The Taste Of Night

3

Once I was sure the guards had gone, I bounded up the empty stairwell, straightening my clothes as I walked and tucking my conduit back out of sight.

It didn’t take long before my presence was known, and reported, among the employees. The Valhalla Hotel and Casino was one of the newest and most extravagant resorts in Las Vegas, and Xavier Archer the savviest, most respected, and feared entrepreneur in town. Thus walking around in Olivia Archer’s skin was akin to the queen of England strutting around Buckingham. Employees practically genuflected in front of the woman they assumed was the sole heiress to the Archer family fortune.

Yet I knew something they didn’t. Xavier might have held the title of president and CEO of Valhalla, but he did so by my true father’s will and whim. Though we had yet to prove it, the agents of Light believed this was where the Shadow organization was headquartered, and where their conspiracies-operating under the guise of a little innocent gaming-were plotted and set into motion. That my biological father tried to kill me here last winter was proof enough for me.

I shut out the memories of that last encounter as I strode through the pit. Sure, I was walking around the lion’s den, but this time I was doing so with claws and fangs of my own.

Dozens of gazes weighed on me as I crossed the casino floor, and I could practically hear the whirring of machinery as every eye in the monitor room followed my progress. If I’d ever in my life considered striving for fame and fortune, my time spent in Olivia’s skin would’ve had me reconsidering that career goal.

I plastered an expression of vacuous cheerfulness on my face, moving as quickly as I could without looking hurried, and added an extra bit of sway to my hips as I walked. Meanwhile I searched for the olfactory thread I’d memorized while racing down the streets. I was like a voluptuous, blond bloodhound.

Twenty feet later my eyes fastened on a sectioned-off area of the casino. Bingo. If I’d had a tail, I’d be on point. Renovations were ongoing in most Strip properties, and I skirted the craps pit to edge along the curtained area, scanning the signs updating tourists on the latest and greatest improvements. The Great Hall of the Gods was, apparently, getting an aquarium. One that, I recalled Xavier saying, would make Monterey look like a wading pool. At two hundred million, it had better.

And though it was new, it smelled like a few fish had been rotting too long in the tide pool. Another specimen Monterey didn’t possess, I thought, wrinkling my nose. Shadows.

I exited through the main entrance before I could be stopped by some solicitous casino host, knowing the Eye in the Sky was still trained on me as I strode through the porte cochere. Once on the Boulevard, I circled the block, ducked behind a line of perfectly edged shrubs, jumped an eight-foot wall, and approached again from the back.

Everyone thinks Las Vegas casinos are impenetrable, that any place with security cameras, trained personnel, and mountains of hard cash would be as hard to get into as Fort Knox. Mostly, they’re right. You can’t walk right into a stripfront property and wander any way your fancy dictates. That’s a given.

But what’s also a given is human error. Not to mention sheer boredom. You spend forty-plus hours a week, year after year, in the same smoke-filled, sensory-overloaded environment for an unimpressive hourly wage, and try to maintain a semblance of genuine interest. It’d be hard to feign curiosity under those circumstances, never mind a state of urgency. This was what I was counting on when I approached the aquarium’s guarded back door, and I wasn’t disappointed.

It was nearly midnight, probably about five hours into the guard’s shift, and he was slumped next to the door, near catatonic. As a bonus, he had a prohibited MP3 player that I could hear pumping gangsta rap from ten feet away. I slipped in the door half a foot away from him, and he never knew I was there.

The aquarium’s main room was cool and humid, silent but for the humming white noise of the tanks. Concrete walls were bathed in an eerie blue glow from the exhibit’s thick acrylic windows, and sea life from jellies to sharks floated obliviously content through beds of fresh seawater. Most of the tanks lined the walls, but a few transparent cylinders spiked through the center of the room, holding the more delicate fish. I turned around myself, thinking of those action movies where the thick glass cracks to send stingrays and water and kelp and plankton over the hapless hero as the bad guys get away. That thought in mind, I pulled out my weapon, as well as a mask that I slipped over my head. Then I dropped my bag in the corner.

“Too late for that, Archer of Light,” came a woman’s voice, and then bell-like laughter came at me from everywhere. “We already know who you are.”

“Know it,” Liam’s voice boomed out at me from the opposite side so that I turned toward it, “but can’t believe it.”

Shit. There were two of them.

“I told you she’d follow.” The woman again, but closer. I whirled again. How had I missed the second aura? And why was I still scenting only one Shadow?

“I thought she’d be harder to catch.”

“You haven’t caught me yet,” I said, getting more and more nervous as the calm banter continued. Where the fuck were they?

“Patience, Olivia…or can I call you Joanna?”

My jaw clenched as I slid toward the center of the room, back against a circular tank housing glowing pink jellies. I was confused; they were obviously close, but the glyph on my chest had yet to engage. I tapped at my cleavage, wondering if the thing was working. In movies and comic books, glyphs were represented by large lettering on the superhero’s clothing. In reality it was like a brand under the skin, undetectable until it started glowing, and only then in the presence of enemy agents, a sort of preternatural alarm system.

So if the Shadows were so close that Liam’s scent was clogging my pores, why wasn’t my glyph glowing now?

“Are you okay, Archer?” the woman said, this time from my right. “You look a little confused.”

I frowned, edging around the cylinder. How were they seeing me?

“Don’t have this place mapped out, do you? Of course, once we knew you were posing as Xavier Archer’s daughter, we knew you’d have studied Valhalla’s floor plan. That’s why we picked the aquarium. That’s why we waited until it was nearly completed to lure you here.”

Alarm skirted through me. They’d known who I’d become, and they’d waited. And I, walking around in Olivia’s skin, hadn’t known that they’d known. The woman, feeling the bump in my adrenaline, laughed.

“What’s wrong? Wondering if the Tulpa is going to show up and finish what he started?”

Liam chuckled now too. God, he sounded like he was practically on top of me. “It’s a sad day when a father tries to kill his own daughter.”

“He stopped when he found out I was his daughter,” I said, and bolted across the room to another tank.

“Which is why we haven’t told him about your new identity, or that you’d be here tonight. The place is soundproof, and the security cameras won’t be installed until next week.”

“And you’ll be long dead by then,” the woman added, her laughter ringing out again.

Oh good. They’d given this some thought. I swallowed hard and tried to soften my gaze, see shapes rather than colors. Maybe they’d found another portal and were stalking me from the other side. We could still reach each other that way. We could still kill each other. “And you think the Tulpa will be fine with that? With you killing his only child, his heir? The one he believes is the Kairos?”

“You’re not the Kairos,” Liam said, his tone falling sharply. “And the Tulpa will never know.”

I thought about that for a moment, and decided he was bluffing. My death would leave a kill spot, noticeable by any supernatural, same as anyone else’s. And kill spots didn’t only leave the psychic imprint of the person who’d died, they identified those who’d done the killing as well. It was a supernatural calling card, bragging rights, and a history lesson all rolled into one.

Except in one way, I thought, and swallowed hard, gripping my conduit more tightly. No agent could heal from the blow of his own conduit. If you were killed by your own paranormal weapon, your aura was negated, your scent obliterated, and your death would be blighted from the mythology. It was as if you’d never existed.

“Over my cold, dead body,” I murmured, just as my glyph began to glow. I looked around frantically.

“Pleasure,” came the woman’s voice from above.

I looked up to see her already falling. There was no time to clear my bow for a direct shot, though the impact of her body landing on mine caused my trigger finger to tense, and an arrow was released into space. I heard a surprised yelp and an angry “Watch it!”

I head-butted the woman, and she cried out, falling back, but by that time Liam had dropped from the rafters and had my weapon hand secured in both of his. He lifted it, using pure brute strength to angle my conduit toward my chest. I held tight, but he had power and leverage on his side, and he angled the arrow toward my core, ripping through my left bicep as he pushed the arrow lower and closer to my heart.

I rammed him with my knee, but felt the jarring sensation of my kneecap meeting with a cup-what the hell was it made of, steel?-and my leg crumpled beneath me upon its return to the ground.

Halfway to the floor, weapon hand still trapped in his, I anticipated his reach. I released my conduit, latched on to his forearms, and pulled him with me as I rolled back, propelling him with my good leg so he went flying over my head. There were more cries as he collided with the woman, and I was up again, stretching for my conduit. Inches away, a black boot connected with my weapon, sending it skittering across the concrete floor. A second boot plowed into my face. Another pair landed on my back. Something popped like corn, and numbness sped along my limbs.

Please, God. Don’t let whatever that was have been important.

“Jesus, that was easy!” Liam gasped, stomping on my neck for good measure before kneeling in front of me.

It was, I thought, disgusted with myself as he sat me upright. My back was spasming in pain, but knowing I’d heal, I pushed away the agony and looked up at him through watering eyes. I was surprised-though I shouldn’t have been-to find he was dressed as the security guard I’d passed on the way in. Even without my ability to see auras anymore, I should’ve at least scented him. And I hadn’t.

I deserved to die for that alone.

“Speak for yourself,” the woman told him, rubbing at her forehead as she came around to stand in front of me. And there was the second surprise. It was the same woman who’d been bidding on me at the bachelorette auction. I closed my eyes and let my head drop back. Okay, I deserved to die twice.

I opened my eyes when I heard the scrape of my conduit being lifted from the floor. The woman was inspecting it carefully, and the sight of it in someone else’s hands was unsettling, like she was carrying around a piece of me.

The woman was dwarfed next to Liam, even though she was taller than average, and fit despite being small boned. Though not as blindingly blond, she was serviceably pretty, with eyes that were less greedy than assessing. Of the two, she alarmed me more. I glanced at her hands. It could’ve been the easy way she was palming my weapon. Damn.

She knelt, grabbed my arm-stronger than she looked, even for a nonmortal-and torqued it until I was angled awkwardly against a glass cylinder. Her other hand was busy pressing an arrow against my temple, and I got the picture, and held very still. She took a surprising, steadying breath…then leaned forward and kissed me on the lips.

Soft, I thought, as shock buzzed through me. That’s why guys liked us. I understood this as her tongue gently flitted in my mouth, touching mine, bringing with it the taste of the exotic; ground ginger and warm apples and something undeniably female. Had I been born a different type of woman I might have enjoyed that softness, but to me it was an earthworm sort of soft. The softness of slugs. The tenderness of raw meat. She withdrew her tongue before I could bite it off. I cleared my mouth and spit as she fell back.

“What are you doing?” Liam asked, sounding more horrified about two chicks locking lips than most men would be. We both ignored him.

She pulled back, gazing intently into my eyes. “Just an experiment,” she murmured.

“Sorry.” I rubbed my mouth against the back of my hand, fighting back rage at being manhandled. “But I’m not into girl-on-girl.”

She stared at me another moment, assessing; running her tongue over her lips, tasting. Then the speculation cleared from her eyes and she smiled playfully. “What? No final wishes? No regrets?”

“Not in that regard.” Though that wasn’t exactly true if we were speaking about my love life in broad terms. I allowed one word to float through my brain-Ben-then banished it before the accompanying scent leaked out. I’d hate to lead her on.

“Well, I’ve had enough with experiments,” Liam said, glancing suspiciously around the aquarium. “Let’s just do this and get out of here.”

The woman smiled apologetically at me. “No sense of foreplay.”

“Bet he always has to be on top too.”

Liam rammed his forearm across my neck, cutting off my words and my breath as he leaned in close. His scent was one of moldering skin, dusty bone, and the bitter tang of bile. I’d gag if he kissed me. “You want to find out?”

“Oh God, Liam. That’s so caveman,” the smaller Shadow said, pushing him away. “Have it your way.”

She stepped back, readying my conduit as Liam lifted me to my feet. Oh God. They were really going to do it. I was going to die, and I realized a part of me hadn’t thought I would. The Tulpa hadn’t been able to kill me…and that had made me careless.

“I wish you’d let me do it,” Liam said, holding me in place.

“You lost the toss,” she replied, motioning him aside. He grunted and backed away.

“You guys tossed for me?” I grimaced. Now not only was I humiliated, I was insulted.

The female Shadow smiled and raised my conduit so the arrow was centered between my eyes. I could see the other arrows lined in the small chamber, and the shiny onyx metal glinted at me in the short distance. “I got heads.”

I closed my eyes, tensed for the impact, and wondered so many things in quick succession, I felt dizzy. What was it going to feel like to die? Would it hurt? Would there be a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel?

Would Olivia be there with outstretched arms, forgiving me for not being able to save her?

Senses primed, I flinched when the spring action on the bow caught, though it almost sounded like it was done in slow motion. The arrow was nocked, and the string sang as the bow reached full draw. I held my breath, not wanting my last emotion on earth to be fear.

Behind me, Liam screamed. His hold on me gave suddenly, and I opened my eyes.

“Fuck!” he hollered through gritted teeth. He was clasping his right shoulder, fingers wrapped around the shaft of an arrow. “You have bad aim, you stupid bitch!”

The woman tilted her head. “Now why would you say something like that to a woman with a weapon?” She shifted and shot out his other shoulder, then looked directly at me and jerked her head, the universal signal for Get the fuck out of the way. I did.

She shot out his knees in quick succession, barely pausing to aim. Then the chamber was empty. “This thing have any more ammo?” she asked me. I shook my head. She glanced from me to my abandoned bag, smelling the lie but ignoring it anyway. “Oh well,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to use something else.”

Whistling the theme song to Peter Gunn she strolled over to Liam, now writhing on the ground like a landed bass. My heartbeat slowed marginally, but quickened again as she turned back to me. Liam’s conduit was in her hand, but she didn’t point it at me. Instead she handed it to me.

I glanced down, took it by the knobbed handle, and felt the heft of hinged titanium. It was a weapon meant for an agent larger than me, but the length of a forearm when folded, small enough to carry concealed in a large cargo pocket, which was where Liam had stashed it in his appropriated uniform. I grasped the knob, whipped it out in front of me, and it elongated with a biting snap. It was a bata, or shillelagh-an Irish fighting stick-and I glanced back at Liam with some surprise. I hadn’t pegged him as a Mick.

“Why?” Liam and I asked at the same time. She answered me.

“Because I can’t kill one of my own. Even if I use his own weapon against him, the kill spot will still identify me as the slayer.”

I hadn’t known that. I’d only used a conduit against its owner once, but he had been an enemy. Unlike the woman next to me, I’d never even thought about killing one of my own. Well…except Warren. But it’d been a fleeting thought, and only that once.

Okay, twice.

“Because it’s unnatural,” Liam spat, his shock still evident in the scent of rancid lemon rising from his pores. But he was angry too, and who could blame him? He’d probably thought he was needed to protect her in this operation. By some arbitrary whim, however, he was the one who needed protection. He wasn’t going to get it from me, and his partner-former-looked away.

I hefted his conduit, holding it about a third of the way from the butt, and his eyes widened when he saw I knew what I was doing. “You can’t do this, Regan! We were seen leaving together! The Tulpa will find out!”

“Nobody saw, Liam. I made sure of it.” Her voice was flat, but a wisp of regret flickered over her face, slithering across her features like a ripple over a pond, disappearing as soon as she realized I was watching. “Just do it,” she said, and turned away.

I stepped forward before that shadowy regret could turn into full-blown repentance.

I didn’t make him suffer. It wasn’t my style, though I’d kind of overlooked that when I’d tortured and killed the Shadow who’d taken Olivia’s life. This wasn’t personal, though-if murder can be termed an impersonal thing-just as I knew his wish to kill me was nothing personal. He was doing his job, Shadow versus Light, and I would do my job now. Still, I liked to think there was some difference between us.

“Your full name?” I asked, resting my thumb along the bata’s shaft.

He squinted up at me through pain-hazed eyes. “Why?”

“For the records,” I said in a voice that was merciless despite my words.

He hesitated, knowing I wasn’t talking about the Shadow manuals. A kill spot was normally recorded in written form for both Shadow and Light, but by killing him with his own weapon, I’d erase his death and his life from the Shadows manuals forever. I gave him time, and at length he came to the same conclusion I would’ve. It was better to be remembered by your enemies than to leave no legacy at all. “Liam Burke, the Piscean Shadow.”

I nodded to show I’d heard. Then, before any gratitude could enter his eyes, I lifted the bata over my head, and with one hand brought the knob crashing down between his eyes.

The air exploded with the stench of the Shadow, the decay of his rotted core spilling from the deadly wound, before recoiling invisibly and imploding upon itself. I stood perfectly still as the air wavered around me, letting curls of evanescent energy roll over my body in little shock waves, chills popping up over my limbs and core before enveloping my face, cool and light and tickling, like a thousand bees swarming gently to their hive. My mind began to hum with it, and I swayed, dizzy, suddenly aware of myself as if from the outside; a bright torch of a woman with her eyes closed as she rocked on an unseen wind, one hand clasped tight around a stick dripping with blood as the light slowly drained from her cautionary glyph.

This was the aureole. The dictionary defines it as a circle of light that surrounds the representation of a holy person, like the halos emanating from an angel or the Madonna or a saint. There also happens to be a great restaurant in Vegas by that name. But none of those definitions applied here. Here it meant being infused with the ability to walk through the world for twelve hours, imperceptible by Shadows or Light, unscented and untouchable. Now I could stand inches away from the Tulpa, and he wouldn’t know I was there. And even if he did, there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

When it was over-or at least when the droning had lessened to a point where I could once again hear my own thoughts-I inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. There was nothing of Liam in the air. I glanced down at the weapon in my hand. His conduit possessed no scent marking it as belonging to him either. It was just a stick now. I’d erased his olfactory impression wholly.

I threw the stick aside, almost at the woman’s feet, and glanced down. The arm Liam had cut with the tip of my conduit had mended, a mere scar now, and my injured knee was solid beneath my weight. My spine was straight and healed. I could be pierced by a thousand weapons now, even my own, and deflect them all like unwanted kisses.

I glanced over to find the remaining Shadow eyeing me nervously. Released from the fetters of fear and certain death, I saw what I hadn’t before. She’d orchestrated this whole thing. No wonder my glyph hadn’t kicked into gear. I’d been in no danger from her. And, I saw, she was young. Her long ponytail swished to one side as she asked, “You going to kill me?”

Without thinking, I shook my head.

A smile began its upward climb on her face. “I knew it,” she said, thumping her fist against her thigh. “I knew you could be turned. The others said you never would, but I knew.”

“I’m not turned,” I said, holding out my hand. She returned my conduit, and I tucked it back behind me. “I killed him, didn’t I?”

“You gave him Last Rites,” she pointed out. “You allowed him remembrance in your mythos.”

I shrugged. “It’s what I’d have wanted.”

“And if he’d refused to tell you his name?” she asked, tilting her head the other way.

“He was a Shadow agent,” I said, meaning I’d have killed him anyway.

“I’m a Shadow agent,” she said. I raised a brow, and she dropped her eyes. “Well, I will be soon. And you didn’t kill me.”

I really should kill her, I thought, nodding slowly. I would kill her. But there were things I needed to know first. “How’d you find me?”

She shrugged nonchalantly, but there was pride in the movement. “I saw you leave the bachelorette auction. I saw you enter the portal after that.”

That wasn’t what I meant, and she knew it. I’d faked my death, disengaged from family and friends, and I had been careful to steer clear of my old habits and haunts. So even if Regan had been studying the life I’d left behind, she shouldn’t have been able to find me. “You see a lot,” I murmured, but didn’t press. I’d find out what I needed to know…one way or another.

“Including your fingers. Like mine.” She offered me a small smile, and wiggled her fingers. The marblelike smoothness of the tips reflected unnaturally in the aquarium’s soft light. She saw this too, and her smile widened as she tapped on the wall of glass housing sea turtles. Mortal fingers would thrum dully on the great water-filled tank, but hers clinked like glass on glass. She glanced back at me from the corner of her eye with a look that could almost be described as shy. “In fact, if you take a closer look, Olivia, I bet you’d find we have a lot in common.”

I felt my own hands fist in my lap at the way she sang my not-name-it’d been sly, not shy-and the place where there should have been prints on my fingers pressed hard into my palms. “Did the Tulpa send you?”

“You mean your father?”

“Don’t,” I said, jerking reflexively. “Don’t call him that.”

“Well he is, isn’t he?” She walked toward me, eyes hungry on my face, fingers trailing over the glass like nails over a chalkboard. I imagined the turtles cringing in their shells. “You have his eyes, you know.”

I gritted my teeth, and a flash of light sparked through the room, along with my anger. It was like a light switch had been flicked on, only for the bulb to burn out. I saw my reflection flash in the tank opposite me, and wished I hadn’t. My face was drawn, skeletal, with a humorless grin, and those eyes she had mentioned were opaque black marbles sunk deep in their sockets. The scent of singed hair rose up around us, and I knew if I opened my mouth, smoke would pour out.

“Oh look…his cheekbones too.” She took a step back, but it wasn’t fearfully. It was to regard me. She was young, yes, but dauntless. “Anyway, no, he didn’t send me. He’d kill me if he knew I was here.”

When I thought I had control enough, when my reflection off the glass was mine once again, and red didn’t tinge everything around me, I asked, “Why?”

“Because I came to warn you.” And even though we were alone, her voice dropped to a whisper. “My name is Regan DuPree. My mother was the Cancerian Shadow until she was killed by your Cancerian Light nine years ago. We’ve had an interim agent acting as the Shadows’ Cancer since then, but I’m to take up the sign on my birthday.”

“So you’re twenty-four.” Would be twenty-five, and undergo metamorphosis into a full-fledged Zodiac member by the end of the summer. I filed that information away as she nodded, and crossed my arms. A young initiate, helping out one of the agents whose troop was responsible for her mother’s death nine years earlier. That didn’t compute…though I suppose it depended on what kind of relationship she’d had with her mother. But she was also defying the Tulpa, who was still very much alive. There had to be a good reason for that.

“So what did you have against Liam? He was a Shadow”-I jerked my head at him, then her-“you’re a Shadow initiate. You’re all still on the same side, aren’t you?”

“As far as I know there are still only two sides. Black or white. Bright or dark. Light or Shadow.” Her voice had gone cold, and I could tell she didn’t like being talked down to. Maybe that had caused some friction between her and Mommy Dearest. “Do I look like Light to you?”

She didn’t. As blond and pretty as she was, there was a merciless stoicism about her, the same as in a sociopath’s mugshot. But all her sociopathic outbursts lay latent in her future.

I shook my head. “I don’t get it.”

She sighed, like the story bored her but she’d indulge me anyway. “Look, I figured out who you were, and a few weeks later Liam followed me following you. The only way to keep him quiet was to tell him about your Olivia Archer identity. He said he’d let me kill you if he could take the credit.” She screwed up her face. “Liam was a sturdy agent, but he had absolutely no imagination whatsoever.”

She sounded like she was defending herself, and for a moment I couldn’t tell if she was talking to me or herself. Then the coy look returned, but this time it had an edge. “I understand his reasoning, of course. You’re slumming with the agents of Light right now, and fair game for anyone who finds you, but you’re also the Tulpa’s heir apparent, a woman who can walk both sides of the Zodiac with more freedom than the rest of us will ever know. You’re the reason all of us act, or lately don’t act. You consume the Tulpa’s every waking moment, did you know? You guide his every action and thought.”

She looked me over again, like she was trying to understand what the big deal was. Good luck. I’d been trying to figure out the same thing for the last six months. “You killed Liam because he didn’t want me on the Shadow side?”

“What better way to show you that I do?” she rejoined.

Boy, they trained these Shadows young.

“Well, good for you,” I said as she beamed. I shook my head. “No, I mean really. It’s good for you. He’d have killed you right after he did me.”

Regan looked startled at that.

“What?” I asked, tilting my head now. “You think Liam trusted you not to tell the Tulpa what he’d done? Or at least tell someone about your part in it?”

She started to say, “He wouldn’t…” but trailed off, knowing he would. He had trusted her just as much as she did him…which was why she’d taken the first shot. She looked away, fumbled for a cigarette, and lit it right beneath a NO SMOKING sign. I said nothing, knowing I’d given her a good shake.

“How long have you known?” I finally asked.

“What?” she asked, blowing out a long stream of smoke. “That Olivia Archer died six months ago, and Joanna Archer, her half-sister and the black sheep of the Archer family dynasty, has been living in her apartment, driving her car, and squatting in her skin ever since?”

She was just saying it to regain her footing, to feel more in control and appear less rattled about the thought of Liam killing her, but I swallowed hard. She really did know it all.

“I found out shortly after you became an agent of Light,” she continued, propping one foot behind her, against the pillar. “After Butch killed Olivia, and before you killed Ajax.”

My jaw clenched at the mention of Ajax, but I gave a stiff nod. It was what she wanted-a gold star for figuring out what no one else had-and it cost me nothing to give it to her. After all, I’d made sure neither Ajax nor Butch would ever harm me again.

Satisfied, Regan flicked some ash on the floor and smiled. “It wasn’t that difficult. I knew the agents of Light were trained to stay away from those they’d been close to in life. So are we. But the way I figured it, nothing about you was normal. You changed all the rules on us. I didn’t have to use supersensory powers or even be a full-fledged agent to figure it out. All I did was put myself in your place, then ask myself, ‘What would I do?’”

She was once again drawing parallels between her and me in a bald effort to forge some sort of tenuous link, one that was destined to fail…though she couldn’t know that.

“We thought no one knew,” I said, to encourage her further…and because it was the truth. There were only three others in my troop who did, and my heart sank as I thought of what this meant. I’d have to change my identity again. I’d have to invent a new life for myself.

I’d have to say good-bye to Olivia…

“No one else does,” Regan said.

I looked up at her sharply.

“Think about it and you’ll know it’s true. Half the Shadow Zodiac is like this guy.” She flicked her cigarette butt at Liam’s corpse. “They want to kill you just because you’re of the Light. The other half are looking out for their own interests, so they’d kill you anyway. That’s why your fa-the Tulpa, hasn’t pushed very hard for you to come to our side. He wants you to make your own decision, and he wants to give the rest of us time to get used to the idea.”

“And what about you, Regan? What do you want?”

“You.” The truth of her answer sat like acid on my tongue. “It’s been prophesied that your arrival on the Shadow side will usher in an era the likes of which have never been seen before. Our mythology tells us the second sign of the Zodiac will soon be fulfilled. I want to sit at your right-hand side when you rule this city. I want to tell my children and grandchildren I was born in the generation of the Kairos.”

I looked at her and smiled wryly. When most people heard of the zodiac signs they thought of the sun signs, the positions each of the twelve houses held on the horoscopic wheel. What Regan was talking about, though, was an actual portent signaling one side of the Zodiac’s ascendancy over our enemies. The signs were revealed only as the one before them was fulfilled, and the first sign had been the rise of the Kairos. That was me, and my discovery six months ago. Once I’d satisfactorily proven myself to be the Kairos-causing mayhem, destruction, and ultimate victory for my chosen allies, in that order-the second sign was revealed.

A curse upon the Zodiac’s battlefield.

Cheery, huh? Regan obviously thought this obscure riddle meant the Shadows would come out the victor, and therefore I, the Kairos, would have to switch sides. I could only assume this belief had been passed down from the Tulpa. Why else would he be content to sit back and let me come to him? Especially when the second sign indicated a battle had to be fought and won?

But there were two problems I could see with Regan’s theory. First of all, it just plain wasn’t going to happen. I’d shoot myself with my own conduit before becoming a Shadow. And second, even if I did want to switch sides, I doubted it’d be as simple as just waltzing into the Tulpa’s house and announcing my intentions. Nothing in this world ever was.

“You guys kill innocent people for fun and profit,” I told Regan, not caring if I sounded prudish. Murder just kind of niggled me that way.

“I haven’t killed anyone,” she said, ignoring Liam’s death. “See, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. You think we’re wired differently than you, but it’s not true. We have a job to do, and do it to the best of our abilities. Like you.”

I looked at her like she was a toddler with a fork and a light socket. This from the girl who’d just sacrificed a senior troop member to be part of the most wicked era in Shadow history. Yeah, I thought, unable to keep my eyes from rolling, she was just like me. “But there’s another reason you’re keeping my identity a secret, isn’t there, Regan? If you befriend and convince me to become your troop’s Kairos, you incur the debt of the Tulpa. And it’ll be your name that’s passed down for generations to come.”

Her jaw clenched, and she returned her hard gaze to mine, as if to say, So what?

“So what if I don’t play along?” I continued. “What if I just keep hunting Shadows?”

“Then after I become a full-fledged star sign-”

“You come after me yourself,” I finished for her. “You kill me-”

“And still go down as one of the most celebrated Shadows in history.”

“Perhaps the most.”

She inclined her head, and her pretty blond ponytail swung slightly. “Perhaps.”

I nodded slowly. “Quite a coup. It would’ve been easier all around to kill me while you still could.”

“If you’re into short-term gratification.” She shrugged. “As satisfying as it would be to know I was the one who’d killed you, I’d rather wait until the world could know it too.”

“All the world’s a stage, huh?”

“And I could’ve killed you at any time in act one,” she said, and paused so I could think about it. “You may die yet if you foolishly stick with your current allies. The Tulpa has plans for them, and it doesn’t matter to him that you’ve been filling your star signs. It’s a-what did he say?-a nonissue.” She shot me a sly smile. “He’s found a way to wipe you all out in one fell swoop.”

“And that’s what you were going to warn me about?”

Regan nodded, and though it still felt like there was something missing, it made a sketchy sort of sense. “It’d be more helpful if you told me exactly how he’s planning to do this.”

She rolled her eyes. “You must not have heard me earlier. I said, Do I look like I’m Light?”

I crossed my arms, tapping my fingers impatiently. “So what can you tell me?”

She lit another cigarette, then angled her head up and to the right, blowing smoke that spiraled prettily in the blue light. “You can’t go back to your sanctuary, Archer. We’ve got something big planned for the agents of Light.”

“But you won’t tell me what.”

She lifted a shoulder. “What if I’m wrong? What if you stay with those goody-goody losers? Though I don’t think you will. You have two fates spiraling before you, but only one will lead you to true greatness. Eventually you’ll see that.”

“Don’t count on it.”

“You’re not even a little curious?” she asked, light brows furrowing. “Don’t you want to know where we live, what it’s like? How we train?”

“If I knew any of that you’d all be dead.”

She crossed her feet at the ankles, took a long drag, and blew smoke in my direction. “What about your father? Don’t you want to know what he’s really like?”

“Uh-uh. You’re not going to tempt me with that shiny red apple.”

“Oh, a biblical reference. Thanks,” she said, and smiled, serpent-sweet.

“It wasn’t a compliment,” I said, and I raised my bow, aimed for her heart.

“I know where Joaquin is,” she said quickly, hands flying up in front of her as if to ward me off. After a few moments of neither of us moving I lowered my conduit. Regan swallowed hard, then licked her lips, eyes still on my weapon. “I’m not going to tell you everything because you just might raise that bow again, but I’ll give you enough to catch him. You have my word.”

“You are smarter than Butch and Ajax were combined,” I said, unable to keep the admiration out of my voice. Because if there was one thing I’d stop, drop, and roll for, it was information about the man who’d assaulted me when I was just a mortal teen.

“I know,” she said, relaxing a fraction. “Just think what a team we’d make if we were on the same side.”

I started to lift my hand again.

“Okay, okay. No more trying to convince you. It doesn’t matter. You’ll come to the same conclusion soon enough. You’ll see.”

“About Joaquin?” I prompted.

“He’ll be at Master Comics tomorrow at four P.M. He likes to be the first to read the Zodiac manuals, and Zane will sometimes put them out a day early if you go right before the shop closes.”

“That’s it?”

“It’s more than you have now,” she pointed out. “And it’s enough. Once you see him you’ll know I’m telling the truth, that I’m really on your side. Then I’ll tell you more.”

“More about Joaquin?” I asked stiffly. I wanted to know his habits, his haunts, his schedule, down to the food he had for breakfast every morning.

“More about everything.”

I sighed. She was right, it was more than I had now. And while it could be a trap, I didn’t think so. As Regan said before, she could have killed me at any time in the past six months…shit, she could’ve handed me over to Joaquin if she’d been inclined. For some reason she wanted me alive-though I doubted that reason was as simple as hope that I’d become the Shadow Kairos.

Besides, slaying Joaquin was worth the risk.

I glanced back at Regan, knowing I was walking a moral tightrope here. If Warren was here she’d already be a pretty corpse. But I possessed the aureole. Nothing I did could be tracked, none of my actions would be recorded in the manuals, and this decision was mine alone to make; kill this initiate, or let her live in exchange for intel on my greatest enemy.

Regan was silent, letting me work all this out for myself, and sensing I’d made a decision, she glanced up, looking almost innocent bathed in the aqua light of the tanks, leaning there next to sharks.

“Make one move from that spot, and I’ll pin you through your heart and yank it back out of your chest. Got it?”

One corner of her mouth lifted, and she blinked slowly, inclining her head.

“Don’t follow me, and swear to stay away from my…Olivia’s house. No tailing me, no contacting me, no trying to convince me to come to your side. Any of that, and I’ll kill you.”

“Okay.” She waited for me to leave. “But where will you go?” she asked, then held up her hands when I half turned on her. “Not that I’d follow. But I can’t help wondering…where does a woman belonging equally to the sun and moon escape to when she can’t be followed? Where does Joanna Archer go in a world that no longer believes she exists?”

I wanted to tell her there was no escape, and that being a superhero wasn’t something you shed like clothing, or that just because I was alone didn’t mean I could be and do what I really wanted in this life. But I was afraid that answer would reveal even more of myself than she already knew. Besides, she’d be a full-fledged Shadow agent within months. She’d find out for herself.

For now, though, I left her reclining against the shark tank, thinking she’d won something tonight just because she was still alive.

“Nice shoes,” she called as I left the aquarium, and though she didn’t move, her bell-like laughter followed me down the Boulevard.