City of Souls

Shit, shit, shit…The scent was that of Shadows…but I saw nothing. They’re on the flip side. Concealed behind a portal.

I backed up in a swift skipping beat, blinked once, then softened my gaze as if looking through the air in front of me.

He was so close I could kiss him. He was especially white, with flat black freckles dotting his cheeks, and looked like he’d be a redhead on this side of reality. I back up more…straight into another Shadow. That one would have grabbed me but for my speed. I raked my heel down his shin on the way to stomping on his foot. My elbow connected with his jaw as he fell. After that I backed up more quickly. The first Shadow continued advancing, not letting me escape, but in no great hurry either.

“The Tulpa wants me alive,” I blurted, expecting to feel another pair of hands on me at any minute. I had no way of knowing how many there were.

The would-be redhead shrugged. “There are lots of ways to hurt an agent and still keep them alive.”

Not for me. I couldn’t easily heal from anything more dangerous than a paper cut…but I had yet to tell my allies that, never mind my enemies. And I wasn’t going to try to stand toe-to-toe and exchange blows. I could barely see the guy, much less guard against him.

I decided to put my formidable speed to the test. Letting a smile I didn’t feel bloom on my face, I looked over the almost see-through shoulder. Sometimes the simplest plans worked best. I bolted even as he turned, on guard for an attack, and shouts sounded behind me. God, there were others. The pounding of their feet in reality’s flip side was as loud and insistent as my own.

I hit Cathedral Way like I was late for mass, but put the skids on as soon as I saw a souped-up Honda wheeling in my direction. Instinct was to run the other way, but instead I backed up to the building’s corner and ducked low. The Shadow chasing me was already turning as fast as I had, and he flipped over the top of my crouched body like he was auditioning for Cirque du Soleil. I was pretty sure that was the only reason the car didn’t immediately run me down. But the Shadow driving it revved the engine in warning.

Obviously I was expected to turn and run. They were herding me away from Gregor’s cab, I realized, which was behind the Honda. I could see its headlights on the other side of the Peppermill and wondered if he saw what was going on not two hundred yards away.

The Tulpa wants me alive.

They were trying to capture me.

I took advantage of my unlikely savior’s prone form and bolted across his body-making sure to land one solid boot heel into his skull as I vaulted over the top of the Honda. It started backing up immediately, but the driver had to shift gears first and that bought me time. I waved my arms as I ran, and Gregor’s headlights flashed in response. He saw me. The cab pulled out, barreled toward me, and swerved at the last moment. I flung open the back door, catapulted myself into the backseat, and yelled from a prone position, “Go, go, go!”

The door swung wide as he smoked rubber to get us going, and I anticipated another attack. Sure enough, an outlined hand clawed its way onto the frame of my open door. Stomping again with my feet, I heard the Shadow scream before falling away, and I pulled up into my seat to yank the door shut. Swiveling, I saw the Honda bounce over two parking blocks and mow down a handicapped sign as it flipped around to follow. Even as we fishtailed in front of the giant Stripside mall, I knew we wouldn’t last long on the boulevard. It was a near straight shot from there to the boneyard, and the street was totally deserted in the wild night. Both things left the faster Honda free to rear-end us.

“We’re too exposed,” I yelled, reeling around to face Gregor. “We’ll never make it all the way to-”

I stuttered off because the long-lashed eyes that met mine in the rearview mirror were most certainly not Gregor’s. The manicured fingers tightening on the wheel were on the right hand, and Gregor only possessed his left. More than anything, the skull burning through the layers of muscle and tissue and skin to skim the surface could only belong to a senior Shadow agent.

“To the boneyard?” the Shadow finished for me, and suddenly I knew what they were doing. She smiled as my eyes widened. “Don’t worry. We’ll still make it.”

The redhead had been the muscle. The other car was just an escort. One filled with Shadows. This one, the lead one, held me. Why? Because I was the only one who could get through the additional security measures Warren had implemented after the last time the Shadows infiltrated the boneyard. Similar to the light that attacked all Shadows if they tried to enter our sanctuary inside the boneyard, this system had to detect Light in order to allow passage.

“Shit.”

The Shadow tapped on the Plexiglas dividing us, letting me know it was unbreakable…even for us. “That’s one way to put it.”

And another way to put it was to say I was surrounded-no, trapped-by my enemies, in a speeding car, without the ability to heal even from the impact of the crash through the wall dividing our realities. The Tulpa might not wish me dead, but chances were, I would still end up that way. It almost made me wish I’d remained in Midheaven. Almost.

Okay, so I didn’t possess any weapons to help me combat the Shadows. I had no allies, no power to heal, no ability to erect walls to shield me from assault, and I was missing something else represented by two mysterious triangles.

I really needed to figure out what those were, I thought, holding tight to the bag holding my remaining powers as we hurtled down Washington Avenue. If I got out of this alive. It was a big if.

The now confirmed fact that the Tulpa did indeed want me alive could be seen as a positive, but as the redheaded Shadow had said, there were a lot of ways to hurt an agent and still keep them alive. So was it good news or bad, I wondered, that I wouldn’t survive the impact of the cab hurtling through cinder block?

Yet the second car couldn’t even attempt that. There were no agents of Light in the Honda, so it would have to stop…which meant we would too. My best guess was that they’d climb in with me before the driver took a run at the wall, like a bull spotting the matador. God, I thought, swallowing hard, I needed more time!

Question was, time for what?

Well, there was enough time to pray, I thought as the car whizzed under the freeway. I guess I could start doing that. Though if God were a cynic, he probably wouldn’t appreciate my last minute scramble.

Time to say good-bye. Thanks for the memories, everyone, it’s been a nice ride…wish I could have stayed around to fulfill my destiny as the savior of the paranormal realm, but you know how these things go. Yeah, I thought, clenching my fists. That was so me. Going gently into the night.

Time to think of dwindling options. Regret not getting another shower of Micah’s fortifying preservative.

Nah, that was just depressing.

Time to imagine something new.

That thought snagged my attention. I tilted my head as the driver smiled at me through the rearview mirror and went back to that thought again.

It was true that I could no longer form the concrete walls from mere thought in order to shield me from the Shadows, but with a mortal’s flesh, concrete wasn’t my best friend right now anyway. Yet there was another option. Another risky, long shot of an option since I’d only succeeded in creating it on a small scale before. But it too was an ability only afforded the Light. Shadows couldn’t do it because it involved a sort of birthing, and beings that were essentially dead inside couldn’t bring something outside of themselves to life. But this meant they wouldn’t be expecting it, I thought, closing my eyes. It was chancy, but that-along with the element of surprise-was pretty much all that was left in my paranormal arsenal.

“Hey. Hey! What are you doing?” I felt the weight of the Shadow’s gaze as we barreled past Bunkers Mortuary, but kept my own eyes closed. I settled my senses and mind as much as possible, and began imagining the softest, most succulent, most enormous cactus buried below the dusty earth in front of the Neon Boneyard’s entrance. It was a Joshua tree, native to the area-which was important-and I pictured its fibers as being silk-soft, airy, and far less dense than a tree grown from seed. That would absorb the impact of the vehicle. I conceived it, and more importantly, I believed in it-which was key to its creation.

Joshua trees are normally top-heavy with a shallow root, so I reinforced the base of this one-I didn’t want it toppling to allow access into the wall just beyond-and then I visualized the branches lower, to match the driver’s height. As I continued to imagine this, the car veered to a halt. I needed to have most of the cactus conceptualized before the others clambered in. Once there, they’d never let me continue my meditation. The driver was already