“The Tulpa always has such a compelling argument,” I said to Regan as I stroked Jasmine’s pale face and watched as her aura sloughed from me like soapsuds under water. Her cheeks warmed with my touch. “He’d make a great lawyer.”
Regan spared only a brief glance in my direction but said nothing as she smoothed over her peasant top and patted her hair back in place. I watched her fuss with the bow on her top, and smothered a smile. She’d heard nothing of my conversation with the Tulpa.
“So,” I said slyly, studying her carefully for a reaction. “I understand you live in a townhouse south of the Strip.”
Her head shot up, shock blanketing her face.
“And that you drive a red Audi, two-door, cute, though it’s been in the shop twice this month. You might want to think about replacing that. And how’d your visit to the dentist go last week? Other than the filling in your upper left second molar?”
Obviously I’d gotten Maximus X to dig up the info on “Rose,” but if Regan thought the Tulpa had provided me with the information in exchange for something he wanted, who was I to correct her?
“What does that mean, do you think?” I asked her, tilting my head. “That your leader had so much to say to me in private?”
Regan hesitated, left eye twitching again, and I knew I’d spooked her. I smiled because I’d also just discovered her “tell.” Unable to trade barbs since she suddenly had no idea where she stood, she deftly, and not so subtly, changed the subject. “You know, Ben’s taking me up to Mount Charleston for the weekend. We’re going to rent a cabin, drink spiked cocoa, and cuddle in front of a log fire. I think it’s time to take our relationship to the next level.” She tilted her head wonderingly. “What do you think I should wear? A white baby doll or a red one?”
A tremor, like an animal stirring to life, moved through me. “Ben will never be with your pulpy rotting ass as long as I’m alive, clear?”
That eye twitched again, her mouth thinning. “Well, we can fix that, can’t we?”
My eyes slid to her changeling, who’d picked something slimy from his hair and was studying it closely, trying to figure out what it was. My gaze found hers again, and I thought,
I ran at her so fast, my fist was flying toward her face while her hands were still motionless at her side. The crunch of her nose was less satisfying now that I knew how rotted out her insides were…and besides, it wasn’t enough to kill her.
Momentum had me somersaulting over her head, but I anticipated, and was twisting in the air above her, readying a second assault even before I’d touched ground. She turned into me, I blocked with my right, and the sharp tip of my elbow sailed downward to bury into her left eye socket.
Douglas had finally found his feet and had again coagulated into the grotesque, rubberized monster meant to protect the Shadows, but I ignored his snarl, dodged his lunge, and thrust my foot into his solar plexus. It sunk through to the other side, and would’ve pierced his body if not for a membrane wall as clear and thin as a yolk sac. He screamed as I yanked my foot free, but the interruption had given Regan time to retreat. She moved so the blazing fireplace was between us.
“Don’t.” I circled closer as her eyes flicked to the door. “You’ll never make it.”
She shifted too. “What are you doing? You can’t kill me here.”
“This is just practice, Regan,” I said, stalking her. “A taste of things to come.”
She pulled out her conduit, even though it was useless in the safe zone. “Is that what the Tulpa told you when he took a chunk out of your cheek?”
My face still ached with the residual sting of the Tulpa’s slap, but I shrugged. “That was before we came to an agreement. And I’ll heal.”
“Sure,” she said, feigning unconcern as her gaze darted sideways. “But will your changeling?”
“I’m fine,” Jasmine said, but she was guarded, clearly worried Regan would seek retaliation for my attack on her changeling.
But Regan hadn’t been looking at her. “Jasmine…where’s Li?”
“She was here a minute ago,” Jasmine complained, and she backed away to peer under the freestanding bookcases separating the back of the room into rows. “I swear, if I lose her again my mother is going to…”
“Oh God.” My eyes found Li at the same time Jasmine’s did. I was vaguely aware of Regan’s laughter-laughter and footsteps as she ran from the storeroom-but I bolted in the opposite direction, and dropped to my knees next to Jasmine, who’d been closer and had gotten there first.
“Wait, Jas!”
But she was already turning her sister over. “Li, how many times do I have to-”
We both gasped, momentarily stilled by the china doll cheek scored with three deep claw marks. It looked like she’d been attacked by a pit bull. Her beautiful skin hung in tatters, and blood pooled on the floor around her. Even once the bleeding was staunched, even when the furrows were stitched back together under a surgeon’s gentle hand, the child would be scarred for life.
But when she looked up at me, there was none of the loathing I expected in her watery gaze. There was no room for it with pain and fear and hope all jostling for space. “I did good, right? I protected you?”
The lump in my throat turned into a mountain. “Yeah, baby. You did great.”
She smiled with the good side of her face. I turned to Jasmine and found the piercing accusatory glare I deserved.
“Happy?” she asked, voice breaking.
God, no. I certainly wasn’t that. “I-I didn’t know.”
My voice cracked and a tear slid down the cheek that mirrored the injury to Li’s…except mine would heal. Jasmine looked at me in a length of charged silence, and for a moment I saw something akin to pity flickering behind her gaze, but she snuffed it out in the next. “Whatever.”
“I’m going to fix it.” I reached for Li.
“You’d better.” Jasmine said in a voice round with fury and disbelief. “
But there was only one heroine present, and I lifted her in my arms and gently carried her from the storeroom.
11
I drove Li and Jasmine to the emergency room, and left only after their mother had arrived, assuring her all medical costs would be covered by the Archer Children’s Foundation. She thanked me repeatedly for “saving” her baby’s life from a vicious dog’s attack, while Jasmine sat in a plastic chair, swinging her feet back and forth as she alternated text messaging on her cell phone and glaring pointedly in my direction.
I wanted to tell her it wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t expected the Tulpa to attack, and I didn’t know how the injury had been transferred to Li instead of me or even her. But intentionally or not, I really had broken something vital to the balance of the supernatural system, and now not only were the manuals not being written, but a seven-year- old’s life had been permanently affected.
It was too late to return to Master Comics. The shop was closed and I’d received instructions to meet the rest of the troop at eight o’clock to examine the mask Chandra had stolen from Xavier’s. It was seven-thirty now and I still had to get across town in the rush of Friday night traffic, but at least it gave me time to think of a way to tell the others about Li, as well as ponder the smorgasbord of trouble now filling my plate. Okay, so it wasn’t all bad news. I’d learned the doppelganger’s appearance had spooked the Tulpa enough to have him willing to bargain with the Light. I’d also learned Regan’s left eye wigged out when she was nervous, that she was overly sensitive about turning into a walking corpse, and I could best her in hand-to-hand if I played my cards right.
The news about Hunter having a side gig as a sex worker wasn’t what one would call
