The Taste Of Night

5

The greatest benefit in taking over Olivia’s identity was not having to learn a whole new set of mores, thoughts, and values. We’d essentially held the same worldview and basic ideals, and though our approaches to life differed in many ways, our bond had been a tight one. I’d sworn to her that I’d never leave her, that I’d guard her from anyone who wanted to harm her in either word or deed or thought, and I had.

Except once.

Thus, the downside in taking over Olivia’s identity was having to look at her beautiful face in the mirror every day since I broke that promise, and meet the blaming eyes framed by all that blond, burnished glory.

It was also ironic that her appearance-so delicate, so conspicuous, so laughably clichéd-was what protected me now. The dichotomy between how I looked and how I felt was one of the greatest jokes I’d ever seen played out in life, and the worst of it wasn’t even that I’d been turned into every hetero male’s wet dream…though it had once seemed that way. No, the worst part was knowing Olivia had kept the promise I had broken-she was now protecting me-and that was something I was going to have to live with for the rest of my life.

So the next day I turned into a gated community, pulled in front of a sprawling single-story home, and gamely headed up the long, sloped drive to face the second hardest part about being Olivia.

Her friends.

If people were food, Cher and her mother would be dessert. Their thought processes were about as dense as powdered sugar, their lives as airy as angel food cake. Fortunately, beneath all the peroxide, M·A·C makeup, and designer clothes were two hearts that had truly loved Olivia. And, apart from a mystifying penchant for Brazilian waxing, they weren’t too bad themselves. I was grateful Olivia had known such true friendship while alive and did my best to keep both Cher and Suzanne from ever suspecting the truth.

“Hello!” I called out as I opened the door to Suzanne’s ranch-style house, having learned long ago not to knock. I passed directly through the tiled foyer to land in a combined living and dining area that stretched across the middle of the house. The place had surprised me at first. I’d expected something flashier from Suzanne, whose “More is more” motto had practically been branded onto my eardrums within the first hour of meeting her, but the beige rugs and cream couches were offset only by textures; silk, chenille, cotton-and patterns; weaves, brocades, and cross-stitchings. An entire wall of black and white photographs, matted in beige, served as the home’s focal point. There was a montage clearly detailing Suzanne’s family and friends-her early life, her late husband, and countless depictions of Cher and, of course, Olivia. I turned from the wall and called out again.

“In here, Livvy-girl,” came the answer from the back hall. Dropping my bag on the couch, I followed the murmur of dulcet tones and feminine giggles until I rounded the corner into Suzanne’s bedroom.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said, quickly turning away. The two women-the two naked women-laughed behind me, and after a moment, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I shook it away and focused on the heap of discarded clothing scattered across the king-sized bed. Did I mention it was like a sorority house in here? “I’m afraid to ask,” I started.

“You won’t have to if you’d just turn around,” Cher said.

“Uh-uh,” I said, shaking my head. “There are some piercings there I did not need to know about.”

“Come, dear. Let’s put on some clothing so we can preserve Olivia’s modesty, bless her heart.”

I’d have been grateful to Suzanne if it weren’t for the distinct teasing note in her voice.

“Momma,” Cher protested, “we can’t do the pencil test with clothes on, you know that.”

“Undergarments won’t hurt anything. Besides, I have to get ready for my date.”

Cher sighed dramatically, but the rustling behind me, the sound of clasps clicking home, and a bit more stifled laughter told me she was doing as told.

“What am I doing here?” I muttered under my breath.

“What was that, honey?” Suzanne asked, her voice muffled.

“I said, what should I do with my hair?” and closed my eyes, shaking my head slightly. Of course, I knew the answer to my original question. Being Olivia meant being with her friends as much as possible. But my mind was still reeling from the previous evening’s events, and in the morning light, away from the eerie glow of the aquarium and the heady odors of fear and adrenaline and hate, it seemed foolish to have let Regan live. She was still a Shadow, even if only an initiate.

Who had spared my life. Who had helped me kill one of her own. Who had gifted me with the greatest shield in our universe, the aureole, and put her own life into my hands.

Okay, so maybe in light of all that it wasn’t so foolish…but should I really be wasting my time finding out if this pencil test had anything to do with higher education?

“Pencil test?” I asked, managing to sound cheery as I turned around. In answer, Cher picked up a trusty number two and used it in a way my elementary teachers had never envisioned.

“The pencil test,” said Cher, standing as straight as possible and tucking it between her left breast and the skin of her rib cage. The pencil fell to the floor. She smiled victoriously. I smiled back thinly. Another small victory in the battle against gravity. “Want to try?”

“Uh…no, thanks.”

They both looked at me, blinking.

“I mean, I did it last night. At home.”

Cher frowned. “I thought you were going to work on the computer?”

“Oh, are you embezzling again, dear?” Suzanne looked surprised. “Good for you.”

I ignored the moral ambiguity of that statement and answered Cher. “I did it on my breaks,” I told her. “You know what they say about all work and no play…”

“Makes for a saggy ass,” Cher said, nodding, and turned to her mother. “Livvy needs the disks she stored in our vault. She’s havin’ trouble with her computer.”

“My friend Ian is a computer programmer,” Suzanne put in. “Maybe you can ask him for help.”

“Momma!” Cher snapped. “Stop pushing your loser running pals on Olivia.”

“I’m not pushin’,” Suzanne tossed her head, piqued. “I’m just sayin’ if there’s a computer anywhere in sight Ian’s the best man for the job.”

“And Olivia’s the best woman,” Cher said, in a show of sisterly pride. Bless her heart. “Now here, Momma. You try.”

Suzanne daintily plucked the proffered pencil from her stepdaughter’s hands and turned her perfect, and thankfully covered, backside to the mirror. She tucked it between a nonexistent crease between cheek and thigh, and took a well-deserved bow when the pencil fell to the floor. Even I clapped. Suzanne’s masochistic love for running had certainly paid off. And the unforeseen core of discipline and inner strength in a woman I’d took to be nothing more than an older version of Cher-all silicone and pinks and whites-had surprised me. Enough so that I’d asked her about it once. Her explanation was simple. “Cellulite waits for no ass.”

Cher said it was her motto, or something.

My thoughts were interrupted by dual gasps of horror. Cher, buttocks clenched fiercely, was whirling from one side to the other, straining to see into the mirror behind her. The pencil, firmly planted beneath one butt cheek, tilted this way and that, like a chopstick that had missed its mark. Uh-oh, I thought, swallowing hard. Cher gasped again.

“I’ve failed!” she yelled, and bolted from the mirror. There wasn’t far to run as I was still blocking the door, and Suzanne was standing-hand covering her mouth-at the entrance to the bathroom. Cher ended up running circles around herself. “Oh my God! I’ve failed the pencil test!”

Halfway into her flight around the room, the pencil fell.

“No, look!” I said. “It dropped.”

Cher screeched.

“Keep doing that, though,” Suzanne said, as Cher completed another lap around the room. “It’ll help.”

“But I don’t think the yelling does anything,” I said.

Cher shrieked louder.

It was touch and go for the next ten minutes, but we finally calmed her down enough to get her dressed, and were hiding the horrors gravity had wrought on her body beneath a size two Diane Von Fursten-someone wrap dress when the doorbell rang.

“Oh, honey,” Suzanne turned to me, eyes wide and pleading. “Would you mind getting that while I tidy myself? Cher’s in no state to be entertaining.”

We both glanced over at Cher. She was seated at the vanity, applying lip gloss, small mewling noises coming from her throat.

“Sure. Who is it, that guy from the sexual sign language seminar?”

Suzanne actually had to think a moment. “Oh no. This one’s from Austin. Spent time as a guitarist on Sixth Street, and hitchhiked here to become a lounge star. His name’s Troy Stone. Can you remember that?”

“Troy,” I repeated, like I was participating in a spelling bee. “Like Brad Pitt’s city. Got it.”

Troy was actually more like Brad Pitt’s twin. Same hair, same eyes, same lips…and I was hoping-for Brad’s sake-the resemblance stopped there, because he was leaning against the entry wall like he’d been posed there by a fashion photographer. Slick in blue jeans made to look worn before they’d left the manufacturer, he had a face lined in the way ad agencies had decided made men look mature and worldly, and made women just look old. His profile was rugged and proud, sloping down to a pointed chin that just begged to be punched. With a lift of that chin, he turned a startling blue gaze on me.

“You must be Cher,” he said, and before I could correct him, he reached forward and brought my hand to his lips. His mouth lingered over my knuckles as his eyes went dark and seductive. “Like mother, like daughter, I see.” And his tongue actually flashed out for a quick taste.

My knuckles fisted instinctively. Suzanne might have a great ass, but she apparently had absolutely no asshole radar. Forcing a smile, I relaxed my hand and returned him Olivia’s most saccharine smile. “I’m Olivia, actually. Cher’s bestest-ever friend. And you must be Jeffrey. Suzanne’s told us all about you,” I said, dragging a now faltering Troy into the foyer. I shut the door and turned to him, pressing closer. “You simply must show me that thing you can do with your tongue. She’s been talking about it for weeks.”

He was saved from having to answer-and I was saved from the assault of his cologne-by Suzanne’s arrival.

“Troy, darling!” she said, sweeping in like a modern-day Scarlett descending the staircase at Tara. She was dressed in bejeweled sandals, white jeans, and a bright coral top showcasing the rest of her gravity-defying assets. Her light blond curls had been swiftly pulled back in a style only confident older women could pull off, and not for the first time I wondered how old she really was. She looked anywhere from twenty-eight to forty-two, the high side fathomable only because Cher had told me she was “ages” older than us.

Eyes glazed, Troy began spewing sexual pheromones so potent I got dizzy. Suzanne’s eight-mile-a-day runs must have paid off in ways never fathomed by a superhero. Or maybe it had something to do with that piercing I’d seen earlier.

“I’m going to go check on Cher. You kids have fun,” I said, breathing shallowly, wanting to get out of there before Troy started humping her leg. Yet Cher appeared just then, looking like a newborn Bambi, legs not quite steady, but clearly determined.

“Are you okay, baby?” Suzanne asked, rushing to her side.

“You should sit down, Cher,” I said, doing the same. “Let me get you a cool washcloth or something.”

Troy shook himself from his lust-saturated state. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She was hit by a piece of lead,” I said. And who knew a number two could pack such a wallop?

“Don’t worry, honey,” Suzanne said, drawing Cher across the room to a chenille-covered armchair. “You’ll be fine. Nothing a glass of wine won’t fix.”

“I’ll get it,” I said quickly.

As I headed to the bar tucked just around the corner, Troy started in on a story about how he’d once rescued a girlfriend from a homicidal rodeo clown who’d used the pro circuit to stalk women in five different states. I scooped some ice into a steel shaker and rolled my eyes. Taking care of innocents was rewarding, but sometimes it was also a pain in the ass. After all, innocent really meant human, and humans were flawed, capricious creatures, and sometimes downright mean. Taking down a rapist or molester was easily the best part of my job.

The worst? Standing by, like now, and watching the petty slights, the sleazy intentions, and the domestic dramas…things we had no obligation, and indeed no right to interfere with. People had to make their own mistakes, but that didn’t make it any easier to stand aside and watch bad choices and shortsightedness play havoc with lives.

“Here you go,” I said, returning to Cher with the cocktail. I offered an encouraging smile at her puzzled look. “Vodka instead of wine,” I told her, before lowering my voice to a whisper. “Fewer calories.”

Cher teared up before accepting the drink with shaking hands. “I love you.”

A quarter of an hour later Cher was revived enough to kneel with me in her mother’s hangar-sized closet, where we shoved aside enough evening gowns to supply Suzanne with a new car, if she wanted one. These disks, I thought, leaning back on my heels, changed everything. At the least they meant I no longer had to pick Cher’s brain about things I should know, risk raising her suspicions, or hope she’d slip up and deliver salient bits of information in an unguarded moment.

A moment like now.

“So if you’re not starting up your business again,” she said, exposing the floor safe, concealed stylishly beneath an Hermès scarf, “I guess that means you’re still trying to find Ashlyn?”

Ashlyn.

My exuberance over the backups died. Dammit, Olivia.

“Olivia?”

I swallowed hard, not entirely trusting my voice. “It’s just…Joanna didn’t want me to do that, you know?”

She scoffed. “You used to say that was all the more reason to do a thing.”

“Well, that was before she died trying to save my life,” I retorted, and had to bite my tongue before I said more. I had died in a way, I thought. Died in trying. Died in failing.

Cher took a moment before answering. “And that means you can’t continue looking for her daughter?”

It was an effort, but I kept my voice even. “Joanna didn’t have a daughter.”

“Your niece?”

“I don’t have-”

“A child that’s a part of your family no matter the circumstances under which she entered this world? No matter who the father-”

“Stop!” I yelled, then winced, squeezing my eyes shut. “Please…stop.”

I remained unmoving until my breathing had evened out again, but it was too late. My mind had opened. The scented memories of blood and new life slipped out like water leaking from fissures in a dam, slight cracks I’d been patching up for a decade, hoping they wouldn’t expand and give. I was afraid if they did I’d be swallowed up, ferried away on them like a piece of driftwood. I shook my head, told myself they were unimportant, and cemented them away tight.

Cher fumbled with the combination in the elongated silence, and I reached out to steady the martini tipping in her left hand. She shot me a thankful smile-and an apologetic one-then reached inside and pulled out three disks. “Here you are.”

“Thanks,” I said quietly, accepting them.

Cher closed up the safe and sat back on her heels. Biting her lip, she tried to put on a happy face. She and Olivia argued so rarely that the smell of her discomfort overpowered even the leather from all the shoes lining the closet. “We still on for a mint mudbath tomorrow?”

Shit. I’d forgotten about that. “Uh, Cher? I’m going to have to pass.”

“Why? Are you ill? Injured? Is it fatal?” She was joking, but I could tell it was strained. I laughed brightly like I knew Olivia would, and watched some of the strain ease away.

“No, but something came up,” I said, which was true. “I have to go out of town for a bit,” I added, which wasn’t.

But it wasn’t like I could say, Hey, I have the chance to kill the man who’s haunted my dreams for a decade. After that I need to hang at my superhero hideout for a bit. Try to find out what plans my evil birth father has concocted for our demise.

“You’ve been going out of town a lot lately,” she said, and I bit my lip at her suspicious tone. Cher would never suspect the truth-at least not without finger puppets to explain it-but she wasn’t supposed to be suspicious of Olivia. And any deviation from normal could tip off the Shadows to my real identity.

Those who didn’t already know it, I thought wryly.

I decided to play the sympathy card…though I’d done it so much recently it was a bit worn at the edges. “Sometimes I just have to get away, Cher. You know…from the apartment, from this town.” A vision of Olivia plummeting to her death came to me unbidden, and I swallowed hard. “From this life.”

“Your life isn’t so bad,” Cher said, softly encouraging. “I mean, you could have dark roots.”

I smiled as a sigh shuddered out of her. “Or wear a shoe size so large Manolo doesn’t make it,” I said, having studied up for an occasion such as this.

“Or have been born in an age where men abducted women and sold them into slavery.”

“And pulled them around by their hair,” I said, getting into it.

“What?” Cher paused. “You don’t like that?”

I laughed. I hadn’t always liked Cher; we’d had a fierce, if unspoken, competition for Olivia’s attention while she’d still been alive, but she’d grown on me these past months. Like a fungus. But the good kind.

Now that things were easy between us again, she passed me her martini, watching as I took a small sip. “You’ll miss the Valhalla party. Some are saying it’ll be the party of the year.”

I shrugged. It couldn’t be helped. I’d be tucked safely into the sanctuary by then, and who knew what Warren had planned for me there.

“We’re on the VIP list, of course,” she said, taking back her drink. “So’s Troy.”

I grimaced, unable to help myself. “What does she see in him, anyway?”

“Who, Momma?” Cher rolled her eyes expressively. “The same thing she sees in all of them. An unwillingness to commit, a predilection for lies, and a supertoned bod.”

“So why bother?”

“Because she likes to go out. She likes dinner and dancing.” She rose to move the gowns back into place, straining with the effort, before plopping back down next to me. “And because ever since Daddy died she’s been afraid to allow herself to love again.”

I knew Suzanne and Cher’s father had been a surprise love match, a May-December romance that’d bloomed quickly and been the object of great speculation within their social circle, especially after his death only nine months later. What I didn’t know was how they’d met or how Suzanne had dealt with his death, and I’d never found a way to ask her or Cher about it that wouldn’t incur suspicion. I couldn’t find one now either, so let the moment pass.

“I hate it when you’re gone,” Cher said, pouting a little.

“I really need to get away for a while,” I said, itching to do so now. I had what I came for.

“I do too!” she said earnestly. “But wherever I go this ass will follow!”

“It’s not that bad.” At her horrified look I amended my statement. “I mean, it’s lovely.”

“I’m just worried about you. I don’t want to see you turning into your sister, you know?” And before I could work up affront at that, she continued, motioning with her drink. “She was so alone. Like one of those heroines you read about in a book, sad-without the slightest sense of fashion or personal style-but a heroine no less. I guess she was kind of like Momma in that way.”

I drew back. I’d been like Suzanne in what way?

Cher, noting my surprise, nodded. “It’s true. Momma may seem like she’s living life fully, but look at the way she keeps men at arm’s length. And the way she runs.” She shook her head, eyes softening sadly. “You know that she’s running from, not to, don’t you?”

“From what?” I asked, genuinely curious.

Cher shrugged. “She’s never said, and I can’t ask, but there’s a need boiling deep inside her. And that’s what Joanna was like, except instead of running she used her fists to keep her memories from catching up.”

I hugged my knees, pulling them in tight to squeeze out the hollowness that’d suddenly popped up in my chest, and looked around at beaded gowns and pressed suits and a wall of shoes for feet that never stopped moving. It was true. I had been that way; angry and bitter and trying to turn back time with my fists. “Cher. Can I ask you a hypothetical question?”

“Okay, but you know I’m no good at math.”

“Let’s say Joanna was still alive,” I said, toying with my nails, not looking at her. “Do you think we all could’ve stopped fighting and just been friends?”

Cher placed her palm over my restless hands. I stilled and looked up to find her as sober as I’d ever seen her. “That’s not a sensible question, Livvy-girl.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s like askin’, What if Momma stopped running?” Her brows furrowed and she shook her head. “Women like that? Broken women? With pasts that wake them up screaming at night? They don’t ever stop. They can’t.”

“Because the day they stop,” I said, feeling stripped bare, even kneeling in the corner of a closet full of designer clothes, “is the day they die.”

And for a moment the scent of tuberose and freesia seemed to drift through the air as a Shadow’s laughter growled through the closet. A scream, Olivia’s, sounded in the night. And a thud, a body crashing through an arching wall of glass, resonated in my mind. I closed my eyes and knew she was right. I would never stop. Not until Joaquin, and all the Shadow agents-the Tulpa included-were six feet under, toes pointed up.

When I opened my eyes again, Cher was holding her martini out to me. I took it because last night I’d killed a man, and today I’d been reminded of a daughter I didn’t want to have. A toast to senseless questions and unlived lives wasn’t entirely out of order. So my sister’s best friend and I finished off that cocktail in silence, sitting on the floor of a broken woman’s closet.