Cheat the Grave

Tripp licked his lips, wincing. “Never learnt the child’s name, but I do know this. She sacrificed the soul of a mortal child to ferry her and her unborn into Midheaven…”

The same way Hunter had used Regan’s so his soul wouldn’t be sliced into thirds. I shook my head, pieces of knowledge shifting, threatening to realign reality as I knew it.

It wasn’t that simple.

“Your man, Hunter, is being tortured, Joanna. Calls himself that throughout it all, too. Hunter. It infuriates Miss Sola, but he won’t answer when she calls him JJ or Jacks or Jaden. Not even when she insists.”

I swallowed hard, knowing how painfully insistent Sola could be.

Tripp’s head dropped in a nod. “He’s been through the mill since Warren locked him up tight.”

“He entered Midheaven of his own accord.”

“True. And he openly told us all how your troop turned you into your sister. But even the big ’uns open up under torture.”

“Bullshit.” He wasn’t being tortured. He was being made love to beneath a ceiling of stars, by a woman revered as a goddess.

“No, it’s true. Said you was somethin’ pretty special. Well,” Tripp paused to catch his breath. “He screamed it, anyway.”

I winced and whispered, “Why are you baiting me now?”

“Even if I were, it wouldn’t make the information any less real.” His head lolled. “Trust me, right now your former ally is beggin’ mercy from the merciless.”

I licked my lips. “Hunter searched for Solange for years. He had identities he hid even from the troop, all so he could look for a dark-haired woman. Dark-eyed. A type.”

“’Cause she stole his child.”

Just finish the manual. It will make a difference.

Thoughts fractured in my brain like a puzzle, the pieces thrown at me so fast I was having a hard time making them fit. I could believe in wacky cigarettes and demons wearing bowler hats, but I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea of Hunter seeking Solange out not because he loved her, but because he was hunting her. His real goal? Keep his child from being raised as a Shadow.

“Your man Jaden Jacks,” Tripp rasped, “didn’t leave you for her, Joanna. In fact, he confessed his love for you to her, and refused to recant it, even under torture.”

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. Not even in the darkest corner of that beautiful soul.

“Oh, God.”

“Goddess,” Tripp corrected, head rocking slowly to the side, eyes slipping shut. “Ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t confess under torture. Not to her.”

I glanced back down at the quirleys in my lap. Solange had jigsawed pieces of me into little bits once, throwing my spirit and aetheric spine down a staircase, sending my body spiraling after seconds later. And I’d only seen a fraction of her power. In her world, Mackie was a lapdog, I was a beetle to be crushed underfoot, and men were little more than batteries. But my mind had already clamped down on the idea of Hunter, my man, being tortured.

“I’ll fucking kill her,” I whispered, and I believed it. All I had were cigarettes and spray-on defense, but I suddenly wanted her death as much as I’d wanted anything in my life. “I’ll carve up her heart and fasten it to her beloved sky with pushpins.”

“Now there’s a reason to live.” Tripp managed a half smile. “So for my little present…”

I studied the speculative shine in his eyes. His last wish before death. He’d just turned my mental life on its head. His gift would have to be equally valuable. Something as rare and unique as the quirleys. Something only I could give, like…

“One kiss.”

I wrinkled my nose, but immediately replaced it with a placid face. Still, I let my eyes roll. “You’re a lech, Tripp.”

Now he did smile, damn him. “I’m a dying man.”

Because of me. I couldn’t stop that. But I could give him a kiss.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Harlan.” I bent forward and pressed my lips to his. He tasted like tobacco, sweat, and smoke. It was as chaste a kiss as I’d ever given, something that would pass between siblings, and that delivered the comfort of mortal touch, understanding, kinship…and forgiveness. It was a kiss of absolution, and it cleared the worry from Tripp’s furrowed brow.

“So that’s Light…” he replied wonderingly, and let his head drop back, knocking his hat forward again. I lifted it, moved it aside, and still he didn’t move. After the horror and messiness and pain of death, there was ultimately only silent acceptance, and stillness.

But Harlan Tripp, the stubborn bastard who’d long survived two worlds, wasn’t quite done yet. He laughed, loopy, not feeling much of anything anymore. “You’re a high roller, girl. Still sittin’ at that table. Still in the game…”

I palmed his head when it fell to the side. “What?”

His eyes didn’t open but he managed a humorless smile. “Still got them chips?”

“The ones from the warehouse?” I kept speaking so he wouldn’t have to nod. “Yeah, but you said they’re useless. I gave all my powers to Jas.”

“But you can still cash in the ones you won.” Like Shen’s sense of smell? The albino’s aether, whatever that was?

“How, Tripp?” My heart bumped in my chest. Still a player. Still in the game. “How do I cash in the chips”- the powers-“I won at that table?”

But Tripp was nearly gone, mouth barely moving, mind already skipping to some other final thought. “You said your troop kicked you out,” he whispered, without force. “’Cause you weren’t useful to them anymore.

’Member?”

I nodded.

His eyelids lifted one last time, and in the stillness of the room where he’d die, he wrapped me in his gaze. “I been fueling a matriarch’s world for years, an’ one thing I learnt…a woman ain’t put in any world for her usefulness. You got purpose beyond the things you can do for others. And everyone’s got a right to their own damned reasons.”

Was that why he’d told me about Solange and Hunter? So I’d act on the truth, and make a choice reflecting what I wanted? I’d never know. The short speech had cost him too much. “The chips, Tripp…”

He didn’t even hear me.

“I ain’t a good man, Archer. Don’ mistake me for that. But I’ll tell you this much,” Tripp slurred, eyes closing a final time. “Someone’s tryin’ to keep you from your reasons? You’d damned well better question theirs.”

24

I knew the Tulpa had survived Skamar yet again when Helen returned to the compound, acting as if she’d never been gone.

I knew Mackie had also escaped when Carlos didn’t.

Of course, with a force equivalent to a small tornado having swept through the mansion, neither Helen nor I could pretend nothing had happened. So I tucked Tripp’s words about still being a high roller aside and used my cell to call the police while moving the quirleys and weapons and binder back out to the guesthouse. Then I returned to wait in the secret room for Helen to find me. I hated leaving Tripp’s body where it was, but Helen would never let it be discovered by mortals. Sure enough, as she and the first officers on the scene led me blinking like a newborn