Cheat the Grave (18 page)

“When we overthrow the current regime of Shadow and Light, of course,” Gareth snapped, still stinging from my earlier observation.

I'd have told him to chill, except his words stalled me cold. “Overthrow?”

Carlos cleared his throat, then ducked his head as he shot me that beautiful, and now sheepish, smile. “That is the purpose of the cell. By unifying the independent agents into a third, larger troop, we will wage our battle for the right to live aboveground. We will fight for the right to live
as we choose. And this emerging troop, Joanna Archer,” he said grandly, gesturing at the ragtag men again, “is your army.”

My eyes went almost as wide as Io's, and I waited for someone to laugh. Roland and Gareth only scowled more deeply. I sighed. Well, of course they were an army. What else could they be?

“Surely you're joking.” I had swallowed a worm because Carlos promised to stave off Mackie's attacks if I'd keep an open mind. But an open mind to what? Leading my own troop against those I used to count as allies? In my mortal flesh?

“You're right. There aren't enough of us yet. Only fourteen with you,” he said, shrugging as I opened my mouth to protest. That wasn't what I meant. “But once we open the threshold to Midheaven and free the others from their bondage, we'll outnumber both of the existing troops, two to one. Maybe more.”

My mouth stayed open. Holy shit. An entire army of rogues. “What about individual star signs?”

In the existing troops there was only one agent for each sign of the Zodiac, twenty-four in total between both sides. Rights to the star sign were guarded fiercely, passed down through the mother's lineage.

“Fletcher and Milo are both Pisces.”

I glanced at the two men, sharing a bench and alcove. A meal of meat and beans. From the way they touched, lightly and comfortably at the knees, probably also a bed.

I crossed my arms. “Okay, so what about Warren's lock?”

He'd placed it over the entrance to Midheaven as soon as Hunter crossed over. Though Mackie and Tripp had since escaped, I knew there'd be another barring the entrance by now.

Carlos shrugged. “We'll break it again.”

Because he was no longer worried about the valley's agents knowing what they were up to.
Building an army.

“Don't worry,” Alex said, misinterpreting my silence.
He lacked Carlos's discernible accent. “Between the defenses we can offer you and the weaponry left to you by your mother, you'll be well protected while in this world.”

While in this…
“My mother?” My head jerked up and I swallowed hard.

“Why, yes.” Carlos glanced at Io, whom I now realized was more of a den mother than a ward mother. “The treasure chest. Didn't Io tell you?”

Io held her hands in front of her, an uncharacteristically defensive motion. “She didn't even know I could feel the past living within her.”

“She's disconnected,” Tripp said. I couldn't tell if it was accusation or excuse.

“Bet she never even knew she possessed a sixth sense!” Fletcher dragged from a long-necked bottle.

Milo hit his leg. “That's not the problem. I told you. She's chased death before. She has a taste for it now. She'd rather die than live.”

Carlos held up a hand, halting the discussion. I took the opportunity to jump into the fray, ignoring the comments of men who'd never known me. “Let's go back to the part about my mother.”

“She's the one who set it up so we could find you. Told us where you'd show up, when, and to leave the weapons until you found them. Once she learned of Mackie, she knew she could no longer protect you on her own. She's never involved us in her affairs to this extent before, so she must realize it's time.”

My mother had left me weaponry. I was willing to bet she'd left me the warning note on the day of Suzanne's bachelorette party too. She'd also created Skamar to rival the Tulpa in power.
Before that, she had taught me to make a fist.
I shook my head as all this new knowledge flooded it. “Time for what?”

“The Shadow to bind with the Light.”

The fifth sign. I'd stumbled right into the portent…just by trying to avoid it.

And Zoe had known what happened to me too! How could she not, when she knew all this? That I'd given up my powers as she once had, the pain and struggle in that…and how Warren had left me in the world, alone. Yet she remained hidden, waging a solo war on the Tulpa, her sole obsession and care. I mattered…but only if I could help her with that goal.

Io, who had touched me on the inside, took my hand with her own. “You've got your own vigilante guardian angel. Always have.”

I gritted my teeth. All I'd wanted was a
mother
.

“Let's go for a little walk,” Carlos said, and I realized the rest of the room had fallen silent. I wondered belatedly what my bitterness smelled like, and tried to dam up the emotion before these strangers learned anything more of the woman who was supposed to somehow lead them into a new existence. Yet holding it back was like trying to stop floodwaters with a single sandbag. Besides, my dreams had been invaded, my insides fondled, and my body told the secrets I'd long denied to myself. I had a daughter in the world. She would need to know about her fate. I had a mother too.

And though absent from my life, she somehow unfailingly continued to manipulate mine.

I emerged from the rogue's lair hesitantly, squinting like a newborn into a blinding winter day. For some reason I'd expected nighttime, but the sun rode high above the desert, sprawling around us like a forbidden planet. I felt like a cactus thrusting up through the crusty terrain, surviving despite the harsh climate, eking out an existence with only the barest of necessities. Not too far from the truth, actually.

Looking at Carlos—busy not looking at me—I wondered if he felt the same, emerging from an environment no one knew existed. Looking
past
him, I saw something else residing on the desert floor. Like the cactus, like me, it too was built for survival. And like most things on Frenchman's Flat, it was also built for destruction.

“Go ahead,” Carlos encouraged, as I took an involuntary step toward the cache of weapons…those I'd just learned my mother had left me. “I always feel better about things after I hit something.”

I did too, I thought, gazing down at the trident, gun, cane and saber. They'd been returned to the original black chest, retrieved at some unknown point from Caine's destroyed
home. Its lid was propped wide and, in additional invitation, a bull's-eye was set up across from it in the distance.

I reached for the saber, stroking its small antique firearm. Though still upset about the drugging, I wasn't unaware of the faith Carlos was putting in me by bringing me here, revealing not only his location but the bulk of his plans. There was nothing keeping me from going back to Warren with the information, trying to insinuate myself back into the troop…or even to the Tulpa in efforts to exact revenge on my former allies.

Though Carlos wasn't entirely without protection. The agents wouldn't be able to destroy the bunker beneath Frenchman Flat because they couldn't leave the city, unlike the rogues—and now me—who could travel freely. And right now, I thought, leaving didn't sound half bad.

Lifting the saber, I tested its heft. Two months ago I'd have been able to propel the thing across the desert floor like a javelin, striking dead center ten out of ten times when standing still. Squinting, I sighted down the silver barrel. I'd be lucky now if my mortal eyesight would allow me to hit the thing at all.

I squeezed the trigger. There was a swift chuff, as if I'd shot air instead of a bullet, then silence. A miss. Gazing in the opposite direction, I sighed.

“You could do it,” Carlos said, reading my mind. “You could just start walking, head northeast toward Salt Lake. Use Olivia Archer's money to alter your appearance, draw up new personal documents, build credit under a new name. Even enterprising mortals have managed all that.”

It wouldn't be so different than how I was living now, I thought, reloading. All my possessions and habits dependent on the woman I was impersonating. Going through each day ever conscious of appearances. I sighted again.

“But—”

“There's always a but,” I muttered, firing. Damned sun. Its glare was relentless, even in winter. I immediately reloaded.

“You can't unlearn what you know. Your experiences this past year have shaped you into a different person entirely. Even with a full memory cleanse, there will be dreams. I know…because there was a time when I tried to forget as well.”

“What I need to forget,” I said, squeezing air—whoosh! “Is that last shot.”

Yet Carlos's words made me think of my old boyfriend, a mortal and my first love, who'd recently undergone a memory cleanse. I wondered if Ben had dreams featuring him in the arms of the woman he'd known as a boy? Or of watching the daughter he never knew he had playing in her yard, his own dark curls lying damp on her forehead?

Had I done him any favors in allowing his memory to be erased? The idea had been to free him from the knowledge of the Zodiac world, and keep him from being targeted by the Shadows. Maybe the cleanse worked better on those who'd always been mortal. I propped the saber back in the chest with a sigh, picking up the gun instead. I sincerely hoped so.

“You know I'm right. You've tried to forget the past before.”

I looked up at Carlos, a breeze shifting long strands of hair across my face. He meant the attack that had claimed my innocence, and nearly my life, when I was a teen. Brushing my hair back, I again turned away. “I never forgot.”

“No, you fought.” He joined my side, arm brushing mine. “But you cannot fight who you are. You must accept it, let the knowledge wash over you, and allow it to change you. The truth forces you to become who you are meant to be.”

“I'm not Shadow, Light, a rogue agent, or a leader. I don't have any power and—as you might have noticed—I don't really play well with others.” Relaxing my shoulders, I sighted the target. “I'm human, and nothing else.”

He snorted next to me. “So you're exactly like all those who are unaware of beings who fight to control this valley and every person in it? Is that what you really want? A
return to ignorance despite the truth tunneling beneath your feet?”

Sometimes
. It would be infinitely easier to believe people acted of their own volition for both their good and evil deeds. Like the guy who'd tried taking my wallet while I sat alone and defeated on the cold winter ground by a loading dock. Could he take responsibility for the impulse…or had a Shadow once whispered in his ear? Had a not-so-coincidental series of misfortunes sent him spiraling into self-indulgent madness, making him prone to exert his control over someone who appeared weaker? Or was he just a prick?

I fired. A bubbling green vial shot forward, the barrel burned. The target stayed intact. My shoulders slumped.

“Face it, Joanna,” Carlos said, moving behind me. “You'll never be blissfully ignorant again, wish it as you may.”

Wishes don't mean shit.

You must take action.

“I want to be normal.”

“That's different for everyone, isn't it?” He put his arms around me, guiding the gun back to the target. Sighting for me, he guided the weapon higher than I would have. The liquid vial gleamed in the sunlight. “You,
mi weda
, will be normal when you accept your destiny as Kairos.”

Warren once believed that meant working on behalf of the Light. The Tulpa had been hedging his bets toward the Shadows…though if what Io had told me was true, he hated agents on both sides of the Zodiac. And now Carlos thought I could represent neither…and both.
The Shadow will bind with the Light.

And do what? Create gray?

We fired together. The target's center exploded…and disintegrated in an acid burn. I lowered my arm. Satisfying…though not as much as if I'd done it on my own.

“Well, I still don't understand why it has to be me. You're
El Jefe,”
I said, giving Io's words a bite she hadn't. “Those
men look up to you, they're
your
army. So why don't you unlock Midheaven? Fight your own war.”

I'd had my share. Turning, I held the gun out to him. He ignored it.

“We need more than just the lock removed. We need a woman to enter and free our men.”

Because Midheaven was ruled by women who could move about freely, while the men were slaves. I thought of the abject bitterness living in Shen's gaze. Even in dreams, even unwittingly, I'd told him what to do with my will alone. Wishing might not mean shit in this world, but in an entire realm created from thought? It was everything.

But Carlos knew nothing about Solange, or Hunter, or the way I'd been treated the two times I'd managed to enter. If possible, Midheaven was more dangerous to me than this world. “Let my mother do it.”

Since you're so buddy-buddy and all
.

“Mortals can't get near Midheaven.”

“I'm
mortal.” And I was exhausted. I dropped the gun back into the chest.

“But you won't be.”

I turned at the smile in his voice. “Really? Got a phone booth I can change in? Maybe an invisible plane and bulletproof bracelets while you're at it?”

“No. Only the opportunity to help you achieve what you've already done twice before…” He paused for an imaginary drum roll, smile widening. “Gain the aureole.”

And even jaded, tired, and mortal, I could see how well that could work. The aureole allowed a person to wander the earth like a ghost—no one could sense, touch, or even see them unless they willed it. Yet to acquire such power, you had to kill an agent with his own conduit, turning their own magic against them. As Carlos had said, I'd done it twice, something no one else had managed. I swallowed hard. The whole plan was starting to make sense. “Look, if I don't convince the Tulpa that I'm Olivia Archer, he'll take me out. And if Warren suspects for one instant I'm work
ing with you, he'll do the same.” As much as I'd like to believe otherwise, I knew that much to be true. “There's no way I can just hide out here, or take time off to go traipsing off to another world to gather an army meant to usurp them both.”

Surprisingly, Carlos didn't disagree. “So continue being Olivia. Attend your meetings at Valhalla. Live in the mansion as the Tulpa expects. We will watch for Mackie…as well as a chance for you to gain the aureole.”

A chance to kill a Shadow agent. And then re-enter Midheaven and usher every last trapped rogue—men who'd gone there to escape something unsavory in their past—back out into the Vegas valley. Yeah,
that
sounded like a good idea.

But I thought of Tripp, and how he'd been the one to step up against Mackie. I thought of the men I'd spent time with in Midheaven, washed out lithographs of their old selves, sweltering in heat no living thing should have to bear. Even Shen, as much as I disliked him, deserved to be free of a tortuous place that slowly siphoned his soul.

But how unlikely that they'd follow me, that I'd succeed, or even manage to escape once I was there.

How much that would piss off Solange and her ilk, who fed off the souls of the agents trapped over there
.

I was smiling faintly at the thought when I had another. Looking at Carlos, I said sharply, “I'm not killing one of the Light. I know you're all one giant paranormal Woodstock lovefest here, but that's not how this is going to play out.”

“Sí, mon.
” Carlos shrugged one shoulder, recrossing his legs on the desert floor. “Only Shadow.
The
Shadow.”

I jolted, self-preservation jump-kicking in my gut. “Which Shadow?”

“The one you're closest to, of course.” Carlos squared on me, filled my vision, causing the desert and all other worries to disappear. Replacing them with a new one. “The Tulpa.”

 

I swayed, but shook off Carlos's steadying hand. “The Tulpa can't be killed.”

That's what made him so effective and dangerous and powerful. Even conduits were useless against him. In fact, the energy spent trying to bring him down made him even stronger. He fed off the intent of his attackers. Even Skamar, another tulpa and the most powerful being to ever challenge him, hadn't found a way to kill him outright.

“That's because nobody ever tried to turn his own weapon against him.”

“But he doesn't have…” I stuttered into silence under Carlos's weighted stare. A magical weapon, a conduit, was as much an extension of an agent as a limb. Once made and bestowed, it was a part of them, and by striking them down with it, you turned their own magic against them. It was a natural law in any world. No person could stand divided, or in conflict against a part of themselves. And true, the Tulpa didn't have a conduit forged in a smithy, and fitted to his attributes, abilities, or whim.

But he did have a daughter. Someone who was a part of him. Someone who, over the past year, he'd simultaneously courted, feared, and wanted dead.

“You
are
that weapon,” Carlos said, supplying the thought's end for me. “Better, now that the whole of the paranormal world knows you're mortal, he will never suspect you might be his downfall, blood against blood.”

Io's lesson about the body's connections was still fresh in my mind, as were the scents it'd brought to life. Coupled with her warning about Ashlyn's fast approaching second life cycle, I realized there was more at stake in the immediate future than my life. So regardless of what Carlos said, I didn't have a choice. I needed to do this for her. But damned if I wasn't going to get something out of it too.

“Maybe,” I finally conceded, nodding slowly. “But if I'm going to kill the Tulpa, then enter Midheaven and free an army—”

“Then lead it,” Carlos added, seeing no reason to hold back now.

“Right,” I said dryly. “If you want me to do all that while still running from Mackie and hiding it all from my former troop, then I want something in return. Something equal to the risk.”

He finally looked wary. I let him think about it, and it didn't take long. He shook his head. “She won't like it. She may even stop working with us. Helping us.”

“I
may stop working with you,” I said testily, and turned back to the weapons. “Look, Io said she worked on my mother before. She probably gave her the same protective coating for her organs, right? What else did she give her, Carlos? What else do you know?”

“Nothing. Zoe Archer is infamously paranoid and secretive. She trusts no one.”

“But you've been in contact with her.” Pulling the ancient trident from the chest, I flicked the blades open. They winked sharply in the full day's light.

“She's in contact with us. That's how it is with her. I go along with her whim.”

Because he hoped she'd lead him to me. “I thought she had your father killed?”

“I don't blame her. She was newly mortal, had no defenses against attack in the Guardian Angel Cathedral. Besides, she has done many helpful things for us since. While others merely sit around and talk, her actions are proof of her intent.” He pursed his lips and locked his dark, serious gaze on mine. The lone wolf act, coupled with a tragic past and dark good looks, was a heady mixture. His expression alone could gain a hundred beds. If I wasn't already actively avoiding dangerous men, I might have inched closer. “But I can't find her, no more than the Tulpa, or Warren. We've all looked, you know.”