Cheat the Grave

and melted palms angered me all over again. “An independent agent who was finally about to claim his life on his own terms. He had a right to that, Skamar. Instead he gave it to protect me because you-someone who is practically immortal-would not.”

“Hey, you came to me for help!” Unused to being challenged or questioned, she was angry now too. “If you’ve a bone to pick, first remember I’m not obligated to assist mortals at all.”

“A ‘bone’ to pick?” I said disbelievingly. “Obligations? Skamar, I’m talking about weighing your options and then doing the right thing. Even if it means you don’t get what you want.”

She laughed harshly, though the sound was hollow, and not entirely because of the tunnel. “You want me to grow a conscience?”

“Since my mother clearly didn’t imbue you with one, yes. It’s a basic personality trait in a friend and ally.”

She sneered, perfect teeth almost radiant in the spotlights. “Well, I’m not burdened with such bad habits.”

I lowered my chin and voice. “You mean you’re not blessed with them, you bitch.”

A quiver went through her body, like the words actually stung. And that was where I was the more powerful. Maybe I’d just given her another name. I grinned as evilly as she had a moment before… and found I couldn’t stop. “You think you have consciousness? Why, because you can breathe and move around freely in this world?”

I didn’t have to smell her anger to know it stained the air. Her eyes bulged, wide and wild, like her gaze wanted free of her body. Her body stiffened like a petite petrified board, fingers making fists without her willing it. “I can control people! I can break things on whim.”

“So can a toddler,” I retorted, and had the satisfaction of seeing her face fall slack.

She tilted her head gently, dangerously. “My every action reflects the noble purpose your mother created me for.”

“Exactly my point.”

“Which is?”

“You mistake animation for a life.” My saber was heavier, so I readjusted, refocused on her. “You might as well be Mickey-fucking-Mouse because right now you’re just a clump of walking tissue, and always will be unless you let something touch you.”

“Like what?” she demanded, fisting her hands on her hips. “A knife with someone’s soul inscribed in the blade?

Because this is what happened two days ago when I kept Mackie from following your mortal ass!” And she lifted her shirt to reveal a screaming red scratch on the soft white flare of her hip.

I regarded the injury coolly, though dialed it back a bit since she had, at some point, tried to assist me. So Mackie’s blade could even injure a tulpa. It made him the most dangerous being I knew, at least on this side of Midheaven. And that was saying something.

“I’m not talking about that.”

“Then what?” she screamed, causing me to jump, and the tunnel to shake. “The Tulpa? The Shadows? Who do you think I should allow to touch me?”

“How about letting a poem touch you, Skamar. How about a song to lift you up and reassure you that you’re alive. How about love?”

“Weakness!”

“Life!” I screamed, because those were the things she, and everyone who wanted to point me in a given direction like some wind-up toy, were trying to take from me. “You’re not really alive, Skamar. You know things because my mother knew them. You think you know me because you’ve mined her thoughts and come up with your own emotionless conclusions about what makes me tick. You think because you have stolen memories, because you ruminate, that you’re entitled to walk around this world as you fucking please.”

Her vocal cords stretched in her throat as she leaned toward me. “I’m entitled to that and more! I was birthed to reign over the underworld. I’m a tulpa!”

“You’re a leech.”

A scurrying behind her drowned out her gasp-a sound that could have been anger, injury, or insult-before another figure, followed by more still, slipped up behind her. Warren stepped into the circles of light.

“Oh, good. I’m glad you’re here.” I turned my weapon on him and recocked the hammer. “If you haven’t already heard, I’m in the mood to pick some bones.”

“Where did you get that?” Warren, thinking me harmless, jerked his head at the aging conduit in my hand.

“Some new friends gave it to me. You like?” My voice was cold, hard, and unwavering. “Admittedly not as shiny as the ones Hunter used to make, but since he’s locked up tight in another world, you won’t be getting any more of those either. Too bad, huh?”

Warren’s eyes narrowed and he licked his lips. He knew I was getting at something, but not yet sure what. Gratifyingly enough, the Taurean glyph on his chest began to glow faintly. “You’ve been keeping things from us again, Jo,” he had the nerve to counter. I almost laughed, except there was nothing funny about this man’s need for control. “You failed to mention the appearance in the valley of Sleepy Mac.”

“Oh, you know how Midheaven is, Warren.” I shrugged the concern away. “You can’t speak of things or people in that world to someone who has never been. In fact, there’s no explaining the absolute and debilitating horror an agent-and a man, especially-has to endure once there.” I clenched my jaw. “I mean how could you possibly understand the pain of being reduced to an object for someone else’s use? How could I begin to even tell you what it costs in terms of mental and physical anguish to enter that world? Or,” I said, widening my stance, “the myriad of ways it might be achieved?”

I was depending on the troop at his back to regulate his composure, but if I thought my words would have him on his heels, I miscalculated. He was suddenly in front of me, a breath away though I hadn’t even blinked. I suddenly realized, as I unexpectedly stared into a face of controlled fury, that here was the being without a conscience. “Let me see your fingertips,” he whispered, lips barely moving.

When I stayed still, he grabbed my palm so roughly the bones rubbed together.

“How sweet,” I said, matching his tone. “You want to hold hands.”

We held the stare as he rubbed the smooth pads of his fingertips over my newly printed ones. “The fuck you playing at?” he hissed harshly, pushing my hand away. It forced me three full steps back. “You’re mortal.”

“And no use to you, right?”

A woman ain’t put in any world for her usefulness. You got a purpose beyond the things you can do for others.

“Well, I count,” I told him, and raised my voice so Skamar and the agents behind her could hear me clearly as well. “And Hunter does too. We may not be agents of Light, but we have our own reasons for existing.”

Warren sneered. “Tell me your reasons, Joanna. I’d love to hear them.”

I smiled thinly. “Why? So you can strip them from me too?”

If someone’s tryin’ to keep you from your reasons…you’d do damned well to question theirs.

“It’s enough that you know I can still touch magical weapons.” And while Warren pondered that, my expression brightened as though I’d just remembered something, and I gave a signal behind my back. “And speaking of weapons, there’s one other thing you might find of interest…animals love me.”

Buttersnap’s low growl throttled through the tunnel and Warren jolted. His eyes darted from mine to the warden I’d retrieved from the warehouse, suddenly at my side and baring canines sharper than switchblades, salivating as she waited for my signal. Now his glyph fired like a lit wick.

“Don’t,” Warren warned, barely daring to breathe.

I lifted my saber so the tip was touching his chest, and his heart thrummed through the long blade. Power pulsed through me in a heady rush. Sure, I’d probably die in this tunnel. Buttersnap could take Warren, but there were half a dozen other agents fanned out behind him, and a tulpa who’d already proven she didn’t overly care what happened to me. But Tripp had told me to honor my own reasons, and if revealing the truth about Warren’s actions wasn’t a reason, I didn’t know what was.

“I’m not afraid to die again, Warren,” I told him, weary as someone who’d just climbed from a car wreck.

“There’s nothing more to strip from me in this world. An unstoppable demon wants me dead, and not even one of those who call themselves Light-not even the tulpa created by my own mother-will lift a finger to help me. So