The Touch of Twilight

7

Even though it was the final stretch of the year, and the rest of the country was gearing up for cold nights, blazing hearths, and the holidays, those of us who’d just endured a blistering summer season were only now settling into the welcome balm of fall. There was no changing of leaves or need for scarves and gloves and down jackets in Las Vegas. Burning candles was a waste of wax; with a sky so blindingly blue, the flame stuttered feebly in comparison. In short, Las Vegans were experiencing the summer the rest of the country still yearned for, our seasonal marathon of blazing heat over for another year.

Of course, the Strip bustled all year long, so it was with amusement that I kept one eye on the ever-entertaining flux of tourists gawking at one another in the cavernous halls of the Forum Shops, and the other on Chandra as she was fitted with custom couture tailored to her strong, stocky frame. Frankly, people watching couldn’t compete with the entertainment value of seeing the robust and athletic Chandra polished and fawned over like a well-heeled society maven. And it was close enough to Halloween that I wanted to toss her some candy.

“Enjoying yourself?” she hissed when the tailor briefly left the room, already knowing the answer.

I widened my innocent blue eyes as I opened my Balenciaga bag, rummaging inside, though instead of lipstick, I pulled out a syringe and primed it. “You can’t waltz into Xavier Archer’s house in Doc Martens and fatigues. In fact, your walk alone is enough to clue someone in on your rustic pedigree.”

As soon as I tapped the pressurized needle, the room filled with a chemical designed to mask my true biological odor. It was indistinguishable to mortals-pheromones always were-but through the mirror I saw Chandra’s nostrils automatically flare, picking out the delicate texture of the synthetic component, a masking agent that blotted out my natural chemosignals.

Next came the perfume spritzer. It was Olivia’s favorite scent, but the pheromones copied from her biological blueprint were mixed in with the freesia and blue orris enclosed in the small vial of cut crystal. In addition to being a biological barrier, these precautions also acted as a sensory shield for my emotions. Particularly strong feelings, like love, hate, jealousy, or desire, could lead an enemy agent right to your door. Regan knew who I was, but the other Shadow agents did not, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Chandra was eyeing herself in the mirror uncertainly. “There’s nothing wrong with the way I walk.”

“Sure,” I agreed, returning her dead-eyed stare through the three-way mirror. “If you’ve just been deployed.”

I’d mistaken Chandra for a man when we first met, and even though she wouldn’t have liked me anyway, that little faux pas had sealed the deal. I’d come to the conclusion there was no way she and I would ever be friends, so instead of holding out the olive branch, I took my pleasure in baiting her.

Though, watching as she twitched beneath the tailor’s steady hand, I had to admit she’d begun looking better lately. Had she always had those strong legs, or was the tailoring tricking my eye? While it was true she would never be a size zero, that wasn’t a bad thing; she was predisposed to curves, and would’ve looked like a lollipop head if she even tried. Her chestnut hair was now past her shoulders in a long, graduated bob, and it played nicely against her warm eyes…though only because I’d gotten the best stylist in town to do both.

Still, she looked pretty damned great. Since I’d eat glass and spit shards before letting her know it, I let the thought slip away, and pulled out the compact I’d stolen after my little run-in with Regan in the ladies’ room. It was nice to see I hadn’t imagined its previous efficacy. It covered my scars as effortlessly as it had Regan’s, and each time the tailor left the room I applied more, silently impressed that even my glyph’s outline, burned into my chest, was obliterated from sight. I had to get more of this stuff.

After leaving the shops, we drove straight to the home of Xavier Archer, the-man-formerly-known-as-my-father. It had been a shock to both Olivia and me to discover we were merely half sisters, though Xavier must have long suspected I wasn’t really his. His reaction had been primarily one of relief. Unfortunately, masquerading as Olivia meant I was still very much a part of the bastard’s life, though that was coming in useful. As I mentioned before, Xavier was the Tulpa’s chief mortal ally, and visiting him gave me an opportunity to canvass his home for clues that might lead to the Tulpa.

I told Chandra to hurry before she fell apart again, and she told me what I could do with my fashion advice, so by the time we arrived at Xavier’s compound, our silence had escalated to cold-war-style tension. In fact, the only point at which we acknowledged each other’s existence was when an explosion blasted through the temporal plane, so strong and close it was as if it’d gone off inside the car. I screamed as one of my eardrums ruptured inside my head, and veered from the road so quickly, the cars around me swerved and honked their horns as I spun to a halt in a sandy ditch. When we’d finally come to a stop, and minutes later when we were both able to straighten in our seats, Chandra and I looked at each other.

“Longer,” Chandra said, referring to the doppelgänger’s latest explosive breach.

“Oh yeah.” I sighed, envisioning another bloody wound on the world as I restarted the car. Hands shaking, eardrum healing, I eased back onto the roadway.

“So why didn’t you bring that useless piece of fluff along today instead of me?” Chandra asked, changing the subject as we approached Xavier’s compound. “Bless her little tabloid heart.”

She’d put a hand to her chest the way Olivia’s best friend Cher would, and her voice took on the lilt of a Southern belle, though I noted it wasn’t totally steady as I scowled back at her.

Chandra had stopped disparaging “Olivia” when she found out my bombshell exterior was a cover, but my sister’s flighty, frivolous, mortal friends were still fair game. “I’ve sent her and her mother on an all-expenses-paid vacation to Fiji. Just in case Regan changes her M.O. and decides to annihilate anyone and everyone Olivia Archer is associated with.”

Last I’d heard, Cher was desperately missing her latest romantic conquest and Suzanne had come down with a mild cold, but that was better than them being cast into a black hole like our friend Vincent. Besides, it was a relief not to worry about being Olivia so convincingly for a while. I may have known the wider parameters of Olivia’s worldview, but that was nothing compared to the minutiae of private details and thoughts Cher had been privy to.

“Must be nice to be able to buy all your friends.”

“I’m sure you’d find it helpful.”

Little had changed in the weeks since I’d last been to Xavier’s, and I felt a familiar roll in my gut as I sped up the long drive. I hated this place. Despite the gilt and grandeur, it had always been my personal prison. I’d fought like hell to get out of this gilded cage, and walking back in-even in Olivia’s skin, even with her welcome-was like voluntarily shackling myself again. Still, Xavier was my best chance of getting to the Tulpa.

“Does Xavier know we’re coming?” Chandra asked as we headed up the palatial white steps leading to the umbrella portico and the front door. I shot her an arch look.

“Olivia Archer doesn’t need an invitation to visit her own home,” I said loftily and grabbed the big gilt door handle. I pushed in. It didn’t budge.

“Hm,” Chandra said, crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned against an ivory pillar. “But perhaps she needs a key?”

I looked up at the camera with its steady red light. When had they begun locking the door? Between the guarded gate, the attack dogs, and the extensive electronic security system, there had never been a need. I raised my hand to knock but the door swung open, cutting Chandra’s laughter short.

“Ms. Archer, so good to see you again.”

I held back a sigh as a man the width of a flagpole popped up in front of me. He wore a double-breasted suit sagging in all the wrong places, and looked as if a stiff wind could blow him over. For all that, he was impossible to evade. I knew. He’d practically shadowed me when I was growing up here. It made him the perfect butler, a loyal sycophant…and an eternal pain in my ass.

“Mr. Deluca,” I said, voice pitched somewhere in a soprano’s upper register. “Why, you look more handsome every time I see you. Have you lost weight? Done something different with your hair?”

He straightened visibly as my eyes scanned his body, belly inverting so quickly, I thought he’d pop a lung. “Well, I have been exercising a bit more lately.”

“I’ll say,” I said, pinching his biceps between two fingers. He might’ve flexed beneath my touch, it was hard to tell. “You look fabulous.”

Deluca blushed, a grand feat if you considered that I’d never even gotten him to crack a smile. “Thank you, Ms. Archer. Is there anything I can do for you this morning?”

I stepped forward, insinuating myself into his personal space so that he had no choice but to step back, and put a delicate hand on his chest to keep him doing so. He edged backward like we were dancing the tango. “I was in the neighborhood, and thought I’d pop by to see if Daddy was in.”

“He’s on a conference call to Macau. Looks like construction is back on schedule.”

“Marvelous,” I said, like I gave a shit about Xavier Archer’s expanding empire.

“Would you like me to tell him you’re here?”

“No,” I said, too hurriedly, and had to cover with a frilly little laugh as I handed over my sweater and handbag, dropping my keys into a crystal container on the marble-topped console. I motioned Chandra forward, and she did the same. “Don’t you dare. I know how he gets when he’s interrupted. We’ll wait in the drawing room until he’s finished up.”

Deluca made no effort to hide his relief. “I’ll get your refreshments.”

Refreshments? Chandra mouthed to me when he’d walked away. I turned my back on the follow-up eye roll, and led her into the living area.

The room had recently been redecorated. There was new cream-colored paint and white casings on the floor-to-ceiling windows, new curtains in a burnt orange to match the season, a color that was picked up in the silk pillows angled along the milky chenille couch. The tables were all glass, the fixtures chrome and crystal. Xavier had been remodeling a lot lately, taking the house apart piece by piece and putting it back together in a different, though unimproved, state. I think it was his equivalent of a sports car in a midlife crisis. The only thing that’d remained were the trio of oil portraits he’d commissioned of Olivia in different years of her life, but the portraits were glossy and posed-hardly personal-and the furnishings had been appointed by a decorator with a modern sensibility and a blank check. Still, Chandra was impressed.

“No wonder you don’t have a job,” she said, dropping onto the couch, sinking into the tangerine sea of pillows.

Actually, Xavier didn’t want Olivia to have an opinion, much less a job, and only barely tolerated her charitable activity. He was happiest when she was flitting mindlessly about town, a theory I’d recently tested by going on a shopping spree at Mandalay Place that made her credit card look as lethal as an Uzi. Despite the danger to his bank account, Xavier had all but applauded. It was sick.

But the twisted family dynamics that’d had Xavier shunning me, coddling Olivia, and forbidding anyone to mention my mother, ever, wasn’t even his worst offense. Nothing could top his ingratiating status as the Tulpa’s pet, which made him indirectly responsible for his own daughter’s death. If it were up to me, I’d have made sure he knew it. Why should I be the only one grieving over her daily, or shouldering the responsibility of having failed in my obligation to protect her?

Yet rubbing salt in that wound would accomplish nothing for the troop, so instead I’d sworn to make him pay for his spinelessness. From his pocket, I thought, staring up at the final and largest portrait of Olivia. From his soul.

But first he was going to make himself useful. We’d only get one sweep through the mansion, and it’d be a surface one at that, but a feeble mind wasn’t one of Chandra’s innumerable faults. It would be a start.

Deluca returned bearing a tray of tea and scones, and after he’d poured, he excused himself and backed out of the room. I remained where I was long enough to take an obligatory sip, then rose and motioned for Chandra to do the same. “Come on. I’ll take you on a tour.”

If the room was bugged, and I already knew it was, Olivia’s offer to show her new friend around wouldn’t attract suspicion.

I led Chandra through the upper levels-there were three-purposely skipping the rooms that used to be mine. It’d been years since I lived there, but residual emotion was a funny thing; someone with Chandra’s keen perception might be able to scent me in there. She mixed the compounds covering our natural scents, and had almost certainly memorized the hooks of my genetic makeup. One sniff and she’d figure out my secret.

More, I didn’t want to risk releasing more emotion into that room. The furnishings were different from when I’d lived there, but I knew the secrets it contained. The hidden compartment behind one floorboard, another tucked into the northeast corner of the crown molding. The vows I’d etched on the tops of the doorframes. If I walked in that room, my thoughts would flit to those things like heads turning toward a car accident, an unwilling act of compulsiveness. One Chandra would sense.

“Your fucking photo is everywhere.”

I glanced at Chandra, but she was gazing around, her words apparently sincere, momentarily forgetting that I wasn’t really Olivia Archer.

It was then that we hit the wing housing Olivia’s childhood bedroom, and even I had to wince in embarrassment. It would’ve been eerie even were she alive, but with her dead it was a virtual mausoleum. The three giant portraits downstairs were only Xavier’s favorites. The rotunda leading to her suites was lined with photos from every year of her life, the antique accent tables lining the hallway topped with the less formal snapshots.

“Come on,” I said, hurrying through the passageway and into the common areas before Chandra could sense my sorrow. “Xavier should be ready for us.”

We took the elevator back to the ground floor and Xavier’s private office. There was a time when Xavier Archer had been hounded by the press, so he’d had an office suite and conference room built at home so his associates could come to him. But all that was before, when he’d been the primary figurehead for his empire. Nowadays Olivia grabbed most of the headlines, and Xavier was content to let her. He still spent the bulk of his hours secluded at home, but fewer employees and investors were stopping by. He’d begun to prefer taking his meetings by conference call instead.

Chandra gasped when we stepped from the elevator. I gave her a moment to look around, not bothering to hide my matching awe. We hadn’t decamped into the most opulent room in the manor, but it sure did make a statement.

The room was floor-to-ceiling white marble, with three high unadorned windows letting in specific amounts of light. Its interior was supposed to resemble a Tibetan stupa-an elaborate mound built in ancient Tibet to house the remains of great lamas-which was a fancy name for tomb. The highlight of the room was a museum-worthy exhibit containing the first complete English translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which, as far as I knew, Xavier had never even cracked open, but the objects that really attracted one’s eye was the vertical phalanx of prayer wheels leading to a red-carpeted dais. A giant, overly ornate throne had been added since I was last here, solidifying my suspicion that Xavier wasn’t just egomaniacal…he was psychotic.

When I’d been an angry teen living among this physical anomaly I’d only wondered what the hell a gaming mogul thought he had in common with Tibetan meditation masters, and merely decreed the whole thing creepy. Now that I knew the link, that this place of worship had probably been forced upon Xavier as a condition of the Tulpa’s patronage, the room sent chills up my spine. However, I still didn’t know exactly what the area was for, why there was a throne, and what the room’s only ornamentation-a half-dozen ancient masks; some wooden, some plain, some copper, some ornate-signified, if anything at all.

“Come on,” I said, gesturing to the opposite side of the stupa. “That’s his office.”

I knocked on the great oak door and waited for the familiar bellow to either welcome us inside or tell us to go away. The only response was a lengthening silence, so I knocked again, louder.

“Do you hear music?”

I wouldn’t have if I’d still possessed mortal hearing. But there was a thread of low and resonant drumbeats, and the faintest tinkling of chimes. I tilted my head and furrowed my brows. “Xavier always works in silence.”

Chandra stared at me for one long second before doing something no one else had ever dared. She turned the handle on the office door and let herself in.

I expected an explosion of fury and outrage to erupt from the other side of that threshold and was already scrambling for an Olivia-esque excuse…but the bellow didn’t come. There was just that steady, thrumming beat and the continued tinkle of chimes. The beautiful and unexpected scent of sandalwood had my eyes widening in wonder. If Chandra hadn’t pulled me inside the office and shut the door, I probably would’ve stood there, dumbstruck, until the music stopped to effectively break the spell.

The only thing familiar about the office was its layout. The desk was where it should be, and the floor-to-ceiling shelves lined one chocolate wall with their stiff-spined books, but even those familiar features were hard to distinguish in the cloying, curling smoke. Heavy burgundy drapes had been pulled tightly over the glinting windows of lead crystal, and the lamps had been extinguished in favor of one great corner candle. But it was neither the dimness that made me squint and strain to see around me, nor the incense, though that didn’t help. And smoke usually derived from flame, from heat, from the disintegration of something substantial, but this was more like the cool waves of mist that wound about a Scottish highland…except these tendrils weren’t rising from the ground to overtake the landscape in a heathered glen. They were coming from an opening in the far bookcase, where the steady flame of another candle called to us like a beacon.

“I take it he’s no longer on a conference call with Macau,” Chandra whispered, unable to take her eyes from the hole in the bookcase.

And together we stepped forward, through the faux barrier, and into a room I’d never known existed.