blowing me a kiss before sending me rocketing back across the room and into one of the marble pillars.
It didn’t jar or hurt as much as it would’ve if I were mortal, but I still crumpled to the floor and had to figure out if anything was broken before I rose to hands and knees. Of course, Ajax knew this, and was already heading my way with poker in hand, but confidence was fueling his ego, and it didn’t allow his pace to quicken to more than a swift saunter. I remained where I was, head bowed in defeat while I reached into my pocket. Ajax laughed, grasping his poker in front of him with both hands. I still waited. The poker lifted. And three seconds later the whip lashed out like an unraveling tongue, barbed tip coiling tightly around his neck.
The pain contorting his face would’ve been satisfying enough. The underlying surprise, however, was icing. Not that I was into petty gratification. His mouth moved soundlessly and his free hand went to his throat where his Adam’s apple had been punctured, seeking relief. There was no slack in the leather, though, and the more he fought, the more the barbed tip twisted, tearing him up inside.
He made a gurgling sound, and I jerked him forward, the steel points digging in deep. Over his shoulder I saw Warren kick at Joaquin. He was still half tied to the chair, and I had a brief moment to wonder where, and what, Joaquin’s conduit was…until it dawned on me that his body was his weapon. This was his job. To use his body to steal innocence.
I yanked on the whip, infuriated. Ajax stumbled and fell.
“How are you doing that?” he choked from beneath me. “You look like him! You look like
I glanced up and saw my face reflected in the mirrored ceiling. Then back down again, offering Ajax a wide skeletal smile. “Well, I am the Archer.”
“No, no! My master is the Shadow Archer!” His feet found purchase and he began backing away, one hand pulling to slacken the whip.
“Call me mistress, if you like,” I said, reeling him back in. I placed one hand on his chest, wrapped another coil around his throat, then secured it around my wrist and pulled. He clawed at his throat. “Now, look into my eyes, Ajax. Because I want you to know who I am, deep down, when I kill you.”
A voice finally penetrated through the haze of my fury—I realized it’d been crying out all along—and I had to blink several times to focus.
“Olivia! Damn it! Give me the fucking keys!” Hunter was across the room, supporting Warren within the circle of his strong arms, while holding his cuffed wrists out to me in supplication. His glyph was fiery and white-hot, but it had to be in reaction to Ajax. Joaquin was nowhere to be seen.
Ajax’s eyes widened. Bulged even more upon hearing who I really was behind the mask. “Olivia…?”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, “but I have to make this quick.” I yanked, and there was a bone-splitting crack. Ajax’s neck broke with my sister’s name still caught in his throat. Before the last of life could drain from his body, I ripped his conduit from the sheath at his back and slammed the poker through the core of his chest. Rancid decay hit me immediately, just as it had when I’d killed Butch, but this time I recognized it as a good sign, a death scent. The scent of Shadows. But stronger still was the power that flowed over me like buckets of rain, slamming into me, drenching my insides, coating my organs, and making my blood hum like a live wire. Ajax had been right about one thing. It felt fucking great.
Yanking the handcuff keys from my back pocket, I tossed them to Hunter, and unwound his whip. I dropped it at his feet as I lunged for my conduit, and without stopping, ran for the door that had been left half open.
“Olivia! Stop! I need you to help me get him out of here.”
“But—” But Joaquin. But revenge was so close. The air was still infused with the scent of charred candy, so thick and cloying it was almost visible as it trailed after him. I could still run him down like he’d once done to me… but I had to act now.
Hunter saw my struggle and shook his head. “He’s too weak.”
I growled in frustration, looking from the door, then back at him, and finally said, “I have an idea.”
We bent to Warren’s mouth, alternately pumping life into him with our breath—the aureoles leaving our bodies through our mouths in bright beams—one of us watching his chest rise and fall, his breath steadying, while the other exhaled power and images and pieces of ourselves into his body and mind. It seemed to take forever, but after a few minutes Warren’s eyes flickered open, focused, and he smiled. “Told you…one of the good guys. Like me.”
Gently, I put a finger to his bruised lips, shushing him. “That’s right, Warren. Just like you.”
Standing, I cut my eyes to Hunter. “He’s strong enough now. Get him out of here.”
I didn’t wait to hear his protest. I wasn’t going to choose between saving Warren and having my vengeance. I wanted them both. I wanted it all.
29
I hurtled through the door where Joaquin had fled, following a rapidly disappearing trail of blood, only to find myself back in the Gauntlet. “What…?” I swiveled back around, confused, but the door was gone. I slammed my palm against a solid length of wall, smooth at the seams, an impenetrable barrier to all that lay behind me.
A snicker echoed down the hall.
I whirled, bow and arrow braced in front of me, but saw no one. There was just the Gauntlet, smooth and narrow, stretching before me in silent challenge.
The sound raced up the other side of the wall, slipped along the floor behind me before wheedling up the back of my legs and spine. There was a probing at the base of my skull, like a centipede trying to burrow beneath my skin, into my brain, but I shook my head and the feeling receded, though whatever had caused it was still there. This sterile hallway, I knew, contained something that could reach out and touch me at any moment, and it wasn’t Joaquin.
“Finally. Another Archer.”
The voice was curious, friendly even, and each word possessed the deep thrumming echo of a cello string, low, musical, and filled with vitality. I glanced up at the ceiling, looking for vents, shafts, cameras…anything I could be viewed easily with or through, but saw nothing. The walls and ceiling were unusually smooth, and if I didn’t know any better I’d have said it was less of a hallway than a living organ, like an intestine unraveled from within a large beast, and me devoured, lost inside. I quickly pushed the thought aside.
“I was wondering who was punching holes in my energy field. I knew Warren was no longer capable, though he certainly served his purpose. Welcome.” His chuckle came from nowhere and everywhere at once, and I didn’t need to see a face to recognize the cool arrogance haloing his words. I was on his turf, and even though I didn’t know what game we were playing—never mind the rules—I kind of doubted he was going to clue me in.
“You’re the Tulpa.” I said, and tentatively began to back up. I searched again for a door to escape by, but when my palm hit the wall, needles sprung up to stab at my flesh and I jolted away. Glancing down, I found dozens of bloody tears studding my hand, though they dried up and disappeared as I watched. Surface wounds. Not that that wasn’t worrying too. Because now I was sure I had to run the Gauntlet, and I had a feeling there were more sharp little surprises awaiting me.
“Expecting someone else? An ally, perhaps?”
“Not really,” I answered, taking a testing step forward, then another. “You just don’t look anything like I pictured you.”
Okay, so the false bravado probably wasn’t going to get me very far, but my allies were busy escaping Valhalla, and if the Tulpa was here with me, he couldn’t stop Hunter and Warren. He couldn’t, as far as I knew, be two places at once. So that was the upside. The downside? The Tulpa was here with me.
“Then you haven’t pictured me fully. You have to use your imagination, you see. What’s the worst thing you could face in an enemy? What’s the most horrifying thing I could possibly be?”
“Elvis,” I said, picking up my pace a bit, careful to stay centered in the narrow hallway. Was it me, or was it getting narrower? “If I see one more aging Elvis impersonator I’m totally going to scream.”
