The Neon Graveyard (4 page)

The gust from the Tulpa’s sneeze would have knocked me flat were it not for Carlos’s hand steady at my back. As it was, thirteen grays rocked back on their heels, but the thunderstorm of anger that rode the Tulpa’s brow was worth it.

“How did you do that?” Gareth whispered, awestruck and now behind me.

I ignored him, preferring not to wonder how . . . and really not knowing. I was the Tulpa’s daughter, but Zoe Archer’s daughter too, and she was a woman with a nuclear power plant for a mind. Though gone, she’d left me with instructions, and admonitions, on the power of a mortal mind.

“You’re not the only one with extraordinary abilities, Pops,” I said, arrogant despite everything I didn’t know. “Don’t forget it.”

“And you should know,” he warned, lifting two feet into the air with the ease of a helium balloon, “I never forget.”

Yet he jerked as he tried for greater height, zigzagging one way and then the next. I’d rattled him, I thought, smile widening. He recovered fast, though, and his body shot up like a rocket, hurtling across the desert with the thrust and sound of a fighter jet. He was a speck above the Las Vegas skyline a moment later. Another, and he was gone.

“I was wrong.” Foxx said woodenly. I turned to find his eyes wide, gaze locked on my face. “You’re not just mortal. You’re crazy.”

I returned my gaze back to the city I refused to leave, and the fight I just couldn’t seem to quit.

“It’s hereditary,” I said.

3

U
nable to enter the city without attracting notice, or achieve the death we sought there anyway, we gathered up Neal for burial and returned to our cell to regroup. Located on the far reaches of Frenchman’s Flat, best known for Nevada’s infamous nuclear testing projects, the blasted terrain was unreachable by the agents bound to the city, as well as mortals easily discouraged by electric fences and unsmiling men with big guns.

The government patrols had orders to shoot any unauthorized trespassers on sight, but they never caught sight of us. Like ghosts, we were the movement caught from the corner of their eye, the itch between their shoulder blades, the feeling that made the hair on the nape of their neck stand on end. A rumor had also begun circulating at the nearby test site that beasts the size of small SUVs haunted the night terrain, making even the most steadfast soldier wary of the area at the hour we were most active.

All in all, it was the perfect hideout for the grays—throwaway agents who’d banded together and were now forming a troop of their own.

Now that this previously guarded secret was out in the supernatural world, I was shocked at the number of rogues who’d trekked across the Mojave to find us. It’d only been weeks since Las Vegas’s warring troops had learned of us, but our existence was already being reported in manuals across the nation. Eighteen rogues had arrived so far, including Foxx and Neal, the physically imposing Gil, and a star- and sky-loving geek named Kai. We didn’t keep everyone—after all, there was a reason each had been driven from their home troops, and some rightly so—but our numbers were steadily growing.

As with Neal, we lost some to battle, while others had been lone-wolfing it for so long that they found the structure of troop life, as loose as ours was, too stifling. Those agents would fall silent in our meetings, nod at our plans to enter the city—to enter a place called Midheaven and free the men trapped there, bringing them into our fold—but would inevitably be gone by morning, the only sign they’d been there at all a smudged footprint as they slipped into the night.

It didn’t matter. The more active we were, including those stealth comings and goings, the more the manuals spoke of us. The comic books would otherwise be filled with the actions of the Tulpa and his troop, or Warren’s battle for Light. Our mere existence stole coveted page space from the troops, along with the energy from the young minds reading them. The Shadows, especially, were still stronger, but thus far there was nothing either side could do about it. Meanwhile, the rogues just kept coming.

“We’ve got company,” Gil muttered as we approached the sinkhole, finding two such men waiting outside the clearly booby-trapped entrance. They shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot as a team of thirteen grays—bearing one dead—swooped their way. The men around me sniffed at the air as we slowed, reading everything their acute sense of smell could tell them about the duo: were they once Light or Shadow, how long had they been here, what did they have for breakfast . . . did they mean us harm?

Upon sighting me, one of the men nudged the other, and though Vincent had already set me on my feet, he and Oliver drew tight around me. Fletcher and Milo, holding Neal’s body between them, shifted to take up the rear. Meanwhile Carlos led a forward flank of nine to greet the newcomers. As we drew to a stop before them, and Carlos began to speak, the second reason they hadn’t entered the sinkhole rose like a black cloud from within it, ambling directly toward me.

“Hey, Buttersnap,” I said, nuzzling the cause of the test site’s whispered rumors under her chin. The giant dog responded by unfurling a tongue as long as my forearm and lapping at my hand, practically swallowing it whole. For some reason the beast had taken a liking to me, which was surprising as she’d once been a Shadow warden. She didn’t care for mortals, and she rabidly loathed agents of Light.

Guess my father’s heritage was more potent than I thought, I mused, scratching behind ears the size of army boots. Though after the demonstration in the desert, it wasn’t an especially comforting thought.

My protectors took a step back now that Buttersnap guarded my side. The newly arrived rogues took two.

“Fletch, Milo, take Neal’s body to Io for cleansing. We’ll bury him at midnight, and honor him before the evening’s . . . festivities.” Carlos gave the newcomers an apologetic smile, though he didn’t elaborate. Not yet. “Meanwhile the rest of us will retire to the commons.”

The shorter man’s shoulders slumped with relief. His partner held himself autocratically, looking like an English butler despite his torn T-shirt and jeans, but he too let out a visible sigh of relief, and Carlos gave them a little nod. “You’ve come a long way and are probably hungry.”

Carlos’s standing policy was to welcome any rogue, though they wouldn’t be allowed to stay until they were thoroughly vetted and had agreed to the grays’ objectives and rules. They also wouldn’t be allowed alone with me. I was mortal, pregnant, and—Carlos believed, wrongly—still the reputed Kairos, a sort of savior to my chosen troop. He wasn’t going to take a chance that some rogue would attempt to gain himself a vaulted place in the manuals at my sake. Of course Buttersnap helped disabuse most of that idea as well.

Our bunker was a burned-out post-apocalyptic sinkhole, a dystopian’s wet dream, but also pretty homey. Though it was a far cry from the mansion I’d grown up in, I was comfortable in these cable-lined passageways and rough dirt rooms, all studded with stout candles, carved benches, and talismans cemented into the walls by the dozens of rogues who’d visited here. I had no idea what that said about me, but it was enough that I relaxed degree by degree as we descended into the hidey-hole.

Next we made our way through a room containing a second sinkhole, this one covered by protective wiring and surrounded by blasted rubble. I trailed my hand along a charred scrap of metal that might once have been a car, one of many melted and mutilated objects left over from the atomic cities used to test nuclear survivability. As one might expect, not much survived.

On the other side of this testament to humankind’s propensity for destruction was a simple iron door that led to our version of King Arthur’s round table. The sparse, circular room held sandy alcoves lined in hemp pillows, barrel tables, and flat-topped sawhorses, which currently contained heaps of beef, rice, and the best frijoles north of the border. Stomach growling, I practically dove into my usual alcove, the newly arrived men forgotten. Impending motherhood had lent my appetite an edge I didn’t remember from my first go-round a decade earlier. Of course, I was only sixteen that time, and a bit preoccupied with recovering from a life-threatening attack, so the finer physical details of pregnancy were a bit hazy. Still, I didn’t know I could be so hungry. These days I could medal in competitive eating.

When I finally came up for air, it was because I was tugged by the room’s silence. Though the dog weighing more than a MINI Cooper was giving me a disgusted stare, every man in the room had his gaze politely averted, save Carlos. He gazed at me openly, and with amusement. He could hide his feelings when he had to, but one of his most striking characteristics was that he chose not to. He was vulnerable to each of the rogues in one way or another, giving them whatever they needed, whether a sympathetic ear or the shirt off his back. It had the odd effect of making them more vulnerable to him too.

Carlos smiled, his teeth bright against his honeyed skin, reminding me of an old silent film star. “We were just talking about the Shadows’ odd behavior. They’ve obviously captured someone. Maybe even killed one of the Light.”

I looked down so no one would see the worry in my gaze, and nodded as I poked at the last of my rice. “It would seem that way.”

“There’s been nothing about it in the manuals yet,” Gareth pointed out. He had the best luck scoring the comic books. As the youngest of us—and with his lanky build and spiky blond hair—he fit right in with the mortal kids and teens hungriest for our stories.

“Maybe it occurred in the last couple of weeks,” Vincent said, the Bronx in his voice barreling through the room.

It took time for our actions to show themselves in comic book form. Once they did, the kids could imagine and believe in us, and we’d use that mental energy to fuel our battle against our enemies. Those in the troops could read only their own side’s manual, but I could read all—back issues, new ones, Shadow, and Light. So as weak as my return to humanity made me, I still had abilities that made me unique—the weapons, the manuals, the soul blade that had taken two fingers from the Tulpa, which never left my side. Without these things, I wasn’t sure even the staunchest gray would tolerate, much less follow, me.

Except Carlos, I thought, refilling my plate and returning to my bench. His belief in me remained steady even when my own wavered.

“Be nice if we could find out for sure,” Vincent went on. “It might help in our campaign against the Light.”

“We’ll look into it,” Carlos told him, but his voice was soft and we traded a brief glance. He knew I didn’t feel the same way as Vincent, the other grays . . . or even the Tulpa. Not when it came to the Light. I just couldn’t count my former allies as enemies yet. Not all of them, anyway.

“We know nothing of the Light in this valley,” said one of the newcomers, who called himself Joseph. I didn’t need super senses to know he’d been a Shadow. There was a look to all of them, something that lurked like a shark beneath still water. Everyone here, save Carlos and the late Neal, possessed it. Even me. Maybe that’s why he held the manual he’d been hiding out my way. “But we have this . . . it’s how we found you. It shows the Shadows relinquishing their conduits at the feet of their leader.”

I crossed the room and took it from him, secure enough with my troop of grays—especially Carlos, next to him—to risk getting close. I then dropped it on the room’s center table, and waited for the others to draw close.

“It’s why Harrison was so bitter,” Carlos said, as I turned the page.

Panels that would have previously flared to life in my hands remained flat, the action one-dimensional. I’d once been able to elicit an air-popping “Pow!” or “Bang!” from these pages, along with echoing battle cries, agonized death howls, and colorful bursts of furious action. Yet compared to everything else I’d lost, it was a small thing, so what caught my attention was the accompanying text. “Holy hell. The Tulpa is making his own agents cross into Midheaven.”

“According to this,” Joseph said, having joined us, “the Tulpa has sent three agents to Midheaven already. None have returned.”

“Men rarely do,” I muttered. I knew because I’d escaped twice. Midheaven was a woman’s world, entirely separate from our own, and fueled by the soul energy of the men trapped there. “It’s a pocket of distended reality. It requires a third of your soul in return for passage. It changes you at the cellular level.”

My throat closed up on me after that, and though Joseph looked at me funny, the other grays were used to it. It was a cosmic law: I couldn’t speak of what happened in Midheaven to anyone who hadn’t been there.

“Then what does the Tulpa want over there?” Foxx asked, hands on his hips. “Why weaken his dominant position against the Light by sending his agents to a place from which they never return?”

“The child,” I said, because everyone knew about that. The new Kairos.

The
only
one, I thought with a heated flush. Because although I might still possess the required divided lineage, I no longer had any power. That meant I couldn’t be this world’s “chosen one.” Fine with me. The designation had put a bull’s-eye the size of the state on my chest. Still, I felt the newfound lack like it was a personal failure. “He’s trying to get to Solange and Hunter’s child.”

My throat wanted to close up again, but this time it was only because I hated putting that woman’s—that goddess’s—name next to that of the man I loved. Yet it was the realization that their non-love child was the Tulpa’s, and probably Warren’s, true objective that had us all exchanging wary glances.

“Control the Kairos and he could easily rule three distinct realms,” Carlos said thoughtfully. The mortal world, the supernatural one, and the twisted, hidden underworld as well.

“Forget risking his agents’ souls,” said Fletcher, shaking his head. “What
wouldn’t
he risk for that?”

“That’s why he wants us out of here. Less competition. Less . . .”

“You,” Carlos said softly. Because as a woman, one who’d been to Midheaven before,
I
was the one most likely to beat him to it.

If in the meantime the Shadow agents didn’t understand how Midheaven stripped a man bare from the inside out, they were discovering it pretty quickly . . . and too late. Few men could enter and survive that woman’s world. Question was, did the Tulpa know that? Or even care? After all, as a soulless being, he had nothing to risk, lose, or barter for entry into that world. It was hard to impart empathy to someone who’d never been in a vulnerable position, and the Tulpa had been powerful from the first thought.

“No.” Foxx stepped away from the table. “It don’t make sense.”

I looked at him. My impression so far was that he was impatient, edgy, but shrewd. Yet he’d been subdued since returning to the cell, and in a normal, well-adjusted person I’d say it might have something to do with Neal’s death. However, I couldn’t give a former Shadow the benefit of either of those things. Still, something in the calculated way he spoke, the furrowing of those dark brows, made us all perk up. “What?”