Cheat the Grave

appearance was a private thing, a bottle you’d found and rubbed. The answer to anything you could wish. At least, that’s how she appeared there .

But she’d originally been a Shadow agent, also from the Vegas valley, escaping to Midheaven a few years earlier for some unknown infraction against the Tulpa. She and a man named Jaden Jacks had met here, unwisely beginning an affair that was a paranormal mixing of oil and water. When Warren discovered it, he forced J.J. into a new identity-Hunter Lorenzo-and ordered him to forget the Shadow he loved.

Except he never did. Hunter spent years searching for Solange. He donned a new cover identity and kept it from Warren. And sought her even after we became lovers.

As for my would-be rival, all I knew was this: Solange was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, but it was a beauty gained by raping the souls of others. She used alchemy, magic, and a uniquely savage mean streak to turn those valuable bits into gems, which she then strung into a recreation of the night sky. So beneath her soft, inviting exterior was a beast as vicious as a rabid hellhound, and that was the type of woman who thrived over there. In short, Solange made Mackie look like a pet rock.

And Hunter was in love with her.

So I’d helped him get to her. As hard as it was-and it’d been as acute as being struck with Mackie’s blade- what else could I do? Even learning of his past-discovering I hadn’t known him at all-I’d wanted good things for him. Besides, Warren had thrown him from the troop, essentially declaring paranormal jihad on his ass, so there wasn’t anything left for him here anymore.

There was you.

I shook my head, stopping when the smoky feeling hit me again, though I was grateful to note it was marginally less. No, Warren had been clear on the terms of Hunter’s banishment. If he’d stayed, Hunter would have been a rogue agent, driven from the city to live somewhere not yet populated enough to warrant a troop. If he remained in Las Vegas, or tried to contact any of his former allies, then the people he’d been raised with in the sanctuary of Light would kill him. So, either way he was an outcast. At least in Midheaven he’d have the love he’d so long searched for.

But he’d betrayed me, not by leaving me for his version of true love, or even because he’d failed to warn or protect me from Mackie. But he had been the one to tell Solange who I was, so that she could whisper it into Mackie’s ear. Go after Olivia Archer, I could practically hear her purr. Joanna’s alias in that parallel world.

I shut my eyes and leaned my head back on the buttery headrest. Whomever contacted me that afternoon had been right. I should never have gone out tonight.

True love never dies…even when it’s gone, its memory keeps you safe.

“Bullshit,” I whispered, though I didn’t believe love, once felt, just disappeared. My first love, Ben, still influenced my life, though our love belonged to a different place and time. No less meaningful, but no longer relevant to the woman I was today.

Yet my burgeoning love for Hunter had been different. We were two fallible people with scarred pasts that had springboarded us into the same passion. I might have been wrong about the permanence of both relationships, but they had shaped me. Love, truly felt, really did leave a mark.

But so did getting whacked with a tire iron. And in my experience, that’s how love marked a person’s life. It was as random as violence. As senseless as an early death. And Suzanne was dead wrong about one thing in particular, I thought, a lone tear slipping over my cheek. Love could be dangerous.

Mine was fucking killing me.

7

Las Vegas actually dozes in the early morning hours, resting up from the roughshod night, and catching its breath before it rides again. Unfortunately, you don’t fall asleep after a night like I had. You drop into a pool of exhaustion, and land in restless half-consciousness. But only after locating a place of relative safety, where demons wearing bowler hats can’t plow soul-stealing blades through your innards.

For me, that place turned out to be a bright conference room streaming with morning sun, espresso fumes, and the disapproval of twelve board members constituting the whole of Archer Enterprises.

“Ms. Archer?”

Too late I realized my head had lolled on my neck again. Snapping upright, I checked for drool. Seriously, these blue bloods were so boring they could send Mackie back into his coma. Still, it was my first board meeting of Archer Enterprises, where I’d just replaced Xavier Archer as chairman of the board. It occurred to me that maybe I should make an effort. I yanked off my oversized shades and shielded a ginormous yawn.

“Sorry. You lost me at the bit about that vesting thing.” They’d drawn the subject out so long I think oceanic plates had shifted.

The man to my left, six feet away but still seated closest at the long, glossed table, studied me drolly. “Late night?”

“It was a killer,” I replied huskily, and reached for the water.

The man beyond him-indistinguishable but for the three feet separating them-placed his pen down and folded his hands in front of him. “Yes, word is your traveling disco got hijacked. It must have been terribly traumatic for you.”

I let my water glass dangle dangerously from two fingers just to see him squirm, and discarded the idea of detailing what “trauma” really meant to me. “It was more of a rave than a disco,” I said, angling my glass in a halfhearted toast.

He stared at me with undisguised disdain, and though I hated to do so, I blinked first. Olivia Archer didn’t “do” stare-downs, though I quickly followed up with another gaping yawn. At least that didn’t have to be faked.

“Perhaps we can get back to the business at hand?” One of the eleven identical twins intoned. It was John, Xavier’s attorney, whom I’d apparently inherited as well. “The compensation plan again, then?”

I replaced my water glass with a pen and waved down the table with my free hand. “That would rock.”

He began his monotonous intonation again…and I began to doodle. Catching the words “strip” and “straddle,” I perked up a bit, then realized he was talking about how they intended to keep the money I paid them this year. Oh well, I thought, broadening my pen stroke along my pad. Someone would go over all this with me later, I was sure. Ad nauseam.

As John droned, a shape formed beneath my pen. I jolted upon recognizing it, marring the precise whorls, but was back at it before it could escape me. I began sharpening the outline more consciously, scrollwork leading up to a pair of wings. It wasn’t just familiar, it was somehow mundane. I pulled back my pen, frowning. It was also the symbol I’d spotted on the giant chest from in the previous night’s treasure hunt. Cher’s report that Arun’s servants were the ones to arrange the hunt and plant the clues initially surprised me, but it was now clear that someone with unnatural powers had infiltrated Arun’s little cadre. Maybe, I thought, pen stilling, Arun Brahma himself. Could he be an agent? A rogue newly arrived in the valley, and using Suzanne and Cher to get to me?

Or, if the weapons were left for me, could he actually be some sort of ally? My pulse leapt at the thought, not because it was particularly likely, but because the idea of an ally in a world rife with enemies was shiny enough to draw even a magpie’s attention.

It was worth looking into either way, if only because of Suzanne and Cher. I might not be a superhero anymore, but I’d die before I allowed another attack on someone I cared for, like the one that’d taken Olivia’s life.

Making a mental note to research Arun Brahma when I wasn’t being bombarded by balance sheets and cash flow statements, I started drawing the emerging symbol again, trying to remember where else I’d seen it. And what did it mean?

“Excuse me, Ms. Archer?”

Blinking, I startled into awareness. “What?”

“You said something?”

Shit. I’d spoken aloud. “Um, I said…what does that mean?”