“Power,” he repeated, all the strength in his body concentrated in that one word. It was like a spring trap in the air. “Promise me, though, whatever you do, whatever decisions you make—whether they affect one person or all of Archer, Inc.—you will remember to always put others above yourself.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise. This, coming from a man who lorded himself over the entire city? Someone who treated family like servants, servants like subjects, and subjects as pawns to be thrown about a boardroom according to his whim? Someone who’d literally sold his soul for power?
He heard all these thoughts in my hesitation. “True,” he sighed, “it’s something I paid little heed to in building this empire, but I’ve learned since then. When it comes to deciding between someone else’s well being or your own, you must always choose the other person. It’s the difference, you see.”
“What difference?”
“Between you and them.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, and glanced up at the security camera in the corner before I could stop myself. Helen had ostensibly placed it there in case Xavier needed help at night. I thought I saw Xavier glance at it too, but I couldn’t be sure in the dim light. “Them, who?”
Xavier’s labored breath ceased for so long that for a moment I wasn’t sure he was still breathing at all. He was. Breathing and staring with the fearlessness borne from only one thing: the death of hope.
“Between you…and the plebeians, of course,” he answered, and my disgust for him was renewed. “Between an Archer and someone who merely does what they’re told.”
And this time I was certain he glanced at the camera.
Then Xavier began hacking so badly that for a moment I didn’t think he’d make it to the surgery. I angled him on his side, not knowing if I was helping or hurting him.
Meanwhile, I glanced back at the binder in my lap, realizing just how much power I suddenly held. When Xavier died, I would have complete control over Valhalla, all the Archer assets, and this household as well. I thought of the masks hanging on the walls just outside Xavier’s home office, their magical properties, and the hidden room where he performed rituals that provided additional power to the Tulpa. Very suddenly I was on the precipice of all that my mother had spent years trying to get to—the heart of the Archer organization. Unexpected. Undetected.
Unstoppable.
And if Felix killed Helen, leaving a kill spot that any supernatural could read, it would all be undone in an instant. Shit.
“Okay, thanks for the family business, Daddy.” I dropped a kiss on his forehead and turned. It was all I could do not to run to the door. Only that ever-present camera—and the ones I knew were positioned in every room—stopped me. “Take care.”
“Olivia?” he said softly.
I turned impatiently.
“When I call you next…will you come?”
I knew then that he would die soon. He would die because of every contemptible little deed, each snarling thought, every mean intent. Such things built up, just as in business…compounding his sins, multiplying them, returning them with interest. But because of what he’d meant to my sister, and she to him, I didn’t avert my eyes.
“Sure,” I said, swallowing hard. “Of course.”
I bypassed the elevator in favor of the stairs, having trouble keeping myself to a mortal pace. I sniffed at the air. No blood yet. Please don’t let it be too late. Hitting the landing of the winding staircase, I heard Helen moving about in the sitting room, and whipped around the corner to find her bent over the tea set, the room awash in light and peaches and creams. She was arranging pastry.
Felix was poised behind her, boyish face gone fierce with hatred, double-edged boomerang fisted over his head.
“Scones!” I yelled, bounding into the room before he could decapitate her. Both their heads jerked my way. Felix’s boomerang disappeared from sight. “I—I—I love scones with my tea. Oh, Helen. You remembered!”
I shot her a smile that felt too giant for my face. Then I jerked my head, causing Felix to back down and Helen to raise a brow. I turned the move into a shudder. “Is it cold in here? Are you guys cold? Tea sounds good. Doesn’t it sound good, Nate? Join us, Helen?”
I was babbling, too loud and fast, but Helen fortunately begged off with the excuse of attending Xavier, and Felix and I sipped from tiny teacups in a protracted silence, remaining like that up until we were cocooned in my car and zipping down the gravel drive.
Once we hit the guard gate, Felix turned in his seat and ran a hand through his tousled hair. “What the hell was that?”
“I just inherited the family business.”
I explained to him about the power we’d have upon Xavier’s death to move about the mansion. How we could install agents and moles inside my familial home to unearth more of its paranormal secrets, and no one would dare question it. More importantly, we could do the same with Valhalla, and that might be key in finally uncovering a way to kill the Tulpa. I fin Se Td dished with an explanation of why I’d stopped him from decapitating Helen. “Leaving a kill spot in the mansion would have done away with all of that.”
Felix immediately nodded his agreement, but I could tell he was disappointed as he gazed out the window. The adrenaline that would have allowed him to cleave Helen’s head from her body in one strong swipe had dissipated, and he sunk into his seat, sighing heavily. “He really is dying.”
“You heard that?”
“Dude, I smelled that.” Facing forward again, legs splayed, he lowered the window, allowing fresh air to race through the car’s cab. We both inhaled deeply. “The place reeks.”
“I know.”
He glanced at me sideways, wind warring with his hair. “How does it make you feel?”
“How should it?”
“You tell me.”
I opened my mouth, prepped for the easy retort, then snapped it shut. “I feel nothing.”
“Apathy,” Felix said, nodding his head while his bald fingertips tapped out a tune only he could hear. “That’s okay. He was never kind to you.”
“No, I mean I’m not even apathetic. I’m not even numb. I feel nothing.” I shot him a tense smile and changed the subject. I needed to drop him somewhere and get back to my search for Skamar. “So, back to Vanessa?”
He nodded, eyes downcast. The air in the car suddenly felt heavier—like a hot, wet blanket had been dropped over me. I shivered anyway.
“Where can I drop you?”
He shrugged one shoulder. It didn’t matter. The warehouse was centrally located, so he’d reach it from any side of the valley within the hour.
“I thought she was dead, you know,” he said suddenly, looking back up. “When we reached Chinatown? Right before we entered that bakery?” He shook his head, eyes fluttering shut. “For a few moments I had to live in a world without V…it was like the earth tilted again on its axis.”
I knew what he meant. I’d felt the same shift when my mother left me. Again when Olivia died. That one was still unbalancing. And even though I’d chosen to let go of my past love, Ben Traina, his absence in my life had forced me to a different emotional plane as well. The dismantling of a dream was also a sort of death.
“I’m not really good at remembering things, not even birthdays and anniversaries,” Felix said, shrugging as he looked out the window. We were back on the I-215 loop, nestled between banked, decorative walls that blended with the surrounding desert. “Stuff like that just doesn’t seem important at the time. But then Vanessa? She’ll talk about something, a time or place—a battle, a childhood memory—and with one small detail, like the season or what it smelled like or what we were wearing—I’m back there, and I remember it. And when I can remember,” he added, voice unusually soft, “there’s nothing at odds inside of me. Everything makes sense. Like every step in my life was consciously chosen to lead me to her, and now. Times like that, I’m perfectly balanced. I don’t need anything else.”
I tapped my fingers on
the wheels. My chances of finding balance with anyone was hamstrung by a past where I’d had only myself to rely upon. Being as vulnerable as Felix was with Vanessa, even with an equal and someone I trusted, went against everything my instinct told me.
But I would have loved to feel exactly what Felix was talking about.
“I’m coming with you to the warehouse,” I said before I could stop myself. Hunter was there, and I suddenly wanted to see him…though I didn’t say that to Felix. Then again, from the way his attention was fixed on the scenery, I didn’t need to. My fingers tightened on the wheel. Damn these super senses. “Hunter’s been working on a replacement conduit for me,” I explained.
“Mmm-hmmm.”
“It might help me in Midheaven.”
This time he said nothing.
“And I need to tell Warren about Xavier’s plans for me.”
Now Felix snorted bitterly. “If he doesn’t already know.”
I nodded at that, then bit my lip. “Do you think Vanessa would like to see me?”
He frowned over at me. “Of course.”
I swallowed hard. “I just ask, you know, because they hurt her…”
He immediately began shaking his head. “They hurt her because she was doing her job—”
“Protecting the Kairos,” I said softly.
“Protecting her friend.” He put a hand on my arm, causing me to look over at him. “Not all of us see you as a weapon, Jo.”
“Oh.” I kept my eyes on the road, paused for a moment, then said, “Thank you, Felix.”
He settled back and pretended not to notice the tears staining my eyes.
8
The troop’s workshop, like most things in industrial Vegas, was hidden inside a windowless steel building that resembled a small airplane hangar. However, unlike the surrounding warehouses, this place was booby-trapped to the teeth. I suppose that as our weaponeer, Hunter considered it a moral imperative to keep the place properly secured, but every time I entered it I felt like Indiana Jones waiting for the boulder.
Felix beelined for the panic room, and I decided to give him and Vanessa a few minutes alone before joining them. But this left me alone with Hunter, who was half dressed in his Valhalla security uniform; dark pants, polished black shoes, and white undershirt that moved with his muscles. His moods lately had ranged from surly to sarcastic when dealing with me, so I only nodded in greeting, and waited to see what it would be today.
Felix’s talk about Vanessa and balance had fortified my emotions. I decided that I could stand up to whatever Hunter threw at me. I’d absorb both his anger and indifference, and give him nothing to beat against. And maybe soon, I thought, tossing my bag on the concrete floor, he wouldn’t feel the need to fight me at all.
Besides, I’d seen people and situations that were beyond fixing before—hell, I’d been one of them—and this wasn’t it. Hunter wasn’t broken. The possibility of us wasn’t broken. The silence echoing around us was only weighty in comparison to the cries and murmurs and soft sighs that had once preceded it. If I remembered that, he did as well.
“I should throw you out,” he said immediately, barely looking up from his drafting table. “Warren wouldn’t want you here.”
“Where is he?”
He lifted a shoulder. “You know Warren.”
Yes. He demanded to know where we were at all times, but disappeared whenever he felt like it. But it was for “our own good.”
“Vanessa?” I asked, jerking my head to the panic room.
“Better. You’ll see.” So he wasn’t going to throw me out. Good.
I headed to the chair next to his drawing board, careful not to wrinkle the navy dress shirt draped along its back. Yet spotting the half-finished sketches, I stood almost before I’d sat down. A conduit, drawn in varying sizes and angles, was depicted on half a dozen sheets. I knew immediately that it was for me.
“Wow.” All thoughts of romance, past wrongs, and other worlds, dropped away.
It was beautiful. Another crossbow, smaller than my original, and so sleek my palm itched to hold it. Vials of metal alloys were scattered along the table beside the drawing, along with a shiny lead crossbow bolt. Glancing around a plastic partition, I frowned across the length of the indoor firing range. The current target had bolts pinned to it as well. I gasped and turned toward Hunter.
“It’s only a model, so don’t try to take off with it. I’m still working out the kinks. Something’s off with the balance, and the bolts are more like paintballs than missiles, so you’d only bruise a Shadow, at best.” Though his tone was serious, a knowing half smile lit his face…and suddenly the sleek new conduit was in his hand. Any tension between us was immediately forgotten.
“Come to Mama,” I said, beckoning him, and the weapon, forward.
A conduit was an extension of an agent’s body and will, and once bequeathed or bestowed upon an agent, in a way became a part of the controlling agent…a fact that had been made painfully clear as soon as Regan snatched mine away. One of the few items my mother had left me in this brave new world, my conduit was perfect for the Archer sign, and its absence was almost a physical ache. Any other conduit, including this lovely little replacement, was a poor substitute—like pairing up with a partner you knew was wrong for you out of convenience, or until a better one came along—but I wasn’t in any position to be picky.
Hunter made me follow him around the shielding plastic, but instead of handing the weapon to me, he motioned me still and took his place at the shooter’s stand. Control freak, I thought, frowning, but stood back. He exaggerated his movements, demonstrating the proper stance—as if I needed to be shown—then stretched his arm to the side, one-handed, and aimed for a paper bull’s-eye fifty feet away. I’d have said he was showing off, but his facility with any conduit—though especially his own barbed whip—was physical poetry. He was pure athlete, war his chosen sport, and when he finally fired three bolts in quick succession, I had to admit I couldn’t have done any better.
The bolts dived for the target’s center, splitting air in chill-inducing hisses, as straight as if they were being reeled in…until the last moment, when they redirected—one, two, three—and barreled the opposite way. Right at me.
I ducked and the first whizzed by my head, a deadly whisper of wind trailing in its wake. The second one burrowed into my side with a white-hot pain. I cried out and instinctively dove for cover.
“Not behind me!”
So, at the last moment, I dodged the bolt by jumping into Hunter’s arms. His grunt against my neck let me know when it hit home. We froze there, both breathing hard for long moments, until I leaned back and looked into his pained face. “That didn’t hit anything important, did it?”
Wincing, he shook his head, but didn’t yet speak. When he finally caught his breath, he was succinct. “Oops.”
I eased down from him, a slow slide that let me experience all his athletic contours. I didn’t let the pleasure deter me. “You shot me.”
“No.”
I pointed at the iron dart sticking out between my ribs, the blood ruining my T-shirt, and raised my brows.
“The projectile was drawn to you. There’s a difference.”
“Well, the difference feels the same with a metal tip buried in my side.” And it didn’t feel like a mere bruise either.
“I told you I was still tweaking it,” he said, but even he looked frustrated. Still wincing, I put my hand on his shoulders as I looked down. He held me there for a moment, letting me use his body to steady myself, but shifted his gaze when I looked back up into his eyes.
Disregarding his own small injury, he stalked toward his shooting stand, simultaneously yanking the bolt from his thigh, while I relearned how to breathe. Thank God it was only a mock-up. Had that been a real conduit, neither of us would heal.
“I just don’t understand! I have the right metallic bonds…the frame is near identical. The bolts are slimmer, but that should make them more manageable,
not less…fucking reactive, but I can’t get the right fit!”
He turned on me, eyes blazing, and I held up my hands in mock surrender in case he was going to shoot again. He didn’t, but he didn’t smile either. He just gazed at me in a way that made him look diminished. “Why can’t I get the right fit?”
I limped over to him, pain almost forgotten, and dropped the fired bolt on the shooting stand. “You’re going to,” I said, turning to him.
Hunter’s shoulders slumped and, turning away, he threw the replicate on the steel table. “I’m gonna get you killed.”
“You’re so arrogant,” I said, and he jerked his head up sharply to catch my smile. “Even I haven’t managed that yet.”
The tension disappeared, but the smile still didn’t come. He ran his hand over his head, then fisted it there, muttering to himself. His hair was currently medium length, shaggy again after some unfathomable impulse had him shaving it down to nothing. He didn’t look any softer now that it was growing back, though. I liked that.
“What?” he said as I continued to stare at him.
One of the things that had drawn me to photography was that the people and events framed through my camera lens were determined by my interest and discretion alone. There was no discussion about composition, no compromise on subject matter. I’d worked alone, and still had an instinctive preference for that. It was one of the hardest things to overcome upon joining the troop.
But Felix’s earlier words about balance and need made me realize something I’d been trying to ignore. I didn’t work with a camera and film and developer anymore, but I still fixated on the subjects that either interested me or mattered most. So, as I continued to stare up into Hunter’s face, I was unsurprised by the way the rest of the warehouse, the sounds and smells and sights, slid out of focus, and he sharpened like wire.
“What?” he repeated when I only continued to stare.
“I want you to let me back in.” It wasn’t a question. Coy and guarded were for people like Suzanne and Cher. That wasn’t how Hunter or I operated. We took what we wanted. Again, I liked that.
City of Souls Page 8
