Ben interrupted my thoughts, his sigh suffused with such contentment, a sharp pang squeezed an extra beat from my heart. “I bet she protects the smaller kids on the playground. Just like Jo and I did.”
I’d told him that Jo was away on business, but that she’d wanted me to show him this. She’d wanted him to know.
“You can’t know that,” I said softly, thinking of schoolyard bullies, thinking again of Ben’s way of dealing with them. “You can never really know what’s going on inside a person.”
“‘Who knows most, doubts most,’” he quoted before smiling fondly at me. Of course, he didn’t expect Olivia to know Browning. “But we don’t have to worry about that, do we? Jo and I are going to make a go of this, and somehow, deep down, I always knew it. Because I’ve always known her.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
I shut my eyes at the moment of impact, so that the image that would forever linger was his misplaced serenity. But the sound of my blow connecting with the side of his head still shocked through me. I caught him as he crumpled at my feet.
Gently, I lowered his head to the cool, dusk-damp grass behind the imagined walls still shielding us from sight, and whispered, “I love you, Ben.”
But love came with a price. The cost was knowing one woman’s touch from another’s. It meant searching your heart so an impostor could never insinuate herself into your life, much less your body. Maybe a part of me continued to be piqued that he’d known I was alive, and had still gone out with “Rose” to spite me, the supposed great love of his life. In a way, he’d left me again, as he had the first time, unable or unwilling to trust and understand that I had reasons for my actions. But more than anything, after the years and the emotion and the heartache that had piled up between us, I was tired and burned out. My words, that quote, were the most honest thing I could say to him…but not without adding, “But you should have known…and you didn’t.”
Hunter had been right about that. Right enough that I’d also begun to question the other theory he’d so desperately put forward…that I wouldn’t have ever let Regan near Ben if I’d really loved him.
“I do love you,” I repeated, as if he’d heard the thought and I had to argue against it. “But no matter what’s going on inside of me—this war of Shadow and Light—some things just need to be a little more black and white.”
I packed him up in the Porsche then, and drove to the Bonanza underpass, where I’d asked Warren to meet me. As I pulled to a stop along a clearing next to the Art Deco bridge, I saw Micah and Gregor exchanging looks. They scented the mortal. They said nothing as they lifted Ben from the car and loaded him into the back of Gregor’s cab. It was fast, less than thirty seconds. He was with me, then he was not, and I was left staring blindly in the direction the cab had sped off.
“I didn’t give up on him, you know,” I told Warren, as he came to stand beside me.
He put a hand on my shoulder as cars raced beneath the underpass, engines both hollow and loud, exhaust choking me and making my eyes water. “I know.”
I turned to find him watching me with a kind sadness, like he really did understand the final act in a long goodbye. “He’s a good man. He just needs to remember it.”
Which could only happen if he forgot the rest—a man named Magnum, a woman named Rose. A girlfriend who was also a superhero. I knew now that mortals had no place in our world. One disturbing conversation with Regan’s father had taught me that.
So I wished goodness for Ben, so much so that I was willing to let Micah rewire large chunks of his memory and restructure his neural architecture so that Ben’s original personality could rise to the forefront of his mind. He wouldn’t be the boy I fell in love with, but he’d have a chance at becoming the man he would have been if horror and savagery hadn’t entered his life. And that’s who I wanted him to be. Unscathed. Unharmed.
An innocent.
“You knew it would come to this, didn’t you?” I whispered, swaying slightly in Ben’s wake, his sudden absence devastating, even though he was still alive. At least he had a better chance of staying that way now. “That’s why you didn’t pressure me.”
A half-dozen cars raced by before he answered. “I didn’t want you distracted.”
That made sense, I thought, turning to head back to my car parked on the shoulder, in the shadows. Then I paused, lifted my gaze from the concrete, and felt Warren hesitate behind me.
I whirled suddenly, not caring who saw it or what someone might make of Olivia Archer kicking the shit out of some homeless guy underneath a concrete bridge. But Warren blocked my fist, grinned apologetically, and blocked again.
“Joanna,” he chided, sounding disappointed with my predictability.
“How long have you known?” I said coolly.
“You mean what the doppelgänger was? What she wanted? Who was behind it?” He smiled, and I thought of hitting him again, but knew he’d be expecting it. “Since her appearance in the sanctuary for sure, but I suspected it as far back as our talk in the warehouse.”
Up in the crow’s nest, where he’d already been trying to convince me to release Ben.
“How? What tipped you off?” Why didn’t you tell me?
“For one, you couldn’t describe what she smelled like. Yet when we encountered her I realized she smelled exactly like you.” No agent could smell themselves. The inability was an evolutionary defense, though this time it’d been a liability. Warren went on, obviously relieved now that he could speak of it. “Then, in the sanctuary, she used a nickname on me that only Zoe had known. Once she fled I also realized she’d been less physically stable under the collective stares of the entire troop. She was morphing under our influence, which told me she didn’t leave because she was afraid of us, merely because she couldn’t become you in our presence. The Tulpa too has trouble materializing under the influence of multiple stares and expectations.”
I felt my face crumple with confusion. “And you didn’t help me?”
“It wasn’t my help that was needed.” The calmness in his voice didn’t transfer to me. Instead it infuriated me, driving home how at odds his personality was with his deceiving appearance. He looked like a have-not in a city built for the haves, and beneath that, a leader bowing to the wishes of his troop. But looking even deeper, I saw the craftiness accompanying his words, his every act. “I needed to stay out of your way. I cleared a path by ordering Chandra to let you go out alone, then I sent you out into the world so Zoe, or her creation, would continue to reach out to you.”
He sounded so fucking proud of it. “You used me as bait.”
“It was necessary to see if she’d contact you.”
Yes, but would you have let her eat my heart if it came down to that?
“It was ruthless.”
“She was getting desperate.”
And it was telling that he didn’t know I was speaking about him.
“What about the mask? Did you know what it could do as well?”
His pride, even his features, sank at that. “Of course not. I really thought we’d stolen that mask out from under his nose. The visions of victory seen by our troop while wearing it made me believe it was the tool allowing the Tulpa to anticipate and counteract so many of our actions.”
Our visions of victory?
What about my visions? Or didn’t I count because I was still part Shadow?
“You fucked up, Warren,” I said, wanting to be hurtful and harsh.
“Big time,” he freely admitted, which pissed me off all the more. I held my breath, bottled my emotion, and looked away.
And after a minute, I softened. I knew as well as anyone that we all acted from the information we had at the time. The thing that made us most like the mortals we sought to protect was that despite our abilities and powers, we could still only choose rightly, work blindly, and hope for the best. My own actions—seizing the kairotic moment—had required not the work of the body I’d honed for years in anticipation of physi
cal battle, but faith, and the work of my soul.
But as for Warren…
“You let me keep Ben,” I said in a whisper, “merely so I wouldn’t be distracted.”
It meant he’d have taken Ben from me earlier if it wouldn’t have interfered with my focus on the doppelgänger.
“I bought Skamar time to form, to contact you, and gave you the opportunity to bring the third sign of the Zodiac to life. Of course that backfired a bit. The Tulpa couldn’t wait for you to act, so he began to draw on his mortal beards for more power in tracking and fighting the doppelgänger.”
“Like Xavier,” I said, remembering the thin frame on the giant man.
“How is Mr. Archer these days, anyway?”
I looked at him sharply. So he knew I’d gone to check. Warren always knew far more than he ever let on. Why hadn’t I kept that in mind?
“Better. Still an ass.” And undergoing his own metamorphosis. Xavier Archer appeared to be giving Howard Hughes a run for his reclusive billions. He wasn’t even leaving his house for meetings anymore. But I pushed that concern out of my mind. “He’s not my responsibility.”
“As much as any other mortal.”
I stared at the man who demanded so much of me, who pulled levers and pushed buttons behind emerald green curtains, and he shrugged. But it was true enough. I thought of Helen, a.k.a. Lindy Maguire, and knew I’d have to take care of Xavier’s pushy, bitchy, stank-ass housekeeper sooner rather than later. But it wouldn’t have anything to do with Xavier Archer’s well-being.
“Yes,” I said, taking my cue from him, deciding to hide a little more of what I was all about. “But no more.”
“No less.”
Despite Warren’s words, the urge to fight drained from me. Did I really have a right to be angry with him? I’d known he always put the good of the troop above that of the individual. I’d been lucky my desires had coincided with that thus far. God help me if they ever did not, I thought, and couldn’t contain my shiver as I watched him recline against the concrete hill, the duster of his coat flapping as cars and an errant gust from a far-off battle sped past. I was glad I hadn’t told him of Ashlyn’s existence.
I’d hate to go to war with you, Warren.
But I’d do it if he took one limping step near her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I told him, turning again.
“Dawn or dusk?”
“Dusk.” Loneliness suddenly gored me, expelling breath from my gut, and as it passed through my chest, by my heart, I thought I felt a crack. I glanced back, knowing Warren had scented it, but he must have interpreted it, and my expression, as regret over losing Ben. He was beside me before I blinked.
“It’s the right thing,” he said, strong hand on my arm.
I shook off his touch and wrapped my arms around my middle in the encroaching night. I felt the sudden need to go somewhere safe, but we’d already missed the even splitting of this day’s light, so crossing into the sanctuary was out. Cher and her mother had only returned from Fiji the day before, but they weren’t too far from here. It’d be good to forget about supernatural politics for at least a little while. Perhaps it would even distract from the loss of Ben. No matter what, I had to get away from Warren.
“No,” I told him, turning my mind back to the image of Ben lying crumpled at my feet, second-guessing the wisdom in handing him over to Micah. He hadn’t looked like the man I’d wanted him to be, the one I’d been desperate to save and love and live the picket-fence, one-point-two-children, nine-to-five lifestyle with. Instead he’d looked like a cutout of himself, like the paper dolls I’d played with as a child, imposing the clothes and background and life I wanted them to have.
Had I become that already? I wondered, thinking of the last mortal I’d struck on the head. Since I was the primary benefactress of the head trauma unit, the hospital director had kept me apprised of Laura Crucier’s condition. She had emerged from her coma the previous weekend, and with time and patience and care, was expected to make a full recovery. I sighed in relief at that, though it still didn’t answer my question.
Was I really someone who so easily plucked others from their chosen existence because it suited my own needs? Someone who so quickly accepted it as my right just because I was stronger and could do so? Because that would mean I was like Warren, moving people around like pawns, though he did so with superheroes as well as mortal men.
“No.” I sighed again, the question still brightly unanswered in my mind. “But it’s the wrong thing for the right reason.”
31
“Hey, asshole,” I called out the next day, banging the handbell on the glass countertop at least a dozen times. The pitter-patter of giant, corn-riddled feet thundered down the hall, and I smiled wryly to myself. Seconds later, Zane trundled into the comics shop, sneer already in place.
“Get out. We’re closing early.”
“Because it’s Nevada Day?” I asked, eyes all wide, blue innocence.
“Because it’s Halloween.”
“All the kiddies run off to play with friends their own age? I guess trick-or-treating gets old after seven or so decades.” I slapped a Shadow manual onto the countertop, and Zane flipped it around to stare at the cover like he hadn’t been the one to create it. It showed the Tulpa ringed in giant saguaros, a marble-eyed woman poised to take a bite from his shoulder. I waited for him to mention the manuals of Light—or lack thereof—but he was studying the cover, expression as alive as any changeling’s.
“This was a great issue to interpret. The Archer of Light always comes through.”
I blinked, surprised. “Thanks, Zane.”
“I’m not talking about you.” He scowled up at me, and slapped the comic down. “I mean Zoe Archer’s successful entrée back into our world. Despite her humanity, she’s still a force to be reckoned with, with a mind and will so strong she created another living creature.”
I listened to his speech, and drew back from the counter as realization dawned. “Ew. Do you have a crush on my mother, Zane?” I asked, making a gagging noise when he colored. “Isn’t she a little young for you?”
Not looking at me, teeth clenched, he asked, “Is this going to be all?”
“No, it’s not all,” I snapped, suddenly tired of being treated like a gaming piece on some paranormal chessboard. My mother, Warren, now Zane…all moving me around at will. “How about acknowledging that I gave that doppelgänger a name, turned it loose upon the Tulpa, and brought the third sign to life? I mean, I just annihilated every threat to my life, but I suppose that doesn’t warrant mention in here, huh?”
“Is the Tulpa still alive?”
“Yes, but—”
“And did you ever manage to track down the former Shadow Cancer?”
“No.”
“And has the fourth sign of the Zodiac been revealed?”
He already knew the answer to all these questions. “Your point?” I asked tersely.
“The point is that nothing’s changed. The Tulpa still wants your life—”
My turn to interrupt. “He’s busy defending his own.”
“Regan still knows who you are…and she has your conduit—”
“And she couldn’t sneak up on me if she were as well-wrapped as King Tut. I’d scent out her blood a mile away.”
He pinned me with his gaze then, eyes gleaming. “And even when the fourth sign of the Zodiac comes to pass, nobody will recognize it.”
My mouth stuttered before it fell shut. There was that. Jasmine still thought she was a superheroine in the making. Li was still deteriorating by the day. “I’m working on it,” I muttered, unable to keep the guilt from coloring my words. Hearing it, Zane pounced.
“Well, work harder. That changeling isn’t going to heal herself!”
“Oh, are we exchanging advice? Fine, then don’t forget to take your fiber, and the Fixodent should be applied liberally.”
Zane grumbled but rang me up, and I snatched the plastic back out of his ha
nd. Later, Gramps.”
“Wait until you’re my age,” he called after me. “You won’t find it so funny!”
“Zane.” I turned, back against the door. “Do you really think I’m going to live that long?”
“Good point.”
I was too apathetic to let the comment bother me, and too late in meeting Gregor for the crossing to immediately rip into the manual. As soon as I was tucked in the back of his cab, though—and alone for a change—I flipped through it to relive the Shadow version of the events at Cathedral Canyon. I glanced up to find Gregor observing me through the rearview mirror, curious as he studied the flash of color and light rising from the manual to wash over my face.
“Learn anything new?”
“No,” I lied and looked back down. The manual shook in my hands. The cryptic ending was clearly meant “to be continued,” but that’s not what was most confusing. I’d simply never expected to see Hunter Lorenzo gracing the pages of a Shadow manual.
His expression held the same resolute calm it had when I’d left him at the warehouse, though it sat on his face like a sunken stone, like he’d settled something for himself inside. He was obviously in a building of some sort, but it had been drawn intentionally obscure, and all that was visible was yards of concrete and four slim windows that allowed a full moon to fall on that disturbingly peaceful face.
“People should have their greatest desires,” he told someone, and his voice lifted from the pages to wash over me, causing chills to break out along my spine.
I looked up, but Gregor had turned his attention back to the road, and clearly hadn’t heard. Disturbed, confused, and inexplicably sad, I flipped the manual shut just as dusk split down its thinning middle, and we rocketed through the wall and into the boneyard. The dust from our impact into an alternate reality hadn’t even settled before a strange pulsing glow seeped into the cab. For a moment I thought the Shadow manual had fallen open again, the recorded events springing to life once more on my lap. Yet in the next, I realized the light was coming from outside the vehicle, and I automatically reached for a conduit I no longer possessed.
The Touch of Twilight Page 38
