City of Souls

7

After the attack on my life when I was a teen, my mother’s subsequent abandonment, and long after my early adolescent irreverence dried up into an ashy ball of hate and bitterness, the household staff of the Archer estate continued to treat me like one of the valuable antiques, to be looked at and cared for, but not touched. If the gardener or one of the maids asked how I was, it was done in that tone of disinterest reserved for strangers. I think it actually startled some of them when I moved.

And then there was Lindy.

I’d done some research since discovering my lifelong housekeeper was also a Shadow agent. At first I was merely awed that my mother had been able to live with a woman who could scent out the tiniest aberration in emotion. But then I realized that if Lindy had been here back then, my mother would have found a way to let Warren know, and get him to take care of her long ago. So somehow Lindy had taken over the life and identity of the original Helen, who had been a mortal…and was probably now dead.

One thing I knew for certain. Lindy McGuire loathed Zoe Archer, and the hate that could fuel two women for decades could only have one thing at its molten core: a man.

Because in contrast to the apathy the Tulpa showed Lindy, he’d fallen for my mother like a felled oak. Twice. The first time had been twenty-seven years ago, when Zoe got close enough to ferret out the identity of his creator, then killed that man in the hopes that it would kill the Tulpa as well. This “closeness” had also led to my conception, another reason Zoe fled. As I grew in her womb, her body had begun recklessly kicking out the pheromones that would mark her as Light.

The second time she’d conned him was after giving up her near-immortal state in order to save me. I’d survived the attack on my life…and so had my baby. Premature, the infant clung to life like she knew herself the successor in a long line of stubborn women, but then she’d been abducted from her adoptive parents on the day she was born, almost lost to the Shadows. Zoe Archer-having given all her power to me, and more vulnerable to the Tulpa than she’d ever been before-went after her granddaughter, and reclaimed the child despite her mortal flesh, embarrassing the Tulpa in the process. Again.

This, I thought, was what burned the Tulpa the most. Not only did Zoe betray and dupe him, she’d done it as one of the mortals he scorned.

Yet in between those bookend betrayals, when my mother had lived under this roof, she’d been seen as nothing more than the trophy wife of a mortal casino magnate, with two daughters and an unbreakable Wednesday morning tennis mixer at the Las Vegas Country Club. This proved that most people saw only what they expected to see. Even archvillains.

As for Xavier, after she disappeared he gutted the rooms they’d shared and built a new wing with all new furnishings, one dramatically devoid of any feminine presence. Helen wasn’t even allowed to put fresh flowers in the sitting area, which was why the half-dozen bouquets perfuming the foyer shocked me. I slowed, eyes lingering on the get-well cards sent by employees and acquaintances as we moved into the main bedroom’s sitting area. There, a foursome of club chairs sat unimaginatively before a crackling fire, a peculiar scent rising from the flames, like herbs had been baked in with the kindling.

“Try not to upset him, Olivia,” Helen said, ever imperious. “He needs his strength. Just nod and agree to everything he says.”

“Don’t I always?”

I let my placating expression fall as she led me into the recessed darkness, and hadn’t taken three steps when the scent of sickness washed over me like a viscous wave. I fought not to gag, which would certainly give me away. Were I mortal, I wouldn’t have smelled a thing beyond the scented fireplace and the battery of flowers fading outside this room. Helen, though, pulled a surgical mask over her mouth, explaining that it was to decrease the risk of additional illness.

I’d have asked why I didn’t get one too, but it was too sharp a question to come from Olivia. My sister would be more concerned about her father, so I merely popped some chewing gum into my mouth to help manage the scent and quickly crossed the knee-deep carpet to the poster bed, where privacy screens were raised and a lamp was dimmed to low. I steeled myself to the task of having to suck up the hatred I felt for Xavier long enough to kiss him alongside his jutting jaw. It was one of the hardest parts of being Olivia.

Good thing Helen had allowed me to take the lead, because if she’d seen my face as I rounded that privacy screen, she would have noted not an ounce of love in the horror and shock and revulsion that swept through me. I put one hand to my mouth and another to my heart, consciously trying to still its pounding as Helen slipped up close beside me. Quickly, I bent closer to the rank, and yes, rotting, human being instead.

“Daddy?” His chest was bird-bone frail, and rattling with the effort of wakefulness. I jerked my hand away, covering the movement by straightening the covers over shoulders gone gaunt.

“Helen,” he rasped, making even that sole word seem laborious. “The lights, if you please.”

Helen wordlessly twisted the knob on the table lamp and I steeled myself…but even anticipating it couldn’t prepare me for the carnage that could be wracked upon the flesh of someone still living. He was all bony protrusions and cutting angles, concave where he should have been convex, and vice versa, with a sunken chest, a distended belly, and eyes that bulged within disappearing sockets. He was, I realized with a start, a Shadow clothed in mortality. A human unable to escape his flesh, even while rotting inside.

I swallowed hard and set my jaw. That’s what happened when you siphoned off your soul to fuel unadulterated evil.

Unbeknownst to Xavier, I had walked in on him twice when he was performing a ritual that fed the Tulpa parts of his soul, an exchange for the paranormal leader’s patronage-money and power, a network of allies, and a surprisingly diminished pool of rivals-so that they could each continue to rule their respective worlds. At first I’d thought it a willing exchange, and it probably was in the beginning. But the second time, I’d watched the woman beside me force Xavier to his knees, and the scent of his soul mingled with fear-burnt anise and rancid vanilla-so cloying and white-hot it cauterized the lining in my nose.

I returned my gaze to his, still locked on mine. When he caught sight of me chewing gum, I thought he was going to start in again about pedigree and class and the way even the tiniest public action was a direct reflection upon him. But the zeal that had always fired this particular tirade only sparked for a second before dying off in a sigh. He simply didn’t have the energy.

“Daddy?” I said again, letting uncertainty coat my throat. It wasn’t hard.

“Still ringing up T-shirts and polishing mugs?” His voice cracked, caught somewhere between a whisper and a growl.

I inclined my head. “Unless you’re firing me.”

“My own daughter? Not likely.” He didn’t like me working, but he had to maintain appearances as well. “Of course, quit now and I’ll buy you a new car. Didn’t you say you had your eye on that Aston Martin?”

I thought of the Vanquish, and sighed. “Thanks, Daddy, but I’m saving up for it myself.”

Xavier stared. It would take decades to afford that car on my salary. He finally grunted and half turned on his pillow. Helen moved to help, but a low growl had her jerking back. I knew who was really in control here, but neither of them knew that I knew, so in front of me she had to at least pretend to be servile.

“Then this should help.” Xavier pulled a giant wad of bills, wrapped in a rubber band, from behind his pillowcase. Laboriously, he reached back and followed it up with another. I clasped the bundles to my chest, barely able to get my hands around each.

“You sleep with your money?” I was unable to stop myself from asking.

At the same time, Helen asked, “Is this from the safe?”

A madman’s fury bloomed behind his eyes, and I stepped back, more surprised than alarmed. “Don’t question me about my own money! I’ve earned every cent!”

I scented the gaseous odor of her contempt, and knew she’d like to snap his neck like a matchstick. She wanted to do it in front of me. Instead she sucked in a deep breath, then let it out through her nose…a sliver of briny hate leaking like a noxious fume. Olivia would never scent it, so I gave no indication that I could, but Xavier immediately began hacking. It sounded like his heart was trying to climb through his throat. Helen chose that moment to leave.

“Shh, it’s all right. Just be calm. And of course you’ve earned every cent,” I said when he was comfortable again. My job now was to keep Xavier occupied while Felix took care of Helen…though I could see I needn’t bother. Xavier couldn’t even sit up on his own after that last attack. “And that’s what I want to do too. Earn it myself. Make my own way in this world.”

I held the bundles out, but he waved them away with an irritable grunt and knuckles too large for the rest of his hands. “Just take it. Use it as toilet paper. I don’t care.”

I stared at the money for a moment, then tossed it into my handbag. “Daddy, Helen says you’re…” I hesitated, swallowing hard, and tried again. “Well, that you think you’re…that you might be-”

“Dying. Jesus, Olivia, just say it!” Xavier’s body jerked, the covers slipping down those nonexistent shoulders again. “I am dying. I’m scheduled for open-heart surgery the day after tomorrow. I won’t live through it. I’ve known that for a while now.”

“Is that why you let the household staff go?”

“They’re not gone. They’re temporarily released, with pay. I’m sure most will be happy to return to their positions, if you’ll have them. My suggestion is that you allow it. This ship runs smoothly.”

“Shh.” I smoothed my hand over his brow, my cool flesh against his heated skin, remembering that Helen had said to keep him settled, and Olivia would endeavor to do just that. When he was reclined again, breath as settled as it was going to get, I straightened. “Okay, but Daddy, why did you release them?”

“Because I don’t want an audience when I die.” This time he merely sounded weary. “A man shouldn’t have to worry about who’s listening while he’s in the throes of his last breath.”

I opened my mouth to protest, some nonsense about how he wasn’t dying and he couldn’t give up, that the doctors were overreacting and he’d come out of it just fine.

He cut me off with a hard glance. “It’s fine. The long illness has given me a chance to get my affairs in order. Including this.”

He jerked his head at a thick black binder resting atop the bedside table. I flipped it open to find graphs and charts and things I really didn’t understand.

“A log of all my businesses, properties, and acquisitions. There’s another for pending developments. I’ll have one of my lawyers go over those with you, but this is a good start.”

I paged through the folder, grateful for the dim light that kept the smooth pads of my fingertips from gleaming unnaturally. “A start to what?”

“To taking over my empire. Someone needs to when I’m gone.”

I lifted my head and audibly swallowed my gum. “No. You’re going to get better.”

He saw the lie in my eyes, and responded in kind. “Just in case, then.”

I looked away, actually panicking, feeling far less at ease with this binder in my hands than my weapon. “Well, why can’t someone else do it? Someone on the board? Maybe we could sell it to MGM?” God knew they owned practically everything else.

“Because you’re my daughter. An Archer. And the only one I can truly trust.” He didn’t seem to notice when I looked away at that. “Besides, now that you’ve sold your illicit underground enterprise to one Maximus X, you won’t have to divide your time.”

My mouth fell open before I could stop it. “You know about that?”

His smile was self-satisfied and he looked himself for the first time since I’d entered the room. “I’ve known since you hacked into the Archer Enterprises database.”

“Oh, that.” I ducked my head, mind spinning. Olivia had done that at sixteen. She might have been built like a brick house, but it was her mind that was really mighty.

To chide me for it now, both the hacking and the interest in “indelicate activity” must have seemed senseless. He also glossed over the morality of the illegal activity. “So the timing is…convenient.”

Selling it had been necessary. I didn’t possess the facility with computers my sister had. Although Maximus hadn’t been happy with his gorgeous debutante bailing on their covert plans to take over the world, he’d gotten a smokin’ deal on the business.

For the first time, I wondered if Helen wasn’t the only one in the household who’d been lulled into complacency. If Xavier had been keeping an eye on Olivia’s secret life and I hadn’t known it, what did that say about my powers of observation?

“Everything’s in there,” Xavier continued. “Just read it carefully, and call John if you have any questions. His card is up front. I’ve seen to it that you’re the controlling investor. The board members value their positions…and they’ve also signed contracts that allow you to fire them on the spot. Even if they don’t respect you at first, they’ll respect your power.”

“Power,” I said airily. It always came down to that, didn’t it? All of life’s wars, from the bedroom to the battlefield, seemed to be fervent bids for power.

“Power,” he repeated, all the strength in his body concentrated in that one word. It was like a spring trap in the air. “Promise me, though, whatever you do, whatever decisions you make-whether they affect one person or all of Archer, Inc.-you will remember to always put others above yourself.”

I couldn’t hide my surprise. This, coming from a man who lorded himself over the entire city? Someone who treated family like servants, servants like subjects, and subjects as pawns to be thrown about a boardroom according to his whim? Someone who’d literally sold his soul for power?

He heard all these thoughts in my hesitation. “True,” he sighed, “it’s something I paid little heed to in building this empire, but I’ve learned since then. When it comes to deciding between someone else’s well being or your own, you must always choose the other person. It’s the difference, you see.”

“What difference?”

“Between you and them.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, and glanced up at the security camera in the corner before I could stop myself. Helen had ostensibly placed it there in case Xavier needed help at night. I thought I saw Xavier glance at it too, but I couldn’t be sure in the dim light. “Them, who?”

Xavier’s labored breath ceased for so long that for a moment I wasn’t sure he was still breathing at all. He was. Breathing and staring with the fearlessness borne from only one thing: the death of hope.

“Between you…and the plebeians, of course,” he answered, and my disgust for him was renewed. “Between an Archer and someone who merely does what they’re told.”

And this time I was certain he glanced at the camera.

Then Xavier began hacking so badly that for a moment I didn’t think he’d make it to the surgery. I angled him on his side, not knowing if I was helping or hurting him.

Meanwhile, I glanced back at the binder in my lap, realizing just how much power I suddenly held. When Xavier died, I would have complete control over Valhalla, all the Archer assets, and this household as well. I thought of the masks hanging on the walls just outside Xavier’s home office, their magical properties, and the hidden room where he performed rituals that provided additional power to the Tulpa. Very suddenly I was on the precipice of all that my mother had spent years trying to get to-the heart of the Archer organization. Unexpected. Undetected.

Unstoppable.

And if Felix killed Helen, leaving a kill spot that any supernatural could read, it would all be undone in an instant. Shit.

“Okay, thanks for the family business, Daddy.” I dropped a kiss on his forehead and turned. It was all I could do not to run to the door. Only that ever-present camera-and the ones I knew were positioned in every room-stopped me. “Take care.”

“Olivia?” he said softly.

I turned impatiently.

“When I call you next…will you come?”

I knew then that he would die soon. He would die because of every contemptible little deed, each snarling thought, every mean intent. Such things built up, just as in business…compounding his sins, multiplying them, returning them with interest. But because of what he’d meant to my sister, and she to him, I didn’t avert my eyes.

“Sure,” I said, swallowing hard. “Of course.”

I bypassed the elevator in favor of the stairs, having trouble keeping myself to a mortal pace. I sniffed at the air. No blood yet. Please don’t let it be too late. Hitting the landing of the winding staircase, I heard Helen moving about in the sitting room, and whipped around the corner to find her bent over the tea set, the room awash in light and peaches and creams. She was arranging pastry.

Felix was poised behind her, boyish face gone fierce with hatred, double-edged boomerang fisted over his head.

“Scones!” I yelled, bounding into the room before he could decapitate her. Both their heads jerked my way. Felix’s boomerang disappeared from sight. “I-I-I love scones with my tea. Oh, Helen. You remembered!”

I shot her a smile that felt too giant for my face. Then I jerked my head, causing Felix to back down and Helen to raise a brow. I turned the move into a shudder. “Is it cold in here? Are you guys cold? Tea sounds good. Doesn’t it sound good, Nate? Join us, Helen?”

I was babbling, too loud and fast, but Helen fortunately begged off with the excuse of attending Xavier, and Felix and I sipped from tiny teacups in a protracted silence, remaining like that up until we were cocooned in my car and zipping down the gravel drive.

Once we hit the guard gate, Felix turned in his seat and ran a hand through his tousled hair. “What the hell was that?”

“I just inherited the family business.”

I explained to him about the power we’d have upon Xavier’s death to move about the mansion. How we could install agents and moles inside my familial home to unearth more of its paranormal secrets, and no one would dare question it. More importantly, we could do the same with Valhalla, and that might be key in finally uncovering a way to kill the Tulpa. I finished with an explanation of why I’d stopped him from decapitating Helen. “Leaving a kill spot in the mansion would have done away with all of that.”

Felix immediately nodded his agreement, but I could tell he was disappointed as he gazed out the window. The adrenaline that would have allowed him to cleave Helen’s head from her body in one strong swipe had dissipated, and he sunk into his seat, sighing heavily. “He really is dying.”

“You heard that?”

“Dude, I smelled that.” Facing forward again, legs splayed, he lowered the window, allowing fresh air to race through the car’s cab. We both inhaled deeply. “The place reeks.”

“I know.”

He glanced at me sideways, wind warring with his hair. “How does it make you feel?”

“How should it?”

“You tell me.”

I opened my mouth, prepped for the easy retort, then snapped it shut. “I feel nothing.”

“Apathy,” Felix said, nodding his head while his bald fingertips tapped out a tune only he could hear. “That’s okay. He was never kind to you.”

“No, I mean I’m not even apathetic. I’m not even numb. I feel nothing.” I shot him a tense smile and changed the subject. I needed to drop him somewhere and get back to my search for Skamar. “So, back to Vanessa?”

He nodded, eyes downcast. The air in the car suddenly felt heavier-like a hot, wet blanket had been dropped over me. I shivered anyway.

“Where can I drop you?”

He shrugged one shoulder. It didn’t matter. The warehouse was centrally located, so he’d reach it from any side of the valley within the hour.

“I thought she was dead, you know,” he said suddenly, looking back up. “When we reached Chinatown? Right before we entered that bakery?” He shook his head, eyes fluttering shut. “For a few moments I had to live in a world without V…it was like the earth tilted again on its axis.”

I knew what he meant. I’d felt the same shift when my mother left me. Again when Olivia died. That one was still unbalancing. And even though I’d chosen to let go of my past love, Ben Traina, his absence in my life had forced me to a different emotional plane as well. The dismantling of a dream was also a sort of death.

“I’m not really good at remembering things, not even birthdays and anniversaries,” Felix said, shrugging as he looked out the window. We were back on the I-215 loop, nestled between banked, decorative walls that blended with the surrounding desert. “Stuff like that just doesn’t seem important at the time. But then Vanessa? She’ll talk about something, a time or place-a battle, a childhood memory-and with one small detail, like the season or what it smelled like or what we were wearing-I’m back there, and I remember it. And when I can remember,” he added, voice unusually soft, “there’s nothing at odds inside of me. Everything makes sense. Like every step in my life was consciously chosen to lead me to her, and now. Times like that, I’m perfectly balanced. I don’t need anything else.”

I tapped my fingers on the wheels. My chances of finding balance with anyone was hamstrung by a past where I’d had only myself to rely upon. Being as vulnerable as Felix was with Vanessa, even with an equal and someone I trusted, went against everything my instinct told me.

But I would have loved to feel exactly what Felix was talking about.

“I’m coming with you to the warehouse,” I said before I could stop myself. Hunter was there, and I suddenly wanted to see him…though I didn’t say that to Felix. Then again, from the way his attention was fixed on the scenery, I didn’t need to. My fingers tightened on the wheel. Damn these super senses. “Hunter’s been working on a replacement conduit for me,” I explained.

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“It might help me in Midheaven.”

This time he said nothing.

“And I need to tell Warren about Xavier’s plans for me.”

Now Felix snorted bitterly. “If he doesn’t already know.”

I nodded at that, then bit my lip. “Do you think Vanessa would like to see me?”

He frowned over at me. “Of course.”

I swallowed hard. “I just ask, you know, because they hurt her…”

He immediately began shaking his head. “They hurt her because she was doing her job-”

“Protecting the Kairos,” I said softly.

“Protecting her friend.” He put a hand on my arm, causing me to look over at him. “Not all of us see you as a weapon, Jo.”

“Oh.” I kept my eyes on the road, paused for a moment, then said, “Thank you, Felix.”

He settled back and pretended not to notice the tears staining my eyes.