City Of Souls (7 page)

“Jas knows it, too,” said Dylan. “That’s why she doesn’t come around here anymore. Well, that…and because she’s spending time with Li.”

Li
. I swallowed hard. Li, who was eight years old, and clamoring to take over Jasmine’s position. Li, who’d somehow been injured when the Tulpa had attacked me. Li, who was deteriorating by the day because of that injury, and would continue to do so until I figured out a way to fix her sister.

And that’s when the manuals had stopped being written. That’s what was keeping the fourth sign of the Zodiac from coming to pass.

“Look, I don’t want to kill Jas.”
Or her little sister
. “I want to find the manual that shows how Jacks healed his changeling, or find Jacks himself. Barring that, I need to find Skamar so she can tell me how to ‘walk the line.’”

I muttered this last bit, rolling Warren’s words over in my mind, still having no idea exactly what they meant.

“What did you say?” Zane asked sharply.

“I said I need to find Skamar. If I leave a message with you, can I be sure she’ll get it?”

“Skamar’s in hiding. She needs safe zones to recover from her battles with the Tulpa, and you’ve done away with those.” I opened my mouth to object, but he was already waving that subject away. “But go back to the part after that. About walking the line. Who told you that?”

I tilted my head, caught by his sudden interest, and his seriousness. “My troop leader.”

He lifted a brow. “Warren Clarke?”

“No. Jabba the Hutt. He also said to tell you he needs an octogenarian to help round out his criminal empire. You may have a future yet.”

Zane scowled. I was about to write off his question, but then I remembered how anything that happened in Las Vegas’s underworld ended up in a manual within two weeks. I continued staring at him until the silence elongated uncomfortably between us. From the expression blanketing his face, I knew what he’d say even before the question was out of my mouth. “You know about Midheaven too, don’t you?”

“Of course. I know everything relevant to our world.”

I’d asked him once before if he thought Midheaven was a myth. At the time, though, I hadn’t had Warren’s permission to do so.

“Let me guess. You can’t tell me anything about that world, right? Some sort of cosmic checks-and-balances, right?” That would be right in keeping with the same powerful law that prevented the changelings from telling their favored troop members about the opposing side’s actions. The same reason the little sickos who favored the Shadows knew, but couldn’t tell, of my Olivia Archer cover identity.

“I can’t tell you,” he confirmed, with a shrug, “but not because it’s forbidden. Midheaven’s energy doesn’t register over here. That’s why it’s not in any manual. It’s another world entirely.”

“But one Warren now wants me to enter.” Because he knew, or at least thought, that Jaden Jacks was over there? Or that Jacks could tell me how to fix Jasmine? It would make sense. Zane clearly didn’t know what had happened to the kid, and as he’d said, he knew everything that happened in
this
world. But how was I going to get to Midheaven if I couldn’t find Skamar in order to learn how to walk this “line”?

“It has to be because of the safe zones,” Zane was muttering, shaking his head like he was perplexed. “He’d never reveal its physical existence otherwise…”

Yeah, what about that?
I fisted my hands on my hips. “Why?”

“Because it’d be better if it didn’t even exist,” he said in that eerily serious way that made me want to giggle and shiver at the same time. “Midheaven is a pocket of distended reality. It’s distorted, and a place for people—usually rogue agents—to hide. It serves as a way to escape detection as they made their way into the valley.”

“Ahh…” Now it was making sense. Rogues were agents, either Light or Shadow, who’d been cast out of their home troops either due to personal infractions or political unrest. In other words, if their troop was disbanded or destroyed. If that happened, they were free to leave the city they’d formerly served and become independent agents. They officially became rogues when they entered another largely populated city, where another troop already resided. There could only be one star sign for each position on the Zodiac, so even entering a city with a full Zodiac was seen as a challenge. We had orders to slay them on sight. That’s why Regan was no longer a threat. No one on either side of the Zodiac would stand up for her now. “So Warren didn’t tell us about Midheaven because of the rogue agents.”

“He didn’t tell you about it,” Zane said direly, “because it’s a twisted place, and it twists you in return. You go in one person, you come out another.”

“Experience shapes people,” I countered.

“Midheaven strips them.”

Shaking my head, I decided this was already turning into an infinite circle. Find Skamar to find Jacks to fix Jas and restore our safe zones. Yet I needed a safe zone in order to find Skamar and Jacks, to fix Jasmine and restore those safe spaces. “What a clusterfuck.”

I hopped to the ledge, already considering my next step—beyond the one that would have me leaping thirty feet to the alley floor—when Zane, still in zealot-geek mode, stopped me.

“Don’t you want to hear the song?”

I looked up at the bright, wide sky, wondering when the minutia of this world was going to stop bitch-slapping me. I stepped off the ledge and turned.

“I love songs,” said Kade. Dylan hit him. Anxious to get on with the business of saving the world, I’d like to have done the same, but Zane was already clearing his throat, straightening formally, and widening his stance. Then he began crooning like he was headlining at the Sands with a half-full martini in one hand.

Beneath the neon glowing bright here

Lies a land of starry skies

Look below dear, not in the middle

But kill the rushlight in two tries.

“Wow,” I said, and he shot me a rare smile. “Put on a button-down shirt and a few gold chains and you’d have yourself a career.”

His face fell. “Shut up.”

“No, seriously. You’re not half bad.”

“It’s not funny!” He began pacing, fat face clouded and red. “You’ll memorize that if you know what’s good for you. That shit can save your life!”

I thought of all the other shit that was supposed to be helping me too. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. I’ve got to find a tulpa, walk the ‘line,’ enter Midheaven, and find a Shadow agent…and the only clue is a badly written murder ballad?”

He pursed his lips, then shrugged. “Pretty much.”

I hit the ledge again. “Good-bye, Zane.”

“Don’t come back here, Archer. Not unless you’ve fixed this.”

Twisting, I cocked a fist on my hip, but my brows drew together when I saw what he was holding aloft. It was a beat-up photo of a freckle-faced boy, sandy-haired and lanky with youth. I’d never seen the kid before, but I knew who he was. Zane would only carry a worn photo of one kid with him at all times. “Jacks’ changeling.”

“His name was Ricky,” he said, voice edged in granite. “And I don’t want to lose any more.”

He meant changelings. Jaw clenched, I swallowed hard. “You haven’t lost this one yet.”

And I was going to do everything in my power to make sure we didn’t. Even if it meant entering a fabled world armed with nothing but a song.

Though finding a way to bring the fourth sign of the Zodiac to life was currently my greatest worry, it wasn’t my only one. Despite my rebirth last November as Olivia, and as a twenty-first century superheroine, what was really surprising were the things that hadn’t changed. For example, the Tulpa still sported a hard-on for my mother’s death, my mother continued to elude him, and I was still forced to interact with the enigmatic, powerful—and recently reclusive—Xavier Archer.

An anonymous note this time last year—one I now knew had been sent by the Shadows—had relieved us both of the notion that Xavier was my real father. Of course, the note failed to mention that my real father was the Tulpa, but that was because the Tulpa hadn’t known of my existence either.

Was there anything, I thought wryly, that my mother couldn’t make disappear?

So I wheeled down Las Vegas’s most famous sun-baked street and returned to the site of Suzanne’s opulent bridal shower the night before. Valhalla was Xavier’s premiere hotel, and though ironic, I had to put in an appearance here just so I could safely disappear later. I needed the Olivia identity, and I couldn’t risk drawing anyone’s attention by switching up my routine without notice.

So despite my newfound power, status, and knowledge, I still had to kowtow to a mortal man I hated. There was a silver lining, though. Everything belonging to Xavier also belonged to the Tulpa. My real father was my fake father’s benefactor. In return for money, Xavier fronted the Tulpa’s many businesses. My ultimate goal? Bring them both down…but in order to do that, I had to stick close to a man I’d despised for years. Xavier.

So that’s one of the reasons why Olivia Archer—casino heiress and social debutante—regularly worked an eight-hour shift where she’d earn less than she’d spend on a bottle of wine. It was another way to get inside Valhalla’s hallowed walls, which we believed was the headquarters for the Tulpa’s organization. Xavier had initially refused me, and then, when he realized I wouldn’t be swayed, started me in the gift shop, hoping that would cure this inexplicable whim to actually work for a living. It hadn’t—I wanted more than spending money; I wanted retribution—and so the news that he wanted to see me at his home office before my shift even began had me holding back a smile…and had Ginny, my small-minded boss, grinding her teeth.

“Maybe he wants to give me a raise,” I told her with false excitement. More likely he was going to move me to a new, more socially appropriate department now that I’d proven I wasn’t giving up. Ginny huffed and turned away while my coworker, Janet, gave me a hopeful thumbs-up. I hoofed it down to Uniforms, used the adjacent locker room to change into a more Oliviaesque outfit, and handed in my work clothes for a fresh set that I might or might not need the next day. I locked these away in my appointed locker—I couldn’t be caught ferrying around a Valhalla uniform if a Shadow did happen to track me—then headed to my car in the employee lot, where I was both surprised, and not, to find Felix waiting.

“You my babysitter?” I asked, purposely keeping my tone light. Anything heavy looked like it would knock him over. He was dressed in his usual jeans, with a faded gray T-shirt, untucked, and hair streaked with caramel highlights, deliberately unbrushed. But the expression on his face wasn’t one I’d ever seen on him before. He’d aged a decade since the night before.

“Yes, and you’ve been naughty,” he tried, but his grin slipped from his new face. “Come here and let me give you a spanking.”

“My daddy would kick your ass if you tried,” I said softly.

“Your daddy wants to kick my ass anyway.” He snorted. “And yours, for that matter.”

I put a hand to his arm, steadying us both for my question. “Vanessa?”

“Micah’s taking care of her.” Tears welled so quickly, they’d clearly been lurking beneath the surface. “It’s going to take time, though.”

I nodded because there was nothing to say. Normally we healed in an instant from mortal wounds. But there was nothing normal about what the Shadows had done to Vanessa. “I’m so sorry, Felix.”

“It’s not your fault.”

I shook my head. “They were angling for me, and I broke the safe zones, plus—”

“Jo!” His voice must have come out even more loudly than he intended, because even he jumped. “They’re Shadows. They’d have done it anyway.”

I hesitated, biting my lip. “I saw you, Felix. When Warren told us they wanted to make a trade, Vanessa for me…” I didn’t look away when he flushed because I wanted him to know I’d seen…and I understood.

He looked me in the eye then, so serious it was like I didn’t know him. I
didn’t
know him, I realized in the next moment. Vanessa’s torture had changed him. He looked more like Hunter now; something had touched him in a way that he would always bear a scar. I too had the same sort of scar. “No. Warren was right. No matter what they did to Vanessa, we wouldn’t have made a trade. Not even a lateral one, agent for agent. And certainly not for…”

The Kairos. I cringed. The title didn’t make me feel special…and it certainly didn’t make me feel like the savior of the supernatural underworld. Instead it made me feel like a thing rather than a person. Again, all I could say was “I’m sorry.”

He looked down, and the warrior-look disappeared in the slump of his shoulders.

“Warren doesn’t know I’m here,” he said, blurting the confession out like it was burning his tongue. “He told us about Midheaven after you left. That he’d always known it existed, that he’d kept it from us for our own good.”

I wasn’t surprised. “Did anyone ask about the Shadow side?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, did they know about Midheaven even while we didn’t?”

Felix’s brows drew down like he didn’t understand why that was important, so I knew that no one had thought to bring it up. It was significant, though, because if the Shadows knew of it, and Jacks had disappeared with his changelings all those years ago, then he could have found the perfect way around our restriction upon leaving the valley. Jacks, and the kid, could
be
in Midheaven. So I bet that’s what Warren had been referring to when he said the answer to fixing Jas—fixing our world—was in that one.

I was so taken by the thought that I almost missed Felix’s whisper. “I think I hate him.”

I looked at him sharply, taken aback. “Who? Warren?”

Jaw set, he nodded. I swallowed hard, then nodded back in return. I don’t think Felix meant it, but he
thought
he did. I’d known, or at least suspected for a while, that Warren kept secrets from us. He so often wanted things his way, no questions asked, no explanation given. No wonder Felix was pissed. How often had Warren gotten what he wanted by omission? There was an entire world out there, sidled up next to our own, yet it had taken the destruction of our safe zones for him to even mention it.