The Touch of Twilight

10

Despite my bravado and anger over Zane’s accusations, I was shaken by the news about Jasmine, as well as Chandra’s reaction to it. It wasn’t her threat to tell Warren what I’d done that had me daunted. I screwed up pretty regularly around these paranormal parts-the product of a youth misspent as a mere mortal-and we were all used to that. But messing Jasmine up to the point that I’d effectively blown up the system keeping our world in balance…well, it was obvious that hadn’t been done before.

One mark of the Kairos was the ability to do things others could not, such as reading both the Light and Shadow manuals. This was a physical manifestation of my ability to act on behalf of either side of the Zodiac, and it was why-despite repeated assurances to the contrary-the Tulpa still hoped the strength of his bloodline would win out over my mother’s. Messing up the cosmic balance to cataclysmic proportions certainly qualified as such, I thought wryly, and fueling the angst of a teenager wasn’t far off either. Threatening the record keeper-and, worse, feeling no remorse over it-was probably also a big supernatural no-no.

And even though I knew Zane’s analysis of the situation was off, I wasn’t so sure my troop leader would pause long enough to hear my side of the story. I was certain Warren would be pissed.

“Drama, drama,” I muttered, trying to push the worries aside as I headed down the surprisingly long, dark, and cold tunnel leading to the storeroom. We’d find a way to fix Jasmine, I’d get Zane to tell me which of the thousands of manuals would lead me to the original, then I’d kill the Tulpa, escape my doppelgänger, pick up the dry cleaning on the way home, and we’d all live happily ever after.

And that highly probable plan hinged on the elusive treasure of knowledge buried in the storeroom.

Taken one by one and read on their own, the comics recording our adventures were nothing more than paranormal parables, anecdotes to entertain the masses, a product to engage the imagination of readers in illustrative and written form. But together they formed a comprehensive map leading to the master manual. There were clues planted throughout the manuals supposedly leading to the original’s location, especially in the earlier ones. As time went on, the clues were spaced farther apart, but there was always something a knowledgeable reader could piece together. A template leading backward, all the way to the beginning.

Since the earliest manuals were created prior to the widespread use of the printing press, each major world metropolis possessed only one handwritten and highly coveted edition. I didn’t expect to find one of those here; if there were such a treasure on the open market, it would be secured behind a case of unbreakable glass, protective wire, and a laser-tripped alarm. Frankly, I didn’t know why I thought I could find something nobody else had, including the Tulpa, but at least I was doing something.

I paused at the entrance, letting my eyes adjust to the dim room, its accompanying length and width, and its surprising decor. It had more in common with an eighteenth-century English manor library than an urban shopping center. The perimeter of the room was lined with mahogany shelves, filled with manuals and studded with index cards sporting dates and which side of the Zodiac was grouped there. Still, you could cram an awful lot of comics into shelves that soared from floor to ceiling, so finding one with a recognizable clue was a long shot, and it would take considerable time.

I skipped past the foursome of leather easy chairs in the center of the room, resisting the urge to drop into one of them and fall asleep with my feet propped on the hearth of the ever-roaring fireplace. The last time I was here it’d been the peak of summer and the room was stifling with heat, but this time the fire shooting up the suspended flue was welcoming…and distracting.

And I bet that’s why Zane had it here, I thought wryly. Invite the agents in, set them down for a warm cup of cocoa, and keep them from asking for help in pirating his beloved stash.

So I circumvented the fireplace, scooted past the half-full shelves holding the latest issues, including those telling of my arrival on the paranormal scene, and slipped deeper into the storeroom. I slowed as I hit the section I knew held tales regaling readers with my mother’s exploits. There was the story of the way she’d killed the Tulpa’s creator, which I’d already read, but loads more that I hadn’t, including one everyone kept telling me about called “The Harvest.” Warren had promised me its issue number, but conveniently kept “forgetting” it every time I asked. I could search for it now, but again, there was time to consider. I also knew Zane had some sort of silent alarm alerting him to any disturbance, and had no doubt he’d do as he said and charge me an exorbitant amount of money for anything I touched. With a wistful sigh, I left those shelves and continued to the back of the room to begin my search for something leading to the original manual.

I hadn’t been at it five minutes when a voice bloomed behind me. “Well, isn’t this an interesting coincidence?”

I whirled, then narrowed my eyes across the length of the storeroom as Regan DuPree stepped inside. Douglas followed her, though he’d now assumed the form changelings took when acting as protectors for their agents. His body looked like it’d literally been pounded into putty, his skin taking on the sheen of light reflecting off blackened water, blinding me to what was going on inside that pliant body. His jaw was misshapen, the softly curving cheeks of a preteen replaced by a hinged mouth the length of my skull. All the better to eat you with, my pretty, I thought, peering at the elongated teeth everybody in this world seemed to come equipped with but me.

For now Douglas only flanked Regan, swaying in a slightly nauseating motion, but if she needed protection from me he’d throw his aura over her like a supernatural cloak. Her true form would then appear, replacing this pseudo Joanna she’d donned for Ben, and Douglas’s prepubescent body would fall to the floor, emptied of his life force, nothing more than a vulnerable shell until his aura was returned.

Jasmine appeared then, looking bored and put-upon, and pushed past Regan without looking up from her cell phone. I couldn’t help but compare the sullen teen in front of me with my memory of the girl who had once been eager to help me, and had even consented to lay lifeless and fragile in a sea of jewel-toned pillows while I flitted around town wearing her aura. But whatever was broken in her was not on the outside. I’ll fix it, I silently swore, even as her gaze locked on mine, resentment clear in those giant eyes.

Li, my would-be changeling, followed her sister so closely, she kept trodding on Jasmine’s heels, clearly trying to get her to hurry. Jasmine slumped when she finally reached my side, and Li bounced on the tips of her tiny feet. Douglas snickered, a soft squishing sound, like slugs underfoot.

“A little sense of urgency would be nice,” I told Jasmine.

She rolled her eyes. “Maybe you should’ve snapped your fingers and whistled.”

“Why are you even back here if that’s how you feel?”

“It’s the rules,” Li provided, obviously anxious to help in some way. “We’re obliged to assist our agents in the designated safe zone where we derive our powers and have sworn to do our part in keeping the Zodiac balanced.”

Good to know. I turned back to Regan, who’d drawn closer, and just seeing the smug look on her face made my blood sizzle. “How’d you find me?”

Regan hesitated as she considered allowing me to go on wondering and worrying about that, but her changeling had already dug a cell phone from his pocket, holding up the answer in one blackened, gelatinous hand.

“Is he allowed to call her?” I asked Jasmine, as Regan bawled him out about waiting for her signal before answering questions, and hit him upside his head. The slap made a juicy sucking sound as she yanked her hand away.

“Boys.” Jasmine watched in disgust as his skull wobbled back into place. “You’d be amazed how much mileage you can get out of a wine cooler and a tittie magazine.”

“Actually,” Regan corrected, “it was a six-pack and a subscription.”

“Maybe I should start bribing you to do your job as well.”

“Why?” Jasmine said, studying her nails. “She already knows who you are.”

“Good point,” Regan said, studying her own. “And I also took down the license plate number of a car left overnight at a country bar on the outskirts of town. Know a guy named Lorenzo? Hunter Lorenzo?”

I froze momentarily, then quickly remembered he used a different surname as the head of security at Valhalla. His identity there was still safe, but if she could find that out so quickly, what else did she already know?

My hesitation made her laugh. “Relax, Archer. I’ll uncover his alternate identities eventually. But discovering this one was easy. After all, it’s plastered all over town.”

She threw a stack of loose-leaf flyers at me, hard enough to pelt me in the chest, though most went flying through the air, colorful as confetti. I shot Jasmine an annoyed glance as she picked away a flyer plastered to my chest. It was one of the street rags advertising sexual entertainment, peddled to tourists along the Strip. There had been a county law restricting the practice at one time, but the ban had been deemed unconstitutional, and the peddlers were as aggressive and ubiquitous as ever. I didn’t recognize the phone number printed below the “direct to your room” statement, but the man whose chest it was superimposed upon was definitely Hunter.

“Ew!” Jasmine dropped the flyer and kicked away another plastered against her Skechers. Li squeaked and covered her eyes with tiny hands.

“I take it from the look on your face that Olivia Archer didn’t know she was going around on the arm of a professional escort?” Regan giggled maniacally. “My God, what will happen when that news breaks? ‘The Heiress and the Call Boy’ would make a great cover story, don’t you think?”

Xavier would have a stroke. I tried to cover, though. “You think you’re telling me something I didn’t already know?”

And did Warren, or the others? Was I the only one in the dark about Hunter’s erotic side work?

“Oh, I know I am. Though you have Benny-boy to thank for that priceless spot of dirt. All I gave him was that plate number. Superior detecting skills for a mortal, that one, and for some reason he’s highly protective of his dead girlfriend’s little sister.” She tilted her head, the spark in her eye hardening to flint. “In fact, he’s now so determined to find something to take to the authorities on Mr. Lorenzo, you’d think he was worried the man might be after her inheritance.”

Which told me she was about to plant that seed in Ben’s mind, further aggravating his suspicions.

The shop was technically a safe zone, but these changelings were still green. I was willing to bet I could drag her outside and pummel her to pulp in the parking lot before they even knew what was happening. It was worth a shot, and I transferred my weight onto the balls of my feet.

Regan thought I was straightening up. “Oh, the Kairos gets angry. Could this be the ‘rise of your dormant side’-the third sign of the Zodiac come to life? Take notes, Douglas. We’re in the presence of greatness here. Are you shaking in your high tops?”

Douglas actually looked down. Regan rolled her eyes. “Breaking in new changelings is a bitch.”

I made a face, though I happened to sympathize.

“Guess that leaves me to sum up the situation without the wisdom of the adolescent set. So how’s this for a pithy little roundup?” She sauntered to the center of the room, and I angled to keep her in view as she dropped her weight on the arm of one of the chairs. Douglas shadowed her. “Your real boyfriend is about to hop in the sack with your mortal enemy, and your fake one is getting horizontal with everyone else.”

“That’s just nasty,” Jasmine told me, leaning against a bookshelf crammed with Shadow manuals.

“But the surprising thing is that a man like Lorenzo would need to pimp himself out at all.” Regan took a slow breath. “After all, I’d do him for free.”

“Even that would be charging too much.”

Regan’s left eye twitched and she rose to her feet before she could stop it. I closed the space between the fireplace and me and saw alarm flash in her eyes. Steady, I thought, staying myself where I was. I didn’t want to spook her too soon.

“Jasmine!” Li pulled her sister into view, straining with the effort. “Help her!”

Jasmine yanked away and Li toppled onto her butt. “Get bent, runt.”

Li looked up at me in bereft helplessness.

“Don’t worry, Archer. That lazy bitch can’t help you in any way that matters.”

“Hey!”

“Oh, now you protest?” I muttered to Jasmine, who was suddenly standing attentively beside me. “And do I look worried to you?”

Regan’s brows rose. “If you’re not you should be. Your cover identity is starting to unravel at the edges. It’s only a matter of time now.”

“Does that mean you’re ready to show your hand? Let the Tulpa know his daughter is posing as…” I mouthed, Olivia Archer, erring on the side of caution, not wishing to risk the information leaking into the manuals. Paranoia, one of the few superstitions we did entertain.

Thoughts, actions, and even conversations with an enemy remained private unless the acting agent willed their actions to be known. Otherwise we’d never be able to make love or have a meal, or even go to the bathroom without worrying it would end up on the glossy cover of a graphic novel. Our private moments and thoughts, the same ones mortals kept secret from others-and sometimes themselves-those things remained hidden. Right now these confrontations between Regan and me were parries and thrusts of a personal nature, but if she ever chose to truly strike, the world would know it.

“Not quite yet.” She edged herself back onto the armchair and shot me a sly look. “Though I could tell him about other family members.”

My teeth clenched, but I relaxed when I realized she would only hint at my daughter’s existence as well. She didn’t want to talk about Ashlyn in front of the changelings, and wouldn’t risk the girl’s name showing up in the Shadow manuals either. An empty threat then, I thought, relaxing marginally.

“Or,” she continued, “I could make this really interesting. Even the playing field a bit. Show you my true identity.”

Why? I wondered, instantly distrustful. “You’d better not. You’ll scare the children.”

She remained undaunted. “But don’t you want to know what exactly Ben is fucking, say, this time next week?”

That was why.

She gestured to Douglas before I could answer, and he completed the transformation from jellied shadow to roaring monster. His outline wavered as if a chill wind had swept over him, and the scrawny preteen frame thinned even further. He was the width of a dime as his mass expanded outward and upward to mirror Regan’s. He looked like the ugliest paper doll I’d ever seen. Then he pivoted in front of her, she took one step forward, and their bodies married. His husk-all the parts she didn’t need-fell away, hitting the ground like stoneware. He didn’t move again, and the new Regan, the real one, grinned.

In relative terms, she was pretty. Joaquin, our enemies’ Aquarian, was the last Shadow I’d glimpsed from behind the viscosity of his changeling’s aura, and he’d been all ebony bone and rot, skin hanging from him in blackened strips of aged decay. Regan, in turn, was merely skinless, like some barbaric beauty treatment had shaved it all away, and her blood had dried around her muscles, making her look like she’d been dipped in a thin layer of burgundy candle wax.

Her glittering, pale blue eyes stood out against this dull sleekness, though I spotted a section near her collarbone where the blood had scabbed over unevenly, like a human’s would. It was trailing fresh blood and pus, and when she saw I’d noticed, she began worrying it with her fingers, icy eyes daring me to react. I spotted the white bone of her elbow peeking at me through the ruins of her flesh, still smooth but with a hairline crack, and knew that fissure would widen. Every time she moved, some other muscular system popped open and began to bleed, and though she was meaty-unlike Joaquin-she was still rancid. The wriggling I saw pulsing inside her chest wasn’t from a beating heart.

I decided to wait and drag her from the shop when she wasn’t so gooey. “Let me guess? You guys start decaying as soon as you metamorphose into full-fledged agents, am I right?”

“Duh,” Jasmine said to me. “I could, like, totally smell her from here. And I have allergies.”

“I’m not decaying,” the living corpse said evenly. “I’m becoming more deific, like my ancestors before me.”

“No,” I said, playing along. “You’re simply not aging well.”

The insult was right up Jasmine’s alley. “I’d recommend a face lift…if she had a face.”

“Now, Jas,” I chided. “She’s better off sticking to the basics. Eight hours of sleep, plenty of water…multiple skin grafts.”

Under the “Rose” persona, Regan’s reaction would’ve been no more threatening than a hair toss. But now she snapped her head back and forth, like a snarling dog, her emotions as exposed and raw as her mucus and muscles. As she struggled to regain her composure, I wondered again why she would show me this. I found out as soon as she resumed looking like a mere zombie, instead of a psychotic zombie. “I have a message from your father.”

I sighed. Of course she did. And that’s why she’d sought me out…though it still didn’t explain the freak show. “Let me guess. He wants to make good on all the back payments on my child support?”

Muscles ruptured as she clenched her jaw. “It’s about the doppelgänger that saved your life last week.”

Which confirmed Warren’s suspicion as to who, or what, the woman was. And that the Tulpa knew it too. I quirked a brow at Regan. “And he sent you?”

That didn’t make sense. If the Tulpa thought Regan knew where to find me, he’d have pummeled it out of her and come after me himself. At that point my Olivia Archer cover would be moot.

“He sent a message-by-minion.”

Li put her hands to her cheeks and gasped. Jasmine groaned and pulled out her cell phone again, checking out. I stood blank-faced, pretending I knew what that was.

“I just happened to be the first one to find you.” Her shriveled lips quirked. “Imagine that.”

From her words I gathered a “message-by-minion” was something that applied to all Shadow agents, a mandate that couldn’t be disobeyed. Apparently it also meant Regan had to take her reluctant revelation a step further. Literally. She widened her stance, lifted her arms in the air so the muscles split and bled, and took a moment to steady herself before lowering into a backbend. Her decaying spine cracked in five places.

Jasmine glanced up from her text messaging, unimpressed. “There’s a girl at my school named Cindy who can totally do that. She’s been in tumbling and gymnastics since she was, like, three and can touch her nose with her…”

Regan shuddered, and her ribs ruptured in her chest cavity. They splintered upward, jagged edges pricked with scraps of muscle, while toothpick-sized bits sprang out like thorns to keep enemies at bay. Unnecessary, I thought, swallowing hard. I didn’t want to get any closer. Her exposed ribs swung like they were on hinges, knit together on the opposite side, and her head rotated a hundred and eighty degrees on her neck.

Jasmine’s mouth snapped shut as the Regan-thing turned. “Cindy can’t do that.”

In turn, Regan’s mouth sprang open. A wet, guttural cry rose from the emptiness of her ravaged core, and bloody tears began to stream down her face. Those pale orbs widened, then protruded so I could actually see the tendons connecting them as they strained from their sockets. The Regan-thing blinked-or I thought it was a blink because even though her lashes and lids had wasted away, her eyes rolled three hundred and sixty degrees in their sockets-but when they appeared again, they were tar black and smoking.

“Shit…” Jasmine’s curse morphed into a howl and her jaw dropped open, elongating into a gaping maw. The rest of her skin softened, shimmered, and thinned, and she was suddenly as rubber-limbed and tensile as Douglas had been. Skittles, a Hello Kitty coin purse, and lip gloss littered the floor as she spun, whipping around to position herself before me. Her remaining aura deepened her skin color to near opaqueness, and her outline shimmered at the edges as her body expanded to my height and width, concealing me fully.

Apparently Li had been right; she had no choice but to help when I was truly in danger because she took two rippling steps backward, and I closed my eyes, stock-still, and felt coolness sweep over me, like a wave of air fresh from the sea. When I opened my eyes a second later, the world was awash in a pastel lavender hue. Jasmine’s body lay at my feet; knees tucked into her chest, eyes pinched shut. I sensed Li’s form prone on the ground next to her, but didn’t dare look for sure. Instead I carefully stepped over my changeling’s shell to face off against my father.

“There you are.” The Tulpa brushed at an invisible speck of dust on one bloody entrail. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“You don’t say,” I said dryly.

His eyes canvassed the room, passing over the shells of the changelings, lingering longer on the shelves over my shoulder, the question he wasn’t asking clear as they landed again on me. “Leave it to Regan to locate you first. Though when I sent out the message, I thought she might. She despises all agents of Light, though her hatred for you is almost toxic. Don’t know why.”

He was waiting for me to elucidate. I did. “Because she was born under a mushroom cloud?”

“Because she likes her luxuries,” he countered. “My agents are forbidden to eat, sleep, fornicate, or shit until a transmogrified message has been delivered-”

“Those are luxuries?”

“I sent this message out three days ago.”

“So Las Vegas is teeming with a troop of hungry, horny, sleep-deprived, bunged-up psychopaths?” No wonder the crime rate had spiked in the last forty-eight hours.

“I’ve decided to give you a second chance.”

“A second chance again?” I let my eyes widen into saucers and his-hers-narrowed. “What? You’re the one who declared apocalypse and tried to microwave me in your supernatural funk.” And he hadn’t been wishy-washy about it either.

“I’ve had a change of mind.”

“Obviously.” My eyes roved over his head in distaste. I didn’t even want to know what that membrane was covering all that coiling gray matter.

The Tulpa held out his hands-or Regan’s-in supplication, but the gesture wasn’t as winsome as he intended. Each digit was dripping with fresh blood. “We need to talk.”

And I was willing to bet Regan’s mention of the doppelgänger had something to do with that. Knowing that gave me an edge. “All right. Let’s talk about why you’re so afraid of a woman made of bubbles.”

He reached out and slapped me so fast, I gasped from the shock as much as the pain. He wasn’t supposed to be able to touch me in a safe zone and he sure as hell shouldn’t be able to reach through Jasmine’s protective shell. I put a hand to my stinging face, and felt wetness there.

The Tulpa brought his claws up in front of his face, smiled, and licked blood from his fingers. I didn’t know if it was Regan’s blood, Jasmine’s, or mine…probably a bit of each.

“Or you could choose the subject,” I said, like I thought I had a choice. He inclined his head. Easy to be agreeable when you knew you would get your way.

“I made a mistake,” he began, surprising me, though his sharp look had me holding back my first response. I didn’t feel like finding out what would happen if he really wanted to put his hands on me. “I thought you were…in league with the double-walker. It seemed likely after the way we last parted that you’d attempt to attract a double-walker for additional protection against me.”

Ye-ah. Because I knew exactly how to do that. I didn’t say that, though, choosing instead to play dumb. It wasn’t exactly a stretch. “Well, she can’t be my doppelgänger because she tried to disembowel me. And she doesn’t even look like me.”

“But she smells like you,” he said, and it came out a hiss because of his torn tongue. Those black eyes widened. “I wasn’t lying when I said your pheromones were all over her. Every disturbance caused by her unnatural passage into this realm sends up a cloud of eau de Joanna.”

“I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

“So? Consider what you know of supernatural phenomena-or more exactly, what you don’t know.” He smirked, and I thought: Sure, rub it in. I couldn’t argue, though. “Due to the rather surprising circumstances of your conception and birth, who’s to say there weren’t once two of you?”

I blanked at his meaning, not because I didn’t understand what he was saying, but because the idea was so foreign to me, and what I’d always known about myself, it took a moment for his words to sink in. Finally, I managed, “A…a twin?”

“One-the strongest, the Kairos-survived…while the other became a ghost.”

I blanked again. A twin. Was it possible?

“Too bad Zoe isn’t around to ask,” he said, echoing my own thoughts…though he could’ve been reading my expression. I’d been shocked into transparence. A twin. “Stranger things have happened,” he said, motioning down the body he temporarily possessed. “In any case, this double-walker has focused on you. The more interaction there is between the two of you, the easier it will be for her to become you.”

“But why?” I thought, so taken with the idea, I let my attention momentarily wander from the Tulpa. “Why now, I mean?”

“Why not?” He shrugged, the movement causing Regan’s shoulder to tear in three separate spots, and I tried to ignore the fresh blood staining Zane’s Persian carpet. Explain that one to the steam cleaners. “You’re the Kairos. You’ve finally come into your supernatural powers, something a double-walker seeking corporeal expression would find irresistible. But I saw your face when she appeared at the top of that scaffolding. You were as surprised as I. And you and your troop have as much to lose.”

So the others were right. He was just as worried about the doppelgänger’s increasingly debilitating explosions as we were. Further proof that she had to be stopped, and soon. “She tried to rip my heart from my chest before escaping,” I admitted, watching for a reaction. It was difficult through the decaying tissue and twitching tendons, but his eyes narrowed and his voice softened.

“Did she?” The hint of protectiveness in his voice might have warmed me if he hadn’t already tried to kill me multiple times as well. “It’s because a double-walker needs a fleshly relic from their chosen prey in order to fully manifest in the physical realm. Organs are best, they contain the most condensed inner energy, and a heart, as the center of your life force, is the most symbolic as well. They’ll do anything to achieve full material form. Of course, there hasn’t been one in this valley for years. I won’t allow it. But this one is strong…and smart. She gains admittance by circumventing the portals, and she’ll soon attempt her vitalistic shift into a natural state.”

“Which means?”

“It means she’s going to kill you, my dear.” He smiled at me like I was a child, before offering his twisted version of a helping hand. “Unless we work together.”

I jerked, like a horse spooked at the reins. Work with the Shadows? Zane’s accusations came flying back at me, and Warren’s unspoken fears that I’d do just that surfaced in my mind. I suddenly felt filthy just for speaking with the walking dead, and pulled myself straight. “I don’t know how many times or different ways there are to tell you. I’m not coming to the Shadow side. Ever.”

“I’m no longer asking you to,” he said, startling me again. He spread his hands in explanation, fingers cracking at the knuckles. “You’re a target for a doppelgänger, Joanna. Your chi is fouled, and the gifts you might potentially bring to the Shadow side are blunted by the risk you pose to those around you…and yourself. Besides, until you get rid of this double-walker, this dualistic version of you, everyone around you is in danger.”

“And you care why?”

“About the agents of Light?” he scoffed, and pulled at a clump of skin hanging from his neck. “Clearly I don’t. But I do care about the possibility of them gaining unfair advantage during one of these chaotic outbursts. We should work together to eliminate this third party so the fate of the valley will be won or lost independent of some ghostly creature’s whim.”

I was silent, weighing his words for deceit, but I couldn’t see any other reason for wanting to work together than the one he’d given. I didn’t say the words, but my prolonged silence was apparently enough to convince him of my agreement.

“Think about it, and if you decide to take me up on my offer, think about me. Envision me coming to you, do it in a ‘safe’ zone if you must”-the mocking in his voice wasn’t lost on me, and it sent my injured cheek to pulsing, but I said nothing-“and I’ll come to you through the nearest agent, like now. Work with me, Joanna. It’s the only way we can banish this chaotic life force.”

And before I could agree, or not, his blackened eyes were snuffed, smoke rising from empty sockets before the whole of him caved back in to Regan’s chest cavity. Douglas’s aura stretched like a sail away from Regan’s body as soon as it flipped inward, as if anxious to be away. Regan straightened, and I saw organs rearranging themselves in her middle, her rent skin stitching itself back together as if being zipped up before she bent to touch her changeling’s shell, a little more roughly than necessary. Douglas gasped as his aura ripped from Regan like tape, adhering back to his shell to prevent any permanent damage. He lifted his head and shook it as if dazed. I couldn’t blame him.

“The Tulpa always has such a compelling argument,” I said to Regan as I stroked Jasmine’s pale face and watched as her aura sloughed from me like soapsuds under water. Her cheeks warmed with my touch. “He’d make a great lawyer.”

Regan spared only a brief glance in my direction but said nothing as she smoothed over her peasant top and patted her hair back in place. I watched her fuss with the bow on her top, and smothered a smile. She’d heard nothing of my conversation with the Tulpa.

“So,” I said slyly, studying her carefully for a reaction. “I understand you live in a townhouse south of the Strip.”

Her head shot up, shock blanketing her face.

“And that you drive a red Audi, two-door, cute, though it’s been in the shop twice this month. You might want to think about replacing that. And how’d your visit to the dentist go last week? Other than the filling in your upper left second molar?”

Obviously I’d gotten Maximus X to dig up the info on “Rose,” but if Regan thought the Tulpa had provided me with the information in exchange for something he wanted, who was I to correct her?

“What does that mean, do you think?” I asked her, tilting my head. “That your leader had so much to say to me in private?”

Regan hesitated, left eye twitching again, and I knew I’d spooked her. I smiled because I’d also just discovered her “tell.” Unable to trade barbs since she suddenly had no idea where she stood, she deftly, and not so subtly, changed the subject. “You know, Ben’s taking me up to Mount Charleston for the weekend. We’re going to rent a cabin, drink spiked cocoa, and cuddle in front of a log fire. I think it’s time to take our relationship to the next level.” She tilted her head wonderingly. “What do you think I should wear? A white baby doll or a red one?”

A tremor, like an animal stirring to life, moved through me. “Ben will never be with your pulpy rotting ass as long as I’m alive, clear?”

That eye twitched again, her mouth thinning. “Well, we can fix that, can’t we?”

My eyes slid to her changeling, who’d picked something slimy from his hair and was studying it closely, trying to figure out what it was. My gaze found hers again, and I thought, Fuck it. The leader of the underworld had made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. A doppelgänger wanted to eat my heart for breakfast. What was one more little war?

I ran at her so fast, my fist was flying toward her face while her hands were still motionless at her side. The crunch of her nose was less satisfying now that I knew how rotted out her insides were…and besides, it wasn’t enough to kill her.

Momentum had me somersaulting over her head, but I anticipated, and was twisting in the air above her, readying a second assault even before I’d touched ground. She turned into me, I blocked with my right, and the sharp tip of my elbow sailed downward to bury into her left eye socket.

Douglas had finally found his feet and had again coagulated into the grotesque, rubberized monster meant to protect the Shadows, but I ignored his snarl, dodged his lunge, and thrust my foot into his solar plexus. It sunk through to the other side, and would’ve pierced his body if not for a membrane wall as clear and thin as a yolk sac. He screamed as I yanked my foot free, but the interruption had given Regan time to retreat. She moved so the blazing fireplace was between us.

“Don’t.” I circled closer as her eyes flicked to the door. “You’ll never make it.”

She shifted too. “What are you doing? You can’t kill me here.”

“This is just practice, Regan,” I said, stalking her. “A taste of things to come.”

She pulled out her conduit, even though it was useless in the safe zone. “Is that what the Tulpa told you when he took a chunk out of your cheek?”

My face still ached with the residual sting of the Tulpa’s slap, but I shrugged. “That was before we came to an agreement. And I’ll heal.”

“Sure,” she said, feigning unconcern as her gaze darted sideways. “But will your changeling?”

“I’m fine,” Jasmine said, but she was guarded, clearly worried Regan would seek retaliation for my attack on her changeling.

But Regan hadn’t been looking at her. “Jasmine…where’s Li?”

“She was here a minute ago,” Jasmine complained, and she backed away to peer under the freestanding bookcases separating the back of the room into rows. “I swear, if I lose her again my mother is going to…”

“Oh God.” My eyes found Li at the same time Jasmine’s did. I was vaguely aware of Regan’s laughter-laughter and footsteps as she ran from the storeroom-but I bolted in the opposite direction, and dropped to my knees next to Jasmine, who’d been closer and had gotten there first.

“Wait, Jas!”

But she was already turning her sister over. “Li, how many times do I have to-”

We both gasped, momentarily stilled by the china doll cheek scored with three deep claw marks. It looked like she’d been attacked by a pit bull. Her beautiful skin hung in tatters, and blood pooled on the floor around her. Even once the bleeding was staunched, even when the furrows were stitched back together under a surgeon’s gentle hand, the child would be scarred for life.

But when she looked up at me, there was none of the loathing I expected in her watery gaze. There was no room for it with pain and fear and hope all jostling for space. “I did good, right? I protected you?”

The lump in my throat turned into a mountain. “Yeah, baby. You did great.”

She smiled with the good side of her face. I turned to Jasmine and found the piercing accusatory glare I deserved.

“Happy?” she asked, voice breaking.

God, no. I certainly wasn’t that. “I-I didn’t know.”

My voice cracked and a tear slid down the cheek that mirrored the injury to Li’s…except mine would heal. Jasmine looked at me in a length of charged silence, and for a moment I saw something akin to pity flickering behind her gaze, but she snuffed it out in the next. “Whatever.”

“I’m going to fix it.” I reached for Li.

“You’d better.” Jasmine said in a voice round with fury and disbelief. “Hero.”

But there was only one heroine present, and I lifted her in my arms and gently carried her from the storeroom.