Vicki Pettersson - The Taste Of Night

I deserved to die for that alone.

“Speak for yourself,” the woman told him, rubbing at her forehead as she came around to stand in front of me. And there was the second surprise. It was the same woman who’d been bidding on me at the bachelorette auction. I closed my eyes and let my head drop back. Okay, I deserved to die twice.

I opened my eyes when I heard the scrape of my conduit being lifted from the floor. The woman was inspecting it carefully, and the sight of it in someone else’s hands was unsettling, like she was carrying around a piece of me.

The woman was dwarfed next to Liam, even though she was taller than average, and fit despite being small boned. Though not as blindingly blond, she was serviceably pretty, with eyes that were less greedy than assessing. Of the two, she alarmed me more. I glanced at her hands. It could’ve been the easy way she was palming my weapon. Damn.

She knelt, grabbed my arm-stronger than she looked, even for a nonmortal-and torqued it until I was angled awkwardly against a glass cylinder. Her other hand was busy pressing an arrow against my temple, and I got the picture, and held very still. She took a surprising, steadying breath…then leaned forward and kissed me on the lips.

Soft, I thought, as shock buzzed through me. That’s why guys liked us. I understood this as her tongue gently flitted in my mouth, touching mine, bringing with it the taste of the exotic; ground ginger and warm apples and something undeniably female. Had I been born a different type of woman I might have enjoyed that softness, but to me it was an earthworm sort of soft. The softness of slugs. The tenderness of raw meat. She withdrew her tongue before I could bite it off. I cleared my mouth and spit as she fell back.

“What are you doing?” Liam asked, sounding more horrified about two chicks locking lips than most men would be. We both ignored him.

She pulled back, gazing intently into my eyes. “Just an experiment,” she murmured.

“Sorry.” I rubbed my mouth against the back of my hand, fighting back rage at being manhandled. “But I’m not into girl-on-girl.”

She stared at me another moment, assessing; running her tongue over her lips, tasting. Then the speculation cleared from her eyes and she smiled playfully. “What? No final wishes? No regrets?”

“Not in that regard.” Though that wasn’t exactly true if we were speaking about my love life in broad terms. I allowed one word to float through my brain- Ben -then banished it before the accompanying scent leaked out. I’d hate to lead her on.

“Well, I’ve had enough with experiments,” Liam said, glancing suspiciously around the aquarium. “Let’s just do this and get out of here.”

The woman smiled apologetically at me. “No sense of foreplay.”

“Bet he always has to be on top too.”

Liam rammed his forearm across my neck, cutting off my words and my breath as he leaned in close. His scent was one of moldering skin, dusty bone, and the bitter tang of bile. I’d gag if he kissed me. “You want to find out?”

“Oh God, Liam. That’s so caveman,” the smaller Shadow said, pushing him away. “Have it your way.”

She stepped back, readying my conduit as Liam lifted me to my feet. Oh God. They were really going to do it. I was going to die, and I realized a part of me hadn’t thought I would. The Tulpa hadn’t been able to kill me…and that had made me careless.

“I wish you’d let me do it,” Liam said, holding me in place.

“You lost the toss,” she replied, motioning him aside. He grunted and backed away.

“You guys tossed for me?” I grimaced. Now not only was I humiliated, I was insulted.

The female Shadow smiled and raised my conduit so the arrow was centered between my eyes. I could see the other arrows lined in the small chamber, and the shiny onyx metal glinted at me in the short distance. “I got heads.”

I closed my eyes, tensed for the impact, and wondered so many things in quick succession, I felt dizzy. What was it going to feel like to die? Would it hurt? Would there be a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel?

Would Olivia be there with outstretched arms, forgiving me for not being able to save her?

Senses primed, I flinched when the spring action on the bow caught, though it almost sounded like it was done in slow motion. The arrow was nocked, and the string sang as the bow reached full draw. I held my breath, not wanting my last emotion on earth to be fear.

Behind me, Liam screamed. His hold on me gave suddenly, and I opened my eyes.

“Fuck!” he hollered through gritted teeth. He was clasping his right shoulder, fingers wrapped around the shaft of an arrow. “You have bad aim, you stupid bitch!”

The woman tilted her head. “Now why would you say something like that to a woman with a weapon?” She shifted and shot out his other shoulder, then looked directly at me and jerked her head, the universal signal for Get the fuck out of the way. I did.

She shot out his knees in quick succession, barely pausing to aim. Then the chamber was empty. “This thing have any more ammo?” she asked me. I shook my head. She glanced from me to my abandoned bag, smelling the lie but ignoring it anyway. “Oh well,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to use something else.”

Whistling the theme song to Peter Gunn she strolled over to Liam, now writhing on the ground like a landed bass. My heartbeat slowed marginally, but quickened again as she turned back to me. Liam’s conduit was in her hand, but she didn’t point it at me. Instead she handed it to me.

I glanced down, took it by the knobbed handle, and felt the heft of hinged titanium. It was a weapon meant for an agent larger than me, but the length of a forearm when folded, small enough to carry concealed in a large cargo pocket, which was where Liam had stashed it in his appropriated uniform. I grasped the knob, whipped it out in front of me, and it elongated with a biting snap. It was a bata, or shillelagh-an Irish fighting stick-and I glanced back at Liam with some surprise. I hadn’t pegged him as a Mick.

“Why?” Liam and I asked at the same time. She answered me.

“Because I can’t kill one of my own. Even if I use his own weapon against him, the kill spot will still identify me as the slayer.”

I hadn’t known that. I’d only used a conduit against its owner once, but he had been an enemy. Unlike the woman next to me, I’d never even thought about killing one of my own. Well…except Warren. But it’d been a fleeting thought, and only that once.

Okay, twice.

“Because it’s unnatural,” Liam spat, his shock still evident in the scent of rancid lemon rising from his pores. But he was angry too, and who could blame him? He’d probably thought he was needed to protect her in this operation. By some arbitrary whim, however, he was the one who needed protection. He wasn’t going to get it from me, and his partner-former-looked away.

I hefted his conduit, holding it about a third of the way from the butt, and his eyes widened when he saw I knew what I was doing. “You can’t do this, Regan! We were seen leaving together! The Tulpa will find out!”

“Nobody saw, Liam. I made sure of it.” Her voice was flat, but a wisp of regret flickered over her face, slithering across her features like a ripple over a pond, disappearing as soon as she realized I was watching. “Just do it,” she said, and turned away.

I stepped forward before that shadowy regret could turn into full-blown repentance.

I didn’t make him suffer. It wasn’t my style, though I’d kind of overlooked that when I’d tortured and killed the Shadow who’d taken Olivia’s life. This wasn’t personal, though-if murder can be termed an impersonal thing-just as I knew his wish to kill me was nothing personal. He was doing his job, Shadow versus Light, and I would do my job now. Still, I liked to think there was some difference between us.