“You can think of it as a prayer if it makes you feel better,” he said, his smile mocking. “But it’s really alchemy.”
“Alchemy that can kill her,” I clarified.
He rolled his eyes, causing bloody tears to form in the inverted ducts. “You haven’t been listening. She’s pure energy. She can’t be killed. But she can be absorbed back into the universe, made harmless, dissolved back into raw matter like all spirits upon death. Then our world will regain its original cosmic resonance.”
And we could go back to killing one another. So, then, the equally important question was “And what about me?”
“You’re free to leave as soon as she’s bound. No need to stick around.”
Which was fine by me.
“Yet there is one more little thing.”
I folded my arms over my chest, but inclined my head so he’d continue.
“A condition of my own.” He lifted his chin, and I saw red beads, like sweat, rolling down his throat. “If you use this mantra to get rid of the doppelganger, then as soon as I exterminate her, you must come willingly to the Shadow side. You come into my domain, learn what I have to teach, give me a chance to show you everything you didn’t know you were missing.”
I suddenly felt like a fish on a line. “You mean if I use it, I belong to you.”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? I’ll have saved you, and the world, from her cannibalistic designs, her basic destructive force. You’ll owe me.”
And it was a good way to facilitate the rise of my Shadow side. I shook my head. “I’ll never owe you a damned thing.”
“Not if you’re dead,” he quickly agreed, narrow tongue darting out to lick at the corners of that inverted mouth. “The only other way to stop her chaotic attacks on this reality’s plane is to give her what she wants. You watch, each time you run into her and don’t bind her with my magic, she’ll have taken on more of your appearance, your mannerisms, your aspect. The collapse of this world aside, wait much longer and you won’t even have the ability to choose sides. She’ll just take over your life. A new model…one that will make the old one obsolete.”
He watched me steadily through Zell’s blood-slicked orbs, but I said nothing for so long, he must have despaired of an answer at all. He shifted on his feet. I sighed and met his gaze. Just because I had the mantra didn’t mean I had to use it. And at least using it was a known risk. So much about my double-my twin, as he called her-was still unknown. I finally nodded.
“Good. I figured you wouldn’t be willing to speak in a foreign language-”
When the words were powerful enough to bind another being into place? “You got that right.”
“So I’ve translated the mantra for you from the original. You must repeat it exactly as I do.” His eyes rolled back into his sockets to show only white as he pulled the words from memory. “‘I, Joanna Archer, pledge…’”
“I, Joanna Archer, pledge-”
“Not now!” The irises whipped forward in his skull, flaring red. “You don’t want the energy released before its time. My God, the things you don’t know! Just repeat it silently over and over again. Memorize it.”
I did. But as I did, I thought. He wanted me to bind the doppelganger so he could come along and destroy it. Yet basic science held-and he’d said himself-that energy could never truly be destroyed, only transmuted into a different state. The Tulpa had called it alchemy, stressing that inflection and tonal intonation were important. I didn’t know anything about mantras, but I did know they had to be directed at something…someone.
“So what do I call her?” I asked, thinking the damned thing might backfire on me.
“Call her nothing. Her name isn’t needed for the spell to work.”
“You mean the
The remark didn’t require an answer, and he didn’t give one. He just turned away and began to head toward the long hallway.
“Wait! Aren’t you going to…” I waved up and down at the length of his host body when he turned to regard me, one hairless brow cocked.
He smiled, dripping blood. Zell’s suit was shot. “Not quite yet.”
I watched him walk out, dripping fluids, and moments later heard screams of terror pinging within the shop front. It sounded like a roomful of children were being massacred. I rolled my eyes and removed my mask, pulling down my tight bun to run fingers through my hair.
As the screams died out front, I wondered why the Tulpa was being so reasonable about all this. Agreeing to disagree wasn’t in his nature, and I could feel the synapses in my brain aching to fire, but the new connections weren’t being made. There was something he wasn’t telling me, something he needed me for beyond binding the doppelganger. Who knew? Maybe Kade and Dylan could help me figure out what that was as well. Until then, agreeing to work with him to rid our city of the doppelganger was the only constructive thing I could do.
Zane didn’t even look up as I left the Master Comics. He’d flipped the sign to closed on the glass door, and enlisted those changelings who hadn’t fled to help him clean up the blood Zell’s entrails had smeared over the stumpy blue-gray carpeting and-more disturbingly-the front window. I didn’t know exactly what the Tulpa had done out here, but it looked like he’d wiped the place down with his pancreas. And though I didn’t think it was entirely fair, the dark looks of the remaining changelings had me acknowledging I had released a force I couldn’t control upon them. Even Li merely shot me a closed-lip smile before throwing a blood-soaked paper towel in a lined wastebasket. I silently swore that next time I had to call on the Tulpa I’d do it in a different safe zone. One with fewer preteens to scare.
I drove north, figuring I’d head downtown to scout the location in the Jaden Jacks manual before heading back to Olivia’s high-rise apartment. Sure, the Shadow agent’s trail had long gone cold, but I knew better than most that you could see the most amazing things if you just followed the streets.
Besides, I thought as I raced down Paradise, I couldn’t get back to the sanctuary tonight anyway. Dusk had already split, and if Warren wanted me to return at dawn he’d call, though I didn’t think that would happen. Not after Kimber’s harrowing experience with the mask-o’-death. I didn’t care what he’d said in the crow’s nest about trust; I knew the welfare of the troop came first with him. The care and feeding of my ego was no match for his sense of duty, and they’d probably all been relieved to find Gregor’s cab one occupant short when they’d crossed over at dusk.
Yes, Warren would help me if I asked. But I’d told the Tulpa I wouldn’t involve my troop, and had no doubt he’d know if I reneged on the promise. The mask we’d stolen caused me to wonder about the other tools at his disposal. It made me question, too, how he’d learned of the mantra he’d given me to use against the doppelganger.
I was so taken by this riddle that I passed right by the Holsum Design Center before I realized it was First Friday, and that parking would be impossible along any of the side streets. I whipped a U-turn to park at the Government Center on Grand Central Parkway, and waited there with other pedestrians for the trolley to come along and ferry us to the heart of the event.
First Friday was a monthly art festival, billed as a block party for the artistic set. Once a month the historic downtown area morphed into a showcase for street performers, local bands, fledgling restaurants, and antique stores. Old railroad homes once housing nuclear families were now rented by sculptors, photographers, and painters, and the city-funded trolley clanged along a circuit of exhibits, bars, and vendor booths that acted as an urban showroom for local talent.
To say the crowd was eclectic was a gross understatement. Teens sporting a decades-old punk rock look they thought they’d originated bumped hips with aging hippies and chic soccer moms for whom bohemian sensibility was more of a fashion statement than a way of life. I’d attended First Friday religiously before becoming Olivia and had even considered using one of the low-rent artists’ cottages on Colorado to showcase my photography, but alas. Saving the valley from noxious, demonic monsters had taken precedence. Scratching lightly at the rash underneath my turtleneck, I fought off nostalgia for a time when my greatest preoccupation had been framing and capturing the injustices mortals inflicted on one another. Ah, the good old days.
Most of the pedestrians hopped from the trolley at Antique Row, where the majority of shops and galleries were located. I waited until we’d picked up steam again, heading farther into the urban weave of surface streets until I saw a brightly lit building I remembered from past visits. It wasn’t a designated stop, so as soon as I was sure no one was looking, I jumped from the back of the trolley, hitting the wide parkway, immediately altering direction. Had anybody been looking, and blinked, they would’ve missed it. Paranoia: my new art form.
