me.
So I fumbled with my wallet instead, hunting for the cash to pay for my purchases, pausing when my eyes fell on the papers in front of him. The pages to the left were filled with dialogue, a shorthand version of Joaquin’s and my conversation minutes before, but the one to the right-the one he’d been working on when I entered the shop- was blank. But for two words.
Liam Burke.
“It was nice of you, you know,” Zane said, seeing the direction of my gaze as he slipped the manuals into a plastic bag. “You allowed his name to be recorded in the manuals of Light.”
I shrugged. “It’s what I would have wanted.” I took the bag and handed him the money.
“He’d have snuffed you out without a second thought,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.
“Always a pleasure, Zane.” I pocketed the change, took my receipt, and turned to leave.
“It’s strange, though.”
I turned back, warily. “What is?”
He tapped his pencil against his man-boobs. “Well, these events, your actions…they come to me in visions, bubbling up suddenly in my consciousness, and they come in color. The agents of Light are always bathed in a golden iridescent glow, the Shadows always silver.”
So it was some sort of psychic energy manifesting itself, the same as mortal dreams. I’d wondered. Curious to hear more, I took a step back toward the counter. I believed in energy, that we were all created by it and created it in turn. Shit, these days it was practically the only thing I believed in. Nevertheless, I tried to hide that I was impressed. “So?”
“So, before you snagged the aureole, before my mind went blank and all I saw were those two words,” he said, annoyance flickering over his face as if I’d flipped the channel while he was watching his favorite program. Voyeur. “I could have sworn there were two entities in that aquarium.”
“You mean you saw another Shadow agent?” I asked innocently.
“No. The vision wasn’t strong enough for that,” he admitted, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. “But I know I saw something. I saw someone.”
He couldn’t see initiates, I realized. And the aureole had blunted my capture and conversation with Regan. So while he might have intuited Regan’s presence, he couldn’t prove it. “Well,” I finally said, shooting him Olivia’s brightest smile. “Good luck with that.”
He snorted in disgust and turned his attention back to his work as I walked away. I’d find out in two weeks what he was writing. For now I peered outside, glancing left and right before stepping into the day’s full sun. The only person in sight was the skateboarder from before, and he rolled directly over to my car, flipped up his board, and tucked it under his arm, while squinting at me through the bright afternoon rays.
“It’s okay,” he said. “He’s gone.”
I nodded at him-another changeling, I gathered-though he was only partly right. Joaquin was gone. On the other hand, I thought, turning the Porsche’s engine over, things were far from being okay.
8
After my confrontation with Joaquin, after I’d watched a little girl turn into a monster-and ultimately my savior-and after running through a drive-through to pick up a cheeseburger, and wishing it came with a shot of Chivas, I was ready for sanctuary. Dusk was closing in fast, and the time of crossing from this reality to the other was less than an hour away. Crossing wasn’t like walking through a portal. Any old agent could do that at any time, but crossing had to be undertaken at exactly the time when day and night were split evenly in the air, when the veil between the mortal world and ours was thinnest, if it was to be done at all. One second late and the door would be shut until twelve hours later, and the next split second day and night fought over the skyline.
Our sanctuary was located on the other side of this reality, in the Neon Boneyard, a place where the old signs and lettering left over from imploded hotels were stored, gathering dust and rusting, until enough money could be gathered to turn the place into a historical museum. This being Vegas, any signage older than a decade qualified as historical, but for now the boneyard had a relatively quiet life, much like any boneyard, with only the occasional private tour given by appointment in the daytime.
At night, though, it belonged to us.
Unfortunately, accessing the boneyard’s second reality wasn’t as easy as booking an appointment. Cleaving the curtain between two realities was a messy and sometimes violent business, and not for the faint of heart. I didn’t know what Shadows used to access their alternate reality-none of us even knew where their sanctuary was-but we used fearlessness, impeccable timing, and the city’s Star cabs.
What? If anyone can fight through the most impossible mess, it’s a Vegas cabdriver.
Masquerading as a cabbie was a great way to glean information about the Shadow side, and that’s exactly what Gregor-the Cancerian member of our Zodiac, and our liaison between this reality and the next-did. Between fares he scanned the papers and local magazines for news, obits, and reports that might be supernatural in nature. He had a police scanner, EMS scanner, and traffic cam all crammed into his front seat. It was a great cover for him, and the best way to cross over for the rest of us, and every dawn and dusk, without fail, found Gregor parked in an alley behind the Peppermill.
As for the Peppermill itself, well, it was the original Vegas ultra-lounge. With all the new clubs and bars backed by casinos with millions to invest in a little spot of nightlife, the Peppermill was somewhat dated by comparison. Yet I considered the seventies decor, the old-fashioned cocktails, and the unapologetic kitsch all part of its charm. It was a throwback to an era when all casino bosses were Italian and women dressed up to go out for a night on the town; a great place for nostalgia right in the center of the modern-day Strip.
Sometimes I went there just to sit in the bar where blue flames leaped from a firepit of boiling water, dancing off the mirrored tiles of tables and walls, reflecting myself back at me in tiny quarter-inch squares. Cocktail waitresses in long black gowns served me fruity drinks while I watched darkly from a secluded corner, observing the human jetsam and flotsam that washed in from the Strip, while ignoring couples making out in pockets of obscurity similar to my own. There was something about the Peppermill that brought out the voyeur in me, and if the clientele was any indication, I wasn’t alone.
I grabbed the bag I’d packed that morning from the trunk-containing clothing, toiletries, and the disks from Cher’s-and after a quick check in the alley confirmed Gregor was here, though not in his cab, I hurried through smoked glass doors to join him inside. It’d be good to catch up, just the two of us. He was extremely superstitious-known to knock wood at least once a day; never stepped on cracks or walked under ladders-but he had a sense of humor about it, and so was good company. The one exception to his numerous superstitions was that he owned a black warden…though perhaps it was more accurate to say the jewel-eyed feline owned him. When he was in the sanctuary she was an ubiquitous presence in his one arm.
So I scanned the lounge, eyes skimming over the neon bands lining the mirrored ceiling, the faux foliage sporting bright blossoms eternally in bloom, and the bubbling firepit, looking for a stocky man with a four-leaf clover tattooed at the base of his skull. Instead my gaze found another person I knew.
“The hell you doing here?” Chandra asked, scowling back at me as I plopped myself next to her in a red velvet booth.
“Where’s Gregor?” I asked, holding up a finger to call the waitress over, ignoring her question. Chandra, in turn, ignored mine.
Chandra was my colleague, but not my friend. She was of an age to undergo metamorphosis and become an agent of Light, her one lifelong ambition. She’d been born in the sanctuary, raised expecting to take up a star sign and join the ranks of warriors patrolling Vegas’s streets. But Chandra’s birth sign was already occupied. By me. My mother had been the last to hold the Archer sign, and because you had to inherit your star sign, once I came into the picture Chandra was bumped to the back of the line. Now she was stuck in a sort of limbo. She had the ability, knowledge and desire to become an agent of Light, but not the lineage or the right. That alone would’ve been enough to make her hate me.
My mistaking her for a man the first time we’d met had sealed the deal.
I glanced at her after I’d ordered my drink, and she ignored the countless mirrors reflecting me doing so. Her
