The Taste Of Night

1

It’s funny how a name can change the world’s perception of you. Your perception of yourself. My mother used to stroke my cheek with her fingertips, calling me her Jo-baby-my earliest identity; a child both loved and cherished-though obviously that was before she abandoned me. And while the man I’d once thought was my father just called me Joanna, the way he said it was telling as well, all the syllables crisply clipped and pronounced, like he was biting them off between his teeth before spitting them out. Like being Joanna, like being me, was a bad thing. And then there was the love of my life. He’d called me Jo-Jo, and that was the name I missed most of all.

Because for the past six months everyone had called me by my sister’s name, and it was the one I used on myself now, fluffing my blond hair as I stood in a makeshift dressing room in one of Las Vegas’s most opulent resorts, the Valhalla Hotel and Casino.

“Olivia Archer,” I muttered as I straightened my Chanel pencil skirt, my feet screaming in heels as high as flagpoles. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Of course, she couldn’t answer. The real Olivia was six months dead, and while I still mourned her every day and every minute, even if she’d been here I doubt her answer would’ve made sense to me. I mean, how did one even come up with the idea of selling women to raise money for charity? Much less entering herself in the bidding?

I’d been asking myself this ever since I received the phone call from City of Light Charities two months earlier, asking if the bachelorette auction was still on in spite of “recent events.” I’d then scrambled to make sure it was, as Olivia would’ve done. Because that was one thing I needed to do.

Be Olivia Archer. Or be dead.

And so I stood, staring in the mirror at skin that was supposed to be mine, buffed, fluffed, and shellacked to aesthetic perfection, about to auction myself off to the highest bidder.

“Livvy-girl!” The screech-another of my new names-could be heard above the emcee’s cheery voice as yet another debutante was sold out front. “Olivia! No, no! Get away!”

I whirled, images of honed blades and demon faces assailing me, but there was only Cher, Olivia’s best friend-now mine-waving frantically as she danced from foot to foot. She breathed a theatrical sigh as I picked up my Dior handbag and clicked over to her in my medieval torture devices. Yanking me to her side, she whispered harshly, “That’s the suicide mirror, remember? Leave that for the other hags…er, contestants.”

She batted her thickened lashes when I glared at her. I needed this event to be a success. Which meant cheering on all the other hags. Er, contestants.

“It’s true,” added Madeleine Cross airily, mistaking my annoyance for disbelief. I recognized her from her photo in Vegas’s equivalent of Page Six, and it turned out she was just as vain and self-absorbed as reported. She flipped back a lock of recently streaked auburn hair and ran her finger across a perfectly waxed brow. “Two socialites, sharing that mirror, were brought down by bad press after last year’s event.”

“Social homicide,” Cher said, and both women shuddered.

I wanted to say, But it was for a good cause, and only just managed to keep my mouth shut and face straight. “Oh. Well…thanks. For saving me, I mean.”

“’Course, darlin’! We’re BFFs!” Cher gave my shoulders a squeeze before her gaze strayed over my shoulder and she gasped. “Oh my God! Don’t look!”

We turned, and a squeaky sound from Cher whipped us back around. Madeleine leaned forward to peer at the offending contestant through the critical lens of our mirror.

“She’s using M·A·C lipstick in…” She squinted before drawing back, chin lifted. “Vegas Volt. At least two coats. The whore.”

I leaned over and joined her in study of the woman now perched obliviously in front of the suicide mirror. She was dressed in high-class hooker wear and dripping diamonds, just like the rest of us. “I think she looks good.”

“Olivia!” Cher looked at me like I’d just told her I wore press-on nails. “Priscilla Chambers is her own object of desire!”

“Truly,” said Madeleine, applying more mascara as she rolled her eyes, nearly stabbing herself in the eyeball. “Watch, she’ll bid on herself.”

Olivia had lined up the bachelorettes months before-thank God-and clearly I was missing out on some social nuances. So under the guise of polite inquisitiveness, I probed for more information. “Well, what about her? In blue?”

Cher and Madeleine jostled for mirror time, but neither glanced in the direction of the woman about to take to the stage. “Lena Carradine. Puh-lease.”

Madeleine executed another perfect eye roll. “Queen of the facelift tribe.”

“See where her brows are tattooed? Those used to be her cheeks.”

Tough crowd.

“Ladies?” Oh, thank God, I knew that voice. We all turned to find a reporter standing so close she’d easily copped every word. She smiled. “Could I get a couple quotes for the Las Vegas Sentinel?”

Cher and Madeleine launched into a litany of clichés about charity, peace on earth, and the quest for a good man, and the reporter pretended to jot it all down, an expression of carefully vacuous cheerfulness on her honeyed face. Meanwhile I studied Vanessa Valen; naturally bronzed, exotic as a hothouse orchid, and a woman who had the art of camouflage down to a science. Though I’d seen her do it a hundred times now, it was still mystifying how easily she disappeared in a crowd. She was beautiful, but more than that, she had a rock-solid presence and a will to match. She also had a steel fan with viciously curved claws resting somewhere beneath her tidy reporter’s guise, and was my only real ally at this whole bubble-brained affair. It was all I could do not to latch on to her leg and hang there.

When Cher and Madeleine unexpectedly took a breath at the same time, Vanessa managed to shoehorn in a request. “Perhaps I could have a one-on-one with the chair of the”-here she glanced down at her pad-“Cheesecake for Charity Auction?”

The smirk was slight, but it was there, and I discreetly shot her the bird as I pretended to brush back my hair. Then Cher pushed me forward, amusing Vanessa all the more, and we waited in silence until we were alone.

“Tell me I’m your hero,” Vanessa finally said, tawny eyes twinkling when I turned back to her. “That’s all the thanks I need.”

A heroine’s hero. Yeah, that’s funny. I reached down and rubbed the sole of one foot, wincing. “I’ll repay you with backstage gossip from Vegas’s most famous glitterati. You wouldn’t believe how catty this crowd can get.”

“Please. I may be a superhero, but I’m still a woman.” She glanced around the room with distaste before arrowing back in on me. “Nice shoes, by the way. And quite an event. Even the mighty Henshalls are here. Didn’t they snub last year’s affair as ‘too gauche for words’?”

“Did they?” I too had snubbed last year’s fleshfest.

“And looks like your so-called father is working the room for you. He never even shows up for his own functions. Maybe he’s growing a charitable spirit.”

I snorted. “I could write a doctoral dissertation on his ‘charitable spirit.’”

She twirled a strand of hair around her finger as Cher had and said airily, “Yeah, if you were, like, a doctor.”

“Hey, don’t pick on her. She said you have nice toe cleavage.”

“Really?” Vanessa looked down hopefully, then caught my smug look and straightened, clearing her throat. “Anyway, Daddy Dearest just provided me with a rare quote. He said you’re the kindest, most generous person he knows.”

I considered what I knew of Xavier Archer’s business, personal, and-most importantly-otherworldly contacts, and could believe it. Then again, Olivia had been the best person I’d known too. Even with her predilection for over-priced shoes.

“Shows how well he knows me, huh?”

Vanessa cocked a hand on her hip. “Right. I mean, if he knew his supposed daughter was really a member of Zodiac troop 175, charged with promoting peace and cosmic balance in the Universe-”

“Or at least in the greater Las Vegas valley-”

“And that taking over Olivia Archer’s identity was really a crafty plot to infiltrate our enemy’s most profitable mortal-run corporation…he’d shit bricks.”

“Yeah,” I said wryly, and motioned down my cartoon character body. “Crafty.”

Vanessa pursed her lips. “Hey, it’s a great cover. You’re like Diana Prince and Wonder Woman. Or Clark Kent and Superman. Bruce Wayne and Batman.”

I drew back, Olivia’s most haughty expression on my face. “Excuse me, but I have nothing in common with that…bat.”

“Sure you do. He was a billionaire philanthropist and playboy. You’re a-”

“Millionaire heiress and Playmate?” I quipped, as the emcee sold another woman out front. “Sure, rub it in.”

Vanessa’s amusement returned. “Okay, so instead of a loyal butler you have a bubble-brained socialite as your closest confidante. But your tactical support ain’t so bad”-and here she took a bow-“and I bet you have all the martial assistance you need tucked between your legs.”

“Don’t be crude.”

She smirked. “You know what I mean.”

I did know, but I hadn’t been able to squeeze anything else beneath this pencil skirt, so I clipped open my handbag and showed her the conduit I’d stashed there. It was a palm-sized bow and arrow, weighty, but made just for me. I never left home, much less hosted a charity auction, without it.

The polished slide of the metal beneath my fingers was soothing, and I shot Vanessa a wry grin as I snapped the bag shut again. She was right. It could be worse. “So what are you going to write about this time, Vanessa?”

“The usual. I’ll use this event to recap how the beautiful and wealthy Olivia Archer has bounced back from an attack on her life-that killed her sister-to become this city’s premiere philanthropic icon.”

I winced at the nutshell version of “Olivia’s” recent past, though anyone who’d been in the Las Vegas valley more than a minute would’ve already heard all the gory details. They’d dominated headlines for weeks.

CASINO HEIRESS PLUMMETS TO DEATH WHILE SISTER WATCHES.

Only thing, it’d been Olivia plummeting and me watching. Not the reverse.

“So, where’ve you been lately?” Vanessa asked abruptly.

I shifted uncomfortably. Apparently she was here to do more than polish her pristine reporter’s persona. “Is that your not-so-subtle way of telling me I’m wanted back at the sanctuary?”

“Wow, beauty and brains,” she quipped, then shrugged, returning to the topic. “You haven’t been back in weeks.”

“I’m taking the scenic route to superherodom.” I joked, but this time she didn’t smile. Well, she was right. It had been a while. “Okay. Dawn or dusk?”

She blew out a breath, obviously relieved to be able to give our troop leader good news. “Dusk tomorrow is fine. The training field should be ready by then.”

I lifted a brow. Training field?

“Oh yeah,” she said, seeing my expression. “Tekla’s set up a new lesson for us. Everyone is going to be there.”

Great, I thought wryly. Heropalooza.

Vanessa looked over my shoulder. “I think you’re being paged.”

I turned to find the stage manager waving at me frantically. Apparently I was up next. “Oh God. I wonder what exactly these people think they’re buying.”

“Whatever it is, tell them you’ll throw in the knife set for free.”

“I don’t think they know I’m the kind of girl who plays with knives,” I said, and couldn’t help but return her grin.

I joined Cher huddled next to the runway ramp, peering through the gold lamé curtain as the emcee announced Lena Carradine. She pivoted and twirled her way down the catwalk, lifted her surgically enhanced face into the blazing spotlight, and blew air kisses with a mouth stretched so tight she could barely pucker. Cher hissed at Lena through her peephole. “Go on, girl. Hurl yourself down the walk of shame.”

“I’m trying to raise money here,” I reminded Cher.

She turned to me, placed one palm on each of my cheeks, and said encouragingly, “And you will, honey. The second you set foot on that stage, you’ll have more to give to charity than Warren Buffett.”

I looked at her.

“Before the Gates Foundation got to him, I mean. Now go.”

Pushing my handbag up to my elbow, I lined up, took a deep breath, and when I heard my new name called, stepped onto the stage and into my personal hell.

A soft, sensuous tune from the live orchestra accompanied my stride down the catwalk, and I fought the impulse to look down, hide my face, and rush through the torture of being so blatantly stared at, knowing Olivia would do none of those things. So I forced myself to make eye contact with those seated at the numbered tables-both the men who eyed me with appreciative speculation, and the women who sought out flaws where there were none-and shot them all Olivia’s most blinding smile. There were only a handful of faces I recognized, dozens I didn’t, and one in particular I wish I hadn’t: Olivia’s father, Xavier-owner of Valhalla, human lackey to the most evil man on the planet, and the man who’d made my teen years a living hell.

He probably thought selling off his daughter for charity was a good investment. I snarled inwardly as I shot him a saccharine smile. He nodded back.

Could this get any worse?

It could-and did-as soon as the bidding began. I held my breath until the first paddle was lifted in the air, sending a relieved smile out to number 15, but the emcee’s voice quickly acknowledged a second bidder, then a third…then a stream of numbers in such quick succession I lost count. I concentrated on keeping a look of cheery interest plastered on my face, feeling sweat trickle down my spine as the bidding, and minutes, went on.

Finally, after what felt like light years, the bidding was narrowed to four. Number 15 was still in it, but he lifted his paddle more slowly now, and it shook slightly in the air, which meant his funds couldn’t match the heart practically pulsing on his sleeve. The three other bidders saw it and doubled the pace. One, surprisingly, was a young woman-blond, tidy, her good looks understated in unrelieved black-but the emcee didn’t question her right to bid, nor did anyone else. This was Vegas, after all. Money didn’t just talk here, it screamed for attention.

One of her rivals was a well-dressed gentleman standing next to Xavier, probably a business associate, and I wondered how much he was willing to drop on me just to ingratiate himself to my “father.” Finally, there was a blond man who looked as out of place as I felt. Number 56 reminded me of a construction worker despite his double-breasted suit, but he wielded his paddle with a careless flick of his wrists, so I let the observation pass. Looks, as I well knew, were deceiving.

As expected, number 15 didn’t last much longer. The woman, closest to him, shot him a haughty glance, but she was the next to fall. Now it was between Xavier’s sycophant and the blond giant. I was hoping the latter would win, anything to put a hitch in Xavier’s stride, so I shot the man a smile so encouraging a murmur went up from the audience.

That smile, and his responding bid, was enough to finish off Xavier’s man. Applause rolled through the room, and I acknowledged the winning bidder with a tilt of my head, and pivoted, glancing sideways at Xavier as I left the stage. He only rolled his eyes, turning his back as his companion’s paddle fell, and walked away.

“How the fuck am I supposed to follow that?” the next bachelorette grumbled, trudging reluctantly up the stairs as Cher and Madeleine swallowed me in a group bear hug.

“You were awesome! Incredible! Inspiring!”

“Guys…I just stood there,” I fought for breath through the assault of lotion, perfume, hairspray, and breath mints.

“Oh no…Priscilla just stood there.”

“Stood there so long her use-by date expired!”

They gave each other an air high-five and squealed.

“Ladies.” The emcee, an anchorman for one of the local channels, poked his head through the curtain. “Time to meet your bidders. Congratulations on a job well done…and make sure they know we take cash, check, or money order.”

Number 56 made me come to him. There was no meeting me halfway; he just stood as before-watching me skirt around tables, smile at people I was supposed to know, and dodge the woman who’d also been bidding on me-arms folded over his chest expectantly. On second thought, he fit right in with this pretentious crowd. And, I decided, he fit in especially well at Valhalla. Larger up close than he’d appeared from the stage, he had one of those overdefined builds that makes one wonder what exactly he was compensating for, and with the blond hair and gold winking in one earlobe, he was a modern-day Viking…right down to the suddenly avaricious glint in his eyes.

“Congratulations on a fine bid,” I said, shifting my handbag to my left arm as I held out my right. The giant accepted it, dwarfing my palm in his, and drew me in close like it was his right. Tension immediately sprang up in me.

Relax, Jo, I told myself, flashing him a tight smile. Hidden identity or no, I didn’t want to be one of those women who let one little near-death experience scar her forever. Okay, two near-death experiences.

Well, five…but who was counting?

“I’m Olivia,” I said, pulling my hand away. He let it slide from his reluctantly.

“Oh, I know exactly who you are.” And though he smiled, he said it like he really did.

I tilted my head and sniffed. Smell was the strongest of my senses-and for both my allies and my enemies-but right now I scented nothing.

“And you are?” I asked, raising a brow.

“Liam,” he answered, and though I waited for more, that was apparently it.

“Okay,” I said, as cheerily as I could manage. “Well, you have three weeks to claim your…” God, I could barely say it. “Prize. After that the bid is void. You can pay at the front before you leave, and the attendant there will provide my contact information.”

Liam just nodded, that amused expression still touching his face. I mirrored him, nodding back, now straining to keep my smile in place. Time to extricate myself from this social train wreck, and let Mr. Chatty get back to polishing his biceps. I’d just cross my fingers that the next three weeks would pass uneventfully.

“All righty, then. See ya later, Liam.” I turned to head back to the dressing area.

“Good-bye…Archer.”

I froze. Slowly turned. Sniffed again.

And there it was; faint, just a smudge across the pane of my temporal lobe-like memory, but thicker-with edges and hooks that snagged my attention. He let his natural scent intensify, growing so densely cloying I had to breathe through my mouth, and even then the oxygen was round and full, like I could bite it.

My heart thudded in my chest, and I had to fight to keep my own nerves, and scent, from rising to permeate the room. “What do you want?”

Liam’s mouth widened into a full grin. “I want you to want me.”

I thought of the weapon nestled in my bag. Believe me, I wanted him.

“Uh-uh,” he warned, shaking his head as he sensed the direction of my thought. And why not? He was a Shadow. I was an agent of Light. It was only natural to want to kill each other. “Look at all the people, Joanna. Look at the press. ‘Bachelorette Auction Turns into Bloodbath’ would make a terrific headline.”

“You know who I really am.” Though surprised at his use of my real name, I stated it as fact…because the real question was How?

He smiled in mock sympathy and began that slow head nod again. “Kinda puts a hitch in your five-year plan, doesn’t it?”

I clenched my jaw, but said nothing. Shadows were braggarts, down to the last, and while annoying, it was something I might be able to use to my advantage. Keep him talking, buy enough time to signal Vanessa, and we could corner him and escort him outside to his death. If that failed? I’d shoot him where he stood.

“You’re the first real Shadow I’ve seen face-to-face in a long time,” I began conversationally, though the taunt was spot-on. For some reason our enemies had been lying low for the past six months, a move that spoke of a blanket command. I knew that couldn’t sit well with all the Shadows, and was right in suspecting Liam was one of them. His eyes narrowed, and the air around us warmed, peppery cinders bleeding from his pores. “I mean…you are a real Shadow, aren’t you? Not just some rogue agent looking to score brownie points with the local troop?”

His face tightened. Rogue agents were outcasts looking to usurp their counterparts in a city’s established troop, and nobody on either side of the Zodiac liked to be mistaken for what essentially amounted to a paranormal mutt. “I’m more real,” he said through clenched teeth, “than most of the breasts in this room.”

“Prove it,” I said, shooting an unconcerned glance around the room. I didn’t see Vanessa anywhere. “What raids have you led lately?”

As expected, he was anxious to brag. “I was responsible for the showgirls held hostage at the top of the Trop at the beginning of the year.”

“That was you?” I feigned interest, having caught sight of Vanessa near a tray of crab cakes, and he nodded while I waited for her to turn. “Not very original.”

The smile dropped. “I also devised the implosion of the new Cirque showroom.”

That’d been two months earlier, a paranormal prank that’d spilled hundreds of gallons of water out and onto the Strip. “We should’ve let that one go.” I shrugged philosophically.

“Cleanup was a bitch, was it?” he said, referring to the lengths we’d had to go to keep the entire event from mortal notice.

“Not really,” I said, shrugging. Vanessa had turned my way to grab a champagne flute from a passing waiter. Now all I had to do was catch her eye. “But we don’t need another fucking Cirque show in this town.”

“Okay, then.” He licked his lips, provoked. “How about the theft of the mayor’s gin back in March?”

He smiled when an involuntary twinge shuddered up my spine. The mayor and his damned martinis. The entire city’s coffers had nearly gone to the first person to come up with a bottle of Tanqueray. “That was a close one,” I had to admit.

His arrogance returned. “So. Been taking many photographs lately, Joanna? ‘Raising awareness of the homeless and displaced through your art,’” he quoted, and it was my turn to stiffen. Those words had been in my obituary six months earlier. “But Olivia doesn’t take photos, does she? Though plenty are taken of her.”

I feigned a yawn, like his words-and knowledge-didn’t matter. “I’ve been kinda busy lately. You know. Saving Las Vegas from evil beings bent on chaos and destruction.”

“You mean tourists?” Liam grinned at my unamused stare. “Wouldn’t it be so much easier to protect these mortals if it weren’t for the whole ‘free will’ thing?”

“Forgive me if I don’t get into the moral responsibility of promoting individual choice with a guy who takes his orders from an evil overlord.”

“An overlord, I should remind you, who’s also your father.”

People just loved to throw that in my face.

“So is that why you’re here? Dear ol’ Dad send you to convince me to turn to the dark side of the force?” I rolled my eyes and caught Vanessa heading toward the Henshalls. Damn.

“Actually I wanted to see for myself what all the excitement was about.” And he looked me up and down, doing just that.

His curiosity didn’t surprise me. I was something new, after all. Something spoken about in the superhero mythology and written about in our texts, but that no one on either side of the Zodiac had ever seen before. I was the first star sign who’d ever been both Shadow and Light, the person our mythology called the Kairos, and the fulcrum upon which the supernatural fates hinged. Basically I could tip the metaphysical scales in the favor of whatever side I chose, Shadow or Light, which made me a valuable commodity in the paranormal world.

“And?” I finally said, resisting the urge to cross my arms over my chest.

Liam leaned close in a way that must have looked intimate and wolfish from afar. “I think you’re the biggest joke I’ve ever seen. I think you’ve as much chance of being the Kairos as my dirty socks. And I think you should die for even breathing the same air as I am right now.”

“Then it’s a good thing,” I said slowly, “that I don’t give a fuck what you think.”

And now my paternal heritage pushed itself to the fore-front, soot and dust overpowering his own scent as my vision went red at the edges, telling me my eyes had gone tar black.

If Liam was startled, he didn’t show it. He just reached out very slowly and put a hand to my face, resting it on the side of my cheek. I let him, just to show I truly felt no fear just then. I could reach up and snap his wrist before anyone in the room blinked, but I let him touch me. I was feeling philosophical about the whole thing. I’d touch him back soon enough.

He let his hand rest before patting my cheek hard enough to sting, and probably leave a red mark as well. “You’ve got the balls of your father, I’ll give you that. Do you know he was actually proud of the way you took care of Ajax and Butch? A Shadow, proud of the Light.” He shook his head and scoffed. “But I want to see what you’ve learned since then. I wonder, do you know how to do more than just fight?”

“Like what?”

He let his gaze wander off over my shoulder, as if he was pondering the eternal question, and when his eyes returned to mine, he smiled. “Like…run.”

He was gone before I could take a breath. I swiveled as the air rushed past me, caught myself before I darted after him. People were watching. Plus it was already too late. Liam was already halfway to his destination; a normal door with a red-lettered exit sign fixed above it, but with another symbol above that, one noticeable only to those who knew how to look.

I cursed inwardly and bit my lip as I stared at the tiny winking star that marked a portal. Once Liam opened it, he shot a final victorious glance back at me, then slammed it so hard the room’s chandeliers rocked and the champagne flutes shook on their trays. I sighed inwardly. Even the mortals had noticed that.

More importantly, the star above the doorway flickered, then blinked out. Portals disappeared as soon as they were accessed, a paranormal precaution against mortals accidentally getting through…and proof positive the Universe had a twisted sense of humor.

Run, Liam had said. But what he meant was follow. And even though my instincts told me not to, that a trap awaited me on the other side of reality, I didn’t have much of a choice. Either I stopped Liam before he got too far, or my hidden identity would spread across the supernatural world like napalm across the rain forest.

And if that happened, Kairos or not, my troop would place me in a secured holding cell to wake up a week from now with an entirely new identity, and alias, to get used to. That’d be the end of the relationships I’d been working on so hard these last six months. Good-bye to Cher. Good-bye to the life I’d built.

Good-bye to Olivia.

And that wasn’t going to happen. So I said nothing to Vanessa, who was staring hard at Lena Carradine’s lip implants, and slipped out of the room when no one was looking. And once outside I did as Liam wanted, even in skyscraper heels. I ran.