The Touch of Twilight

15

The next day found me back in mortal reality, sans Chandra. Despite Warren’s orders that we all remain partnered up, I no longer had to work to ditch her, probably because she’d suddenly-and not so subtly-paired up with Kimber, whose hear-me-roar girl power had fizzled into a feeble whimper. The initiate refused to even look at me as we all piled into Gregor’s cab for dawn’s crossing, and hid her face behind her thick blond plaits and shaking hands. I’d anticipated at least a modicum of resistance to my going it solo, but it seemed Kimber’s run-in with my ill chi had the others wanting to avoid the same, and though Warren didn’t confront me about what’d happened to the new initiate, he clearly hadn’t stuck up for me either. The others went their way, and I went mine.

After Gregor dropped me off at my condo, I showered and pulled on a cashmere turtleneck and pinstripe trousers. The ensemble was expensive, but nondescript enough for everything I had to do that day, and as I dressed I decided I didn’t need so-called allies who didn’t believe in my inherent goodness. Going it alone also meant not having to fight with anyone about returning to Xavier’s. I wanted to put some pressure on him about the Valhalla job, and as much as I wanted to believe that was because of Warren’s blessing, I knew Hunter’s objection to my employment was equally motivating.

I called Cher’s hotel room in Fiji on the way to the mansion, but was asked to leave a message by some man at the front desk with overpolite mannerisms and a thick, lovely accent. I sighed wistfully, gave the clerk my name and number, thinking a long vacation with nothing more complicated than frothy mixed drinks sounded divine. Given the benefits my new powers and strengths afforded me, my inability to leave the valley was an insignificant limitation, but it still chafed. At least the mortals most likely to be affected by my current troubles were temporarily safe. All except Ben, and I’d be taking care of that exception soon.

Reaching Xavier’s estate, I batted my lashes at the guard dozing in the gatehouse, then gunned the Porsche’s engine, knowing my arrival was being phoned in even as I drove. I screeched to a stop outside the mansion, raced up the white, palatial steps, and used the key I’d remembered to bring along with me this time to open the door. I didn’t want to be stalled by Deluca, accosted by Helen, or spend more time in this gloomy mausoleum than I had to.

I hurried through the servants’ quarters and used Xavier’s private hallway to access his office. I still had to walk through the stupa, with the throne identical to that in my rooftop vision, and with the animist’s masks I now knew were aching to glue themselves to my face. I controlled a shudder by moving fast, though the spirit I’d felt living inside the one I’d worn wasn’t in evidence in any of the grainy faces staring back at me. However, there was a glaring blank spot where it’d once hung, and I knew Helen would’ve noticed its absence by now.

All the more reason to hurry.

I skipped the customary knock on the office door and flung it open, taking a deep breath to airily explain my unexpected intrusion. But Xavier wasn’t glaring up at me from behind his gigantic desk. The tinny jangle of foreign chimes once again filled the air, muting my steps across the Persian rug as I inched toward the gaping mouth of Xavier’s secret room. I’d misjudged him, I thought wryly, shaking my head. Because if he was spending this much time siphoning off his soul energy, he must have had a soul to begin with.

But my dark humor abated as I peered around the bookcase and into the hidden chamber. Xavier was kneeling again; his hair disheveled like he’d sprung from bed, still clothed in pajamas that showed more of his frame than his custom suits would allow. A tremor of shock moved through me. The once-giant man was absolutely gaunt.

But this time he wasn’t meditating or lost in prayer. Helen loomed behind him, hands on his shoulders, thumbs on his neck. They weren’t, I noted, placed there in support. In fact, her entire demeanor had lost the solicitousness that’d always marked her servitude in the Archer household. Instead it looked like she was holding Xavier in place; stilling his shoulders as they twitched beneath her palms, grounding him like he might float away.

“It hurts,” he was saying, head bowed, snaking wisps of incense twining around him. “I feel like my ribs are going to pop. Look, they’re still bruised from the last time.” He tried to pull up his pajama top. “They’re bruised from the inside.”

She pushed his arms down, shushing him. “Because you’re holding your breath.”

“No, it gets trapped inside and expands like-”

“No, it doesn’t!” she snapped, her arms straight as she levered him forward again. “The matter is pouring from the mask like a smoky waterfall.”

“But that’s not my breath! It belongs to the one who lives inside.”

“Just put it on, Xavier. You don’t want to make him angry, do you?”

I thought he whimpered. “No, but-”

“He wants more.”

“It hurts,” he whimpered.

“Put it on!”

Helen’s roar was so loud I didn’t hear my phone ring, but I felt the accompanying vibration, and acted instinctively, darting from the room before the ring tone could sound again. The theme to Gilligan’s Island just didn’t fit the mood.

I knocked on the door as I swung it shut, knowing they’d both hear that. My heart was pounding as I backed away from the door, and I whirled to give myself time to regain my composure, answering the phone in the middle of the next refrain. As the office door whipped open behind me, I turned with a bright grin on my face, held up a finger in Helen’s glaring one, and giggled into my BlackBerry.

“Cher, honey, let me call you back. I’m at Daddy’s, and you know how he likes my full attention.” I paused, then laughed cheerily as Helen shifted on her feet, the hands that’d been stilling Xavier now planted firmly on her nonexistent hips. “Oh, I know! That humid island air hates me too. Just tell your momma to make a Nyquil smoothie and she’ll feel all better in the morning.”

Helen cleared her throat impatiently.

“Oh, darlin’, gotta go. There’s a shark outside Daddy’s door too.” I laughed again at Cher’s reply as Helen’s hooded eyes narrowed into slits. I blinked prettily after I dropped the phone back into my handbag, though it didn’t have the same effect on her as it’d had on the guard at the gate.

“Your father’s busy,” she said before I could ask for Xavier.

“Helen,” I said, batting at her like she’d told a joke. “You know he’s never too busy for his favorite daughter. Just be a gem and tell him I’m here.”

I made a move toward the office, and her hand shot out, palm on my chest. “You don’t understand me,” she said firmly, letting a cool gleam enter her gaze. “He’s not well, and can’t see you now.”

“Not well?” I exclaimed, stepping back from her touch. She let her hand fall, and I put a hand to my face, covering the deep breath I allowed to coat the bridge of my mouth, my teeth, and throat. I closed my mouth, ran my tongue over the fresh air molecules, exploring their texture and taste. “Then I must tend to him!”

“I’m tending to him. It’s my job, remember?”

I tilted my head. “I remember you telling me to take care of myself because you weren’t anybody’s nurse.”

“That wasn’t you. That was your sister.”

“Oh,” I said, nodding slowly, before straightening. “Well. It was still bitchy.”

Her nostrils flared. I was careful not to breathe. “Either leave now or I’ll throw you out myself.”

I fell still and serious, and finally met her eye. “Oh, Helen. You’re making a very grave mistake.”

She snorted, rolling her own. “I’ll tell your father you stopped by.”

I bit my lip like I was confused about something, then turned away as she wanted. I felt her watch me as I crossed the throne room, and knew she continued to watch on the office monitors as I left the house and climbed back into the car. It was only after I’d sped through the gates that I let out my own scented breath.

“A very, very big mistake, Helen Maguire.”

And it was either the first one she’d made in the twenty years she’d been employed in the Archer household, or else I simply hadn’t had the tools to notice such a slip before. But I had them now-skin so sensitive to texture I could pick up the marble-smooth fingertips even without seeing them. A palate so refined I could taste decayed emotion. And an internal alarm alerting me to Shadow agents, one that currently had me smiling to myself…and sharpening my metaphorical knives.

I returned Cher’s call en route to Master Comics.

“We’re comin’ home,” she said without preamble. “Momma’s not getting any better and I think the humidity is fermentin’ her lungs. Why do people live in places where your hair can get all frizzy?”

“Spoken like a true desert rat,” I told her before growing serious. “What are her symptoms?”

“She’s wheezing and has a fever that causes her to break out in sweats and cry out in her sleep. She has the weirdest dreams…our cabana boy stars in all of them.”

Was that out of character for Suzanne? “Has she seen a doctor down there?”

“Are you kidding? The local medicine man would probably kill a chicken and splatter its blood in a circle around the bed. They’re hospitable enough, but I wouldn’t call them civilized.”

“Cher,” I chided, narrowly avoiding a tourist who’d eschewed an overhead walkway for a shortcut that’d take him twice as long. “That’s so ethnocentric.”

Cher gasped, offended. “I am not a bit religious, and you know it.”

“Look,” I said, blasting through a reddish stoplight. “She doesn’t sound well enough to travel right now. Why don’t you call Dr. Porter and give him her symptoms. He might be able to prescribe something over the phone and fax a prescription to a pharmacy down there.”

“You think?”

What I thought was that the last thing I needed was for those two to come back to town, setting up two more big bull’s-eyes for Regan to train her sights on. What I said was “I sometimes manage it, yes. Call me if Suzanne gets any worse. And give her a big smooch from me.”

I didn’t just say it because Olivia would have. Both Cher and her mother had grown on me, and I was as protective of them as if they were my own family. Natural, I suppose, since I didn’t have any left. Keeping them out of Vegas wasn’t just necessary because of Regan; now I had the doppelgänger to contend with. If she knew about me she might know of Olivia’s friends as well.

The next call I made had to be done in person. It was almost closing time when I walked back into Master Comics, and I’d intended to head straight to the storeroom-flipping off Zane on the way-only pausing long enough to pick up this week’s Shadow manual, the Light presumably still not showing up. But one look at the little girl peering up at me with wide and hopeful eyes was enough to have me dropping to my knees.

“Oh, Li,” I whispered, cupping the soft oval of her face in my hands. There were no bandages covering the claw marks marring her face, an effort to get the wound and stitches to dry out, and my heart broke as I wished I could help her heal faster.

“It doesn’t feel as bad as it looks,” she said, in an attempt to be brave, tilting her head so her straight hair swung over the angry red slashes. The fissure in my heart widened.

“Yes it does,” Jasmine cut in sharply, standing at Li’s right side, one hand dropped protectively on her shoulder. It reminded me of Helen’s hands on Xavier, though I didn’t know why. “She screams when my mother cleans it, and now the rest of her skin is starting to crack. She looks like Humpty Dumpty.”

Li blushed furiously, which only accentuated her scars and made the cracking Jasmine was talking about more noticeable. She was right. Li’s once pristine skin now resembled a chaotic inner city road map. Blue veins and red vessels had risen to canvass the thinned-out skin, and I noted her eyes were beginning to bulge a little too.

Jesus, I thought, it even looked like the muscles beneath the skin were thinning. How did I fix this?

“You know you should be a little more sensitive,” I told Jasmine. “This could kill you too.”

“I’m not the one with draining life energy, and besides, I’d rather die as a hero than live as a weak mortal. I’m never giving up my powers.”

“You’re not superhuman, Jasmine. I am.”

“Really? Then how can I do this?” And she bent over and lifted me from the ground as easily as I would a suckling babe. With one arm.

I blinked, bit my lip, then asked without turning around, “Carl? How can Jasmine pick up a hundred-and-twenty-seven-pound woman?”

“One-thirty-two,” he corrected, and Jasmine nodded as she balanced me. Bitch. “Part of the broken changeling deal, Archer. You’ve blitzed a chunk of her humanity and replaced it in the changeling vessel with your own chi. That’s why the manuals aren’t being written. Her personal energy is registering as yours, and Li’s isn’t registering at all. You could always try to convince her to give it back, though.”

I raised my brows, peering down at Jasmine. In answer, she dropped her arm and I landed on the ground. Crouching, I peered up at her. “Not even to save your sister? An innocent?”

“I’m superhuman,” she clarified, before gesturing to me with her too-strong hands. “You’re the superhero. You fix it.”

“She’s going to die if you don’t help her!”

That gave her pause, causing her little jaw to tighten, but only for a moment. “She’s mortal. She’s going to die anyway.”

I shook my head in disbelief, and glared at her so hard and long, she finally looked away, pursing her lips. “You’re right,” I whispered. “You’re no hero.”

I bit my lip and turned back to Li. “I’ll fix this, sweetheart. I swear I will.”

She nodded without hesitation. “I know.”

Tears staining my eyes, I thought about Regan’s black makeup compact settled in the bottom of my bag, but Li and I had vastly different coloring, so it wouldn’t do her any good. I’d ask Chandra, and see if something similar couldn’t be made for the changeling. “You should go home and rest.”

“But you might need me.” And, more faithful than Old Yeller, she followed behind as I made my way to the counter. Zane was there, studiously ignoring the goings-on in the shop as he ran a pencil across a sheet of paper, the marks disappearing as swiftly as they were made. The half-dozen changelings, save Jasmine, crowded around me, shouting out questions about what Zane “saw” and suggestions on how to make the ink appear. Zane ignored them out of habit; I did so because I couldn’t get Li’s tattered face out of my mind.

I leaned on my elbows to peer up into Zane’s face. His nose twitched.

“We’re about to close,” he said, moving his papers aside and continuing his work.

“Get ahold of the Tulpa for me.”

He didn’t even look up. “What do I look like, your local operator?”

“I know you can get ahold of him.” My voice hardened. “Now help me.”

He flipped his greasy hair back from his forehead, equally greasy. It immediately fell into his eyes again. “I don’t have time to help you work out your daddy issues. Now get out of my light. I’m busy writing a manual you’ll probably never get to see.”

I folded my arms. “Look, Zane, I don’t know what happened to the changeling. I wore her aura but I got it back to her on time. If you have any idea what I can do to fix it, you should tell me.”

He sneered as I pulled back, so I decided to try appealing to his morality. “Fine, don’t do it for me. But look at Jasmine. Shit, look at Li-”

“I see them every day!” he screamed back in my face, gesturing widely with his writing hand. “While you’re out trying to figure out who to screw, I practically live with the little kids your bad decisions are destroying!”

Spit flew from his mouth, and my own fell open, while the kids in the half moon around us froze, unnaturally silent. Zane threw down his pencil, swallowed in an obvious effort to control himself, and when he got his breathing back under control, he said, “I want to help them, I do. But you’re the only one who can mend the changeling.”

I let his previous remarks go, and said in my own heroic show of control, “How?”

He chewed at his bottom lip like he was struggling to hold back words, and had to munch down on the syllables to stop them from pouring out. Finally, in a strangled voice, he managed, “That’s not the right question.”

“Then give me the answers and we’ll work backward from there.”

“This isn’t Jeopardy.”

“No, because that’s a game. This is about a little girl’s life.”

He stared into my eyes for a long moment, frowning like he was using telepathy on me, willing me to understand his thoughts, and when I only stared back he finally shook his head. “I can’t help you.”

I sighed, deflated, then pointed to the manual he was working on as I turned toward the storeroom. “Why don’t you pull up an armchair while you write those things?”

“Fuck you.”

“Trite,” I shot back over my shoulder. “Good thing you’re not thinking up the dialogue too.”

I bent, ordered Li to stay at the front of the shop despite her protests, then bypassed the walls of anime, manga, and comic book carousels. I stalked past the cabinet containing the Zodiac manuals. Two members of the pimple brigade followed.

I entered the long hallway. They shadowed. I exited into the library-esque storeroom. More of the same. By the time I’d scooted around the fireplace I’d become almost paranoid in my awareness of them. Then I made the mistake of making eye contact.

“Hey, lady. Can we talk to you for a minute?”

“I don’t actually speak Klingon,” I muttered, scanning an eye-level shelf with my fingertips. I wondered how many silent alarms I was setting off for Zane, and decided to touch every manual on every shelf. Fuck him.

Undaunted, the kid introduced himself as Kade, his friend was Dylan, before continuing. “See, here’s the thing. Halloween’s coming up, right? And you’re going to be out canvassing the city, right?”

“Why are you asking me questions you already know the answers to?” I retorted distractedly. I was nervous about what I was going to try, but I didn’t see where I had a choice.

“So, with the changeling of Light broken and the manuals of Light going unrecorded you could technically switch sides, and align yourself with the Shadows without anyone knowing the difference.”

Was swatting him like a fly out of the question? “For the last time, I’m not a Shadow.”

“But you could appear as one on the outside…even if you weren’t feeling it on the inside, right?”

“Wrong.”

Dylan piped up, breathy with excitement, verbally punctuating his sentences in all the wrong places. “Yeah, cuz, like, once I was reading National Geographic-”

Kade punched him. “You were looking at the boobies.”

Dylan reddened, and spoke faster. “And they had these little Thai dudes who dressed up like women and not only did no one ever know the difference, they were better-looking than most real women.”

“Minus the boobies.”

He nodded vigorously. “So we were thinking you could do the same.”

I blinked. Faced them fully. Blinked again. “Dress up like a Thai woman?”

“No,” said Kade. He had a habit of speaking primarily in questions. He was a bit taller than Dylan, blonder too, while Dylan possessed a bit of a lisp. “I mean, pretend you’re something you’re not in order to fix the changeling, but without the paranormal boundaries levied on the agents of Light. Because you’re already dual-sided, kinda like Storm and Mystique, right?”

“More like Clark Kent and Superman.”

Their mouths dropped open. “You mean you’re a dude too?”

My jaw clenched. “I mean I’m already two people at the same time.”

“Nice,” Dylan said, looking me up and down appreciatively.

“Not as good as those Thai dudes, though.”

“I’m not a-” Forget it. I wasn’t going to get into a conversation about transgenders with a kid who read National Geographic for the boobies. “Was there something you boys wanted?”

“We’ve been doing a little reading, catching up on the Zodiac history, right?”

“I’m sure.”

“And we think we found a way to help Li. Did you know someone else broke a changeling before? This manual shows how he fixed it.”

“Really?” I accepted the Shadow manual to stare down at a giant of a man with biceps twice the size of my neck. He was dark-skinned, so his blond crew cut was obviously dyed, though his penchant for girly grooming didn’t make him any less fierce. I didn’t recognize him.

“Yeah, man. Jaden Jacks totally iced the changeling of Light.” Jaden Jacks. What was that, his porn name? I wondered as Dylan pointed to a panel where Jaden was half shadowed, beckoning to someone from in front of Master Comics. “He coaxed the kid away from the shop late one evening, disappeared around the corner next to the sandwich shop, and the other changelings never saw him again.”

I flipped the comic shut. “You want me to kidnap Jasmine? And what, keep her in my superhero locker for all of eternity?”

“No, dude,” he said, flipping it open again, pointing to the last series of panels. “You gotta kill her. I’m sure there’s still some square footage left in this desert that doesn’t already have a body in it.”

I narrowed my eyes as Kade and Dylan high-fived. Catching my look, the little aliens sobered. “Don’t worry. We won’t tell.”

“Yeah, she’s been a real bitch lately.”

I heard a snicker, and glanced up in time to see the Shadow changeling duck back into the hallway. Nosy little eavesdropper. And what a juicy nugget to report back to the Shadows.

“I’m not going to kill Jasmine,” I said evenly, loud enough for Douglas to hear.

“But she’s been using your superpowers for evil! Yesterday she wrote, ‘I will rule supreme’ over all the Warcraft gaming tables!”

I thought of the way Jasmine had lifted me in the shop, effortlessly, and with more than a little misplaced pride. She was definitely growing stronger, and apparently the more power she gained, the less sympathetic she grew to her sister’s plight…and the less likely it seemed she’d willingly release the power as well. Not good. But I didn’t know what to do about that yet, and I certainly wasn’t going to kill her. “Look, guys, intentionally causing injury to someone weaker than yourself is evil. You don’t kill someone because it might help your cause down the line. Understand?”

“Yeah…but she made Li stand on the table and repeat it a hundred times.”

“What?” My head jerked, and Kade nodded as he worried a zit under his chin.

“Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?” he said, stretching his neck. “Li is a threat to her burgeoning superpowers. If Li becomes the changeling of Light, then Jasmine will have to accept her mortality. She’ll have to grow up. She’ll have to get married and have babies.”

They both shuddered where they stood. I heard Douglas groan from the hallway. The little shit was still there.

I glanced back down at the Shadow manual. Jaden Jacks had killed the changeling downtown. I recognized the garish skyline. “So you guys are saying if I kill Jasmine, Li will become the changeling, the manuals of Light will be printed once more, and all will be balanced and well again?”

They looked at each other. I caught Kade’s eye and lifted my brows. “Right?”

“Well, we’re not sure. Jacks either disappeared or took a new identity immediately after. There’s no way to follow up when the manuals omit those sort of details.” Omit them so neither side of the Zodiac gained leverage over the other. “But, hey, if you’re really two people at the same time, then you can let your Shadow side come forward, off the little bitch, and then your Light side can take credit for healing Li, right? You can totally keep this identity.”

I sighed and handed the comic back. “I can’t kill a little girl.”

Neither of them reached for it. “Hey, either Jasmine dies or Li does, but one way or another, this shop is going to be down one less Chan come the end of the year.”

So that was how long I had. Two months to figure out how to fix Jas. Why couldn’t Zane let me know that?

That’s not the right question.

I bit my lip. “Do you guys think you could do a little research for me? Try and find out what became of Jaden Jacks after he killed the changeling?”

“We could try. Zane doesn’t charge us for looking at the manuals. Not if we return them without stains.”

I closed my eyes and lowered my head, pinching the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger. “All right. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Kade said, obviously pleased to help. The boys couldn’t tell me anything that would unfairly unbalance the Zodiac, but it wasn’t as if there wasn’t anything in here I wouldn’t eventually discover for myself. I could read all the Shadow manuals; it was just a matter of time, and of looking in the right place. It would help to have a few extra pairs of eyes on the manuals…and on Jasmine. “Do you want us to send Jas back?”

“Yeah,” said Dylan, patting his jeans pocket. “I brought a Taser in today. I could prod her skinny ass down the tunnel.”

“No. That’s okay, I have it covered,” I said, shaking my head free of the image. The two boys left, I heard them scuffling with Douglas in the hallway, their voices growing fainter as they returned to the shop, and I tucked the manual in my bag without looking at it again. I’d find a way to fix Li without killing her older sister. Maybe what I was going to do next would help, I thought, pulling out my mask. But I didn’t want to risk further injury to Li if the Tulpa injured me through Jasmine’s aura again. I’d just have to trust the mask I was donning now would do its job. So I slipped it over my eyes, and began envisioning the Tulpa crossing the threshold across from me.