Holidays are Hell

Chapter 1

Zoe Archer had hated hospitals even before she became mortal, and absolutely loathed them now that she was subject to the same capricious whims of the universe as those she used to protect. The sharp smell of disinfectant, and the even sharper underlying emotions, was a bitter reminder that she, too, was suddenly vulnerable to gun-toting criminals and shifty-eyed rapists.

Vulnerable to the rampant evil of Shadows.

For God's sake, she thought irritably as she strode from the fourth-floor stairwell, these days she was bothered by a mere paper cut. She'd had to find new ways to move through this old world; stepping aside, moving around, and shrinking back instead of barreling through, clamoring over, and standing up. She'd had bruises for weeks after her transformation—bruises! — until she'd finally learned the limits of mortal flesh and blood. She was just thankful this learning curve wasn't being recorded in the manuals. How embarrassing would it be if the agents of Light knew she actually bruised?

How dangerous if the Shadow agents discovered she bled?

Zoe shivered and picked up her pace, her steps echoing through the wide sterile hallway as she settled her briefcase strap more firmly on her shoulder. It was still worth it. She no longer deserved the powers that had once made her extraordinary, and if she'd ever been a heroine worthy of the title, she would've passed on her chi before her daughter was almost murdered. But so intent had she been on her mission, her own deceitful life, that she hadn't even considered that possibility. So when it was too late, when all she could do was watch her Jo-baby fight for life—wires and tubes and casts canvassing her young body like she was caught in a web—Zoe knew there was only one title that mattered, and it wasn't Superhero.

It was Mother.

And she was determined to prove herself worthy of that. Tonight she'd tie up this final loose end and in doing so ensure the safety of all the loved ones she'd left behind—both mortal and supernatural. Then she'd spend the rest of her life in this fragile human skin as penance, hiding from both ally and enemy alike.

The nurses' station on the labor and delivery floor was eerily empty when she arrived. She heard a woman's cry from down the hall, a sound that had her belly tightening as she remembered the pangs of her own two births, but she needed to stay focused and quickly shook the memory off. Throwing a cursory glance over the rim of her owlish glasses, and spotting no one, she leaned over the admission's desk to thumb through the charts. Yep, there she was. Joanna Archer. Room 425.

Swallowing hard, Zoe headed that way.

She was three doors from her daughter's room when she heard the crying. She slowed, but told herself she wasn't stalling. Just being respectful. Compassionate. Human. At least, that was her excuse.

Peering around a doorway, she spotted a young couple dressed in unassuming street clothes, clinging to one another as the world spun heedlessly around them. She couldn't scent their sorrow as she'd have been able to six months earlier, but she didn't need to. Bleakness was printed on their faces; carved in the bend of the man's back as he held his wife, jackhammering her trembling shoulders as she wept.

"Can I help you?"

The voice, sharp and businesslike, came from directly behind her, and Zoe jolted before regaining her composure and turning. The nurse was older than she was, mid-forties probably, and wore her chopped hair in the same red Zoe had favored before being forced to dye it black for this new identity. Her eyes skirted to the nurse's name tag. Nancy was big-boned, her powder-blue scrubs putting Zoe in mind of a giant canvass of sky, and she wore comfortable soft-soled shoes, which was why Zoe hadn't heard her sneak up. Something else, she thought wryly, that wouldn't have happened six months ago.

"I'm Traci Malone," Zoe said, holding out a hand, palm down so the woman wouldn't catch sight of the glass-smooth pads where her fingerprints should be. "Case worker for the Archer adoption."

The nurse's face cleared, understanding replacing her businesslike wariness. She held up her hands, a warding-off motion, before withdrawing them again. "You'll excuse me for not shaking. I just came from delivery, and haven't had a chance to wash up yet."

Zoe's eyes wandered to the couple, still oblivious to all but their personal sorrow. Nurse Nancy saw the look and reached around Zoe to pull the door shut before shooting her a small, bittersweet smile. "Dennis and Andie were another of our patients' adoptees. Their baby didn't survive the birth."

"How terrible."

Nurse Nancy nodded solemnly, then shook it off with a philosophical sigh, just another day on the job. "Well, you certainly got here fast. I just got back from calling your adoptive parents. They're coming right away."

"The family called me first," Zoe lied in a murmur. "They'd like the paperwork and documentation completed as quickly and discreetly as possible."

"Bet they do," scoffed the nurse, causing Zoe to stiffen. "A pregnant teen, some fancy family name to protect. Guess money can't buy you everything, can it?"

Zoe managed a nod. Relatively speaking? Money could buy very little.

"The infant's very early," Nancy went on, motioning for Zoe to follow her. "Just caught the twenty-four week mark, but she's intubated, and stable enough now that we've got her on the oscillator. Awfully small, though."

"Well, babies tend to come in their own time," Zoe said, following Nancy back to the front desk.

"Sure," Nancy said, but scoffed as she glanced at Zoe. "But an early delivery's more common when the mother has endured such trauma—raped, you know—" she said in an exaggerated whisper, before continuing in a normal voice. "So the child's obviously unwanted, another mitigating factor. Add in a flawed support system—the girl's mother ran off after the pregnancy was disclosed, the father wouldn't even come down for the birth—and you have a recipe for fetal trauma."

Nancy tsk-tsked as she rounded the counter, shaking her head in a way that made Zoe want to rip it off. Instead she pulled out her notepad, and with shaking hands pretended to scribble some thoughts. "What time was the child born?"

"Midnight sharp, actually," Nancy shook her head, flipping through paperwork. "What a novelty, huh?"

Not really Zoe wanted to say. The Zodiac's lineage was matriarchal. Everyone who was superhuman was born on their mother's birthday, exactly midnight, just as their mother before them. That's how Zoe knew her daughter would be here tonight, even if it was three months too early.

"And the girl… the mother? How is she?"

Nancy glanced up, brows furrowed. "You don't need to see her, do you?"

"Why? Is she all right?" Please, God, please…

"Sedated. The labor was complicated and a shock to a still-healing system, but she's resting easily enough now."

A sigh spiraled out of Zoe before she could stop it, causing Nancy to glance at her sharply. Zoe immediately checked herself—case workers didn't get involved with their clients—and shot the nurse a distracted smile. "No, of course I don't need to see her. She's already signed the release papers, and she should rest."

Nancy was still looking at her speculatively when a crisp bell chimed behind Zoe. The nurse's eyes slid over Zoe's shoulder and her face cleared.

"There are the McCormicks now." She waved them over, and Zoe turned warily, inspecting for the first time the people who would take possession of—no, take care of—her granddaughter.

The woman was diminutive; a fussy, fluttery thing who kept clutching at her own hands and holding so close to her husband she very nearly tripped him up. He seemed not to notice, though, chest puffed out peacock proud, a wide smile blanketing his ruddy face as he steered his wife with one large hand, and mauled a stuffed bunny with the other.

"Mr. and Mrs. McCormick, this is Traci…"

"Malone," Zoe provided, when Nancy faltered. "I'm with social services. I have your paperwork right here."

"Cutting right to the chase, are we?" Mr. McCormick's voice boomed unnaturally throughout the still hallways. "But I imagine this is old hat for you, huh? You're probably anxious to get home and to bed."

Mrs. McCormick clutched his arm. "Oh, yes, it's late… and so close to Thanksgiving. Everyone's so busy and…" She faltered, her eyes going wide at a fresh thought. "Oh, honey! Our first holiday with our baby girl! I just can't believe it! We've been waiting, dreaming for so long…"

Her husband shot Zoe a helpless smile as his wife collapsed into his arms.

"Technically, you won't be with her for Thanksgiving." Zoe's voice came out louder, sharper than she would've liked. She checked it, along with her emotions, and plastered a bland expression on her face. "She must remain in the hospital until she's strong enough to be self-supporting. Another sixteen weeks or so."

"But maybe by Christmas," Nancy reassured, smiling as she pushed away from the counter. "I'll just go make sure the baby's ready."

"Ready?" Zoe turned back to the couple who were trying—unsuccessfully—to temper their giddiness.

"Oh, yes. Didn't you know?" More fluttering by Mrs. McCormick as her wide eyes searched Zoe's face. "We're having the child moved to the Sheep Mountain Medical Facility. They have the best neo-natal unit in town and… well, we don't want to risk the birth mother seeing her and, you know…"

"Changing her mind," her husband said flatly. "We know she's young. Probably fickle… or confused. Obviously not of the best moral character."

"Dave!" his wife slapped ineffectively at his shoulder. "The girl is giving us our darling baby!"

"I'm sorry, sweetie. You're right."

Almost nauseated, Zoe fumbled in her briefcase and reminded herself that she'd picked these people out of hundreds of candidates. She'd researched their backgrounds, those of their extended families, and even did a drive by on their neat, suburban home. She needed them. And the child needed to be in hiding because of who and what she was. She'd be safe with the McCormicks. Safe from the judgment of those who'd fault her for the circumstances under which she was conceived. And, most importantly, safe from the Shadows.

"If you could just sign here," she said, her voice sounding hollow even to her own ears, as she dropped the paperwork on the counter and moved away. Suddenly all she really wanted to do was get away.

The McCormicks moved in close, chattering excitedly as they each signed the small stack of papers completing the adoption. When they were done, Zoe ripped off the copies and handed them to Mrs. McCormick. She then dropped the rest back in her briefcase, settled her glasses more firmly on her nose, and said, "Congratulations."

Dave blinked and drew back. "That's it?"

"Wow, that was fast."

"The birth mother isn't contesting anything." She shot them a smile. It felt brittle on her face. "Enjoy your new family."

But she'd only taken a few steps before half-turning again. She couldn't help it… and asking now would save her the trouble and risk of searching later. "What will you name her?"

"Jenna."

"Samantha."

They answered at the same time, then looked at one another sheepishly, bursting into giggles again. Dave recovered himself first. "We're still working that out."

Zoe nodded shortly and forced an aspect of bored professionalism in her voice before turning. "Good luck."

And she strode away, closing the last chapter on her old life forever.

Zoe's plan was to turn in the paperwork finalizing the McCormick adoption to social services in the morning, quit her job right after that, and lay low until she figured out a new identity to replace Traci Malone. She'd have liked to take a little vacation, get out of town while everyone else was celebrating the holidays, but her finances wouldn't allow it. Every dime she had, and every safety net, she'd had to leave behind. She was starting over for the third time in her life, and doing it with fewer resources than ever before.

But she had seen her family safe, she thought on a sigh, and had secured her lineage for the next two generations. Joanna possessed everything she needed to heal and eventually she'd be better and stronger for it. And now her granddaughter was hidden deep, if in plain sight, and the Shadows would never know of her existence. Yes, thought Zoe as she exited the hospital into a cool November night, it was all worth it.

Caught up in her thoughts, Zoe hardly noticed the black town car glide up to the curb, or the driver hop out to open the passenger door.

"I'll pull around to the side and wait for you there, Miss Olivia," the driver said, holding out a hand.

"Thank you, Brian," his charge said, and Zoe turned to see a beautiful young girl alighting from the car. She was on the cusp of womanhood, with peaches and cream skin and billowing blond hair that stood out like a beacon against her black sweater set. Zoe stared, unable to take her eyes from the girl. It'd been six long months since she'd seen her youngest daughter.

Olivia Archer beelined for the entrance as the car whisked off, her arms so full of bags and boxes she had to peer around the side to navigate her way. Zoe didn't question the need to help, to see her daughter. She just moved before she knew she'd acted, rushing to hold open one of the giant glass doors.

Olivia caught the movement from the corner of her eye. Yelping, she shied and ducked, and only belatedly did Zoe realize what she must look like; someone waiting until the girl was alone, charging from the side. Attacking her in the night. Olivia's packages flew from her arms and Zoe heard glass shattering and bags ripping, while her daughter dodged behind a concrete pillar. Even with her mortal hearing she could make out the ragged breath and whimpers.

"No, no, no, no…"

Oh, her poor, traumatized baby.

"Miss Archer?" Zoe cast her voice high, keeping it steady, though it wanted to shake. "I'm so sorry to startle you. I was just going to get the door."

Olivia peered cautiously around the pillar, her blue eyes wide, fear etched on her brow.

Her poor, poor baby.

"H-how do you know my name?" Olivia asked, still wary.

Zoe tried on a smile, but it felt tight on her face, and she let it drop, trying for casualness instead. "I'm the case worker for your sister's adoption. We met before."

Olivia edged out from behind the pillar, recognition dawning in her eyes. "I–I'm not supposed to talk to you. I mean, my father said I'm not supposed to talk about it. With anyone. The baby, I mean."

I'll just bet he did, thought Zoe, cursing Xavier Archer, his greedy heart, his blackened soul. She smiled reassuringly. "I understand. Let me just help you with these."

They bent together and picked up what remained of the dinner Olivia had brought her sister. Turkey and stuffing, cranberries—half of which were splattered across the sidewalk—sweet potatoes and apple pie. Joanna's favorite.

"Quite a spread." Zoe murmured, keeping her head bowed to hide her tears.

"I made it all myself. I wanted her to have a proper meal—the food in here is just awful—and since she won't be home in time for the holiday, and Daddy won't let me come down on Thanksgiving Day…" she trailed off, obviously worried she'd said too much. Olivia had never been able to directly disobey Xavier's order, though she had recently begun to dodge them. As evidenced tonight.

"Well, you did a wonderful job," Zoe said, handing her a final container of gravy. She hesitated, then pressed, "Will Mr. Archer be joining you?"

Olivia flushed to her roots, then swallowed hard and lifted her heart-shaped chin. "Daddy doesn't know I'm here. I snuck away after he left for some party. If he finds out he'll have Brian fired for driving me, but I just had to see Joanna. It's her birthday. I couldn't let her be alone tonight. Thanksgiving maybe. But not her birthday. And not after she so recently…"

Was attacked, raped, beaten, left for dead…

"Had a baby?" Zoe said softly as she stood and handed a bag to Olivia. "Don't worry. I won't tell a soul."

Relief had the girl sagging a bit. "Thank you, Ms… I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

Zoe held open the door. "You can call me Traci."

"Thanks, Traci." Olivia walked through the door, but hesitated just on the other side, not looking back. "She won't talk about it with me."

"She can't. But she's a very brave girl." Zoe waited until Olivia did look back, and held her gaze there. "You're brave, too."

"Me?" Olivia immediately scoffed. "No I'm not. I… ran. I left her. I–I'm nothing."

"That's not true," Zoe said, so vehemently it had Olivia blinking in surprise. Zoe fought to work a blank expression on her face. "It's not. You're here, aren't you? Taking a chance that you'll get caught. Disobeying because you're right. You don't give yourself enough credit. From what I understand you saved Joanna because you did run, and fast. There was nothing more you could have done that night. You reacted perfectly to a perfectly horrible circumstance."

Olivia's beautiful face crumpled on itself and tears emptied out over her cheeks. She bit her lip to keep it from quivering, still trying to be brave. "When Jo gets out of here we're going to take a trip to Europe. It'll be a fresh start for her."

"For the both of you."

Olivia smiled through her tears. "For us all. For the baby, too. Dennis and Andie seem like wonderful people."

Zoe thought of the couple upstairs, clutching one another, a stuffed bunny, and long-held dreams of having a daughter. She nodded, but corrected Olivia. "You mean Dave and Andie."

Olivia looked at her oddly before shaking her head. "No, I mean Dennis and Andie. The McCormicks? Don't tell anyone but I looked them up on the computer." She shot Zoe a sheepish grin, though pride lurked beneath the look. "Actually, I hacked into the hospital's registry. I just had to see where my… the baby was going. I'm sure she'll be happy with them. Did you know they already have a name for her? Ashlyn. Isn't that lovely? I think it's a family name, but…"

But Zoe had stopped listening. She closed her eyes, and let the images come, fast and furious, as Olivia's airy voice faded to the background.

Nurse Nancy shutting the door on a grieving couple who'd just «lost» their adopted daughter. Dennis and Andie.

The same nurse warding off a handshake, just as Zoe would've done.

A couple anticipating the long-awaited arrival of their daughter, though, strangely, they hadn't yet agreed on a name.

Zoe dove for her briefcase, fumbling for the papers inside. Typed neatly at the top of the page: McCormick, Dennis and Andria.

Signed below: McCormick, Dave and Andie. Zoe was slow—stupidly inattentive—but she was suddenly catching up fast.

We're having the child moved…

"Oh, my God."

She lurched forward and grabbed at the door, Olivia's questioning alarm spiraling out behind her in the wide, deserted lobby. Midnight, Zoe thought, doing a mental head slap. A perfect time to snatch a child. She took the stairs two at a time, her briefcase banging awkwardly against her hip, her breath echoing in the stairwell.

"Nurse Nancy," Zoe said, slapping her palm on the counter in front of a tired-eyed nurse she'd never seen before. "Where is she?"

The nurse blinked up at her. "Who?"

Zoe cursed, and reached across the Formica counter. It wouldn't take much to create a distraction in a hospital. Just a false a code 99 raising the alarm that some other patient had crashed. She wondered briefly what ploy the Shadows had used.

"Excuse me! What do you think you're—"

No chart. Ignoring the nurse, she raced for the nursery.

"Ma'am! You need to sign in!"

Zoe skidded around the corner. God, but they'd had their roles down pat.

The baby was gone. Zoe squeezed her eyes shut, and lowered her head to the glass window. There was no Nurse Nancy. No couple named Dave and Andie. If she'd been thinking straight, if she hadn't been so damned close to the situation, she might have noted the small things: the name slip, the way the nurse's nostrils had flared at Zoe's slip of emotion, the couple's forced surface emotions. She'd have seen all of it then as clearly as she saw it now. "Ma'am, are you all right?"

No, Zoe thought, pushing the other woman aside to charge back down the hall. And neither was her granddaughter.

Chapter 2

In the car on the way to the address scrawled across the discharge papers, Zoe tried to figure out how the Shadows had found out about the baby. She was certain they couldn't scent out the power, the Light, on Joanna. If Zoe had withheld even a smidgen of her own personal chi, then maybe, but she hadn't. She'd given it all up, and the very fact that she hadn't scented any of them assured her of that. But they'd taken the baby, and that couldn't be coincidence. So how had they known?

The only thing Zoe could be absolutely certain of was that the Shadows hadn't known who she really was. Otherwise she'd be on her knees in front of their leader right now, begging for her life. Paying for her past.

Zoe shuddered at the thought of the Tulpa, then resolutely pushed his image away. She needed to concentrate on the task at hand, follow the Shadows' trail one step at a time, and go from there. But when she pulled her car to a stop she didn't even need to look at the FOR SALE sign on the lawn to know the house was empty. She yanked her cell phone from her jacket pocket, a slim new model she'd bought on the street and called the number listed at the top of her papers Out of service. She then had the operator give her the number to the Sheep Mountain facility, where they told her no baby by the name of McCormick had been admitted that evening. Zoe was disappointed but not surprised. Both sides of the Zodiac force—Shadow and Light—had private facilities with their own medical staff. It kept mortal physicians and officials from being suspicious or curious when the body count rose, and often acted as a place of respite for injured agents until the next splitting dawn or dusk, when the veil between their two parallel worlds lifted, and they could pass easily into a different, safe, and alternate reality.

So Zoe had no way of finding out where the enemy agents had taken the baby, and even if she had she'd be hard pressed to take on even one of them in her… condition. Mortals were deplorably weak.

But, she thought, biting her lip, there was one place she could go… one person she could turn to for help. She'd sworn never to see or call upon him again, but if she could catch him before sun-up, she might be able to convince him to help her. Because if he ever really knew her—if he had ever truly loved her—he'd recognize her even beneath her mortal disguise and without the power that had made her his equal.

And if he refused? asked an unwelcomed voice inside of her, a bitter reminder of what she'd done. Then her lineage, and the legacy of the Archer, ended with her, and she'd sacrificed it all for nothing. Including her children. Including, she thought, pulling from the curb, his love.

When Warren Clarke wasn't fighting crime and leading the agents of Light in a century-long battle against supernatural crime, he spent his down time kneeling in a pew at the Guardian Angel Cathedral. It wasn't that he was particularly religious; like all the star signs in the zodiac he believed in astrology, preordained fate, and that every life and death was written in the sky. So his regular attendance at the cathedral had nothing to do with penance, forgiveness, or an overabundance of piety. In truth, whenever he lit a candle or knelt before the altar, all he was really praying for was a fight.

Zoe wasn't going to be the one to give it to him. So she lit a cigarette and propped a foot up against the towering white obelisk in front of the cathedral, directly beneath the neon cross flaring at its apex. Staring south down the length of flash and glitter of Las Vegas Boulevard through faux horn-runned glasses, she thought, as she always had, that it was an odd place for a cathedral. But it'd been here since 63, outliving most of the casinos, the mobsters, the Howard Hughess and Wynns… remaining a solid and memorable fixture even though it was unremarkable compared to that long stretch of neon just outside its doors.

A statue of the holy family blessing the cathedral's visitors was cradled in the center of the hollowed-out obelisk, and Zoe glanced at it now. The promise of welcome was a strong lure for both the humans buffeted by the surrounding chaos, and especially for the recent influx of immigrant agents from south of the border. After NAFTA's implementation and the subsequent devaluation of the peso, not only had Mexico experienced martial strife, but the paranormal war between good and evil in that country had taken a decidedly ominous turn. One had only to watch the soaring crime rate, the corruption of government officials, and staggering poverty to realize the balance between the two opposing sides had been toppled, and that any agents of Light still alive in the larger cities would have to flee.

So watch was exactly what Warren did. Because something about Vegas drew the transient and displaced.

Mass would be an unnecessary ritual to those fleeing agents, but it'd also be familiar, comforting. And if one of them were looking for an ally—someone to perhaps rebuild a troop in this gambler's paradise—then the most visible cathedral in the city was an obvious place to meet.

But troop 175 was already staked out in this glittering valley, and Warren was their leader, so in his eyes, once these displaced agents left their city of origin they became independents… or rogues, as he called them. How they got that way, and the fact that they'd once been agents of Light, was of no interest to him. He'd eradicate the valley of the rogues, and the threat they posed to his troop, even if he had to do it one by one.

Zoe glanced at the steel and concrete sign to the right of the holy family. The Guardian Angel had mass scheduled for midnight, which meant it had just ended. There were a few stragglers around the pyramid-shaped building, mostly couples, but they were all exiting. Of the two men she saw entering, one was clergy and the other was with a woman who obviously had the place confused with the all-night wedding chapel. Zoe waited.

Finally her gaze locked on a lone man, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his baggy jeans, the open shirttails of his embroidered Guayabera flapping in the wind. He was young, with smooth olive skin, his heritage decidedly Latin. Zoe straightened and called out to him, smiling brightly, waving him closer. He hesitated, but redirected after a moment. "Hey, buddy. Got a light?"

He tilted his head, and if he was an agent he'd have scented her out by now—a human, a lone female, no threat. "No ingles," he said, turning his pockets inside out. "No money."

Zoe sighed and rolled her eyes. Damned newcomers.

They all thought hooking was legal in Vegas. "Dame fuego," she said to him, and mimed bringing a cigarette to her lips.

His expression cleared, and he colored even under the kiss of his golden complexion, but his shoulders relaxed a fraction and he dug into his shirt pocket and withdrew a lighter. It was one of the millions sold on the Boulevard, the infamous WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS sign stamped on one side. She flicked him a mildly flirtatious glance from beneath her glasses and bent forward as he flicked the lighter's wheel. It flared on the second try and Zoe caught the smooth gleam of his fingertips, unmarred in the wavering light. Like hers. Like all agents.

Her voice was a throaty purr as she blew smoke up and out. "Gracias, señor…?"

"Solamente Carlos," He said almost shyly, and Zoe felt a momentary pang of regret, knowing what awaited him on the other side of those doors.

"Gracias, Carlos," she said, and let him go anyway, watching him disappear beneath the giant blue mosaic depicting a guardian angel, and God's eye. She had her own problems. And after two full minutes she stubbed her cigarette out beneath her heel and followed Carlos inside to face one of them.

The Mexican agent was nowhere in sight when Zoe entered the Cathedral. She glanced at the spot Warren generally favored, closest to the bishop's chair at the front of the sanctuary, but the pews were empty so he either wasn't in the building, or he was already trailing the rogue agent. Tiptoing across the white marble floor, she ducked into the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. While there, she lit a prayer candle. It couldn't hurt.

Thirty seconds later she grinned grimly as a yell ricocheted through the cavernous building, followed by a startled yelp. She stopped grinning at the report of running footfalls down the sanctuary's center aisle… four pair, she determined, not two. A Spanish curse spiraled to the building's apex, and if this had been a Baptist church the agent would probably already be burning in hell. But that wasn't what bothered Zoe. Getting to Warren had just gotten as tough.

Mortals often witnessed paranormal conflict, though the victorious agents made sure none ever remembered it. Sometimes the humans would wake the next morning swearing it'd all been a dream, or that their dinner the night before hadn't quite agreed with them. Problem was, the memory of the entire twenty-four-hour period prior to the conflict was often erased along with the incident, and Zoe needed to remember. Her family's lineage depended on it.

Yet as she stood holding her breath next to the outstretched arms of the blessed mother, all she remembered was what it was like to be super. How she could sneak up behind any man or woman and have them unconscious before they took their next breath. How she'd laugh about it afterwards. Now that she'd been stripped of the ability, and was on the receiving end of the body blows, she didn't find it quite as amusing.

Taking a deep breath, she edged around the white marble wall.

The fight was centered in the middle of the Cathedral, though to say that Zoe was watching it would be deceiving. She ripped the faux glasses from her face and shoved them in her pocket. No prescription would allow her to follow these events… what she needed to do was cease seeing. Let her vision blur as if she was trying to look at one of those puzzles where images were hidden within a picture.

Even still, she only caught brief flashes of action; a limb flying outward before disappearing again, a fist clenching before plowing from sight. The man who wrote the manuals of Shadow and Light had once tried to explain to Zoe how the agents' actions came to him. His inspiration, he said, came in blurred images and it was up to his imagination to supply the rest. Only now did Zoe understand what he meant. It was like flipping through one of those children's books where the cartoon figure became animated the faster the pages turned, only in the life-sized version a few of the panels were missing.

Forcing her gaze to sharpen again, she turned away from the action. Every instinct she had was screaming at her to remain hidden, but she had to trust what she knew of Warren and hope it still held true. He'd be at the center of the melee, and his two companions would be too focused on him to spy Zoe creeping in from the perimeter. Once again, she stilled her breath and began inching forward along the triangular walls. Unlike those involved in the paranormal melee, she moved achingly slow. When in fight mode, agents locked in on quick moving objects, like eagles soaring over a desert canyon. Of course, Zoe had no delusions about not being caught. Her goal was only to be as close to Warren as possible when that happened.

She probably would have made it if not for fluted candelabra and its tottery stand. What was it with these Catholics and their gold-plated tchotchkes? The room went still as they all whirled her way. The rogue agent's wild eyes widened in recognition while Warren's narrowed. Zoe didn't bother looking at the other two, she just burst into a full sprint, hoping the unexpected movement would give her time to reach Warren's side.

It worked. Closest, Warren had no choice but to give chase, leaving the rogue to his allies. Unfortunately, Zoe blinked—damned mortal eyes! — and the spot he'd been standing in a second earlier was empty.

Shit. She dropped to the floor, felt arms cushion her fall.

"My hero." It was their favorite endearment for one another, and she said it to no one. If she waited until she saw him it'd be too late.

As it happened, it already was. Warren's form solidified as he froze, eyes widening in recognition, and then a blur—the blow slowing—but it was too late to stop entirely. Warren's shocked image shattered as darkness enfolded her in inky arms, numbness shooting through her body. Strangely, though, the disappearance into herself was more peace than she'd know since the last time she'd seen his face.

Chapter 3

The lights in the roadside cafe would've been bright no matter what the circumstances. But with a knot the size of a walnut on her skull, and said knot throbbing like a teen's heart on prom night, they were absolutely blinding.

Zoe pushed away from the ripped vinyl of the red bench, wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth, and faced her three captors. "I can't believe you guys are still coming to this dive. The cook spits in the soup, you know."

"Jesus, it really is her!" The man on Warren's left gaped, dropping his cheap coffee cup back in its saucer with a clatter.

Zoe lifted a glass of water and pressed it to her aching forehead. "Hello, Gregor. Walk beneath any ladders lately?"

He shook his head, his smile almost as wide as his bulky body. Gregor wasn't very tall, but he had the neck of three men put together, and the shoulder span of an angel's wings. He was bald, with one small hoop earring that made him look like a modern-day pirate, and had a superstitious nature to match. "Haven't stepped on any cracks in the sidewalk, either. Damn, Zoe, but it's good to see you."

"And worth losing that rogue agent back at the cathedral," agreed the woman to Warren's right. Zoe smiled at Phaedre. She was the same age as Nurse Nancy, though the similarities stopped there. Actually, thought Zoe, they'd probably ceased in their twenties because that's how old Phaedre looked. Like a twenty-something party girl with lowlights in her mahogany mane and a smile deadly all on its own. The weapon tucked between her ample cleavage helped, though. "Welcome back."

"She's not back."

An uncomfortable silence bloomed and Zoe's heart plummeted. She shifted her gaze to Warren's, meeting head-on the anger she saw living there. His baggy clothing made him look slim, almost slight, but beneath it he was sinewy and tough, though Zoe knew the skin that covered all that compact muscle was as soft as her own. He'd have looked boyish with his short hair springing from his head in straight brown tufts, except that his eyes were hard and knowing, calculating as they rested on Zoe. It was his choice whether to accept her back in the troop or not but that wasn't what he was talking about. Of anyone, Warren knew Zoe never changed her mind… or went back.

The waitress's arrival saved her from answer, and the woman let her disinterested gaze travel over Zoe's face, lingering where the throbbing was the worst. "Your girlfriend finally come to?" she asked needlessly, snapping gum the same pepto-pink as her uniform. "Get you some coffee, sweetie?"

Zoe pursed her lips. Why not? Her funds were low, and despite Warren's current appearance—he seemed to be dressed as some sort of street bum this time—he could afford it. Besides, he owed her for the knock on the head. She nodded. "That'd be good. And a short stack… side of bacon."

The waitress pulled her pen from behind her ear, and wrote down the order as she walked away. Zoe assumed everyone else had already eaten.

She returned her eyes to Warren, still waiting for her to explain herself. So she did. "I need your help."

Phaedre looked concerned, Gregor interested. Warren continued to stare warily. If she was hurting him by not apologizing—if she'd hurt him by leaving without saying goodbye—he was hiding it well. But it was a superficial sort of hidden; like an alligator stirring up sediment beneath a brackish surface, and Zoe couldn't help wondering when it'd strike.

She made them wait until her food had arrived and she'd gotten a good bellyful before telling them. If she had to chase them out of the cafe begging for help, she wanted to do it on a full stomach. Surprisingly, when she finished the telling—a mortal child had been stolen by the Shadows, and she needed to get her back—they were still there. Cool. She signaled the waitress for a refill.

"So, there must be something special about this child," Warren finally said, cupping his elbow in his hands as he leaned forward. "I mean, to bring you out of retirement."

Zoe ignored his emphasis of the last word, and sipped at her coffee as she shook her head. "I was in the wrong place at the right time. I saw the Shadows take her."

"Didn't you try to stop them?"

"There were probably too many, right?"

Zoe didn't meet Phaedre's eye, or answer Gregor's question. They didn't know about her mortality—they probably thought she was wearing masking pheromones, and that's why they couldn't scent her. She didn't want to relieve them of that notion. Not just yet.

"There were three of them. I was alone."

But Warren could tell she was holding back.

Always holding back, Zoe! Always with the secrets and the lies!

Still Zoe didn't consider for one second telling him about Joanna or the attack her daughter had endured because the Shadows had scented Zoe on her… in her. The Seer had been very clear: no one could know about these girls… these future Archers. The knowledge could one day be used against them all. Thus, beating against Warren's unspoken accusation was a prophecy that ruled Zoe's days:

You must do it alone.

So she silently willed him to understand that she was still the woman he'd once loved, still Light, but his returned silence was critical, like he sensed her desperation, and he probably did. The unease sitting on both Phaedre's and Gregor's faces told her they did as well. Zoe's lukewarm coffee soured in her belly and straightening, she pushed her cup away.

"Are you going to help me or not?" she said shortly.

"Of course—" Phaedre started.

"Why should I?" Warren interrupted. Not we. Phaedre's mouth snapped shut.

"Isn't it obvious?" Zoe said, his imperious tone making her own voice tight. "You're the one with the power."

And don't forget who the hell helped put you in that position, she thought, blood beginning to boil.

"What's obvious," he said flatly, "is that you're doing another one of your disappearing acts, and you want us to clean up after you."

"That's not it at all."

"Oh, really?"

"Warren—"

"Shut up, Gregor," Warren shook off the other man's hand without looking at him and threw Zoe's purse at her. "All your ID is different. You've altered your appearance, hid your scent beneath a masking compound—"

"I'm not hiding it!" Zoe finally exploded, gripping the edge of the Formica table so hard her fingers ached. "I'm human!"

They all fell still, and Zoe felt herself redden.

"I have no power," she said, more normally. "Think about it, smell and watch, and you'll know it's true. I couldn't cross into another reality right now if it unfurled in front of me like the yellow brick road."

Gregor's mouth fell open. "No… my God…"

The disbelief in his voice had her dropping her head. Only another agent could understand exactly what she'd lost.

Phaedre was just as shocked. "Zoe, what happened? Did the Shadows find you? Steal your chi? Make you relinquish it in return for your life?"

Because all those things had happened before to other agents, though not in this troop. Not to anyone under Warren's watch. Zoe nodded. "How else could you sneak up on me without me even batting an eyelash?"

"I was wondering that myself," Gregor murmured, falling back in the booth.

Zoe was so busy reading the pity in his eyes that when her head whipped back, the open-palmed slap coming at her from nowhere, the sting of it had her gasping. The blood that sprayed from her nose had Gregor and Phaedre doing the same.

Pressing her napkin to her face, head tilted back, she regarded Warren over the top of it. "I'd make you pay for that," she said, voice muffled, "but you'd see it coming a mile away."

Warren blanched, which cheered her a bit. "What have you done?" he asked, his whisper ragged at the edges.

"I gave my power away," she said, with more composure than she felt.

"Why? To whom?"

"To someone who needed it more than I did." To someone, she didn't say, we'd all need before long.

"Brave," said Gregor, fingering the inverted gold horseshoe shining from a thick chain around his neck.

"Heroic," Phaedre agreed, on a awed whisper.

"Stupid," Warren said. He shook his head, his expression again shuttered. "Why do you always have to be so stupid?"

Zoe jaw ached from the effort to hold her tongue and temper. She wouldn't get into a pissing contest with Warren just because he was still nursing hurt feelings. He could deal with those himself. She'd had to. "Look," she said, pushing her cup aside to lean forward on her elbows. "The baby's mortal. We're still in the business of protecting mortals, right? Or are we only interested in slaughtering rogue agents who are doing nothing more than looking for sanctuary?"

Warren colored at that. Good. She was useless physically, but at least her words still had some sting. "We protect mortals. You are a mortal."

"Warren," Phaedre chided.

Zoe shrugged like it didn't matter. "That may be… but I'm still Light."

Warren just quirked a brow, and when it was apparent he'd do no more than that, Phaedre reached out and patted Zoe's arm. "Of course you are."

Gregor put his giant palm on her other arm, glaring at Warren. They all stared at him, linked and acting as one—even though he was their leader—daring him to tell the Archer of the Zodiac no.

For a moment she thought he'd hit her again. She didn't have to scent his emotions to know how angry he was. "Fine," he finally said, voice frighteningly low. "But let's get one thing straight. You're just baggage, Zoe. You're no good to us—" She flinched; to me, he was saying, " — to anyone. We'll get back this precious mortal for you, but after that you disappear for good. And you formally relinquish your star sign."

Zoe sucked in a breath. Formally renouncing her star sign meant another agent born under the Sagittarius moon would fill her place on the Zodiac, in the troop. It would void her lineage forever, and nullify everything she'd sacrificed.

And that just wouldn't do.

But Warren didn't need to know that. So she held her indrawn breath, and inclined her head. And Warren was just arrogant enough—and angry and righteous, too—not to insist she do it right then and there. He shot the three of them a grim, closed-mouth smile, then threw down his napkin and rose. "Fine. Let's work it out."

Gregor shot Zoe a relieved smile before following, and Phaedre took her hand, helping her up. Zoe wanted to thank her but didn't know if her voice would hold. Besides, just because they said they were going to help didn't mean they could do it.

The Shadow and the Light had been battling in the valley ever since Vegas was just an X on some prospector's map. Each side was comprised of twelve agents—one for each sign on the western zodiac, and when both sides were full there was balance in the mortal realm. People were then free to make personal and societal decisions uninfluenced by paranormal nudges meant to bring out the shadow or light lurking in their own souls.

As tempting as it sometimes was to interfere in the world's human dramas, agents of Light worldwide had fought to preserve the gift of choice for too many centuries to blithely disregard it. The Shadows, conversely, specialized in that, which gave them a distinct advantage over the mortal realm; it was far easier to cause heartache and mayhem than clean up the resulting mess.

Zoe's life work, before she threw it away, had been to neutralize this advantage. She'd grown up idolizing the elder agents, devouring the manuals that depicted the fight between good and evil. From the moment she'd undergone metamorphosis at the age of twenty-five, coming into her full powers, she'd dedicated her life to infiltrating the Shadow organization. She was patient, wickedly sharp, and determined to use whatever resources she had to fell her enemies: her strength, her craftiness, and eventually her body. She'd spent more years than she cared to remember using that last tool… but an effective weapon it'd turned out to be.

So Warren had no right to complain about the means by which she garnered her information or stalked her prey. Hadn't she always reminded him that no matter whose bed she woke in, her heart remained solely with him? "It's what I was born to do," she told him, years ago when they were both still young and arrogant enough to think philosophically about the whole thing. "It's what I'm good at."

And Warren knew it. Maybe, Zoe thought now, that was the problem.

"The child is how premature?" asked the troop's physician, Micah, over the car phone's speakers. They'd called him on the way to the real McCormicks' residence, hoping he'd be able to better deduce where the Shadows would have taken the child. "Well, the nurse—though an imposter—was right. Children can be saved at twenty-four weeks, though it'd help if she were an initiate. One born to the Zodiac is naturally more resilient than a mortal infant."

Zoe knew that, which was why she wasn't as concerned about the child's health as much as her continued health.

"So they're hiding her, incubating her, keeping her safe from discovery—"

"Not exactly news to us," Warren snapped, hands tight on the steering wheel. The dueling sides of the Zodiac were constantly shifting their appearances, their occupations, and haunts. Settle in one place too long and you were just begging for a paranormal ambush. As Zoe had discovered.

"Geez," came Micah's voice from over the speakers. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of reality today."

Gregor and Phaedre snickered in the back seat, but Zoe kept staring out the window, careful to keep her expression neutral.

Micah continued before Warren could reply. "We have a couple of locations scouted out. Nothing confirmed yet," he added quickly, and there was a shuffling of paperwork as he searched for the addresses, then read them aloud. Two were located on Charleston, a street where the single-family homes of the seventies had given way to medical and legal offices along both sides of the streets. The third was downtown.

They thanked Micah and hung up as they pulled to a stop in front of a modest two-story in an enclave of middle-class homes. Zoe stepped out onto the walkway, stretching in the morning light, thinking the neighborhood was a good fit for the couple she'd seen grieving the night before. Comfortable, yet without ostentation; orderly, but still welcoming.

Zoe grabbed the briefcase she'd retrieved from her car on the way over, and started up the walk. She halted halfway, causing Warren to plow into and then steady her, though he released her as soon as he'd done so. That fueled her indignance, adding a sting to her words. "Where do you think you're going?"

"You're not going in there without me," he replied, just as coolly, his light brown eyes hardening on hers as Phaedre and Gregor joined them on the walk. Zoe made a point of looking him up and down, taking in his ratty trench coat, tattered hems, and mussed hair. All that was missing was the cardboard sign around his neck.

"Why? You want to scare the poor people to death?" She smiled when he scowled, adding, "Besides, you smell."

His mouth worked wordlessly at that, and a furious blush stained his chapped cheeks. Zoe would've laughed… if she weren't so pissed. She'd brought this case to them, and now he was acting like she couldn't be trusted to convincingly play her part.

Gregor, sensing an argument brewing, quickly threw in his two cents. "She's right, Hog. You're as ripe as a maggoty brisket."

Fuming, Warren looked from Zoe to Gregor, then over at Phaedre.

"You stink," she confirmed, and the three of them headed up the sidewalk without him. Even with her mortal hearing Zoe could hear Warren cursing as he returned to the car. Gregor shot her a smile as she rang the doorbell, and she grinned back. It felt good, knowing they were behind her, flanking her, trusting her. It wasn't until that moment did she realize how lonely she'd been.

It was the husband who answered the door. Zoe'd expected that, but what made her heart catch in her throat was the red rimming his eyes, making him look older than his thirty-six years. Making him look ill as well.

"Mr. McCormick, I'm Traci Malone. The caseworker for United Hospital. We spoke on the phone."

Recognition flashed through his eyes at her name, but it didn't brighten them. The guy looked like he'd been extinguished inside.

"Can we come in?" she asked, inching forward. The physical suggestion wasn't as powerful now that she was mortal, but he did take a small step back. "It's about your daughter."

And now the pain followed. He shook himself as if from a dream, and began to shut the door. "You haven't heard, then. We don't have a daughter."

"Ashlyn's alive, Mr. McCormick," Phaedre said, from behind Zoe.

The child's name was what stopped him. Zoe saw that. The rest took a moment to sink in.

"Honey? Who is it?" Andria McCormick must've been crying all night. She appeared, pale skin blotchy, hair falling out if its loose ponytail, and wearing the same rumpled clothes she'd been in the night before.

"These… these people…" But Dennis couldn't finish. Fresh worry sprung into his wife's face as she studied his reaction. Then it iced over with protectiveness. Zoe knew then that she'd chosen right. This couple—their love and home—would've been perfect for her granddaughter. Would be perfect, she corrected, and straightened her shoulders.

"Mrs. McCormick, we have reason to believe your daughter was abducted from the hospital last night by a couple posing as you and—" Andie gasped as Dennis's head reared up, " — your husband. They were assisted by a nurse named Nancy Allen. May we please come in?"

By the time the McCormicks had led them through the living and dining rooms, Dennis had regained his wits enough to ask to see their credentials. Zoe handed him one of her social services cards, her eyes catching on a Welcome Home, Ashlyn banner draped over the glossy dining room table, while Gregor and Phaedre flashed detective badges. Andie then settled them in the cozy kitchen nook while she put on a fresh pot of coffee, and Dennis opened the shades, the morning light invading the darkened house in unrelenting streams. Zoe let her eyes pass over all the baby gear and followed Andie's movements as she pushed aside the preparations for the following day's Thanksgiving celebration, making way for a tray and five cups and saucers. Her attention, however, never strayed from her visitors.

Damn, but Zoe wanted this woman as Ashlyn's mother.

"What we need from you," she said, ten minutes later after telling them all she could about the previous night's events, "is to tell us everything you remember about the nurse who called you last night. Even the smallest detail might help us find her."

The McCormicks looked at one another desperately.

"Nothing stands out," Dennis finally admitted, running his hands over his chin. He looked more composed now Zoe thought. He'd recovered fast and concern had replaced his grief, anger superseding his worry. "We wouldn't have noticed another couple, and the birth mother didn't want to meet us, so we never met any of her nurses before either."

Gregor glanced up from where he was pretending to take notes. "Did she try to convince you to have the child moved to another facility? A clinic… a private practice?"

Dennis shook his head, glancing at his wife again. She did the same. "Nobody expected the baby to be born so early, though there was clearly a chance of that. Because of the birth mother's… trauma."

"Poor thing," Andie murmured, pouring more coffee all around. Zoe lifted her cup to hide her expression, knowing Phaedre and Gregor would've scented the bump in her nerves. This woman's life had just been ripped at the seams and she still had sympathy to spare for her Jo-baby. Sometimes, she thought sighing, she really wondered who was superhuman.

Dennis ignored his coffee, rising instead to pace. "We got the call around eleven last night telling us the baby was coming. We rushed right down, but by the time we arrived it was… she said it was too late. I–I don't remember anything after that."

Zoe nearly wept.

"I do."

Four pair of eyes fastened firmly on Andie's pretty, determined face, and she rewarded them with a tight smile, "The nurse, Nancy, gave me a card. Said I could call her next week to find out the exact cause of death… or if I just needed to talk." The smile turned bitter. "I hugged her and thanked her for her kindness."

"Mrs. McCormick," Gregor said, while everyone else held their breath. "Do you still have that card?"

She pushed her chair back and stood with a small, victorious toss of her head. "You bet I do."

The address matched one of those Micah had given them. Phaedre and Gregor disappeared with a hasty goodbye to the McCormicks, leaving Zoe to wind things up… and leaving her alone with Warren afterwards. He was waiting at the corner—the others had taken the car—and they fell in stride without speaking, she walking normally, he with the limp from a blow that'd almost killed him years before. As if knowing her thoughts, Warren accelerated his pace. He'd hardly feel it, but knowing she was mortal, he'd also know she would. She gritted her teeth and bore it. The next persona she donned would just have to be extremely fit.

"So what happened to your car salesman identity?" Zoe finally asked, when she couldn't stand the silence any longer.

"What always happens," he answered shortly.

The Shadows had discovered it. "Which one?"

"Taurus."

It figured. That was Warren's sign, too, and if an agent's identity was going to be found out it was usually their opposing zodiac sign who did it. Just like the old saying, opposites attract. "Breca?"

He nodded, before a clearly satisfied smile overtook his face. "The new one is named Graham."

But when Zoe smiled back, Warren caught himself and turned away. She bit her lip and increased her pace.

"It's your birthday," he said, staring back at a man in a pickup who'd slowed to stare at him. He grinned grimly when the pickup sped away. Both the look and the statement were typical Warren—no preamble or apology or emotion—and it was totally different than wishing her a happy birthday. Zoe was surprised he'd acknowledged it at all.

She shrugged, not wanted him to know the day was any more significant for her than any other mortal. Most didn't share the day with their firstborn daughter and granddaughter. Besides, she knew he was just warming up, and if she waited he'd finally come around to the heart of the matter.

"Why would you give up your chi, Zoe?" he asked, stopping in his tracks.

Because I love my daughter even more than I loved being a heroine. She turned to face him and leaned against a streetlamp. "For the troop, Warren," she answered truthfully. "And its future."

"Bullshit. You've never done anything unless there was something personal at stake as well." He pressed when he saw Zoe's jaw tighten. "Then again, getting out from under my command would qualify, wouldn't it?"

"It's not always about you, Warren," she said, and let the fatigue she felt bloom around her. She knew what it would smell like to him; apples just past their ripeness, and a soft-petaled flower wilting in the sun.

As expected, he pounced. "What happened? Get tired of bouncing from bed to bed?"

She blanched even in the harsh morning light. "You're lucky I'm mortal," she whispered.

"Don't hide behind that."

And don't let him bait you, she told herself as he limped past her so that she, again, had to follow. Because as long as she was doing the right thing, it didn't matter what he thought. He'd know the truth in time. She just wished she could see his face when he discovered how wrong he'd been.

So she swallowed her retort and tried again. "Speaking of hiding, how'd you go from being a salesman to a vagrant? Was becoming a walking cesspool your only choice?"

Stubbornly, he kept limping along. "I chose it because it's the exact opposite of everything you'd want me to be."

"Warren, please," She stopped walking and sighed. "You don't mean that."

He whirled so fast all she saw was the blurred hem of his trench coat. "I do," he said, almost violently. His face was contorted, all the pain he'd been hiding and the anger he'd stored twisting it into a jumble of emotion. His brown eyes were murky and cold. "You're toxic, Zoe. You even believe your own lies. You say 'love' and you mean 'hate'. You don't even know what it means to work as a team or troop. All you know is deceit."

She wouldn't let him get to her or bait her, she swore. And she wasn't going to fucking apologize. Warren had known what he was getting into the first time he'd climbed into her bed. She'd kicked his ass in enough training sessions for him to have no illusions about that. And after? They spoken clearly of what they'd give and how far they'd go to conquer the Shadows. They'd give it all. It wasn't her fault he'd changed his mind about her, or the men she'd already targeted.

Because there had been other men. Two, to be exact. She'd stayed with the last, Xavier Archer, for sixteen years, a mortal who was the human lackey to the Shadows' leader, a man who traded information—and lives—for power and money. That was Olivia's father.

But the first man—if you could call him that—had been the Shadow leader himself. And Zoe knew it was this relationship that bothered Warren the most. Fooling a mortal was one thing—even humans could lie adeptly to one another—but deceiving the Shadow leader took uncommon nerve. Someone with Zoe's particular skills.

She never had found out what Warren found most irritating: that she'd faithfully return to his bed after months of lying in another man's embrace, or that he, just as faithfully, would let her.

All she knew was that every time she returned to the sanctuary they'd end up yelling at one another until their throats were raw. So she never told him when the Tulpa got her pregnant. Or, after she'd changed her identity to go back undercover, when Xavier did the same two years later Her daughters were hers alone. Not pawns to be bargained with, manipulated, or—God forbid—destroyed because of Warren's jealousy, spite, or sense of duty.

But all of that was in the past, back when she still thought she could make a difference. When she thought she was invincible. Back, she thought as Warren stalked on ahead of her, when she believed she and this smelly, stubborn, and impossibly good man still had a future together.

They trudged on in silence.

Chapter 4

Nurse Nancy's real name was Melania. She was the Shadow Zodiac's Libra, firstborn daughter of Treya, granddaughter of Patrice the Cruel, and by the time Zoe learned all this, she was also dead. Not only had she been working at the decoy clinic when Phaedre and Gregor got there, but she'd been alone.

The only problem with this? She was alone. No child, and no faux adoptive parents. But before Phaedre killed her with a fire-tipped wand that burrowed through flesh to incinerate her core, she «convinced» Melania to tell her where they'd taken the babe.

"The Tulpa's house," Gregor reported back, when they'd all gathered at the Smoking Gun Inn, a battered roadside motel dumped conveniently in the middle of town. "And most of the Shadow Zodiac is gathered there as well."

Zoe's head shot up. "That's odd. The Tulpa never allows the Shadows into his home. Or he didn't when I was with him."

And if he'd changed that practice in the years since, Zoe would've ferreted the information out of Xavier, either with alcohol or sex or both. So it was a recent development. But like the others, she could now only guess at the reasons why.

Yet even odder than that… "Why would the Shadow leader take a mortal child into his home?" Warren wondered.

Because she's the granddaughter of his most hated enemy.

"I don't know," Zoe lied, keeping her eyes downcast, weaving the wide straw she'd made Warren stop for at the crafts store on the long walk back to the Inn that afternoon. He'd raised a brow but hadn't asked her why, pretending not to care.

Who knew? Maybe he really didn't by now.

She shrugged off the weight of his gaze and let them debate the pros and cons of risking their lives for one mortal child, keeping her hands moving in an even to-and-fro, like she had nothing vested in the outcome. She'd already made up her mind, so the particulars of their actions interested, but wouldn't affect her.

"Whatever you're doing," Warren said suddenly, "it's not going to work."

Her lips curved—leave it to him to know she wasn't merely weaving—but she didn't stop. Instead she said, "Did you know another name for the cornucopia is 'the horn of plenty'? In the past people would fill it up with fruit, nuts, and seasonal vegetables, and offer it as a blessing when visiting a neighbor's home."

"Zoe—" He sang her name, turning it into a long warning.

She went on, not looking up. "But before that tradition, it was a part of the ancient harvest festivals. See, bringing in the harvest meant stripping the land bare, which left the spirit that lived amongst the crop homeless. A corn dolly—or idol as it was more popularly known—would act as spirit's receptacle for the winter, until the idol could be furrowed under again at the start of the new season."

Yet in Greek mythology it was a goat's horn, and had the power to give its possessor whatever she wished for. How convenient that it was now associated with Thanksgiving, a holiday—or holy day—that the Tulpa considered one of the best. An extremely superstitious being, he believed celebrations, like ceremonies, gave shape to days and years of mortals, making their actions nice and predictable as they clung to their rituals. He used to say it kept them in their place, and he loved it when events conformed to his expectations. He banked on it.

Of course, Zoe had already blown that expectation once—blown it like an A-bomb—so she wasn't expecting a joyous reunion. And showing up on his doorstep on Thanksgiving Day was the least expected thing she could do.

But the more she thought about it, the more she was sure it would work. Because though the design of the universe was intricate and mysterious, nothing was left to accident. Here she thought she was powerless to influence anything of import due to her mortality, but by weaving this basket herself, by imbuing her work with her intent and passionate belief, she was doing the one thing all humans had the power to do. She was turning her deepest desires into reality.

After all, wasn't that what the man who created the Tulpa had done?

So all she had to do was believe in this task just as strongly as he had. Strong enough to bend the universe to her will. And that's what she had specialized in when she was a troop member, she thought, gritting her teeth. Bending others to her will.

"Thanksgiving is an opportunity," she murmured, more to herself than the others now. "The holiday gives me an opening. The Tulpa will be fixed on gaining power from all the emotion associated with the holiday—hope, joy, thankfulness—things humans believe unerringly in. He'll never sense my true intent above all the emotional static. It's perfect."

And she fell back in to the rhythm of the weaving, visualizing it now, everything else secondary to what she wanted. "It's not perfect." Warren broke in. "It's suicide."

She didn't look up, her fingers continued their smooth slide-and-weave, and the basket began taking shape. "Chin up, Warren. At least this time you'll know for sure what happened to me."

He dropped a strong palm over her hands, stilling them. "You're not going. Hear me?"

She remained still, head bowed, voice soft. "I've always heard you, Warren."

He removed his hand quickly. "Then you'll have no problem obeying when I order you to give up your star sign. Tonight."

"I said I heard you." She did look up now, her voice cold as his. "I didn't say I listened."

And he knew that, too.

Warren's chin shot up, and the eyes that'd once followed her every move with an earthy softness were now petrified in an equally unyielding face. "See that she doesn't leave this room… even if you have to tie her down."

Zoe returned to her weaving as the door slammed behind him.

"Oh, Zoe," Phaedre said, running her hands through her rich hair on a sigh. "Your plan was to show up on the Shadow leader's doorstep on Thanksgiving Day, clothed in mortality, and bearing a gift cursed with ill intent?"

Zoe shrugged, ignoring Phaedre's use of the past tense. So it didn't sound like such a great plan when stated like that. But she would still go through with it. "I'll charm him into opening his door for me."

Because if she could get inside, get him alone for even a moment, it would work. Getting in without getting killed might be more of a problem.

Phaedre had turned her back, ostensibly fixing her hair in the dresser mirror, but Zoe knew she was studying her. "Except this time he'll be on his guard. He'll sense an attack coming a mile away. He'll be expecting it from you."

"He'll drop that guard once he sees my humanity. My vulnerability," she said the words to convince herself as much as Phaedre, flipping the straw horn on her lap, starting a new row. "Everyone is always on their guard around him—"

"Because he's the psycho kingpin of the paranormal underworld."

"— and he hates it." She looked up to meet Phaedre's disbelieving stare through the mirrored pane. "He does. It's one of the reasons he loved me."

Phaedre turned. "You weren't on guard because you'd already gained his confidence."

"And so when I say I changed my mind and ran away from the agents of Light, he'll believe I've been in hiding from you all these years, not him. He'll believe what he's always wanted to when he looks at me."

Phaedre leaned against the dresser, crossing her arms. "And what is that?"

"That I love him." She said, setting the corn idol aside. "That we're destined for one another."

"Zoe—"

"Trust me, Phaedre." She stood, brushed off her pants, and headed to the door Warren had exited through.

The movement was quicker than the human eye, so Zoe found herself sprawled facedown across the bed without knowing how she'd gotten there. Phaedre was straddling her, so close Zoe could scent the mint on her breath and the powder of her perfume; pleasant, were it not for the wand tip pointed at Zoe's throat.

"Warren said you stay," Phaedre murmured in her ear, meaning the bodily assault wasn't anything personal.

Zoe craned her neck to peer into Phaedre's face despite the risk of a fiery death. "And what the troop leader says, goes, right?"

Annoyance flickered behind Phaedre's jewel-green eyes. "I understand it might grate, Zoe, especially considering your former status, but maybe it's time you listened to someone other than yourself."

Zoe dropped her head and lay limp, knowing she'd get up only when—if—Phaedre allowed it. "You want to put your conduit away? It's a bit of overkill."

Phaedre shifted atop her, but that was for her comfort, not Zoe's. She inched the wand closer to Zoe's left eye, her favored point of insertion. "Bother you, does it? Make you nervous? Because the Tulpa doesn't have a conduit, you know. He is a conduit. A whole being through whom energy is conducted, amassed, multiplied. That's why he can affect the weather, move things with his mind, manipulate environments and—most importantly—read your intentions."

"I know all this," Zoe said, testily. She twisted again and this time Phaedre got up, letting her turn. "I'm the one who told the rest of you, remember?"

"So then you also know that he's been working on the time/space continuum, using special relativity to attempt to return to the past?"

Zoe pushed herself to her knees. It was evident from her silence that she hadn't known. So how had Phaedre? "The manuals?" Zoe guessed.

Phaedre inclined her head. "He's conducting experiments, gathering energy around him to return to the moment of his gravest betrayal. When you, Zoe, exposed his vulnerability."

"That's not possible," Zoe whispered, kneeling in the ratty bedspread, mind whirling. Was it?

Phaedre pursed her lips wryly as she rose and tucked her conduit back in her pocket. Zoe gave an inward sigh of relief.

"He thinks there's only a finite amount of energy available on this earth, in this valley in particular, and since he's bound to Las Vegas and can't derive energy from outside this city, he's working on creating more of it here, storing it. Hoarding it, if you will, for himself."

"And that's what he'd use it on?" Zoe asked, noting she looked as bewildered in the opposing dresser mirror as she felt. "Saving Wyatt?"

Phaedre laughed humorlessly and shook her head. "He's not going back to save his creator, Zoe. He's going back to kill you."

And even as Zoe's mind whirled with disbelief, she knew it could be done. Anything was possible, if the mind believed strongly enough… and the Tulpa possessed an iron mind. "He'd need a tremendous amount of energy," she murmured. So how was he getting it? What law of physics or powerful magic—or both—would enable him to contract time and alter the terrestrial setting?

Phaedre shrugged. "We haven't figured it out yet. All I know is if you show up on his doorstep, plain as day and clothed in mortal skin, you'll save him the trouble of having to find you in the recesses of time. And you'll die for nothing."

Not nothing, Zoe thought, standing. Because now she was more determined than ever to get her granddaughter back. Whatever the Tulpa was doing and however he was deriving power, she was sure it involved Ashlyn.

"I need to speak to Warren." Zoe started, then smiled grimly when Phaedre took a warning step forward. "He can hold me down himself if he's so inclined."

It was Phaedre's turn to smirk. "He just might," she said, but motioned to the door.

The manuals Phaedre had referred to recorded the battle between good and evil in the Nevada desert as it'd gone on for the past rnillennium. In the mortal world the manuals were called comic books, and were devoured by the young minds that lived the stories out in their imaginations, and in turn, gave energy to the agents and troops through their detailed daydreams and belief. The connection between reader and agent was very much a partnership, and without one the other would fail to thrive.

So everything Zoe had done—both accomplishments and defeats—was recorded in either the Shadow manuals or the Light, depending on the sensitivity of the information there. Any knowledge that could give one side dominance over the other, thus unbalancing the zodiac, was omitted. That's why Zoe's pregnancies hadn't been recorded on either side, and why neither the Tulpa nor Warren knew where she'd gone when she disappeared.

Thus, every agent had secrets they knew lay solely in their own minds, and even the most senior troop members couldn't help but wonder about their allies' lives as well as their enemies: what wasn't being revealed?

So what exactly were the manuals omitting about Zoe and her relationship with the angry, stubborn man on the other side of that door?

Well, it wasn't the part about the bond they'd forged growing up as teens in the paranormal safehouse known as the sanctuary. The bloom of their subsequent love affair, around the time she was nineteen and he twenty-four, was also well-documented—much to their embarrassment at the time—as was the bloody coup that'd led to Warren's meteoric rise in rank to become the youngest troop leader ever. Zoe had been pictured firmly by his side.

No, the omissions began after all that, when Zoe herself had taken up her star sign and began to hunt the Tulpa, a task that would make her famous for her bravery, single-mindedness, and willingness to give up personal happiness in return for their enemy's blood. Maybe what angered Warren most wasn't that she turned her back on him in order to fulfill these duties, but that the original assignment had been his idea. He'd ordered her into the Tulpa's lair and life—and bed—with his blessing. And in time it became his curse.

Because the manuals did record how good she was at her job. They showed in exacting detail how clearly the Tulpa, and later Xavier, fell for her ruse. Soon, every small, helpful, important detail she brought back about the Shadows' plans and machinations were met by her troop leader's knowing and bitter sneer. Eventually Zoe stopped coming back at all.

So the wedge between the two former lovers grew with time, expanding with secrets until the girth that lay between them was too wide for either of them to attempt crossing. And when Zoe disappeared this final time—after the daughter Warren knew nothing about had been brutalized by the Shadow Aquarian—she hadn't even considered telling him why she was leaving, where she was going, or what she intended to do. She didn't want to argue, and besides, she barely knew the answers herself.

All that mattered now was that Joanna and Olivia were safe. She'd given up her chi and her place in the troop to ensure it. And now she would hunker in close by, watchful, as she'd failed to be the first time, and wait for the moment when Joanna would rise up and stake her claim in the Zodiac. Because Zoe's greatest secret wasn't merely omitted from the manuals, it was the one the Seer had told her never to utter, not to Warren, not even aloud to herself.

Her eldest daughter was both Shadow and Light, and when she was ready and had overcome the tragedy that would shape her future, she would be mightier than all of them put together.

So Warren and Zoe didn't have a love story that began with "Once upon a time." And, inevitably, it wouldn't end with "happily ever after" either. But Zoe had a job to do, and she was still enough of a heroine to see it through to the end.

"Are you ready to listen?" Zoe began, moving across Warren's dim motel room. He'd stiffened as he sensed her presence, but hadn't looked up from the paper he was pretending to read.

"I'm ready to hear you."

Touché, thought Zoe, with a wry smile. She crossed the dingy room to stand in front of his chair. Hearing was a start.

"You need to let me do this."

"Why?"

"Because I can. Because I'm the only one who can. The holiday doesn't just give me an excuse, it's a powerful time. The holy days join the old world beliefs with the new. The possibilities that opens up are endless."

He lifted one shoulder, unwilling to admit she was right. "Christmas is coming up. The troop can figure something out by then."

But Zoe had to get Ashlyn out of there now. "Let me do this. I'm already on the outside. Why risk the life of an active star sign when you have me ready to go in willingly?"

"Why do you care so much about this one mortal child?"

"Because I'm mortal!" She pounded her chest then clenched her fist at her side. "It's all I have, don't you see? This life, this skin, the breath in my lungs, it's all that separates me from death."

"And yet you're so willing to give it up." Warren said, watching her now. "Because that's what you're asking to do. One foot on the Tulpa's doorstep, and he'll slay you where you stand."

"Because I betrayed his love?" she asked.

"Yes."

"You haven't killed me," she pointed out.

Because her betrayal of him—their betrayal of each other—had been greater and deeper than any ruse concocted to topple their enemies.

Warren swallowed hard. "I've wished you dead."

"And I, you," she said matter-of-factly, stepping closer. Warren opened his mouth, but she put a finger to his lips and held it there. "It's not the same thing, and I'm willing to bet my life that the Tulpa feels the same."

His face crumpled in on itself and he shook off her touch. "You would compare me to him?"

"I didn't mean that—"

"You said it. Which means you were thinking it. And we both know it's the thought that counts, don't we?"

That's what they'd told one another when she had returned to his arms, his bed. It was the thought that counted most. It was the most powerful thing in the universe.

"Warren…" she began to protest, but stopped.

"What?" he said shortly.

"You're right," Zoe said, and the surprise that flashed across his face must have mirrored her own. She laughed mirthlessly. "Maybe I am toxic. But I had to stop feeling anything for anyone in the time I was with the Tulpa. I couldn't just turn it back on when I returned to the sanctuary. I had to close down because I needed to save a small place inside of me that was mine alone." She'd been a possession, she remembered with a shudder, she'd belonged entirely to the Tulpa. "Sometimes I even forgot why I was there—that I was even, or ever had been, super."

She backed up and sank to the edge of the bed, realizing for the first time that it was true. She'd disappeared into her role as the Tulpa's woman and instead of remembering that she had chosen to be there—that she could choose to leave—she'd begun to feel small and weak, like a shell with only the pretty memory of something vital living inside. As for her idea of love, well, the Tulpa had twisted that as well. She'd had to stop feeling real love at all just to survive it.

Zoe looked up when she felt Warren's weight drop down beside her. "Whatever he took from you, Zoe, you gave willingly. You had to have seen and felt it happening."

"So did you," she said sharply, wiping at her eyes.

"And what was I supposed to do?" he shifted, putting distance between them without really moving. "I couldn't contact you, and even if I did I couldn't order your withdrawal, nullifying all the years you'd put in up to that point. Do you realize you've spent more accumulated years outside of the sanctuary than in it? You grew up there, but it's not your home. Your home is your will and desire, and what you want. It's all that matters. It's all that ever mattered."

She turned toward him, and after a long moment, lifted her tear-streaked face to his. "You mattered."

It wasn't what he'd expected, and he jerked back before he could stop himself. She stayed him with a hand on his arm, and when he didn't shake it off—just swallowed hard as he saw her intent—she shifted closer. Ran her hand up his shoulder to curl around his neck. Used the same smooth, liquid motion she had before she was reduced to mortality to pinion around, above, and upon him; the weak cradling the strong as a tear raced down his moonlit cheek.

"You mattered," she whispered again, and wrapped her limbs around him so she wouldn't have to see it, put her head on his chest and shut her eyes, resting there until his arms finally came up to encircle her.

This, she thought, was home.

She sucked in a deep breath, and scented only what her mortal nose would allow, the menthol rub he used on his bad leg, the fainter scent of his soap, and beneath it all, the warm, earthy wisp of the man she loved. She tilted her head, pressing her lips against the first available patch of bare flesh that offered itself to her, his biceps.

"I missed this so," she murmured, voice muffled.

"My arm?" His voice was softly teasing, as it used to be.

She'd missed that, too, she realized with a smile. Pulling away to peer into his face, dry now, doe-brown eyes deep pools of softness in the moonlit room, she knew that no place—sanctuary, safe house, mansion or motels—was more linked in her mind with home than his arms. She straightened her spine and pressed into him so that he sucked in a needy breath. They were fused at hips, her small breasts pressed against his wider chest, and he tilted his jaw up to find her lips. The need in that first kiss illuminated all the hard words between them, showing them for what they really were: smoke. Camouflage to protect the emotion they couldn't put to words; the "I love yous" and "I miss yous" and mostly "I can't… not without you."

So they abandoned words for the tangible, and Zoe found she'd been missing a lot more than just his arms.

Warren lifted her and Zoe didn't rail at him for manhandling her like she would have with anyone else. She didn't fight to assert her own control over this lovemaking just to prove she could. She just let herself be swept up and away, because the weakening of her knees, her limbs, the numbing of her mind and thoughts, had nothing to do with his otherworldly strength versus her much-hated humanity. It was just Warren loving Zoe as he always had. Loving her, she thought numbly as his mouth found hers, and not what she could do… what she had done, and would do yet. No, this night was all about being cradled and cherished by the only man she'd ever taken into her with no ulterior motive outside of giving as good as she got.

Which is what she did now.

Humanity hadn't stolen her agility, and when he swung her to her back, her legs whipped up and around his waist. His response, to grind against her, was automatic, as was the moan coaxed from his throat and into hers. Problem was, she was still clothed—they both were—so many of the soft growls and needy whimpers that escaped them both in the next few seconds were driven in part by frustration. The rest were spawned by sudden sensations—a palm cupped just there when her simple cotton shirt was finally lost, a hunger emphasized by the bite above the breast, a surprised laugh at the responding pinch. And a slow melt into the heat of each other's flesh as the rest of their clothes fell away.

Zoe had dreamed of this moment, and these sensations for too long to rush. She arched against him whenever she got the chance, but kept it light and unhurried, just a caress of thighs, a skimming of skin, a slow glide from her belly to her thighs to show him she was already wet and ready for him. That she'd been ready for years now, waiting even as duty had kept her away.

One didn't need supersenses to quantify need, and Zoe felt Warren, too, straining to stay himself. He slowed his hands to a languid caress even as the need to race along her sides made him shudder. He tasted her with breathy and heated lips—not just sampling, but drinking her in like her skin was a sweet liquid and vital to his very existence.

This was what she missed most, Zoe thought as she eased over him, blanketing him with her core, lacing his limbs with hers. It wasn't her lost strength or the vitality leached from her world with the stripping of her extrasensory abilities. It was the union of mind, body, and spirit with a man, who'd known her so long, understood her so well, and frustrated her so completely.

Zoe eased up, Warren shifted, skimming hips, and smiled as he slid home. Zoe swallowed hard. She could swim in this liquid motion, just let herself drift away as a body both outside and inside herself determined the beat of her steadfast heart. She rocked, feeling like she was mere driftwood on a vast open sea, and the only thing keeping her from floating away entirely was the knowledge that their time together was finite—that the sun would rise and their bodies would part, leaving behind slick thighs and an hollowness where he once resided.

Zoe wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand on her way to caressing Warren's cheek, pulling him closer and deeper as she pushed the thoughts away. She didn't want to swim in these feelings, anyway. She wanted to drown in them. And that wasn't allowed.

"Zoe—"

She pressed a finger to his lips, knowing he sensed her pain. She recalled the ability, and the way emotions burning on the air. He wanted to console her, but words weren't going to fix it, and besides, he felt the same way. She saw it in his eyes, felt it in his tensing fingers and the way he pulsed inside of her.

And that was comfort enough.

She smiled, being as brave as the moment would allow, and his image blurred beneath her. The first tear fell as she refitted her body against his, opening to him further, and inviting the hard and the soft, the warm and the wet. And when they came together, the tendons in his neck straining as he cried out below her, Zoe knew she wasn't just sating him, she was completing him. Because duty aside, Zoe Archer and Warren Clarke were simply made for one another. And when she collapsed atop him, the long smooth length of him still filling her, warming her, she knew that Warren had come home as well.

Later, when he was as bone-weary with the need for sleep as she, Warren wrapped his arms around her from behind, spooning her body with his own.

"You're wrong," he finally whispered, and she knew he would let her go.

Zoe smiled bittersweetly as his hands warmed her breasts, nuzzling back, cocooning herself further. Safe for now. "If I am you won't need to ask me to relinquish my star sign again. It'll be someone else's for the taking."

A sigh hollowed out his body.

She turned in his arms because it felt like there were suddenly acres and canyons and miles between them, and quickly drew close again. "But I'm not wrong. I have prophesies and legacies and adventures left to fulfill."

She had a daughter, a destiny… and at the end of it all? Maybe she still had this man to come home to.

So she wouldn't fail. She promised him that, then pressed her lips to his, trying to kiss away the worry that had returned to furrow his brow.

"And if you do?"

It was too practical a question for her liking. She rose, straddled him, and he immediately fell silent, while she shrugged the question away. It didn't matter either way. Death was preferable to a life without meaning, and for the first time since leaving the troop she had a purpose again. That alone was worth giving thanks for.

So she held back the words he wanted to hear—I won't go—once again putting away any chance at personal happiness, and merely smiled as dawn rose on a beautiful Thanksgiving morning.

"We'll see," she told him, flipping her hair back, dropping her palms to his chest. "We'll see who's giving thanks by the day's end."

Chapter 5

White was the symbol of holiness and purity in Tibetan Buddhism. It represented prosperity, too, so it was no accident that the Tulpa's home was achromatic from rooftop to doorstep, a blank slate against the sea of pastels and dusty stuccoes that otherwise dotted the valley floor.

It wasn't, however, an ivory tower. The Tulpa was reluctant to remove himself from the source of all his energy and strength. Human emotion, particularly negative, fueled him, though most mortals steered clear of the soaring pale home without even knowing they were doing so. Even Shadow agents didn't darken the doorway without invitation. Zoe had been the only agent of Light to even get close enough to peer in a window, and since her infiltration sixteen years earlier, paranormal sensors and precautions had been added to further secure the place.

But, as Warren drove her to the drop point a block away, she didn't worry about those. She was mortal, and the only monitor that would pick her up was attached to the security camera tucked high above the entrance's alcove.

On the surface of it, Warren was right. She hadn't seen the Tulpa in sixteen years, plenty of time for bitterness to crust over any soft feelings he'd once held for her, and she had no doubt his hatred had further cemented the emotion. But no sense in worrying about that now. Instead, her lips moved in an almost rhythmic chant as her fingers nimbly played over the cornucopia she'd woven.

An observer might have thought she was praying, but Zoe Archer knew too much of other worlds to put stock in any one deity, and let her whispers spiral out into the universe as affirmation instead. She had, at one time, been a fervent student of Tibetan culture and lore, studying the transitional realities called bardos, learning the self-control and discipline needed to succeed with tantric work, including hours of meditative practices, prostration, and mantra recitation. Because that's what a man named Wyatt Neelson had done, devoting fifteen years of his life to visualization in order to create a being so vivid, real, and evil that the thought form eventually morphed into reality and became the Tulpa.

It was this being's arrival on the paranormal scene that upset the valley's metaphysical balance. The Tulpa sought influence over the mortal realm—to control their thoughts and actions and dreams—and absolute dominance over the paranormal one. The agents of Light fought, of course, but they'd never faced a created adversary before, and suddenly balance became a secondary concern. Survival was all-consuming.

The Tulpa didn't age. He couldn't be killed—not even by the conduits that were so deadly to the agents on both sides of the Zodiac—and he assumed the physical form of whatever the person looking at him expected to see. It was this that most worried Zoe. God forbid he look in a mirror while standing next to her and see the demonic monstrosity that still came for her in her dreams. Then he'd know she was misleading him again and he'd skin and flay and bury her with her bones outside her body, heart still beating atop a living pile of flesh. He knew how. She'd seen him do it before.

So while weaving her cornucopia, Zoe had focused her thoughts on the way he'd once allowed himself to be vulnerable with her, turning those tender moments into a new story for herself and a new past for them both. She wove and thought, and invented and wove, until she had the minutest detail engraved upon her gray matter. She memorized this new past and then began to believe it. She believed the Tulpa was as before, that he loved her and would readily welcome her back. She believed, as before, that she loved him as well, and that she wanted nothing so much as to be in his arms once more. She created this story as she created her gift—with focus and a studied and purposeful intent—and by the time she'd finished she knew she could walk into the Tulpa's house with complete confidence.

Because there'd been one chink in the Tulpa's impenetrable paranormal armor. And Zoe Archer was it.

She was stepping from the car even before Warren had come to a full stop, and the crisp November air greeted her brightly as the morning sun hit her face. It was easy to turn nostalgic on a day like this, a holiday when one should be with family and friends, feasting and giving heartfelt thanks for this life's blessings. She hugged her homemade cornucopia tight to her chest, and its weight and scent and purpose grounded her, giving her strength to push those wistful thoughts away. Leave them for the mortals who had use for such things.

She slammed the car door and had already begun walking away when she stopped. They never said goodbye. It was considered bad form, indicating a deficit of confidence, and was usually unnecessary. But she didn't want to just walk away from Warren, not again, not without at least some solid sense of closure. So she backed up and waited until he'd lowered the driver's side window, then stared down into that face she'd loved almost as long as she'd breathed.

"There's something you should know, but I can't tell you—" She couldn't really tell him anything. Certainly not the truth. "It's about the legend. The rise of the Kairos." The woman who was both Shadow and Light, and whose powers would forever tip the paranormal scale in favor of good or evil, whichever she chose.

Whichever, her daughter, Joanna, chose.

Zoe squinted against the light as Warren sat back, studying her as carefully as she measured her words. "The Kairos lives. She's going to rise up in under your command. Watch and listen for her. She doesn't know it yet, but she's hurtling toward her destiny even now."

Warren had fallen stock-still. He was listening, and hearing, her now. "Where, Zoe? Tell me how to find her."

She shook her head and quickly held up a hand, staving off his protest. "She's in hiding, Warren. Even from herself. You won't find her until her metamorphosis."

"Which is when?"

That head shake again. "I'm sorry, but that's all I can tell you."

She thought he'd be mad, start railing about lies and secrets, trust and duty. But he simply leaned back against the leather seat and squinted up at her in the sharp morning light. He could see it out here, she thought. The veil between worlds was wide enough on this hopeful, thankful day that her intentions were clear in the light. And clearly Light.

"I didn't say it before," he finally said, admiration and, yes, love sharpening his words. "Happy Birthday, Zoe."

She gave him a wide smile, then turned to face the long walk leading to the stark white house, up the steps that were almost silvery in the brilliant sun, where she casually rang the doorbell. When it opened, she said what she'd been thinking; her wish for Warren, a vow for the day's work, a final goodbye. "Happy Thanksgiving."

The woman who answered the door was named Lindy Maguire. She was frumpy, matronly, favoring lace collars and long skirts, and she was also the Shadow's Leonine sign on the Zodiac. Like all Leos Lindy was ruled by the sun, and like most, also ruled by the heart. She had long ago set aside personal aspirations in order to remain as close as possible to the Tulpa, so it was natural that Lindy was acting as vanguard for his home. Natural, too, that she hated Zoe.

Lindy's delicate nostrils flared as she examined Zoe, scenting out humanity as she ran her eyes skeptically over the cream slacks and overcoat, though she didn't place her until Zoe opened her mouth.

"Damn, Lindy," Zoe said, studying the woman's beehive. "Still stuck in the sixties, I see."

Recognition had barely flashed in Lindy's eyes before Zoe found herself crushed against the wall, blood welling in her mouth as she thought, I used to be that fast… but I hit harder.

"Uh-uh-uh," Zoe said, shaking her head as much as she dared. Lindy's conduit was out—Zoe hadn't seen her draw that, either—and the honed nail file was pressed against Zoe's larynx, so that breathing was no longer the best way to stay alive. Zoe shifted her eyes to the camera trained on them from above. "Don't want to ruin all his fun, do we?"

Lindy cursed under her breath then let up, but not before flicking the file just enough to draw blood. Zoe hissed at the flash of pain—it still surprised her—and Lindy's frown turned upside down.

"I must be dreaming, because every sense I own tells me the mighty Zoe Archer is a mortal." She wrinkled her nose as she said the word, like it befouled the air around her. And while she was gloating, reveling in being the first to know, and at holding her longtime foe at a distinct disadvantage Zoe discreetly shifted her weight… and plowed her fist into Lindy's already flat nose.

She probably felt no more pain than a pinch, and the blood was only a trickle, but Lindy's eyes watered as her nose mended itself, shifting back into place with an audible crack. Zoe smirked and picked up her toppled cornucopia.

"Mortal doesn't mean pushover."

"No. It means walked-over."

"Just tell him I'm here," Zoe said curtly.

The house quaked like the hills of San Francisco.

Lindy grinned as she swayed. "He knows."

As, it seemed, did everyone else. As Zoe was escorted beyond the foyer and into the core of the house, doors began to swing open. She didn't make eye contact as speculative whispers turned to hissing, and curiosity turned hostile. Instead she let her eyes stray over the shoulders of her enemies—Raven was here, she saw, and Polly and Damian; they leered at her as she passed—but she ignored them all and searched out the rooms she remembered and recognized by layout, pretending to look for the Tulpa. There was neither anything resembling a nursery, nor any sign of a child. He'd called these his drawing rooms when she was living here, and she was surprised to find nothing had changed. Not even the furnishings. Even after Zoe's infiltration that first time, even though he knew she'd returned to the Light and reported every secret detail of his lair—and she knew them all—he'd stayed put.

Arrogant bastard, she thought, as Lindy smiled back at her from over one slim shoulder. That arrogance would be his downfall.

She wiped away the thought like cleaning a slate in her mind. Imagination was what was needed to keep her alive through the day. So instead of thinking that the Tulpa was stupid as well as manipulative and cruel, she thought of him as trusting and hopeful, just waiting for the day Zoe would return to him.

"I'll take that." Lindy said, holding out her hands for the cornucopia once they'd reached the end of the hallway. It was an unnecessary precaution. Nothing on the physical plane could injure the Tulpa. But Lindy wasn't about to release Zoe without letting her know she wasn't trusted. Zoe almost thanked her. It was a good reminder after the relative ease of the entry.

"It's a gift," Zoe said lightly, "and it's not for you."

Lindy could've easily wrested the cornucopia from Zoe's grasp. Instead she reached out and deliberately plucked the finishing piece, a sugared plum, from atop the carefully arranged mound, leaving a hole where the fruit had been. She bit into it without breaking eye contact, and juice ran down her chin as her mouth curved upward.

"Attractive," Zoe commented dryly. "And the manuals still speculate why you've no heir to your star sign… or prospect of spawning one."

Lindy's expression snapped, anger pulling it tight at the center, but she didn't use the fist clenched at her side, and she didn't tear the cornucopia from Zoe's hands. Security tapes had shown Zoe entering with the piece. If she didn't walk in with it now the Tulpa would wonder why.

And if there was a weapon hidden in the cheerful basket, he'd want to shove it down her throat himself.

There was a pedestal perched next to the door, one that had once held a fern, but now sported a blood-red scripture box with twin dragons on each wooden side, a lone bright spot in the long bare hallway. That was one difference, Zoe thought. She hadn't seen any living thing—plants, animals, humans—in the house. Because Shadows didn't count, she thought as Lindy slid open the box's ornate lid, and pulled out a pair of gold-rimmed aviator glasses. "Put these on."

Zoe screwed up her face. "I'm not going to meet the Tulpa in glasses that make me look like I'm stuck in the eighties."

"Put them on," Lindy repeated, her voice brittle.

Zoe sighed, shifted her gift to one arm and accepted the glasses, her confused gaze winking up at her from the mirrored lenses. "Why?"

"Because I said so." Lindy rapped on the door twice with her knuckles and it immediately swung open to reveal a dim and deep interior. It wouldn't have been intimidating… if there'd actually been someone manning the door. Lindy saw Zoe hesitate and the cruel smile was back on her face. "Have… fun."

Zoe wondered at the deliberate word choice, but slid the glasses over her eyes like she hadn't noticed, and smirked. "We always do."

Zoe would've given her life just then to be able to smell the bilious jealousy she knew was seeping from the woman's pores, but the cursing and chattering behind them told her the other Shadows did scent it. Knowing an impending riot when she saw one, she stepped smoothly into the room and watched as the door swung shut on the demonic faces glaring at her from the hallway.

Then the vacuum of silence was absolute.

The glasses accentuated the room's dimness and Zoe thought that was their purpose. So she emptied her mind and tried not to let it unnerve her; tried, too, not to think of all the empty space around her, or how she could be cut down where she stood without even knowing the blow was corning. She knew fear stank like something pickled and old, and the Tulpa fed on that fear.

Zoe was determined to make him starve.

Still, she jumped when a movement flickered across from her, freezing as she did. Swallowing hard, she cradling the curved horn like it was a talisman that would ward off injury, and took a step forward. Three beings across from her mirrored the movement. None of them spoke.

"Babe?" she said, using the same endearment she had all those years before. No answer. She stepped forward again. The Shadows across from her drew closer as well, still silent. She tilted her head, and saw two of them imitate the movement. Cutting her eyes to the third, she realized that figure, also clad in owlish lenses, had as well. She lifted her hand as if in greeting, and they did the same.

Mirrors. A relieved sigh scuttled from her throat, but caught when a wispy shadow rose up behind her, kept rising in a tower of smoke that burned even in her mortal nose, and was tripled before her eyes. She froze as it suddenly retracted, leaving vaporous tendrils to dissipate in the air as it solidified over her right shoulder like ash caught in a mold.

Even as she strained through the dark glasses to make out his features, she knew she was the one creating them, expectation and memory joining forces to construct the man she remembered, like an architect building a house from the bones up. He wasn't much taller than she, and slighter than one would expect of a man of great power. His hair was a sandy color—not quite brown, but not blond, either—and he had deep hazel eyes, like the moss of a clouded swamp. With a wide face and full lips, he couldn't be called unattractive and that was no accident. Zoe remembered thinking that if she had to bed down with unadulterated evil, he could at least be good-looking.

Once he'd fully materialized, he slipped his arm over her shoulder, around her neck, his fingers coming to rest on her opposite arm. He squeezed lightly, pulling in tight to whisper in her ear.

"Darling," he said, his endearment for her returned. His voice was raspy, pure male, and honed.

But his embrace wasn't as cold as she remembered, his breath not as septic sour, and though Zoe knew it was only because her senses were blunted with mortality, it made it easier to ignore the rot she knew lay ready to engulf her if not for the fragile membrane of his skin. Before she'd been able to scent out festering venom and bacteria, and at the end she'd even begun to expect infection, like she too was contaminated, even though she was super. But now she could anticipate nothing about him, including this unexpected welcome.

Realigning her thoughts—and Zoe was a pro at that—she let go of the knowledge that he could kill her with a swift snap of those gentle fingers, or crack her like a walnut between the lever of his strong arm and body, and turned into him instead. The sigh that flew from her body was one of relief, not fear. Her arms clung to him with gratitude, not entreaty, and she lifted her lips to his icy ones as she'd done countless times all those years past to utter her heartfelt lie.

"I knew you'd allow me to return."

He pulled away to study her face, taking in the changes since he'd last seen her—few, as she'd aged well—though he studied her eyes in particular.

No, not her eyes, she realized. His reflection in her glasses. Her thoughts as they materialized on his face. So she let memories wash over her, easy now that she was seeing and scenting and touching him again, and his features sharpened further. His brow grew in smooth, the whorls of his earlobes became delicate and defined. She thought she saw his eyes flash dark, but his expression brightened as the room did, degree by degree, until they were standing face to face in a room of reflected angles and light.

Have fun, Lindy had said, and now Zoe knew why. This was the one room in the house that had undergone a complete renovation, and it was why he hadn't needed to move. Here—in the place that'd once been the Tulpa's bedroom, where Zoe had lied time after time, and betrayed him the night she'd gone to kill his creator—he'd built a funhouse, full-sized mirrors to reflect a true picture of the inhabitant's intent. Reflect it upon, and for, him.

It explained why no one had accompanied her inside. It was harder for the Tulpa to solidify when multiple people projected their expectations upon him, and it was uncomfortable for him to exist under the weight of too many people's expectations at once—he'd actually feel himself mutating and changing under their conflicting emotions. So only the person he was most interested in reading could initially face him directly. Now that he had fully solidified the others could come in, pick up on it without risking influencing the image, or causing any embarrassing mutation. But she hoped they wouldn't. She had a better chance of convincing him to spare her life if they remained alone.

So they stood as a couple, reflected back on themselves in dozens of shapes, sizes and angles so that not an inch was omitted or hidden from his sight.

"You are the most clever man," she said, letting her realization play out on her face as she caught his eye through one of the mirrors and smiled seductively. "In addition to being the most handsome, of course." She whirled back toward him, intending to draw him closer again. "God, how I've missed you."

He caught her arms, stopping her short—again, gently—and held her in place. It was something Zoe had forgotten. He didn't move from one position to another. He glided. And that wasn't something she had to imagine. He had the ability all on his own. "Oh, I've missed you as well, Zoe," he said, smiling back.

She shut her eyes and held her breath as panic threatened to thread through her veins. She let him sense her uncertainty. It was only natural for her to question whether it'd been a good idea to come here, so she let him feel that hesitancy as well. When she opened her eyes again, he was staring over her shoulder at his mirrored self, waiting to see what emerged. But there was only the Tulpa as she'd always seen him, and she suddenly felt like she'd never been gone, or escaped him, at all. "Please, baby. You have to let me explain."

"Explain why you betrayed me?" he murmured, now that she'd spoken of it only.

"Explain how I managed not to," she replied, and willed him to believe her with eyes, voice. Her mind. He must have felt it because after a moment he appeared to soften.

"And is this a peace offering?" he asked, eyes flicking down to the cornucopia she still held.

A small smile lifted one corner of her mouth. "Merely a centerpiece for your holiday celebration. I remember how you enjoyed Thanksgiving."

He had. It was his favorite holy day.

"Then you plan on staying for dinner?"

She lifted her free hand and removed her glasses, raising her head to gaze directly into the cold black depths of eyes she'd never thought to see again. "I was hoping," she said softly.

He nodded after a moment. "Good. Then over dinner you can offer your explanation to us all."

And he glided to the door to usher in his sycophants, movements impossibly smooth… and entirely too quiet for Zoe's liking.

Chapter 6

Dinner was held in the same mirrored room, the hollowed out center suddenly taken up with an elongated black marble table, the cornucopia Zoe had made centered like a bull's-eye. A gleaming table setting of mirrored plates, china, and crystal winked in the studded light of two shining candelabras. The Tulpa could now see himself above, below, and in the mirrored glasses of his half dozen guests. He'd become even more of a control freak since Zoe's hard betrayal, which she understood. Ignoring the fact that he was the epitome of everything she despised—that he was the coldest, hardest heartache in this world—she instead pitied that he felt the need for it, and grieved for the suspicion thinning his lips. She sorrowed, mostly, that she'd been the one to put it there. Her eyes teared as she thought of the pain she'd caused, and she discreetly wiped them away behind the mirrored frame of her borrowed glasses, donned again like everyone else at the table.

Across from her, Lindy glared at her from behind her own, much cooler, lenses.

Zoe ignored her, as well as the disbelieving snort from the Shadow seated to her right as he scented her emotion. There was another man she didn't know leering at her from her left, and two other favored agents flanking Lindy, but Zoe didn't try to engage any of them in conversation. They took their clues from the Tulpa, and even though homicide lived in their mirrored faces, they'd stay their hands as long as he did.

"Fruit?" Damian offered, plucking an apple from the cornucopia.

Zoe swallowed hard, hands shaking slightly as she cut through white meat. "It's decorative," Zoe informed him. "I didn't mean for it to be…"

He took a bit of the crisp skin, his thin lips littered with sugar.

"… eaten," she finished on a sigh. She looked to the Tulpa for support, but he was busy watching himself in his mirrored wineglass. He wouldn't let them injure her, yet, but he'd let them have their fun. "Choose one, then. It doesn't matter to me."

"Really? Then it doesn't matter to me, either." He lifted the entire basket and deposited it in front of her so that a few nuts rolled loose. "You choose."

Zoe considered before gingerly choosing a ripe pear, scooping up the loosened nuts and depositing those on her plate as well. Then she set to righting the cornucopia, making it look as ornate—if less stacked—as before. Damian snickered and immediately yanked free a grape bunch before passing it around the table so the others could do the same. Zoe pursed her lips, but said nothing. The Tulpa had steepled his fingers, observing them all over the top like an amused parent watching his children at play.

Zoe decided to begin. "You care nothing about this—or me—I see."

"On the contrary, darling. Time hasn't lessened my feelings for you. It strengthened them."

Lindy popped a handful of berries in her mouth, snickering.

"And mine for you," Zoe said softly, looking down, pushing a walnut across her plate with her index finger.

"Then why hide from him?"

She glanced up to find the man directly across from her leaning in, feigning interest. Licking his lips. Wasp thin, he reminded Zoe of a snake, that tongue seemingly testing the air, tasting it, honing in on her. His grandmother had been one of Zoe's first victims after she ascended to her star sign. His name was Ajax, he was the new Shadow Virgo.

Zoe leaned back and blotted her lips with her napkin. "I wasn't hiding from him… or any of you. I was hiding from them."

Everyone looked toward the Tulpa. Zoe waited. Sixteen years was a long time to have hidden from both sides of the Zodiac, but she willed him to believe it. Willed them all. The Tulpa stared, blank-faced, before motioning for her to continue. So she told them the story she'd rehearsed, the past she'd invented, the history she now believed, passing it along so they would believe it as well. It was true that Zoe had killed the Tulpa's creator, Wyatt Neelson. But her intent, she said, wasn't to destroy the Tulpa, but to strengthen him.

"Do you remember the way we spoke of him?" she asked, stopping to address the Tulpa as the others listened carefully. "About the way he clung to you even after you broke free of him to assert your independence. You said he was dead weight, like a stone attached to the string of a kite that would otherwise sail free."

"So you decided to sever that weight yourself."

"No," Zoe shook her head. "I went to convince him to give you a name."

The Tulpa froze and silence settled heavily over the table. Because even though Wyatt had visualized the Tulpa so completely to construct a fully developed consciousness, he'd refused to give the Tulpa a name. There was power in a name. It was why Adam named all the earth's creatures in the bible, giving himself power over all of them. Why in Jewish tradition a child's intended name wasn't revealed until after they were born. It was why cultures all over the world were superstitious about sharing names, and why all parents chose their offspring's names so very carefully.

And it was why the Tulpa desired one so very badly.

Zoe reminded him of that now. "You'd refused to see him for months, and that had taken its toll on his psyche. He was unkempt, mumbling like a crazy man about abandonment, and having nothing to show for his life's work. When I told him what I wanted, that we even had a name picked out—" Here the others looked back and forth between them, curiosity stark on their faces, but Zoe continued on blithely. "Well, he only laughed, then spat at my feet. It angered me."

She bit her lip and the tears welled. "I snapped. I told him I was the most important person in your life now, not him. That he may have created you but I was also supernatural, and that we were creating something new between us. That's when he lunged." She swallowed hard, drawing a shaky hand across her brow before letting it drop. Her voice fell to a whisper. "I don't know… I guess I'd begun to think of him as one of us, as having powers, being able to detect intent. Plus I was furious with him for his crazed rebuff. I swear it was only meant to be a slap… but it was enough to kill him… and to reveal that I'd once been Light. I knew once you found my psychic imprint on the kill spot that you'd be so enraged you'd never hear me through. So I fled."

Zoe stared at her hands like she couldn't believe she'd done it, and the others studied her—and the Tulpa—from behind their safe, shining lenses. The Tulpa continued watching his own reflection, and waited for Zoe to finally look up.

"So it was all an accident?"

She nodded, eyes trained on his too-calm face, like he wasn't listening, though Zoe knew he heard every word. All syllables. Every breath drawn in between. "And all these years I've been wracking my brain, trying to think of a way to return to you and prove it'd been unintentional. I needed an excuse that the agents of Light would fall for, or a mission that would bring me back into your arms. Then I realized you'd never believe me. Not if I showed up here as before, with power, ability. Light."

"We don't believe you now," said one of the others.

Zoe's frustration showed even from behind the dark glasses. "Why would I lie? Why would I walk right up and ring the doorbell if I didn't want this more than anything in the world?"

"It is a conundrum," the Tulpa finally said, voice still too gentle.

Which meant he was indulging her out of curiosity. She took a bite of turkey and felt it catch in her throat. But curiosity was a good start, she told herself, swallowing. Curiosity could be turned into concern. Concern into desire.

Zoe shrugged one shoulder, and hugged herself. "I finally decided the only way to convince you of my sincerity was to come to you on this, your favorite holy day, when mortal observance and emotions could be tapped and channeled for your benefit and strength. If you use that power you'll see I'm telling the truth. I've returned to you out of love. I miss you. I just… want to come home."

She held up her hand when two of the Shadows opened their mouths to speak. "But I also knew that wasn't enough. I had to prove myself, lose something irreplaceable, as I caused you to lose the creator. It took me a year to get up the nerve to actually do it. But I've shed it all for you—my past, my chi, my near immortality. I come to you with a basket of fruit to commemorate this holy day of bounty, thanks and forgiveness. And I come to you only as a woman."

It was all she had, and it was the truth. The Tulpa leaned back, lifting his cup, and finally smiled. Lindy's head swiveled back and forth between them, her confusion and growing anger magnified on every mirrored surface. "Bullshit!"

Zoe's eyes never left the Tulpa's face, longing and hope naked on her own. "Just a little clue, Lindy… if you've had fifteen years to seduce this man and still haven't made it into his bed, chances are it's not going to happen."

Lindy was fast, but the Tulpa was faster. A flick of the wrist and another mirror sprang up in front of Zoe, halting Lindy's lunge with a resounding crack. She grunted and fell back into her seat, and the mirror—all the warning she'd get—disappeared.

"Returned with a woman's weapons too, I see." the Tulpa murmured.

Zoe looked at Lindy who was straightening her glasses. Her hands were shaking now. "They're all I have. I'll be damned if I die without them."

"You may be damned yet."

"Shut up, Ajax." The Tulpa finally took a bite from his own plate, continuing while he chewed. "You weren't here before so you don't know, but Zoe and I have always had a strong bond."

"Opposites attract," she agreed, before sadness again overtook her face. "Though it seems that too has changed. Like you."

Again he checked his reflection in the mirror, studying what Zoe had created there. "I look exactly like before."

"I mean on the inside. I don't need extrasensory power to see you're holding back."

"And do you blame me?"

"I understand it," she said, shaking her head. "But I regret it all the same."

"Oh, for fuck's sake…" Lindy half-rose from her chair, but the Tulpa held up a hand. Her mouth snapped shut, the words scuttling off into a growl. Zoe held back the smile that wanted to visit her face. Still, she knew they all could sense her satisfaction. It didn't bother her, and it didn't seem to bother the Tulpa, either. He pushed back his chair and stood.

"Walk with me," he said, holding out his hand. The others stood. "Only Zoe."

They floundered, looking around at one another. "Sir, please…"

"Shut up, Lindy."

Triumph thrilled through Zoe, warming her so thoroughly she didn't even feel the chill of the Tulpa's palm in her own. She smiled up at him, let him gaze into her glasses to see himself as she saw him—handsome, healthy, hers—and they exited the mirror room alone.

Zoe took it as a very good sign.

It was three in the afternoon when the Tulpa escorted Zoe from his mirrored room, and a part of her was aware, and surprised, that she'd lived that long. Trapped in a house with supernatural enemies who could snap her neck as easily as she had Wyatt Neelson's, she'd expected the high drama of her return—in whatever way it played out—to have climaxed by now. Instead she'd gotten to explain herself, have dinner, and was now taking a promenade around the grounds. She was so in. She linked her arm in the Tulpa's, squeezing lightly, thinking this might just be her best Thanksgiving yet.

Then she saw the boy.

He couldn't have been more than seven, and he rounded the corner struggling with all his might against the hold of two women in long dark robes, their eyes as large as silver dollars and completely overtaken by blackened pupils. Their appearance, however, wasn't what made Zoe's heart stutter. They were ward mothers of the Shadow children, charged with raising and schooling the Shadow initiates until they metamorphosized into full-fledged agents, and Zoe'd seen them before. But this was no initiate. It was a mortal child with fat tears rolling down his cheeks, and fear etched on his face. He caught sight of Zoe, probably the only normal person he'd seen in this gloomy mausoleum, and lunged for her. "Help me, please! I want to go home! I want my mommy!"

Zoe had to force herself not to run to him as one of the ward mothers knelt in front of him, her blackened eyes drawing a scream from deep within his tiny chest. "Now, now. Let's behave. You don't want to scare the other children, do you?"

"Others?" Zoe said, before she could stop herself. The Tulpa only put one finger to his mouth, shushing her.

"Put this on, and you won't be afraid anymore," the ward mother said, pulling a wooden mask from behind her back, and slipping it over his eyes. Zoe had seen masks like this before. Countless Himalayan artifacts such as these adorned the Tulpa's living areas, creations of that region's animist tribes. It made sense that the Tulpa cherished objects created by people who believed souls inhabited ordinary objects as well as animate beings. But why put a middle hills tribal mask on a living, mortal child?

Well, the boy immediately calmed, Zoe saw, and why not? He could no longer see the woman looming over him with no eyelids, no tear ducts, no reason or inclination to blink. If he had, he'd see her looking up as she knelt before him, nodding once. Her partner nodded back, then in one swift motion slammed her palms on the sides of the child's head, like a school marm boxing the ears of a naughty pupil. Zoe jolted, but the boy didn't cry out. Instead he immediately stiffened and fell unnaturally silent. Then the mask appeared to begin melting, thinning out like the finest leather until it molded itself to the child's face, encasing it fully from forehead to chin. The ward mother rose and, for the first time, acknowledged the Tulpa.

"A new recruit," she said serenely as they steered the now-docile child to the left, and disappeared behind a pair of great oak doors which shut with a sharp click.

"You're distressed," the Tulpa said, patting Zoe's arm and drawing her closer.

She nodded stiffly and fought for control. "I'm just… confused. That boy was mortal, wasn't he?" At the Tulpa's nod, Zoe tried for a lighter tone. "You've never allowed mortals in your home before. And what was the mask for?"

"Would you like to see?" the Tulpa replied, motioning to the door.

She didn't. She knew that much. She wanted to run from whatever was being done to that child behind those doors, but she thought of her granddaughter and nodded instead.

"It's fitting that you should see this today, on Thanksgiving," he told her before throwing open the great doors and spreading his arms wide. "Because this is my first harvest. And it's a bumper crop if I do say so myself."

They were lined on the floor in rows of five, wearing dark brown robes in the fashion of the ward mothers, each masked like the first boy, uniform but for their heights. They were all children, and from size alone Zoe guessed their ages fell between three and ten. Except for those along the wall, where another unblinking ward mother stood guard. There cribs were lined up for the smallest of them. Zoe, aware of the weight of the Tulpa's stare on her face, tore her eyes away. "I don't understand."

But she was beginning to. The horror of it was slowly sinking in as she watched a ward mother read to the silent, unmoving children from the Shadow manuals, introducing the mythos and lore of the paranormal world into impressionable young minds encased in living wood. Zoe pocketed her shades, bent, and passed her hand in front of the child nearest her. The girl didn't move. That's when Zoe saw the tiny pins anchoring the mask in place. There was a slot next to the temple where a perfume vial was cradled, half-full.

Zoe swallowed hard. Not just a mask to keep out the light, then. Or one that merely limited expression. It was shackled to their skulls, and the drug did the same to their minds. Because children, she thought, as she straightened, should never be this unnaturally still and silent.

"It's simple, really," the Tulpa was already explaining. "It's children's belief in us and our mythology that grants us the energy to battle the Light. Problem is, children grow up. They become adults and stop believing in comic books, star signs. Me. So I came up with the idea of harnessing their minds, and of harvesting all that potential energy and intelligence and natural curiosity. They think solely of the Shadows. They study our history. They worship me."

Zoe couldn't help herself. Despite her mortal senses she suddenly recalled the smell and taste and touch of this creature's festering spirit. Her Thanksgiving dinner spoiled in her stomach. "So they're your slaves."

"They're my family," he corrected smoothly.

"And the babies?" she asked, her eyes instinctively searching out Ashlyn in one of the cradles. At least they had no idea she was a child of the Light. They'd merely stolen her because the opportunity presented itself… as they'd stolen all these children from their families. "Surely they're too young to contribute?"

"Oh, no. They've the most concentrated chi of all." the Tulpa smiled. "I'd take them from the womb if I could."

Zoe was glad they were no longer in the mirrored room, because for one moment his image flickered and the skeleton that flashed from beneath his skin wasn't human. It was scorched bone: tooth, fang, and the invisible power that reared up from the bowels of midnight. Zoe quickly realigned her thoughts, glancing around to make sure none of the ward mothers had noticed.

The Tulpa, oblivious, went on. "Think how devoted the mind would be if we could form specific neural pathways and manipulate a person's thoughts from birth on. My children," he said, arms again wide, "will make Wyatt's mind look like a shrunken head."

And that was how he planned on manipulating time. Using the chi of dozens of young, trained minds, he would bend natural law, and make reality conform to his wishes. Why not? Stranger things had happened.

"But how do you keep them so docile?" Zoe asked, playing dumb as the Tulpa motioned her to the front of the classroom.

"We limit their choices and experiences." He grinned as he whirled to face her. "And we provide examples of what happens to those who attempt treachery."

The Tulpa's grin dropped, along with the floor beneath Zoe. She yelped, free-falling and above her the previously mute children let out a collective cheer. Somehow, the evidence of health and life didn't warm her.

Chapter 7

The drop was short, and she hit solid concrete, unsettling enough dust to have her coughing in the complete dark. Her first hint that she wasn't alone was the threatening growl that came from her left. As if she didn't already feel threatened enough. She swung around as an insistent whine and heavy panting emerged, closer to her right.

Wardens.

Fear reared instinctively. The animals sensed it, and the whining strengthened. But fear can still be attributed to my humanity, Zoe thought, whirling blindly again. Who wouldn't be afraid, trapped in a dark underground pound?

"Uh… babe?" she tried, revealing her fear and all-too-human nerves in the shake of her voice.

"Still alive, then?" the Tulpa asked casually from directly above. Zoe looked up and saw his slim outline blocking the dim light from the children's classroom.

The question was telling. It meant he hadn't expected her to be. She felt a sniffling along her arm, a wet nose, then the tentative lick of a very large tongue. The Shadow wardens were dogs, paranormal pets that could scent out enemy agents and rip them apart in seconds. They were the only things, other than conduits, that could actually kill an agent. Well, thought Zoe looking up again, conduits, wardens… and the Tulpa.

"Clearly. But, and this is just a wild guess, I take it you have some other questions for me?"

"I have one." Then his voice was in her ear. "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

And one after another, four giant spotlights boomed to life, flooding the cave with light so bright Zoe had to cover her face. The wardens whimpered, their claws scratching as they scampered blindly away. Zoe fished for the shades she'd dropped in her pocket and slipped them back on. Her eyes still teared as the light assaulted her from beyond the lenses, but she could finally make out the perimeter of the room… and it chilled her to the bone.

It was a stupa, a building in the Tibetan tradition meant to honor Buddha. The Tulpa had always meant to build one… but his, he'd said, would be dedicated solely to himself. Zoe had researched the subject when she'd lived with him, so she knew there were three types of stupas: ones to commemorate events or occasions in Buddha's—or, in this case, the Tulpa's—life. Ones erected to gain favor… but those were generally small and this was anything but. Finally, there were those used for the burial of relics from a funeral pyre. Zoe felt the grit caked beneath her fingernails from her abrupt landing and swallowed hard.

Yep, she thought, looking up. The room was cone-shaped, indicating solar worship. There was also an altar to her right. And while most burial stupas held vessels containing the bones and ashes from a crematorial fire, Zoe didn't look for them. The entire room was the vessel. All that was missing was fire.

"I mean, you must think I'm stupid," he went on, voice circling her like a vulture from above. He was circumambulating, walking in a clockwise direction, reflecting the movement of the sun and rotating planets. Zoe fought back the whimper that wanted to come. "I have to admit you caught me by surprise, just waltzing up and knocking on the door that way. That was a stroke of brilliance, as was the way you've obviously clothed yourself in humanity. But it only means you're that much easier to break… I'll have to be careful if I want our time together to last."

She wrapped her arms around her middle. "So you don't believe me."

The understatement of the year.

"Believe that you went to my creator intending to free me? To name me?" Outrage made his voice shake, but his outline above had gone unnaturally still. "No, Zoe. I know you went there believing that his life, and death, was linked to my own."

She jerked her head. "But you'd broken free of him! You already had enough consciousness and ability to rule the mortal and supernatural plane. I knew that. So why risk killing the creator only to leave behind my signature scent?"

"You didn't know. You expected me to weaken and die." He paused and his exhale rolled over Zoe, pushing her hair back from her shoulders. "And you never loved me."

Sweat broke on Zoe's forehead, though only part of it had to do with nerves. "Then what am I doing here now?"

Three of the spotlights powered down, and his voice was again in her ear. "That's what I intend to find out."

Zoe whirled, but he wasn't next to her. He was across the ash-strewn chamber, outline obscured, but eyes glowing red.

"Why can't you just believe me?" she asked him, shaking her head.

"Because look at me!" He bellowed. "I look exactly as I did before! You have created me in the same image, even the same fucking clothing! Which means your intentions are the same as well. But you will die for your betrayal this time, and your death will benefit me."

And as the temperature suddenly soared in the spherical chamber, she knew there was no way to sway him. He'd sought a way to get to her for too long now, and she'd just walked in and given it to him.

Zoe lowered her head, bit her lip, then slowly lifted the glasses from her face. She looked at them for a long moment, then threw them to the ground in front of her. When she looked up, her face was resolute. Slowly she began to walk toward him, the mirrored lenses splintering beneath her heel.

"I gave it all up; my chi, my place, my legend and legacy among the star signs of Zodiac." She swiped a damp tendril of hair from her forehead as she came to a stop in front of him. She ignored his blatant anger as he ignored the bitterness coating her words, and reached out to take his icy hands in hers. They felt wonderfully cool in her sweaty palms, and she lifted them gently and dropped them around her neck like an executioner's noose. She shrugged in the confused silence. "What is my life in comparison? Take it, as I took Wyatt's. Because I no longer want anything to do with this world if I don't also have your love."

For a moment his face remained impassive, a blank slate. She thought he was making her wait, prolonging the moment, making her suffer. But then that petrified stare twisted, first with fury, then anguish, and finally a wild and open need. Those icy fingers splayed wide, bracing her from her hairline to the base of her sweaty neck, slipped lower to her collarbone, beneath her shirt, rising to grasp her damp shoulders. He pulled her to him so quickly she lost her breath, and continued to fight for air as his icy lips found her heated ones, cold tongue probing in her warm mouth. She managed one great inhale of that icy breath, and it shot through her like quicksilver, freezing her lungs, and then she was kissing him back, pouring heat into him, both of them fighting for balance, and equilibrium. They clung to one another the same way they both clung to life, with a greedy and self-centered zeal, a perfect match in that respect.

When Zoe finally opened her eyes again, she gasped aloud. There was the man she loved.

It was Warren's face she caressed, the homeless mien she'd seen most recently. His cheeks were the ones she lovingly ran her smooth-tipped fingers over, catching on the stubble, curving at the jaw. They were his lips that her eyes caught upon and his Adam's apple bobbing under the weight of her gaze. It was Warren alone that she saw, even as soulless black eyes flared beneath the bones.

"You do love me," she told him, her whisper choked with tears and truth. "And I love you. And living without that love is a far worse fate than any momentary pain. I welcome death over the half-life I've been living. I'll burn, and I'll do it with your name on my lips."

The Warren-face winced.

"And my bed?" he rasped, the Tulpa's icy breath blowing her hair back again from her shoulders. It felt like a welcoming spring breeze. "Do you return there willingly as well?"

"Not just willingly," she whispered back, her eyes drinking him in as her hands moved lower. "Desperately."

She didn't add that she'd have to be desperate to return to him at all. He had immediately turned and she was too busy following and reimagining him, erasing Warren's image before anyone else caught sight of him. And too busy wiping away her tears. If only she'd said those words to Warren while she'd still had the chance.

It was only after she'd already gone through with the unthinkable, allowing him on top of her and inside of her as she had all those years ago—that he wanted to talk. Zoe was huddled beneath the covers, shivering with cold from her core on out, though she told the Tulpa it had to do with relief… and because she'd barely touched her food earlier. So he brought the cornucopia she'd made to their bed, the gesture showing Zoe how much he wanted to trust her again. The sentiment made her smile wobbly, and moistened her eyes. He was like one of the children he stole off the streets, curious and hopeful… and so very gullible.

"The timing is curious, though," he was saying, as he popped a ripened fig into his mouth. He was propped up beside her on his elbow as she lay with her dark hair splayed on his pillow, her image reflected back at herself from above.

It turned out it wasn't only his reflection he liked to watch in the mirror.

"What's curious about wanting to be with the one you love on the holidays," Zoe said, running a hand along the fine hairs of his arm. He fed her a blood-red berry, approval in his eyes as he watched her eat, and she nibbled lightly on his fingertips. "It's a time to be with family. I wanted to come home."

"I don't mean that." He smiled down at her, looking infinitely younger. "I mean that after years of no word or sighting of you, you pop up after reports of your capture and death."

She had no idea what had been reported back to him, so kept her response deliberately vague. "I told you. I've been trying to find a way back to you for a long time now. If I've been sighted lately it's because I've been working toward that. Toward this."

He almost grinned as she continued to stroke him, but shook his head. "Not a sighting of you, not like this. Reports had you posing as a young girl who was caught and killed in the desert."

They thought she'd been posing as Joanna, Zoe realized and almost shuddered at the easy way he spoke of her death. "And did you believe them?"

"Oh, no. I knew you were still alive. I felt it in my mind and core, no matter what Joaquin said."

Joaquin, she repeated, committing the name to memory.

The Tulpa mistook her silence for confusion. "He's always been one for hyperbole."

"Then you've… reprimanded him?" she asked, hopefully.

"Oh, yes. He knows how I love children."

And the reminder was all she needed to shore up her nerve. "Fruit," she asked sweetly, holding out an apple. He smiled down at her and took it willingly.

Zoe watched him bite into it, imagined it as the juiciest and sweetest fruit he'd ever tasted, the crisp skin smooth against his tongue, the juice trickling down his throat. She put all her energy into envisioning this as she watched his eyes flutter half-shut as he swallowed and she rose up to her elbows, placing the cornucopia—the horn of plenty—on his belly as he reclined, trance-like, the scent of ripe fruit rising to permeate the air.

He came back to himself slowly, so that by the time he realized what was happening it was too late. The cornucopia was once again a tool of the Greeks, the pagan farmers… a tool of Zoe's will melding with the traditions of the past. The wicker unraveled as those ancient powers merged and the straw was once again a living thing, slipping around the Tulpa's body, burrowing through the bed and deep into the earth. The growth was slow at first, but it sped up as Zoe's excitement soared… and the Tulpa's spirit was enslaved in the narrow tip of the horn.

His eyes flew open, black searing to red, only to be snuffed by Zoe's power. She smiled, closed-mouthed, then rose—fruit and nuts, pomegranates and gourds, peppers and artichokes all spilling over the bed and floor. Each grew stems and spines and burrowed into the earth, both rising and falling, vines weaving among themselves to bind the Tulpa where he lay. Zoe knew the fruit he'd already eaten was doing the same to his insides and smiled again, feeling his eyes follow her as she dressed. When she was done, she turned.

The Tulpa's throat worked, visibly paining him, but he managed a deep breath, even as an emerging leaf shot from his mouth. "But… you're… mortal."

Zoe brushed the remains of someone else's ash from the crease in her slacks. "You forget what mortals are capable of, Tulpa dear. We can use belief to create, imagine, wish, and will things into being. And those of us with extremely powerful minds believe anything is possible."

She leaned in close to whisper in his ear. "You asked me before 'Who do you think you are? But I never got to answer, did I?" She licked her lips and despite himself, the Tulpa's gaze flickered down before he drew it back to her eyes. She smiled knowingly. "Well, I'm Zoe Archer, dear. The woman who can break you at will. And the real question—you nameless, formless fuck—is who the hell do you think you are?"

His enraged howls were muffled as a miniature gourd spilled over his tongue.

"I'm leaving now. I'm going to bring in your so-called harvest and return those children where they belong, but keep one thing very clear in your mind," she flipped her hair back from her shoulders, knowing she was planting another seed, this one in his mind. "I can and will get to you again. Mortal or not, on this plane or another, anytime and anywhere."

Dozens of images of her smirking saluted her as she turned to leave the room, but before she did she glanced over her shoulder one last time. "Oh, and next time, babe? You'd better have a castle and a moat. Because I'll have learned how to kill you by then. And I won't be stopped by a mere kiss."

And with that she strode out the door to find Lindy slumped, anchored against the wall by the woody growth of a cranberry vine, the hard bitter fruit spilling like bright marbles from her mouth. Immobile, her eyes alone followed Zoe as she stooped to meet those hate-filled orbs. "You're lucky, Lindy. The cornucopia's powers won't hold you all long enough for me to both kill you and still get away," she paused as relief played across Lindy's face, then shrugged. "So I'll just let the agents of Light take care of that for me. Have fun."

Lindy's protests were berry-choked as Zoe strode down the long silent hallway, back to classroom where the children were now sleeping, curled up in the same even rows they'd occupied before. The ward mothers awoke when she entered, stood in tandem, but did nothing to stop her. They weren't warriors, and that wasn't their job. Zoe wove through the children, searched out the one she wanted, and lifted her sleeping granddaughter from her crib.

"He'll find you, you know," one of the mothers spat. "He won't stop this time. Not until your blood runs like a river."

"Yeah," Zoe said, drawing out the word as if considering it. "That's what you said the last time."

Then she left the room, and threw open the front door of the Tulpa's house. Chaos erupted behind her as the alarm sounded, the house coming to life too late, and a piercing whistle rang through the night as Light descended on the mansion. Her former allies, felt rather than seen, rushed past her, war cries pealing like bells in the cool air, but Zoe had already fought her battle. She turned her back on it all, and gratefully, thankfully, finally took her granddaughter home.

Chapter 8

She laid low for an entire week. Her cornucopia's magic had held long enough for her to get away, and since that was all she wanted—and all she believed was possible—the agents of Light and Shadow had fought yet another epic battle. She'd pick up a manual at one of the comic book shops later so she could get the Cliff Notes version of what went down, but she already knew the Tulpa had escaped with his life. Like him, she could sense his existence in her marrow, and knew she always would. She didn't waste time regretting it, though. She was already plotting how to double back and give him the "next time" she'd promised. She might be mortal, but the word that still summed up Zoe Archer best was single-minded.

The McCormicks paid daily visits to the facility the agents of Light had set up just on the outskirts of town until Ashlyn was strong enough to return home with them. They had no problem forging the new identity papers Micah had prepared for them, and immediately put their home on the market as Phaedre instructed. They were still under the assumption that Phaedre, Gregor, and Zoe worked for the government, that Ashlyn was at risk and needed to be placed in a witness protection program, so they told no one where they were going, and left no forwarding address. But Zoe knew it, and she planned on keeping a close eye on them, as she had the night the moving van came and they loaded up all their belongings. She couldn't be there for her daughters any longer, but she could at least watch over Ashlyn.

But what she really needed to do was finally, fully, embrace her humanity. There could be no more dipping into the paranormal world she'd left behind, no lamenting all she'd lost. In order for her to be a whole woman, and a person who could act and move through the world with purpose, she had to accept her limitations, just like anyone else. She had to release once and for all her knowledge of what went on beneath the veil separating this reality from the next.

But this time she would say goodbye.

So the following Thursday found her pacing the walkway of an apartment building just one block from the Guardian Angel Cathedral, hands shoved deep in the pockets of her black slacks, the collar of her winter coat turned up to shield her face from the whip of an angry wind. The weather had turned suddenly, and the streets were empty because of it. Zoe inhaled a deep breath of the biting wind, and as she blew it back out she thought of the Tulpa, naked but for the vines and leaves canvassing his body like living entrails. It was so satisfying, even now, that her laughter stilled her in her tracks.

"You went blonde."

And even though she'd been prepared for him, Zoe jumped. Warren grinned when she turned.

"And you took a shower," she said, noting his smooth cheeks and shorn hair. He was dressed like her, in black, his peacoat flapping open in the wind. He motioned to a stairwell next to the apartment manager's office, and Zoe ducked beneath it.

"I'm trying on a new persona," he said, following her. Her eyes traveled down his long body. "Respectable businessman. What do you think?"

"I like you better as a bum. I could track you down even with this poor mortal nose. Plus it keeps the girls away."

His smile was fleeting. He knew she was saying goodbye. "And do you think you'll need to? Track me again, I mean?"

"I'll want to."

"But you won't."

They didn't look at each other for a time, and Zoe knew he was considering every obstacle facing them and like her, was unable to see any way around them.

"The children?" she finally asked, turning to him.

He nodded. "All freed. Returned to their homes and families. They'll have nightmares, of course, but they'll outgrow them in time, and there'll be no permanent damage. We also stole the masks the Tulpa was using to control them. He won't be able to do it again."

Zoe thought of the young boy she saw wailing in the Tulpa's hallway. "Good."

"His home was burned to the ground," Warren said, and she nodded to let him know she'd heard. He finally sighed. "So that's it, Zoe? You can just walk away and leave it all behind." Leave me behind, he was really saying.

Zoe ran a hand through her shortened hair. "I'm not walking away, Warren. Everyday that I'm out here on my own I'm ensuring our troop's legacy. I'm carrying out a prophecy that will benefit us all."

Warren's eyes fell shut. "Why do I have to love a woman who always puts duty first?"

She placed her palms on his cheeks and waited for him to look at her. "Because if I didn't you wouldn't have loved me at all."

When he finally nodded, she worked a wide ring off her finger. "You know what to do with this, right?"

He looked it over, studying the grooves that gave way to hinges around the stone. "I'll put it away for you… or for the next Archer. Are you sure you don't want to keep it, though? It's all you have left to remind you of our world."

"No." Zoe smiled bittersweetly, thought of her daughters, and granddaughter, now safe, and shook her head. "I have myself."

And before his eyes could glaze with pain, before he could get out the words, And that's all you've ever needed, Zoe exhaled the wistfulness she held in her soul—the sharp hunger she'd been staving off since they'd made love, and the despair she'd felt in the Tulpa's stupa when she thought she'd never lay eyes on this face again. Warren's mouth still opened, but it stuttered and eventually closed as he inhaled deeply, tasting of the air and of her. And then he sighed. She wished she could smell his feelings on the air, too. She wished she could bottle them and carry it, apply it like perfume or a balm that would melt against her skin and seep into her pores so a part of him would always be with her. Warren scented this, too, and finally it was enough.

"Goodbye, my Phantom," he whispered, and though his face remained tight—brows drawn, jaw clenched—his eyes were suddenly wet and luminous and soft in the icy air. Zoe choked out a laugh at the shared pet name, stolen from a superhero that didn't exist, given to ones that did. To anyone else it had always appeared to be just that, a nickname, but it was much more… and it was an endearment she'd never expected to hear again.

My Phantom Limb, the ache that is you existing outside of me, the pain of every moment spent apart, the empty throbbing that remains behind.

And Warren did leave after that, in a movement too fast to catch with mortal eyes, leaving Zoe slumped against the stairwell wall, scenting and seeing nothing in the cold December night.

Then she stopped feeling sorry for herself.

Then she straightened and turned her thoughts to the Tulpa.

Then she narrowed her eyes and considered what she'd learned about the power of imagination.

If she was right, what she was planning would take months, seasons, years. It'd take stubborn belief and the doggedness required of Tibetan monks, and all those mortals who most valued long-term goals. But Zoe had a purpose again, and a plan. And she was still alive. She could suck in the cold air and blow it out again, no worse for wear. And as long as she could do that?

There was hope.

About the Author

After ten years with the Tropicana's Folies Bergere, Vegas native VICKI PETTERSSON traded in her sequins for a laptop, but she still knows all about what really happens behind the scenes in Sin City. Her first two novels, The Scent of Shadows and The Taste of Night, were published in March and April 2007.

For more information, go to www.vickipettersson.com.