The Scent of Shadows Free with Bonus Material

by Vicki Pettersson

  “Bullshit!” Chandra exploded, and her trigger finger trembled.

  “Olivia.” Micah’s patient voice barely masked his annoyance. It was the voice a parent would use on a naughty child. “Greta has never left the compound. Not in two years.”

  I lifted a shoulder. “The perfect cover.”

  Hunter moved in, clear-gazed now, which would’ve been a good thing if he weren’t eyeing me like a hawk. “You’re going to have to give us more than that.”

  “Hold the hermaphrodite off long enough and I’ll give you much more.” The pistol was precariously close to my temple. I swallowed hard and waited, knowing my fate swung on these next few moments alone.

  “Chandra. Stand down.”

  “What?” she exploded, whirling on Gregor, who had straightened as much as he could. “I can’t believe we’re listening to this! In less than two hours we’re going to battle with every Shadow in town.” Her breathing was ragged as she cocked the gun. “I say we start with this one.”

  Holding still as stone, I fixed my eyes on a point just above her head, not wanting to see when she pulled the trigger.

  “What you’re going to do is stand down,” Gregor said, his words spaced as deliberately as notes on a music sheet. “I’m in charge when Warren isn’t here, and the reason he’s not here is because he traded his own life for mine. If Olivia has something to say that’ll help get him back alive, then you will damn well stand down! Now!”

  His voice had risen, and ricocheted down the cavernous hall, echoing before dying away. I looked at him, standing there with only one arm protruding from his shapeless hospital gown, and the humor I so readily associated with him was nowhere to be found. He would’ve looked more the part of ailing patient if his stocky legs weren’t spread wide and his single hand weren’t curled in a fist. I thought of what Warren had said about him being the most senior agent left, and knew if I could get him to hear me out, the others would follow suit. Chandra’s barrel shook as it slid away from my body.

  Then, from an ally I’d never have expected, I heard, “All right. I’ll play.”

  Hunter shot me a raw, distant smile as I turned to him. “Your hypothesis is that Greta never leaves the sanctuary, therefore she can never be suspected of betrayal, right?”

  “Never leaves,” I corrected, “because she can’t. Like me, she’s unable to exit through the chute. The Shadow side is too dark inside of her now.”

  “I can’t leave because I’m totally vulnerable up there.” Greta’s voice was reasonable, as if she were leading a group therapy session. My gaze flickered her way, narrowing at the way her hands played uncertainly with the pearls around her neck, but I had to give it to her. She had her role down pat. “They would find me and hunt me down within a week.”

  I blinked at her. “If you haven’t noticed, Greta, this is a suicide mission. And no one else seems particularly concerned with their own lives. Aren’t you the one who told me that duty comes before all else? If something’s not good for the organization then it’s simply not done. If it is—such as going after our troop leader—then everything is done to make sure it succeeds.” I shot them all a mirthless smile. “A true follower of Light, agent or not, would sacrifice everything if it meant saving this troop. Rena convinced me of that.”

  “Would you?” Chandra said, arms folded across her chest. It looked like she was fighting to keep from reaching out and strangling me.

  I looked at her coolly. “I’m doing it right now.”

  “So how’d she get down here?” Hunter continued, with his usual single-mindedness, something I was grateful for at the moment. I blew out a hard breath as I turned back to him, and chose my words carefully. He didn’t look like a man who gave people a second chance.

  “She’s half mortal. The other half is Light. Choices, however,” I told him before turning back to Greta, “can be made for either side.”

  I saw Felix shaking his head from the corner of my eye. “So how does she tell the Tulpa who we are, then?”

  Chandra frowned and turned on him like he was traitorous, but he just shrugged as he met her gaze, his eyes quickly returning to me. “She doesn’t. She marks you. After she gets you into her office, she alters your scent during hypnosis so the Shadow agents can locate you when you’ve left the sanctuary.”

  “Not possible,” Chandra spit out, shaking her head.

  “You just said it was possible. You said with the chemicals from your lab and a little knowledge—”

  “The right knowledge—”

  “Which you and Micah have,” I said, anger overtaking my fear for the first time. She was just opposing me as a matter of course. Well, fuck that. I jerked my head at her. “Where do you keep it? Notebook?”

  “No. Nowhere anyone can find it.”

  “Folder? Filing cabinet? Microfiche?”

  “No, you idiot!” she exploded, brows slamming together. “In our minds!”

  I raised my chin. “And who has access to your minds?”

  Her mouth opened, faltered, and closed. I looked around, meeting every eye, letting the silence grow heavy in the hallway. “Not just your minds, but your laboratories, and not just your labs, but the sick ward. And in the sick ward is the one woman who knows the truth.” I turned away from Chandra to face Greta again, whose color had risen to spot her cheeks in uneven blotches. “Why don’t you tell them the real reason you locked Tekla away?”

  She twisted her pearls in her hands like she was counting off rosaries, and her voice was deliberately meek when she spoke. “She broke, inside, when Stryker was killed. Her mind weakened and she couldn’t discern reality from fantasy.”

  I shook my head, said to the others, “She didn’t get weaker. She got stronger. More intuitive, more talented. The Zodiac lineage is matriarchal, so the power released when Stryker died reverted back to Tekla. So, isn’t it interesting this was when Greta had Tekla committed? Locked up in a soundless room, not to be seen or heard by anyone. Nobody, that is, but Greta herself.”

  “Warren put her away!” Greta said, that cool voice rising.

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded my head. “And who planted that suggestion in his mind?”

  I waited, but nobody spoke. A good sign, and I turned back to Greta with a grim smile. “You waited two years, biding your time, gaining confidences, winning trust. Learning what you could from Chandra and Micah, preparing for Stryker’s metamorphosis. Then, after you used his death and Tekla’s grief to secure her position for yourself, it was easy to mark the rest. You had access to all their files—their horoscopes, their natal charts and lineages—so you knew how to enter their minds. Ply them with a little tea, get their own imaginations stirred up, and you ensured they’d come to you for hypnosis.”

  “God,” someone breathed.

  “You took away Tekla’s son and then you took away her gift, her talent.” I found I was breathing hard. “You took away her voice.”

  There was a long pause, silence while each person took this in, considered it, and while Greta looked around, waiting for someone to speak up in reply. I couldn’t read anyone’s aura—emotions were too high, the air a roiling mix of gaseous color—but I didn’t have to in order to watch Greta’s color rise. She squared on me and took up her own defense.

  “If I took away her voice,” she said, her own growing hard, “then how was she able to accuse you of being a traitor just yesterday?”

  “She wasn’t accusing me. She was using what was left of her faculties, after being pumped full of enough drugs to fell an elephant, to beg me to find the traitor. Funny how she had to stop after you pumped her up yet again. Funny how that’s when the Tulpa was able to use her psionic powers to get through to me.”

  The first flicker of fear crossed Greta’s face, and her voice was child-light. “How can you say these awful things to me?”

  I looked again and saw it wasn’t fear. It was Shadow. I smiled. “Because I’m her voice now.”

  The false outrage dropped from Greta’
s face. She spun to face the others. “Tekla was the Seer. A full-fledged member of the Zodiac troop, and far more powerful than any half mortal. Why didn’t she speak out against me? Why, if she knew who I was, would she say nothing?”

  They all looked to me.

  I pulled Stryker’s comic from behind my back, lifted it and opened it to the page I’d already marked. They’d all been there, of course. They knew what had happened. But I watched as fresh grief spread through their faces, and on the page Tekla rose in a gown bloodied by her son’s death, screaming in grief. I couldn’t see the page myself, but, just as they had outside the Quik-Mart when I’d heard them the first time, the words boomed clearly from its pages. “There’s a traitor among us!”

  I shut the comic and the voice died, leaving only silence, and the thud of my heart beating loudly in my ears.

  “That person, that traitor,” I said softly, “can only be someone left alive in this sanctuary. It’s not me because I just arrived. It’s obviously not Warren. Is it you, Hunter?” His expression tightened, and I spoke before he could answer. “Nope, can’t be. Because it’s not the weapons that malfunction, is it?

  “Perhaps Gregor’s the Judas. After all, he’s the one who left the boneyard open to infiltration by the Shadow side. Then again, I seriously doubt he’d have cut open his own bowels just for good effect.” I turned to the next star sign. “How about you, Micah? Granted, you could have handed me over to the Tulpa when I was lying unconscious under your care…or better yet, even killed me yourself.”

  I shifted again. “I suppose it could be Chandra. She has the chemicals, the talent, the opportunity. But she’s not a real part of the Zodiac, and that means she’s nothing more than a tool for the real mole. A dupe. A pawn to be used, then discarded.”

  “Fuck you,” she said, but she sounded more hurt than angry now.

  “Or,” I said, whirling so I was facing all of them again, “is the mole the person who had access to us all? To Warren, whom I saw leaving Greta’s office right before his capture. Who risked all to bring me here, then suddenly—after one brief session—no longer trusted me. No longer trusted himself.”

  “This is ridiculous. So far-fetched!” Greta said. “How can any of you listen to this? You know me…and she’s of the Shadows!”

  But it was too late to effectively play that card, and I continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. No one stopped me. “Warren was disoriented. He told me you’d just hypnotized him, and when I came in after him you tried to do the same to me. But it didn’t work, did it? I awoke before you finished and there was a funny scent in the air, like metal ground into a fine powder. Something frightened you and you panicked and dropped the vial.”

  “It was you. I saw the Shadow in you.”

  “Saw it?” I asked coolly. “Or recognized it?”

  She couldn’t hold back any longer. Her scream hit my face. “You don’t know any of this for a fact! You’re making it up! My father was an agent of Light!”

  “Your father was a Gemini. Dual-sided, dual-faced, right?”

  “Are you questioning his loyalty?” She spit in my face. I was guessing from the shock around me that this was a side of Greta none of the others had seen before. “He gave his life for this organization!”

  I wiped the spittle from my cheek. “And I bet that really tore you up, didn’t it?”

  “Excuse me,” she said, folding her arms over her chest, “but as long as we’re speaking of fathers, need I remind you who yours is, Olivia? Oh, but that’s not your real name, is it? Who’s the one keeping secrets now?”

  I made sure my breathing was controlled, then said softly, “No, you don’t need to remind me. But might I remind you that neither goodness nor evil is inherited. Both must be chosen.”

  She lifted her chin, her heart-shaped face hard with defiance. “If I’d chosen to betray the Zodiac troop, then the people I’ve lived with for two years—the supernatural people!—should have been able to scent the shadow in me. They specialize in detecting intent.”

  “You mean they can’t?” I asked, feigning surprise. I already knew why this was, of course, but I didn’t want to explain it. It was important they discover it for themselves.

  “I don’t smell anything,” Felix said, shaking his head.

  “Neither do I.”

  “Greta’s right,” Hunter said at last. “At least one of us would have been able to recognize something wasn’t right about her.”

  The others shook their heads as I met their eyes in inquiry. When they landed on Greta, she smiled smugly. I returned the smile, causing hers to shake at the edges.

  “Well, I can. It smells like the earth’s core; sulfur and heat. It smells like things buried deep; rotting flesh, gorging worms. Evil at work.” I was moving across the hallway as I said this, and I ended up in front of Hunter. I leaned into him, an almost seductive move; one knee bending into his body, the flesh of my forearm brushing his, my breath warm on his neck. I inhaled deeply. “Not like you. You smell like the smoke rising from a living campfire. Like the green wood and the grasses and the wild things that spice embers bursting in the air. Don’t you think?”

  “If you say so.”

  “What?” I drew back and looked in his face. “Can’t you smell yourself?”

  He stared back at me, unblinking. “I can smell emotions, sure. I smell adrenaline and perspiration when I work up a sweat, but the basic compound that makes up my molecules is too familiar to me. I can’t identify it.”

  “So you can’t identify it on, say…” I looked around, as if searching for a target. Found it in Greta. “…her?”

  Hunter looked from me to Greta and back again, frowning.

  Micah stared at me, openmouthed. “I can.”

  “I can too,” Vanessa said, and furrowed her brows. “I smell Gregor as well.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Greta blustered.

  “Micah too.” Gregor nodded. “And Warren.”

  It was my turn to smile smugly. “Scents are attached to emotion. When Greta discovers something deeply personal through hypnosis, she tags it. When you think of that particular emotion, you emit a pheromone that calls to the Shadow agents.

  “But as she’s marking you she also takes a vial of your essence and injects it into herself so that her true scent becomes invisible to each of you.”

  “Anosmia,” I heard Felix whisper.

  “She binds herself to you the way Micah bound Warren and me. The way she was trying to mark and bind me when I woke up in her office.” I saw a movement at the end of the hallway, and motioned Rena forward. “Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it.”

  They all turned, sensing the movement, except Greta, who kept her eyes hard on my face.

  “There’s a reason she keeps lovebirds in her room and office…” Greta turned too, then. “And it ain’t love.”

  We all watched Rena’s slow approach, and I heard Greta’s breath quicken. After that I could only sense the growing curiosity of the others as Rena drew closer.

  She held a kitten. Black and white, with tufts of wild fur, it was sleeping peacefully, its breathing easy as it lay cupped in her palms. A small smile was fixed on Rena’s destroyed face as she stopped a foot in front of Greta and held out the slumbering animal.

  For a moment nothing happened. Then, on the next tiny intake of breath, the kitten’s body stiffened, its eyes flipped open, flickered once, and registered Greta standing there. Its back arched immediately, every hair standing on end, then it hissed and lunged for her with tiny, unsheathed claws.

  Greta smacked at the bottom of Rena’s cupped hands and sent the kitten flying.

  Hunter lunged, catching the flipping body just before it touched concrete. Greta ran for her office, Gregor tripped her up, and she sprawled like a spineless scarecrow.

  “The birds were an excuse to keep the cats away,” I said when the shouts in the hallway had finally quieted. “Her office and her room are the only places she can’t fully ma
sk her true scent.”

  Greta rolled, eyes dry. Wide, but with madness, not fear, they locked on me with unfettered hatred. Bilious blackened color, like smoke, pooled to surround her body. One by one she studied the others as if coming face-to-face with them for the first time. “Your precious leader will be dead by morning.”

  “We should send you up the chute,” Felix said. “You deserve to fry for what you’ve done!”

  Greta spit in his direction, not bothering to hide her Shadow side now. She reeked of maggots and rotted eggs, a fetid blend that literally spilled from her pores.

  Vanessa advanced on her, nose wrinkled in disgust, eyes fired with fury. “Maybe we’ll just let her loose in the cat ward. Her and her little lovebirds.”

  “I raised your father,” Rena said, shaking her head. “He’d be so disappointed.”

  “He’d be used to it,” Greta retorted, but I don’t think anybody felt sorry for her.

  “But there’s no way he’d—” A sharp pain slashed through my chest and I bent, legs buckling. My mouth opened in a soundless cry as I hit the floor, and Hunter tried to lift me, but I resisted, needing to feel the ground beneath me, anchoring me. “They’re hurting Warren again.”

  Greta started to laugh. “The Tulpa knows you’ve found me out! They’ll kill him now…and it’s all her fault!” She pointed at me.

  Warren screamed in my brain, agony wracking us both, but nothing came out of my mouth. Then a sickening spiral, down, down into myself, and I knew that Warren, wherever he was, had passed out. That didn’t stop Ajax. He laughed, and the sound resonated in my mind. A boot-shaped sole slammed into my kidney, I retched, and Greta’s laughter joined his when my jaw cracked with a finishing blow, even though nothing had been touched on the surface. I gave thanks that Warren was unconscious, but shuddered knowing he’d have to wake again.