couldn’t tell.
Micah wasn’t far behind, and he beelined for me, bending over to check again that his handiwork had survived the afternoon, his own worries about me apparently resolved. But after a moment he cupped my chin, eyeing me curiously. “You look different somehow. Can’t put my finger on it, though. Are you feeling okay?”
“Actually, I feel great. Like I just woke up from a long nap.”
“Sounds auspicious,” he said warily. I went ahead and watched him back. After a moment he blinked, then shrugged as he lowered himself into a seat, the bulk of him barely fitting between the armrests.
“If you believe in fairy tales.” Chandra dropped her weight into a chair across from me, but I was saved from having to think of an Oliviaesque reply by Hunter’s sudden appearance. He too paused when he saw me, and colors around him shifted from black to silver to gold as the energy spiked between us. I had no idea what that meant.
He settled himself next to Chandra, and I had a moment to think he’d be a joy to photograph. He was so composed in the flesh that a still shot wouldn’t have made much of a difference from what I was seeing then, but at least I could study him at length—searching for what exactly ran beneath that still facade—without him knowing I was doing it. If, that was, I ever had the nerve to point my camera his way. “So. We’re all here.”
All save Warren and Gregor. And Tekla, came the unbidden thought, even though she wasn’t supposed to count. I took another sip of Vanessa’s concoction, and looked around at what was left of Zodiac troop 175, paranormal division, Las Vegas.
“What do you all do?” I asked, suddenly curious. I wasn’t just trying to ferret information out either. I really wanted to know. “On the outside, I mean?”
Warren was a bum, Gregor a cab driver. Olivia had been a socialite—I supposed that’s what I was now—so it seemed the point was to plant Zodiac agents within the entire social spectrum of the Las Vegas valley; matched, I was sure, by the Shadow agents in one form or another. So what about everyone else? “I know Micah’s a physician, but what about the rest of you? Who are you when you’re not being…you?”
“College student,” Felix offered, saluting. “UNLV.”
“Yeah,” scoffed Chandra. “For the past eight years.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault! Warren keeps making me change my major.” He turned back to me and winked slyly. With his tousled hair and ready laugh, I could imagine him as the most popular guy on campus. “I keep an eye on our initiates, those close enough to metamorphosis to give off strong olfactory signals. I’m also on the lookout for the Shadow initiates. Fraternities, parties, clubs, that’s where the young ones are most likely to be.”
“Stryker was a crime scene analyst with Metro,” Vanessa offered, lifting her cup, reminding us all why we were there. Cups were lifted all around. We drank to his memory, and Vanessa refilled the cups. “It was the perfect way to gain access to fresh kill spots.”
Nobody spoke for a moment, and I knew they were remembering the warehouse where Stryker had been ambushed. A kill spot. I drank some more.
“Well,” Micah finally said, shattering the silence. “We’re not the only ones who’ve lost star signs this year. Chandra alone is responsible for two Shadow kills.”
“Not me,” she retorted, tipping her cup back. “I’m not a star sign, remember.”
“You identified the suspects,” Vanessa soothed.
“But Hunter took them out.”
“We partner well together,” he replied modestly. “Most fire signs do.”
Spotting my confused expression, Micah expounded further. “Chandra works at Sky-Chem, the largest chemical lab in the state. She can use DNA to identify the Shadows or initiates who go searching for a job.”
Chandra’s lips pursed as her eyes went from Micah to me; she was fighting the urge to tell the story herself —doing so meant she’d have to speak to me—but pride ultimately won out. “I found the first one, their Capricorn star sign, through a urine sample when he applied as a bouncer at a strip club. It was easy for Hunter to go in after that, pretend he was there for the girls. The other was a hair test, the Shadow Virgo.”
Hunter saluted her with his cup, a look passing between them, and as much as I disliked Chandra, I had to admit it was a brilliant cover. Every hotel in town sent their employees—and there were thousands—for mandatory drug testing; as did the government agencies, the police department, and the entertainment venues. Still, I wasn’t ready to compliment her. I turned to Vanessa.
“And you?”
She leaned back, crossing her long legs. “Reporter for the
“I see,” I said slowly, swirling my drink, watching as a small whirlpool formed there. I stilled the cup and glanced up at Vanessa. “Or ‘Shadow Agents Track New Archer’ turns into ‘Heiress’s Sister Plummets to Death.’”
The laughter immediately died from Vanessa’s eyes. Shoulders slumping, she touched my arm, and I could see the others noting her acceptance. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be joking. But it’s all for the greater good, you see.”
I nodded finally. It wasn’t her fault, after all. I was just being overly sensitive, sentimental, and probably getting a little drunk. I needed to slow down and focus. “Well, it’s a dirty job, but—”
“Yeah, something like that.” We tapped our cups together. Chandra scowled, dipping her face in her own cup. The others also seemed well on their way to being truly shit-faced, but my own drink seemed to be turning on me, the sweetness now cloying in my mouth. I pushed my cup away and turned to Hunter. He was the only one not drinking. He was also the only one who hadn’t answered yet. I raised a brow.
“Director of Security,” and before I could ask, he added, “Valhalla.”
I gaped at him, and now my mouth went dry. “You’re trying to infiltrate the Archer organization? Like my mother did?”
The drink might have been making me a little slow, but I immediately recognized how easy it’d be to act as a liaison between the Light and Shadow sides if he literally worked for the Tulpa’s organization.
“Not trying,” he said, steepling his fingers. “I’m doing it.”
And I didn’t know if that was a jab at my mother or at me. He tossed me a half smile, also unreadable, but was clearly pleased at my obvious confusion.
“Someone has to,” Chandra said.
“Chandra,” Micah said in a warning voice. I sighed inwardly, but was careful not to let my fatigue show. I was getting better at hiding my emotions too.
Chandra’s mouth quirked slightly at one side, but she gave no other sign of having heard him, and unlike Hunter and me, she wasn’t trying to hide anything. Her eyes were swimming with drink, but that wasn’t all. Deep pockets of hatred and resentment covered her entire psyche. I didn’t even have to probe to see the mossy plum color radiating sickly around her. In her eyes I hadn’t just usurped her place in the Zodiac, I’d stolen it out from under her. And her dreams of becoming this troop’s Archer floated, dead and bloated, on the surface of her gaze whenever it lit upon me.
I caught Vanessa, her own silent gaze imploring me to let it go, so I stood, ostensibly to retrieve the other pitcher of alcohol, and with the half-drunken hope that when I returned with it, Chandra would do the same, or at least have found something more interesting to look at. But she was still there, sneering as women had sneered at Olivia so often before. Judging as they had. She held out her cup for me to serve her, then had the nerve to say, “Your mother failed us all when she deserted her star sign. And look who she deserted it for. What a waste.”
The contents of the pitcher I was holding—fruit bits, sweet and sticky, citrus-infused alcohol, ice chips—were poured over her head. It was my turn to sneer, but she was standing and had slapped the satisfaction off my face before I even saw her move.
“Girl fight,” I heard Felix say.
“Superhero girl fight,” I corrected, and wheeling back, steered an elbow into her temple. The force of my action turned me around on myself, so I followed it up with a backward elbow to the nose. Chandra staggered, as surprised at this as I’d been at the slap, but she didn’t fall, and the drunken brawl was on.
She lunged, but Felix was quicker, intercepting her just as neatly as Hunter stalled my own forward motion.
