Cheat the Grave (22 page)

“So that's Arun Brahma.” My initial impulse to revile him upon sight reared again, but I dampened it, not wanting it to affect an accurate reading of someone who could be worse than merely slick. He could be dangerous.

For a moment I thought he also might be sleeping with his eyes open. While Suzanne laughed gaily, tossing her hair before the cameras like it was an Olympic event, he just sat there, merely altering his profile every once in a while so the photographers had to move for him rather than the reverse. Yet when Suzanne said his name, brushing her hand against his shoulder in as intimate a gesture as one could get while still clothed, his response was immediate. His regally dull expression didn't brighten, but it altered, like one of those paintings that seemed to follow your progress across the room with a knowing gaze. He leaned toward her with such fierce attentiveness that I wanted to slap him with a restraining order.

That wasn't love, I thought, watching him drink in her every feature as if it were the first time…and he was very thirsty. That was just creepy.

“You haven't met him yet?” Terry sounded surprised.

I shook my head. “He's suspiciously private. Does he move from her side?”

Terry sipped from his bloodred drink. “Only when eyefucking her from afar.”

Also creepy, but then who could blame him? The bride-to-be looked fantastic, blond hair set in siren's waves, lips as red as the tapestry behind her, eyes glowing. Still, there was something about the way he responded to Suzanne that just felt wrong. She tugged on his arm and he swerved toward her like a weight on a chain. A few months ago I would have closed in and tried to sniff out the problem—maybe he was drugged, maybe he was
Shadow
—but now
all I could do was keep an eye on him, alert to even the smallest movement.

Or could I?

Easing back a step so I was out of Terry's peripheral vision, I lifted my glass to my lips. From behind it I whispered in a voice so low only those with access to other realities and realms could hear it. “Hey, Arun…”

His head swiveled before he caught himself. Eyes meeting mine, now narrowed, he paused only a moment before looking away. But he'd swallowed hard before he did it.

Suzanne sensed the absence of his attention as clearly as if she'd moved from sun to shade. She caught the arc of his quickly averted gaze, and brightened when she saw me. Her crimson smile widened as she waved, and she pointed at her wrist to indicate my bracelet.

I gave her a big cheesy thumbs-up while Arun watched her with an intensely glowing gaze. Most women would kill to be looked at like that. But some had been killed
after
being looked at like that. Now that I knew that he was something
other
than he claimed, I worried for Suzanne. I had no clue what his angle was, if he'd left me protective weapons on a scavenger's hunt, or if he was an ally. All I knew for sure was I didn't want her marrying him.

“Well, she looks radiant,” I said to Terry, almost forlornly. Damn. She always had such bad taste in men.

“Yes. Jewels on every digit, and each one a testament to the power of blow jobs.”

Time to extract myself from
this
conversation, I thought, brows raised. I turned away, caught Helen lingering in the doorway, and turned back. “Um, where's Cher?”

“Here, I'm here!”

“All done having bulimia, darling?” Terry asked as she joined us.

Cher shuddered delicately. “This ethnic food is hell on the American digestive tract.”

“Told you to stick with vodka,” Terry singsonged, holding up his glass.

“You should at least give it a try. I practically killed myself putting this party together,” I said, knowing Helen could hear. I'd done nothing but throw the name and number of Suzanne's preferred party planner on Helen's desk, and I smiled, seeing her back go ramrod straight before she stalked from the room. Good. The less time she spent around my mortals, the better.

“Seriously, Olivia.” Cher's gaze followed my own. “What does your housekeeper do other than skulk in doorways?”

“That's pretty much it.”

Oblivious to my frown, she patted down her streaked hair with alternating black and red nails. “You should can her ass. Just because your father put up with that behavior doesn't mean you have to.”

“No, no, no.” Terry fisted one hand on his hip. “You need to look at her contract first. Otherwise she'll go straight to the press and reveal all your nasty little secrets.”

“I don't have nasty little secrets.” I just had nasty big ones.

“She'll just make it up,” he said, jerking his head. “Don't you read
People
magazine? Celebrities' nannies do it all the time. And that bitch doesn't like you.”

I wasn't surprised Cher and Terry had noticed…or that they didn't care for Helen. Mortals might be ignorant of otherworldly battles and politics, but everyone had intuition. Supersenses were just extremely well-developed extensions of that.

“Oh, here. I forgot this before…” Cher reached into her ample cleavage and withdrew a rolled up photo. “It's the one you made me take on that awful scavenger hunt. I didn't know if you still wanted it, or if you'd rather forget the whole thing, but it was developed along with all the other party pictures, so I made you a copy.”

I held the photo in front of me, shocked at the crispness
of the image. The flash had caught the intricate etchings on the old treasure chest perfectly, along with the symbol that had been stalking my waking hours. I traced it with my fingertip, wondering aloud. “But what is it?”

Terry tossed a glance at the photo and finished the rest of his drink. “A snake. Duh.”

He set his glass on a passing waiter's tray, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and turned back to me. Seeing my surprise, he leaned closer. “It is. See? Wrapped around a stick or some sort of staff.”

Studying the photo more closely, I decided he was possibly right.

“What?” he asked, clearly offended by my pursed brow. “Snakes are present in practically every mythological system out there. Google it. You wouldn't believe the shit they represent.”

“Such as?”

“Guardians of sacred treasures and sites—”

“Like in
Indiana Jones
?”

“Yeah, temples and stuff.” He sniffed, tossing his head. “And, like, medicine and healing. Renewal and regeneration—shedding skin, get it?—and vengefulness, sometimes deceit…”

But my mind had snagged on the temple connection. A stupa was a monument containing Buddhist relics, which could be loosely interpreted as a sort of temple. As tulpas had derived directly from Tibetan Buddhism, the connection seemed more than coincidental. Because there was a stupa, or an extremely realistic rendition of one, in this very house. Not a definitive clue, but it was a place to start. “Thank you, Terry,” I murmured, refolding the photo.

“Sure,” he shrugged, then brightened. “Come on. For your sake I will risk death by Naga chili pepper.”

Which would buy me time to think, not that I needed a lot of it. It was clear I was going to have to put the problem of Arun Brahma aside and canvass the stupa while I still could. If anything out of the ordinary occurred at
this rehearsal dinner—and a homicidal attack by a creature escaped from another world certainly qualified—Lindy would immediately alert the Tulpa. Then every action within these walls would be catalogued like a forensic exam. So I'd investigate tonight just to be safe, maybe during the soup course, before making sure all the guests got home safely. Tomorrow I'd stop one of my best friends from marrying a man who made her unabashedly happy despite both his stalker and otherworldly qualities. After that?

I'd gather up the arsenal my mother had left me and go kill myself a tulpa.

Dusk still came early in February, so night's fingers slipped into the mansion before the main course was even served. I glanced surreptitiously at my watch, knowing it would be well into the midnight hours before this party was over. Suzanne hadn't stopped beaming since I'd arrived, and damned if I was going to be the one to wipe the smile from her face by cutting the festivities short. Even Arun had eased up on the devotedly de-ranged husband act, swaying in his seat as Bollywood films played merrily on the wall screens.

Deciding a round of raucous toasting was needed to slip away unseen, I passed the suggestion into the ear of a bald man who'd been bouncing along enthusiastically in front of a one-dimensional Aishwarya Rai. It was akin to holding a match to a water-starved field. The idea blazed through the crowd, and a microphone suddenly appeared. Some people were sincere in their toasts, some elicited hoots of laughter and a public dialogue, while others simply vyed for the attention of a man who ruled over his own Indian principality…and for the favor of a woman who would soon be a princess. I made my escape halfway through one of these.

Footsteps light, I slipped through the heart of the house, ears pricking at the occasional bursts of laughter from the dining area, though within minutes it felt like the festivities were in a separate home altogether. This side of the estate was crypt-quiet, and just as cool, as if all the body heat and warmth were confined to the proximity of the human activity.

And here you are, I thought wryly. Baiting not-quite-dead things in the dark. Somebody cue the too-stupid-to-live music.

But I was almost there. Another corner and I'd gained entry to a room made entirely of smooth white marble, bare of floor coverings but with tiny spotlights set low on artifacts Xavier had deemed precious. Stupas, essentially aboveground tombs, traditionally housed the bones of great lamas of the past. Xavier's stupa didn't contain bones—not as far as I knew—but it did house a thirteen-hundred-year-old
Tibetan Book of the Dead
, a recessed dais complete with gold throne, a phalanx of traditional prayer wheels, and a half dozen animistic masks. Crafted of varying metals and woods, each of these featured mouths open wide in silent, monstrous screams.

Spooky. Shit.

Three medieval-style windows popped from their casements along one wall, mere eye slits compared to the giant leaded windows overlooking the front lawn. Unadorned, they also seemed to follow my progress across the cavernous room. The rest of the marble room was sparse, making the giant gold dais and throne stand out all the more. With no interest in waking the dead, I avoided the prayer wheels, my attention on the masks spaced along the white. All were antique, all mystical, and I knew all contained a spirit trapped inside the hollowed space.

I put a wide swath of space between myself and a mask I'd worn before, even while squinting at the design work, looking for the telltale depiction of a snake. The spirit residing in that mask had once tried to take over my mind.
When donned unwillingly, it trapped a person's breath inside the concave form, effectively suffocating them without ever allowing their death. I half expected it to leap from the wall, secure itself to my face, and never let go.

Finishing with the masks, I turned my attention to the etchings on the
Book of the Dead
, bending low so I could view the spine of the book, propped open in its protective casing. Nothing. A closer look at the dais, carved and lacquered with geometric designs, proved it absent of anything resembling a snake, and the ornate throne was covered only in faceless whorls and endless knots. Sighing, I turned around in the room's center, trying to see the place anew, then stilled as my gaze locked on Xavier's office opposite the stupa's entrance.

My office now, I reasoned, eyes narrowing like those slitted windows. And one containing a hidden room where he'd ritualistically, incrementally, given up his soul to provide power and strength to his benefactor, the Tulpa. Resisting the urge to spin a prayer wheel on the way, I left the aboveground tomb for a room buried even deeper.

 

Pressing my back against the office door, I took in the scent of leather and old books, a faint stale whiff of the cigars Xavier had liked to smoke, and something like invisible iron lying in the air—heavy, but not readily there. Any other mortal would dismiss it—and the chill it induced in the spine—as skittishness induced by a dead man's room. Yet I knew it for the scorched remnants of a soul, leaving Xavier a dead man even before his body had given up the fight.

Pushing from the oak door, I made my way to the giant desk, where I flipped on a banker's lamp and sent the shadows scurrying like rats. The chocolate walls were still lined with bookshelves, their contents still untouched. Smoked mirrors and crown molding slipped along the coffered ceiling, and everything else was dark mahogany, rich and shining, yet utterly without warmth. I left the heavy
burgundy curtains drawn, not wanting the light from the study to spill out and reveal my location.

Now to discover the hidden room's entrance.

I tried all the places you see in the movies—a latch under the desk, the wall lamp shaped like a candle, individual books lining the back wall. Nothing. Yet in going through the desk drawers I discovered the giant folder Xavier had handed over to me while on his deathbed. It detailed every boring financial aspect of the family business, which is why I hadn't missed it, though I had no idea how and when it got shoved back into his study.

Helen, I thought wryly, dropping the folder onto the desk. She must have removed it during that bleak period I'd been convalescing in the mansion. Like I said, I had no interest in its contents, but I hated when someone made assumptions about what I could or couldn't do. I'd decide for myself if I were interested in the family business, thanks very much. So I left the binder on the desk for later and went back to my search.

“C'mon, Jo,” I whispered, looking for some freaky little symbolic mark. Everyone in the Zodiac world loved that shit. Hearing a muffled sound just outside the door, I fell still, but after a full minute I resumed my search. It was probably just one of the masks yawning in boredom.

I was about to do the same when my gaze caught on the fireplace…and more specifically the tool set perched next to it. Interesting, as I'd never seen a fire burning inside it. Then again, Xavier had been built like an ox, and had probably run hot, at least before his illness. Which made the stoking tools even more of an oddity. Bending closer, I found hinges attached to each wrought-iron tool. “Bingo,” I whispered, yanking on one.

It wasn't that easy. They obviously had to be pulled in a specific order, and with four tools, the combinations were endless. I tried a variation of the most obvious ones, glanced at my watch, then began a second, more hurried
round. By the third I was sweating. By the fourth I heard another sound outside the office door.

“Think,” I cajoled myself, closing my eyes, trying to figure out what combination Xavier would find meaningful. The man had been neither sentimental nor superstitious. He'd only gotten involved with the Tulpa out of a desire to make a boatload of money. But while that told me he was a stupid, greedy bastard—things I already knew—it didn't help me ferret out the combination leading to his secret room. Frustrated, I yanked on all four tools at the same time, like I could force the damned thing open.

A latch handle shot from beneath the middle shelf.

I couldn't hold back my surprised laugh. Of
course
it would be all four at once. Xavier Archer always had wanted it all. Grabbing the handle and yanking it up, I pulled the heavy hinged door wide and entered the secret room.

 

Dual scents of sandalwood and soot hit me, the molecules and motes still heavy with remnants of the rituals Xavier had performed here. Obviously no one had aired out the room since his death, and for once I was thankful I'd lost my overly keen sense of smell.

After locating and lighting a thick, squat candle—the room lacked both electricity and contemporary furnishings—I shut the false wall behind me to prevent the scent's escape, then gave the odd room a long once-over.

It's like a movie set
. Though all the furnishings—the pillows and throws, the incense and gold Buddhist statues—had been imported directly from Tibet. Xavier's fetish for authenticity, and undoubtedly the Tulpa's insistence on it, was apparent in every carefully chosen item. Colorful rugs in primary colors were rolled like yoga mats in the corner of the room. Bowls of bronze, silver, copper, and wood were stacked on a shelf above those, while another held an astonishing array of incense and candles, caught in stark relief against the whitewashed
walls. I held the candle and the photo out in front of me and began comparing objects.

Intricate singing bowls, originally meant to worship the Buddhist gods, sat next to simple mallets lined on a rough-hewn shelf. I compared my photo to those, again coming up empty.

Dropping to the rug I'd once seen Xavier worshipping upon, I remembered the way Helen had stood at his back, forcing him to his knees and holding him there. The look on his face had been one of fear laced with agony, and while shock and lifelong animosity kept me from feeling sorry for him then, when I knelt on the very same pillow and viewed the room from his perspective, I couldn't help feeling a sympathetic twinge.

The air was cooler and less cloying on the floor than when standing, so I crossed my legs and reached for the sole item still propped in the room's center, a handheld prayer wheel. I'd researched the things after watching Xavier chant with one, and I gave this wheel an experimental flick of my wrist. Its weight surprised me as the metal cylinder inside clicked and the ballasted chain whirled to release the universally revered sound “Om” into the room.

I flicked my wrist again, then again, finding it strangely soothing. A mortal mind focused on the ritual of worship would easily fall into a trancelike state, bringing them closer to the object, or personage, of their worship.

In return for a few slivers of their soul.

Despite the thought, I flicked the prayer wheel again. The tonal notes sat up in the air, not loud but with an even hum, but since I wasn't worshipping anyone, I was safe enough. One thing I'd discovered in my year with the agents of Light was that intention was what gave a person's actions, and life, meaning. If one lived focused on their greatest desires to the exclusion of all else, then the Universe would move and redirect energy to provide the desired results. I flicked the wheel again and caught a rhythm. The chain reeled around, sending the magic out into the Universe.

So what was my intent? My greatest desire? Certainly not to ration out what was left of my soul to the Tulpa.

But seeing him dead? Yeah, that would be nice. I'd love to watch all the negative energy responsible for the Tulpa's powers spiral out—whirl, whirl, whirl—dissolving harmlessly into the Universe. But then what? I frowned. Leave Warren free to run this valley the way he saw fit? That no longer seemed right either.

The prayer wheel whirled steadily now; I'd caught my rhythm.

Finding my mother was an obvious driving need, maybe because her desertion hadn't been absolute. Zoe Archer straddled the divide between here and gone, super and mortal, truth and lies. She was like oxygen to me, invisible but vital, and as long as she was out there, I would want to find her. I could admit that much—whirl, whirl—at least to myself.

And then there was Hunter.

I shut my eyes, flicked my wrist and recalled his face. “Hunter…”

Why was it so hard to let go of someone who'd so carelessly released me? It hadn't been done in a void after all, not like Zoe, her whereabouts unknown. No, he'd left me for another woman—one he'd courted against troop rules, one he'd married, and one he'd chased after for years, even after meeting me.

So why?

Because he'd regretted his decision. I'd seen it in those underground tunnels, lurking in him like an undiagnosed disease. At the last, right before he abandoned this world, a small part of him wanted to stay, wanted me to understand. Wanted
me
.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Not even in the darkest corner of that beautiful soul.

Yes, Hunter had known my darkness, tasted it, and even taken it on when sharing the aureole. But ours wasn't a onetime connection. It was a magic that reared its head
every time we touched, when we made love, both of us willing it to grow stronger.

That
was what Trish meant when she'd spoken of a soul connection.

So would it have lived between us if not for the aureole? How beautiful would he have found me without it? Would I even have had a chance of capturing his interest in my current fragile,
mortal
, state?

Whatever the answer, it neither changed the past nor the one thing that kept bucking whenever I mentally tried to say good-bye:
Hunter
had offered up his body as a soft place for me to land in a season where everything was hard. I'd been on my heels in my new role as the Kairos, part of a world I hadn't known existed. My sister's death had rocked me back further. And, in the hours before the first time we made love, the shock of finding my childhood lover locked in the embrace of a mortal enemy had flattened my will to live.

For a while Hunter made all of that better, if not okay. And it hadn't been a one-sided seduction. I could own up to my part in it all. I hadn't turned to him as much as I'd fled, finding solace in his strength and peace in his acceptance. Hunter had helped steady me in my new life.

The magic of the aureole connecting us? That was just fucking
icing
.

“Jo?”

My hand came to an abrupt stop as I opened my eyes, the sacred sound from the prayer wheel breaking into two syllables, then down into silence. I was on the floor of what looked and smelled like a Babylonian garden.