The Neon Graveyard

by Vicki Pettersson

  Silence. Finally, peaceful and total silence. I bit my lip, opened my eyes . . . and found nothing. No Tulpa, and that was good. But no stupa either. No Valhalla. No Vegas. Only the stars above, swollen, gorging on darkness, feasting on the night. The Universe had reclaimed all its elements—fire, earth, air, water—before sneaking away like a thief, disappearing back into the Pythagorean night.

  Well, not all the elements, silly.

  I swear, I thought, smiling. My sister’s voice popped up at the strangest time.

  “Ether,” I said aloud. Creation.

  The world as it should have been without a being who was evil personified, imagined into existence. So many of our greatest fears, I thought, existed simply in our own minds.

  And with that, Vegas roared back to life. I swayed, hanging from my jagged concrete perch, the neon puckering and pulsing below, like it was blowing kisses my way. As the light returned to the city in square blocks, it felt like the world was swirling. I looked up just in time to see the last of the deep galaxies wink at me, and then disappear as the city flared.

  How awesome, I thought, as my purchase began to slip. How absolutely poetic that I got to see my beloved hometown one last time before I died.

  28

  I was locked at my armpits, arms extended as I searched wildly with my feet for something to stem from or reach. But I’d been held up by a talon that had been pulverized into nothingness, something I wished I’d thought of before.

  I let loose a maniacal laugh as I slid to my elbows, feet dangling, gravity pulling me down. I tried to pull myself up, but succeeded only in sliding further. I caught the building’s edge with my palms, but one slipped and I flailed.

  Then a strong hand encircled my wrist, gripping tight. Gasping, I looked up, expecting claws.

  Instead, Hunter’s face appeared above me. “Told you we should have run for our lives.”

  “Cute,” I gasped.

  He pulled me up in one motion, and I lost myself for so long in his arms that when I looked up again it felt like an arrival. I smiled against his shoulder. Well, why not? Hadn’t I been working my way to him—to a moment of safety with him—all along?

  The stupa—a mere room now, and a destroyed one at that—was bleary-edged this far up from the city, and its distance from that frenetic bacchanal below made it appear bathed in blue ash. One corner of my mouth lifted tiredly. I hoped they were partying hard, because the city really did have reason to celebrate tonight.

  “You dropped something,” Hunter said, voice rasping as he finally pulled back. He raised his hand, and to my surprise I saw he held the gem I’d carried in my pocket ever since Solange had loosed it from her sky, the one she’d used to control him with. I swallowed hard, feeling his eyes on me.

  “You said before that lovers were autonomous,” I reminded him. “You said that no one could ever really be a part of you.” Then, as if an afterthought, I added, “Well, except a child . . . which you likened to an earthquake.”

  “I know. And yet I can’t help wish it otherwise.”

  I took the gem, closing it in my fist to hide the sudden tremor in my hands. Then I swallowed hard and sighed. “We’ll never have a fairy-tale life. You know that, right?”

  A wry laugh escaped him, and he gestured to the gaping hole in the wall. “I think that’s been fairly well established.”

  I shook my head, utterly serious, cutting out his laughter. He needed to hear me on this. “You don’t understand. I will not love you gently, Hunter.”

  “No?” The honeyed softness in his gaze hardened. After a moment, I realized it was done in challenge. “Then how will you love me, Jo?”

  Recklessly, I thought, holding that steady gaze. With a rampaging heart, I decided, narrowing my own eyes. “Like a bull loves red.”

  “Well,” he whispered, “I knew that as soon as you came after me. And kept coming.” He pulled me back to the edge, where room met sky, and sat down with his feet dangling over the side. Patting a narrow spot next to him, he smiled up at me. I smiled back . . . and took a seat on his lap. Utterly vulnerable.

  Wrapping me tight in his arms, he whispered in my ear. “I told you a long time ago. You don’t have to be alone.”

  I nodded and leaned back into him. He’d said I needed an ally. Someone who knew all my secrets, my Shadow side, and who would stand beside me anyway. I cocked my head, and looked back at him now. “You never looked at me as a weapon or a pawn, you know that? Not like Warren or the Tulpa or any of those who would use me to advance their troop, their cause.”

  He’d never even seen me as a potential Shadow, I thought now. Or merely an agent of Light.

  “No.”

  And while the power of the aureole was what had connected us before, and the miracle of our child connected us now, he had known me—somehow recognized me—seen me. Though all my faults had been laid out before him like a minefield, he’d loved me from the first. And how could I have given that up without a fight? How could I give up the truest sort of magic of all? What would have happened to me if I’d just released Hunter to another woman and another world?

  What would become of me if I was never truly seen again?

  “So now I have a warning for you,” he said softly, seeing me come to this realization, the understanding that he’d loved me all along. “I plan on taking up a lot of room in your life.”

  “I’ll give you plenty.”

  He quirked a brow. “Well, I tend to sprawl.”

  “I know,” I answered wryly, and turned back to face the city.

  “What, no fight?” He cupped my chin, and looking at me, raised a brow.

  I dropped a light kiss on his cheek. “Too tired, I guess.”

  “Guess there’s nothing left for me to conquer or plunder, then,” he said, with a sigh.

  “I didn’t say that,” I muttered, fighting back a smile. “Though . . . there is one last little thing you need to accept about life with me.”

  He tilted his head, appropriately wary. Holding his gaze, hard, I looked into those liquid eyes, and leaned forward. Whispering, I said, “Baby? You’re gonna need to change your attitude about earthquakes.”

  I leaned back, and after a stunned moment, we both smiled.

  29

  The jangle of a new cowbell on the comic book shop door announced our arrival, and all heads turned.

  “Hello, earthlings,” I said, earning a familiar grumble that had some inferior emotion singing inside me. Hunter nudged me disapprovingly—he was of the mind that even mutant children who turned into rubberized monsters should be treated with the same respect afforded regular human beings—but he did so on the way to putting his arm around my waist, so I didn’t mind.

  The shop was achingly bright in the late morning sun, though after the Tulpa had tried to pull a veil over the world the previous night, it was welcome. The obsessively ordered comics and manga titles popped with almost unnatural vividness, and the figurines and collectibles, hunched and ready for battle, looked more than ever like they were about to leap from their shelves. It was probably just my eyes. I was getting used to my returned strength, and had spent the previous hour feigning ignorance to a befuddled hotel clerk about a door I’d accidentally whipped from its hinges.

  Or maybe everything just looked brighter when there were no Shadows about. They’d reportedly fled, scattering like cockroaches once the invisible masks had dissolved with the demise of the Tulpa. The eleven former members of the Shadow Zodiac were now rogue agents, independents . . . grays, though clearly none was welcome with Carlos and company. So for the foreseeable future, the valley would be scrubbed clean of malevolent beings intent on influencing mortal actions . . . though the situation was temporary.

  Shadows, by nature, were ever-encroaching.

  I located Douglas in his usual station at the back of the shop and gave him a smug smile while secretly hoping he toppled over as he balanced on the back two legs of his chair. It wasn’t that I was here to gloat—okay,
maybe a little—but we were primarily here for back issues. Hunter wanted to see what had happened while he was away. I also wanted to pump Zane for a little more information on the magic of the aureole. I hadn’t forgotten about the memory Hunter and I had shared, the one where he’d joyfully witnessed the birth of his daughter in this world. Was it possible that the aureole operated with the same disregard of time as Midheaven? That it might actually show visions of the future as well as memories of the past?

  Had I possibly seen Hunter celebrating the birth of our child all the way back on the first occasion we’d touched and kissed?

  I was jolted from my speculation when Carl Kenyon, geek extraordinaire, leaped from the wall ladder where he’d been arranging DVDs and marched toward me, finger pointed angrily.

  “What the hell have you done?” he yelled, coming to a stop in front of me. His blue-tipped hair was ruffled and had lost some of its spikiness, and the circles under his eyes rivaled those of an embattled politician. He flicked his gaze Hunter’s way. “Oh, hey Lorenzo.”

  “Good to see you again too, Carl,” Hunter said wryly.

  Li made up for Carl’s indifference by dropping the Kim Harrison graphic novel she’d been reading, and running to wrap herself around his leg. All the boys cringed as she squealed. “You made it, you made it! I knew you would! And you saved him, my heroine . . . and my hero. Yay.”

  Douglas made a gagging noise from the back of the store.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Carl pushed both Li and the acts of heroism aside. He gazed into my face as if haunted. “But something else happened too. Something big. There’s been a shift.”

  “It’s her!” yelled Douglas. “She fucked up some cosmic law again! Broke a changeling or a safe zone or a world or something.”

  “Why ya gotta bring up past mistakes?” Li whirled in my defense.

  I put an arm on her shoulder. “Yeah, Douglas. I don’t keep mentioning your birth.”

  Carl snapped ink-stained fingers in my face to regain my attention. “Did you cause that big power outage last night?”

  “Why, did I mess up your connection to Second Life?”

  “Check the attitude or I’ll draw you with a harelip,” he said, stalking away. “Besides, it’s not like we won’t find out soon enough.”

  “True. But the energy provided by your musings? Your wondering? As you speak and dream and think of us until then? Pure power.”

  “I’m not a frackin’ battery!” Douglas yelled, tipping his chair.

  “Shuddup, Duracell,” I said as he picked himself up. Li giggled.

  “Jo,” Hunter chided.

  I smiled at him. I was just having a little fun. Douglas wasn’t necessarily a bad egg. Sure, he rooted for evil from behind the safety of his gaming figures, but he’d eventually outgrow this, moving on to other horrors like puberty and high school. Soon he’d forget about ever believing in supervillains and paranormal battles. Which meant he’d also forget about this conversation. So what was the harm?

  “Fine,” I said, then looked questioningly back at Carl, now behind the register. “Zane?”

  Pushing with his palms, he lifted himself onto a glass case of collectible cards. “Why do you want him?”

  I’d crossed the room, leaped the counter, and was leaning over him before he could blink. “Why won’t you get him?”

  It was the third time he’d refused to do so. Call me paranoid, but I was getting suspicious.

  Without blinking, Carl stuck out his index finger, poked my shoulder, and pushed me away. “Back off, Archer.”

  “Oh.” Hunter, suddenly counter-side, sounded surprised.

  I looked at him. “What?”

  “I see.”

  “What?” I looked at Carl, then back to Hunter. “What do you see?”

  “Zane’s gone, isn’t he?”

  The blood drained from my head, and I took another step back. “Gone?”

  Hunter sighed, nodding. “Carl is the new record keeper.”

  I whipped my head around to gaze at Carl, horrified. He shrugged a shoulder. I looked down at Li, who’d resumed her monkey cling on Hunter. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “Hey, if I’m on a need-to-know basis, so are you.”

  “Pow-ned!” Douglas fist-pumped at the back of the room, and fell off his chair again.

  Hunter tilted his head at Carl. “So why are you asking what happened if you can already see it in your mind?”

  As record keeper, he now processed and translated the storylines that inevitably ended up on the shelves, and he knew what happened almost immediately.

  “Because it’s different this time,” he said, jerking his head like a horse shaking off flies. “I mean, it’s out there—in the world, the Universe, the aetheric—because the actions have already been taken. The manual is essentially already created, but it’s fuzzy in my brain. Like something’s still unresolved. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”

  I was still trying to figure out how the hell he’d gone from geeky preteen penciler to the translator of all things paranormal. “I thought you had to agree to accept the position,” I interrupted, crossing my arms.

  And who in their right mind would? The record keeper couldn’t leave the building. Ever. He’d age mentally, but remain in the body of a young man until someone else deigned to take over the role. His family, friends, and peers in geekdom would move on with their lives. Without him. In short, he was stuck in this city, this building, this spot, forever. “Didn’t you hear all the obligations and restrictions?”

  Carl laughed a bit, then shrugged. “Don’t forget the abilities.”

  “So you accepted it willingly?” I sagged against the opposite case. “But what about your life, Carl?”

  “Hey, I’ve had it pretty good here so far,” he said quickly, defensively. “Food delivery. Free Internet access. All the comics I can read, surrounded by my friends every day. Don’t worry, I’ll keep growing older until I hit an age that makes me look like the shop’s owner, but beyond that? I’m forever young.”

  He said it like that was a good thing, but announced it like he was selling something. In short? He sounded like a typical twelve-year-old.

  I pushed myself up so I was sitting on the case across from him, something Zane would have expressly forbidden. “But what about other experiences? What about love?”

  He wrinkled his nose. “Hey, just because you’re riding the bony pony again doesn’t mean everyone else wants to visit the petting zoo.”

  Next to me, Hunter squeezed the bridge of his nose.

  “Besides, we’ve got more important things to do, like discovering the location of the original manual and unraveling the mystery behind the Zodiac’s mythos. Knowledge is power, right? And we mean to rule the world.” He echoed Douglas’s pitiful fist pump . . . though without falling over.

  I only stared back, unsure how to tell him that without love it would all be for nothing.

  “What about your family?”

  His gaze darted away at that, and he ran a hand through his hair. “Look, done is done, Archer, okay? Besides, this shop isn’t just a safe zone for agents, get what I’m saying?”

  I remained silent for a moment, searching his face. When it only hardened further, I nodded. “Sure, Carl. Sure I do.”

  Hunter leaned atop the middle of the U-shaped counter, another infraction under the last record keeper’s watch. “So what happened with Zane?”

  “Man, it was freaky,” Carl’s eyes bugged in his skull. “As soon as we shook hands, sealing the transfer of power from him to me and ensuring the primeval laws of the Universe would be revealed in my mind”—I looked at Hunter and rolled my eyes—“he turned to dust. Poof!”

  “Instantly,” Li added, nodding her head. I frowned. Should it bother me that she’d been here and wasn’t more disturbed by what had happened? Staring back into my face, she just blinked and gave me a dimpled grin.

  Carl hopped from the counter and leaned back on his elbows. “Obv
iously if Zane had followed his natural life’s progression he’d be long dead by now.”

  “So what’dya do with him? I mean, his family is clearly gone.”

  “What do you think?” he said, looking at me like I was the freak. “We Hoover-ed his ass up and gave him a proper tribute.”

  Then it hadn’t been him sleeping upstairs during Felix’s memorial. “So where is he now?”

  “His ashes?” Carl asked, and I nodded. “You’re sitting on him.”

  I leaped from the countertop.

  “Just kidding.” Carl grinned as I joined Hunter’s side, then waved his hand through the air. “Li took him to her sister who took her with some friends who were going on a class trip to Cancun.”

  “Did they have to buy an extra seat?”

  “Nah.” Carl pulled a pad of paper from under the register and began doodling. “Stuck him in her makeup bag. Zane wouldn’t have cared, though. As long as he got there. He always talked about visiting another country. He was sick of these four walls. Called them his prison.”

  “And you don’t think you’re going to feel the same way in a few years?” Hunter asked softly.

  “Maybe. Within time.” Carl shrugged in the blissful fashion of the totally inexperienced. “Can’t say for sure, but until then? I got the power.”

  Li left Hunter’s side long enough to give Carl a righteous high five, and he smugly jerked his chin at me. “So what about you? What’s your next move? Return to your former troop and battle for the Light? Remain with the grays and lead that troop to ultimate victory over all?”

  “Funny you should ask, Carl. I was just going to see if Jo wanted to discuss her options over a long candlelit dinner.”

  I looked at Hunter blankly. “You were?”

  He looked back. “I don’t believe we’ve been on a proper date yet.”

  Frowning, I thought about that. “The last date I had tried to kill me.”

  “I can assure you the events will be different . . . though the ending will be the same.”