Cheat the Grave (24 page)

And Solange was rabid when it came to him.

“But that wasn't the truth,” I went on, pushing my cup away. “What I meant was I wanted someone to feel that way about
me
. Strong enough to put me first. To stay. No matter what.”

His voice softened, his eyes turned pleading. “It wasn't that simple.”

I cocked a brow, voice flat. “So you've said.”

And I'd heard enough. I stood, wanting out of the earth room, or the jungle book, or wherever the fuck I was. My gaze momentarily caught on a flickering movement behind a flowing willow but the tree fronds only swayed in a soft breeze, sparkling with little lights and tiny chimes.

“Just finish the manual.” He stood too, pleading with his eyes. “It will make a difference. It will matter.”

It was a
dark matter
, I thought, jaw clenching. And I was gray. “Here's what matters. You told your wife I'm the Kairos, and now she's sent Mackie after me.”

“She's the only one here in full possession of her soul. You, me, the other women. We all have less than her. We
are
less than her.”

“So your wife is invincible?”

His jaw clenched again at
wife
but he jerked his head. “Yes.”

I raised my brows. “All-knowing, all-seeing? As close to a goddess as you can come?”

“Over here she is
the
goddess.”

I tilted my head, thought about it a little more, then held out my hand. “Give me my gem.”

“What?”

“The one you said you stole from her sky. I want it.”

He narrowed his eyes, and there was that strange shifting of expressions again, one below the other. “I can't.”

“Because the goddess will know if you do?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Then how the hell did you manage to steal a gem from her beloved soul sky without her knowing?”

Hunter froze. And laughter bubbled in the trees, ringing bells, sending the lights to sway. “Very good, Archer.”

I wasn't the Archer. But Hunter didn't know that…and therefore neither did Solange. She sauntered from behind an elm like the goddess everyone thought she was. I
knew
I'd seen movement there.

She was dressed in low-cut silver or gray, it altered depending on how she moved through the light, and swept the ground cover as she walked. She held up something misshapen and tiny that winked bloodred in the meager light.

“Hold her,” she told Hunter, and before I even had a chance to bolt, he had my arms pinned to my side. Yet his grip was gentle, like a caress, which made it worse. I got a whiff of his skin as his breath rustled my hair, and an image flashed through my mind, his naked legs folded like wings over mine. Cringing, I pushed it away.

“First Regan. Now Solange.” I could almost make a paper doll chain with all his betrayals.

He drew closer, as if his touch was an embrace.

“Your boner is trespassing,” I said roughly, bringing my heel up and back. He grunted, doubling forward, but didn't let go.

Solange's laugh sent the bells to tinkling again. “Darling Joanna, as feminine as ever. But what on earth have you done to your aura? You look positively gray.”

I am a gray.

“You can see that?” Just keep her talking. Talk…and maybe someone would find me.

In a dead man's hidden room. Yeah, that was likely.

Rolling my soul gem in her fingertips, Solange lifted a slim shoulder. “One's aura is both protection and an indication of their life energy. It's like a cloak thrown about the shoulders. You look positively naked.”

“It's my chakras. They're all out of balance.”

She closed a fist over my soul. “Maybe it's the Shadow overtaking the Light in you.”

I shook my head. “I'm no longer an agent of Light. Warren kicked me out of the troop.”

Hunter jolted. Solange scoffed. “Warren would never do that. After all, you're the Kairos, right? A perfect balance of Shadow and Light.”

And she smiled sweetly, like it made me special.

Like it made me a target.

Hunter tensed, as did I. Solange held her smile as she lifted my misshaped stone to her lips and placed it in her mouth, and with it held between her teeth, blew me a kiss. Yet it was the siren waves of
her
mahogany hair that blew back over her shoulders as the starlight on her breath hit me. I inhaled involuntarily and her wordless voice whistled in my lungs. It said I would die. It promised immediately. And on the exhale, I screamed.

A crack sounded overhead, drowning my voice and shaking the trees above us. I didn't know what I'd done, but the foliage trembled and stone lanterns toppled. The lights above winked violently, the bells clanging like funeral tones. My heart caught its rhythm again…and immediately started pounding.

Hunter looked up. “That was on your side.”

Another crack, followed by a thundering rumble. The sky darkened to opaqueness and the garden grew misty, blurring around us.

“No.” Solange stood, fists clenched as if to beat the fog away. “You won't escape that way again.”

“I've got her,” Hunter said, strengthening his hold and yanking me to him so hard my newfound breath was again lost. He put his forearm around my neck, and I knew I'd be unconscious in seconds. When he leaned in to squeeze, though, the sky splintered again, and in the wake of the reverberating rumble, he whispered, “Run.”

Solange straightened, eyes alight with black fury. She lifted another stone to her mouth, and I bolted, burying myself in greenery, but not before I felt the wind lash my back…and heard Hunter's deep wail.

I saw nothing between the mist and deepening sky. I tripped over roots and rocks, but kept sprinting in one direction. If it was a room, it had to have walls, right? Meanwhile, Solange's blown kiss chased me, surrounding me like the waves of a dozen oceans, pushing and pulling me at the same time, seeking entry to what remained of my soul.

Hitting the ground, I kept low as the alive, seeking air blasted overhead, and moved beneath the verdant ferns until I found an ancient poplar. It was so dark now that even squinting as I pivoted around the trunk I was unable to see my body below me. So I squealed when I found myself face-to-face with Hunter.

“Listen,” he ordered, darting a glance over his shoulder. “I need to choke you out. Unconsciousness is the fastest way to get out of here. Whoever's trying to get to you may not have an anchor, but they've got willpower and your corporeal body next to them.”

Did I
want
to go back to someone like that?

Hunter wasn't offering me a choice. “Once you're on the other side you can't ever come here again. Not for anything. Not at any cost. It won't be worth it.”

“Why?”

“Because your soul is in her sky, Jo…”

No, it's in her mouth.

“It's just a sliver, and imperfections abound, but it's enough to control you.”

I filed that information away for later, if there
was
a later, and shook my head. “I mean
why
are you protecting me?”

He was close enough that I saw the sadness spring up, outlining his irises. But Solange called out to him then, and though it sounded like she was still in the clearing, her voice was a bullet. It bowed him over. He fell into the mist and onto an earth as black as the sky above.

That's
what happened under Solange's control.

I joined him, diving to where he'd disappeared. I thought he'd be unconscious himself, but his hands immediately
found my neck. I startled, my first instinct to pull away, but Solange had used him to lure me here, and he'd defied her to get me back out. As his fingers tightened around my neck, I realized he was going to pay for freeing me.

And as long as he was going to pay, he was going to make it worth it. His mouth found mine like it was a target, and my eyes fluttered shut, the last strangled threads of my breath lost to his lips. The trees and bells blurred my name overhead, while Hunter's mouth moved against mine without sound. Then his expression shifted, separated, and dissolved. Yet his final words chased me back into my world. “Don't ever return. She wants your power, your ability to—”

A hand touched my shoulder and I located the floor beneath my back. Gasped for air.

And smelled burning sulfur.

When I opened my eyes, I froze, and thought about ignoring Hunter's advice and calling back out to Solange. Because I'd just woken up in a tomblike room, bereft of weapon or help…and with the Tulpa looming over me like I was already dead.

“What are you doing here?”

The Tulpa's tone was ice, his eyes narrowed, and if I could still have seen auras, I knew that his would be bright red.

When in doubt, I thought, the taste of tin still sharp at the back of my throat, answer a question with a question. “What happened?”

“You tell me, dear.” He straightened, leaning on a cane, his voice still sharp. “I walked in and found you sleeping in the middle of the floor. I had a hard time rousing you. In fact, you seemed to be in some sort of meditative trance.”

The last two words were said in the same tone a judge might use on a defendant…one he'd already found guilty.

Pushing the fear away, I stretched and yawned loudly. “Too much wine, I guess. I was missing my father, so I came to his office to be—I don't know, near him somehow. I was thinking how much he'd like to be at this dinner…” The Tulpa's brows arched, and I quickly amended my statement. Xavier would have loathed the festivities and not allowed it on his grounds. I shot the Tulpa a knowing smile. “I mean, everyone who is anyone is here, and he was
so smart he could probably get Arun to put up the capital for some new business venture…”

The Tulpa twisted his cane handle thoughtfully. I hurried on. “So I was looking at the pictures on the mantel when I brushed up against those poky things out there, and found this.” I motioned around the room, suddenly no more spacious than a honeycomb cell. The Tulpa's eyes following my fingertips certainly made me feel like I was about to get stung.

I dropped my hand to my side…too fast. A shift in expression and suddenly the elderly visage he'd donned for “Olivia's” benefit grew into points and angles. Shit. I started speaking quickly. “So I came in, picked up one of these old toys, and suddenly I was out like Kim Kardashian on a Saturday night.”

He didn't laugh. In fact, the word “toys” had the dark brow lowering further. I tried on an innocent smile, but it sat forced on my face. The Tulpa stilled like an empty beach minutes before a tsunami.

Kill him, Joanna, I thought, swallowing hard. Kill him, gain the aureole, free the rogue agents in Midheaven.
Turn his own weapon against him.

I glanced at the singing bowls and mallets. What was I supposed to do? Bonk him over the head with a handheld prayer wheel?

“H-How did you get here?” I asked, pushing to my palms. “I didn't see you at the party.”

Meaning I hadn't invited him.

“I stopped by on a whim. The guard at the gate knows me. Then Helen told me you were here.”

I recalled the scraping noises earlier at the door and fought not to sag. There was simply no way a mortal could escape these people's notice.

“It's an interesting room,” the Tulpa said, pretending to look about. “Do you remember your father as being particularly…religious?”

I tilted my head, pretending I didn't know what he was
asking as I continued my search for a weapon. A prayer flag up the nose? Stab him with incense? “No, of course not. He was a Christian.”

He didn't laugh. But he didn't strike me or smite me or, like,
eat
me either. Instead he held out his hand to help me up.

I rubbed a hand over my face like I was clearing the cobwebs, then accepted his offer with the other. He lifted me so smoothly it was like taking a magic carpet ride to my feet. When I looked up, the Tulpa's gaze was also smooth…and boring into mine. His fingertips played beneath mine as he traced my prints. I prayed Io's handiwork held up under the soft scrape of his fingernail. If not, I'd next feel my bones cracking beneath his palm.

But the charming smile from the boardroom had returned, if sporting an edge it hadn't before. “I think, my dear, that I can be a significant influence in your life.”

I almost laughed. He already had
that
pretty well covered.

“I have enough people telling me what to do, thanks.” I inserted a little pout in my tone, petulance topping it off like a sticky sweet cherry. “The board of directors wants me to hand control over to them, my secretary tries to hold me to my father's rigorous work schedule…” the Tulpa snorted. Xavier hadn't done a whole lot of work in his waning months. “Even my housekeeper keeps badgering me about responsibilities.”

There. If I got through this alive, if he thought I was becoming suspicious or annoyed or fed up at Lindy's perceived place in this household, maybe he'd tell her to lay off. It would buy me the space I needed to inspect the mansion for more of its secrets. Sure enough, the Tulpa's top lip thinned.

“Now what in particular would a housekeeper be badgering you about?”

Inching toward an ornate gold-plated blade on a triangular base in the corner, I gave him a look that said,
Exactly!
“Household budgets and stolen cars and moving back in here.”

“But you live in the Greenspun Residences, don't you?”

Though anyone would know that, the Tulpa wasn't asking out of mere curiosity. Regan Dupree, the Shadow Leo, had been meting out information about me to the Tulpa by the spoonful to advance her own precarious position and get back in his good graces. She'd told him the Kairos was residing in the same building as Olivia before I managed to kill her.

The Tulpa leaned against the wall. “I'm assuming you have friends there? Neighbors? People you greet in the hallways…who help you with your groceries?”

“No one in particular,” I said, and was about to say more, then thought better of lying. “Though one woman has been particularly friendly since Daddy's death…”

“And what's her name?” His voice smoothed out even further, tugging on my consciousness, so my head teetered on my neck. It was the same fizzy loss of control one had after doing shots on no sleep and an empty belly. I didn't even have to feign dizziness as I struggled for words.

“I don't think she ever told me. Odd, huh?”

“But she lives there?” The dream state intensified, and though I could fight the mind control—
somehow
I could fight it—I slouched a bit more. “Oh, yeah. She couldn't gain such regular access otherwise.”

“And what does she look like?”

“She has red hair…” I frowned, pretending to think on it further. “And blond, and brown. Once even blue. But the red is best on her.”

“A disguise, then?” he muttered, as if to himself. I reached for the gold knife, folded my palm around the upright handle.

“Wigs, anyway.” I yawned loudly, feeling the buzz lessening. Good. His suspicion was lifting. “Big party girl,” I added, and pulled upward. The knife didn't budge. It was welded to the base.

To hide the homicidal movement, I caressed the ornate bell propped next to the knife, before letting my hand drop.

He jerked his head. “Come with me.”

And a giant pulse, a vibrational flash, had me stepping forward before I could stop it. I went with the impulse, though reminded myself to be more on guard as we returned to Xavier's office. If he really suspected me, I might end up grabbing hold of a knife and thrusting it into my own belly.

“Ever see one of these?” He pointed with his cane to a booklet lying on Xavier's great dark desk. A comic book. A
manual.

I fought to keep my expression neutral. If the Tulpa was asking me about it, the people in my building, and what I knew of Xavier's religious habits—all while attempting to hoodoo me into eliciting the truth—then I wasn't even close to being off the hook.

“Yeah,” I said as calmly as I could. “My sister used to read those rags.”

“Did she ever show you one?”

“Joanna knew I'm loyal to
Vogue.
”

“Not her,” he said through clenched teeth. “The girl. In your building. Did she ever try to give you one of these?”

“Of course not. I mean…she's cool.”

The Tulpa lifted his chin. “There are cool things in there. Look for yourself.”

I glanced down and recognized the Shadow Pisces, Adele, caught in profile on the cover. Her face was iron, black smoke billowing behind her as she stared back at me. I feigned a shudder. “Her outfit is atrocious.”

“There are other pictures.”

He wasn't going to let up, so I sighed and took the manual. Opening it, I demonstrated what he was really interested in. The manual didn't come to life in my hands. No thought bubbles appeared above the heads of the featured Shadow agents. No cracks of battle or death cries lifted
into the air. An agent of Light would have been zapped by the Shadow manual with the first touch.

I flipped through the pages faster, and the tug on my mind lessened. I finally threw it back onto the desk next to Xavier's folder and said the one thing I hoped would have him backing off. “This is a very strange conversation.”

The Tulpa, never one to want to appear odd in front of mortals, broke with that desire and stared straight into my eyes. Another pulse of thought energy throttled through me, this one so violent I saw white. “Well, I think you have some very strange questions, Olivia. Some strange suspicions of your own. I think you came in here to discover the answer to one of them in particular.”

And he withdrew the photo Cher had given me earlier, clearly stolen from my body while I was having a tea party with Hunter in the wild forests of Midheaven.

That alone would be enough to have my head swimming, grasping for an answer. But the additional mental tug and weight returned, like he'd captured my gray matter on a hook and was pulling me to an unknown shore. Flipping open Xavier's binder to a marked page, he slid it in front of me, and there, beneath Xavier's infamous tight-assed script, was the haunting symbol I'd been searching for. The one on the chest that had borne me paranormal weaponry.

The same one the Tulpa grasped tightly in his hands now.