The Taste Of Night

7

He wore no mask, though I’d have known who he was beneath it anyway. Silhouetted in the doorway where Carl had been moments earlier, he wore a suit that accentuated his frame, making his shoulders as broad as a linebacker’s, but narrow at the hips. Sugar-coated heat rose in roasting waves from his body, and the air in the hallway gave way to a cloying sweetness that clung to my nostrils, coating my throat. The scent was unmistakable, as was the man. He took a determined step forward.

Still down, I began backpedaling madly, knowing just how Linda Hamilton had felt against the Terminator.

“Stop, Archer. Stop!” Carl tugged on one of my legs. I shook him free and struggled to my feet, still backpedaling. Carl grabbed one of my arms and dug in. “Just let Jasmine stay in front of you. You’ll be fine.”

From a half crouch I looked again. And slowly straightened. Joaquin was still there, outlined in the doorway with one hand cocked on his hip, head tilted as he tried to peer around Jasmine. But she had grown, stretching to a cut-out form that eerily echoed mine, a shadowy barrier between him and me. I straightened, and she did too, my mirror image but tinged in a vibrant shade of violet that pulsed from her body with each beat of her heart.

“She won’t let you come to harm. That’s her job. Your identity’s protected as long as she’s between you.”

I turned my head toward Carl, to show I was listening, but kept my eyes on Joaquin. “So, what’s he seeing?”

“Nothing but your outline right now. And I do mean your outline. The real you. As you were before.”

I glanced at Carl. Jasmine, in front of me, mirrored the movement. “Really?”

He nodded. “If you want to be fully seen as you were before, then just step through her. She’ll try to echo the movement, but move a little faster and her aura will become attached to your own. It’ll mold and shape this body into your original frame. Right now it’s just like using a medium to reveal who you are. Step through her and you actually become the medium.”

I swallowed hard, but my heartbeat was slowing. Joaquin didn’t come any closer, and Jasmine didn’t look like she’d let him. “I don’t get it.”

“She’s the frame,” Carl said, motioning ahead, “you’re simply what’s being mirrored.”

It made sense in some unbelievable way I no longer questioned. Still. Step through another person so their aura could stick to my own? “I don’t think so.”

I did take a step forward, though, and when nothing happened-other than Jasmine mimicking the movement-took another. Reaching my bag, and the comics I’d dropped when Carl had plowed into me, I gathered them together and sought out my conduit, trying to ignore my shaking hands. Jasmine mirrored my movements exactly, keeping my Olivia identity hidden from Joaquin on the other side. A changeling, I thought, shaking my head slightly. And here I thought she was going to eat me.

Just as I began to compose myself, Jasmine roared. It sounded like the earth quaking at its core, and I realized too late that she was backing up as Joaquin charged forward. As wind rushed ruthlessly down the hallway, the pages of the manuals flipped madly before they were wrenched away from my grasp, and Carl’s voice faded as he flew backward.

“Hold still!” he yelled, his voice trailing off as he tumbled away. I held still. Jasmine backed into me. And like the slamming of a storm cellar door, the wind abruptly died. Rolling to my back, I hit the floor, and was looking up at a man who’d cleared twenty-five yards in less than a breath. My arm whipped up; I sighted his chest between the crosshairs of my conduit and fired.

Nothing happened.

“Worth a try,” Joaquin said, his smile shining in the light of my glyph, finally lit. He shrugged. “For both of us.”

And he turned and sauntered back into the shop. I watched until he disappeared before I breathed again. Then I looked down. My hands, I realized, wiggling my fingers. And my arms. I felt my chest…wonderfully unimpressive. My hand flitted to my hair. Mine-short, bobbed, brown-wonderfully mine. And other than everything being tinted in a deep violet hue, I looked like me. Me, Joanna. Me, me.

Then, letting my head loll to the side, I saw her. “Oh my God! Jasmine, no!”

She was her normal size again, curled in the fetal position, legs drawn tightly up to her little chest, eyes squeezed shut, a wince of pain on her frozen face. She wasn’t breathing.

“Don’t touch her!”

I let my hand fall short of her too-white skin as Carl skidded to a stop next to me, breathing hard. His dual faux hawk had divided and multiplied into a dozen different styles, and he stepped between me and Jasmine as if to protect her.

“We have to help-” I began.

“She’s fine,” he said, holding up his hands. I strained to get around him. “Archer! She’s fine.”

I licked my lips nervously as I glanced back down the hallway-no sign of Joaquin-then back at Jasmine. “She doesn’t look fine.”

“Well, she will be,” he clarified, looking down at her. “As soon as you give her aura back to her. She can’t move without it, of course. And she won’t live if you keep it beyond a twenty-four-hour period…oh, and if you happen to be injured or die while wearing it. But other than that, she’s pretty much just sleeping.”

Just a few little contingencies then. I swallowed hard. “She looks…waxy.”

“She’s fragile,” he admitted softly. “Like an egg with the yolk blown from the center. She gifted you with her vitality, her life force. Without it, she’s just a shell.”

Great. No pressure. My greatest enemy was one room away, and not only did I have to watch out for my life, but another that was connected to it.

“You look just like I pictured you,” Carl said, sizing me up, squinting one eye. “God, I’m good.”

I rubbed a hand over my face. “What the fuck just happened?”

“Jasmine did her job, that’s what. Changelings always protect their agents…even if the agent is too stupid to protect themselves.”

“Hey!” I snapped. “How was I supposed to know he’d rush me?”

“Joaquin. Enemy. Duh.” I grimaced because he had a point. “Now, are you just going to stand there, or are you going to go out and face your mortal enemy like a true heroine of Light?”

“What about her?”

“She’ll be fine. Probably more comfortable on a lounge chair in the back, but no one will disturb her here.”

I glanced at him dubiously, then down at the conduit still clenched in my hand. “Why couldn’t I kill him?”

“The shop is neutral territory. Both sides of the Zodiac come here to study, so it’s considered a safe zone, even for those on the Shadow side. Neither of you can touch the other.”

Which Regan had known when she gave me Joaquin’s location, I thought wryly. But the rest of her information was good. Joaquin was here. As unprepared as I was for my conduit not to work and my glyph not to fire-not to mention having my own demon-child protectress-Regan hadn’t put me in danger. She’d even said she’d give me enough information to catch him…when the time came. Smart girl, I thought again.

“Are you sure?” I asked Carl. The last thing I needed was to waltz into the shop front and face another surprise attack.

He nodded. “Jasmine will preserve your identity as long as her aura is molding your true frame. Just don’t make any jerky movements. Limbs sometimes disengage-it’s gross-so if he lunges at you just ignore it.”

Easy for you to say, I thought, but nodded as I took a step forward. It was a strange feeling at first, like hearing my footsteps fall a second after I felt them land, but there was a sense and rhythm to it, and after steeling myself with a steadying breath, I entered the shop.

He was seated at a gaming table in a chair that was too small for him, one long leg crossed over the other, hands linked at his knee. Sebastian, as slate-colored, slack-jawed, and long of tooth as Jasmine had been, was stationed at his right side. The twins had also morphed into onyx-colored changelings, and were standing guard on each side of the door, though whether they were keeping us in or everyone else out, I had no idea.

And right now I didn’t care. I only had eyes for Joaquin. He shifted, and I glanced down, expecting to find a weapon in his hands. I was actually surprised to find them empty. It was something he carried around inside him, I then realized, a sort of vigilance that made him look ever-armed. He was one of the few agents who didn’t have a conduit fashioned just for him. His body was his weapon, and it was all he’d ever needed.

Sebastian tried to shield him from me, but Joaquin brushed him aside with a flick of his wrist. As he did, his hand passed behind the changeling’s form, and I got a glimpse of the real Joaquin. Blackened bone, cracked nails, and charred flesh hung from his frame. My nose was right. He was as corrupted and rotted on the inside as he smelled. He watched me watching him, and after a long pause, slowly licked his lips. My jaw clenched reflexively as I fought the urge to gag.

“Back off, changeling,” he told Sebastian. “Nobody in here frightens me.”

I was half insulted, half relieved. I didn’t really want to view the rot lying beneath that composed exterior. I should’ve realized long ago that his disguise was that he was alive. Human.

“Nobody?” I asked, and let the darkness living inside me temporarily rise to the surface. It was little more than a parlor trick, but Joaquin swallowed hard, which gave me a glow of satisfaction. I increased the effect, and Sebastian hissed. I grinned at him and let my father’s face fade.

“Neat trick…if you weren’t hiding behind a child’s aura while you did it.” He’d recovered well, and motioned to the chair across from him. “Have a seat.”

I didn’t move. “Sitting would indicate an interest in talking with you.”

“Refusing would imply you’re afraid to do so.”

Which, from my mad scramble back in the hallway, he already knew. I crossed my arms and remained where I was.

He shrugged. “Back in the archives, eh? What were you searching for? Clues to your past? Some link to Mommy? Buried treasure, perhaps?”

I didn’t answer. He didn’t expect me to.

“Carl, you should get the Archer manuals number 3543 and 4721. They document Zoe Archer’s failure, as well as the many innocent lives she cost in her quest for notoriety. Amusing reads, both.”

“Forget it, Carl,” I said, my eyes never leaving Joaquin. “The Shadow manuals don’t interest me. Except as a tool for hunting their agents.”

“But how else will you keep from repeating history’s mistakes? Your troop leader obviously tells you nothing.” He was talking about my reaction to Jasmine, and how I hadn’t known her function as a changeling.

“Warren tells me what I need to know, when I need to know it,” I replied coolly, because Warren had actually mentioned it. It had just slipped my mind while staring into Jasmine’s sharp, elongated jaw.

“He lies to you,” Joaquin said flippantly, examining his fingernails like he was just making conversation. My eyes fastened on those fingers, and though I tried not to stare I couldn’t help it. I’d have known those hands anywhere. I’d felt the knuckles pummeling my bones, the fingers scraping my throat, the tensile strength in those palms pinning me to the desert floor. I had to force my gaze from his hands to concentrate on his words. When I met his eyes, he smiled, knowing what I’d been thinking. Dammit. “He doesn’t want you to know the extent of your powers. The truth is, he thinks you’ll turn on him.”

“That’s not true.” I shook my head, not allowing the thought, like a fly, to settle. “Besides, Warren saved me.”

And that was the truth as I knew it. I used it to anchor me while my nerves settled.

“But for what purpose?” Joaquin said, one brow raised in question. “To be a puppet for his whim? To string you along just so he can say you belong to him?”

That rattled me-I’d never thought of it that way before-but I put on a good front leaning against the wall of comics behind me. “You know what purpose, Joaquin. He believes I’m the Kairos. They all do.”

“Then why do they fear you?”

Zane, who’d been scribbling furiously throughout this whole exchange, looked up. I felt all the kids’ eyes on me, including the Sebastian-thing, and Carl next to me, who’d exclaimed softly at Joaquin’s words.

“They’re training me and teaching me to grow in power,” I said stiffly.

Zane’s pencil was flying again, scratching against a yellow pad, his tongue stuck out between his chubby lips in an obviously unconscious habit. He glanced hurriedly from us to his pad, back and forth, and I wondered which series this exchange would show up in-Shadow or Light.

Joaquin, following my gaze, glanced over his shoulder, then turned his face back to me. “Ah, the record keeper. A tedious job, if a necessary one.” He smiled at Zane apologetically. Insincerely. “He’s bound by two laws: to tell the truth, and to resist favoring either side of the Zodiac. But when you think about it, it’s not such a hard line to walk. He has the power to color our stories. He chooses the words and verbiage to describe our realities, our existence. Without him, we wouldn’t exist. Now that, my dear, is power.”

“What about me?” Carl muttered under his breath. “I’m the friggin’ penciler.”

“Power isn’t about inflicting your will upon other people’s lives,” I told Joaquin. “It’s the ability to control the impulse to do so.”

Joaquin clucked softly, shaking his head. “Spoken like someone who has none.”

“That’s not true,” I said softly. “Simply being alive is power.”

He blanched at the reminder that he’d failed to kill me, and it was my turn to smile. As I did, he tilted his chair back. “And snuffing out a life is all that power amplified.”

I felt my eyes grow empty and flat. It was arrogant to engage him in conversation, I realized, and we were both all too aware our words were being recorded. So I thought for a moment and abruptly changed the subject. “And is that what you have planned for the agents of Light? You think it’ll be easy to wipe us all out in one fell swoop?”

For the first time Joaquin looked unsure. He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up a manual of Light, one of the ones he couldn’t touch or read, and could only fathom what was inside. It was a red herring, contained nothing pertinent to this conversation, but he didn’t know that.

“Well, that’s a secret, isn’t it? Though it looks like you have some secrets of your own.” He tipped his chair forward and leaned his elbows on the table as he studied me. “Where is the rest of your troop, anyway? All still holed up underground? Did the revelation of the second sign scare them that much? Or don’t they know you’re acting independently?” Just in case I didn’t catch the inflection in his voice, he mouthed the word rogue to me.

“They’re biding their time,” I shot back, assuring him…and perhaps myself. “As for the second sign, a battlefield’s only cursed for those destined to die there.”

“And you’re so unconcerned that you can while away your hours looking for buried treasure?”

Again, that buried treasure remark. I tilted my head, thought, and went with my instincts. “Like you, you mean?”

He scoffed, but I saw the way his jaw tensed first. Interesting. “I admit, I enjoy slumming here every once in a while. I find the neutrality of this place intoxicating. It’s a fresh slate, a blank page, if you will,” he said, motioning again to Zane. “A void where anything is possible.”

But I could tell from the way he dismissed it that there was more to it than that. “But that’s not why you’re here today.”

“No, it’s not,” he said, surprising me with the ease of his admission. His fingers began winding themselves around each other again, like little snakes coiling to strike. “One of my friends has been missing since last night. I lost his trail after he disappeared through a portal and never returned.”

“And you think he stopped by for a little game of Dungeons and Dragons with your flunky over there?” I said, causing Sebastian to snarl again.

“I think a place that caters to both sides of the Zodiac is a good place to start looking when your friends vanish without a trace.” He tilted his head as if he’d just had an idea. “Strange that you’re here today, of all days. You haven’t recently seen a male Shadow with blinding blue eyes, about yea tall, have you?”

“Zane’s the record keeper,” I said, wanting to keep last night’s events to myself for as long as possible. “Ask him.”

“You’re the only agent of Light who’s been trying to unbalance the Zodiac,” he said flatly. “So I’m asking you.”

“Well, I don’t make it a habit of kibitzing with the Shadow side. As you know.”

“So is that a no, little Archer?”

My jaw clenched. “A resounding one.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not. I didn’t kill your Shadow agent.”

Joaquin leaned back in the tiny chair, somehow managing to give an air of dignified composure. It had to be challenging for a walking corpse. Steepling his fingers, he stared at me over the top of his hands. “Funny, but I don’t remember mentioning he was dead.”

I froze and began cursing my stupidity before realizing I could just tell him. I could reveal Regan’s identity, tell Joaquin about her betrayal of Liam, and she’d be dead before the sun set this evening. The problem was, she’d either offer my Olivia identity in return for her life, or be tortured into revealing it, and that’d put me in a worse spot than I was now. As it was, I still had two weeks to kill Joaquin, find Regan, and to get it all done before Warren really pulled the rug out from under me. I glanced across at Joaquin. Between the two, I’d take my chances with Regan.

Besides, baiting the man in front of me was a pleasure. “Well, admittedly, that big ol’ shillelagh was too mighty a weapon for a ‘little Archer’ like myself…but I used both hands when I bashed that Irish bastard’s skull in, and he didn’t seem to know the difference at all.”

Joaquin sat up so fast I think he surprised himself. Everyone else had gone unnaturally still, and that’s when I realized he hadn’t been joking about Liam being a friend. His face slackened and paled, and that brought a pure, genuine smile to mine.

I leaned forward and rubbed salt into the wound. “He screamed like a baby when I shattered all his limbs. Between the blood and snot and tears, I could barely make out what he was saying, but I have to confess. His begging made me feel so”-I took in a deep breath-“powerful.”

Joaquin had lowered his head, and I watched the rise and fall of his chest, saw when it finally slowed and he looked up at me from beneath his brows. His eyes were as hard and cold as I remembered them, and his hands weren’t exactly shaking on the card table, but they were twitching. This, I realized, was Joaquin in a fury.

“Come on outside, Archer,” he said in a voice soft as a viper’s. “You can even bring your little bow and arrow, as we already know what happens when you try to fight without it.” He made a motion, and I knew he was stroking himself under the table. He waited for my reaction, and though I wanted to swallow the bile that had risen reflexively in my gorge, I shook my head slowly, mindful of Jasmine’s protective aura. “Not here. Not now.”

I’d like to say that Regan’s promise to lead me to him-that old ace in the hole-had no effect on my decision. But even as I told myself that, I knew it wasn’t true. Without that, I’d be out the door already. This was the man who’d taken my innocence from me. Who’d taken Ben from me. For the latter alone he deserved to die.

But it also looked supremely confident for me to turn down an opportunity to fight in broad daylight, and I knew how such confidence could play on a person’s mind in the darkest hours of night, when they were alone but for the sharklike questions circling in their own mind. I wanted to poison Joaquin’s mind like that. I wanted uncertainty to seep into that rotted brain and slow his movements, jumble his thoughts, and make him fear the worst-case scenario.

So it wasn’t that I didn’t want to battle Joaquin right then, in broad daylight, with children pressed against the shop windows behind me, because I did. But I had Regan’s promise to help me further, and now I had Joaquin pissed enough to look for me himself. I’d use both those things to my advantage, and then he’d do more than die at my hands. He’d suffer first.

Right now it was enough that his smile had faltered, and his stroking had stopped. He knew why I was saying no. He recognized the Shadow in me as clearly as if he were looking in a mirror. I dropped my fists on the card table, and leaned so close I made his eye twitch. “I made a vow to run your rancid, decaying body down, and I’m renewing that vow now.”

He stood, perhaps more comfortable with a small distance between us, or maybe he just wanted to be taller. His lip curled as he looked down at me, and he ran a hand over his perfectly coiffed hair, either unimpressed by my words or giving a very good impression of it. “Your passion will be your downfall.”

I smirked. “Passion would imply that I give a shit about your presence on this earth. It’s much simpler than that,” I said, though it wasn’t. “I just want to hunt.”

And now I was speaking a language he understood.

“Agent of Light,” I said, in response to his stiffening posture. “Enemy. Duh.”

Carl snickered beside me.

Joaquin straightened his suit, pulling at the cuffs with those dangerous hands like he was an eighteenth-century dandy instead of a twenty-first-century supervillain. “Even the Tulpa can’t keep me from defending myself under such a bald threat, Joanna. You’ve opened the floodgates.” He jerked his head at Zane, recording our words. “I’ll give you your war.”

I shrugged. “Would you like a little tactical advice, then?”

“Sure,” he said, stepping closer to me, invading my space this time. “I’m not beyond stealing secrets from the enemy.”

“All right. Just one hint.” I looked up into his face, past the thin lips, into those empty eyes, and held my ground. “Look behind you, Joaquin. Even when you think you’re alone, even when you feel safe and secure in your lair, even when you sleep. Don’t ever stop looking behind you.”

“A little tip for you as well, then,” Joaquin said, lips curling into a cruel sneer. “Try number 5142. It’s the record of the night we first met. I’m sure you’ll find it fascinating.”

Some may have taken it for weakness, but I let him have the last word. I watched him back away from me, only watched as he blew me a parting kiss, and stood where I was even when the door chimes split the air, severing the tension linking us together. Besides, I was too busy smiling to respond. He had glanced back over his shoulder, just before the door shut behind him, just as I wanted. And damn if it didn’t make me feel powerful.

I should have known better than to try and follow. I thought if I could at least get a good look at the kind of car he drove I could add it to my growing trove of information about him, and the Shadows in general: a lab in the basement of Valhalla, an original manual with the facts needed to destroy the Tulpa, an initiate gone bad. Badder. Whatever.

So I pulled down the edge of an Aquaman poster, half expecting to see the Batmobile parked outside. My hand was slapped away, though, and one of the twins snarled, his elongated teeth dripping with saliva as he leered in my direction.

“Oh, back off, Beavis,” I said, and slapped him upside his sooty gelatinous head.

“Ow-w,” he whined, his features shrinking, skin losing its dark color, like leaking ink, until he regained his ruddy mien. His jaw snapped back into shape with an audible pop.

“You can’t watch him leave, Archer,” Carl said. “It’s part of the rules-”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, turning away from the window. I’d figured as much. “How do I get her off me?”

“Who, Jas?” he asked, and I thought, No, the other preteen affixed to me like Cling Wrap. “Just return to her shell and touch her. She’ll take over from there.”

I did, and Jasmine peeled from my frame like a Band-Aid, color rushing along her limbs like it’d been released from a dam; no more pale skin, and no more scary monster fangs. Waking as though from a dream, she blinked up at me, wide-eyed and expectant. “Are you okay?”

“Of course,” she answered sweetly as I helped her to her feet. “How did we get into the hallway?”

I picked up my belongings and turned to Carl, who’d come with me after the other kids had morphed back into pockmarked pubescents. “She really remembers nothing?”

He started walking backward, keeping an eye on us as we all headed back into the shop. “Memory is unnecessary for changelings, and would actually inhibit function in their own lives. Besides, if they remembered these events as adults they’d have to be institutionalized.” Carl slumped against the back wall and gave me an appreciative once-over. “You handled yourself well, Archer. That last nose-to-nose bit is going to be a beaut to draw.”

“What did we miss?” one of the twins asked.

His brother hit him. “Dude, they never tell us. We’ll have to wait and read the manual.”

“Man, I hate that!” he replied, slapping his thigh. “Carl, we should at least get a discount if we’re in the fucking thing!”

“Language! There’s a lady in the house,” Carl said, and the boys began looking about.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to Carl. “Thanks for your help back there. I didn’t know…” I trailed off, thinking of all the things I didn’t know. Carl, reading my thoughts, waved the appreciation away.

“Anytime. Joaquin’s right about one thing, though,” he said, leading to obnoxious cries of “Joaquin? The Shadow agent? Where? When?,” and had to raise his voice to be heard. “You need to grow in power before you take him on. If you acted in the outside world the way you did in the hallway, you’d be dead right now.”

“I know,” I muttered as I headed to the register. But that was going to change.

“You all right?” Zane asked when I reached him.

You care? was the first retort to come to mind, but it wasn’t really his job to care, and it was nice of him to ask. Still, when I nodded, I didn’t meet his eye. I didn’t want him to see the frustration there. I’d hate for him to write about it in the Shadow manuals. Then Joaquin would really know he’d gotten to me.

So I fumbled with my wallet instead, hunting for the cash to pay for my purchases, pausing when my eyes fell on the papers in front of him. The pages to the left were filled with dialogue, a shorthand version of Joaquin’s and my conversation minutes before, but the one to the right-the one he’d been working on when I entered the shop-was blank. But for two words.

Liam Burke.

“It was nice of you, you know,” Zane said, seeing the direction of my gaze as he slipped the manuals into a plastic bag. “You allowed his name to be recorded in the manuals of Light.”

I shrugged. “It’s what I would have wanted.” I took the bag and handed him the money.

“He’d have snuffed you out without a second thought,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.

“Always a pleasure, Zane.” I pocketed the change, took my receipt, and turned to leave.

“It’s strange, though.”

I turned back, warily. “What is?”

He tapped his pencil against his man-boobs. “Well, these events, your actions…they come to me in visions, bubbling up suddenly in my consciousness, and they come in color. The agents of Light are always bathed in a golden iridescent glow, the Shadows always silver.”

So it was some sort of psychic energy manifesting itself, the same as mortal dreams. I’d wondered. Curious to hear more, I took a step back toward the counter. I believed in energy, that we were all created by it and created it in turn. Shit, these days it was practically the only thing I believed in. Nevertheless, I tried to hide that I was impressed. “So?”

“So, before you snagged the aureole, before my mind went blank and all I saw were those two words,” he said, annoyance flickering over his face as if I’d flipped the channel while he was watching his favorite program. Voyeur. “I could have sworn there were two entities in that aquarium.”

“You mean you saw another Shadow agent?” I asked innocently.

“No. The vision wasn’t strong enough for that,” he admitted, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. “But I know I saw something. I saw someone.”

He couldn’t see initiates, I realized. And the aureole had blunted my capture and conversation with Regan. So while he might have intuited Regan’s presence, he couldn’t prove it. “Well,” I finally said, shooting him Olivia’s brightest smile. “Good luck with that.”

He snorted in disgust and turned his attention back to his work as I walked away. I’d find out in two weeks what he was writing. For now I peered outside, glancing left and right before stepping into the day’s full sun. The only person in sight was the skateboarder from before, and he rolled directly over to my car, flipped up his board, and tucked it under his arm, while squinting at me through the bright afternoon rays.

“It’s okay,” he said. “He’s gone.”

I nodded at him-another changeling, I gathered-though he was only partly right. Joaquin was gone. On the other hand, I thought, turning the Porsche’s engine over, things were far from being okay.