The Scent of Shadows sotz-1

by Vicki Pettersson

  “Er, let’s not get into that,” Warren said, wedging between us.

  “Another time, then,” she told me in a conspiring whisper, then waved good-bye and headed back out into the melee in the hallway.

  “I’ll be right back,” Warren said, following. “Then we’ll head to the Orchard.”

  I nodded, but he was already gone, and soon so were the crisp, bell-like voices of the children and the slap-and-slide of Warren’s uneven gait.

  “Well, now what?” I asked the fur ball snuggled tightly against my chest. With no answer but a soft purr, I decided to look around while I waited.

  The hallway was empty, but as before, the strange symbols and strips of light marked my progress as I strode away from the habitat, still stroking the kitten’s cheek. I soon came upon a separate hallway I hadn’t seen before, blocked by heavy double doors, closed, but without a lock. “A clear invitation to enter,” I muttered into the soft, spiky fur.

  But this hallway, if possible, was even more stark and cold than the rest. No lights lit up as I entered, and the rooms lying diagonally to one another were laced with viewing windows and bars, each dark inside. The kitten stirred restlessly in my arms. I took this as a sign that maybe I shouldn’t be there, and was backing up when one of the doors suddenly bounced open. Greta appeared, murmuring softly, and I would’ve called out to her except that she was followed by Chandra. Both women were focused on a third, whom they had by the arms and were gently coaxing into the hallway.

  I recognized her immediately. Her robe was grimy, and she looked thinner than she had in the manual, but it was Tekla. Shuffling forward almost reluctantly, her head was down, eyes moving over the floor vacantly, seeing nothing. The two other women continued to murmur soft encouragements, and I did back away then, not wanting to interrupt.

  Then Olivia’s cell phone went off in my pocket. The kitten startled awake in my hands, and I scrambled to soothe her as “Viva Las Vegas” continued to chime from my thigh. I fumbled for the phone as tiny claws burrowed into my chest and Chandra cursed at me from down the hall.

  “Olivia Archer,” I answered, shooting Chandra and Greta an apologetic smile. But whoever was on the line, and whatever they were saying, was lost on me as Tekla lifted her head and frowned, staring directly into my eyes. “I…I…”

  I didn’t know what I was saying so I flipped the phone shut and swallowed hard as Tekla regarded me with utter clarity. “I’m sorry,” I managed, not sure which of the women I was talking to. Greta had noted the change in Tekla too, and her eyes were darting from her to me and back again. Chandra just continued looking pissed.

  “I see you.”

  We all froze, except Tekla, who’d uttered the words and was uttering them again, over and over, her voice cracking as it grew louder and louder. “I see you.”

  “Tekla, love,” Greta soothed, taking her more firmly by the arm and trying to guide her the other way, “calm down now. Let’s go this way.”

  But Tekla’s eyes had narrowed on mine, and she was suddenly heading my way. “I see you,” she said, and Chandra cried out in surprise as Tekla broke free from their hold, while Greta fumbled in her pocket. She came out with a syringe, but Tekla was well out of reach by then.

  “Get back, Olivia!” Greta yelled, but I was afraid to exit the sick ward. If I stayed where I was, she’d be contained, and Chandra and Greta could regain control.

  In fact, Chandra had recovered enough to catch up to Tekla, but when she laid her hands on her this time, Tekla wheeled and struck out blindly, her arm crushing Chandra’s nose. Chandra fell backward, Greta yelled again, and Tekla began to run.

  “Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!” She was on me so quickly I could only release the kitten. Hissing, it escaped out the double doors as I fell into them. Tekla tripped me up, fell on top of me and climbed my chest until her face was inches from mine.

  She smelled of unwashed skin and sour memories, and I swallowed hard, not wanting to fight or hurt her. Thankfully, Greta was suddenly there, a syringe prepped and already angling toward her shoulder. Tekla whimpered when it struck, whipping her head around to face Greta before slumping without another peep.

  I relaxed beneath her as Chandra reached her other side and she and Greta began lifting the unconscious woman to her feet.

  Then her head jerked back up, and he was alive in her face.

  The skin and even the bones of Tekla’s face stretched, and the Tulpa leered out at me. “I see you,” she repeated, but it was his voice, rotted and threatening. “You think you’re safe in there? You can’t hide from me. I’m your bogeyman…I’m your poisoned fate.”

  “Jesus!” Warren was suddenly there, pulling her—him, it—away, and it took all three of them to do it as the Tulpa’s face continued to leer at me. Halfway back to her room, Tekla’s head again dropped, bobbed, then lifted, her gaze returning to mine. It was imploring again, as was her whisper. “Traitor…”

  Then the door to her cell slammed behind them all, and I was left lying alone on the floor, my glyph once again burning a hole through my heart.

  20

  An hour passed before they got Tekla settled. Afterward, Chandra was sent to tell the others the training session in Saturn’s Orchard would be postponed, and the rest of us gathered in Greta’s office, where she busied herself with making yet more tea, though her hands shook as she stole nervous glances back at me. For the longest time Warren didn’t look at me at all.

  We were trying to figure out what had happened to Tekla. I was relieved because they too had seen the Tulpa leering from Tekla’s vacant face, but my relief was diluted because even Warren didn’t know how it’d happened. But after I told them about the night before, and how a memory had turned into a nightmare—the Tulpa speaking to me as clearly as if he’d picked up a phone—he was pretty clear on the why.

  “Obviously Ajax has told him about you,” Warren said, pushing his teacup aside. “He knows you’re his opposite, the new Archer. He’s letting you know he’s targeted you.”

  “He wants vengeance for Zoe’s betrayal,” Greta said softly, shuddering.

  “Okay,” I said slowly, not liking it, but following easily enough. “But how’s he getting in my dreams? In the sanctuary?”

  “Well, he’s not really in the sanctuary, dear,” Greta answered, steadier after my explanation, the suspicion that Tekla’s accusations had raised in her seemingly tucked away, if not entirely forgotten. “Dreams are simply psychic energy, and the one you had last night was linked to a particular past trauma. My guess is that you had a hard day yesterday, and like Tekla, that left your mind more open to his influence.”

  “So he can get to me? At any time?”

  “Not physically.” Warren shook his head adamantly. “You’re safe in here.”

  “So why was there a woman with a demon’s face straddling me, Warren?” I said sharply.

  But he merely stared back at me, and the suspicion was still clearly alive in his face.

  “Look,” I said, rising from my chair so quickly it nearly tipped backward. “I didn’t do this! I didn’t even touch her. I said my name and she charged me. She looked right at me and she told me…” I trailed off, remembering exactly what she told me.

  “That she ‘sees’ you,” Greta finished for me, almost reluctantly. “And then she called you a traitor.”

  She had. And though Warren was silent as we left Greta and headed toward Saturn’s Orchard, he didn’t need to say anything. His anger arrowed inside of me in white-hot flashes that burst in my core, rippling outward to die in my limbs. What remained, though, was a shard of well-hidden guilt that the anger had encased like a hard, protective shell.

  Warren shot me a quick glance as we ascended a stout stairwell, his jaw clenching, and the feeling immediately subsided.

  I looked away, pretending I hadn’t noticed, but it made me wonder. What did Warren have to feel guilty about?

  There was a single door facing us as we reached the top of the landing,
and Warren stepped aside so I could peer through the window. After a moment, despite it all, I felt a smile slip over my face. There were people; a few I recognized, a few I didn’t, but that wasn’t why I was smiling. In a room of unrelieved white, mats lined the floor and lower walls, and punching bags dangled from steel beams set at cross purpose to one another. Along the far wall were baskets of ropes, pads, and mitts, full to overflowing. It was a dojo. Sure, it was shaped like a pyramid, and its walls were mirrored from floor to pointy little tip, but it was a dojo all the same. For the first time since yesterday I felt at home.

  The tight handful of people—and tight they were; you could read it in their closed expressions, their crossed arms, their wary attentiveness—seemed to have been waiting for us. Greta’s tea turned acidic in my belly as I looked at them, the mirrors in the room making it appear there were more of them than there were. I didn’t even have to sniff at the air to know Chandra had already relayed what had happened in the sick ward.

  “Attention, please,” Warren said unnecessarily. “This is Olivia, the new Archer of our Zodiac.”

  Nods and murmured greetings met this, which I answered with one of my own. I let my eyes pass over Chandra, who’d begun scowling the moment we’d stepped through the door, and settled on Vanessa’s face, open and friendly by comparison, though I noted a wariness there that I hadn’t seen in the locker room.

  Micah was hunched in the corner, on a bench that looked like it might give at any moment under the towering bulk of his weight. Felix was stretching, and he sent me a little hand wave from the center of the mat. There was another man I didn’t recognize leaning against the incline of the far wall, one leg propped behind him, arms folded over his chest as he openly studied me with dark eyes.

  One by one I began to do the same, sizing each of them up, quickly filing them into three categories. Possible allies; Micah, Felix and Vanessa. Adversaries; certainly Chandra. And the X factor, the man I had yet to meet. There was Warren, of course, but sometimes I just couldn’t tell with him.

  “As Olivia hasn’t been raised in the Zodiac, she doesn’t yet know where her talents lie, she doesn’t have a personal conduit, she can’t track Shadow agents, and for now she can’t leave the sanctuary…”

  “Some superhero,” Chandra muttered.

  “We’ve already found her to be athletic and a quick learner, but she knows nothing of our history or the way we wage war so she has a lot of catching up to do. I expect all of you to help her, and in time I have confidence she’ll live up to her…potential.”

  He’d been about to say something else. I caught the syllables wanting to form on his lips, but he’d changed his mind at the last moment. Still, we were connected, and the words neatly formed themselves in my own mind. Lineage. Legacy. Legend.

  So he still wanted to believe, I thought, glancing over at him. What’d happened with Tekla hadn’t changed that, at least.

  “If she’s so helpless, how’d she kill Butch?”

  All heads turned to the man across the room. His brown eyes flickered when they met mine, but his face remained otherwise expressionless, no emotion skimming the surface of that still exterior, no judgment one way or the other as he looked at me to answer.

  Well, two could play at that game. I batted my eyelashes, folded my hands in front of me, and answered as Olivia would. “He tripped.”

  “Tripped?” Chandra repeated coldly.

  “Over my cat.”

  It was more in keeping with Olivia’s image than, say, Oh, I tortured the bastard until he keeled over and bled out at my feet. To my surprise, they all began to nod. Except for the lone man I didn’t know. He just continued to watch me with that cool and steady gaze. Probably not in the ally category, I thought wryly.

  “So, you had a warden even before you knew you were a member of the Zodiac troop?” Felix asked. “That means you’re highly intuitive.”

  “Intuition is a talent we all share,” Chandra muttered.

  Vanessa, either missing or ignoring the venom in her voice, added, “We augment that with other talents that complement our place in the Zodiac.”

  “What other talents?” I asked, fighting to keep my eyes from straying to the corner man. With him, I couldn’t even fathom a guess.

  “Start with your talisman,” Micah said, standing. “What is it?”

  “Your glyph,” Warren said, nudging me.

  “Okay.” I unzipped my fitted jacket.

  “One guess where her talents lie,” Chandra muttered.

  I faltered, cheeks flushing hotly, and began to zip it up again.

  “No, it is a talent,” the man told her, and this time when I looked at him, I saw something other than mild disinterest. He pushed off from the wall, moving lithely, almost sliding toward me. In the way of most alpha males, he took up a lot of space.

  “People will underestimate you,” he said, coming to a stop in front of me. “They’ll see only the shape of you, the curves and swells and softness. It’s as much a camouflage as fatigues and face paint in the Amazon, because people will see what they expect to see.” He gave me a smile that said, But we know different.

  I had a sudden urge to slap that look off his face. Whatever he thought he knew about me couldn’t compare to the reality of who I was, or who I’d been. He didn’t fucking know me at all. But I held still, watching carefully as he reached out and lowered my zipper for me. “And you are?”

  “Hunter,” he supplied, as respectfully as a man could when he had a hand on your top. His skin, I noticed, was that pale gold that couldn’t be bottled or bought; the hair, glossy and black and gathered in a low, blunt ponytail. As contained, I thought, as the rest of him. After opening my jacket, he moved to the side so the others could see. I kept my hands steady as I stretched the sport tank down, but it was an effort. The places where his fingers had skimmed my flesh were warm, like little pilot lights had been ignited beneath the surface.

  I kept my eyes firmly away from Warren. I didn’t want to see his smirk, or that knowledge in his eyes, because I knew he could feel the effect this Hunter was having upon me. So I just kept my head down as I revealed the skin just above the point where my cleavage began to rise.

  “Hunter’s our weaponeer and head tactician,” Warren supplied, a smile in his voice. Bastard. “Anything martial lies in his sphere of expertise.”

  I decided a little animosity would go a long way toward helping me regain my equilibrium, so I tilted my head and glanced back up at Hunter. “Anything?”

  Hunter shrugged, the slightest of movements. “I’m Aries. Physicality is where my talents lie.”

  “Hand combat?” I asked. I tried not to sound challenging. Really, I did.

  Okay, no I didn’t.

  “Why?” he said, rising to the bait, and I saw what he meant about his physicality. He’d barely moved a muscle and yet there seemed to be less space between us than before. “You like to fight?”

  I ignored Warren when he cleared his throat next to me, and shrugged, just an innocent lamb waiting to take instruction from Mr. Martial Arts. I quirked a brow at him. “I like to win.”

  “At what? Candyland?”

  I whirled to give Chandra a fist-sized example of “at what,” but Warren was there, blocking me with his body, eyes burrowing into mine. “I have to leave now. I have a session with Greta. I trust you’ll be fine without me, Olivia?”

  The memory of Warren’s suspicion as it roiled hot in my gut flashed in my mind. One guess, I thought, pursing my lips wryly, as to what this “session” was about. “Then trust must be one of your major talents,” I said, so low only he could hear, turning my animosity on him.

  He shot me a look of bland disapproval, which I returned with a wrinkle of my nose and a little finger wave. Just like Olivia.

  “So what is it?” Micah said, leaning forward to look at my glyph after Warren’s strange slap-and-slide gait had receded from earshot. I used the opportunity to back away from Hunter, glancing down as the othe
rs crowded in closer. The shape of it was pale against my skin, a birthmark in reverse, and I shuddered, recalling how it had burned on my chest, pulsing there like a second heart. “It’s a stiletto.”

  Chandra scoffed. “It’s not a stiletto. It’s a fucking bow and arrow.”

  I looked again and saw that she was, just possibly, right. Oh, God. Peroxide poisoning. Already. I glared at Micah as embarrassment washed over me. This was followed by a surprising flash of disappointment. A part of me, it seemed, had wanted it to be a stiletto.

  “It’s just smeared,” I said stubbornly, and turned to the mirrored wall behind me.

  “Chandra’s right,” Hunter said, slipping behind me. Studying him through the mirrored surface, I decided my first impression of him had been wrong. He wasn’t devoid of expression at all. The quirk of his mouth gave away a little spark of humor, and intelligence swam beneath hooded eyes. There was something commanding in the way he’d used up the room when he’d crossed to me, noting everything and nothing at the same time.

  And despite the warning bells pealing through my mind, I had to wonder, Was there anything more alluring than a dangerous man?

  Hunter reached out, broad shoulders blocking the view of the others, and lifted a hand to trace the lines of my glyph, lighting little arrows of fire along my flesh. “It is a bow and arrow. See?”

  Olivia’s voice, a happy twittering bluebird, bounced off the soft tissue of my mind. How lucky am I? It sang. First day on the job and I get a superhero boyfriend!

  Meanwhile my own voice had fled me entirely. I just stood there, staring at my chest. Total nipple hard-on. Great. I glanced up into Hunter’s face, now clearly amused. “And what’s your talent?”

  He smiled. “I have many.”

  I’ll just bet.

  “A bow and arrow is a strong talisman,” he continued, his gravelly voice louder now. “Obviously it’s the Archer’s symbol, but it’s a personal motif as well. I’ll bet one of your talents is honesty—”