The Touch of Twilight

I’d done it less than three hours earlier. “No, why?”

“Because Jasmine can do it now too.”

“Yeah,” Dylan added, “and she’s using it to box in Li.”

“What?”

My response was reflexive, but Dylan explained it like it needed repeating. “She’s using your power to trap her sister in one corner of the comic book shop.”

“But don’t worry,” Kade said, too late. “We spiked her Surge with sleeping pills.”

He motioned me over to the far wall where a giant black silk bag tied with a white ribbon lay slumped against the floor. He untied the ribbon. Inside was a writhing, tied up, nonsleepy-looking Jasmine.

I was so fired.

I rushed over and ripped the masking tape from Jasmine’s mouth. She howled in pain, and would have leaped to rip out Kade’s jugular if I hadn’t stopped her. They were right; she was getting stronger.

“Fucktard!” she yelled, nailing Kade with her gaze.

“Nubcake!” Dylan yelled back, inching away. I shushed him again, shooting him a warning gaze of my own, and retaped Jasmine’s mouth. Then I shoved her back in the bag. She kicked out, striking a wall unit filled with pewter Valhalla replicas, and I struggled to catch them before they hit the floor. I wasn’t going to make it through this shift. I knew it.

“Please kill her now,” Kade said, once I’d returned them to their shelves.

Jasmine began kicking again.

“No.” I kicked back, but just enough to still her. She grunted, then curled into a fetal position. “I’m not going to kill her for something that’s my fault. But I might kill you if you lose me this job.” I tensed, hearing the clacking of Ginny’s heels as she headed my way again. “Hide!”

They hid, I feigned dusting, and after a few terse, pointed, petty words, Ginny disappeared again.

“Dingy aura,” came Dylan’s muffled and disembodied voice.

“Lots of adults have that, man.” Kade popped up on one side of me, Dylan on the other. “That’s what happens when you grow up, right?”

The boys sighed, and for a moment I shared their despondency, knowing what they were in for-mortgages, nine-to-fives, credit card debt, two weeks’ vacation a year. But no evil beings trying to steal their auras. That was a positive.

Finally Kade sighed and turned his head up to me, though his expression was still serious. “Look, Archer, you may not like it, but you have to do something, okay? She’s growing in power every day. Soon even we won’t be able to control her, you know?”

I sighed and put a hand on his shoulder. He was mildly sweaty from dragging Jasmine around behind him, and I removed my hand. “Okay, I’ll figure something out, but you have to leave. Now. I need this job.”

They began to shuffle toward the door, dragging Jasmine along behind them. I didn’t know how they’d gotten in unseen, and I didn’t want to know how they were getting out.

“Wait!” I whipped back around, mid-thought.

“Make up your mind,” Dylan said, one hand on his hip. “This bitch is heavy.”

Jasmine kicked at him.

“You guys are still looking for the manual about Jaden Jacks, right?”

A look passed between them, and for the first time they looked uncomfortable. Kade swallowed hard. “We’re trying, but it’s hard, okay? We can read the Shadow manuals, but every time I think of telling you the information, it all gets muddled in my head. I put the manual back, and five minutes later I can’t remember where I put it.”

“Our short-term memory is blitzed.”

“Like Alzheimer’s for kids.”

I frowned, forgetting all about Ginny and coffee mugs and kids in bags. “That doesn’t make sense. I can read any Shadow manual I want. It’s just a matter of finding the right one.”

“Maybe, maybe not. After all, how will you know if you never come across it?”

They were right. It was like the tree-falling-in-a-forest scenario. Would it make a sound if there was no one there to hear it?

“Either way, I don’t think we’re supposed to help you. Sorry.”

“Wait, wait.” I held out a hand, biting my lip. The boys looked at me attentively, and even Jasmine stilled. “Okay, try something else for me, then. I need to know if there’s ever been a Shadow woman targeting men who…” How to clean this up for the preteen set? I wondered, and then really looked at them, two kidnappers with a girl in a bag at their feet. “Who sell their bodies for money. Call boys, if you will.”

Kade didn’t even blink. “We’ll try, all right? But we should start charging you for this shit. It isn’t like we don’t have better things to do than babysit your broken changeling and research your sexual abnormalities.”

Better things like plugging into their PlayStations. “I know. I appreciate it,” I said, giving them a placating smile, which dropped as they grunted and turned toward the door. With one final thump, they lugged Jasmine around the corner and were gone.

I went back to gather up Ginny’s precious mugs-three in each hand, eight more pressed between my arms and body-noting the closet containing our personal belongings was slightly ajar. I kicked it shut on my way to the storefront, but when I returned for more mugs a minute later, it was open again. A faulty latch? A coincidence? Even before I whipped the door all the way open, I knew I couldn’t get that lucky.

Hunter’s picture was still splayed lewdly on the door, the purses still slumped forlornly next to the cleaning supplies…but eyes like silver swirling moons blinked at me from the dark recesses of the back wall.

“Who’s the hottie?” the doppelganger asked, eyes going slanty as she shifted them toward Hunter’s ad, her gurgling voice sounding hollowly in the closet. Because she didn’t immediately lunge at me, I glanced behind me, and up, spotted the security camera, and figured the suds spilling out onto the floor could be explained away by the cleaning products. A translucent woman with marble moon eyes could not. I began to shut the cabinet.

“Shut that door and I’ll scream so loud, that pudgy mortal will fire you on the spot.”

“So do it,” I said, stepping back, challenging her with words alone. “Because then she’ll come running back here, and that’s the last thing you want. Isn’t it?”

I’d put it together after her appearance in the sanctuary. She’d fled both times my troop had arrived to save me, but not because she was afraid of them. It was because she couldn’t take on my form when distracted by so many other conflicting faces and energies. Confronting me was pointless unless we were alone.

One side of her mouth lifted like it was unattached from the rest of her face, and as unnerving as that was, it was also confirmation I was right.

“So you do exercise that muscle in your head after all. Wouldn’t know it by your flat-footedness back at your sanctuary.” She sneered at the irony, and I didn’t blame her. I’d been no safer there than I was now.

I took another step backward.

“Hey, if you want to soul-stalk someone else, be my guest.” I had mugs to polish.

“It would be significantly easier on us both if you would just figure it out.” She stepped forward, still all iridescent curves, though there seemed to be a sharpness of light that gave her a molten look, like honeyed chrome. She was getting closer to solidifying. “You wouldn’t even try to give me a proper noun.”

Couldn’t, not wouldn’t. The latter implied a choice, and I’d had too few of those lately. I blew out a breath, and she copied the look. “Listen, your attitude and your riddles annoy me. If you’re not going to tell me straight up what you want, then lose my supernatural phone number. I don’t want to hear from you again.”

“I can’t just tell you. It’s a tandem law in both our worlds.” She was annoyed, and it made her voice sound like static and crossed wires, turning her every syllable into a hiss.

“And exactly what other world are we talking about?”

“I told you before.” Her marble eyes rolled a three-sixty. “Midheaven.”

The myth. Great. My imaginary friend came from an imaginary world with imaginary laws. I felt a sudden urge for an imaginary cocktail. “Well, I’m still playing catch-up with our Universe’s”-apparently flexible-“boundaries. Wanna run that rule by me again?”

Her frame was diaphanous in the harsh storeroom light, and parts of her body came in and out of view as she stalked back and forth in front of the closet. “Words, spoken aloud, are given life and vitality. The spoken word