“Why don’t you ask Hunter? He’s the one who pulled me into the game.”
“Thank you.” Tekla didn’t even blink. “But I’m asking you.”
I sighed and reluctantly shuffled forward. This was going
to be bad. I couldn’t lie about my intentions. This group would scent one out quicker than a coyote tracking a jack-rabbit. So I focused on the wall, where my image stared back at me—beautiful, but defensive and dark eyed—and told her the truth. “Vengeance.”
The explosion was deafening. The wall shattered, sharp missiles flying to pelt every corner of the room. I had time to duck, but not cover, and yelped as a shard bit into my right cheek, feeling the same knifelike stings on my legs and arms, and hearing the others cry out like soldiers dying on a battlefield.
Over as quickly as it began, the silence that followed was punctuated only by labored breathing, and I peeked from my hunched position, felt tentatively at my wet cheek, and came away with blood. The others were doing the same, some still gasping in surprise and confusion, others cursing freely and shooting me steel-plated glares. Only Tekla, standing as she’d been before, remained untouched.
Because she’d known what was going to happen, I thought bitterly.
“Another fine example of what not to do.”
That made me see three different shades of red. “You wanted me to break through the wall,” I said, crossing my arms. “I did.”
“Look around you, Olivia. Look what you’ve done to your troop.”
I didn’t need to look to know what she was really saying. If we’d been on a mission in the real world, my actions would have wiped out my whole troop. They knew it too, and their eyes were on me, as heavy as their silence. Because the single unspoken question winging through each of their minds was the same one that’d dogged me since joining the troop.
Will you give up your quest for vengeance for us?
And goddamn if that didn’t make me want to dig in my heels even harder.
“So I’ll have my vengeance, kill Joaquin, and then I’ll
stop.”
“Well, that’s the thing, Olivia. There is no final action.” Tekla pursed her lips and turned to address the others. “All your deeds live within, piling up to create your life. So revenge isn’t just a step in the wrong direction, it’s an A-bomb that will flatten everything around you.”
I stared at Tekla as the silence drew out around us, gradually scenting new emotions in the air; my defiance, sure, and anger at the way Tekla had ambushed me, but there was sympathy there too—I didn’t know who that belonged to—and regret, which would have soothed me if not for the sudden loamy whorl of fear emanating from Marlo’s direction. That hadn’t been there before, and I gritted my teeth—resenting its appearance now, blaming Tekla—though I refrained from looking at Marlo. I didn’t want to frighten her further. My eyes, I knew, were as black as tar.
“I’m doing the best I can,” I said between clenched teeth.
“I don’t want your best. I want you to break through that wall—”
“Then show me how!” I yelled, and had the satisfaction of seeing her jerk in surprise.
Her eyes narrowed immediately. “The rest of you leave us.”
The troop filed out in silent singles and pairs, as I stared at Tekla, she at me.
“Focus,” she finally said when they were gone, “and do it again.”
“No.” I folded my arms over my chest.
She blinked. “What?”
“I said no. I want you to show me.” I hesitated, wondering if the rumors were true and she really could trap a person in her gaze, though it was too late to back down now. I pushed back a sweaty tendril of hair and squared on her. “Take me out onto the streets where this shit can be put to practical use.
Show
me.”
She looked at me like I was speaking another language. Maybe it was just that people didn’t talk to Tekla that way. Maybe it was because I was pissed enough to momentarily
forget that fact. “I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“I mean I
can’t
.”
“Sure you can. All you have to do is fire up the Scorpio glyph, put on a kick-ass outfit, and get in a Star cab.”
She didn’t answer, just stared a moment longer, before turning away to sail toward the door. Lesson over. But I’d finally pushed Tekla’s buttons, and I was bitter enough to want to keep on doing it. Let her get a taste of her own righteous medicine.
“What could be so powerful that you’d rather leave our Zodiac empty than take up the Scorpio sign?” I called out, knowing part of the answer was grief, but pushing for the rest. “Have you lost your powers? Your nerve? Your drive?”
“You
dare
question me?” she asked, voice barely a whisper as she pivoted to face me. Her lavender aura began to glow now, like it was shot through with gas. “You, who don’t even know your own power? Who can’t control her simplest thought? Who mistakes base impulse for drive?”
“Don’t do that,” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t take that mystical, imperious, overbearing—and, by the way, bitchy—tone with me. Not when I’ve been so honest with you. Not when you use my weaknesses against me every day.”
“You’ve been honest, have you?” She strode over to me so fast, I took a step back before I could stop myself. “Then what’s the dark spot in your aura that means you’ve a secret you’re telling no one? What’s the dream you had last night that caused those circles beneath your eyes? What’s keeping your focus so weak and dull you can’t even crack a mirror?”
Nope, it wasn’t lack of power keeping her from claiming her star sign, that was for sure. I crossed my arms and lowered my chin. “You’re trying to distract me, and it’s not going to work. I want to know why you never leave this sanctuary.”
“My duty is here.”
I shook my head. “Not good enough. The man who mur
dered your only child is out there, stalking others. His entire purpose in life is to spread hate and dissension and pain…all the things you preach so vehemently against, and you’re doing nothing about it.”
“I’m training this generation’s Zodiac how to defeat him using tools that will balance—”
“Blah, blah, blah!” I’d heard it before, and raised my voice so it overtook hers. “Joaquin destroyed someone noble, good, and entirely of Light, attacking him when he was supposed to be safe, murdered him practically in your lap, and did it before Stryker even had the chance to—”
“I was there!” Tekla screamed, and the remaining mirrors around us shattered, falling like glistening rain. I rocked back on my heels, ducking for cover as the walls of the pyramid rumbled too, bowing in on themselves. A weight crushed down on my skull and chest, like the pressure in an airtight cabin was about to give with a violent pop, or someone extremely large was sitting on top of me. As I dropped to the ground I saw Tekla standing with clenched fists, her eyes wide and furious, hair snapping from its bun to swarm, Medusa-like, on a current that didn’t exist. I tried to cry out, but it was soundless, my windpipe crushed beneath invisible fingers. All I could do was lie in a fetal position, black spots dancing before my squeezed eyes, and suffocate.
By the time I realized I could open my eyes again, the room was noiseless. The screaming wind had scuttled to a gurgle, and the vacuous white walls of the dojo were back in their original slanted shape. I sucked in a breath so deep, it was like I was breaking the surface of the ocean, and it cut through the silence like shears through silk.
Chest heaving, I looked up and saw Tekla standing amid the debris of glass and ceiling plaster, looking like a disheveled statue. She blinked and said softly, “I was there.”
Oh Jesus, I thought as I slowly gained my feet. What had I been thinking? Just because she gave off an aura of invulnerability didn’t mean she didn’t have deep pockets of regret
eating at her insides. I, of anyone, knew how deeply such emotions could be—and needed to be—hidden. Legs wobbling, I licked my lips and found my voice. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said…I don’t know what got into me.”
But she stared through me like I was just another wall that had to be knocked down. And right now, I wouldn’t have stopped her if she’d tried. “Every breath Joaquin takes is a betrayal to my son’s memory,” she said, big bird eyes solemn, face drawn. “I curse every morning the sun still shines on his head, and relive Stryker’s death every night in my dreams.”
“So why don’t you do something?” I asked quietly, taking a step forward.
Her eyes focused and found me, halting my forward progress. “You mean go after him before it’s time? Force the Universe to bend to my will? Or give you leave to attempt it so I can watch you die as well because I haven’t had time to pass on the tools you need to fight him?” She shook her head. “I don’t want vengeance at any cost, Olivia. Losing one more life to Joaquin’s depravity is a price too dear to pay, no matter what I might desire.”
Because she seemed to have reached into her vast reservoir of control again, I approached her. “Lives are being lost anyway. He’s not out there playing…Parcheesi.”
A slim eyebrow lifted, and I shrugged. It had been the only thing I could think of.
“No, I know he’s not.” She sighed, and she looked more human, vulnerable and soft than I’d ever seen her before. “But I can’t take up my star sign again. I’d get in my own way.”
“Like I do, you mean.” Which was why she got so angry with me. Her way of controlling herself was to hole up, push away the impulse to go after Joaquin, and teach us all to do the same. At least now I understood why.
“You lack control, Olivia.” She gazed at me for a heartbeat before adding, “That’s dangerous for any agent, but as the Kairos your every action is loaded with meaning, charged with energy. When the second sign of the Zodiac
comes to pass, you must be prepared.”
“But what does that have to do with breaking through mental barriers?” Literally, I thought.
“What is the mind,” she retorted, “if not the ultimate battlefield?”
I swallowed hard because I suddenly saw what she was saying. A weak mind was a cursed mind.
A cursed battlefield
. “And if I’m not prepared?” I asked, my voice small.
“It will kill you.”
But not today, I thought, looking around at the devastation caused by Tekla’s emotions. And that’s all I could concentrate on. If I constantly relived the past, as Tekla did each night, or worried about portents yet to be fulfilled, I too would have trouble climbing from my bed.
“Well,” I finally sighed, motioning around the room, “at least now I know you’re human.”
Human-ish, anyway.
“Don’t let it get around,” she said, and shot me a sad smile before waving her arm through the air in a way I was becoming accustomed to…and sick of. A complete wall of sheer unmarred glass appeared in front of me. I sighed, then stepped forward as she began rambling again about focus, desire, and intent. Tekla observed, commented, even encouraged me as I attempted to dissolve it with my mind. And then she yelled some more.
This time I let her.
After a few days of nothing happening—and I mean nothing, no reports of Shadow sightings, no paranormal activity threatening the balance of the mortal world, not even a hangnail to bitch about—I sank into a relatively boring routine of waking, training, eating, and sleeping. Nothing nefarious had happened after my return to the sanctuary, and after a week, I put the run-in with Regan out of my mind, knowing nothing would.
I still scoured the papers for odd events, but if Gregor and Micah and Warren were worried about Valhalla’s lab, they weren’t sharing their concerns with me. I got Vanessa to bring me the new manual of Light the day it came out, and though none of the agents could bring me the Shadow manuals, I did, at length, become confident nobody but Regan knew what had happened in Valhalla’s aquarium. She was supposedly keeping my hidden identity to herself, so I saw no reason to mention our encounter either.
It was true that I’d let a Shadow initiate live, but Regan was virtually harmless as an initiate, and as long as she continued to believe I might be persuaded to the Shadow side, I didn’t think she’d jeopardize that hope. Besides, Cancers
metamorphosized in June and July—less than a month to go—and I figured I could kill her in good conscience after that. After all, she had spared my life. Letting her live until she’d reached her third life cycle was fair enough.
So I stopped worrying about lying to Warren and the rest, grew less paranoid about my compromised identity, and as the days veered from the warmth of late spring into the full furnace blast of high summer, even Regan and her dark machinations seemed like a dream.
Meanwhile, my relationship with Hunter was heating up as well. Or I should say my
non
relationship. I tried to avoid him, but my awareness of him was so great I knew almost to the minute when he returned to the sanctuary. And his presence there, I was finding out, was ubiquitous. He left only to put in his shift at Valhalla, returning each evening as dusk split the summer sky in two. Unlike the rest of us, he didn’t seem to occupy an address outside the sanctuary; that, or he preferred his tiny room in the barracks to any dwelling that lay on the outside. I didn’t dare ask why, fearing he might construe my curiosity for romantic interest.
Not that I could avoid him completely. He was too integral a part of the troop. Hardly a day passed when someone didn’t recommend asking the advice of the weapons master, or lauded the weapons master, or raved over the latest design of the weapons master. If the Shadow agents only knew that our beloved weapons master was planted as security in Valhalla, like a renegade bee from another hive, they’d shit bricks. And slay him on his very next shift.
And a part of me couldn’t help but think this was exactly what drew Hunter to his job. Hiding among the Shadows must give him a rush. He toed the line between disguise and discovery more closely than any of us, though it didn’t seem to frighten him. Not the need to be ever-vigilant and keep every emotion under control, not the discussions about infiltrating more deeply…not even me when I tripped out and inadvertently showed him my Shadow side. In those moments, just after the ebony iciness had left my gaze—when
everyone else was still trying to get their glyphs back under control, incrementally backing away at the same time—he just tilted his head in that steady way he had, languidly expressionless, and flexed.
So I reconciled myself to the momentary need to remain where I was, played my game of sexual cat-and-mouse with Hunter, tried to bait Chandra whenever nobody was looking—a girl still has to have her fun—and almost began to believe Warren was right, and the Shadows had forgotten us completely. That the world was as our troop leader envisioned it: balanced, peaceful, and destined to remain that way.
That’s why I was so relaxed the night of the Valhalla event, perched alone atop the Silver Slipper, drinking directly from a bottle of Chablis because I’d forgotten to bring a glass. The wine slid into me like liquid peace, a cool sensory contrast to the lights I could see glowing along the Strip like a burning oil slick. Early June still had cool nights, but another month from now the concrete jungle would retain the heat of the day like a banked coal, waiting to spark again with the coming dawn.
A flash of light rocketed into the air in the distance, then burst into a bright bloom of raining purple color. That first colorful explosion was followed by a well-choreographed, and costly, display of fireworks, and as color bloomed in the sky, I leaned on my palms to watch the show. It wasn’t as exciting as New Year’s Eve, when every major hotel on the Strip fired a series of identical blasts into the air in perfectly synchronized choreography, but Xavier Archer was no slouch in the self-promotion department. I lifted my bottle high, saluting his masturbatory display of self-indulgence, then jolted when my cell phone rang in my pants pocket.
“Shit,” I said, wiping wine from the front of my shirt. “Hello?”
“Olivia? Can you hear me?” Cher’s voice came over the phone, the boom of fireworks sounding over the line before
it reached me in the boneyard. I smiled. I’d known she’d be in the thick of it.
“You seem to be having a hell of a party,” I said, raising my voice as the first whiff of gunpowder wafted my way.
“Oh, we are! We are! Xavier showed up to start the fireworks show himself, and he ordered a whole round of champagne for everyone with balcony views. That’s us.”
“Of course it is,” I said, but frowned at the mention of Xavier. He may have had an ego for days, but was an infamous recluse. This, along with the bachelorette auction, would make two appearances in as many weeks. Virtually unheard of. “He must be celebrating something special,” I said, toying with my ring, which pulsed gently in the dim boneyard. “Probably a hostile takeover of some poor publicly owned company.”
“Maybe,” and I could imagine her shrugging as she said it. “He gave some speech about long-held plans coming to fruition. Said sacrifice is required to achieve utopian dreams.”
“Whatever that means,” I heard Suzanne add in the background.
Leaving the wine bottle where it sat, I rose and stared hard at the city, the light in the sky now bright enough to eclipse those blazing from the ground. The scent of sulfur was stronger now, almost noxious as the potassium nitrate began to assail me. I covered my nose with my free hand. Meanwhile my mind raced. I’d known of no big deals closed, and if there’d been plans to expand or take over another property, I’d have heard about it before now.
“It means we all get free Dom P.,” Cher said, her giggle drowned out by another round of starry blasts.
“Cher? I—I can’t hear you,” I lied, choking as the boneyard grew thicker with smoke and scent. “Call me tomorrow after you’ve gotten over your hangover.” And I hung up without waiting for her reply.
Meanwhile the debris in the boneyard floor had disappeared into a misty haze, black fog rising to claim the signs,
dragging them into a proper grave. From my perch I could see beyond the walls and cyclone wire to where the streets were disappearing as well. Filmy clouds continued to rise, swallowing the terrain until the streetlights glowed like eerie beacons.
“What the fuck?” I said, and nearly choked on the sharp, peppery toxins.
My phone rang again.
“I seriously can’t talk, Cher. I’m busy…getting a massage,” I managed, before choking off into a fit of shallow coughs. My eyes were watering, and the lining of my nose itched, making me sneeze.
Laughter, tinkling like bells, sounded over the line. “You don’t sound like you’re getting a massage…but if you are, you’re missing all the fun.”
“Who is this?” I asked, but the answer came to me before another word was uttered. “What do you want?”
“I already told you that, Archer,” Regan said, derision seeping over the line. “I want you to come to the Shadow side and live happily ever after.”
I snorted. The Brothers Grimm had nothing on her fairy tales. “So come and get me.”
“Uh-uh-uh,” she sang, and I could practically see her blond ponytail swinging. “You made a bargain with the devil when you let me go. I told you where Joaquin would be, now you have to do something I want.”
I squinted into the boneyard as if that would bring Regan into view. “You knew he’d be untouchable at Master Comics. That’s the only reason you told me he was there.”
“Untrue. For example, I know where he is now, and it’s not neutral territory. In fact, I can see him from here. He’s standing right in front of Valhalla, watching a blond woman take in the fireworks…you see those, don’t you?”
“I see them,” I said, looking into the sky, my voice a near whisper.
“Good. Well this blond looks…well, she looks a lot like
you, actually. He’s been stalking her through the crowd. I recognize that look in his eye, and his scent is on the wind, despite the stink of the fireworks. It’s sweet and earthy at the same time, like caramel charring on the barbecue, and fat worms tunneling up from the grave.”
I closed my eyes. It was a good description. He smelled just like that.
“You can probably stop him if you hurry, Joanna. You can save this girl from being another headline in tomorrow’s paper, and do it while exacting your own revenge. But you should hurry, he’s already talking to her. She’s smiling up at him, forgetting the show in the sky, even forgetting her friends beside her.”
But I couldn’t hurry. Not only was I not supposed to leave the boneyard, it was past dusk. And by the time dawn arrived, I knew that woman would be long dead. Regan knew it too. So, as the fiery crescendo of the show’s finale erupted above us, all I said was, “Fuck you.”
Regan responded with false surprise. “There’s only one reason I can think of that an agent of Light wouldn’t try to save an innocent. You went back to your sanctuary, didn’t you, Joanna? Even after I told you not to.” She clucked into the receiver like she was scolding a young child. “Well. Now you’ve done it. Though I suppose you still have a chance…if you get out of there as soon as possible.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, watching the sky like the answer was being written out there.
“Meet me outside Valhalla at dawn. I’ll tell you then.”
“I can’t,” I said, and felt a very unheroic sense of relief at that. It was all I could do not to add,
I won’t
.
“Ah well.” Regan sighed dramatically, before that tinkling laughter sounded over the line again. “That’s all right, Joanna…we’re already in.”
And the connection went dead.
I blinked and looked at the phone, then slowly dropped it to my side. The fireworks had stopped, and long wisps of
smoke, like dragons’ tails, were all that lingered in the sky. Even the haze along the streets was fading away. But as I stared out into the warm, bleary night, I swallowed hard and let out an audible moan.
What had I missed?
I wondered, covering my mouth with a shaking hand.
Worse, what had I done?