they fight for their right to burn air. It’s a futile battle, of course. The first rays of morning exert their dominance, the city lights flicker, and then each snuffs out under the onslaught of the sun touching the valley like a kiss of gold.
Only three days after the catastrophe that was so-called Suzanne’s so-called wedding, I was alone on a quiet residential street, with only the sun’s kiss to keep me company. Well, that and a Beemer-sized dog stalking me from the shadows. I’d picked up the morning newspaper from the corner convenience store, glancing up at the security camera in the corner as the cashier sleepily rang up my purchase. If anyone happened to check those tapes-and there was no reason they should-they’d see an overage goth girl with soft hair in a sharp bob. The black shade was absolute, no high-or low-lights to warm it up, and it sat like a storm against my too-white cheeks. The nose stud and brown contacts were probably overkill, the ankh tattoo temporary, and the black clothing cliche, but I’d already been far too sorry. It was time to be safe.
I’d seen no television in the last thirty-six hours-reception was pretty shitty in a blown-out bunker within a top secret nuclear site-but my guess was it had been a continuous broadcast of what I was reading now: the wedding disaster recap, and a fabricated explanation of how a floating Plexiglas dock had collapsed, trapping the wedding party under the water. Also how Olivia Archer, the last living member of the Archer family dynasty, had disappeared.
At first it appeared to be an accident, but the prevailing theory now was that Olivia, the bride, and the billionaire groom, Arun Brahma, were all kidnapped by a South Asian terrorist group that had been targeting the textile magnate for years. They’d turned Arun’s passion for a westerner into a weakness, reportedly the sole vulnerability to ever visit the pathologically paranoid prince. It was a lesson, some were saying, to the limitations of love.
“Assholes,” I muttered, earning a second glance from the cashier. I grabbed my paper and a pack of reds-part of my new disguise as Olivia didn’t smoke-and swung out the glass door.
Some belated crisis of conscience had the cashier calling after me as he angled his gaze at the cigarettes. “Those things’ll kill ya, you know.”
“I should be so lucky,” I said to myself, and headed out into the reluctant morning. Not that I was overly concerned about being accosted by Shadow or Light. The Shadows were no doubt celebrating. The agents of Light were on their heels. I assumed my acceptance among the grays had brought the fifth portent of the Zodiac to pass, though Carlos said there was no way for us to know that for sure, or what the sixth sign would be. Grays, night crawlers, were always the last to know. What was painfully obvious to everyone was that Warren had his hands full with a newly invigorated Tulpa, once again the most powerful being in the valley.
“You’re welcome,” I muttered, gazing at the photo in the paper, taken mere minutes before Mackie’s attack. The Tulpa was sitting straight-backed in his wheelchair, eyes shut. I thought of all his powers-mind control, the ability to morph into new shape and form, to enter dreams and steal breath, to create black holes and inflict pain without ever touching a person. Shaking my head, I consoled myself with Io’s assertion that he hated the Shadows as well as the Light.
To be honest, it wasn’t much consolation.
Meanwhile, the photo angle had also caught Warren leaning against his pillar, a hard scowl blighting his face as he stared straight ahead. If I’d only assumed he hated me before, I decided, swallowing hard, this picture certainly put the question to rest.
But that wasn’t why I shuddered in the street’s cold center. No, Mackie’s bent head caused that, bowler hat propped atop as if on a peg. Another shiver went through me at the memory of his living knife carving out Skamar’s chest, and I half expected his head to swivel on the page, his blackened tongue pushing forward as he hissed.
The next photo was a blurred shot of the ensuing chaos, and of all the people the Tulpa had ordered into the water via mind control, piled atop one another like battling carp. I’d told Carlos the entire story while he dyed my hair in an old paint bucket, which had him more convinced than ever that I was not only immune to the Tulpa’s mental manipulation, I would be the one to stop him entirely.
“You may be a mortal,” he said when I protested, “but you’re still a part of him. You can still kill him by turning his own power against him, even that of his mind.”
I’m sure he meant that to be reassuring, but his words had the opposite effect. Didn’t that mean the Tulpa could do the same to me? Wasn’t it possible it worked both ways?
And I still had no idea why the Tulpa was so concerned about the symbol of a snake wrapped around a stick. What was the Serpent Bearer-its purpose, its meaning-and why was it so important to a man who could already manipulate others with his mind alone?
All I knew right now was that I was mortal, and the Tulpa was all-powerful, and that was yet one more thing Warren could blame me for. At least the agents of Light were too busy battling back the newly invigorated Shadows to patrol the city’s invisible border. For now, the grays were free to enter and exit the city at will. Yet I knew Warren hadn’t forgotten us,
Tucking both the paper and those particular worries away for now, I arrived at my destination, but froze short of the property line. The house where Ashlyn, another child of the Zodiac, had lived was vacant. The grass was already browning, there was a lockbox on the handle, and the window where my daughter’s gaze had found mine was bare.
“Shit,” I said under my breath.
“I moved her after you shot out the living room window.”
Turning, I saw a woman dressed in gray running sweats, a walnut ponytail as freshly dyed as mine pulled through a ball cap shielding most of her face. Though obviously fit-and now I knew why “Suzanne” had always treated fitness, and running in particular, like religion-she walked steadily, carrying a stainless steel toolbox. Odd enough to earn her a second glance, I thought, but probably not a third.
“Oh, that?” I said lightly, like my heart wasn’t threatening to jump through my chest. “I was just trying to get your attention.”
She set the toolbox on the ground, tucked her hands into her jacket pockets, and gazed at the house where her granddaughter used to live. “Well, all kids act out sometimes. It frees them emotionally from parental control, or so I’ve read.”
I didn’t bother answering. It was small talk, and had nothing to do with where we were today. “Dare I ask how you got away from Warren?”
“Do you need to? I fucking walked.” Lowering her chin and voice, she stared at the house like it was her enemy. Like it was Warren. I’d never seen that look on her face before, not in person, and it rattled me. Suzanne as Zoe. Zoe as warrior, as Archer, like me. I swallowed hard, and changed the subject.
“How’s Cher?” I asked.
“She’s in L.A. They decided she needed a specialist for her arm. I don’t think she’ll be coming back for…a while.”
I nodded once. “And the arm?”
“Clean break.”
“Lucky,” I said. “Whoever pushed her must have known what they were doing.”
She turned her gaze on me then, and it was afire. “She is lucky. Had she been in the front row of that marital shitstorm, she probably wouldn’t have survived.”
I nodded again. So I wouldn’t be seeing Cher for a while. My initial pang of regret surprised me, but I wouldn’t have seen her anyway. I was no longer Olivia, and Cher was no longer safe in Vegas. Not with the Tulpa pulling every possible thread to get to me. Maybe someday I could visit her on the beach. Still, I sighed. Cher’s companionship was the loss of something I hadn’t even known I’d valued.
Glancing back at the house, I decided I was glad Ashlyn was far away too. “So is that it, Mom? Hurting someone is okay as long as it’s for the greater good?”
And just like that we were no longer talking about her stepdaughter, but her real ones.
If Zoe felt the same storm of emotions, she didn’t show it. She appeared almost defiant in her mortal flesh, a woman who’d made hard choices under hard circumstances and wasn’t about to apologize to anyone for it. That was okay. I knew what that was like, and I wasn’t looking for an apology.
But Zoe didn’t know that yet. “I wouldn’t ask anyone to do something I’m not willing to do myself,” she said woodenly, staring down at the tool chest.
