Phantasm

by Phaedra Weldon

  “Unless . . .”

  My head snapped up to look at Dags. “What?”

  He looked at me with loud hesitation. “Rhonda would know where he—”

  “No.”

  “But she might know how he—”

  “No.”

  “But, Zoë—”

  I stood up and slapped the letter on the table. “No. I don’t want her help. I don’t want to see her. She was a spy—lying to me and to my mom. How can you expect me to trust her anymore, Dags?”

  I thought he was going to argue with me. But he didn’t.

  Joe would’ve. Hell, Joe would’ve enjoyed arguing.

  Why was I thinking of Joe? Jerk.

  “Zoë.” He stood up and faced me. Not much shorter. Not when I was barefoot. “You’re going to have to confront your anger—”

  “I can do this,” I said, raising my voice (and it was so nice to do that!) at him. “I don’t. Need. Rhonda.” And with that, I turned, grabbed my coat from the wall tree by the front door, and stomped outside.

  Right into the waiting arms of the one creature in this world I’d been waiting to see.

  “Hello, lover.”

  Archer.

  4

  It’s him! Get him!

  HOW many times have I thought of a situation and daydreamed how I’d react? Sometimes it’s after the fact—like when someone’s rude in a checkout line or bullies me at work or at school. And twenty minutes later I think of what I wished I’d said.

  I’d thought and thought and rethought all the things I wanted to say to TC. And I’d also daydreamed all the things I’d wanted to do to him—castration at the top of the charts.

  Yes, Symbionts have penises. Or at least this one did.

  And no, I’m not going into how I know.

  What I did next wasn’t exactly what I’d planned—but it was quick, girlie, and totally made my day.

  He had his hands on my upper arms, a smile on his face, his eyes hidden by dark shades. I smiled back at him—and brought my knee up as hard as I could into his groin.

  Satisfaction was quick, and as he doubled over with his hands on his crotch, I pumped my hand in the air, and yelled out, “Yeah!”

  Jemmy and Dags ran out to the front porch and stopped on either side of me, looking down at the moaning man in the black trench coat.

  “Is that—” Dags said.

  “Archer,” Jemmy finished. She patted my shoulder. “You did good.”

  I did?

  Maureen and Alice appeared at that moment, and Archer vanished. Maureen vanished right after.

  “Hey,” I said, looking around, then fixed my glare at Alice. “You chased him away.”

  “No,” Alice said. “He’s inside—Maureen is holding him.”

  Yay!

  I was the first one back in the house. He wasn’t in the tea shop, so I ran into the botanica.

  Maureen had him all right—she was standing to the right of the fireplace just outside of the singed pentagram—nice glow going there. And TC was positioned inside the pentagram. He was just sort of crouching there, his head bent forward. Pretty much in the position I’d sent him into with my knee.

  I stood in front of him, my arms crossed over my chest as Dags and Jemmy came in and flanked me. Dags on my left, Jemmy on my right. Alice appeared on the opposite side of Maureen, outside the pentagram.

  “Where’s my mother?” I said this in the most commanding voice I could muster—though I caught the quiver as emotion overwhelmed me. My hands were clenched into fists, and I was aware of Dags moving closer to me. “Stand the fuck up and face me.”

  I watched TC’s shoulders shake, and I thought for a second that he was crying. But that ridiculous thought was shattered when a deep laugh chased away the room’s shadows. He might seem like just a big Vin Diesel impersonator at the moment, but I wasn’t fooled. This man—this thing—was very dangerous.

  He shifted and put his hands on his thighs as the laugh grew in volume. And strength.

  Finally, he lifted his head. I felt more than saw the border of the pentagram vibrate. He was testing the boundaries, and I wondered to myself what it would look like if I were still Wraith. Would I see it?

  “Is something funny?” Dags asked in a surprisingly confident voice.

  TC’s laughter ceased as if someone had cut the power. He was on his feet in a blink and standing at the edge of the circle in front of Dags. He tilted his head to the side. I wanted to see his eyes, but he was still wearing his shades. “What are you doing here?”

  It was at that moment the reality of the situation hit me. TC was talking without my voice. He had a male voice. Not my voice.

  Because I had my voice back? I looked from TC to Dags. I wasn’t sure I liked the look on either of their faces.

  “Do I frighten you?” Dags said. Which was just like the ballsiest statement I’d ever heard him make.

  Him? Scare the Archer?

  Ha.

  Yet there was something in the Symbiont’s movements that revealed what I thought was a slight insecurity with Dags standing there. TC’s attention was focused on the ex-bartender. Or was he still a bartender?

  “I would name you Watcher—but no—” The Symbiont frowned behind his shades, and he held his arms down and out from his body like a gunslinger at the ready. “You are something . . . made? You were sent to guard the Wraith?” He cocked his head to the side. “Or destroy her?”

  Dags held his hands up to his sides, palms facing TC. The circles glowed a soft blue-white and were spinning quickly. But there were other shapes in there too—triangles?

  I looked from Dags to TC. “Watcher? You mean like in Highlander?”

  TC made a rude noise. “You watch too much television, lover.”

  “Would you stop calling me that?”

  “I’m the only one you’ve made love to in the past two years.”

  Dags glanced at me. “Really?”

  I glared at him. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “No—I mean it’s been two years? Didn’t you and Daniel ever—” He frowned at me, then glared. He was obviously shocked.

  I gave a short sigh that was more like a grunt. “Can we get past the issue of Zoë’s need or lack of sex?” I turned to TC. “I want my mom back now.”

  TC gave a deep but soft chuckle. “You betrayed me.”

  “Oh, like you’ve never heard that thrown in your face before. You lied to me, if I recall the events clear enough. You weren’t trying to retrieve those people’s contracts for the Phantasm, you were getting them for yourself.”

  “I’m an opportunist.”

  “You’re a user.”

  “You like to be used.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Step in here and make me, lover.”

  I was about to do just that when Dags reached out and grabbed my arm. I could feel the heat from his glowing palm, but it was just that, warm. “Uh-uh, hothead. Stay where you are.” He looked back to TC. “Give Nona back to us.”

  TC smirked beneath his shades and crossed his arms over his chest—both were ample, and I could hear the sound of leather against leather. “And if I say no?”

  Dags nodded to Maureen.

  I looked at the younger familiar and squeaked when a bow and arrow formed out of light in her hands. She aimed the weapon at TC, and he backed up as she released it. The glowing arrow pierced the pentagram’s protective shell and followed TC even as he tried to evade it. It struck his upper left thigh, and he howled.

  I turned to Dags. “Just what the hell are you doing?” I narrowed my eyes. “What did he mean by Watcher?”

  Dags opened his mouth to answer, but it was Jemmy’s voice that I heard. She’d moved closer to me and had a hand on my right shoulder. Her gaze never left TC as she spoke. “The Archer is referring to the Irin, child. The children of angels and men. The Book of Enoch speaks of them—of how God used them as Guardians to the planes.” She shook her head. “But the Irin were all killed during the Bul
wark, weren’t they?”

  TC straightened up, but he was favoring his injured leg. “Not all of them. There were a few that survived. So the Seraphim have been artificially creating them.” He nodded to Dags. “Like him.”

  The Bull-what?

  Jemmy looked at Dags. “But you’re not—”

  He shook his head. “No. But I can see where the Symbiont would get confused.”

  “I am not confused,” TC insisted, and his voice was strong again. “I will find out what you are.”

  “Give me back my mom!” I finally yelled out. God it was good to just scream like that.

  Mental note: voice—use it or lose it!

  Everyone got quiet. TC just stood his ground, and it took everything in me not to just push through the pentagram and knock his fucking shades off.

  “He doesn’t have her,” Maureen said in a quiet voice.

  Dags shook his head. “No, he doesn’t.”

  My heart backflipped in my chest. I looked at her, then at Dags. “What—what do you mean he doesn’t have her? How can you tell?”

  “Because the Archer—if he had your mother’s soul—would have brought a piece of it with him to taunt you,” Dags said. “He’s empty-handed. And he’s—diminished.”

  Diminished?

  “Archer,” Alice said in a level tone. “Do you have knowledge as to why the Wraith’s powers have vanished?”

  “Screw that!” I said. “Where’s my mom?”

  TC shook his head. “I don’t have the answer to where Nona is—I had her for a while—but then something happened that reverberated along the Abysmal plane, and I could no longer hold her. She was”—he held out his arms—“gone.”

  Gone?

  I took a step back.

  What does that mean—gone?

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and pulled away. I knew it was Dags—but I wasn’t in the mood for any sympathy. “Tell me what that means,” I said in a low voice. But then it exploded. “WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?”

  “It could mean several things,” Alice said in a commanding voice. I took a step back. “But for some reason, though she’s free from TC, Nona hasn’t returned to her body.”

  “What exactly does that say?” Dags asked.

  Alice shook her head. “Nona’s spirit could be wandering—unable to find her body.”

  “But couldn’t she just use the silver cord like I do?” I said in a rush. “Or like I used to?” When I could OOB, the silver cord that kept me attached to my physical body was always there, and at times—seriously life-threatening times—I’d just use it much like a bungee cord back to the body. Not a very pleasant experience—but sometimes a necessary one.

  “Yes, unless she’s trapped between the planes because there are so few Irin left. It could also mean—” And then she stopped.

  I took a step in her direction. “Tell me, Alice.”

  “It could mean she’s been summoned somewhere else.”

  Summoned. The only thing I knew about summoning was with an Eidolon.

  And the only person I knew with a Summoning Eidolon was Rodriguez. Francisco Rodriguez once again had the Summoning Eidilon because Rhonda had trusted him. I felt my shoulders lower as I thought about what it could mean. Why would he take my mom?

  “Zoë, we don’t know that Rodriguez has her. I’m not sure he could actually use the Eidolon to summon a specific soul without her body—”

  I whirled on Dags. “Is she still at Miller Oaks?”

  “Yes, yes,” Jemmy said. “I told you I just came from there. Her body is fine, and that Captain Cooper man is keeping an eye on her.”

  That was just weird to me. I felt a little better about it, but it was weird. The fact that Cooper was being nice to me. Or my family. I honestly thought he hated me.

  Dags’s expression looked confused. He faced TC. “Why are you here?”

  TC smiled and held out his hands. “Why are any of us here?”

  I snorted. Great. A Symbiont had gone existential on me. “Why come here when you don’t have my mother? You had to have known how I’d react.”

  The Symbiont’s reaction was a little surprising. “I came here to see what’d happened to you.”

  Jemmy and Dags glanced at each other, then at me. Dags spoke. “You can sense she’s no longer Wraith because the two of you are linked together.”

  TC’s right eyebrow arched over his shades as he inclined his head toward Dags. “The Guardian gets a cookie for being a good boy.”

  “Knock it off,” I heard myself say. I took a step closer to the pentagram’s edge. “Now that you’re here—do you know what’s happened to me?”

  He moved close as well, coming quickly toward me, but stopped at the barrier’s edge. It took all I had in me not to take a step back. With all my bravado in front of TC, the truth was I was still scared of him. He was something I didn’t understand. There were odd feelings inside that always stirred when he was near—feelings I wasn’t comfortable with.

  We’d done things—together. And though I remembered some of them, much to my horror—I didn’t want to remember anything more.

  “Pull down the barrier,” TC said in a soft voice. “Let me touch you.”

  “Not on your life,” Dags said, and moved next to me. He put an arm over my shoulder. “Zoë’s been ill, and the last thing she needs is you draining her energy.”

  TC shifted his gaze from me to Dags. “I am not here to destroy or weaken Zoë in any way. If you really understood our connection, you’d know that.” He looked back at me. “What I’ve become—the power I have—had—was because of my link to Zoë. To the Wraith. That power has diminished and left me—”

  He didn’t finish.

  But I already knew the answer. He was weakened. Just as I was. On some level, I understood that my losing my abilities as a Wraith—my being just a normal, twentysomething brat with a chip on her shoulder—was being reflected on TC.

  He was still a Symbiont, and just as dangerous as he once was. But not as powerful.

  “Remove the barrier, Zoë,” he said. “Let me touch you. Let me find out what’s happened. It could be that whatever has stolen your power, and mine, also stole your mother’s soul.”

  Dags moved beside me, but I reached out and gently pushed him back. I caught Alice watching me and nodded. I somehow felt with her and Maureen here—nothing could happen. I needed to know what he knew—I needed to know where my mother was.

  Alice nodded to me as well, and with a wave of her hand, the barrier vanished. It wasn’t that I could actually see it, but I could feel a distinct pressure change in front of me—in the small botanica.

  Maureen and Alice moved into the circle, flanking TC.

  But he was quick—more so than I believed he could be. He moved in a blur outside the circle, and with a wave of his hand, the barrier was back—only now the girls were trapped inside of it.

  Dags yelled out as he came closer to me. TC looked at him, reached out with his left hand. The hand became a mass of tentacles, as if he had the back end of an octopus inside his trench coat sleeve instead of an arm. The tentacles elongated, lashed out, and wrapped around Dags’s body, concentrating on his face and neck. He was on the ground struggling, one hand grasping at the tentacles covering his face.

  I started toward him—Dags was going to suffocate!

  But TC was on me, fast.

  And I mean on me.

  His right arm encircled me and his lips were pressed hard and unmoving against my own, effectively silencing me and trapping me as well. I had no way to gain a footing to knee him in the groin again.

  And again I could feel his tongue, pressing against my lips, forcing its way in. I tried to kick him, but he was already becoming a vine that wrapped itself around my entire body. I was only able to make the smallest of noises—my mouth was now firmly gagged with his tongue. I wanted to throw up but couldn’t move.

  I had flashbacks to that night in the house with Susan Hirokumi, the night he’d taken me in
like this and I woke twenty-four hours later inside a morgue.

  And my life had changed dramatically.

  The room grew dim, and I had the distinct impression I was about to lose consciousness, whether from my own inability to breathe or the sheer horror of what was happening to me again and what was happening to Dags. Maureen and Alice were trapped behind the barrier, unable to help him.

  Dags stopped struggling.

  I screamed as hard as I could.

  There was a crack, my ears popped, and the room filled with a bright, warm, calming light.

  TC screamed in my mind. He wriggled against me, pulling his tongue from my mouth. His body unwound itself and vanished, and I was on my ass on the floor, gasping for breath before I knew what had happened.

  Cold hands were on the sides of my face, and I blinked and looked up into the face of Jemmy Shultz. Her dark, kind eyes were searching my face. “. . . come back to me. Zoë, don’t you pass out. He’s not breathing—you got to help him breathe! I know you can do this!”

  Not breathing. I took in a deep gulp of air, coughed. I was breathing. Sort of. It hurt like hell, as if TC had somehow shoved his Roto-Rooter tongue down my throat and into my lungs. I gave a visible shudder at the thought. But I could hear Maureen and Alice yelling at each other, and Jemmy let my face go.

  That’s when I saw the gun in her hands. The smoking gun. Jemmy had shot TC.

  Attagirl!

  I fell back a bit on my elbows and shook my head. To my right the girls were bent over—

  DAGS!

  I coughed as I scrambled on hands and knees to him. Maureen and Alice looked like two human-shaped candles, glowing at their brightest settings. They had their hands out, focusing—whatever it was they did—on Dags’s very still body.

  “We can’t put breath back in his body,” Alice said in a near cry as I waved Jemmy away. “He’s not breathing.”

  “Can’t put breath back in?” I said absently as I knelt beside him. His lips were blue, and I could see nasty, round suction-cup marks all over his neck and a few on his cheeks. That bastard. TC had literally tried to kill Dags when he had the chance.

  “We can heal his body physically—” Maureen said. “But we can’t put life in.”