Cheat the Grave

my finger is on this trigger, poised there because you brought me into this underworld only to throw me away. In a way, as much as my mother and the Tulpa did, you created me.”

“Not for this.”

I tilted my head so a blond lock fell over my eyes. I blew it away. “No, because this is out of your control. You wanted someone you could manipulate, which makes you no different than the Tulpa.”

“Bullshit,” he said roughly.

“Really? How else would you explain why you erased the memory of a man-an agent of Light-from the minds of an entire troop, just so you could reinvent him into a superhero more to your liking?”

“I discussed it with them ahead of time. They agreed it was for the best.”

“Though no one would remember that. ”

His weather-beaten face hardened, the lines deepening. “You’re making shit up, Joanna. I suggest you be careful.”

“Or what? You’ll alter my memory too?” I laughed, and its harshness surprised even me. “What you-and the Tulpa, for that matter-don’t seem to realize is that while thought can be manipulated and controlled, emotions cannot. They’re willful. Unpredictable. They’re what you really wish you could dampen and tame. Emotion threatens your authority. It inspires change.”

“Nothing’s changing,” Warren replied, but his teeth were again clenched.

“You set Hunter up.”

Warren’s eyes slitted, his nostrils flared, and his mouth went flat. “Don’t.”

“You let the troop believe Jaden Jacks was another man entirely, a Shadow even, and that he’d disappeared years ago. You arranged the Hunter identity, kept his past from everyone who trusted you to tell the truth, and ordered him silent as well. And when you found he was still searching for Solange, you decided to rid yourself of him for good by locking him in Midheaven.”

“Jacks cost a mortal child his life!” he said, protesting way, way too much.

“Solange tricked Hunter.” I raised my voice, using the name the rest of the troop associated with the man they’d once counted as their friend, ally, and brother. “She stole the child’s aura from him, knowing he would never destroy an innocent. She used it to escape into a world the Tulpa could never follow, but let Hunter live.”

“Why?”

The voice popped up behind Warren, surprising us both. He half turned to shoot a warning look at Vanessa, who was frowning like a kid trying to puzzle out a word problem. Her dark eyes darted from him to me. “Why wouldn’t she just take Hunter…I mean, Jaden’s life?”

“Because she really did love him, inasmuch as a Shadow can love anyone beyond themselves.”

And recalling Tripp and the lengths he’d gone to attain vengeance for his own family, I knew it was possible. Which made me fear for Hunter all the more. And to get to him, I was going to have to get others to believe it too. So I delivered the final truth. “And because she was pregnant with his child.”

Gasps rocketed into the air-even Skamar hadn’t known that-and in the glare of the dimming flashlights, faces bloomed with shock. But none was more jarred than Warren’s, and I was glad. It was nice to see the man who hoarded secrets outwitted by Hunter. It was fucking poetic.

“That’s right, Warren. There’s a girl child on the other side of your impenetrable lock.” I snarled those last words, letting him know it was anything but that. “A child who is, by all accounts, both Shadow and Light. And you know what that means.”

“Another Kairos,” Tekla whispered, and even in my weakened mortal state, I felt the shift in the troop. This was something they should have known, if Warren had trusted them enough.

“The only Kairos,” I said, before returning my flat gaze to Warren, who was still focused on me, though he’d gone unnervingly still. “After all, I’m just a useless mortal. Right?”

“And not even that for much longer,” Warren whispered, and I didn’t even see him pull back his fist. The image was imprinted on the air in front of me, however, because that’s where the impact between him and Carlos occurred. If I lived through this, the homicidal fury in Warren’s frozen gaze, burning like a negative before me, would haunt my dreams. Then the image melted away and chaos overtook the small tunnel.

Rogue agents whizzed past me so fast the only way I knew they were grays and not Shadow was because I still lived. Conflict sounded, face-to-face, hand-to-hand, because the rogue attack was sudden and unexpected, the agents of Light too crowded to even lift their conduits, much less fire them. But their chests were lit down to the last.

Without weapons, all the rogues had were their bodies, and those-visible during the spotlit collisions-were coated in Micah’s protectant, which he belatedly realized when he plunged his surgeon’s blade into Vincent’s chest, only to receive an unexpected blow to the jaw in return.

The action was jammed, like dust devils banging into each other, so when one of the agents of Light wrested free-a sole glyph lit up in the foreground where the spotlights shone brightest-I saw only the lift of a deadly blowgun in my direction. Kimber, the Libra of Light who’d always hated me, sucked in a deep breath.

“No!” Vanessa screamed, pushing the weapon aside. The impact developed, then dissipated, before my eyes. A scrape against the curved wall behind me-Kimber had actually fired!-and I scurried behind Buttersnap, though it would’ve been too late had Vanessa not intervened. “It’s Joanna!”

“She’s not ours!” Kimber countered, pushing her away, pointing again.

Vanessa punched her so hard I expected the word “Pow!” to appear over Kimber’s blond, dreadlocked head.

“She’s not theirs either!”

“Somebody just shoot!” Warren ordered, his voice choked beneath Carlos’s tensile fingers.

But Buttersnap reared up in front of me and let out a ripping, ragged howl. Nobody shot, though I didn’t know if it was because they were afraid to hit her-making her even stronger and larger than she already was-or reluctant to hurt me. I wasn’t about to split hairs either way, and neither was Buttersnap. Lowering to all four paws, she corralled me backward in the direction the grays had appeared, and away from the Light. The fight continued in front of me, sweeping gusts and flashing images, though the accompanying sounds of battle were constant.

But one thing stood out clearly: Vanessa, still immobile where she’d knocked out Kimber, grays on the defense around her, the stunned Light battling a foe they hadn’t known existed. A curious look of pity and wonder marred her lovely face, and remained that way until I disappeared from sight.

At the roll of the dog’s muzzle, and the accompanying rumble in her throat, I straddled the giant back, holding tight to the skin where a bitch might scruff her pup. Buttersnap raced forward, breaking from the tunnel like a Kentucky Derby winner. I kept my head low until I was sure we weren’t being directly followed, then relaxed enough to look behind me. I tried to make out the tunnel entrance, the chaos inside, but it had vanished. Fleeing on the warden’s back, the entire city was reduced to a blur of colorful outlines. Streetlamps whizzed by overhead, before smooth pavement gave way to rough, and then to the packed desert floor.

I felt good, I realized, as the cold winter wind numbed me. Sure, Mackie was still out there, and my threats against Skamar didn’t amount to much more than a temper tantrum, but it was gratifying to know I’d finally tallied a mark in my favor against Warren’s manipulative scheming. From the look on the faces of the rest of the agents of Light, he was finally going to have to provide some answers.

No, I wasn’t a lot better off than I’d been that morning, I admitted, escaping into the desert, cactus and rocks reaching for me beneath a vast dark sky. But in a world ruled by beings who only paid attention to those who could move and manipulate and control events and outcomes, who had power and the means to use it, and who undeniably counted, I had come out of this altercation alive and on top.

And they were certainly paying attention to me now.

25

Of course, the agents of Light followed. Once over their initial shock, once they realized these were not Shadows they were battling, but rogues-also enemies, according to the law of Warren-they were human Scuds on our trail. My revelations about Hunter weren’t enough to stop their pursuit, and I hadn’t expected them to be.