And I looked at him then, really looked at him; seeing past the lank and greasy hair, the face that was usually grime-streaked and the body normally draped in a beggar’s clothes, and I saw the man who led this city’s fight against evil, one who’d tricked me into this lifestyle because it suited his troop’s needs, but who’d also held my hand in those early days, saved my life, and told me about my fucked-up parentage.
Including the fact that my mother was still alive.
But he asked too much, I thought, turning away from him so he couldn’t see the tears stinging my eyes. I’d joined his troop, learned the truth about my mother, and took up the star sign she’d abandoned in order to keep me safe. I’d accepted that she didn’t want to be found, and agreed not to look for her. For now. I’d given up a life that may not have been perfect, but it’d been mine. I was dead to all those who’d known or ever loved me, and the things I loved, like photography, were dead to me.
And even if Warren was right about the Tulpa-and he’d really stopped targeting the agents of Light because of me-he was dead wrong about Xavier. He hadn’t seen the way the man had treated me, or the rampage he’d gone on after my mother had left. Warren didn’t know about the piles of clothes he’d burned, the jewelry he’d given to the maids, or the pictures he’d made Olivia and me cut up while he watched.
And he’d especially watched me.
Because even though Xavier knew nothing of superheroes, portals, and paranormal battles, the timing of my mother’s disappearance hadn’t been lost upon him. His eyes burned hard and hot into mine as he slammed album after album down in front of me, studying my reaction like I might know where she’d gotten to. Like it was my fault she’d gone.
“Not like that, Joanna!” he said, wrenching the scissors from my hand so the photo I was halfheartedly holding fluttered to the ground. “If you want people to respect you, and not walk all over you”-because, of course, the rape had been my fault as well-“you have to destroy them utterly! You have to obliterate them from this earth. Like this.” And he cut and cut until my mother’s face lay like confetti at our feet.
Joaquin had nearly killed me just because I was Zoe Archer’s daughter.
Xavier had made me feel guilty because of it.
And the Tulpa had been behind it all.
So they’d all pay, I thought, smiling in spite of myself. With their lives, their money, their power. With whatever they valued most.
“Okay,” I finally lied, turning back in time to see the relief flooding Warren’s face. “Tell Tekla I’ll start tomorrow.”
He nodded, satisfied with that, and turned from me to limp away. I watched him disappear back into the astrolab, and waited until the door shut behind him. I’d stay in the sanctuary and train like he wanted, but I’d do it for my own reasons. I needed to be stronger and smarter from now on, so I’d push myself, study my lineage and the legacy of the Kairos, and I’d learn what I needed to from Tekla. So that soon, very soon, I could go after Joaquin myself.
The smart thing would be to retire to my room for the rest of the evening. It would give me a chance to calm down, give Hunter time for a cold shower, and nullify the possibility of running into Chandra…which was the last thing I needed right now.
Naturally I did no such thing.
Instead I slipped along a corridor where a red neon stripe skated along the floor, lighting my way, marking my forward progress while simultaneously dimming behind me. I ran my hand against the wall, letting symbols for horoscopic glyphs, planets, polarities, and the four elements appear and disappear beneath my touch. With the floor glowing beneath me like I was starring in some old Michael Jackson video, I halted in front of a solid concrete wall, flicked my wrist, and the wall folded back to reveal a gilt-glass elevator. When something sleek rubbed against my left calf, I jumped and looked down to find a tawny feline glaring up at me, poised on her back haunches, eyes locked on mine.
“Come on, then,” I said, and the furry little warden followed me in before the doors whisked shut behind us.
I glanced down at the cat once the elevator started its descent. She was sitting primly, facing forward like me, her tail curled tightly about her, as self-contained as if she were alone in the steel box. “You don’t think I’m acting like a rogue agent, do you?” I asked her, because of course that’s what had been left unsaid in the astrolab. It’s what Tekla meant when she claimed I was jeopardizing the troop, why she’d insisted I stay in the sanctuary. It was the reason neither of them wanted me out there on my own. They hadn’t needed to say it in order for me to feel it. The possibility was as real to them as my joining the Shadow side, and they were constantly on guard against both.
Thing was-and I’d never say this aloud-I wasn’t entirely unsympathetic toward the plight of the independents. Most, I’d discovered, were simply agents displaced by unrest and unbalance in their own cities. Well, I certainly knew what that was like. And often they were all that was left of a troop decimated by the opposing side. I mean, what were you supposed to do-where were you to go?-when life as you knew it no longer existed? When the family you’d been raised with had been targeted and murdered, one by one? I knew what that was like as well.
So it didn’t seem fair to me that every independent was labeled a rogue and forced to retreat to towns or suburbs too small to warrant concentrated attention. Not only was that mind-numbing for a cast-out urban dweller, but to take on and survive enough opposing rogue signs to make a name for oneself? Those were odds even the most hardened Vegas bookie wouldn’t touch. Gathering enough allies to build another troop? Near impossible. Most small towns didn’t have enough of a human population to warrant one. And though it was possible for independents to join a city’s already established troop, it was rare. Most Zodiac signs had been ancestrally filled for generations, and the battle to keep the signs within a given family’s lineage was fierce. Warren, I thought wryly, would know that better than most.
My feline companion and I stepped out into a passageway facing a set of smoked-glass doors. I held one open, let the cat saunter in ahead of me, and followed her into a dimly lit room that arched around us like a steel womb.
And it
There was also another pair of eyes trained upon me, but these held surprise rather than mistrust, and-if I wasn’t mistaken-a healthy dose of awe.
“Hello,” I said to the young woman I’d seen earlier in the boneyard, feeling free to regard her with as much curiosity as she was showing me. She was petite, at least five inches shorter than I was, and slim-boned, though that meant nothing in the world of supermechanics. Pretty in the way of Victorian debutantes and romance heroines, she had a head of cascading mahogany curls Botticelli would kill to paint, and guileless eyes that sparkled with hope…a handy trait for a hunter of conniving, vicious, and deadly supernatural beings.
“You’re the Archer,” she said, the awe seeping into her voice.
“And you’re…” I couldn’t think of a polite way to say it. “Very green.”
She grimaced, revealing green gums. “Micah says it’ll wear off sometime tomorrow. It’s kind of embarrassing, but at least I’m not alone. Marlo,” she said, and held out a hand.
“Who tagged you, Marlo?” I asked, the question echoing through the room as we shook hands.
“Vanessa.”
“She’s a good shot,” I said sympathetically.
“I was just lucky to be included. Initiates aren’t usually invited to train with the troop, but Tekla prophesied dangerous trials ahead for me, so Warren said it was okay to start my advanced training early.”
I wouldn’t have sounded so joyous about grave tribulations in my future, and told Marlo as much.
“Oh, but it’s an honor,” she said, wide eyes going even wider. “Tekla usually only forecasts the fates of full- fledged star signs. All the initiates she’s ever cast for-Hunter and Zoltan and Mace and Stryker-have gone on to do great things. I’m the youngest yet.”
