The Touch of Twilight

24

The city’s annual benefit for the North Las Vegas Children’s Fund was always held two weekends before Halloween. Though it was a costume party and ostensibly linked to the popular holiday, the timing meant there’d be no competing events to distract the city’s moneyed and elite. Not that it mattered. This benefit was Vegas’s premiere fall function, and this year would see practically every major headliner on the Strip contributing performances. None of that made a difference to the kids at Master Comics, but they acted suspiciously like normal children when costumes and candy were involved, and since the event fell on a Saturday, Zane decided to close the shop early so the little rugrats could get their Halloween groove on early.

And so it was shortly after one, an hour after I’d left Chandra unconscious and tied up in the middle of a barren desert canyon, that Zane toddled up the spiral staircase to his personal living quarters above Master Comics to find me squatting in his flat.

“About time, dude,” I said, flipping through what looked like an original script to Whedon’s Serenity. My esteem for Zane grudgingly rose a notch. “I was beginning to think you never took a break.”

Comics, mail, graphite pencils, and pads went flying, and a steaming cup of black tea dropped to the floor in an impressive crash. Zane flung his arms out before him as if to ward off laser beams that might shoot from my eyes, and I lifted a brow and flipped another page. Man, I really missed Malcolm Reynolds. Zane stared at me a moment longer, then down at the luxury Persian rug, soaked with tea and studded with shards of expensive porcelain. He opened his mouth.

“Don’t blame me for that, man. It’s entirely too weird that you drink your tea like a prissy old Englishwoman.”

“Fine china elevates the experience,” he replied through clenched teeth, then bent over with a huff to collect his papers, slapping those that’d gotten soaked against his thick, jeans-clad thigh. His microwaved pot pie had landed facedown on the floor, but he flipped it back over and it looked salvageable. “That was my favorite cup and saucer.”

I straightened, impressed by his recovery. I didn’t know if an agent had ever broken into the shop before, much less his private quarters, but he seemed almost bored by my appearance here…and that just wouldn’t do. “Nice selection,” I said, motioning to a squat bookshelf with rare printings of every major graphic series ever written, including the script I’d pulled down.

He drew back at what he perceived was a verbal attack. “Entertainment reading isn’t a crime, and Whedon’s instinctive grasp of the primeval laws of the Universe is revealed as clearly in his ’Verse as any ‘true’ manual written throughout the history of-”

“Yeah, yeah.” I stood, waving off the rest of his explanation. I swear to God, get the guy started on the mythos of any particular worldview and he might never shut up. “I just have one question to ask you, and then I’ll leave.”

He looked at me like he’d bitten into something sour.

I leaned over and patted the platform of the nearby bed, inviting him to sit. Zane slouched on the edge like he was being told of his imminent execution, and listened listlessly as I explained how the doppelgänger was stalking me, but had been told by someone to wait for me to offer my energy to her, so that she could return to where it would redouble upon itself.

“So she hasn’t been creating the breaches in the fabric of our reality just for the fun of it.” I settled back, draping my arms across the sides of the afghan-covered armchair, and crossed my legs. “There’s something that keeps drawing my double back to the flip side of this reality, and do you know what I think?”

“I know you’re going to tell me.”

“It’s Midheaven.”

“The myth?”

I raised a brow. “Is it?”

He shrugged. “They say so.”

“What do you say?”

His turn to raise a brow. “You’re asking the record keeper for his opinion? That’s a first.”

“So?”

He stared for a long moment, then huffed. “I know there’s something.”

“How?”

He leaned forward, palms splayed on his knees. “Because if the original manual was somewhere in this city, on this plane, I’d have found it by now, and I’d have my ticket out of this adolescent hellhole.”

The original manual-a.k.a. Zane’s obsession-documented the split between Shadow and Light, foretelling that troops would one day be located in every major city around the world, as well as predicting the rise of the Tulpa. The means to killing the Tulpa was also supposed to be inked in its pages, but no one could confirm that because our city’s sole copy had been lost. Agents kept looking, though, because the knowledge in that one manual was so great it could forever tip the scale of power in favor of the troop that possessed it.

So Zane’s point was valid. If the original manual still indeed existed, it certainly would be well hidden in a land everyone had dismissed as a myth. But what interested me more right now was his ending statement, so I watched carefully as he crossed to his bookcase where he pulled out a lighter and cigar I recognized as a Graycliff. Xavier smoked the same. And suddenly it was as clear as day. He no longer looked like one of the iPod people. He had the hunched-over mien of either a street fighter who’d been tapped too many times…or an octogenarian.

“Exactly how old are you, Zane?” He looked no more than twenty-seven, but the books and furnishings and comforts he surrounded himself with put him closer to…

“Seventy-three last March.” He sighed, blowing out a thick stream of fragrant smoke. “I’ve been this valley’s record keeper for almost half a century.”

That explained a lot. “Made a deal with the devil, huh?” I said wryly, nodding when he pointed to a cognac decanter. “Did the original record keeper trick you into it?”

“Oh no.” He poured two snifters of honey-gold liquid, and crossed to hand me one. I didn’t even have to taste it to know it was quality. I could smell the silky finish from across the room. “He laid it all out, my obligations, my restrictions, my abilities. We’re required to tell the truth to any potentials we have in mind for the job. I just haven’t found anyone in the last half century as stupid as I was to take it on.”

“And you can’t just leave it?” I asked, sipping lightly. Zane was more relaxed, friendlier now that he had someone to talk openly with. I could imagine it got pretty lonely being the only person in a group who remembered World War II. Or even the Looney Tunes.

“I can’t leave this building, Archer, never mind the city or state.” He snorted gruffly, and scratched at his chin. “The voices would drive me crazy.”

No wonder he was always in such a bad mood. There was a cantankerous seventy-three-year-old in that non-aging body.

“About Midheaven, Zane,” I said, more softly this time.

“Why are you asking?”

“Why aren’t you answering?” I shot back, before sighing and running a hand over the top of my head. “Look, I understand you’ve taken an oath of omerta that’ll probably result in some sort of terrible death if you were to break it, but I’m not asking you to divulge anything that isn’t already widely known on both sides of the Zodiac. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m a little late to this game, but I can’t really afford to be red-shirted. The doppelgänger said she needs a word, some sort of proper noun from me, but she can’t tell me what it is because it would break some tandem law in both our worlds. Where else would that be but Midheaven?”

Zane blew out four perfect smoke rings as he considered that, licking his lips as he watched them, waiting until they’d all dissipated. Then his eyes again found mine. “In astrology, Midheaven is where our actions reflect our true selves. Circumstances naturally arise there to-how do I put it?-bring your deeds into alignment with the seat of your emotions. Ultimately, you gain the trust of those around you, as well as reputation and fame.”

“Sounds like a nice place to visit,” I commented.

“But you wouldn’t want to live there,” he said immediately, and returned to the bed, leaning forward, elbows on knees. “See, in the Zodiac’s mythos, Midheaven was created for one of the twin First Mothers.”

I shivered at that. A twin. That at least paralleled the Tulpa’s words. And a woman…a “she” had told the doppelgänger to come to me, that I was smart. That I would help. “Go on.”

“The First Mothers were sisters, complete opposites, and eventual enemies. The original manual details what happened between them, but since most cities’ manuals are long lost, including ours, the story has been passed on orally. Obviously there are a hundred different versions about what caused the rift, but what’s important-and what remains unchanged in all tellings-is that one sister was banished to a sort of purgatory, a place where things get twisted. If you’re at all divided in your ambitions, unsure of what you really want, it can be sensed in that other world. Used against you. The worst thing you can do is cross into Midheaven with a divided heart or mind.”

A person cannot be divided against herself.

“Why is this considered a myth?” Because, like a chord being plucked inside me, it rang true. I knew it like I knew my own name.

“Maybe because nobody who had ever crossed into Midheaven has returned.”

Except for the doppelgänger, I thought with certainty.

“See, you need a soul to enter Midheaven. If your theory is right, and the doppelgänger originated there, then she’s made of the same material stuff as that world and can exit at will, but-”

“The Tulpa can’t follow her there.” You’ll never touch her in Midheaven.

“He can’t even access the normal portals. He was created, not birthed, so he’s-”

“Soulless,” I whispered. So was she. Thus the breaches in lieu of regular portals. I bit my lip, mind turning to Xavier. Was Helen forcing the mask on the Tulpa’s mortal ally so he could steal Xavier’s soul energy for himself, then follow the doppelgänger over? I ran the theory by Zane. “Because the only way to get to her there is with soul energy, right?”

“Another person’s soul sacrifice is sufficient for passage, yes.” He slanted a look at me then. “So is a stolen aura.”

“A stolen aura,” I repeated slowly as all the warmth of the cognac fled to my toes. “You thought I was going to…with Jas…”

He shrugged. “I didn’t know. I still don’t. All I know is the last time an agent took off with a changeling’s aura, the child went missing from this plane.”

He meant dead. “It was Jaden Jacks, wasn’t it?”

Zane shook his head immediately. “The answer’s in the storeroom, but you’ll have to find it yourself.”

“All right.” I sighed, not sure I even wanted to do that.

“But Archer? You should keep in mind that just because this doppelgänger is an enemy of the Tulpa’s doesn’t mean she’s a friend of yours. Doppelgängers can’t spring from nothing. She’s pure energy, but it’s energy that has been pooled. She smells like you, and alternately targets and helps you, which is the mark of an opportunist. Something or someone has set this thing in motion.”

You’re the golden ring…in both my worlds.

“One of the First Mothers?”

Zane shrugged. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t trust her. And I suggest you don’t let her get that final viewing of you either. Hide. Anywhere you can.”

I made a face. Like I needed him to tell me that. But I couldn’t hide. I had a city to save.

“Are we done?” he said, turning away to stub out his cigar. “Can I eat my pot pie now?”

I rose, and though nothing had changed, the room appeared entirely different from when I’d walked in. This wasn’t the pitiful apartment of some man-child who spent his time, Pan-like, in the company of children. Zane was imprisoned here, trapped with his visions until he could foist them off on someone else, an old man whose generation had moved on without him…who’d found the elixir of life, and knew it to be bitter. I’d never look at the droll shop owner the same way again.

I’d only gotten halfway back to the bathroom and the skylight I’d used to break in when I drew up short. “Zane. What’s supposed to be in the original manual that will release you from your duties?”

He looked at me like it should be obvious. “Their names, Archer. The true names of the First Mothers. Names have power, and if I have theirs, that power will shift to me.”

Because he’d speak them aloud, and like the mantra the Tulpa had given me, like prayers, like spoken thought, there would be energy, alchemy, and power in the spoken word.

“So what are you going to do now? I saw that your conduit was stolen, you know. It’s not like you have a lot of options.” Despite his caustic words, I caught the bald curiosity in his expression. It made me smile grimly, because the next time I saw him-in the shop, surrounded by children-he’d pretend we’d never had this conversation. “I’d tell you but…you’ll see anyway.”

I leaped back up through the skylight, and quickly dropped into the alley opposite the street, head ringing with all my new knowledge…and no idea what to do with it.

Whatever it was, it wouldn’t include stealing human auras to attain Midheaven, and my greatest desire. But would it entail working with the Tulpa?

All I knew for sure was that it was a sick world when siding with the leader of the underworld looked like the lesser of two evils. But I’d worry about that later. Right now I had a benefit to attend, and a long-lost boyfriend to reclaim.

There was a recurring dream I had in the early years after my rape. In it I was always cradling a child as Ben and I sat in the middle of a dried lakebed, alone for miles but for the cracked earth surrounding us like dusty, peeling tiles. But that baby was deformed. When swaddled, all I could see were these perfectly formed facial features; a tuft of dark hair whipping up from her crown, a pink bow-pinched mouth, and one brow that winged up in either concentration or confusion. But loosen the swaddling, and the child literally fell apart. She was a fragile china doll that’d been dropped, thin shards of fine porcelain chunks jumbled in the center of that blanket. At first I was afraid of her. Every move I made caused her to rattle…and me to bleed. If I tried to coo or smile at her, she’d squinch up that perfect little face, and a tiny limb would flail up to nick me, scoring my face from the corner of my mouth to my ear.

But as the months went by, I began to ignore the pain-or at least get used to it-and I pieced the dream child back together, over and over again. A shard here to reveal the tender curve of a downy soft shoulder, or an aligning of pieces that had the chubby fingers suddenly snapping into place, gripping mine so the edges dug into my skin and blood ran into that bowed hungry mouth.

The baby changed in time; sure, she was still sharp and brittle-a face only a mother could love, I remember thinking-and she was beautiful in the way broken glass is as it catches the light of the morning sun, but most importantly, she was whole. And the very last time I’d had the dream, though bloodied and stinging from her sharp little kisses, I was whole as well.

It was when I stopped having that dream that I knew I would survive. It’d taken time, but the broken pieces of me, like that child, were put back together too, though I’d also become a mosaic, a mishmashing of parts from the earlier incarnation of me.

The only person who didn’t change in all the months of dreaming was Ben. He simply sat beside me, smiling down at the shattered infant, saying nothing as he gazed into her lovely face. If the babe reached out to touch him, I’d smack her hand away, sending pieces of her palm skittering across the floor of the lakebed, her cries rising in the dry wind like razors to cut my cheeks to ribbons.

But nothing touched Ben. I wouldn’t let it, and now, as I readied myself for the Halloween benefit, I knew why. He was more to me than a mortal, or the boy I’d once loved, or the father of my child. I’d remained next to him in my mind all these years, mentally molding my existence into alignment with his. His heartbeat was like the thrumming of strings across mine, and though time and circumstances had altered, the comfort I received just from his being in this world remained untouched. He was still the same person who’d smiled unflinchingly at me in that cutting dream. The difference, again, lay with me. Now, finally, I could smile back without bleeding.