The Touch of Twilight

20

There was no time to return the animist’s mask to Xavier’s the next day. Instead, I went to visit one Laura Crucier, a coma patient at Sheep Mountain Medical’s ICU, who lay completely motionless, just as she had days earlier when someone had left her unconscious at the hospital’s entrance. Apart from the machinery angled around her bed like electric sentinels, the main difference now was the clustering flowers and frames and stuffed animals adorning every available flat surface. Asleep, she was an island unto herself. In the living world, she was deeply loved.

“The Archer Foundation has found itself in the enviable position of a budget surplus this year,” I told the hovering hospital administrator, without removing my eyes from Laura. I could envision her greasy hair shining and swinging. I wanted to bulldoze some color into her cheeks. The man remained behind me, giving me room, but I could scent oiled anxiety leaking from his pores. It battled in the air against the dozens of waterlogged roses. “I heard from a friend of a friend of Ms. Crucier’s story and the wonderful job you’ve done with her.”

“Well, we have hope that, with time and continued care, she’ll recover.”

“Fully?” I asked, turning to face him for the first time.

He looked for a moment like he’d been blinded by a camera’s flash, and his smile stuttered over his face as he backtracked. Olivia, the heir and benefactress and socialite, blinked. Waiting. “Well, no one can say for sure, but we certainly haven’t given up hope.”

I turned again to face the unconscious woman, the silent moments counted off in Laura’s heartbeat. I knew the man was waiting for me to speak first, that the hope and time and continued care he’d spoken of would be made infinitely easier with what he wasn’t asking. And while he continued not asking for money, and I continued staring, and Laura’s heart kept beating, I couldn’t help but think, How could I have not been able to tell the difference between a Shadow and a mortal?

These bodies, these mortal shells, were as fragile as blown glass, accumulating nicks and scratches and chips in the surface over the years, unless like Olivia, they were carelessly dropped, allowed to shatter into pieces. I, of anyone, should’ve been able to tell; I’d lived as a mortal, had the aspect of a Shadow, and possessed an alleged Light facet that should’ve been able to stop that blow before it landed. Regan was right; I had to start taking responsibility. I was almost a year in the Zodiac, a year without my sister, whose life and body was also destroyed because of me, and I wouldn’t believe I’d learned nothing in that time. I couldn’t keep accidentally chipping away at other people’s lives. Otherwise, it’d all been for nothing.

I finally turned from Laura’s bed, checkbook in hand, my answer as silently bold the man’s question. I decided it needed further clarification.

“Make sure she’s cared for,” I said evenly, and held out my hand for a pen.

The second stop of the day, the second reason I couldn’t return the animist mask to Xavier’s mansion, was prompted by my twisted paranormal attempt at being the good Samaritan. I’d decided I wasn’t the only one who needed to start taking responsibility for her actions. Regan was going to as well. It was a two-hour trip out to the Desert Valley Correctional Center, but on the way there I had plenty of time to rehearse my cover story-I was a reporter for a true crime magazine doing a feature on recovery programs for pedophiles-and I also had time to figure out what I was going to say to Regan DuPree’s mortal father. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. On the relatively rare occasion an agent of Light had turned to a mortal for companionship, they’d done so out of love. However, Shadows scoured humanity for a vessel where their own dark attributes could stew and spawn and therefore be given additional purchase in the world.

So I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the guards had brought me a being with horns and a tail, but the thin, blinking, and bespeckled man who dropped into the plastic chair across from me had me blinking back. He picked up the wall phone with a hand that would have been elegant were it not for the scars scoring his wrists and palms. I might have felt some pity for him then, except the crosshatching of scars on his fingertips were especially thick. The former Father Michael had worked hard, and with some degree of success, to rid himself of his fingerprints. I had a feeling the wounds on his palms and arms had been due to slips in concentration rather than any deliberate attempt to harm himself.

There was also an odd angularity to the man’s face, and after a moment I realized it was because his features-jaw and cheekbones and brows-should’ve been placed on someone larger. The rest of his face was sunken, aged before its time, though unlined and pale from the lack of sun. His deep-set eyes sat passively on mine, though it felt like they looked everywhere at once. I saw another scar on the hollow of his neck, a perfect square raised so thickly and neatly, it had to have been traced by a blade over and over again. I realized it represented the collar on a priest’s frock and thought of the nerve it would take to cut so deeply and precisely right next to one’s own jugular. Father Michael, for all his humanity, had the grit of a Shadow.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” he asked in a silky voice, when we’d finished looking each other over.

I neither agreed nor disagreed, in case this call was being recorded. “I know your daughter.”

Something akin to emotion passed over his face, and his lids flared a bit, nostrils widening as his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Did she send you?”

“She’s why I’m here.”

He smiled now, and his cheekbones rose into sharp angles. It was like his face was made of putty; the grin changed him entirely. How many faces, I wondered, did this man have? “It’s amazing you found me. I know I’m not in the manuals, I’ll never be worthy of that, but it’s important that you know, that she knows, the human element weakens nothing. In fact, knowing my weaknesses has made me a master at pinpointing them in others. Like my daughter, I bet. She probably has incredible focus, right? An uncanny ability to wait out even the greatest threat to her survival?”

I thought of the first time I met Regan, how she’d betrayed a senior Shadow in an elaborate effort to get to me. How she’d risked even the Tulpa’s wrath. How she was stalking me through Ben. “Actually,” I said softly, “she’s a lot like her mother.”

He let out a wistful sigh as he remembered the woman who’d steered him directly into lifelong incarceration. “A great beauty, then, but with no patience for sentiment. I often think about her. Not Brynn, she always took care of herself, but my daughter. I always wondered how she fared growing up under the care of a woman devoid of sentiment.”

That little nugget snagged my attention. “What do you mean?”

Father Michael’s eyes blazed again as he realized he knew something I didn’t. I had a feeling it’d been a long time since he’d been able to talk about our world with someone. Good.

“Brynn DuPree only had passion for one thing. She was determined the Cancerian star sign stay in her direct bloodline. She wouldn’t even entertain the idea of it passing on to her younger siblings, much less anyone in the extended family. That’s why she didn’t mate with a man of the Zodiac, choosing instead to propagate with a mortal of the same sign. Thank God she settled on me.” He crossed himself in a sincere mockery of piety.

“Why would that cause Brynn to turn to you?”

“The men of the Zodiac actively court a woman who can improve their lineage, but because the line is matriarchal, the women can turn to a human for their needs…if they find one worthy of them, someone whose humanity provides them with an even greater strength of will and resolve than the male members of the Shadow Zodiac.”

Which was exactly what Regan had said about Ben. I fought off a wave of fear so strong it felt like nausea.

“Like you?” I asked, but Michael interpreted it as a statement of fact.

He inclined his head. “As we don’t possess the more obvious physical skills of our supernatural counterparts, the chosen must work to turn their weaknesses into strengths. From that, true greatness is born. Of all the chosen, I worked the hardest to curry her favor, and she repaid me by allowing me to share in her illustrious bloodline. I am humbled that I could serve. Honored I gave her a daughter of the Shadow.”

I glared at the top of his bowed, balding head, and saw my eyes darken in the glass between us. “You lured two girls and a boy from a elementary schoolyard. None of them were ever seen again.”

“There are casualties in every war.”

“They were seven,” I said sharply.

He looked at me like he couldn’t comprehend what that had to do with anything, and it was all I could do not to dive through glass and pummel him with the phone still clasped at his ear. Of all the things I’d seen in both my mortal and supernatural lives, this man was one of the scariest. His expression wasn’t bland; it just reflected a psyche void of culpability on the too-wide face of a mortal who cut down innocent lives without reason or care. I could attempt to make sense of the Shadows’ purposes, but I could make no sense of this: a man who’d been birthed, suckled, cared for, and raised in a world he decided to destroy for others.

And that was what Regan wanted with Ben. To infect him with this stoic indifference. To turn him into a monster.

I sat back, needing a moment to compose myself. His vacuous eyes followed me, making me feel like he could shake my hand, kiss my cheek, and kill me all in the same minute. It was all the same to him, and I realized despite the benign appearance, Brynn had chosen correctly. How she’d initially seen past the simpering veneer and the priest’s robes was beyond me, but right now-even through the pane of unbreakable glass-the stench of a man whose soul had shriveled like a dried acorn was strong enough to have bile rising in my gorge.

“Your lineage shows in her,” I finally managed, truthfully. “Regan has many of your attributes.”

She was also this vile.

“Regan,” he whispered reverently, and I realized he hadn’t known until now. He shot me a smile that was almost shy, almost kind. “Thank you. You’ve given me a gift.”

“It’s just a name,” I muttered, pissed I’d given him even a second of happiness.

His too-wide lips pursed. “Oh, but a name is everything. A name is all. You know that.”

I shuddered when he winked at me, and decided enough was enough. I felt dirty even sitting across from this man, and found myself wishing we were on some darkened street so I could take his scarred neck in my hands and squeeze. Instead I reached into my bag. “I have another gift for you as well.”

I let the package drop from the sleeve of my cuffed shirt where it’d been tucked in the crook of my elbow. Michael’s gaze lit on it greedily.

I put a finger to my lips, and let out a long, slow Shhhh…

He froze, eyes shining like marbles above the bulging cheekbones.

I erected a thin, mirrored wall, blocking the partition from the view of the guards and cameras, so they saw no movement between us. Then I put my hand to the glass with the package gripped in my palm, Michael mirrored me on the other side of the glass, and the barrier dissolved like steam. Our fingertips met, and I barely contained a shudder. It was like touching a cold slug, spineless movement the only thing giving it life. I’d never felt anything like it around a human before. I hoped never to again.

“What is it?” he asked, weighing it in his palm.

“You’ll know soon enough. Just don’t open it until you’ve received a clear sign.”

He nodded. A man who carved his own flesh would have the patience to wait.

“Will she contact me this way? My girl, my Shadow, my Regan.”

“Oh yes. So keep it with you at all times. It won’t be long, I promise.”

“Bless you, child,” he said, tears welling in his glacial eyes as he slipped the package away. From his lips, it was a curse.

I inclined my head and let the shielding wall drop. “And may you be so blessed in return.”

My meeting with the prodigal father took longer than I planned, and the drive back into town was lengthened by the caravan of Californians making their weekend trek into Sin City, a ritual echoing the pilgrimage to Mecca in fervency. As Valhalla was known for being particularly hedonistic, most were also headed there, and all this combined to make me late for my first night of work. I’d convinced Xavier to give me the swing shift after explaining to him noon was too early to recover fully from whatever event I’d been attending the night before, and though he still didn’t want me working there, he didn’t want me appearing foolish in front of his employees either. Anything an Archer did in public was a reflection upon him, so while he expected-even hoped for-failure in what he’d termed my “occupational nonsense,” it wasn’t going to be because of him.

So as I stuttered haltingly down I-15 toward Valhalla, I tried to make sense of my jumbled emotions. I hadn’t anticipated the visit with Regan’s father to affect me so much. I’d planned to go in there, garner enough supplemental information about Brynn to help track down Regan, pass along my little “gift,” and be done with it.

But more, I admitted, I’d gone there to reassure myself there were distinct differences between Ben and Father Michael, that there had to have been even before Brynn had gotten to the guy. I wanted reassurance that despite Regan’s attempts to turn Ben into an accomplice and a murderer, she hadn’t achieved the level of competence her mother was famed for. I wanted to know beyond all doubt that no matter how much time Ben spent in Regan’s presence, there was an overpowering goodness in him that wouldn’t allow him to deteriorate into a fleshy shell housing a heart no larger than a nut.

But it was Father Michael’s earnestness that had me taking halting breaths, as if I was running, not driving. I swallowed hard as I swung into valet, and pushed the fear away. “It won’t happen. It can’t.”

But anything could happen when a life was rear-ended by someone bent on destruction. An image of Laura Crucier attached to so many machines that she looked like a science experiment assailed me. I swallowed hard, guilt like granite in my throat.

I was slipping from the car when the valet attendant scurried to my side. I flashed him a distracted glance, but he didn’t offer me a ticket and a spot up front. Instead he shifted on his feet. “I’m sorry, miss, but employees have to park in the back lot.”

I tilted my head, which made the attendant swallow hard and lose eye contact. So that’s how Xavier was going to play it, I thought, offering the poor messenger a reassuring smile. “Okay, so where’s the back lot?”

Ten minutes later, after a long hike in impractical shoes, I entered Valhalla via the back of the house and took the service elevators up to the casino, then the private elevator to the executive offices. From there, the hits kept on coming.

“I’m going to work where?” I asked Xavier’s secretary, who was waiting for me after her shift and was none too pleased about it. Glancing at her Chopard watch, she pushed back her shoulder-length pageboy and rose to straighten her papers. The activity didn’t hide her smile.

“Gift shop,” she said slyly, motioning to a white-collared shirt and baby blue polyester slacks. “There’s your uniform.”

I laughed, sobering only when she threw a name tag with the Valhalla logo on top of the pile. A security guard entered the smoked-glass doors of the executive office, and she motioned him forward, summarily handing me off. Without farewell, or even a backward glance, she sailed from the office, obviously pleased to be rid of this pesky duty, probably assuming I wouldn’t even make it one entire shift. I glanced back down at the uniform, thinking the message from Xavier couldn’t be any clearer: there would be no free rides at Valhalla. Not even for the boss’s daughter.

I excused myself and escaped to the ladies’ room while the guard waited. One look at my sister’s bunny body in the shapeless uniform and I laughed out loud again. I doubted she’d ever even worn polyester before, and wondered briefly if I’d break out in hives.

“Cher would be appalled,” I murmured, and set to pulling my glossy mane back into a low bun, and lightening the color of my lipstick. I still looked like I should be walking the red carpet, though the name tag would’ve set me on the sidelines. The guard raised a brow when I returned, clearly surprised I was going through with this, but said nothing as he led me from the executive tower, down to the main casino floor, and into the corner gift shop. Looking around, I had to sigh. The place was more spacious than any art gallery this side of the Mississippi.

Within thirty seconds the store manager, Ginny-whose name should have been Attitude-halted in front of me with a dour expression and a readied lecture about being late and how all Valhalla employees were held to a higher standard than blah-ditty-blah-ditty-blah…I mentally tuned her out, philosophically deciding to make the best of it. Sure, I’d thought I’d be given some high-level position in the company. But my intentions in seeking employment were dishonorable, so it was hard to complain about this turn of events. At least I was in.

I’d make this work, and not just for the troop. I’d do it to spite Xavier and his lack of faith in my sister; I’d do it to annoy, and perhaps surprise, the woman across from me until she looked at me with something other than dismissive resignation. And even if that never happened, I’d let it go, accepting her prejudice as her shortfall and not my own.

But mostly I’d do it to vindicate Olivia. Sure, she was dead, beyond caring and probably having a pearly white cocktail at a pearly white party beyond the pearly white gates. But I still cared about her; she was alive in my mind. Fighting for her kept the past from being so bitterly final.

So I followed Janet, the sales clerk Ginny had ordered to show me around, and revved myself up to learn about the fascinating world of stocking baseball caps.