Cheat the Grave

first two out the shattered window, the others following, pummeling Mackie like schoolyard bullies in the moonstruck night.

Chest heaving, I ran to watch for a moment, catching only a glimpse of the dervish, a mass of limbs and fury, but one headed away from me, rather than toward. Within seconds the sound faded, leaving me alone with breath arrowing jaggedly from my chest, my mind numbed but whirling. Somehow, despite having been enclosed in a room with both the Tulpa and Mackie, I was also alive.

Adrenaline coursed through me, banging against the thoughts already careening through my head. How to hide what I knew? How to explain what had happened here? How to convince Lindy and the Tulpa that a sole human woman could have made it out of this room alive?

Yet every question fell away when I whirled to spot Tripp’s tortured body propped against the wall, eyes fixed on me. They were bright with the kind of pain that drained rather than sharpened the senses. He hadn’t much longer to live.

Look what he did for you. I crossed to him, tears instantly welling. More than Warren had ever done. And it was so unexpected-a fucking former Shadow! A man raised to both despise mortals and murder the Light. And he lay dying because he’d protected someone who’d once been both.

“Archer…”

“Shh…” I knelt beside him, earning a pained grunt when I accidentally jostled him, but his gaze remained on mine, aware, coherent, and unwavering. His cowboy hat had come off when he fell, and it was the first time I’d seen him without it. It made him appear naked somehow. Dark sweaty hair plastered itself to his skull in thinning strands, and I swept them back before resettling the hat on his head. His hands were still melted around the silver gun’s barrel, still steaming on his lap too, though it looked like the nerves in his palms had finally shorted out. His chest was another story.

“Oh God, Tripp. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m relieved.” His mouth quirked as I jerked my head up, and he motioned downward with his chin.

I frowned, but released his head gently, then pulled up his pant leg to reveal a bubbling mass of flesh so infected it was nearly writhing. Grimacing at the redness, I covered it again, careful not to touch it. “Mackie’s blade,” I said, suddenly understanding why he’d fought to save me, heedless of his own life. I’d seen the wound before, but hadn’t put the two together. It was already predetermined. I hoped none of the others, once outside, were struck tonight.

“Better to die fightin’.”

I thought so too. Tripp, knowing this, let his head fall back. But just when enough time had passed that I thought he was slipping away, his fevered eyes slitted back open. “Carlos believes in you.”

I averted my gaze. I didn’t want him to feel like his actions had been for nothing, but I couldn’t lie either. I didn’t believe in myself.

Despite his pain, his impending death, Tripp moistened his lips and kept talking. “I got something for you, girl. Been carrying it around with me for when this time came. If you’d please…”

He angled his head at his chest, unable to get to whatever was inside his inner vest pocket. I tried not to look at his smoldering, melted palms, and carefully unbuttoned his vest. Mackie’s inflicted wound already bulged red, like Tripp’s chest was some sort of science experiment gone wrong. His eyes were on my face, so I kept my expression unreadable as I reached inside his pocket to withdraw a plastic bag of slim brown cigarettes. I looked back up into his sweaty, rugged face. “’Cause you don’t think I’ll live long enough for lung cancer to kill me?”

“Them are special cancer sticks. Quirleys. Got ’em from Miss Sola herself.” He frowned at some memory, one that had him drifting off before he jerked his head. “I earned those babies one by one, each costing me a chip she could use to thread the constellations in her night sky.”

“Is this-”

“What I bartered your powers for?” He’d been anticipating the question. “Hell, yeah.”

Cigarettes, I thought as he began to cough painfully. I felt the old anger begin to rise, but there was no real life to it, and it resettled quickly. What did it matter? I’d have given up those powers in order to save Jasmine shortly after anyway. Besides, Tripp and I hadn’t been allies in Midheaven. Over there, it was every soul for himself.

“And it was worth it too,” he continued, anticipating an argument. “I knew one day I’d be coming back here. I knew I’d see my vengeance met…”

But now, fading, he’d seen no such thing. I didn’t correct him, figuring a man should be allowed his dreams in his dying minutes.

“What do they do?” I asked, slipping one from the bag. It tingled against my fingertips, and I released it so it slid back into the bag where bits of loose tobacco glowed.

“You’ll find out when you light one for yerself. Or you could ask your ol’ friend, Micah.”

I glanced at him sharply, hands going still over the quirleys. “This is what you used against Micah? What blackened his skin from the inside out?”

“It festers there, a constant burn beneath the skin. It’s a reminder that even intangible things can be dangerous.”

Tripp’s top lip lifted in a sneer, and for a moment all I saw was Shadow. “Just be sure ’n’ blow out, don’t suck in. You can hold the smoke in your mouth, but let it into your lungs and all that mean intent’ll turn on ya, burning you from the inside out.”

I glanced back down. I had a coating over my organs, a protective spray over my skin, and magical ciggies. All due to Tripp. “Why?” I finally asked, eyes lifting to meet his.

“’Cause I believe in you too,” he said, falling still. “You can do what I cannot. I knew it the first time you stepped foot in Midheaven. It was confirmed when I learned of your dual nature. My goal after that was to keep you alive.”

Because I was his best chance of killing the Tulpa. I fingered the quirleys in their protective pouch, though I didn’t answer.

“Ah, I see.” Tripp’s air let out of him as if through a hose. It rattled as he sucked it back in. “You got nothing to live for, is that it? Or at least nothin’ to fight for? Well, I can help with that too. Though it’ll cost you.”

I lifted a brow. “Cost me what?”

“Nothing too terrible, don’t worry. But first would you like your reason?”

Not a reason. But your reason. Something specific, then. The obvious answer would be yes, but a reason also meant a care in this world. Care meant risk. And risk meant something could be taken from me again. I sighed.

“Will it hurt if I lose it?”

“Not as much as if you lost it without a fight.”

And despite a buried unwillingness, curiosity burst inside me. He was right. I leaned so close his breath mingled with mine.

“Solange was pregnant when she first entered Midheaven. She’d been havin’ relations with an agent of Light, you see.”

I held up a hand, wanting him to save his breath. “I already know all this.”

“Well did you know that she even fancied herself in love with him? ’Course, love is relative. Solange knew the story would soon be revealed in the Shadow manuals, ’cause them pregnancy pheromones were about to give her away. It’d make her a target from both the Light and her own kind, especially the Tulpa, who don’t abide deceit. So she plotted a way to flee, and there’s only one place to go when hiding from a man who can rule your mind.”

Another world entirely. One tailored to the whims of deadly, plotting women.

“I learnt the whole story during my time with her beneath those murdered stars.”

Gaze lost to memory, Tripp’s top lip quirked. “Oh, she did so want to talk with someone familiar with our world.”

“So she escaped this world and gave birth to a child there?”

“So she said. Never saw the babe myself, but every so often we would hear a cry…”

I thought back, because Hunter had spoken of his daughter once, just after discovering I had one as well. As proof that I could trust him not to tell Warren about Ashlyn-because even then I’d known the troop leader would use the child for his own purposes-he gave me the name of his child, whom Warren also didn’t know of. “Lola,” I whispered.