City of Souls

you. That shit can save your life!”

I thought of all the other shit that was supposed to be helping me too. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. I’ve got to find a tulpa, walk the ‘line,’ enter Midheaven, and find a Shadow agent…and the only clue is a badly written murder ballad?”

He pursed his lips, then shrugged. “Pretty much.”

I hit the ledge again. “Good-bye, Zane.”

“Don’t come back here, Archer. Not unless you’ve fixed this.”

Twisting, I cocked a fist on my hip, but my brows drew together when I saw what he was holding aloft. It was a beat-up photo of a freckle-faced boy, sandy-haired and lanky with youth. I’d never seen the kid before, but I knew who he was. Zane would only carry a worn photo of one kid with him at all times. “Jacks’ changeling.”

“His name was Ricky,” he said, voice edged in granite. “And I don’t want to lose any more.”

He meant changelings. Jaw clenched, I swallowed hard. “You haven’t lost this one yet.”

And I was going to do everything in my power to make sure we didn’t. Even if it meant entering a fabled world armed with nothing but a song.

6

Though finding a way to bring the fourth sign of the Zodiac to life was currently my greatest worry, it wasn’t my only one. Despite my rebirth last November as Olivia, and as a twenty-first century superheroine, what was really surprising were the things that hadn’t changed. For example, the Tulpa still sported a hard-on for my mother’s death, my mother continued to elude him, and I was still forced to interact with the enigmatic, powerful-and recently reclusive-Xavier Archer.

An anonymous note this time last year-one I now knew had been sent by the Shadows-had relieved us both of the notion that Xavier was my real father. Of course, the note failed to mention that my real father was the Tulpa, but that was because the Tulpa hadn’t known of my existence either.

Was there anything, I thought wryly, that my mother couldn’t make disappear?

So I wheeled down Las Vegas’s most famous sun-baked street and returned to the site of Suzanne’s opulent bridal shower the night before. Valhalla was Xavier’s premiere hotel, and though ironic, I had to put in an appearance here just so I could safely disappear later. I needed the Olivia identity, and I couldn’t risk drawing anyone’s attention by switching up my routine without notice.

So despite my newfound power, status, and knowledge, I still had to kowtow to a mortal man I hated. There was a silver lining, though. Everything belonging to Xavier also belonged to the Tulpa. My real father was my fake father’s benefactor. In return for money, Xavier fronted the Tulpa’s many businesses. My ultimate goal? Bring them both down…but in order to do that, I had to stick close to a man I’d despised for years. Xavier.

So that’s one of the reasons why Olivia Archer-casino heiress and social debutante-regularly worked an eight- hour shift where she’d earn less than she’d spend on a bottle of wine. It was another way to get inside Valhalla’s hallowed walls, which we believed was the headquarters for the Tulpa’s organization. Xavier had initially refused me, and then, when he realized I wouldn’t be swayed, started me in the gift shop, hoping that would cure this inexplicable whim to actually work for a living. It hadn’t-I wanted more than spending money; I wanted retribution- and so the news that he wanted to see me at his home office before my shift even began had me holding back a smile…and had Ginny, my small-minded boss, grinding her teeth.

“Maybe he wants to give me a raise,” I told her with false excitement. More likely he was going to move me to a new, more socially appropriate department now that I’d proven I wasn’t giving up. Ginny huffed and turned away while my coworker, Janet, gave me a hopeful thumbs-up. I hoofed it down to Uniforms, used the adjacent locker room to change into a more Oliviaesque outfit, and handed in my work clothes for a fresh set that I might or might not need the next day. I locked these away in my appointed locker-I couldn’t be caught ferrying around a Valhalla uniform if a Shadow did happen to track me-then headed to my car in the employee lot, where I was both surprised, and not, to find Felix waiting.

“You my babysitter?” I asked, purposely keeping my tone light. Anything heavy looked like it would knock him over. He was dressed in his usual jeans, with a faded gray T-shirt, untucked, and hair streaked with caramel highlights, deliberately unbrushed. But the expression on his face wasn’t one I’d ever seen on him before. He’d aged a decade since the night before.

“Yes, and you’ve been naughty,” he tried, but his grin slipped from his new face. “Come here and let me give you a spanking.”

“My daddy would kick your ass if you tried,” I said softly.

“Your daddy wants to kick my ass anyway.” He snorted. “And yours, for that matter.”

I put a hand to his arm, steadying us both for my question. “Vanessa?”

“Micah’s taking care of her.” Tears welled so quickly, they’d clearly been lurking beneath the surface. “It’s going to take time, though.”

I nodded because there was nothing to say. Normally we healed in an instant from mortal wounds. But there was nothing normal about what the Shadows had done to Vanessa. “I’m so sorry, Felix.”

“It’s not your fault.”

I shook my head. “They were angling for me, and I broke the safe zones, plus-”

“Jo!” His voice must have come out even more loudly than he intended, because even he jumped. “They’re Shadows. They’d have done it anyway.”

I hesitated, biting my lip. “I saw you, Felix. When Warren told us they wanted to make a trade, Vanessa for me…” I didn’t look away when he flushed because I wanted him to know I’d seen…and I understood.

He looked me in the eye then, so serious it was like I didn’t know him. I didn’t know him, I realized in the next moment. Vanessa’s torture had changed him. He looked more like Hunter now; something had touched him in a way that he would always bear a scar. I too had the same sort of scar. “No. Warren was right. No matter what they did to Vanessa, we wouldn’t have made a trade. Not even a lateral one, agent for agent. And certainly not for…”

The Kairos. I cringed. The title didn’t make me feel special…and it certainly didn’t make me feel like the savior of the supernatural underworld. Instead it made me feel like a thing rather than a person. Again, all I could say was “I’m sorry.”

He looked down, and the warrior-look disappeared in the slump of his shoulders.

“Warren doesn’t know I’m here,” he said, blurting the confession out like it was burning his tongue. “He told us about Midheaven after you left. That he’d always known it existed, that he’d kept it from us for our own good.”

I wasn’t surprised. “Did anyone ask about the Shadow side?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, did they know about Midheaven even while we didn’t?”

Felix’s brows drew down like he didn’t understand why that was important, so I knew that no one had thought to bring it up. It was significant, though, because if the Shadows knew of it, and Jacks had disappeared with his changelings all those years ago, then he could have found the perfect way around our restriction upon leaving the valley. Jacks, and the kid, could be in Midheaven. So I bet that’s what Warren had been referring to when he said the answer to fixing Jas-fixing our world-was in that one.

I was so taken by the thought that I almost missed Felix’s whisper. “I think I hate him.”

I looked at him sharply, taken aback. “Who? Warren?”

Jaw set, he nodded. I swallowed hard, then nodded back in return. I don’t think Felix meant it, but he thought he did. I’d known, or at least suspected for a while, that Warren kept secrets from us. He so often wanted things his way, no questions asked, no explanation given. No wonder Felix was pissed. How often had Warren gotten what he wanted by omission? There was an entire world out there, sidled up next to our own, yet it had taken the destruction of our safe zones for him to even mention it.

Which meant he was probably hiding even more.

Not wanting to fuel an already volatile anger, I veered course a bit. “He didn’t happen to tell you how to get to Midheaven, did he?”

Felix cursed under his breath. “You know Warren.”