The Taste Of Night

30

“I’m sorry.”

My voice was raw and scratchy, and when I tried to clear it, I ended up coughing so hard that my gentle entry into waking hours was abruptly replaced by a scalded throat and violent headache.

“Here.”

The scent of warm peppermint washed over me, and I looked up to find Hunter standing at my bedside, a cup of steaming tea in his outstretched hand. Twelve hours earlier, I would’ve slapped it away, sending tea splattering against the cream-colored walls along with the perfume bottles, mirrors and knickknacks I’d already destined for the trash bin. Instead, as I looked around for the remnants of those things, I accepted the tea, and took a grateful sip.

“You cleaned up,” I said, as Hunter perched himself next to me. This gave me a clear view of myself in the cracked dresser mirror, and I winced at my multiple reflections. “Everything but me, I see.”

He leaned back, blocking my view. I met his steady gaze. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been hit by a semi.”

He cocked one dark brow. “I can’t imagine why.”

“Look, I’m sorry. Really-”

“I heard you the first time,” he stopped me, though his voice wasn’t harsh like I expected. Or deserved. “And it’s okay.”

I sipped some more tea, letting the warmth spread through my chest, and out into my limbs, pooling in my ravaged fingertips. “Thank you.”

He lifted one large shoulder, shrugging off the gratitude. “Remember when we were in the boneyard? In Tekla’s thought maze?”

“Hunter-”

He smiled, bittersweet, and shook his head. “Not that part. Before that. The reason we were there. The purpose of the maze.”

I knew the answer-the hours spent under Tekla’s tutelage, breaking down walls, had been toward that purpose. “To get to the center without detection. As quickly as possible.”

“To use your sixth sense to reach that center,” he clarified, watching me closely. I faltered under that clear-eyed gaze. “To use clarity of mind and intention to reach your sixth sense.”

Yes, I knew that too. I closed my eyes and nodded. “And I had none of that yesterday. If I’d gone to Valhalla like that I’d have been dead before I hit the door.”

Hunter patted my leg, warming me further. When I finally opened my eyes again, he said, “The thing is, Jo, getting through that maze was only the first step. Creating barriers out of the ether was the ultimate goal. And do you know why?”

Because the most powerful being had been wrought into the world solely by the determination of a powerful mind. “Because if you know how to build them up, you know how to tear them down.”

“Valhalla is the Tulpa’s house,” Hunter said, nodding. “You need clarity, intention, and your sixth sense combined to enter safely, but to reach the center of his quarters, you need to be able to throw him off your trail. Create barriers of your own.”

“And destroy the artificial walls he’s created to throw me off of his.” I sighed thoughtfully and sipped at the cooling peppermint.

Hunter nodded. “Can you do that?”

I sipped again, and this time the tea settled like a brick in my gut. I looked back at him. “No.”

He nodded slowly, and to himself. “But you’ll try anyway.”

My response this time was a mere whisper. “I have to stop Joaquin. Find Ian. Try to find an antidote to this virus.” Save Ben. Save the girl. Save myself. “I have to at least try.”

“I know,” he said, laying a hand over mine. It was as warm and comforting as the tea. I glanced again at Hunter. I’d never seen him like this before; gentle, understanding, almost paternal. “And as you’ve already made that choice, there’s only one more question you need to ask yourself.”

I waited.

His mouth quirked, his eyes narrowed, and there was the sexy weapons master I knew. “Who do you want walking beside you?”

“Oh, Hunter. I can’t-”

“-ask me to do that,” he interrupted again, rolling his eyes. “I know. But I’m the one doing the asking here. So. What’s it going to be?”

“Yes.” The word rushed out of me on a relieved exhale. Dying alone, after all, had such little appeal. “God, yes. Of course. If you’re sure.”

He smiled at me again, a grim little thing, and lifted a hand to brush back one of the tendrils hanging in my face. “You don’t have to ask that either,” he murmured.

Then he rose to leave, saying something about rest, that we’d leave the following dusk, but stopped in the doorway to send me a hard look over his shoulder. I pulled my eyes away from the shattered reflections of my many selves, and bit my lip. “I only ask one thing of you. Stay honest about your intentions. Anything less will kill us both.”

I flushed because he felt he had to say it, even though I knew I deserved it after last night’s hysterics, but lifted my chin in what I hoped was a convincingly determined look. “I want to bring Ian back. I want Ben safe. I want my…the child’s safety ensured as well.”

I said nothing about vengeance or making Joaquin pay for what he’d done to me. No request to let me be the one to kill him. I didn’t say it because I finally saw those dreams for what they were: violent distractions. Finally Hunter nodded. “All right, then. Let’s go get Joaquin.”

He disappeared back into the living room, and I sipped my tea and let my eyes travel back to the mirror.

“Yes,” I said, eyeing all my shattered selves. “Let’s go get that bastard.”

We found a portal a block away from Valhalla, and entered to find the world awash in a blanket of white.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I said, testing the depth of the snow with one leather boot before glancing back at Hunter, still huddled in the doorway of the souvenir shop we’d come through. “We can’t walk into that hotel and cross back to mortal reality with snow on our feet and in our hair. It’ll be a dead giveaway.”

“And the alternative is?” he asked wryly, looking at the snow like it was acid. “Walk through the front door?”

No, we couldn’t do that. Now that Joaquin knew my real identity, he’d be looking for me-mask or no mask. This reality was still our best shot. “Let’s find another portal.”

He shook his head. “It’s not the portal, it’s the timing. It just happens to be snowing on this side of reality right now.” He shuddered, and I don’t think it had anything to do with the cold. Like me, Hunter was a desert rat. Anything this cold and white was simply…unnatural. “Can we wait it out?”

I glanced up at the thick blanket of clouds roiling overhead, and doubted it. This, along with the colorless landscape, was the other major difference on this side of reality. While the physical surroundings matched what one would find in the real world, the more fluid variables, like weather, were particularly unstable. Step through a portal on a bright blue summer day, and you were likely to find vicious winds circling the valley as if stalking their prey. A parched winter day might yield rainbows arching overhead, crisscrossing in shades of gray, though no less glorious for it. So while we might find a portal to enter closer to Valhalla, it would only minimize the trudge, but change nothing. Besides, this one had already sealed behind us.

“Let’s go,” I said reluctantly, and plodded out into the street, arms wrapped around my already chilled body. Across the road a shirtless kid skateboarded home in the dusk of his sweltering reality. I glanced back, following the dual footprints leading to the aural smears of light directly behind Hunter and me, and wished we had something to cover them with. The prints, not the smears. Those dissipated within seconds, though the vibrant colors seemed to hang longer in the heavy winter air, and I briefly wondered if the troops back east considered this a problem. Hunter followed the direction of my gaze and read my thoughts.

“Hindsight and all,” he said, turning forward again.

“Yeah. I’ll make a note to add snowshoes to my shopping list.”

After that we fell silent, and I kept my mind off my numbing limbs by going through our plan to infiltrate Valhalla step by step. First, we had a good operative in Hunter, as he knew the property, was in uniform, and had already established the habit of varying his shifts. His colleagues wouldn’t think twice at him showing up for the swing shift on a Tuesday night, though we were hoping he wouldn’t have to show himself on that side of reality at all. I’d follow behind him as we tried to locate the same portal we’d found weeks earlier, and see if there was an antidote to the virus somewhere in that lab. That was our first priority.

Second, one of us had to search out a secondary portal while the other was busy in the lab. I hated to split up, but if Ian and my computer were being held in Valhalla, as I suspected they were, it was the most expedient way to conduct a search of the vast property, despite doubling the prospects of running into a Shadow agent. If that happened, and I thought that a big if since the Shadows all still seemed to be on their extended summer vacations, I expected to encounter only one at most. And there were still two of us.

Finally, we had to find a way to move Ian and the computer off property, and that would probably be the trickiest part. Ian was mortal and could only be moved along the natural plane, but we’d have to deal with contingencies as they came. I was ticking through the various ways that scenario could play out when Hunter suddenly spoke.

“Uh-oh.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “What ‘uh-oh’?”

“I thought this might happen. You’re bleeding again.”

“Wha-? Fuck. No!” I whirled around myself, first one way, then the other. “Why me? Why not you?”

“Thanks for your concern,” he replied wryly, before pointing at the ground where crimson-colored aura pooled around my feet. “They must have the place sensored or something, to alert them to your presence on this plane. I thought it might be all of us-all agents of Light, I mean-but they probably don’t have a DNA sample for each of the agents of Light, so it must be just you.”

“But how would they have a sample of my-”

I broke off and met Hunter’s steady eyes, realization dawning in tandem. “The Tulpa,” we said at the same time.

“They must’ve used some of his DNA, some skin cells or something to experiment with.”

“How does an imagined being have DNA to start with?” I said, frustrated with the logic.

“How do imagined walls have molecules to keep them upright?” he countered, trudging ahead. “Besides, he’s not imaginary anymore. And now we know there’s something worth guarding in there. We’re on the right track.”

“Who cares if I’m not even allowed on the train?” I grimaced, lifting my feet higher as I walked, as if that would keep my aura from staining the pristine snowbanks. Berry slushies.

“Gonna let something like a little bleeding aura stop you?” he said teasingly.

“Easy for you to say,” I almost snarled. “Your aura’s packed tighter than a can of tuna.”

He shrugged, turning back to trudge ahead of me, shooting over his shoulder, “All we have to do is get you inside so you can access one of the interior portals.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” he said, ignoring my sarcasm. His stride was longer than mine but I stretched to fit in his footprints, hoping to ease the chill around my ankles every time I took a step. “I go in, in uniform, and scout out the portals first. Once I have their locations, I call you inside.”

“Yeah, because yelling out ‘Joanna Archer’ in the middle of the craps pit won’t be at all obvious.”

Smirking, he held out a palm-sized device. “I’ll call you with this.”

I halted, took the remote, and clicked the button on the side, speaking clearly into the slats. “A walkie-talkie?” My voice sounded from somewhere near his ass area.

Hunter reached behind him and pulled out its twin. “Not just a walkie-talkie, but one identical to those used by Valhalla security, in all ways but two. First, I set it to a channel only the two of us can access. Even if the signal’s detected, they won’t be able to locate it until we’re long gone.”

Okay, so I was impressed, but I had my badass superhero face on, and wasn’t about to show it. “And second?”

“Second,” he retorted, just as badass, “you’re the only one who can use it. Anyone else depresses that button, and the device explodes, taking a limb with it.”

I grinned. “Nasty.”

“I take it you approve.”

My smile widened. “So where am I going to be hiding with my handy-dandy explosive device while you’re locating the portals?”

“Parking garage,” he said, and held up a hand before I could protest. “The floors are monitored by cameras, but they only capture certain angles. The stairwell can’t be viewed at all. The third level leads directly into the video arcade. I figure with all the noise and sound and color, that’ll be the least likely place you and your bleeding aura will be noticed. From there, we make a quick sprint to the first portal, and we’re off.”

We started trudging forward again. The Strip seemed a lot longer covered in snow. “Wow, got it all figured out, don’t you?”

“As best I could given time and resources.”

And it sounded good. He must’ve been refining the details while I was doing my Exorcist imitation the night before. “So that’s all we need,” I said, sighing. “You on the inside, me with an explosive toy, and a half dozen portals to choose from.”

“And luck,” Hunter added, over his shoulder. “Don’t forget Lady Luck.”

“That fickle bitch?” I muttered, slipping the walkie-talkie into my black cargo pocket. “How could I ever forget her?”

Valhalla’s parking garage was planted at the end of a road veering off from the more accessible valet entrance, and stacked like a concrete layer cake, with different colors and numbers to help guests remember which floor they’d parked on. There was nothing nefarious to indicate it was any different than any other garage along the Strip. In fact, the most ominous thing was the lack of vehicles housed within the normally packed floors. Valhalla was suffering the effects of the valley virus as much as any other property, which had to suck for the hotel’s shareholders, but happily decreased my chances of being observed by mortal or agent alike.

Unfortunately, I thought as I settled beneath a metal stairwell, it also meant the casino floor would be less crowded. My red wig and sunglasses were pretty slapdash and would go only so far to shield my identity. I may have scoffed at the notion of Lady Luck, but Hunter was right. The precautions we’d already taken were no guarantee this all wouldn’t blow up in our faces once it was set into motion.

I passed the time by concentrating on pulling my energy inward, finding a place of balance mortals had to spend hours in yoga or meditation to achieve. I’d learned to reach it in seconds, and hold it for hours. Within five minutes I felt like the inside of a smoky crystal ball. My exterior felt fragile compared to the power swirling inside me, like a storm was swelling, brewing in…

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I frowned as a sound broke through my serene centeredness. There it was again. Laughter-joyous and innocent, like the tinkle of tiny chimes in a soft spring wind. I rose from my hiding spot, swiftly looked about, then darted to the edge of the parking structure to peer over the side from where the sound had risen.

Buh-bye Buddha, because there she was, a full-fledged Shadow agent, pheromones wafting from her like heated sunflowers, the power from her recent metamorphosis snapping around her in invisible sparks. Even with her back to me Regan DuPree appeared lighthearted, smiling up at a man, arm linked in his, strolling into the hotel without a care in the world. She’d changed her appearance drastically, though she looked moderately familiar…probably, I thought, because I’d recognize her anywhere. Her hair had been chopped short, and now framed her face in an auburn bob. She’d kept her compact build, though, eschewing the femme fatale look for something a little more streamlined.

I sighted her within the crosshairs of my conduit, and almost blew out the back of her pretty little head, but caught myself when I realized there was the issue of the mortal witness standing next to her. I tore my eyes away from the new, improved Regan, and inhaled deeply as my eyes fell on the back of the man’s head. For a moment my eyes and nose warred with one another. I couldn’t assign any olfactory or visual meaning to what my senses were telling me. It was like picking up a glass and expecting to take a sip of milk, only to realize too late that you were drinking wine.

But the confusion lasted only a moment. It was a long, drawn-out moment, to be sure; the longest of my life. But it would never take longer than that for me to recognize Ben Traina.

“No,” I whispered, as that bell-like laugh drifted up to me again.

The exhalation cost me. Regan whipped around, and I ducked behind the concrete wall, squeezing my eyes shut against the vision of Regan clutching Ben’s arm…and him smiling back down at her.

What was he-? And why-? And how could he-?

But I knew what, and why, and how. Hadn’t he spelled it out to me in our recent night together? Don’t leave me again. I can’t take anymore.

But I had left him, hadn’t I? Left him to wake alone again, with nothing but a note that essentially read, Don’t call me, I’ll call you.

And now he’d ended up with Regan. Even in my addled state I put it together easily. She had studied me and my past, and had targeted my lover. She was the woman he’d been talking to on the computer. She was Rose.

And she looked familiar, I thought, because she’d altered her appearance to look like me. The Joanna me.

“I’m gonna kill her. I’m gonna fucking…”

I was rising to take aim again, give chase if I had to, when a family of five stepped out of the garage elevator. As I ducked behind a red Buick while they made their way to their car; luggage, two children, and an infant in tow, the interruption gave me a moment to remember why I was there, and forced me to admit I couldn’t do anything about Ben and Regan right now. Not with Hunter counting on me, and the entire valley’s survival at stake.

Later, I told myself, trying to find that Zen-like place I’d been in before Regan’s laugh had broken through. I returned to the stairwell and slowed my breathing. I calmed myself, sought full enlightenment…and swore on my life to rip that bitch’s every limb from her brand-new body.