The Touch of Twilight

for months, and I eyed the dusty ground nervously. It was the one spot that could be tested.

“Star signs, draw the line of defense.”

Every fist, save Warren’s and mine, suddenly held a weapon; a whip, military fork, mace, clawed hand fan, surgeon’s steel, palm-sized grapnel, edged boomerang, and a shiny new dental saw. Warren hadn’t used a weapon beyond his own body and mind for years, ever since he’d had to draw down on his own father. But I slipped my hand beneath my robe…and pulled out the animist’s mask instead.

Jewell, opposite me, was the first to notice. “Olivia, what are you doing?”

One by one the other star signs turned my way. I glanced up as the roof of the sky suddenly lowered, cirrus clouds clamoring for prime spots over the little canyon. “Putting on the only weapon I’m going to need.”

Though I was expecting the kick of power this time, the mask still knocked me back a few steps as it bound itself to my skull. Pure power pooled through my temples, divining my purpose, my expectations, my future actions…starting with those I’d take in the next second. I relaxed, calming the breath as it ran through my body, and waited for the chaos to settle. Finally the inner world fell silent and the slate blank. Power rumbled through the canyon, but that was only the thunder gathering overhead, sending ozone to slip through the mouth hole and lick at my lips.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t tell the troop what I was seeing. The future assailing me behind the mask was too near, and it’d be too easy for them to lose perspective. The same sort of revelation was what made amateur fortune-tellers and going to psychics so dangerous. It wasn’t that their advice was evil or wrong, but even the right information doled out in the wrong moment led to poor decision making, or in some cases, no decision at all. The agents of Light needed to act, and do so in unyielding agreement according to the knowledge they currently possessed, and no more. If the vision in the mask was to come true, I had to be careful about exactly how much I revealed.

Yet my pulse jumped once my vision cleared and I caught the stares of disdain and surprise-coupled with a skein of burgeoning fear-all of which made me itchy with the need for action. But it wasn’t time; it wasn’t the kairotic moment. Not yet.

Kimber’s somber piety fled her and her head snapped up over the golden cowl of her robe, hood slipping back so her hair looked star white in the deepening night. “Goddammit, she’s trying to make this about her!”

“I’ve already metamorphosed once and it was enough, thank you.” They couldn’t view my scowl behind the mask, but it couldn’t stifle the sarcasm.

“Then what are you doing, Olivia?” Tekla said sharply. “Metamorphosis is a sacred ceremony requiring the troop to act as one. You’re to do what you’re told, remain in formation, and never, ever act or speak out of turn!”

“Uh-huh,” I said absently, as color flared behind my eyelids. The mask was agitated, fate momentarily unwritten-destiny up in the air-but then it settled and I breathed a sigh of relief. As the blinders of the future lifted, I swiveled to regard Tekla. “Do you happen to have the time?”

“What?”

“Never mind.” I glanced up at the sky to find a perfectly formed hole in the clouds, a funnel revealing a ringed moon on the high side. The air was thicker than it’d been even a minute ago, and farther off, a giant nexus of thunder began rolling our way. Time, and other fluid, manipulative elements, were drawing nearer. Deciding to err on the side of caution, I put my fingers to my lips and sent a piercing whistle knifing through the canyon.

“Are you nuts?” Felix asked, from my other side. “Do you want the world to know we’re out here?”

“Which world?” I muttered darkly, as I lifted my head to the two figures stepping onto the lip of the ridge above us. Feeling the air current, sensing the motion, the rest of the troop whirled as well.

“Chandra?” said Micah, because she wasn’t supposed to be here.

“Archer?” Warren growled, demanding an explanation through the question. Again, as one, the troop whirled my way.

“You told us to partner up.” I shrugged. “So we have.”

Chandra managed a nervous smile as she held tight to the bound Shadow agent, but I could see she was already faltering. I’d only told her enough to convince her to help me, but even that would doom us if she revealed it too soon. Zell groaned, eyes edging my way before rolling to white. His shirt was a mess, ripped and bloodied from his earlier struggle against us, and his labored breathing infused the air with the acrid scent of his pain in sharp, floating puffs.

“This is a metamorphosis,” Tekla said lowly, and her outrage seeped like oil into the briny air. “It’s not meant as a kill spot.”

“No, but as you know they’re sometimes one and the same,” I answered just as coldly.

There were a handful of gasps, and Tekla blanched at the untimely reminder of her son’s death. Despite her shocked wobble, I kept my eye on her. She had more usable power in her pinky finger than I did in my entire body.

“You’re grandstanding,” she managed in a ragged whisper.

“I’m not.” Without taking my gaze from Tekla’s, I said, “Tell them, Zell.”

Zell swallowed hard, like his throat was working against the rest of his body, and blood bubbled from the side of his mouth as his eyes rolled again. “They’re coming,” he croaked.

“Who…?”

But the chaos I’d been privy to in the confines of the mask suddenly made itself known in a resounding crack, and the thick sky still gathering to welcome Kimber into the Zodiac was rent apart by a new splintering power. And when every single glyph in the circle flared to life, they all knew who.

Kimber whimpered in the center of our circle, her face turned toward the unnatural roil of smoke as it filled in the gaps between the battered clouds. The furious expression that’d met my appearance was gone, and in its place was stark, palpable fear. “Oh God.”

“Stay centered.” Warren put a hand on her shoulder as she started to move, but removed it immediately. Ozone was gathering around her, and enough elemental power would soon assault her body that it could kill even him. There was nothing she could do, and nowhere to run or escape. At her moment of metamorphosis she’d be frozen where she stood, easy pickings for the swarm headed our way. And it was too late anyway. The clouds pinpointed her location, revealing her existence to the heavens…and anyone else who might be watching. “And stay low. It’ll be better that way.”

“But the Shadows…”

The Shadows appeared over the ridge of the bright little canyon, glyphs smoking on their chests as they circled us in a living ring. We turned outward as one, backs toward Kimber, moving in as tightly as we could. There were a number of Shadows I’d never seen in person before, ones who’d gradually taken the place of the four I’d sent to an early grave. Ronan was the new Aries who, for some reason, had an affection for dressing as a modern-day pirate. Too much Jack Sparrow in his cinematic diet, I gathered. Harrison was the Shadow Virgo, and like Ajax before him, he had a build to match his slim, sharp weapon, a fencing sword. En garde. Little was known about the Aquarian, Tariq, who, as the Shadows’ newest member, had replaced my former mortal enemy. On the other hand, I knew everything I needed to about the Piscean Shadow. I’d encountered Adele spiking the drink of a sorority sister weeks earlier, then setting the poor girl loose in a notorious “gentlemen’s club.” She’d obviously escaped me then, but not unscathed. The new limp would’ve gone better with Ronan’s disguise.

Regan had taken up the five o’clock position, and though her stance widened, her arms were crossed as if the outcome of this contest had already been decided. Yet, as alert as I was to her presence, nothing about her called to me, and I knew she hadn’t brought my conduit. She wouldn’t risk losing it to me or her ally agents, who wouldn’t hesitate to seize the opportunity to steal it from her. The chance to erase the Kairos’s existence from the earth was too great to resist. Yet, in the next pulse-pounding moment, even that concern, along with Regan, was forgotten.

He appeared directly opposite Chandra, positioning himself above the statue of the Christian savior…and well above all of us. This time he wore the flesh suit of an absentminded college professor, his day-old stubble and haphazard hair accented by loafers, a vest, and the expression of someone who’d just looked up from a particularly engrossing text. It was all at once thoughtful, faraway…and calculating.

If he were mortal, I thought, he would’ve been called slight and almost considered handsome. But with liquid power causing his hair to stand on end and kindling his eyes into fiery silver and onyx globes, what he looked was invincible.