The Taste Of Night

8

After my confrontation with Joaquin, after I’d watched a little girl turn into a monster-and ultimately my savior-and after running through a drive-through to pick up a cheeseburger, and wishing it came with a shot of Chivas, I was ready for sanctuary. Dusk was closing in fast, and the time of crossing from this reality to the other was less than an hour away. Crossing wasn’t like walking through a portal. Any old agent could do that at any time, but crossing had to be undertaken at exactly the time when day and night were split evenly in the air, when the veil between the mortal world and ours was thinnest, if it was to be done at all. One second late and the door would be shut until twelve hours later, and the next split second day and night fought over the skyline.

Our sanctuary was located on the other side of this reality, in the Neon Boneyard, a place where the old signs and lettering left over from imploded hotels were stored, gathering dust and rusting, until enough money could be gathered to turn the place into a historical museum. This being Vegas, any signage older than a decade qualified as historical, but for now the boneyard had a relatively quiet life, much like any boneyard, with only the occasional private tour given by appointment in the daytime.

At night, though, it belonged to us.

Unfortunately, accessing the boneyard’s second reality wasn’t as easy as booking an appointment. Cleaving the curtain between two realities was a messy and sometimes violent business, and not for the faint of heart. I didn’t know what Shadows used to access their alternate reality-none of us even knew where their sanctuary was-but we used fearlessness, impeccable timing, and the city’s Star cabs.

What? If anyone can fight through the most impossible mess, it’s a Vegas cabdriver.

Masquerading as a cabbie was a great way to glean information about the Shadow side, and that’s exactly what Gregor-the Cancerian member of our Zodiac, and our liaison between this reality and the next-did. Between fares he scanned the papers and local magazines for news, obits, and reports that might be supernatural in nature. He had a police scanner, EMS scanner, and traffic cam all crammed into his front seat. It was a great cover for him, and the best way to cross over for the rest of us, and every dawn and dusk, without fail, found Gregor parked in an alley behind the Peppermill.

As for the Peppermill itself, well, it was the original Vegas ultra-lounge. With all the new clubs and bars backed by casinos with millions to invest in a little spot of nightlife, the Peppermill was somewhat dated by comparison. Yet I considered the seventies decor, the old-fashioned cocktails, and the unapologetic kitsch all part of its charm. It was a throwback to an era when all casino bosses were Italian and women dressed up to go out for a night on the town; a great place for nostalgia right in the center of the modern-day Strip.

Sometimes I went there just to sit in the bar where blue flames leaped from a firepit of boiling water, dancing off the mirrored tiles of tables and walls, reflecting myself back at me in tiny quarter-inch squares. Cocktail waitresses in long black gowns served me fruity drinks while I watched darkly from a secluded corner, observing the human jetsam and flotsam that washed in from the Strip, while ignoring couples making out in pockets of obscurity similar to my own. There was something about the Peppermill that brought out the voyeur in me, and if the clientele was any indication, I wasn’t alone.

I grabbed the bag I’d packed that morning from the trunk-containing clothing, toiletries, and the disks from Cher’s-and after a quick check in the alley confirmed Gregor was here, though not in his cab, I hurried through smoked glass doors to join him inside. It’d be good to catch up, just the two of us. He was extremely superstitious-known to knock wood at least once a day; never stepped on cracks or walked under ladders-but he had a sense of humor about it, and so was good company. The one exception to his numerous superstitions was that he owned a black warden…though perhaps it was more accurate to say the jewel-eyed feline owned him. When he was in the sanctuary she was an ubiquitous presence in his one arm.

So I scanned the lounge, eyes skimming over the neon bands lining the mirrored ceiling, the faux foliage sporting bright blossoms eternally in bloom, and the bubbling firepit, looking for a stocky man with a four-leaf clover tattooed at the base of his skull. Instead my gaze found another person I knew.

“The hell you doing here?” Chandra asked, scowling back at me as I plopped myself next to her in a red velvet booth.

“Where’s Gregor?” I asked, holding up a finger to call the waitress over, ignoring her question. Chandra, in turn, ignored mine.

Chandra was my colleague, but not my friend. She was of an age to undergo metamorphosis and become an agent of Light, her one lifelong ambition. She’d been born in the sanctuary, raised expecting to take up a star sign and join the ranks of warriors patrolling Vegas’s streets. But Chandra’s birth sign was already occupied. By me. My mother had been the last to hold the Archer sign, and because you had to inherit your star sign, once I came into the picture Chandra was bumped to the back of the line. Now she was stuck in a sort of limbo. She had the ability, knowledge and desire to become an agent of Light, but not the lineage or the right. That alone would’ve been enough to make her hate me.

My mistaking her for a man the first time we’d met had sealed the deal.

I glanced at her after I’d ordered my drink, and she ignored the countless mirrors reflecting me doing so. Her dark hair was longer than it’d been six months ago, though still layered and choppy and looking a lot like a grunge rocker’s idea of cleaning up. She’d lost weight, though, and was more curvaceous, her waist now slimming slightly before flaring into wide hips, her breasts round and uplifted instead of blending into a boxy T-shirt. It helped that she’d begun wearing tailored clothing instead of sweats and flannels, and I was surprised to note she had pretty eyes, long-lashed and the color of warmed cider…even if they were always as hard as frozen pebbles when trained on me.

My drink arrived, I paid up immediately-not wanting to prolong this tortuous silence-and watched the door for other agents. Chandra, obviously feeling the same, checked her watch and sighed heavily.

“Anyone else coming?” I asked, just to fill the uncomfortable silence.

Chandra shrugged and went back to ignoring me. I didn’t bother asking her anything more, but from the looks of it she was taking Gregor’s place on this trip. My turn to sigh. Saying that Chandra was a shit driver was like saying Schumacher was just so-so. She drove like a teenage boy on crack cocaine, especially when I was in the car. I began downing my drink, thinking mild intoxication might help things a bit, but slowed when Chandra looked over.

“I smell nerves,” she said, a knowing smile twitching her lips.

“It’s my masking agent,” I replied, crossing my legs. “It goes bad after a few hours.”

Her expression hardened. “Bullshit.”

“It does. I could go to The Body Shop and buy a better compound.”

Chandra glared, and it was my turn to smirk. She’d found solace after my unexpected appearance, and a place to contribute, in the sanctuary’s lab, where she and Micah came up with scents designed to mask and alter agents’ natural pheromones. Insulting her scientific abilities was like insulting her existence, but if she was going to sling mud, I had no problem dirtying my hands too.

“If you’re so concerned about your masking agent, you probably shouldn’t be bounding through portals when you don’t know what lies in wait on the other side.”

Damn Hunter. He just couldn’t keep his big mouth shut.

“I was practicing,” I said in my defense. “Warren’s been working with me in the alternate realm.”

“He tests you.” And she said it like I’d failed.

“He trains me.”

“He knows you,” she said, stabbing at her drink with her straw. “We all know any time the scent of danger is in the air, the Archer will follow, no matter where it leads.” She gave my title an ugly twist…and kept twisting. “They know it too.” She meant the Shadows.

“Are you insinuating I intentionally put myself in danger?”

“I’m insinuating nothing,” she said, and I almost relaxed. Her chin shot up. “I’m saying straight up that your little vendetta could get us all killed.”

Little vendetta? Tracking down the man who attacked, raped, and left me for dead when I was an innocent teen was what she called a little vendetta? I felt every muscle in my body tense, even knowing I shouldn’t take the bait.

“If you’re so worried about your safety, perhaps you should hole up in the sanctuary permanently. Where you belong.”

It was a low blow, but satisfaction still spread through me when her face drained of color. She stood stiffly, knocking into the table with her knees.

“I’m going to the bathroom. Be ready to leave when I get back.”

I sent her a mock salute and sipped through my straw, watching as she walked ramrod straight, a sturdy soldier disappearing around the corner. Then I allowed myself a small sigh. Leave it to Chandra to turn a simple crossing into a pissing contest, I thought, whirling my stirring straw around in my drink. I didn’t even need to be able to read her aura any longer. She practically spewed bile and malevolence whenever I walked into a room. Even now, I thought, sniffing, a thread of soured milk and citrus lingered, though only a trace amount trailed behind since she’d gotten up and left…

Since she left.

“Bitch!” I leaped from the couch, knocking over my empty glass, and grabbed my overnight bag as I chased after her. One of the waitresses twisted her ankle trying to lunge from my path, and another customer cursed as I barreled into his shoulder, but I wasted no time on apologies.

Clearing the front doors at full speed, I spotted the cab screeching from the lot, and as I yelled again, Chandra’s smile was reflected in the rearview mirror, her left hand waving at me in a one-finger salute.

I quickly discarded the idea of running after her. I might be able to catch the cab if it got stuck in traffic, but I knew she wouldn’t unlock the doors to let me in…and it might raise some mortal brows to see a buxom blond being dragged down the Strip on the back of a Star cab.

Fumbling for my keys, I unlocked Olivia’s Porsche by remote and tossed my bag into the passenger seat. It was a beautiful car. It looked lovely cruising down the Boulevard at night, fluorescent and neon reflected in its tinted windows and off its silky body of silver paint. It whipped around corners like it was caressing them, and shot from zero to sixty in three-point-nine seconds.

But it wasn’t until it hit 110 that it absolutely purred like a contented kitten.

I almost purred myself as I caught Chandra’s taillights just ahead of me on the 95. It was only a couple miles more to the boneyard, and I was determined to get there first. I waved as I passed her, the surprise and fury on her face worth more to me than the car itself, and floored the gas pedal, using superhuman senses to dodge obstacles as expertly as a ten-year-old with an Xbox. I came to a stop alongside the boneyard’s prison-style brick wall and climbed from the car. I didn’t need to glance at the sky to know that dusk was splitting. I could smell the ozone ripping and air molecules disintegrating around me. Chandra’s cab revved in the distance.

By the time she appeared like some vehicular demon, dusk’s back door was wide open and I was standing in front of the wall where our crossing always took place, feet spread shoulder width apart, hands fisted on my hips, smile plastered firmly on my face.

Without reducing her speed, Chandra smiled back.

“Fuck!”

A mortal wouldn’t have made it. Three steps and I dove to the side, the nose of the cab so close I could feel the bumper whizzing by my shin. The sound of the car slamming through-through, not into-the brick wall was mere background noise, the scream of twisting metal nothing but screeching musical notes as my backpack wrenched my shoulder, causing me to flail as I hit the ground. The loudest sound by far was the snap of my arm as the rest of my body landed squarely on top of it.

I yelled out in pain, curling into myself as dust and smoke billowed around me, obscuring the wreckage Chandra’s crossing had wrought, myself included. If a mortal had happened to be standing there-a variable we normally checked for before barreling into the next reality-he’d have seen nothing more than a vehicle smashing into a wall. If he bothered to call the police or an ambulance, unlikely in this part of town, by the time help arrived there’d be nothing to see but a fine layer of dust over an empty lot. By then, dusk would be firmly on the side of night, the wall again whole and closed, and people would undoubtedly wonder what that person was smoking.

It was that thought-the passage of dusk, not smoking-that brought me struggling back to my feet. The pain in my arm was already subsiding, I could actually feel the muscles and tendons separating enough to allow the bones to knit back together, and I winced as I grabbed my bag with my good hand and staggered to the opening in the wall. The dust was already swirling and milky, a muddy congealment that would soon cement over, making it appear as before. I’d seen Warren walk behind the cab after it’d created an opening between the two realities, so I knew it could be done. Taking a deep breath, I dove through.

I should’ve paid closer attention to the timing. As I reached the place where the wall should and would be the densest, I choked on the thickening air. I tried moving faster through the muddy no-man’s-land, fighting for another step, another breath, but the congealing concrete was sticking to me. It seeped through my lips and began lining the inside of my cheeks, inching its way backward and down my throat. I gasped, quickly abandoning that effort when it only encouraged the wet concrete farther into my throat.

I backpedaled, fighting for breath once I’d cleared the perimeter, wiping the concrete from my mouth with equally coated fingers. Back where I started I could only watch as the veil of the wall rose again, the last of the day’s light saluting the valley in a sunless wink off the cyclone wire, before solidifying back into solid brick. The rest of the smoke dissipated, the grit settled, and I looked at the ground. Mine were the only footprints marring the dust. There were no tire marks from Chandra’s homicidal attack, no broken bricks piled at my feet. By this time I had enough breath back to curse again, and did so freely since there was no one around to hear me.

There was a final ripple to come, similar to an earthquake, but without the sound, and only the walls surrounding the boneyard were affected by the shocks. As light played over the concrete, similar to the way heat shimmers off an asphalt road, the aftershock snaked along the wall counter-clockwise and disappeared around the first corner. It would eventually return to the point of origin where I stood, panting, pained…and thoroughly pissed.

Forgetting my surroundings, forgetting everything but that final triumphant look on Chandra’s face, I lifted my conduit from my bag, and when the rippling appeared, traveling down that fourth and final wall, I fired into the shimmering oasis until the chamber was empty of arrows.

Childish, I know. It was wasteful and pointless, and I was already turning to leave, already thinking of how to spend the ensuing hours until dawn, when the rippling stuttered, then stopped short of the original mark. The passage incomplete. I could see through to the other side where rusted and toppled signage with burned-out bulbs and busted tubes of twisted wire littered the boneyard floor. I saw the old hacienda sign, and in the distance, like a beckoning mirage, the Silver Slipper.

Closer still, I saw the yellow cab.

Then the uppermost part of the wall began to harden, brick by brick, dropping lower to the ground, gaining in speed with each section. I dove, the weight of an entire wall crushed down on my ankles with the speed and density of a boulder falling from a cliff. Rolling, I came up on the other side missing a shoe, left leg scraped from mid-calf to ankle, but safely inside the boneyard.

It took a moment for that to sink in, then I laughed aloud, as I studied the newly constructed wall. My left shoe, lost during the dive to safety, was stuck, a permanent fixture with a large chunk of cement dried around it. My bag was half caught, half free, but the opening was on this side of the wall. Good thing, I thought, stooping to examine it, because if the clothing, comics, and mask inside were found next to the Porsche-found, more specifically, by a Shadow-my identity as Olivia Archer would be known by all. But they weren’t, it wasn’t, and I was safely inside. I gave another small hoot, and started pulling at the bag.

Some of the clothes were bound to the wall and had to be left, and one of the manuals was glued about three-fourths down the page, but I ripped what remained and tucked it under my arm with my disks and the rest of my belongings. After wiping the remaining grit from my mouth and ears and blowing my nose on my favorite tank, I couldn’t help but laugh again. I was in the boneyard, right where I was supposed to be, if not exactly when. And feeling rather smug about the whole incident, I set out with one shoe…in search of Chandra.