The Scent Of Shadows Part 39

"You'll be a target."

He looked at me, still for the first time. "That's why I'm telling you where the loading docks are." I swallowed hard. "Now pay attention."

We entered a seemingly unending hallway, steel-plated from the floor to about four feet up, a barrier against carts and trolleys and other equipment that b.u.mped along on the hotel's daily business. "The Tulpa is headquartered down the longest corridor in Valhalla. Ever see those horror movies where someone's running down a hallway that just keeps getting longer and longer?" I looked behind me. We were a hundred yards in. I looked ahead. At least a hundred more to go. Hunter glanced over at me. "Now imagine running it with a dozen Shadow warriors at your back."

I swallowed hard. "I'd rather not." But I looked above for possible escape routes, at the walls and floor for possible weapons. There was nothing. Just smooth, s.h.i.+ny walls and a disturbing fluorescent trail of elongated wall lamps.

"They call it the Gauntlet," he said, watching me.

"Of course they do," I said. That earned me a chuckle.

The hallway dead-ended, which I hoped wasn't symbolic, and we s.h.i.+fted right, stopping abruptly. An elevator bank stood right in front of us, the numbers above winging from one to twenty-four. Hunter and I faced the doors, neither of us talking nor looking at one another as he unlocked my hands and placed the cuffs in his back pocket. Then he pushed the b.u.t.ton. It began its downward descent with a loud ding.

I turned to him suddenly. "Hunter, I have to apologize."

"For what?" He was only half listening. The elevator was on the top floor. We were in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"For all this." His eyes flicked to me, then back. Ding. Floor twenty. "I know what you're risking today. I know you're going to lose everything."

I knew also what it was to lose everything.

"Let's not talk about it." He glanced up at the lighted numbering above the doors, but the way his jaw clenched gave him away. Ding. Ten floors away. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," I said, tentatively, "but just one more thing."

"What?"

Half turned, I didn't look at him as I rubbed my wrists where they'd been shackled. "I'm sorry."

"You said that already."

"Not for that." Ding. Eight now. "For this."

And I stepped into him, unwinding with my shoulders so my elbow struck him just below his temple. He went down like a tree trunk. I had to lunge to keep his head from whacking the concrete floor, and as I lowered him he somehow managed a belated attempt for my throat.

"Ungrateful b.a.s.t.a.r.d," I muttered as his hands fell away. Strong ungrateful b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

I pulled the cuffs from his back pocket, secured them around his wrists, and kept the keys. I hated to cuff him but it would be less believable that he'd been overcome if I didn't. I told myself it was for his safety, then removed his guns-stuck one in my boot, the other at my waist-his baton, and the telltale mark of an agent of Light, his conduit.

"You'll kill me when you wake up," I said to him. "But at least you'll wake up."

Which led me to the last thing that needed doing.

Leaning over Hunter, who cut a fierce figure even in an unconscious state, I thought of what I'd learned about him. Not a lot. But there was that way he watched people, the quiet scrutiny belying his casual manner. I admired that. I thought of the way he created things with his hands-weapons, sure, but artistry was a skill I'd always coveted. Then I thought of the way he'd intended to sacrifice himself today, and hadn't said a thing about it, knowing n.o.body would realize his intentions until it was too late.

Ding. Until now.

Allowing this paltry information to coalesce in the forefront of my mind, I bent and very gently covered his mouth with my own. The spread of flesh upon flesh was intimate, but nothing compared to the even more private opening of minds and souls. I exhaled, breathing a soft stream of essence into his mouth.

My mother had been right. You could taste the Light in another person, like bubbles on the tongue, and you could smell a person's soul on their breath. I glimpsed Hunter's strength, the sweet ardor of his physical essence and the surprising gentleness of his inner spirit. I continued to breathe, allowing our breaths to mingle so that I drew him up, in, and knew that somewhere in his unconscious state he was doing the same with me. In doing so, he was experiencing far more of me than any man ever had.

I allowed it, seeking the connection that would allow me to pa.s.s not only my knowledge and memory and experience to him, but my power as well. My kiss became a prayer, my breath a s.h.i.+eld. I cupped his cheek with one hand-my touch now a weapon, shared-and closed my eyes to pour myself into him.

And the filmstrip began.

Some memories take only a moment to burn into the gray matter, but their images are imprinted forever. The horrific death of his parents came to me in dull and numbing flashes, viewed from the eyes of a boy watching helplessly from the corner. Shadows were spinning around him, but he was too small and helpless to do anything but watch. I heard his vow, buried beneath hot tears and his parents' broken limbs, that he'd never be weak again.

The equally sad but still sharp death of my sister was my painful contribution. It came in the one image of that night I recalled above all others; her pinwheeling through the night, calling out my name in bald desperation.

Other memories pa.s.sed in such blinding flashes they set my skin to p.r.i.c.kling. Hunter making love to a slim dark woman, a lone tear sliding over his cheek.

My final night with Ben, a storm cloud breaking like a shot overhead.

The birth of a daughter, and a heart awash in more love than it had ever known or expected.

The birth of another, unwanted, unnamed, and untouched before being whisked away.

Had I not known what memories I'd lived and what I had not, I wouldn't have been able to tell which belonged to me. As it was, we alternated our lives' greatest hits in bright flashes, trading knowledge, secret desires, longing and regrets, along with our greatest loves and our most poignant sorrows.

Then a turn into such sudden blackness it was like being pitched down a roller coaster and careening off its tracks. A s.h.i.+ver went through my body and quaked into his. I showed him a hypodermic needle flas.h.i.+ng, and Greta's death powering through my limbs. Breathing the memory outward, I gave the aureole up like a gift, and Hunter took it, his subconscious greedy in a way I knew he'd never allow when fully awake. He sucked the power away, and it pulsed through our mouths, our lips moving, our tongues intertwined, the memory a lead line weighted to our hearts, loins, and heads. He grew hard beneath me. I opened my eyes to find him watching me with his soul-wondrously, thankfully, lovingly-and my body responded. My heart did too.

You'll be safe now. I've s.h.i.+elded you as you s.h.i.+elded me.

But the Shadows will scent you.

So I'll have to kill me another.

His hips rose beneath mine, and I pressed into him, forgetting myself in the strong mingling of power and limbs and dreams. The raw s.e.xuality pulsing between us surprised me-what had started out as a chaste kiss now burned torridly between us-but it wasn't as surprising as what I sensed him thinking next.

Brave, brave Joanna...

Shocked, I pulled away. Breathing hard, I watched his eyes flutter, heard him groan in protest and satisfaction. Then he fell still.

He knew my name. A bell chime, like a warning, sounded behind me as the elevator hit home. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, but sensed nothing of Hunter. There was only me now. Alone.

He knew my name, I thought again as the doors slid open.

And that comforted me. I rose, knowing I might die, but that somebody would remain behind to remember me. Someone who really knew me. After Olivia's death, and the loss of Ben, I hadn't believed anyone else ever could.

Placing a final chaste kiss on Hunter's lips, I left him lying spent and sprawled in the corner against the wall, and didn't have a bit of guilt. I had given him enough.

I entered the elevator, pushed the b.u.t.ton, and lifted my head as the doors whisked shut. The cart began its ascent. Toward Warren, I thought. And toward my next, and possibly last, kill spot.

28.

I wondered if this elevator would have opened to me only a month ago. There was no doubt I was operating in an alternate reality. Ions and electrodes b.u.mped along my skin like blind bees, and a metallic taste rose to fill the back of my mouth. There was enough supernatural energy up here, I thought, to fuel a nuclear power plant.

I'm coming Warren, I thought, touching my breastbone. There was no answer, and I began to wonder if it were all in vain. Then, suddenly, there was no time left to wonder.

The elevator chime sounded like the report from Notre Dame's bell tower. The doors sliding open were the hiss of a snake. My conduit was pointed at a mirrored image of myself, and my trigger finger pulsed. The doors began to close and I stepped into the foyer at the last moment. And they whisked shut, trapping me.

The Tulpa's anteroom was immediately visible, just beyond a great marble staircase leading into a sunken chamber flanked by four Roman pillars. An identical staircase rose directly across from me to disappear beneath a pair of oak doors carved with mythic symbols, none of which I understood. That, I immediately decided, was where I needed to be. I simply had to cross over this innocuous-looking sunken chamber that lay in between. A chamber, I noted, with a vast mirrored ceiling.

"Only in Vegas," I muttered, and took a step forward.

An invisible door slammed open and hard-soled footsteps pounded on the marble. I braced, conduit in front of me, and two men rounded the corner and stopped cold, apparently surprised to see me. Everything on them matched; their suits, their earpieces, their expressions, all the way down to the guns held at their right sides.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Mortals. I tucked away my conduit.

"Hit her!" the second one said, drawing his short club.

"Don't hit me," I said, and thrust out my lower lip.

"Hit her!" he repeated, stepping forward.

The first guard regarded him like he was crazy. "I'm not going to hit a girl."

He was looking at his partner as he said this, so he never saw my arm swing across his cheek. The slap of my open palm reverberated in the air, and his head ricocheted backward, but he rebounded quickly and snapped it back to level me with a look of pure hatred. "b.i.t.c.h!"

He still didn't touch me, though.

"I'm a b.i.t.c.h?" I asked innocently.

"f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h," he snarled.

I smiled sweetly. "Then why are you the one who just got b.i.t.c.h-slapped?"

Even gentlemen had their limits. He lunged, as I knew he would, and I used Hunter's baton to strike his wrist, sending the gun clattering uselessly across the foyer. The second man was already aiming at me, his gun chest level, point-blank. Superhuman or not, that was going to hurt. But his hands were shaking. I ducked below his sight line, darted in, and came up under those hands. My left knee came up with me.

Two quick strikes; groin, which had him doubling over, and chest, which sent him pitching down the steps. His trigger finger convulsed, sending an errant shot to ricochet off marble, but I'd already followed him into the sunken room, leaping the last three steps to send a final knee flying into his face. I let him fall, and whirled with his gun in my hands. The barrel sank between the eyes of the first man, who'd followed me down the steps. I withdrew my conduit and pointed at his chest. "Shoulda hit me," I told him.

His mouth worked, wordless as a guppie's, his broken wrist forgotten at his side.

"Step aside, Thomas. And I'd do it slowly." The voice rolled over us, and my stomach clenched.

"But, Mr. Sand-"

"G.o.d, that's really your name?" I pivoted into an open stance, arms crossed; gun on Thomas, conduit on Ajax.

He was poised at the top of the opposite staircase, coiled like a watchful rattler, his transparent eyes s.h.i.+ning with antic.i.p.ation. He was wearing black, which only served to lengthen his bony frame, and I knew his barbed poker was secured like a second spine at his back. I could smell it.

"Step aside, Thomas," Ajax repeated, sauntering down the marble stairs to join us in the sunken room. "Unless you want to die."

I waved the gun at him. "Most horrifically, I might add."

Thomas stepped aside.

"I was wondering how long it'd take you to find us, Archer," Ajax said, halting at the bottom of the staircase. "I take it you met some of my colleagues in the boneyard? How'd you like them?"

"I wasn't particularly impressed."

"But you killed only two."

And I tried not to let it impress me that he already knew about the battle in the boneyard. "Does that bother you? Their deaths, I mean?"

He shrugged. "Everyone dies. And everyone's too concerned with their own demise to worry much about another's. It's a small thing, really, when you think about it. Now, if you hope to see Warren again, drop your weapons. And don't make me repeat myself."

I didn't want to, but Hunter's whip still gave me options. I dropped my bow, safety on, to my feet. The gun followed.

"Where is he?" I asked as Thomas lifted my conduit, examining it. The guard on the floor groaned and rose halfway to his feet.

Ajax shook his head, a grown-up amused by the antics of a small child. "Why don't you give me the gun in your left boot, and then I'll tell you."

He was lying and we both knew it. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do about it. His guards were crowding in again, so I leaned down, eyes on his, and dislodged Hunter's second gun. Guard number two moved to take it from me. I shot him through the chest.

As the body hit the floor, even Ajax looked surprised. "Well, well. An agent of Light who likes to kill innocents. How...invigorating."

"n.o.body who works for the Tulpa is an innocent." And I shot Thomas twice. He cried out, and my conduit clattered uselessly to the floor. There. I liked those odds better.

"Done now?" Ajax asked, crossing his arms, looking bored. "I mean, there's really no one left for you to kill."

"Except you." I leveled the gun at his chest. It wouldn't kill him, but it'd sure leave a mark.

Ajax simply held up a finger, as if just remembering something. "Wait, we're both wrong!" He pointed across the room. "Look behind you."

I pivoted slowly, keeping one eye on Ajax while I faced whatever new threat lay behind me. But I gasped when I saw Warren there. His body was bound to a chair with casters, head hanging forward, hair loose, black blood pasting a third of it to his skull. But then even Warren was forgotten in a split moment. My eyes were all for the man holding him.

"You." And I released the breath I'd been holding for a decade.

He was the same as before. I hadn't imagined him. Of course, now the moonscape wasn't stamping hollows beneath his cheeks, and the gentle breeze off the desert floor wasn't rustling his hair into spikes, but the cruel, thin lips were the same. They were the ones I'd searched for in the face of every stranger for the last decade-walking miles and miles past syringes and feces, and alleys that never saw light, seeking them-and now here he was. Standing there. Watching me. Wearing f.u.c.king Armani.

"An old friend of yours, I believe," Ajax said, a smile in his voice.

"h.e.l.lo, Joanna," he said, in the voice of my nightmares.

"h.e.l.lo, a.s.shole," I replied.

"Now, now. I don't think you're in a position to be calling anyone names." He leaned forward, lifted Warren's head from where it lolled against his chest and looked into his face. "Do you, Warren?"

Warren's neck swayed side to side beneath his grip, a motion that made my stomach roll over on itself. Carelessly, he let it drop again.

"Wow, Joaquin," Ajax said. "Look at her chest."