The Scent Of Shadows Part 36

We all watched Rena's slow approach, and I heard Greta's breath quicken. After that I could only sense the growing curiosity of the others as Rena drew closer.

She held a kitten. Black and white, with tufts of wild fur, it was sleeping peacefully, its breathing easy as it lay cupped in her palms. A small smile was fixed on Rena's destroyed face as she stopped a foot in front of Greta and held out the slumbering animal.

For a moment nothing happened. Then, on the next tiny intake of breath, the kitten's body stiffened, its eyes flipped open, flickered once, and registered Greta standing there. Its back arched immediately, every hair standing on end, then it hissed and lunged for her with tiny, unsheathed claws.

Greta smacked at the bottom of Rena's cupped hands and sent the kitten flying.

Hunter lunged, catching the flipping body just before it touched concrete. Greta ran for her office, Gregor tripped her up, and she sprawled like a spineless scarecrow.

"The birds were an excuse to keep the cats away," I said when the shouts in the hallway had finally quieted. "Her office and her room are the only places she can't fully mask her true scent."

Greta rolled, eyes dry. Wide, but with madness, not fear, they locked on me with unfettered hatred. Bilious blackened color, like smoke, pooled to surround her body. One by one she studied the others as if coming face-to-face with them for the first time. "Your precious leader will be dead by morning."

"We should send you up the chute," Felix said. "You deserve to fry for what you've done!"

Greta spit in his direction, not bothering to hide her Shadow side now. She reeked of maggots and rotted eggs, a fetid blend that literally spilled from her pores.

Vanessa advanced on her, nose wrinkled in disgust, eyes fired with fury. "Maybe we'll just let her loose in the cat ward. Her and her little lovebirds."

"I raised your father," Rena said, shaking her head. "He'd be so disappointed."

"He'd be used to it," Greta retorted, but I don't think anybody felt sorry for her.

"But there's no way he'd-" A sharp pain slashed through my chest and I bent, legs buckling. My mouth opened in a soundless cry as I hit the floor, and Hunter tried to lift me, but I resisted, needing to feel the ground beneath me, anchoring me. "They're hurting Warren again."

Greta started to laugh. "The Tulpa knows you've found me out! They'll kill him now...and it's all her fault!" She pointed at me.

Warren screamed in my brain, agony wracking us both, but nothing came out of my mouth. Then a sickening spiral, down, down into myself, and I knew that Warren, wherever he was, had pa.s.sed out. That didn't stop Ajax. He laughed, and the sound resonated in my mind. A boot-shaped sole slammed into my kidney, I retched, and Greta's laughter joined his when my jaw cracked with a finis.h.i.+ng blow, even though nothing had been touched on the surface. I gave thanks that Warren was unconscious, but shuddered knowing he'd have to wake again.

Around me the others were trying to figure out a way past the Shadows in the boneyard.

"Even if you figure out a way to hide your marks," Greta interrupted, sneering, "and you won't because those marks are fresh, Hunter was the last-"

"b.i.t.c.h," he murmured.

"-it'll be too late for Warren." She bared her teeth, and it was hard to see where kindness had ever lived on that face. "You'll never get to him in time."

It was the last thing I heard for a while. The questioning and confused babble continued ruminating up and down the hall, and the voices laughing and groaning in my head fell into the background. I tuned them all out, but at length became aware of a dull but insistent tapping. I pried one eye open to find Tekla pointing at me from the other side of the gla.s.s again. Only I got it this time. She wasn't pointing at me. She was pointing at the gla.s.s.

"You're all lost," Greta was screeching from her position across from me on the floor. "Hear me, Archer? They've already won!"

There was the report of flesh meeting flesh, a palm arching across Greta's face. Then Chandra's voice, as angry as I'd ever heard it. "Tell us where he is!"

She cackled. "I won't, no matter what you do, and I'll have the satisfaction of knowing I did my job! You're all marked! Do you hear me? Targets! You'll never even reach his kill spot."

Warren stirred inside me. He was alive, and if I wanted him to stay that way, I knew what I had to do. As my fingers searched, found my conduit sprawled next to me, the tapping on the window ceased. Forcing myself to keep my hand steady, I pointed it.

"Hey, Greta," I said, and watched the satisfaction fall from her face as she turned to find herself staring down the pointed shaft of my arrow. "I'm not marked."

I s.h.i.+fted and shot fluidly, and though it was the first time I'd fired this weapon, it was as if I'd been born to the motion. Greta shrieked and ducked, though she'd be lying in her own kill spot had I still been pointing it at her. Instead, the arrow cleaved through the window of Tekla's cell, shattering the gla.s.s into hundreds of tiny pieces that fell like diamonds onto the hallway floor. Tekla's face appeared a moment later, but her voice came first.

Warren's voice.

"Come to Paradise, the Hall of the Slain, also the dwelling of those who never die. Where virgin warriors guard the gates of eternity. The palace with five hundred and fifty doors. Where dead warriors feast, where G.o.ds abide."

"What is he saying?" I heard someone ask.

"Valhalla," I said, and sunk back to the ground. "They're holding him at Valhalla." And I doubled over as Tekla cried out, Warren's skull splitting inside of me with a blow meant to silence him forever.

25.

Tekla, it seemed, had always spoken for the others. Before Stryker's death, and Greta's betrayal, she had been able to see, via flashes and images, when an agent of Light was walking into danger. It had been a marvelous, if disconcerting, gift. It was during one of these moments, Micah surmised, that Greta must have bound herself to Tekla, and thus began the downward spiral of Zodiac troop 175, and of Tekla herself.

The past six months had stripped her of her voice, and like a rewound tape, she began spouting all she'd seen while locked in her five-by-eight cell. It would take a while to catch up, but time was something we didn't have.

Warren's voice had fallen quiet inside me, and I didn't need a psychic to tell me that Ajax was behind the stillness. I felt it as clearly as if I possessed the Sight. He'd silenced Warren to try and keep us from tracking him further, but hadn't killed him outright. No, that was still the carrot dangling on a stick.

Which meant there was only one thing to do.

"Find a way to get me up the chute without frying," I told Hunter, "and I can find Warren."

A short argument ensued between those who thought I should stay put versus those who believed I shouldn't, but ultimately what it came down to was this: the others were marked, and I wasn't. I was linked to Warren, and they weren't. And, finally, if I really was Warren's beloved Kairos, I couldn't be killed today, or anytime soon.

But if he was wrong? I thought as I headed back to my mother's room in the troop's barracks. If I wasn't the person they all thought I was? Well, then they'd need Warren far more than they needed me. He was the troop leader. He could train the next generation. He could find the true Kairos.

But that didn't mean I'd go down without a fight.

Sliding open the closet doors, I decided my mother had the fiercest wardrobe ever. Literally. Arranged on evenly s.p.a.ced hangers were tops, slacks, and single-piece stretch suits in varying weights of silk, spandex, and leather. The uniformity came in two colors only, black or charcoal gray, with a hand that s.h.i.+mmered at the touch. This material, Warren had explained, would not burn through at the flaring of a glyph.

"Olivia would tremble with jealousy," I murmured, running my fingers over the fine material. I wasn't exactly steady myself, though that was probably nerves rather than reverence. After all, when my mother suited up, she at least had an idea of what she'd been about to face. I simply a.s.sumed I was facing the worst.

With the thought that this ensemble would be featured on the next series of Light and Shadow comics, I picked a long-sleeved V-neck T-s.h.i.+rt and fitted cargoes. Though comfortable enough, they fit me like they'd been sprayed on. I didn't recall my mother being quite as curvy as Olivia, but then I didn't remember her ever wearing a leather bra either, and here it was.

I dressed and looked at myself in the mirror. Other than my hair, which floated around me like a wavy bleached cloud, I looked like a shadow. A smudge on reality. Fitting, I thought, since that's what I'd be.

Standing before the small square mirror, I slicked back my hair and rolled it into a tight club. I found a pair of chopstick combs, similar to the ones the Chinese used to secure their own glossy locks but sharper and steel-tipped, more lethal. A most fas.h.i.+onable backup weapon, I thought, studying myself from the side. The street fighter in me approved.

"Thanks, Mom," I said, pocketing my conduit. There was only one item missing from my supernatural a.r.s.enal. Unfortunately, I had to go to Greta's holding cell to get it.

You had to give it to her, I thought, peering through the cell's window. For a woman facing imminent death, she was admirably composed. Though chained to a concrete floor, hands and feet bound in front of her, she sat with her back straight against the stone wall, head back, eyes closed. She even looked relieved. Like she'd been performing the same play over and over and had been longing for some new dialogue. With a crisp turn of the key in the lock, I entered the room, intending to give it to her.

She didn't look up.

"How's it feel, Greta?" I asked, closing the door behind me, my voice reporting hollowly off the stone walls. "To be helpless, locked up, wondering what's to become of you?"

"You should know." She motioned with one hand, chains clanking as she indicated the entire sanctuary. "Your cell is just a little bigger."

I advanced upon her, showing her that even a confined place could shrink upon itself. She just leaned her head back and closed her eyes again. "Tell me, what was it like knowing you were sending Warren to his death?"

"What, you're the psychologist now?" She sneered. "Savior of the Zodiac didn't fit quite right?"

I shrugged. "Just wondering."

She pulled her knees into her chest. "Keep wondering."

I s.h.i.+fted to lean against the wall, crossing my legs at the ankles. "You should tell someone, don't you think? I mean, otherwise your deeds won't get written down. You'll be just one more stiff in the body count at the end of a comic book."

She glanced up at me with disdain. Her chignon had fallen loose, and her skin was smudged beneath overly dark eyes. The Shadow sat on her features like a defiant child. "You think that's why I did this? To gain recognition for infiltrating the Zodiac troop when I was fated to be nothing more than a talented mortal? A mere half-breed?"

The detail in her answer told me that was exactly why she'd done it. "You tell me."

She was silent for nearly a minute. "No. I don't think I will."

"You'd better," I sang the words softly.

That got her attention. She studied me carefully for a moment, then snickered. "Or what? You're going to kill me?" She tightened her arms around her knees. "That doesn't frighten me."

"Death doesn't frighten you?" She pursed her lips, but otherwise ignored me. "But insignificance did. It frightened you enough for you to betray your father's people."

"Oh G.o.d, don't try that psychological s.h.i.+t on me! You're no good at it." She s.h.i.+fted irritably, chains rattling like pennies in a gla.s.s jar. "That's not why I did it."

"Then why?"

"You know why!" she bellowed suddenly, and I could see in her fevered gaze she really believed it. "You told me yourself this afternoon."

I thought back. Then began to nod slowly. "Ah."

"Yes, ahhh," she said mockingly. Madness danced in her once kind eyes. "Power. Having it. Using it. Controlling others with it. I was more powerful than the most powerful. More powerful than all of you."

I raised a brow, taunting her without words.

"I'd have cracked you eventually too," she said quickly, too loudly. It made me smile, and she went on in a rush. "I'd have found out who you really were and used that knowledge to plant the mark so deep no one would ever find it."

I shook my head. "I don't think so."

"I did it to everyone, even Tekla, the so-called Seer. And me, a half-mortal." I looked at the pride on her face: there wasn't even a trace of regret for the lives she had cost.

"No," I said in a low voice, "you're not even half that."

Her eyes narrowed to black pinpoints and she studied me, looking up my body and back down again. A slow smile began to thread from one side of her face to the other.

"You're going after him. You think the mark Micah planted will lead you to him."

"It will," I said flatly, "and I'll bring him back safely."

Abruptly, she howled with laughter, throwing her head back like a wolf to the moon. When she was done, finally, she wiped the tears from her cheeks. "You are your mother's daughter. Always thinking you can do the impossible. Always wanting to be the hero. Always doomed to fail."

"I won't fail," I said, tucking my hands into my cargo pockets, finding what I needed in the right-hand side. "You're going to ensure that."

She hooted again. "Don't count on it."

I slipped an ugly smile over my pretty face. Her malicious grin wavered, then fell.

"Have I ever told you about my sister?" I asked, pus.h.i.+ng off from the wall to stand in the middle of the room. Greta didn't answer, giving a good imitation of a person at ease. "She was similar to you in that she was half Light, half mortal, though I always thought of her as being entirely good. All innocence. Completely pure of heart."

"Not like you, then," Greta murmured, taunting me with what she knew.

"Not like you either."

There must have been something jagged in my voice, something I couldn't hold back, because she did look at me then. She studied me for a moment, then shrugged and fixed a petulant expression on her face. "She sounds like a bore."

I didn't rise to the bait. My love for Olivia had lain plain on my face, hanging like ripened fruit to be plucked. It was an easy target for Greta, and I couldn't be angry she'd taken it. Besides, I was h.o.a.rding my anger, letting it build inside me until later, when I'd call upon it. When it'd be most needed.

I closed my eyes and conjured up the clearest picture of Olivia possible. I wanted Greta to be able to see. "She was anything but boring. She was beautiful. When she walked into a room, people used to stop just to watch the magic in her movement. She was so blond the sun could have taken lessons in s.h.i.+ning from her. So voluptuous the mountains around this valley shook with envy. 'Too much woman,' I used to think. Too much hair and flesh, too many curves and softness. It was overwhelming."

I could sense Greta's interest despite herself. "So she looked like you. So what?"

I opened my eyes and smiled. "Yes. She looked exactly like me. Exactly."

Greta's brows furrowed, then rose in twin surprise, eyes going wide as realization dawned. "You're the sister! You're her, the one who died!"

"What? Didn't you do your homework, Greta?" I asked, head tilted. "Don't you even know my name?"

She looked at me, her face bleeding one emotion into another-fear, amazement, doubt, surprise-eyes zipping around my face like furious flies, never landing. "But you're her! I studied Olivia, and you're her!"

"I studied her too. And, remember, I had a lifetime to do so." She had no response to that. "You want to know what I learned in becoming someone else? Something you apparently never picked up?"

She flinched at the insult.

"I learned it doesn't matter what mannerisms you pick up, or what clothes you wear," I said, sweeping my left hand down my body, "or what mask you try to hide behind...be it beauty or psychology. The shadows inside you can't stay hidden forever."

We both knew I was talking about her, but she jerked her head at me. "You remember that when what you've tried to keep hidden becomes unearthed like a rotted corpse."

"That's the difference between us," I said. "I'm not trying to hide my shadows anymore."

And I pulled back the curtain on my one-woman play, just enough to let her glimpse what lay beneath-anger and pain over Olivia's death; hatred for the Tulpa, Ajax, and anyone aiding their side; disgust over the wasted lives of people meant to be super...and the inherited and shadowed urge to take it all out on her.

"I'm not afraid of you," Greta said, voice shaking.

I didn't answer, but turned instead toward the door like I was ready to leave.

"You never told me your real name," she said quickly, thinking I'd leave and she might never know. "Who you really are."