The Scent of Shadows

over me uncertainly. “It’s my fault. I forgot, and it’s my fault.”

“Forgot what?” I asked, raising my face, as blind as a baby chick. I could only imagine how I looked.

“The Shadow in you. It can’t take the Light.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

And then there was another voice, a scent like rainwater and sage, and a cool, feminine palm on my shoulder. A wet cloth with herbs was pressed gently over my eyes. “Shh, honey. I’m here. It’s going to be all right.”

“She’s hurting, Greta.” Warren sounded scared.

“I know,” the woman answered. “Bring her to my rooms. I’ll take care of her.”

Strong arms lifted me. There was the click of heels leading the way. And there was Warren’s breath, cold and small, in my ear. “I’m so sorry.”

I felt a tear fall, imagined its crimson path as it trailed over my cheek, and thought, So am I. I leaned into Warren, still smelling burning flesh. So was I.

17

The woman, Greta, asked if she could give me something to knock me out, and I whimpered my agreement, thinking she could knock my head clear from my shoulders if it would just stop the pain. Such drastic measures, thankfully, were not needed, and she administered a shot that had me slinking blissfully into the ether within moments.

When I woke, the room was pitch-dark, but crowded. The darkness I quickly attributed to cloth bandages wrapped loosely around my head. The crowdedness was because…well, there was a crowd. But over the voices rising and falling around me, I thought I heard birds chirping—did the Silver Slipper have an aviary?—and I knew I smelled at least two dozen roses, which I identified as Double Delights from the slight spice wafting from each petal. My eyesight might have been questionable, but the sniffer was still in top form. Yippee.

“We can’t let her leave the same way she came in,” Felix was saying. “It could kill her.”

The thought of crossing through that big, rounded, silver toe again immediately set my pulse to throbbing.

“Well, she can’t stay here forever.”

“Greta never leaves the compound,” Micah pointed out.

“Greta’s a psychic,” Chandra muttered. “Not a superhero.”

They’d been going on like this, I took it, for a while. The forces of evil may have been hard at work in Vegas tonight, but the superheroes of Zodiac troop 175 were arguing back and forth like opposing teams on a baseball diamond. They were also speaking about me as if I wasn’t there. Worse, like I was, and couldn’t understand a thing they were saying.

I did understand, of course. I was a superhero, and superheroes didn’t die. I almost had, and they were all scared to death because of it.

I shifted against what felt like a veritable sea of pillows, and all chatter ceased. “So basically what you’re all saying is that I’m trapped here?” Five pairs of eyes, felt rather than seen, landed on me. “Trapped in the Silver Slipper, right?”

“Uh,” said Warren, after a bit. “Yeah.”

I nodded as if to myself and pursed my lips. “But I’m safe?”

“Safe, but not very useful,” Chandra muttered from my right.

“Safe and useless sounds just fine right now,” I replied.

“The point is, we can’t let her out of the sanctuary anyway until we figure out how Ajax found her so quickly,” Micah said. “I implanted her new olfactory scent myself, right after Chandra blended it. It was fresh, and completely enshrouded her natural scent. I even underscored it to link her to Warren.”

I hadn’t known that.

“Micah’s right,” Warren said. “I still say we should hypnotize her, find out that way—”

“Warren, we’ve already discussed this.” Greta’s voice grew sharp. There were steel edges behind that soft exterior, it seemed. “She’s been through enough.”

“But Ajax should’ve had to go through me.”

That statement was met by silence. I remembered Warren’s angry words once we’d safely reached the cab. What did you do to call him?

“Well, I didn’t ring him up and ask him to meet me there, if that’s what you’re thinking.” I could just hear that conversation.

Ajax, darling, let’s begin again. I need to make a quick stop first at the Quik-Mart, but we can murder an innocent girl while we’re there, just for old times’ sake. I know how you like that. Got anything sharp and pointy to play with? Something that bursts into flame upon impact, maybe?

Cool fingers touched my skin, and the bandages were gently lifted away. I blinked like a newborn into the light. Actually it was quite dim in the room, but my vision felt raw. It worked well enough, at least, to fix upon the two wide brown eyes smiling into mine. Attached to them was the scent I’d already mentally filed under Greta.

“Thank you,” I told her.

She responded by alighting on the bed beside me, her weight barely making a difference. “Perhaps you can tell us what exactly you were doing when Ajax found you. Start from when Warren contacted you, all the way to Ajax’s appearance.”

I glanced around the room, frilly and feminine and filled with roses, and saw that the others, save Gregor, were all gathered at the foot of my bed. The chirping I’d heard earlier came from a large gold cage on a pedestal across the room, two bright lovebirds resting inside.

“Well, I packed and walked over to the Boulevard like Warren instructed, but there was this film that I needed to develop, and there seemed to be enough time, so—”

“So you disobeyed direct orders,” Chandra said.

“I’m not a Green-fucking-Beret,” I said, shooting her an annoyed glance, “and no, I didn’t disobey. I was one block from the pickup point. I was early. I didn’t know how long I’d be gone—here, I mean—and I wanted to take the pictures with me. That’s all.”

“Where are they?” Warren asked quietly. I looked at him closely for the first time. He’d already looked perfectly disreputable with his grimy clothes and greasy hair, but the rivulets of my dried blood on his shirt added a certain je ne sais quoi. I swallowed hard.

“My bag. Wherever it is.”

It was lying forgotten in the corner. I thought about letting Warren rustle through it, but stopped him as he yanked the zipper back. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said. “There are Shadow manuals in there, mixed in with Light.”

Warren held the duffel out to me. “Open it,” he ordered.

I snatched it and unzipped the bag. All eyes were heavy on my hands as I removed the Shadow side’s comics, then filled with curiosity as they tried to read the titles. I yanked out the Light series as well, putting Stryker’s on top.

“I was reading this one just outside the shop when I first scented Ajax.”

“May I?” Warren asked. I handed him the comic, and he began leafing through it.

“It’s about a guy named Stryker who was ambushed during his transforma—”

“We know about Stryker,” Chandra snapped, eyes hot. “Don’t speak about him like you knew him.”

“God, just leave her alone, Chandra.”

“Fuck you, Felix!” she shouted, then swung around the room, daring anyone to speak. When her gaze landed again on me, she curled her lips and shook her head in sharp disbelief. “She’s the first sign? What bullshit.” She whirled, and the lovebirds started in their cage, crying out as the door slammed heavily behind her.

“Go after her, Felix,” Warren said quietly.

“Fuck her.”