a nickname on me that only Zoe had known. Once she fled I also realized she’d been less physically stable under the collective stares of the entire troop. She was morphing under our influence, which told me she didn’t leave because she was afraid of us, merely because she couldn’t become you in our presence. The Tulpa too has trouble materializing under the influence of multiple stares and expectations.”
I felt my face crumple with confusion. “And you didn’t help me?”
“It wasn’t my help that was needed.” The calmness in his voice didn’t transfer to me. Instead it infuriated me, driving home how at odds his personality was with his deceiving appearance. He looked like a have-not in a city built for the haves, and beneath that, a leader bowing to the wishes of his troop. But looking even deeper, I saw the craftiness accompanying his words, his every act. “I needed to stay out of your way. I cleared a path by ordering Chandra to let you go out alone, then I sent you out into the world so Zoe, or her creation, would continue to reach out to you.”
He sounded so fucking proud of it. “You used me as bait.”
“It was necessary to see if she’d contact you.”
“It was ruthless.”
“She was getting desperate.”
And it was telling that he didn’t know I was speaking about him.
“What about the mask? Did you know what it could do as well?”
His pride, even his features, sank at that. “Of course not. I really thought we’d stolen that mask out from under his nose. The visions of victory seen by our troop while wearing it made me believe it was the tool allowing the Tulpa to anticipate and counteract so many of our actions.”
What about my visions? Or didn’t I count because I was still part Shadow?
“You fucked up, Warren,” I said, wanting to be hurtful and harsh.
“Big time,” he freely admitted, which pissed me off all the more. I held my breath, bottled my emotion, and looked away.
And after a minute, I softened. I knew as well as anyone that we all acted from the information we had at the time. The thing that made us most like the mortals we sought to protect was that despite our abilities and powers, we could still only choose rightly, work blindly, and hope for the best. My own actions-seizing the kairotic moment- had required not the work of the body I’d honed for years in anticipation of physical battle, but faith, and the work of my soul.
But as for Warren…
“You let me keep Ben,” I said in a whisper, “merely so I wouldn’t be distracted.”
It meant he’d have taken Ben from me earlier if it wouldn’t have interfered with my focus on the doppelganger.
“I bought Skamar time to form, to contact you, and gave you the opportunity to bring the third sign of the Zodiac to life. Of course that backfired a bit. The Tulpa couldn’t wait for you to act, so he began to draw on his mortal beards for more power in tracking and fighting the doppelganger.”
“Like Xavier,” I said, remembering the thin frame on the giant man.
“How is Mr. Archer these days, anyway?”
I looked at him sharply. So he knew I’d gone to check. Warren always knew far more than he ever let on. Why hadn’t I kept that in mind?
“Better. Still an ass.” And undergoing his own metamorphosis. Xavier Archer appeared to be giving Howard Hughes a run for his reclusive billions. He wasn’t even leaving his house for meetings anymore. But I pushed that concern out of my mind. “He’s not my responsibility.”
“As much as any other mortal.”
I stared at the man who demanded so much of me, who pulled levers and pushed buttons behind emerald green curtains, and he shrugged. But it was true enough. I thought of Helen, a.k.a. Lindy Maguire, and knew I’d have to take care of Xavier’s pushy, bitchy, stank-ass housekeeper sooner rather than later. But it wouldn’t have anything to do with Xavier Archer’s well-being.
“Yes,” I said, taking my cue from him, deciding to hide a little more of what I was all about. “But no more.”
“No less.”
Despite Warren’s words, the urge to fight drained from me. Did I really have a right to be angry with him? I’d known he always put the good of the troop above that of the individual. I’d been lucky my desires had coincided with that thus far. God help me if they ever did not, I thought, and couldn’t contain my shiver as I watched him recline against the concrete hill, the duster of his coat flapping as cars and an errant gust from a far-off battle sped past. I was glad I hadn’t told him of Ashlyn’s existence.
But I’d do it if he took one limping step near her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I told him, turning again.
“Dawn or dusk?”
“Dusk.” Loneliness suddenly gored me, expelling breath from my gut, and as it passed through my chest, by my heart, I thought I felt a crack. I glanced back, knowing Warren had scented it, but he must have interpreted it, and my expression, as regret over losing Ben. He was beside me before I blinked.
“It’s the right thing,” he said, strong hand on my arm.
I shook off his touch and wrapped my arms around my middle in the encroaching night. I felt the sudden need to go somewhere safe, but we’d already missed the even splitting of this day’s light, so crossing into the sanctuary was out. Cher and her mother had only returned from Fiji the day before, but they weren’t too far from here. It’d be good to forget about supernatural politics for at least a little while. Perhaps it would even distract from the loss of Ben. No matter what, I had to get away from Warren.
“No,” I told him, turning my mind back to the image of Ben lying crumpled at my feet, second-guessing the wisdom in handing him over to Micah. He hadn’t looked like the man I’d wanted him to be, the one I’d been desperate to save and love and live the picket-fence, one-point-two-children, nine-to-five lifestyle with. Instead he’d looked like a cutout of himself, like the paper dolls I’d played with as a child, imposing the clothes and background and life I wanted them to have.
Had I become that already? I wondered, thinking of the last mortal I’d struck on the head. Since I was the primary benefactress of the head trauma unit, the hospital director had kept me apprised of Laura Crucier’s condition. She had emerged from her coma the previous weekend, and with time and patience and care, was expected to make a full recovery. I sighed in relief at that, though it still didn’t answer my question.
Was I really someone who so easily plucked others from their chosen existence because it suited my own needs? Someone who so quickly accepted it as my right just because I was stronger and could do so? Because that would mean I was like Warren, moving people around like pawns, though he did so with superheroes as well as mortal men.
“No.” I sighed again, the question still brightly unanswered in my mind. “But it’s the wrong thing for the right reason.”
31
“Hey, asshole,” I called out the next day, banging the handbell on the glass countertop at least a dozen times. The pitter-patter of giant, corn-riddled feet thundered down the hall, and I smiled wryly to myself. Seconds later, Zane trundled into the comics shop, sneer already in place.
“Get out. We’re closing early.”
“Because it’s Nevada Day?” I asked, eyes all wide, blue innocence.
“Because it’s Halloween.”
“All the kiddies run off to play with friends their own age? I guess trick-or-treating gets old after seven or so decades.” I slapped a Shadow manual onto the countertop, and Zane flipped it around to stare at the cover like he
