Cheat the Grave (16 page)

The sound buried itself in the basin. Then the haze above us parted like curtains, and light from the basin beamed like a projector onto the ceiling.

He lay in a skiff shaped like a lily petal, made of glossy teak and edged with imposing symbols. Immediately recognizing one of them, the same as that carved upon the treasure chest at Caine's, I gasped.
He
stirred in his sleep, rolling his head on the red velvet tufted pillow until his body positioning mirrored mine exactly. I lifted my hand to my mouth in shock. He did the same. I ran it through my hair. He echoed the movement in his sleep. Meanwhile I took in the sight of him—white-blond cropped hair, thick neck, wide shoulders, skin as dark as Carlos's—committing to memory how vulnerable the fierce man looked. Hunter…but laid out here in his true identity: Jaden Jacks.

“Oh, this is interesting.” Nicola's reluctance veered to interest as our movements synched again. I dropped my hand to my chest. He did the same. “It really is a soul connection.”

“Solange is going to be pissed.” Diana.

Singing again, Trish. “Something tells me she already knows.”

It's Miss Sola wants you dead, girl
.

“But that one would almost be worth the risk,” Trish
murmured, shifting luxuriously. “I mean, since we're destined to be incinerated anyway.”

I swallowed back the metallic taste in my throat, ignored the drugs crackling like sparklers in my bloodstream, and lifted my hand in the air. Still asleep, Jaden Jacks did the same. I'd kick myself later over how lovesick I was acting in front of women who would have no qualms about using it against me, but for now my heart pounded in raw beats, my body knowing what it wanted despite my mind's holler to cease and desist.

“Hunter—” I whispered, the scratchy echo of my voice clanging clumsily against the ceiling. I winced…and his eyes rocketed open.

His gaze burned with the same honeyed hue I remembered, though it was alive with horror as he found my face. He lifted his head from the red pillow, lunging for me, but his head banged against our ceiling like glass.

I strained upward as well, echoing the movement, but the hammock wouldn't release me…and neither would his shocked gaze. “Hunter?”

“Jo?” The strange face with familiar eyes went rigid. “Oh my God. What are you doing here? I've been trying—”

“No!”

No warning. Just that one strained, screeched word. The women around me screamed and scrambled as a face of feral beauty filled the sky, looming, thrusting forward to distend the sky. The others fought to untangle themselves from their hammocks, yet caught in Solange's gaze, I couldn't move.

She didn't scream again. She didn't have to. Her original cry never ceased as she too strained forward, unfortunately with greater result. Her face broke against the projection, the reflected water wrapping around her bulging eyes, like Saran wrap. Rage carved her brow, and pressing harder, she leered. Her teeth went black. Her eyes white.

The singing streams shifted into raging rapids, and my hammock began to shake. The other women were free—
Nicola, unsurprisingly, had moved the quickest—but they couldn't find an exit to the room. A sound like nails over a chalkboard etched its way over my spine and a hairline crack formed along the walls. Sand began filtering in, slowly at first, then pouring and pooling as the walls began to shake and splinter.

“What have you done?” Trish cried, ducking low, staggering against walls as Solange's face pressed closer. The hourglass was being tipped. Marble basins cracked, and the crystalline walls shattered. Sand poured from the borders of the sky. And I still couldn't move.

“Carlos!” I yelled as loud as I could, the taste of tin and sand flooding my mouth, while my pounding heart sizzled as though in a fryer. Willing myself awake, I screamed again. The sound clanked against shattering glass.

Then Solange took a deep breath, and in her mad gaze was a reflection of my grave: crystal shards and sandy dunes. “He's
mine
!”

The ceiling burst, the scream blowing me backward in a deafening heat. I turned my head to the side, body scorching like a marshmallow over flame, and somewhere, faintly, Hunter's cry rippled in my mind. Then, like debris, it was swept away in the torrent of sand and water that mixed to cover my burns, soothe my skin, shield me from Solange…and bury me in the shards of the destroyed room.

I awoke to a heavy wet rag being dragged across my face. A foul heat and the stench of the unwashed dead accompanied the sensation, and though there was intermittent relief—brief moments when the rag was removed and my air passage freed—I'd barely filled my lungs before it started up again. It was a slow torture, and a terrible way to die. I was so concerned with catching my breath, I didn't realize I'd been feeling disembodied until the tingling started up in my limbs. Immediately, and clumsily, I lifted my arms to push the rag away…which was when I touched the attached teeth. Jerking back, wiping forearms over my eyes, I squinted into the face of a dog as large and black as a tornado. One come to eat me whole.

Screaming, I scrambled backward, though since I was lying down, there wasn't really anywhere to go. The mutant animal jolted, shook his muzzle back and forth, and advanced on me again.

“Now now. Don't go and scare the baby girl.” An arm, just as black, came out of nowhere to calm the now-whining animal. I squinted around splayed fingers—puny
defense against nail-head fangs—in an attempt to see who the arm belonged to. “Interesting, though. She don't usually like you mortals.”

“Th-That's a warden,” I stammered, lowering my arms, staring into the dark. I was laid out like a sacrifice beneath a black light, which wasn't as blinding as a bulb's full glare, but still made it virtually impossible to see beyond the soft ultraviolet bubble. The last time I'd run into a Shadow warden—dogs, as opposed to the cats serving the agents of Light—the rabid bastard had tried to rip out my throat. Actually, there'd been two of them…though neither had been this big.

And because I'd made the mistake of releasing an arrow from my conduit into the first beast's gaping maw, I also knew wardens grew instantly stronger and larger—not to mention really pissed off—when struck by the magical weapons. It seemed this fiend had seen plenty of battle. She ambled closer and I shielded my eyes and tried to sit up. “She probably doesn't like agents of Light either, right?”

“Oh, she loves them.” Those strong dark hands reached through the violet rays and pushed me back down. A wide, round face followed them into view. “Bone in, still warm, and medium rare.”

Wincing, I tore my gaze from the dog to study the now-cackling woman, so dark she seemed kiln-fired, like some glossy, smooth-faced fertility goddess. Her curves were nothing like Trish's. Those had been inviting, whereas these were daring. She wore ornamentation like Diana, but the true adornment was her skin, shoulders shining over a strapless orange dress, muscles thick and defined like giant ropes of black licorice. She had nothing at all in common with Nicola's goth glamour. Her hair was a wild black moon, and hid nothing of her exotic face…including eyes like disks with onyx pupils filling the whole of the socket.

I'd only seen depictions before of such women in the manuals. She was, or had been, a ward mother, but unlike those I knew, she had reared the Shadow children. She
cared for them until they reached full maturity at the time of their metamorphosis and left the Shadow lair. “I always wondered what one of you would look like up close,” I told her. I was mortal, naked beneath a black sheet, and obviously under her care. Why mask my words? I didn't have a whole lot to hide.

She smirked, motioning down her body, and stood back, caressing the head of her strange pet as I took a closer look. “Just as you thought?”

“Not really,” I admitted, though the eyes were more disturbing than expected. Where the “mothers” who raised the initiates of Light had a sunken and violent cross-hatching of scars over their eyes—a product of raising children whose glyphs were as powerful and unpredictable as a solar flare—the ward mothers for the Shadows lived a rayless, shaded existence. Exposing them to the smallest amount of natural sunlight would be like forcing their face into the core of the sun. It would kill them outright.

I thought of Carlos's worms, burrowing through centuries, hunkered deep and unseen, their work impacting the entire world.

“Why do my hands hurt?” I finally rasped, leaning back. It didn't look like either of these Shadowy beings were going to kill me. In fact, the ward mother brought me a clay tumbler of water.

“Oh, I worked on those first. I was hoping they'd be done before you woke.” I finished sipping from the cool, fresh water, and studied my throbbing right hand. Prints had somehow been applied to my fingertips. I used my thumb to try and flick one off—that was an old trick—but they ached too much, like individual hearts lived in each tip. The woman shook her head, tsking as she pulled my arm away. “Hold on, now. You don't want to undo all my handiwork. Let it set. Another hour and it'll look like the real deal.”

I swallowed hard, dropping my head back again. The light was a vibrant purple halo around her dark cloud of hair. “What are you doing to me?”

“Giving you the tools you need to live, my girl,” she said, and shrugged, one large shoulder moving up and down. “Or at least to hide in plain sight. Rules are different when you're gray.”

That's right. That's what the rogues called themselves. I'd have to get used to it. I looked at my body, laid out beneath a black sheet and the dark light. Get used to being gray.

She must be like Micah, I thought, which made me wonder how the physician was doing. I winced, thinking of the damage Tripp had caused him, and how odd and pained he looked with soot roiling beneath that first layer of skin. I would have never wished that upon him. Micah had only ever been kind…right up until the moment he turned his back on me. I sighed.

The dog took it as a sign to resume licking my face. After three wet smelly licks, I got up the nerve to push it away.

“Back off, Buttersnap.” The woman tapped one finger on Buttersnap's haunches, and the animal sat. Four times larger than a Great Dane, dozens deadlier, and it responded to this woman's index finger. I shook my head.

“Was it you who pulled me back?” I asked, noting the scratchy echo of my voice was gone as she nodded. My blood once again moved about in my body unfelt. The water and wakefulness had washed the metallic taste from my throat. I was home again…wherever home was. “You guys drugged me.”

“In more ways than one,” she said, not bothering to deny it. “We also have you on a drug that coats your organs and larger arteries like armor in case you're assaulted, though there's only so much we can do since you're mortal.” Reaching forward, she inserted her hands beneath the dark sheet and stared into nothingness with those strange disc-like eyes. Her fingers, warm and strong, began to work along my abdomen, touching me in long strokes like she was smoothing out my skin. “Still, we can use other means to help stimulate your cells so they rebuild faster. As long
as you don't receive a life threatening blow by a conduit, or this so-called soul blade, you should be fine.”

So I was only vulnerable to the most dangerous weapons on the planet. How comforting.

Her massage turned circular, fingertips just short of painful on the sensitive flesh of my stomach. I glanced over to find Buttersnap gazing at me with apparent pity. Dogs didn't like their underparts exposed to probing fingers either.

“I'm Io, by the way, and thank you for asking. Mine is the gift of touch, if you haven't noticed.” I jerked my head upright at the chiding tone, catching an eyeful of ultraviolet. The wide fingers pressed me again into stillness, before resuming their circular probing.

“I'm sorry. I just…it was just…”
The dream and then the dog and then the woman without eyelids
. “Where am I?”

“Just outside city limits. In a burnt-out crater off of Frenchman Flat.”

Anticipating my reaction, she pushed me back down—again, using fingertips alone. “The friggin' Test Site?”

Io saw my reservations. Shit, with those eyes, she probably saw my tonsils. But Frenchman Flat was famously the first detonation site for the nuclear facility. Back in the day, they had mushroom cloud parties, the lethal explosions used as their fireworks sequence before they knew you could
die
from the exposure…or the radioactive waste left behind.

“I understand your concerns. Brought it up to El Jefe himself.” She grinned, flashing me a row of square pearly teeth, “He said that sort of fallout is the least of your worries. Besides, you'll learn right quick, a rogue takes sanctuary where they can find it.” She gestured around the jet void of the room like it was a plutonium palace.

“The cell has been in this sink for a good decade, and I can tell you straight up there's no freer place. Certainly not in the fiery world you just journeyed from.”

I braced my elbows behind me, refusing to be put down again. Staring with eyes nearly as wide as hers, I shook my head. “So I was really there?”

“Of course. It's all here, I can just follow your body to see where you've been.” And she grabbed. I made a strangled sound as those tensile fingers pinched something
vital
, rubbing the organ like it was a spa specialty. Whatever massage she'd done had turned my skin to putty, stretching and pulling it to allow access by those strong, knowing fingers. I dizzied as she slid her fingers along the kidney-shaped mass, and though it didn't technically hurt, it was as foreign as first time sex. Then I burped up a surprising dry wad of sand, right onto the cloth covering my chest. My mouth remained hanging open, though shock kept me from letting out the scream leapfrogging through my brain.

“I can tell from touch whose daughter you are as well.” She grabbed for another internal organ with those searching fingers, but I blocked, pushing her away. I didn't like my insides being fondled like cuts at a butcher's shop. Yet Io was as strong as she looked. She nailed me with that unblinking gaze, held both of my hands over my head with only one of hers, and found my pelvic bone with the other. Damn near wrapping her fingers around it, and far less gently this time, she gave it a little tug. “This tells me you're Zoe Archer's daughter, born of both Shadow and Light, also of deceit, which is the real shadow clouding your life.”

She let go and, just as abruptly, resumed the gentle massage. Sweating, I dropped my head back and whimpered. Buttersnap slobbered all over my right cheek.

“You know my mother?” I asked when I finally found my voice.

“Felt your imprint in her once,” she confirmed. “Along the backside, though.” And this time, when she slid her fingers under me, she ran one right up the connecting vertebrae. “Right there, see? That's her.”

And an entire concert of near-forgotten scents filled my
nose. It was the mixture of emotions one would expect when remembering an absent mother, lemon-bright happiness accompanying a memory of bouncing on a knee. It was herbal also, fresh as green paint, as she instructed me on how to ride a bike. Then ginger hair swung over one shoulder as she bent over my homework, taught me to thread a needle, tie a knot…make a fist.

Make a fist? Where had that memory come from?

The question, though, was chased from my mind by an earthy musk, almost masculine, my mother's strength as I recalled her standing up to others—teens who drove too fast on residential streets, women who snarked at each other over tea. Xavier, when he dared to malign me.

“God.” I was surprised into tears. It'd been so long since I breathed in that scent. Of course, I'd never experienced it so strongly before, but Io was right—sometimes the body knew what the mind did not, including how very much I missed Zoe Archer. I nearly lunged for another whiff, but the dog was back, bearskin breath obliterating the lemon-herb musk.

“And here, just below, is
your
daughter.” And she scooped up my womb firmly, but gently, still encased safely beneath my skin, which wrapped around it like warm stretched dough. I opened my mouth to object…and another scent and memory I'd not had in over a decade careened through my consciousness. A newborn's wail, unmasked before they whisked her from the room. It was accompanied by a simple scent—wet and without hooks, just a smooth slide into my gut.
Ashlyn.
The accompanying memory, buried like a time capsule, was of perfect hands and legs flailing, a brief brush of warm pink skin against my thigh as the umbilical cord was cut. Experiencing it again was so powerful I almost said her name aloud.

“Stop,” I whimpered. “Please stop…doing that.”

Her hold lessened, though she didn't release me entirely. “What? Making your mind remember things your body holds as its secrets?” She shook her head, pressing more
firmly again. “A woman should know her own body, at the least.”

A burst then, powdered rose blooming as her fingers inched higher. “Feel this, where the base of the fallopian tube sits? That tells me the whole world is going to know about your hidden little gem pretty soon too. You were late to your second life cycle, but this one here takes after your Momma.”

The second life cycle. Puberty. When the rest of the supernatural world scents a future agent coming into the first of their powers. It was what had caused the first attack on my life as a teen by a Shadow agent.

I shook my head side to side, causing the dog to wag his tail. “She's not my daughter.”

“Oh,
okay
.” She pushed with her pinky finger. Again I heard the newborn wail.

“She's not. Never was. She was placed with another family at birth.”

She pulled her hands from beneath the sheet, then cocked them on her hips. I wrapped my arms around my middle, not daring to touch my stomach, feeling hollowed out, and strangely empty. “Baby, that child was comprised of your cells, conceived in your body, and nourished with your blood. Once she's been in you, she's always of you. Same with you and your Momma. You see the connection? That's why our world is matriarchal. Every person, no matter how powerful, is dependent on the matriarchal link.”