The Touch of Twilight

28

Despite Zell’s resistance-his conduit, his cries, his fists, his blood-my next great feat actually took longer… probably because I couldn’t just whip Chandra into doing what I asked. I found her huddled over a microscope at the Sky-Chem drug testing facility, her cover in the mortal world and where she snuck in on the weekends to do the reconnaissance we needed while not surrounded by curious coworkers and bossy supervisors.

I knew she’d be here, distracting herself with work to keep her mind off where the rest of the troop was, what we were doing, and how badly she wanted to be a part of it. It was for that last reason only that I eventually succeeded in convincing her to go along with my plan.

“It’s too risky,” she still argued, but she was locking up as she said it.

“It’s the best way, Chandra. And if we succeed, when we do, we’ll have done something previously unimagined. We’ll topple a troop.” I smiled grimly as she turned to face me. “It’ll be in manuals in every city the world over.”

“I don’t care about that!” she snapped so quickly I almost believed her. I kept silent as she whirled away, afraid one more word would have her reaching to call Warren…and then I really would have to hurt her.

She paced, biting her bottom lip, running her hand through her hair so much it stood up like a troll doll’s. Finally she jerked her head, and I followed her to the parking lot for the long drive to Cathedral Canyon.

Blue Diamond Road was markedly different at night than during the day, and as we left the city glittering behind us, we fell off into disembodied blackness, only the cab of our car lit by the steady glow of our console, silence as deep as the night.

I’d once thought myself a stranger to darkness. Growing up in a twenty-four-hour town was a lot like going to bed with the ultimate nightlight on. Sure, there were untouched parcels of desert still sunk like inky pockets within the sprawling city boundaries, and the terrain surrounding that shiny core fell away abruptly into an inflexible vacuum of time and space, but that only made Vegas appear all the more like an island unto itself. Because on that island was undying luminosity. You could make your way across the valley simply by following landmark after shining landmark alone.

I first went camping when I was seven, an event fueled by my own incessant nagging and questions about why we never left town on family trips. Of course, now I knew why. As a full-fledged Zodiac member my mother could no longer physically cross state lines, or even enter another town, but she did her best to fulfill my wish, taking us to a campground in mountains I didn’t know existed so close to the desert. The camping trip was a resounding success, but on the way back I cowered in the backseat of the car as we hurtled into a darkness cut only by the beam of our headlights. Olivia slept soundly beside me, her breathing drowned out by the speed of our wheels on the asphalt road, and the report of other cars as they rocketed by us in the opposite direction. I watched them disappear through the back window, their taillights growing smaller until they popped like the dot on an old television and disappeared completely. It was, I remember thinking, as if they’d never been. There were houses in those mountains too. I saw a chimney smoking, a strong rooftop peeking out from the firs, and the occasional light winking in some far-off window, looking lonely and too isolated to stand for long.

“Why,” I had asked my mother, greatly concerned when we passed yet another one of these disturbing homes, “do these people live in the dark?”

“Humans are creatures of habit,” my mother said, her voice a comfort in that small heated space. “People do what they know, what they’ve always done, because it’s a comfort to them. Perhaps they live in a dark place because that’s where their parents lived, and their grandparents, and theirs before them.”

“I would never live in the dark. No matter where you used to live.”

She turned in her seat, hands upon the wheel, the lights from the dashboard illuminating half her face, lengthening the amused smile that lingered there. “Yes, but if you were born in darkness, born to darkness, you wouldn’t know the difference.”

“I’d know there was no light,” I said, as she turned back around. I heard a sigh stream from her chest.

“The absence of a thing doesn’t tell you about its nature, Joanna. Its lack robs you even of a comparison. You’d have no idea what you were missing; you’d only know that there was…” She paused, searching for the right word, then gestured to the landscape hidden beyond the sweep of our headlights. “A void.”

“A void?” I repeated, frowning, not sure of the word, much less if I agreed. But my mother was wrong about few things. “Well, do you think people who live in the dark want some light?”

I couldn’t see her face, just the outline of her shoulders as she slumped against her seat and stared out into the night. Her voice, however, went soft, almost like she was afraid of the sound. There was no force behind the words, as if whispering them would keep them within the confines of this car.

“Yes, Joanna,” she murmured. “They covet the light more than anything.”

It was one of those answers a child was ever frustrated in understanding. One of the ones that, if pushed, would be explained away with an unsatisfying You’ll understand when you’re older. I knew I was missing something important, something she wouldn’t explain to me, and that made me sulk.

“Well, I’m never going to live in the dark. I’ll live in Las Vegas forever!”

She turned again, and this time her face was absent of all humor. “No matter where you live or how many streetlamps there are, no matter how many hours of sunlight there are in the day, or neon bulbs torching the skyline, every place at one time or another is touched by darkness. And every person.”

Well, she knew better than most, I thought, as Chandra and I hurtled forward on a similar journey. A lesser person would’ve been consumed by all that darkness too. I couldn’t help wondering what would’ve happened to me, what path I’d have chosen, if I’d been through all my mother had before me.

At least I knew Warren was right. My mother was still out there. Somewhere. She was working to do what she could to help the troop, and me, fight the Tulpa. And she’d go on doing it too, all the way up until her death. I would do the same, I swore, fists clenching on my thighs. Even if that death was only minutes away.

It didn’t matter how warm it was on any given October day, by the time midnight came around, the desert air crept in like an invisible fog to send residents and tourists alike scurrying for the indoors, its icy fingers pulling the heat from the city’s sizzling lights as it swept through the streets. It was even colder out where the wild desert air originated, the brittle breeze snapping over cacti and bramble in the same way reality could snap in the palm of an uncaring being.

It was this thought, more than the biting cold, that caused me to shiver as I stepped from Zell’s car at Cathedral Canyon. The other agents of Light were already waiting in the shimmering little gorge, the scent of their initial impatience crowded out by a greater worry, and finally relief as I appeared over the lip of the ridge. Just as I’d seen in the mask four hours earlier.

“I’d have called,” I told Warren as he met me at the top of the rickety wooden staircase, “but you said no cells.”

We only spoke about these locations face-to-face, usually in the safety of the sanctuary. The life of the agent being reborn into their star sign depended on the security of that information. During the metamorphosis itself, the rest of the Zodiac troop also formed a circle around him or her, partly for ceremony’s sake, but mostly for additional protection. The circle had been breached before, and if my mental dip into the future was right, it would be breached again tonight.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Warren said impatiently. “Here are your robes. The others are already waiting.”

I ignored the censure in his voice and draped the robes over my arm as I wordlessly made my way down the zigzagged staircase. It was a time for picking battles, and I needed to save my energy for the one to come.

Tekla was overseeing the troop formation and Kimber was already centered in the widest part of the canyon, the initiate’s gold robe shimmering spectacularly even among the chips of stained glass and stars. Everyone else was robed in white, and I slipped mine over my head as I passed by Hunter…not a coincidence. It would be hard to face him at any time, but right now I had to focus. I halted on the spot indicated by Tekla, immediately recognizing that we were arranged in the order of the Zodiac wheel. First came Hunter, the Aries, joined next by Warren, our Taurus. Then Jewell, Gregor, and Vanessa, all evenly spaced and somber. Micah was next, though there was a large gap next to him where Kimber would stand as the new Libra when her metamorphosis was complete. Tekla and I were followed by Felix and Riddick, with the empty Piscean spot our only weakness. Warren had been trying to fill it