“Still working on that, sir.”
I did sag then. I couldn’t help it. This was salvageable. Warren and Micah could amend Ashlyn’s birth records. They could convince her adoptive parents to move, as they’d done once before. Of course, that was when Warren had believed she was only a mortal infant targeted by the Shadow side.
I’d have to tell him, I realized. That she was my daughter. A future Archer. And Warren-a man who’d told me to venture into a soul- and power-stealing world in search of a Shadow who was really Light-would take Ashlyn, almost ten and completely oblivious of her paranormal future, away from everything she’d ever known.
“And Joanna’s new identity?” His voice was deadly soft now, like snow falling. “Who is she now, while freely roaming my city?”
Regan hesitated. “Allow me to return to the Shadow troop, and I’ll tell you.”
A soft sulfuric sigh. “Your sign has already been filled by a new Leo.”
“Kill him,” she replied without hesitation. No, destroyed body or not, Regan hadn’t changed at all.
“Tell me Joanna’s cover identity,” the Tulpa countered.
“No.”
Smoke-instant, hot and venomous-roiled in the tunnel. I fought not to cough. Fortunately, Regan’s pained hacking covered my own small sounds. The toxic smoke had to burn against those raw, festering wounds. Had it been anyone else, I’d have felt sorry for them.
“You insufferable little-”
“Kill me now,” she coughed, “and you’ll never know.”
Silence. A moment where his emotions could have tipped either way. “Clever, Regan.”
“You’ve no use for anyone who is not.” Relief oozed around the sibilant hiss of her shredded tongue. She sounded, I thought, like a different species altogether.
“True. But if this information isn’t entirely correct, I’ll make sure the rest of your days are spent as nothing more than a beating heart encased in bone.”
“But if any small bit leads to her capture,” she negotiated, “from her residence to her associates, then I’ll be allowed to return. And repair.”
A moment’s hesitation, coupled with a considering breath. “I can do that.”
I closed my eyes, head drooping.
“Additionally, I promise this: I’ll deliver her to you alive.”
“How?” The noxious scent had receded, like the Tulpa had pulled it back into his pores, but a puff of it returned in that one disbelieving word. “You can’t go out in public. Even at night she’ll scent you out.”
A shrug seeped into her voice. “Except I have a new friend.”
“A goat?” the Tulpa asked, referring derisively to our mortal helpers. “Another changeling?”
“Better. An agent of Light.”
The Tulpa sucked in a surprised breath. And I couldn’t breathe at all.
“Do we have a deal?”
There was no hesitation now, just another sharp scraping along the floor. “Take back her conduit. Use it as bait and leverage in leading her to me. She’s desperate for it.”
“Unfortunately for you both,” said another, new flowing voice, an unexpected bloom. “It has absolutely no effect on me.”
Skamar charged. Wind lit through the tunnel like a match thrown on gasoline. The two tulpas careened past me, clawing and snarling as they rolled over one another before slamming into the dead end. The impact shook the entire pipeline, and dislodged me from my hidey-hole. My feet swung down, one hand slipping from its rung.
Spotting the movement, Regan gasped.
“Oops.” My glyph burst to life.
She fired.
Too late to drop, I swung. The bolt clipped my chaps and pinned my left leg to the wall.
“No!” Skamar barreled into Regan so quickly the Shadow ricocheted off her, bounced against a wall and fell still.
I whipped my head the other way. The Tulpa’s eyes, literally, lit on me.
“Got him!” Skamar pinballed back the other way. “Go!”
As the tulpas again collided, I yanked the bolt from where it was embedded in the wall and dropped to a crouch on the fetid floor. Ahead of me, Regan was rising. Flipping the crossbow bolt in my hand, I wound up like hometown hero Greg Maddox and let it fly.
My pitching arm was no better over here than it’d been in the Rest House. I didn’t hit Regan’s torso…but I did nick her arm, and she screamed as her flesh endured yet more injury. Then she ran.
“I like these odds better.” And leaving my bag tied to the rungs, and the tulpas battling like rabid wolves behind me, I gave chase.
14
Though I could no longer see Regan, I tracked her scent easily. It wound through the pipeline like a rancid ribbon, her fear and pain so heightened there might as well have been a bloody arrow pointing in her direction. Sure, she had my crossbow, but I’d appeared out of nowhere, and she couldn’t be sure I was alone.
Her instinct to play it safe married well with my pent-up need to hunt.
One last slithering corner and the tunnel’s mouth came into view. I burst into a full sprint because I knew that once outside, Regan’s scent would scatter. If she moved fast enough, she could disappear in the shifting wind. I slowed into a quick sidestep as I neared the entrance, but still managed to barrel square into the figure who pivoted into my path, like a shadow eclipsing the sun.
I immediately began swinging. Strong arms absorbed, deflected, and eventually held mine. “God! You’re here!”
I looked up. “Hunter?”
His eyes searched mine wildly. “Geez, are you okay?”
“Move.” I pushed him aside, sniffing as I risked a peek from the tunnel. Though still dark, the sky was a night- light compared to the pitch of the pipeline behind me. “Which way did she go?”
“Who? What?”
“Regan! She was here-can’t you smell her?”
“I smell tunnel water and blood, and most of it’s coming off you. Uh, why are you dressed like that?”
I reeled, and almost pushed him out of frustration. “She came out this way!”
He held up a hand, shaking his head. “Jo, I’ve been standing watch all night. We’ve been scouring the pipeline ever since Warren told us he thought you’d gone into Midheaven. No one even came near this entrance.”
“But the Tulpa-”
The Tulpa rocketed into the sky in a wheeling screech of power that had me cringing even from a distance. His ascent was followed by a comet, Skamar, burning a bright rainbow on the night sky.
I sighed and let my body sag. “The Tulpa was down there.”
And Regan had been as well. I tried not to sulk over the lost opportunity. Maybe this had flushed her from the pipeline. She’d be easier to find out in the open.
“Holy hell.” Hunter was still watching the rupturing sky, the tulpas in the distance now, cutting a path like a black rainbow. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, he didn’t see me until it was too late. I had my mask on the whole time.”
I removed it now and ran a hand over my damp forehead. Hunter ordered me to wait while he looked around, though I could tell he still didn’t believe me about Regan.
This was a different drain than the one I’d entered, I saw, and I took in a deep breath along with the view of an abandoned cardboard shelter, blissing out as an icy breeze caressed my chapped skin. It was colder than when I’d breached Midheaven, like the temperature had dropped twenty degrees in the hours I’d been gone-though it was probably only in contrast to the relentless heat of that other world.
“Like returning from a trip to the moon,” I murmured, letting my eyes fall shut. I was happy I’d returned at
