Cheat the Grave

about who has failed to live up to their word.”

Warren jolted as if slapped. “Zoe-”

“After I entrusted you with her care, no less. If I’d known, I’d have schooled her myself. She wouldn’t be here now. The identity we secured for her would still be a secret from it. ”

The Tulpa dipped farther, and he had to fight, arms pinwheeling himself back into the air from his calf-high immersion. There was still no sign of Mackie.

“Why didn’t you?” I asked hurriedly, because I didn’t know if I’d get a chance again. The Tulpa might kill her once fully recovered. Or me. Or she could, so easily, just disappear again. “School me yourself, I mean.”

“Because the agents of Light have conduits, a troop, and a sanctuary.” Zoe spoke so quickly I knew she’d prepared this defense long ago. The speed also told me she shared my concerns. “But I contributed in my own way. I haven’t stopped fighting since the day you were attacked. I haven’t rested in years, not for a moment. I gave all my power, my family, and then stayed away. All I have left is this mortal life.”

The Tulpa floated higher, looming at us from a forty-five degree angle. My arms shook almost uncontrollably as I forced my weapons to follow. “I can help relieve you of that,” he said.

Zoe followed him too. “You’ll have to if you want to get to her.”

“Gladly,” he said, and lunged.

“No!” Warren threw himself at Zoe, deflecting the Tulpa’s blow…but not stopping it. Zoe flew backward like she’d been spat from his fist, without even getting off a shot. That was for the best-struck with a conduit, the Tulpa would only grow stronger. Her head hit the pillar behind us with a force that left her sprawling awkwardly on the floor. I raced for her while a battle I couldn’t see raged behind me.

Zoe was flattened. I checked for a pulse and found one-fucking strong too-so moved her head to my lap, lifted her bazooka again, and vowed to blast anything that even hinted at coming our way. Was it too much to hope that Warren and the Tulpa would destroy each other? That they’d rip each other to shreds in the effort to get to the woman who had betrayed and left them both?

Of course it was.

Even at his weakest the Tulpa was more powerful than a single agent. The other agents of Light were probably on their way, drawn by the turmoil and the rising scent of battle, but so were the Shadows. I had precious few minutes to get Zoe out of there. I caught a rare glimpse of the fight going on over the water as the Tulpa rammed Warren into the platform. The impact must have momentarily severed his spine because all his limbs flew wide, like a starfish, and when the Tulpa kicked him over the side, he sank with a numb expression of horror and deep sorrow.

Then the Tulpa charged me so fast the sound was sonic. A flash of light, the impact of two powerful beings imprinting on the air, and I raggedly exhaled. Skamar had arrived. Finally. Their growls and blows were a sandblasting, and sent me scrabbling backward, pulling Zoe behind the giant floral arrangement.

“Mom?” I supported her back and neck as she struggled into an upright position and tried to untangle her legs from her dress.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” She put a hand to her head as if trying to hold it on.

“Can you stand?” Because I couldn’t carry her. Frustration at my mortal frailty rose from me in a low-pitched growl.

As if to underline that, Warren-dripping but healed-was suddenly at my side. “I’ll take it from here,” he said, reaching for her.

“No!” both Zoe and I yelled, automatically pulling into one another, voices and limbs locking us together.

For the first time since I’d known him, Warren looked injured. He could just take her from me, of course, but he wanted her to come willingly. Like the Tulpa, he very simply wanted her. “Please. Let me help you.”

Some silent thing passed between them, some old conversation that had probably ended unresolved, because there were feelings there I couldn’t understand. Slowly, Zoe shook her head. “Save Jo. That was the agreement.”

Warren gazed at Zoe with a mixture of confusion and softness, and licked his lips, eyes on hers. Oh my God, I thought, surprise rocketing through me. He loves her.

Then, probably scenting my shock on the air, he looked at me. There was no confusion in that look, and certainly no softness. Just bitterness for causing his love story to come to this, as if it was both my doing, and purposeful.

“Warren…” Zoe’s voice was a warning.

He lunged, and my hands were empty before I blinked. Zoe was suddenly gone-tulle and touch, strength and frailty-the only thing remaining behind were gold flecks and elongated screams. “No! Go back! Joanna! Jo!

Help her!”

The cries faded quickly, Warren fleeing as fast as he could. I had a moment to wonder what exactly he was trying to outrun, but then the Tulpa froze, head jerking up. Determination rode his face like a stampede, and he shot to the sky like a reverse comet. Skamar didn’t hesitate. She followed in an equally earsplitting blast.

I slumped, dazed, to find myself alone on the dais, my raspy breath breaking the eerie silence of what looked like a mass suicide. Yet the Tulpa’s absence released the mortals of his magic. They began popping up from the pool bottom like colorful mushrooms, coughing and sputtering as they swam to the pool’s edge, helping others do the same. The water, in turmoil, appeared shark-infested, and sure enough, no sooner did I have that thought than a roiling pressure ruptured the surface.

Out of that-stiff, dripping, and bloody, but with bowler hat firmly in place-Sleepy Mac rose like a specter. His blind, mad gaze was already fixed on me.

30

Every person asks themselves how they’re going to die. Most people wish for something gentle and in the night, a scant few petition the skies for adventure, to go hard and young, guns blazing-sometimes literally, sometimes not. Over the past year I’d faced the question a number of times, not because I wanted to, but because it presented itself to me like an unwanted hooker in a lineup. I mean, once the choices were narrowed down, you had to pick something, right?

So this was how it would happen: Mackie would lunge, carve into my mortal flesh with that blade, and what remained of my soul would join his, trapped inside that fisted iron, while my body finally fell to dusty silence.

Well, it wasn’t exactly how it would happen, I thought, easing my hand around to the gun at my back.

But then, like a crosscurrent, she landed. Positioning herself at the point where the aisle met the pier, one foot on each side, she halved the distance between Mackie and me. Pointing her nose straight into the air, Skamar sniffed, then angled her head my way. “Smell that, Jo?”

I didn’t move, fearing whatever I did would be wrong, she’d leave, and I’d be headed for the glue factory again. Yet I was screaming inside. Scoop me up! Take me away! Deliver me from this particular evil, and I’ll never take your name in vain again!

But Skamar was preoccupied with something other than escape. “It’s not your fury, nope. Not like the last time we met. That smelled like the aftermath of a traffic accident. It’s got quite a nice hook to it, actually.”

“Skamar…?” I ventured, seeing Mackie list her way, and thinking it was an odd moment for philosophical musings.

“Nope, not even the despair I sensed when this walking miasma killed your cat.” She ignored the grating metallic whine rising from Mackie again, but I couldn’t. It was a noise associated with homicide.

“Skamar.” Maybe intoning her name would snap her out of it.

Inexplicably, she closed her eyes and tilted her sharp, slim jaw up to the sky. “No, this is fresh and floral, like spring’s blossoms and green wood. This,” she said, turning her back on Sleepy Mac, “is life. ”

“What are you doing?” I said, panicked as Mackie’s head lowered, blade lifting.

She continued to foolishly ignore him, opening eyes both determined and sad. “I’ve decided you’re right. It is