for him to call me back on his break.

Not trusting that I was steady enough yet to drive, I caught a cab. I didn’t care what Warren said, after dying from thirst, I needed a cool glass of water at my side; after Solange’s separation of my body from my soul, I needed refuge; after days where I’d had nothing but worry, and a heated night of passion, I needed to be in a place where nothing was required of me but to be. In short, I needed the sanctuary.

It was downtown, buried beneath the discarded remains of our city, in the Neon Boneyard. The entrance sat kitty-corner to the restored La Concha Motel lobby, a mid-mod building with a wavy roof I used to point and laugh at as a kid, but was now considered historic. My, how things change. Our lair was surrounded by a brick wall, which also divided two parallel realities.

The exact split between dawn and dusk lasted the scant moments it took the sun to evenly split the sky, and in that time the wall surrounding the Neon Boneyard became a murky, swirling coagulation of liquefied matter. If you knew how to look, you could see parts of it thinning, the discarded signage of Las Vegas’s yesteryear visible through shifting patches on the other side.

Still, you’d think the booming crash of a three thousand pound vehicle regularly hitting concrete would attract the Neighborhood Watch, but despite the explosion of cinder block and debris, and the squealing crunch of metal meeting wall, the dust acted as a sort of buffer. It didn’t absorb the sound as much as it sucked it in.

Even with erratic, supernatural winds buffering this cab, and with four of my powers stripped away-the two odd triangles I’d lost at the tables, the power to heal taken by Shen, and the one I’d just given over to escape a second time-the thought gave me peace. Entering the sanctuary would be like stepping back into the womb, so with every mile gained, Midheaven faded like a nightmare, something I’d endured mentally but not physically. The soul slices and abilities taken from me had yet to show their effects, but I imagined this was what a surprise cancer diagnosis was like; the sudden, dark knowledge that something was wrong inside of you warring with a feeling of familiar, if not perfect, health. The awareness that the worst was soon to come.

As for those beings peopling the twisted magical kingdom, I was happy to have escaped them. Jacks and Solange deserved one another…though her sudden show of jealousy had thrown me. How a woman like that could see me as a threat was boggling. Yet since Jacks himself claimed he’d returned for love, I was sure they had it all straightened out by now.

And still no real way to fix Jasmine. I sighed heavily. Solange’s advice was to put her above myself, something I didn’t really need to be told. I’d gone there, hadn’t I? Risked my soul. Lost my powers. I had no idea what else “put her above yourself” could mean.

“But I’ve heard that somewhere before,” I muttered as we pulled onto Flamingo. We passed Money Plays, the neon green sign reminding me of half-yard beers and games of table shuffleboard. Maybe the advice had come from Hunter, I thought, glancing wistfully at Money’s attached pizzeria. Possibly Warren.

Warren, who’d lied.

Because he’d told me Jacks was already in Midheaven, and Warren didn’t make mistakes that big. So why lie? What would be his true motive in sending me to a place where the cost of entry was a third of my soul, where women ruled ruthlessly, and where my powers were risked in games of chance? I decided to ask him as soon as I entered the sanctuary.

Meanwhile, Jacks had been even less helpful. He told me to kill Jasmine so that my chi could return to me. It was shocking that a former agent of Light could think such a thing, much less say it. If he were a Shadow agent, or worse, if he were the Tulpa…

What would he do if he were the Tulpa? What would I do?

I sat up so straight in the backseat that the cab actually rocked and the driver cursed.

“Strong winds,” I muttered, but he only frowned at me in the rearview mirror. I fumbled for my phone, again dialing Hunter’s number.

“The Tulpa doesn’t want me dead,” I said as soon as his voice mail allowed. “He needs me alive. If I die, my chi will unite again. In Jasmine.”

The energy would be reabsorbed in Jasmine’s body, the same way the energy of the people Jaden Jacks used for crossing into Midheaven was absorbed into that world.

“But the Tulpa can’t let that happen. Because then the manuals would be written again.” Our troop would be strong again. Skamar would have her recorded name. Li would be healed. Sure, he wanted Regan to bring me to him, he probably even wanted to punish me for all the trouble I’d caused him this past year-especially for siccing Skamar on him-but he didn’t want me dead. Yet.

“He needs me alive. He can’t touch me.” And I hung up without saying good-bye. There was a sonic boom in the distance, the tulpas warring over the black mountains, but I smiled grimly at the embattled sky. My powers had been taken from me, but I could walk freely on this side of reality, a power in itself. I’d cross over for now, work with the others to figure out how to use this knowledge to best the Tulpa, and we could all heal the Zodiac together.

After that, I thought, leaning my head back, I could truly rest.

I had the driver drop me at Town Square, a likely destination for Olivia Archer, with its upscale shopping and dining and nightlife. It was a straight shot down the Strip to the Peppermill, but also far enough away that I could approach by stealth. With my speed, one of the super strengths I’d managed to retain, I’d make it to the old-school Vegas lounge well in time for the dusk crossing.

But the low ceiling of cloud cover was throwing off my senses. The sun and sky were still there, somewhere, but the razored sheets of bulging gray obscured both. Gregor would have to sense the moment rather than using the light. I wasn’t worried. For us, the splitting of dawn and dusk was like the dissection of a vein. It might be a small thing, but we felt it when it happened.

I dodged onto Koval Lane, where a cluster of kids was hanging around outside a run-down apartment complex. They were bundled in clothing more suited to the East Coast than anything I’d ever thought to see in the desert, and one greasy-haired punk glanced up from blowing on his knuckles and hooted, obviously recognizing me as Olivia Archer. Grumbling, I rounded the corner and yanked a hooded sweatshirt from my bag-it would conceal my hair if not my shape-and slipped my mask on as well.

I cut through the parking lot of the Guardian Angel Cathedral, an unlikely dome created in the fifties, where visitors to the valley could go get their Catholic on before the day’s gambling began, and was just edging by the giant, and odd, odalisque out front when I heard the first whisper.

“Such a good day to die…”

The glyph on my chest shot to life, but when I whirled around I saw nothing.

“Over here…Archer.”

Shit, shit, shit…The scent was that of Shadows…but I saw nothing. They’re on the flip side. Concealed behind a portal.

I backed up in a swift skipping beat, blinked once, then softened my gaze as if looking through the air in front of me.

He was so close I could kiss him. He was especially white, with flat black freckles dotting his cheeks, and looked like he’d be a redhead on this side of reality. I back up more…straight into another Shadow. That one would have grabbed me but for my speed. I raked my heel down his shin on the way to stomping on his foot. My elbow connected with his jaw as he fell. After that I backed up more quickly. The first Shadow continued advancing, not letting me escape, but in no great hurry either.

“The Tulpa wants me alive,” I blurted, expecting to feel another pair of hands on me at any minute. I had no way of knowing how many there were.

The would-be redhead shrugged. “There are lots of ways to hurt an agent and still keep them alive.”

Not for me. I couldn’t easily heal from anything more dangerous than a paper cut…but I had yet to tell my allies that, never mind my enemies. And I wasn’t going to try to stand toe-to-toe and exchange blows. I could barely see the guy, much less guard against him.

I decided to put my formidable speed to the test. Letting a smile I didn’t feel bloom on my face, I looked over the almost see-through shoulder. Sometimes the simplest plans worked best. I bolted even as he turned, on guard for an attack, and shouts sounded behind me. God, there were others. The pounding of their feet in reality’s flip side was as loud and insistent as my own.

I hit Cathedral Way like I was late for mass, but put the skids on as soon as I saw a souped-up Honda wheeling in my direction. Instinct was to run the other way, but instead I backed up to the building’s corner and ducked low. The Shadow chasing me was already turning as fast as I had, and he flipped over the top of my crouched body like he was auditioning for Cirque du Soleil. I was pretty sure that was the only reason the car didn’t immediately run me down. But the Shadow driving it revved the engine in warning.

Obviously I was expected to turn and run. They were herding me away from Gregor’s cab, I realized, which was behind the Honda. I could see its headlights on the other side of the Peppermill and wondered if he saw what was going on not two hundred yards away.

The Tulpa wants me alive.

They were trying to capture me.

I took advantage of my unlikely savior’s prone form and bolted across his body-making sure to land one solid boot heel into his skull as I vaulted over the top of the Honda. It started backing up immediately, but the driver had to shift gears first and that bought me time. I waved my arms as I ran, and Gregor’s headlights flashed in response. He saw me. The cab pulled out, barreled toward me, and swerved at the last moment. I flung open the back door, catapulted myself into the backseat, and yelled from a prone position, “Go, go, go!”

The door swung wide as he smoked rubber to get us going, and I anticipated another attack. Sure enough, an outlined hand clawed its way onto the frame of my open door. Stomping again with my feet, I heard the Shadow scream before falling away, and I pulled up into my seat to yank the door shut. Swiveling, I saw the Honda bounce over two parking blocks and mow down a handicapped sign as it flipped around to follow. Even as we fishtailed in front of the giant Stripside mall, I knew we wouldn’t last long on the boulevard. It was a near straight shot from there to the boneyard, and the street was totally deserted in the wild night. Both things left the faster Honda free to rear-end us.

“We’re too exposed,” I yelled, reeling around to face Gregor. “We’ll never make it all the way to-”

I stuttered off because the long-lashed eyes that met mine in the rearview mirror were most certainly not Gregor’s. The manicured fingers tightening on the wheel were on the right hand, and Gregor only possessed his left. More than anything, the skull burning through the layers of muscle and tissue and skin to skim the surface could only belong to a senior Shadow agent.

“To the boneyard?” the Shadow finished for me, and suddenly I knew what they were doing. She smiled as my eyes widened. “Don’t worry. We’ll still make it.”

The redhead had been the muscle. The other car was just an escort. One filled with Shadows. This one, the lead one, held me. Why? Because I was the only one who could get through the additional security measures Warren had implemented after the last time the Shadows infiltrated the boneyard. Similar to the light that attacked all Shadows if they tried to enter our sanctuary inside the boneyard, this system had to detect Light in order to allow passage.

“Shit.”

The Shadow tapped on the Plexiglas dividing us, letting me know it was unbreakable…even for us. “That’s one way to put it.”

And another way to put it was to say I was surrounded-no, trapped-by my enemies, in a speeding car, without the ability to heal even from the impact of the crash through the wall dividing our realities. The Tulpa might not wish me dead, but chances were, I would still end up that way. It almost made me wish I’d remained in Midheaven. Almost.

Okay, so I didn’t possess any weapons to help me combat the Shadows. I had no allies, no power to heal, no ability to erect walls to shield me from assault, and I was missing something else represented by two mysterious triangles.

I really needed to figure out what those were, I thought, holding tight to the bag holding my remaining powers as we hurtled down Washington Avenue. If I got out of this alive. It was a big if.

The now confirmed fact that the Tulpa did indeed want me alive could be seen as a positive, but as the redheaded Shadow had said, there were a lot of ways to hurt an agent and still keep them alive. So was it good news or bad, I wondered, that I wouldn’t survive the impact of the cab hurtling through cinder block?

Yet the second car couldn’t even attempt that. There were no agents of Light in the Honda, so it would have to stop…which meant we would too. My best guess was that they’d climb in with me before the driver took a run at the wall, like a bull spotting the matador. God, I thought, swallowing hard, I needed more time!

Question was, time for what?

Well, there was enough time to pray, I thought as the car whizzed under the freeway. I guess I could start doing that. Though if God were a cynic, he probably wouldn’t appreciate my last minute scramble.

Time to say good-bye. Thanks for the memories, everyone, it’s been a nice ride…wish I could have stayed around to fulfill my destiny as the savior of the paranormal realm, but you know how these things go. Yeah, I thought, clenching my fists. That was so me. Going gently into the night.

Time to think of dwindling options. Regret not getting another shower of Micah’s fortifying preservative.

Nah, that was just depressing.

Time to imagine something new.

That thought snagged my attention. I tilted my head as the driver smiled at me through the rearview mirror and went back to that thought again.

It was true that I could no longer form the concrete walls from mere thought in order to shield me from the Shadows, but with a mortal’s flesh, concrete wasn’t my best friend right now anyway. Yet there was another option. Another risky, long shot of an option since I’d only succeeded in creating it on a small scale before. But it too was an ability only afforded the Light. Shadows couldn’t do it because it involved a sort of birthing, and beings that were essentially dead inside couldn’t bring something outside of themselves to life. But this meant they wouldn’t be expecting it, I thought, closing my eyes. It was chancy, but that-along with the element of surprise-was pretty much all that was left in my paranormal arsenal.

“Hey. Hey! What are you doing?” I felt the weight of the Shadow’s gaze as we barreled past Bunkers Mortuary, but kept my own eyes closed. I settled my senses and mind as much as possible, and began imagining the softest, most succulent, most enormous cactus buried below the dusty earth in front of the Neon Boneyard’s entrance. It was a Joshua tree, native to the area-which was important-and I pictured its fibers as being silk-soft, airy, and far less dense than a tree grown from seed. That would absorb the impact of the vehicle. I conceived it, and more importantly, I believed in it-which was key to its creation.

Joshua trees are normally top-heavy with a shallow root, so I reinforced the base of this one-I didn’t want it toppling to allow access into the wall just beyond-and then I visualized the branches lower, to match the driver’s height. As I continued to imagine this, the car veered to a halt. I needed to have most of the cactus conceptualized before the others clambered in. Once there, they’d never let me continue my meditation. The driver was already yelling obscenities at me, knowing I was up to something but not sure what. How could she? She didn’t have the capacity to even imagine what my Light side could create.

One final tweak: already naturally and conveniently bayonet-shaped, I reinforced the tapered leaves with iron, and made the spiraling clusters dense and tight and unyielding even under the full impact of a speeding car. As I finished off the last cluster, the Honda’s doors slammed behind us. I opened my eyes and stared straight ahead. I could make out the boneyard wall in the distance. It was still solid, and I took another moment to give the underground cactus an extra energy pulse, mentally softening the ground above it. Had any of the Shadows been looking, the shift in the wide swath of earth could be attributed to the wind, but the backseat doors were winging open, and the driver was already yelling.

“She’s doing something!” the woman screeched as sharp elbows and toxic breath suddenly hemmed me in. I knew them all, either from previous run-ins or, in the case of the newbies, from reading the Shadow manuals, an ability I possessed because I was half Shadow. I dampened my responding cough to their scent, forcing down bile, and continued staring straight ahead as Harrison slid in beside the driver. He shot me a little finger wave. The driver, still in animate cadaver mode, was like a snake spitting venom. “She’s up to something!”

“She’s trapped in a car with five Shadow agents and no conduit.” Harrison was talking to her but still smirking at me. I carefully envisioned an extra sharp barb arrowing into his skull. “Now watch the wall.”

Tariq leaned so close, his dump-site breath stirred my hair. “We’re going to cross over to the boneyard’s flip side and cut your troop down as they exit your sanctuary.”

“Looks that way,” I said woodenly, hoping no one would notice how much I was sweating beneath my hoodie and mask. It was harder to concentrate on creation with my eyes open. I’d never tried it that way before.

Sloane, next to me, was apparently looking for a greater reaction. She slapped my face so hard her nails raked the skin beneath the mask. Fortunately, she was too close to use her full power. I felt a tooth loosen at the back of my mouth and winced, which made her laugh. And that made my face burn.

“Don’t sit there like a statue,” she said as I lifted my chin and continued to stare at the wall. Dusk was splitting. The only good thing about this was that it divided and diverted their full attention from me. “You’ve gotta at least be getting excited.”

I lifted one brow. “Because murder and destruction are so thrilling?”

She slapped me again. I really hated being slapped. “You’re gonna lose that fucking hand,” I muttered.

She slapped me again. Now I had matching red cheeks…and matching red eyes.

“Wow, she looks just like-”

“Him,” Harrison said, and pointed at the sky.

The Tulpa was barreling toward us like a bull on acid. Damn it! The Shadows looked surprised to see him, so I knew it was my anger that had led him to us. He leveled out, going at least eighty miles an hour, swooping over the top of the car so it shook beneath his thundering cry. “Go!”

But it wasn’t yet time. The boneyard wall was beginning to ripple, like the shimmer of sun off asphalt, but it hadn’t softened yet. Impatient, the driver revved the engine, and everyone stared straight ahead, except for Tariq. He was watching the Tulpa behind us.

“Here it comes.”

“Gotta time it right, Adele.”

“I know what I’m doing, assholes.”

Sloane hit the Plexiglas in reply. At least she was no longer hitting me. I took a deep breath and waited. The softened concrete shimmied to wrap around the barrier like a ribbon, minute undulations making room for air, softening the wall enough to allow passage. As the motion slid along the final corner, the cab’s wheels spun against gravel before catching, and the car lurched forward. The Shadows were still looking at the slow wave as we sped forward, like it was a tsunami we wanted to meet head-on. I concentrated on the target, narrowing my eyes at the ground in front of the wall. That’s why none of us saw the Tulpa that dropped between the cab and the wall until it was too late. Dropped down to save me, I realized at the last, like an angel, like a martyr…like a fly caught between a flat surface and a swatter.

The cab impaled Skamar on the silver-edged tip of the cactus that had shot up from nowhere, its spongy base absorbing the cab’s impact but impaling its occupants on the barbed leaves. I barely had time to duck, much less gasp, but the screams of the Shadows around me joined the images from just before that: Skamar’s mouth going wide with pain, Adele’s blood coating the Plexiglas, the green and brown trunk of the Joshua tree folding like a marshmallow to cushion the impact.

The cab would have bounced backward on its wheels, but the bodies of the Shadows around me were pulled forward, and it merely shuddered as it jarred to a halt, lifting slightly off its wheelbase. I was bleeding; too numb to feel it, but I could smell it. Damn I was fragile! And the Shadows were still alive. They were momentarily struggling like worms on hooks, but they’d survive this. I leaned forward, kicking up at the soft flesh of cactus limb that would have impaled me had I still been sitting up. Careful not to let the barbed cluster fall atop me, I swung it around, burying it in Tariq’s back. As he screamed, I braced a foot on the seat and kicked out the back window. I kept kicking until the hole was big enough for me to climb through, and-making sure I had my bag with those valuable soul chips with me-I had nearly done so when I paused. Surely one second more wouldn’t kill me.

I leaned back and slapped Sloane across her bloodied face. She had a barbed leaf through her windpipe, so she didn’t have too much to say about it.

The Tulpa, however, laughed so loudly it again shook the car. He rocketed past us, skeletal smile wide as I ducked, but he ignored me to drop in front of all the destruction. Then, rabidly, he began pulling at Skamar’s body. Her screams were like scissors on silk, too breathless to hold any weight but telling of destruction. She was lanced through the stomach, so his formidable strength widened the already impressive hole.

The Shadows stilled, their pain nothing compared to Skamar’s agony. I froze, limbs gone numb, then shook my head and found my wits enough to will the Joshua tree gone. My emotions were nowhere near under control, and as I’d only discovered this ability the month before, it took some time. And I had to bolt as soon as the cactus dissolved; the Shadows stirred immediately. But it would take time for them to heal enough to give chase. I sprinted half a block, braced for the Tulpa’s pursuit, but when I glanced over my shoulder, he merely shot me a thumbs-up. With a now-freed and limp Skamar scuffed like a kitten in one claw, he shot into the air like a bottle rocket, screaming with wild glee, and after another moment, disappeared into the night.

I ran…and kept running. I ran until I’d left the city proper and was somewhere in the middle of the desert, panting hard, tears dried on my face. Glancing back, I saw Vegas glittering stubbornly beneath the bright hornet’s nest that was its sky, and I waited. I stood, slumped, waiting. I sat, and waited. But there were no storms or gales or howling winds that night. I sat for hours in the middle of a blackened void, and though the sky didn’t clear above the city, it also didn’t worsen. At one point I closed my eyes, bent my head, and sobbed for Skamar, cries slicing the air like razors, so the scorpions and snakes and lizards didn’t bother me, sensing the sharp pain. My sorrow was palpable, a heavy cloud marking my location. But the Tulpa didn’t come for me.

No one did.

The story spilled from me as soon as Warren answered his phone. My words tumbled over themselves like dice, cut up and spit out, but rolling up snake eyes anyway. With tears in my own I told him about how the Shadows had ambushed me and made a play for the boneyard, how Skamar had intercepted them, and how my created cactus had led to her capture.

“The Tulpa has her,” I sniffed. “I don’t know where.”

“Okay, calm down.” Warren’s voice was tight and wooden, but he wasn’t yelling. A part of me wished he would. I wiped at my nose and sniffed again. “Where are you now?”

Alone, was my first thought.

“I came back to the warehouse. To wait.” For anything. For anyone.

“So you and Hunter stay put. The rest of us will cross at dawn. Keep the alarms on until we get there.”

But I was still caught on the first thing he’d said. “Hunter?”

Warren paused. “Yes. Isn’t he with you?”

“No.”

Another beat of silence, then a soft curse. “I should have known this would happen.”

“What?” My heart skipped full beats before speeding up abnormally, and my knees actually buckled. Eyes wide, I looked around the outside of the building as if that would bring Hunter into view. Instead I saw visions of him bent over his drawing board, Hunter working, Hunter fighting…Hunter approaching me. “What happened?” I croaked, shaking off the images.

“Due to the lack of safe zones, I ordered the troop into the sanctuary as soon as I’d learned you left for Midheaven. I didn’t know when you’d be back,” he added, almost apologetically. “That’s why the Shadows attacked the boneyard. But Jasmine Chan went missing two days ago, and Hunter left the sanctuary right after that. I think he’s gone to find her.”

“So he’s missing too?”

“They both are.”

And now so was Skamar. “Oh my God.” This time my legs did buckle. The sky was still holding overhead, if barely, and yet my world was still falling apart. I sat hard on the asphalt, slumped against the warehouse wall.

“Just stay where you are, okay? Do you know how to get in?” He raised his voice when I didn’t answer. “Joanna?”

“Okay. Yes.” I lifted a hand and covered my eyes. “Yes, Hunter showed me.”

“Hm,” Warren said, and I knew what he was thinking. Hunter never showed anyone how to deactivate his complicated system of codes and alarms.

We hung up and I let both my hands drop. My head lolled on the wall. Tears pricked my eyes again. Then after a long moment of silence, and before I went inside, I picked up my bag and ran my finger over the soul chips inside like they were a rosary. I revisited the first option I’d rejected when trapped in a cab surrounded by Shadows.

I prayed.