Cheat the Grave (20 page)

“God, Hunt.” And I allowed myself a moment to do what I previously hadn't when thinking of the man who'd abandoned this world for another: grieve.

So it
is
a soul connection.

Was it? I asked myself, remembering Trish's words, uttered just before Solange annihilated the water room. And if so, how could he leave me for her with so much remaining between us? I'd dodged the thought for weeks, cringing every time it poked its head into the light, but I couldn't dodge it now. I had fallen in love with the man, perhaps on first sight…most definitely in this workshop. I'd been so sure he felt the same that the shock of his betrayal still crashed over me in unexpected waves.

I leaned back and gazed up at the roofline angled close
over the simple bed. Stars shone there, glued, but still glowing in his rendition of a makeshift sky. “Fucking pitiful.”

I hated looking at what I'd lost instead of what I'd managed to save. I had life. I had a troop again…or at least a pseudotroop. I had a purpose, and if not a real chance of killing the Tulpa or avoiding Mackie's blade, then at least hope. If I began counting my losses, my mind could quickly become an endless game of Russian roulette.

Sniffling, I lifted Gareth's bag from my shoulders and rifled through it until I found the manual I wanted…the one I knew would be there all along.

Dark Matters
. With my heart caught in a syncopated beat, I stared at the cover featuring Hunter as Jaden Jacks. Funny, but if you'd told me even two months ago that Hunter was tiny, I'd have scoffed. Maybe it was just his presence; he was a man who knew his own body and mind, one who took over rooms just by entering them. Or maybe it was that he was a superhero, one the other agents of Light had looked up to…until they'd looked away. One thing was sure…my unswerving attraction to him had been there from the first.

In any case, Jaden Jacks was a Wrestlemania sort of giant—bronzed skin, bulging biceps, bleached military hair, squared jaw. The man I knew was all of that, though coiled in a tighter frame, along with straight mocha hair and eyes like honey over toast. Though the eyes had been the same, I realized, staring down at them now. I should have caught that when first encountering Jacks, but had been so overwhelmed by his physicality I hadn't.

I pushed my back against the wall, but got a flash of Hunter reclined in the same place, covers draped across his naked thighs so artfully he should have been sculpted. Clearing my throat, I shifted back to the edge of the bed like some prim old maid and opened the manual to find out if becoming Hunter had been as unwilling a transformation as my own into Olivia
.

But
Dark Matters
didn't begin there. Instead it began with what had made the makeover necessary, and that began with the death of his parents.

I knew it had been violent; it was a death I'd experienced as though it were my own via the power of the aureole. However, what that shared magic hadn't shown, what it'd neglected to play out in my mind like some sort of mental horror flick, was the brutality of the attack upon them. They'd been beset by the entire Shadow troop one fateful Fourth of July. They'd done well for themselves until the second wave of Shadows hit. Then they'd gone under, fighting back-to-back, until they were flattened. Hunter had watched the whole thing from his hiding spot beneath a car. He was five years old.

The Shadows left. The child emerged. And so did another one—one who was three years older, one from the shadows. One who was
of
the Shadows. And Solange spared his life.

Holy shit. A relationship begun in childhood? A life-debt that practically predetermined a connection? I scoffed, shaking my head. I'd never even had a chance.

Flash forward more than twenty years after that tragic beginning, and those eyes I'd recognize anywhere were dull and brittle, like burnt-out bulbs in a man ready to tune out, turn off, and shut down. The thought bubbles blooming overhead indicated he was jaded about humanity's desire to be helped, and bitter over giving his life over to people who rarely lifted a finger to help themselves. This, more than his appearance, made him alien to me. The Hunter I'd known was a hero through and through. His life was spent in service to humanity, preserving choice for them through unceasing battle with the Shadows.

But you hadn't known him at all, had you?

I resumed my reading, feeling like a voyeur but unable to look away.

Solange first approached him in a bar, intent on com
pleting the task she'd neglected when they were both children: end his life. She seduced him at the height of a desert storm, but whatever she saw in the final flash of heat lightning, as her tomahawk was poised overhead, had her withholding her killing blow…and had him doing the same. They made love instead, and then they made a pact…public enemies, private lovers. For months he'd had an affair with a mortal enemy, one this manual revealed in embarrassingly erotic detail.

Was that why he could accept the Shadow in me? I thought, flipping pages faster and faster. Was it how he could look past my father's mean influence and unwanted lineage, and say there was nothing wrong with me? And why he believed my Shadow side could ultimately be overcome?

I blinked, shocked to find tears staining the pages, and slapped the manual shut. I knew the rest of this story anyway. They'd had a child together. She'd fled to Midheaven.

And I was wrong about the connection between us.

My soft thoughts of us together weren't memories…they were recurring deaths. I hadn't been made love to him like the woman on these pages, like a goddess. The time he spent with me had been a lie and dream. And when I was awake? I was alone, trapped by mortality.

I tucked the manual back in the duffel, glanced back up at the stars scattering the ceiling and reaching to touch what he'd called a frozen star. They were really black holes. Dead stars. He tracked them along with the others, he said, because they had the shortest lives. For some reason Hunter had been attracted to dark things. Like me.

Like Solange.

I've been searching for Sola for a long time,
he'd said, before leaving me for her.

It was enough to harden my thoughts to him once again. Because he'd admitted this
after
making love to me, after convincing me that being vulnerable wasn't synonymous
with being weak. After I'd allowed his voice to wash through me, filling crevices and hollows I hadn't even known were empty.

I gazed at the wrongly marked sky, the version of true love
they
shared, until my vision blurred. Then I pushed from the bed and rejoined Tripp downstairs.

“I'm going to take a few of these for you,” Tripp said, gathering together drawings, careful not to look at me. Buttersnap nudged my elbow, and I knew they both scented my pain. I wiped at my eyes and face, also content to ignore the obvious. “If we ever get a real weapons master, they can fashion more conduits for you …maybe even some for the rest of the rogues.”

A rogue weapons master forging tools for rogue agents. There was a thought large enough to eclipse any other. But Tripp wasn't finished.

“Look what else I found.” He opened a satchel I immediately recognized…one I'd stashed in the bottom drawer of the tool chest the last time I'd been there. Reaching inside, he withdrew a handful of poker chips embossed with illustrations of my former powers.

The currency of Midheaven. Tripp and I had once battled each other over a green felt poker table over chips like this. I swallowed hard, having forgotten about them, then reached forward to touch one. The powers represented on these chips were abilities like regeneration and speed, each of the five amplified senses as well…things everybody
in the Zodiac world possessed. Yet others represented individual gifts.

“I had no idea you could slip into the sanctuaries of both Shadow and Light,” he said, fingering through the chips curiously. “Or that you could leave the valley even before you were thrown from the troop.”

Neither had I.

“Oh, lookie here. You got Shen's sense of smell. And the albino's aether.”

I glanced at the two new chips he held. “What?”

“Their powers. I heard you cleaned up at soul poker once I was off the table.” He tossed one of my chips, my speed, aside, muttering, “These are all useless.”

Yeah, this warehouse was just rife with my losses. I sighed…and my emotion clearly bloomed into scent. Tripp blew out a chiding breath and readjusted the big, black Stetson on his head. “Man, what a double standard. You won't allow others to feel anything soft for you, but you wallow in your own pity. Know what your father would say?”

“He'd be happy to relieve me of the problem?”

He picked up the canister we'd come for, a modified fire extinguisher holding the fortifying preservative, and motioned for me to hold still. “He'd say just 'cause you got something doesn't mean you got the
right
to it.”

“Swell guy.” I shut my eyes, and a soft mist enveloped me, falling over clothes, hair, and skin in an even invisible webbing. A conduit could now strike me once, and the effect would be the same as trying to chop through petrified wood. It wouldn't even make a dent. Opening my eyes, I motioned at Tripp, and he handed it to me.

“But he's right,” he said, inhaling so deeply his black vest moved against his great belly. I misted him, then handed back the canister.

“Easy for you to say when you've got all your strengths.” I swung away to leave, but Tripp was suddenly in front of me, aptly illustrating the speed I didn't possess.

“Stop.” I jerked back when his hand fell to my waist. But he wasn't touching my flesh. He was fumbling for the trident secured in my pants pocket. There was a faint hum when he found it, a vibration rising from the pocket and up his arm. He gasped, his face scrunching in pain, and when he pulled his hand away a second later, his palm was mottled, red at the edges, black in the center. The smell of burnt flesh filled my nose.

“Oh my God.” Dropping my chips, I reached for his hand, but he flipped it over, grasped mine and pulled me closer until my gaze returned to his face.

“Ya don't know what you can do till you try,” he growled through clenched teeth. “Or if your talents are unique until compared with someone else's. So just stop underestimating your damned self. Now, come on. The others are waiting.”

I followed Tripp, dumbstruck by what he'd just done and unsure of what it meant. So he
couldn't
touch the old weapons? Was that the same for all rogues? Thinking back, I hadn't seen any conduits in the bunker, any of the grays armed, or heard anyone speak of their conduits.

“I'm thinkin' we should leave the alarm off,” Tripp said, interrupting my thoughts. “Locking the door should be enough to convince the Light nothing's amiss. They already know the place will blow without the right security code.”

And none of them had it.

“That'll allow us to leave Buttersnap too, since we can't exactly show up with her to your big bash tonight.” He put his hand on my back, guiding me to the door.

We then paid a visit to the complex's Dumpster, where Tripp tipped in the protectant, the foam templates, and most of the drawings, though I had a feeling he'd tucked a few away in the inner pocket of his leather vest. I too had the soul chips tucked away. They might be useless, but they were still mine.

The thought had me giving the cabdriver we hailed an
address far from the Archer estate. I leaned back, trusting Tripp wasn't yet familiar enough with the city to object…at least not until it was too late. Meanwhile, the driver's log would contain the account of this trip, one easily traced were someone so inclined. Which was the point. Someone, I knew, was very interested in the activity in and around this neighborhood. I waited until the cab's taillights disappeared, then headed the other way, jerking my head so Tripp would follow.

“This ain't right,” he drawled, clearly uncomfortable. I smiled. Good. Let him be the one in the dark for a change. “Don't you have a rehearsal dinner to attend?” he finally said, sidestepping a fledgling anthill. How cute. Just like a Buddhist. “And a tulpa to kill?”

Or a Buddhist's polar opposite.

I made a humming noise in the back of my throat but kept walking.

Our destination was a flat-topped single story, neither the nicest home in the neighborhood nor the least attractive. This was not only anticlimactic for Tripp, but probably a downright disappointment. As we halted before a sprawling patch of lawn, I knew he scented nothing of the Shadow or Light around this house. After all, great pains had been taken to keep anything related to that world away from the people inside this home.

I studied the simple residence, looking for a place not easily visible from the driveway and front walk, but not exactly hidden either. A place the vigilant would easily spot. The hose spout might do the trick, though the silver cassia planted before it would obstruct its view if someone were driving by in the dark.

Fuck it, I thought, pulling out the gun with the glowing green liquid vials. I needed a guaranteed reaction.

“What're you doing, girl?” Tripp hissed, his natural instinct to run from mortal attention clearly warring with his need to remain next to me.

True, it was five-thirty, and people were headed home
for dinner after a long day's work—the perfect time to draw the attention of the Neighborhood Watch—but I might not get another opportunity to return before my next near death experience.

I fired at the living room's giant glass window. Mortality didn't affect my aim this time, and I hit the pane dead center. The tempered glass exploded into a million glass pebbles. A light flipped on, and panicked voices filtered through the curtains. A moment later one lace panel parted hesitantly. I kept watching.

“Come on!” Tripp was ready to bolt.

“Wait,” I said, eyes angled the other way. A woman yelled for someone to call the cops. Still, I stood in open view. “Wait,” I whispered again.

And there it was. A shifting at the window opposite the first, a wide parting of girlish curtains, then a bold, defiant stare. Locking onto a gaze similar to mine, I watched a little girl's eyes darken. My eyes used to blacken in the same way.

Tripp gasped. “Holy shit!”

His nostrils widened as he scented the girl's anger…and her heritage. He turned to me with eyes as wide as I'd ever seen them. “You're baitin' her. Darin' Zoe Archer to come after you.”

“She'll come after you too,” I said coolly. “Because that girl may not know who we are, but she obviously knows what we are. She'll tell Zoe there were two people here.”

He swallowed hard as he realized I'd just bound him to me in secrecy. If something happened to Ashlyn, Zoe would have no problem finding out Tripp was the one standing next to me today. And if she knew it, so would her creation, the most powerful being in our world, Skamar.

Tripp whistled through his teeth, shaking his head as sirens sounded in the distance. “You best be careful, forcin' that woman's hand.”

It was about time someone did. “I'm just shaking things loose a bit. See how she reacts.”

Tripp blew out a breath and shook his head. “She's gonna lose her God-given mind.”

Good.
Because the days where Zoe could hold back, stay safe, and pull strings behind an impenetrable curtain of anonymity were numbered. If I had to be out here, actively risking my mortal ass for a world that wanted to crush me, then she could very well join me.