The Scent of Shadows sotz-1

by Vicki Pettersson

  And then she’d had Xavier’s real child too. It made me wonder if she’d ever been with a man solely for love.

  “She just wouldn’t give up,” Micah continued, shaking his head. “A more single-minded and brave woman I’ve never met. She spent years with the Tulpa, then years with Xavier, and in the process forfeited any personal joy she might have had, any chance at a normal life.”

  “She still failed,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, but she was so close,” he said, tucking a curl behind my ear. “A few more weeks and she would’ve had him.”

  “But?” I prompted, needing to know why she’d disappeared so abruptly, both when I’d needed her most and these people had needed her also.

  “But you.”

  Micah looked at me with utter stillness, a bittersweet smile on his face. “You inherited more than your mother’s cheekbones, Joanna. You possess her genetic makeup, and while she had the ability to hide her own scent, you weren’t protected. You hit puberty, entered what we call the second life cycle, and your hormones went rampant. Shadow agents were scouring the city looking for her, and one of them—”

  “Found me.” I closed my eyes as the final pieces of the puzzle clicked together. No wonder her grief had been so palpably guilt-ridden.

  “He tried to kill you, to kill everything that was good and pure and…Zoe in you. Just so you know, any one of us would have died that night.”

  But I hadn’t. Why? I glanced at myself in the mirror. The eyes were still mine, I noticed. They’d deepened like the night at the mention of my attack. “His genes,” I said. “They protected me.”

  Micah inclined his head. “I guess you could say the Tulpa, the creation, was now your creator. You’re something new, Joanna. Something never seen before, though your existence has been foretold. See, you’re the only one who’s ever been both…certainly the only one who’s ever survived such an attack. The only one.”

  Then he explained about someone called the Kairos, the fulcrum, upon whom all their fates hinge. It was part of their mythology, both Shadow and Light, and Warren apparently thought I was it. I was silent for a while, trying to let that soak in with all the rest, but everything just seemed to pile up on the surface of my consciousness. “Does he know about me?” I finally asked.

  Micah shook his head. “Not that you’re his daughter, thus not that we suspect you’re the Kairos either. He only knows that you’re Zoe’s. We can all smell it on you now that you’ve reached your third life cycle. And now that he’s aware of your existence, he’ll be gunning to take out his revenge on you.”

  So the leader of the paranormal underworld—or at least that of the greater Las Vegas valley—had a hard-on for my blood. Fabulous. I bit my lip and looked up at Micah through the mirror. “So did he do it?”

  “What? Who?”

  “The man. That night. Did he kill…” I searched for the right words, but there weren’t any. There was only the truth. “Did he kill all that was good in me?”

  “Yes,” Micah said softly, but smiled. “But that you’re even asking that question should reassure you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Simple, Joanna. He broke the potential hero in you. Then your mother put you back together.”

  The machines were silent, no dripping or beeping to mark the passage of time, and the room was painfully quiet as I pondered this. An answer to one of my life’s most enduring questions was taking shape in my mind, but before I could form it aloud, Micah did it for me.

  “She gave you everything she could, every olfactory blend we’d created to protect her, every personal power that kept her whole. She used chemistry to mask your pheromones and then she hid you, even from us. But that left her open to discovery and vulnerable to attack. She knew it was only a matter of time before the Tulpa found her, and if he got hold of her…” Micah shuddered.

  “But how could she just leave? Abandon everything she’d worked for?” Abandon us, I wanted to say. I wondered if I hadn’t said it aloud because Micah gave me such a look of disdain and annoyance that I immediately felt ashamed.

  “She gave it all up for you.”

  I didn’t move, not even to swipe at the curl that lay tickling my left cheek. I heard myself breathing, heard Micah behind me, and cast my thoughts in his direction, just to see what I would discover. He smelled like silver powder, rain clouds, and Old Spice. The blend fit him perfectly.

  “So what am I supposed to do now?”

  Find the Tulpa? Find my mother? Find out how the Shadow agents were killing off the star signs?

  “Just learn to stay alive,” Micah said gently, and put the brush down. “We’ll never know what you’re capable of if you don’t at least do that.”

  “And you’re going to teach me?”

  “Me,” he nodded, “and others. We’ll teach you to be the person you were born to be. We’ll teach you the ways of the Zodiac, of the Archer in particular, and your mother’s legacy.”

  A legacy of star signs and superheroes. I glanced in the mirror at the finished product, an image that had emerged at some point during the past ten minutes. Blue eyes widened back at me, the rims of contacts barely discernable along the edges of my irises. “Wow.”

  Micah beamed behind me. “We found some great photos of Olivia in your house. You have a real talent. I was able to capture her down to the most minute detail.” He reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out the photo I’d brought with me to the motel the night we’d met. “See?”

  I held the photo in front of me, studying it carefully, before lifting my eyes to the mirror. There was no discernable difference between the two images. I frowned. Shouldn’t I, at least, be able to tell us apart?

  “See how happy she is,” Micah said, pointing out one difference.

  “That’s because someone’s taking her picture,” I muttered. But it wasn’t. It was just Olivia. Happy, yes. And open, trusting. Innocent. “I look more like Olivia than Olivia,” I said.

  “I would bet,” he said, nodding cautiously, “if you were willing, you could even fool Xavier.”

  I glanced at him sharply, then sighed. What were my options? I mean, I wanted my old body back, my own face if only so I could scowl and not have it look like a sultry pout, but I couldn’t exactly ask him to change me back, not after I’d already been dead almost a week. An altogether different identity would be just that, different, but hardly an improvement.

  Stay alive, I thought doubtfully. Survive. To do that I would have to convince the world I was Olivia Archer. One part of me thought, How hard could it be? Olivia shopped and brunched and chaired a bevy of balls and charities, and—at night, when no one was looking—ran an illegal website. I could probably just skip that part.

  But what about the harder part of being Olivia? Could I really allow myself to be that soft without seeing myself as weak? That vulnerable without thinking like a victim? That agreeable without believing I was a pushover? It wasn’t the things Olivia did that gave me pause. It was her utter defenselessness.

  I pursed my lips and watched Olivia pout across from me. So that’s how she does it, I thought, and smiled. Her mouth—my mouth, actually, since it’d been the same—curved upward, looking devastatingly seductive in that heart-shaped face. I lifted my eyes to Micah, who was watching, waiting as I decided.

  “You did a very good job, Micah.”

  He took the compliment for what it was, a concession, and an acceptance of my situation. A grin bloomed in reply. “Thank you, Olivia,” he said.

  Olivia.

  Me. Olivia. I took a deep breath, then released it slowly, until my body felt emptied of air. Perhaps this way, through me, Olivia could still live. I rather liked that idea. It was the least I could do for her…and the only thing now. At least it made me feel less helpless, and that was something. As for the rest, I’d just have to figure it out as I went along. “You may send my father in.”

  Micah held out a hand and gently helped me to my f
eet so that we stood eye-to-eye for a moment. “Yes,” he finally said, “I think you’re quite up for a visit now. A miraculous recovery, really. Your father will be so pleased.”

  Then it’d be the first time I’d ever pleased him, I thought sourly, but that wasn’t what I said to Micah. It wasn’t what he was waiting to hear. It wasn’t, I thought, what Olivia would say.

  “I’m so glad,” I said, trying for sincerity.

  Micah helped me back into bed, then turned immediately to the door. I think he was afraid I would change my mind. “I’ll be right back.”

  So I leaned back and waited. I tried to tell myself every superhero led a dual existence. Look at Superman and Clark Kent. And Wonder Woman was a kindly secretary when she wasn’t lassoing bad guys with a truth-inducing rope. There were others, I was sure, and it made me wonder how many of these stories, these fictions, were pure figments of some comic book writer’s imagination…and how many had leaked through this thin webbing of reality that separated the Tulpa’s world from our own. My own dual existence, this channeling of my dead sister as a cover in the real world, certainly had a fabled air.

  I was Joanna, who was dead.

  I was Olivia, who was also dead.

  And I was also my mother, who had risked her life in ways I had yet to put together so that I might be safe. But if that were true, then I was also him. The man, the Tulpa; an entity so evil he had once both destroyed me and simultaneously kept me alive.

  “I will kill you.” The words hollowed out the hospital room. And that’s how I recognized the Tulpa in me. But I liked the sound of that oath, and I swore it again. “I will kill you for what you did to my sister. And for my mother.” And for what was left of myself.

  And with that pledge still lingering in the air, I leaned back and waited for the man who both was and wasn’t my father to enter the room. When he finally did, I looked up and smiled sweetly.

  11

  They buried me on a cold, blustery January day. I watched the live coverage on the local news from the bed of my enforced convalescence, while a makeup artist dutifully applied the pallor of the sick to my healthy complexion. It had to be Olivia lying in that casket, cold in my place, though I hadn’t asked and neither Micah nor Warren had said. The anchor’s voice-over seemed obscenely cheerful to me as he followed the procession of Nevada politicians, Stripside entertainers, and business associates of Xavier’s flocking to pay their respects to a woman most had never met. It was big news, even in this transient and jaded city. I had to admit, it was like some overwrought adolescent fantasy, being able to watch people mourn my passing, to hear how very much I’d be missed.

  Mostly, though, it was just a sad procession of acquaintances detouring through the graveyard on their way to drinks that night, and then on to the rest of their lives. Scattered among them, however, were the few people who’d truly known and loved me. Asaf, who would be quoted in the following day’s paper as demanding a full-scale investigation into whether more than one person was responsible for my death. He grieved for me, and I for him.

  Then there was an old friend I’d only seen a handful of times since high school, but who had such enormous tears streaming down her face, it made me want to lunge for the phone to tell her I was all right. Or at least alive. I was also surprised to see Olivia’s friend, Cher, looking lovely as she stood graveside, and not a little alone.

  Then there was Xavier. He stood a bit apart from everyone else, appearing dignified if a little bored at the whole affair, and the sound bite accompanying a close-up of my casket was of him saying how grateful he was that I’d saved Olivia’s life. “She sacrificed herself for her sister, and this is what gave her death, and therefore her life, true meaning.”

  I felt no anger over the words. He had clutched me in his arms the day before, thinking I was Olivia, shedding tears as real as he was capable of producing. As useless and distracted a father as he’d been to me, at least he’d loved Olivia, and I was gratified she’d had that much.

  Then another man appeared. Lean in silhouette, he flanked Xavier’s left shoulder, his empty blue eyes snaking this way and that.

  “Ajax.” I leaned forward on my hospital bed, squinting at the image. Looking skeptical, and dangerous in an ebony trench coat, he turned his attention to the camera, nose twitching. “You bastard.”

  “Do you mind, ma’am?” The makeup artist, some girl named Raine, raised a pierced brow, sponge in hand. She’d been dabbing until circles appeared beneath my eyes, and creating fading bruises on my cheekbones for Xavier’s visit later that evening. I’m sure she wondered why, but I knew Micah was paying her enough not to ask. I ignored her, and turned my attention back to Ajax. He was gazing to the left, the wind lifting the hair from the nape of his neck as he sucked in a big mouthful of it.

  “I’m right here, you rat-fucking bastard,” I said, and my breath caught when he turned and looked directly at the camera. A look of such hatred passed over his face I thought for a moment he’d heard me. Then his eyes fired like torches and a knowing smile jerked at one corner of his mouth. The same smile he’d shown me at dinner when he claimed he was going to kill me.

  But he hadn’t heard me, and despite the look, he hadn’t seen me either. I knew, because just then he turned and stepped from the frame to reveal exactly what—who—had caught his interest.

  “Oh, God.” I had to put a hand to my mouth to prevent the wail that threatened to rise from my chest. “God. Ben.”

  He wept openly, shamelessly, tears running over his cheeks, his mouth contorted in pain. He shook off the consoling arm of one of his colleagues, and there were more than a few, all in uniform and looking awkward around their comfortless friend. Ben, I thought, who had kissed me so passionately I’d forgotten about danger. Ben, whom I’d safely left behind to go to Olivia’s.

  Ben. Who thought he’d lost me yet again.

  Now I was weeping, and Raine had silently retreated, uncertain what she should do next. In my searing horror and grief over Olivia, in the consuming fury that had impelled me to take another person’s life, and in my shock at finding myself with a whole new identity, I had utterly forgotten Ben.

  But what was this? I sucked in a breath and held it there, tears drying instantly in my eyes. Helplessly I watched Ajax approach Ben and speak words that had his head jerking in surprise. Of course the sound was muted, the anchor’s solemn voice-over blabbing on and on about my place in society—my father’s place, really—and Olivia’s estimated inheritance now that she no longer had to share it with another. But I saw Ajax’s mouth move. His thin lips went wide with the syllables, exaggerating the words, as if he knew I was watching and wanted me to follow, and understand.

  My condolences.

  Ben had already reached out to shake his hand when recognition flashed over his face, freezing it for an instant, and he didn’t move while Ajax pumped his hand with an overly firm grip, a snaking smile taking the place of his faux compassion. I saw the instant Ben tried to yank his hand away, you could catch it if you knew to look for it, but Ben’s friends—sharp-eyed cops though they were—didn’t. They heard the words. They caught the back and forth pumping of a solid handshake. They saw only one man offering sympathy to another.

  But I saw something else.

  A slim silver chain snaked around Ajax’s neck, taunting. I gasped, putting my hand up to my own naked throat, and Ajax shifted and smiled. The chain glinted in the thin winter air.

  And Ben lunged for his throat.

  The commentator interrupted his live report as Ben’s friends yanked him back, hands pulling at his arms, his torso, his neck, while Ajax plastered an innocent look on his face. Ben was yelling now, his face red and wild, hair falling over his forehead, his suit jacket raised up around his chest. The commentator was attempting a play-by-play, but he must have been prompted to go to a commercial. There was enough time to see Xavier’s head swivel as he observed the ruckus with a slight roll of his eyes. Then Ben was yanked from the frame.
Ajax shot the camera, and me, a victorious smile.

  “No!” I screamed, leaping for the television just as the picture cut off. Makeup went flying, the bedside tray clattered to the floor, and I slapped my palms on the screen once, twice, then sent a fist flying through it. Raine let out a terrified squeal and backed into the corner. “You stay away from him! You leave him alone!”

  I yanked the television from its mount and sent it crashing across the room. The sound was divine; satisfying and gloriously destructive. A switch flipped inside me, and havoc coursed through my limbs. And suddenly I couldn’t stop. I threw everything—the monitors, the machines, the cords, the tables and plastic chairs. All the while a voice, my true voice, was severing the strands of my new vocal cords. “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you…”

  Olivia, so good and sweet and pure, never had a chance against Butch, and my heart had broken at that fact every day since her death. And my mother, who would have been able to fight him, hadn’t been there to protect her; ever since I learned the real reason for her absence, my heart had bled for her too.

  But never once had I allowed it to break for myself. I had breath, and I had life, and I told myself that was enough, and more than I deserved. But after seeing Ben’s face, his all-consuming anguish, there was no stopping it. I screamed, and broke, and shattered everything around me, so it would represent how I felt, so it would match my insides; everything torn and stripped, raw and aching. So tired. And so very, very sorry.

  When I’d finished—two minutes, two hours, or two years later—I found myself curled into a fetal position, rocking back and forth in the corner of a demolished and empty room; the makeup artist had long since fled, the lights busted on the walls, their counterparts swinging on bare wires from the ceiling, machines toppled and silent and dead.