Cheat the Grave (26 page)

Chest heaving, I ran to watch for a moment, catching only a glimpse of the dervish, a mass of limbs and fury, but one headed away from me, rather than toward. Within seconds the sound faded, leaving me alone with breath arrowing jaggedly from my chest, my mind numbed but whirling. Somehow, despite having been enclosed in a room with both the Tulpa and Mackie, I was also alive.

 

Adrenaline coursed through me, banging against the thoughts already careening through my head. How to hide
what I knew? How to explain what had happened here? How to convince Lindy and the Tulpa that a sole human woman could have made it out of this room alive?

Yet every question fell away when I whirled to spot Tripp's tortured body propped against the wall, eyes fixed on me. They were bright with the kind of pain that drained rather than sharpened the senses. He hadn't much longer to live.

Look what he did for you.
I crossed to him, tears instantly welling. More than Warren had ever done. And it was so unexpected—a fucking former
Shadow
! A man raised to both despise mortals and murder the Light. And he lay dying because he'd protected someone who'd once been both.

“Archer…”

“Shh…” I knelt beside him, earning a pained grunt when I accidentally jostled him, but his gaze remained on mine, aware, coherent, and unwavering. His cowboy hat had come off when he fell, and it was the first time I'd seen him without it. It made him appear naked somehow. Dark sweaty hair plastered itself to his skull in thinning strands, and I swept them back before resettling the hat on his head. His hands were still melted around the silver gun's barrel, still steaming on his lap too, though it looked like the nerves in his palms had finally shorted out. His chest was another story.

“Oh God, Tripp. I'm so sorry.”

“I'm relieved.” His mouth quirked as I jerked my head up, and he motioned downward with his chin.

I frowned, but released his head gently, then pulled up his pant leg to reveal a bubbling mass of flesh so infected it was nearly writhing. Grimacing at the redness, I covered it again, careful not to touch it. “Mackie's blade,” I said, suddenly understanding why he'd fought to save me, heedless of his own life. I'd seen the wound before, but hadn't put the two together. It was already predetermined. I hoped none of the others, once outside, were struck tonight.

“Better to die fightin'.”

I thought so too. Tripp, knowing this, let his head fall back. But just when enough time had passed that I thought he was slipping away, his fevered eyes slitted back open. “Carlos believes in you.”

I averted my gaze. I didn't want him to feel like his actions had been for nothing, but I couldn't lie either. I didn't believe in myself.

Despite his pain, his impending death, Tripp moistened his lips and kept talking. “I got something for you, girl. Been carrying it around with me for when this time came. If you'd please…”

He angled his head at his chest, unable to get to whatever was inside his inner vest pocket. I tried not to look at his smoldering, melted palms, and carefully unbuttoned his vest. Mackie's inflicted wound already bulged red, like Tripp's chest was some sort of science experiment gone wrong. His eyes were on my face, so I kept my expression unreadable as I reached inside his pocket to withdraw a plastic bag of slim brown cigarettes. I looked back up into his sweaty, rugged face. “'Cause you don't think I'll live long enough for lung cancer to kill me?”

“Them are special cancer sticks. Quirleys. Got 'em from Miss Sola herself.” He frowned at some memory, one that had him drifting off before he jerked his head. “I earned those babies one by one, each costing me a chip she could use to thread the constellations in her night sky.”

“Is this—”

“What I bartered your powers for?” He'd been anticipating the question. “Hell, yeah.”

Cigarettes, I thought as he began to cough painfully. I felt the old anger begin to rise, but there was no real life to it, and it resettled quickly. What did it matter? I'd have given up those powers in order to save Jasmine shortly after anyway. Besides, Tripp and I hadn't been allies in Midheaven. Over there, it was every soul for himself.

“And it was worth it too,” he continued, anticipating
an argument. “I knew one day I'd be coming back here. I knew I'd see my vengeance met…”

But now, fading, he'd seen no such thing. I didn't correct him, figuring a man should be allowed his dreams in his dying minutes.

“What do they do?” I asked, slipping one from the bag. It tingled against my fingertips, and I released it so it slid back into the bag where bits of loose tobacco glowed.

“You'll find out when you light one for yerself. Or you could ask your ol' friend, Micah.”

I glanced at him sharply, hands going still over the quirleys. “This is what you used against Micah? What blackened his skin from the inside out?”

“It festers there, a constant burn beneath the skin. It's a reminder that even intangible things can be dangerous.” Tripp's top lip lifted in a sneer, and for a moment all I saw was Shadow. “Just be sure 'n' blow out, don't suck in. You can hold the smoke in your mouth, but let it into your lungs and all that mean intent'll turn on ya, burning you from the inside out.”

I glanced back down. I had a coating over my organs, a protective spray over my skin, and magical ciggies. All due to Tripp. “Why?” I finally asked, eyes lifting to meet his.

“'Cause I believe in you too,” he said, falling still. “You can do what I cannot. I knew it the first time you stepped foot in Midheaven. It was confirmed when I learned of your dual nature. My goal after that was to keep you alive.”

Because
I
was his best chance of killing the Tulpa. I fingered the quirleys in their protective pouch, though I didn't answer.

“Ah, I see.” Tripp's air let out of him as if through a hose. It rattled as he sucked it back in. “You got nothing to live for, is that it? Or at least nothin' to fight for? Well, I can help with that too. Though it'll cost you.”

I lifted a brow. “Cost me what?”

“Nothing too terrible, don't worry. But first would you like your reason?”

Not
a
reason. But
your
reason. Something specific, then. The obvious answer would be yes, but a reason also meant a care in this world. Care meant risk. And risk meant something could be taken from me again. I sighed. “Will it hurt if I lose it?”

“Not as much as if you lost it without a fight.”

And despite a buried unwillingness, curiosity burst inside me. He was right. I leaned so close his breath mingled with mine.

“Solange was pregnant when she first entered Midheaven. She'd been havin' relations with an agent of Light, you see.”

I held up a hand, wanting him to save his breath. “I already know all this.”

“Well did you know that she even fancied herself in love with him? 'Course, love is relative. Solange knew the story would soon be revealed in the Shadow manuals, 'cause them pregnancy pheromones were about to give her away. It'd make her a target from both the Light and her own kind, especially the Tulpa, who don't abide deceit. So she plotted a way to flee, and there's only one place to go when hiding from a man who can rule your mind.”

Another world entirely. One tailored to the whims of deadly, plotting women.

“I learnt the whole story during my time with her beneath those murdered stars.”

Gaze lost to memory, Tripp's top lip quirked. “Oh, she did so want to talk with someone familiar with our world.”

“So she escaped this world and gave birth to a child there?”

“So she said. Never saw the babe myself, but every so often we would hear a cry…”

I thought back, because Hunter had spoken of his daughter once, just after discovering I had one as well. As proof that I could trust him not to tell Warren about Ashlyn—because even then I'd known the troop leader would use the child for his own purposes—he gave me the name of
his child, whom Warren also didn't know of. “Lola,” I whispered.

Tripp licked his lips, wincing. “Never learnt the child's name, but I do know this. She sacrificed the soul of a mortal child to ferry her and her unborn into Midheaven…”

The same way Hunter had used Regan's so his soul wouldn't be sliced into thirds. I shook my head, pieces of knowledge shifting, threatening to realign reality as I knew it.

It wasn't that simple.

“Your man, Hunter, is being tortured, Joanna. Calls himself that throughout it all, too.
Hunter.
It infuriates Miss Sola, but he won't answer when she calls him JJ or Jacks or Jaden. Not even when she insists.”

I swallowed hard, knowing how painfully insistent Sola could be.

Tripp's head dropped in a nod. “He's been through the mill since Warren locked him up tight.”

“He entered Midheaven of his own accord.”

“True. And he openly told us all how your troop turned you into your sister. But even the big 'uns open up under torture.”

“Bullshit.” He wasn't being tortured. He was being made love to beneath a ceiling of stars, by a woman revered as a goddess.

“No, it's true. Said you was somethin' pretty special. Well,” Tripp paused to catch his breath. “He screamed it, anyway.”

I winced and whispered, “Why are you baiting me now?”

“Even if I were, it wouldn't make the information any less real.” His head lolled. “Trust me, right now your former ally is beggin' mercy from the merciless.”

I licked my lips. “Hunter searched for Solange for years. He had identities he hid even from the troop, all so he could look for a dark-haired woman. Dark-eyed. A type.”

“'Cause she stole his child.”

Just finish the manual. It will make a difference
.

Thoughts fractured in my brain like a puzzle, the pieces thrown at me so fast I was having a hard time making them fit. I could believe in wacky cigarettes and demons wearing bowler hats, but I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea of Hunter seeking Solange out not because he loved her, but because he was hunting her. His real goal? Keep his child from being raised as a Shadow.

“Your man Jaden Jacks,” Tripp rasped, “didn't leave you for her, Joanna. In fact, he confessed his love for you
to
her, and refused to recant it, even under torture.”

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

“Oh, God.”

“Goddess,” Tripp corrected, head rocking slowly to the side, eyes slipping shut. “Ain't nothin' I wouldn't confess under torture. Not to her.”

I glanced back down at the quirleys in my lap. Solange had jigsawed pieces of me into little bits once, throwing my spirit and aetheric spine down a staircase, sending my body spiraling after seconds later. And I'd only seen a fraction of her power. In her world, Mackie was a lapdog, I was a beetle to be crushed underfoot, and men were little more than batteries. But my mind had already clamped down on the idea of Hunter,
my
man, being tortured.

“I'll fucking kill her,” I whispered, and I believed it. All I had were cigarettes and spray-on defense, but I suddenly wanted her death as much as I'd wanted anything in my life. “I'll carve up her heart and fasten it to her beloved sky with pushpins.”

“Now
there's
a reason to live.” Tripp managed a half smile. “So for my little present…”

I studied the speculative shine in his eyes. His last wish before death. He'd just turned my mental life on its head. His gift would have to be equally valuable. Something as rare and unique as the quirleys. Something only I could give, like …

“One kiss.”

I wrinkled my nose, but immediately replaced it with a placid face. Still, I let my eyes roll. “You're a lech, Tripp.”

Now he did smile, damn him. “I'm a dying man.”

Because of me. I couldn't stop that. But I could give him a kiss.

“Happy Valentine's Day, Harlan.” I bent forward and pressed my lips to his. He tasted like tobacco, sweat, and smoke. It was as chaste a kiss as I'd ever given, something that would pass between siblings, and that delivered the comfort of mortal touch, understanding, kinship…and forgiveness. It was a kiss of absolution, and it cleared the worry from Tripp's furrowed brow.

“So that's Light…” he replied wonderingly, and let his head drop back, knocking his hat forward again. I lifted it, moved it aside, and still he didn't move. After the horror and messiness and pain of death, there was ultimately only silent acceptance, and stillness.

But Harlan Tripp, the stubborn bastard who'd long survived two worlds, wasn't quite done yet. He laughed, loopy, not feeling much of anything anymore. “You're a high roller, girl. Still sittin' at that table. Still in the game…”

I palmed his head when it fell to the side. “What?”

His eyes didn't open but he managed a humorless smile. “Still got them chips?”

“The ones from the warehouse?” I kept speaking so he wouldn't have to nod. “Yeah, but you said they're useless. I gave all my powers to Jas.”

“But you can still cash in the ones you won.” Like Shen's sense of smell? The albino's aether, whatever that was?

“How, Tripp?” My heart bumped in my chest.
Still a player. Still in the game
. “How do I cash in the chips”—the powers—“I won at that table?”

But Tripp was nearly gone, mouth barely moving, mind already skipping to some other final thought. “You said your troop kicked you out,” he whispered, without force. “'Cause you weren't useful to them anymore. 'Member?”

I nodded.

His eyelids lifted one last time, and in the stillness of the room where he'd die, he wrapped me in his gaze. “I been fueling a matriarch's world for years, an' one thing I learnt …a woman ain't put in any world for her usefulness. You got purpose beyond the things you can do for others. And everyone's got a right to their own damned reasons.”