Vicki Pettersson - The Taste Of Night

“Your full name?” I asked, resting my thumb along the bata’s shaft.

He squinted up at me through pain-hazed eyes. “Why?”

“For the records,” I said in a voice that was merciless despite my words.

He hesitated, knowing I wasn’t talking about the Shadow manuals. A kill spot was normally recorded in written form for both Shadow and Light, but by killing him with his own weapon, I’d erase his death and his life from the Shadows manuals forever. I gave him time, and at length he came to the same conclusion I would’ve. It was better to be remembered by your enemies than to leave no legacy at all. “Liam Burke, the Piscean Shadow.”

I nodded to show I’d heard. Then, before any gratitude could enter his eyes, I lifted the bata over my head, and with one hand brought the knob crashing down between his eyes.

The air exploded with the stench of the Shadow, the decay of his rotted core spilling from the deadly wound, before recoiling invisibly and imploding upon itself. I stood perfectly still as the air wavered around me, letting curls of evanescent energy roll over my body in little shock waves, chills popping up over my limbs and core before enveloping my face, cool and light and tickling, like a thousand bees swarming gently to their hive. My mind began to hum with it, and I swayed, dizzy, suddenly aware of myself as if from the outside; a bright torch of a woman with her eyes closed as she rocked on an unseen wind, one hand clasped tight around a stick dripping with blood as the light slowly drained from her cautionary glyph.

This was the aureole. The dictionary defines it as a circle of light that surrounds the representation of a holy person, like the halos emanating from an angel or the Madonna or a saint. There also happens to be a great restaurant in Vegas by that name. But none of those definitions applied here. Here it meant being infused with the ability to walk through the world for twelve hours, imperceptible by Shadows or Light, unscented and untouchable. Now I could stand inches away from the Tulpa, and he wouldn’t know I was there. And even if he did, there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

When it was over-or at least when the droning had lessened to a point where I could once again hear my own thoughts-I inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. There was nothing of Liam in the air. I glanced down at the weapon in my hand. His conduit possessed no scent marking it as belonging to him either. It was just a stick now. I’d erased his olfactory impression wholly.

I threw the stick aside, almost at the woman’s feet, and glanced down. The arm Liam had cut with the tip of my conduit had mended, a mere scar now, and my injured knee was solid beneath my weight. My spine was straight and healed. I could be pierced by a thousand weapons now, even my own, and deflect them all like unwanted kisses.

I glanced over to find the remaining Shadow eyeing me nervously. Released from the fetters of fear and certain death, I saw what I hadn’t before. She’d orchestrated this whole thing. No wonder my glyph hadn’t kicked into gear. I’d been in no danger from her. And, I saw, she was young. Her long ponytail swished to one side as she asked, “You going to kill me?”

Without thinking, I shook my head.

A smile began its upward climb on her face. “I knew it,” she said, thumping her fist against her thigh. “I knew you could be turned. The others said you never would, but I knew.”

“I’m not turned,” I said, holding out my hand. She returned my conduit, and I tucked it back behind me. “I killed him, didn’t I?”

“You gave him Last Rites,” she pointed out. “You allowed him remembrance in your mythos.”

I shrugged. “It’s what I’d have wanted.”

“And if he’d refused to tell you his name?” she asked, tilting her head the other way.

“He was a Shadow agent,” I said, meaning I’d have killed him anyway.

“I’m a Shadow agent,” she said. I raised a brow, and she dropped her eyes. “Well, I will be soon. And you didn’t kill me.”

I really should kill her, I thought, nodding slowly. I would kill her. But there were things I needed to know first. “How’d you find me?”

She shrugged nonchalantly, but there was pride in the movement. “I saw you leave the bachelorette auction. I saw you enter the portal after that.”

That wasn’t what I meant, and she knew it. I’d faked my death, disengaged from family and friends, and I had been careful to steer clear of my old habits and haunts. So even if Regan had been studying the life I’d left behind, she shouldn’t have been able to find me. “You see a lot,” I murmured, but didn’t press. I’d find out what I needed to know…one way or another.

“Including your fingers. Like mine.” She offered me a small smile, and wiggled her fingers. The marblelike smoothness of the tips reflected unnaturally in the aquarium’s soft light. She saw this too, and her smile widened as she tapped on the wall of glass housing sea turtles. Mortal fingers would thrum dully on the great water-filled tank, but hers clinked like glass on glass. She glanced back at me from the corner of her eye with a look that could almost be described as shy. “In fact, if you take a closer look, Olivia , I bet you’d find we have a lot in common.”

I felt my own hands fist in my lap at the way she sang my not-name-it’d been sly, not shy-and the place where there should have been prints on my fingers pressed hard into my palms. “Did the Tulpa send you?”

“You mean your father?”

“Don’t,” I said, jerking reflexively. “Don’t call him that.”

“Well he is, isn’t he?” She walked toward me, eyes hungry on my face, fingers trailing over the glass like nails over a chalkboard. I imagined the turtles cringing in their shells. “You have his eyes, you know.”

I gritted my teeth, and a flash of light sparked through the room, along with my anger. It was like a light switch had been flicked on, only for the bulb to burn out. I saw my reflection flash in the tank opposite me, and wished I hadn’t. My face was drawn, skeletal, with a humorless grin, and those eyes she had mentioned were opaque black marbles sunk deep in their sockets. The scent of singed hair rose up around us, and I knew if I opened my mouth, smoke would pour out.

“Oh look…his cheekbones too.” She took a step back, but it wasn’t fearfully. It was to regard me. She was young, yes, but dauntless. “Anyway, no, he didn’t send me. He’d kill me if he knew I was here.”

When I thought I had control enough, when my reflection off the glass was mine once again, and red didn’t tinge everything around me, I asked, “Why?”

“Because I came to warn you.” And even though we were alone, her voice dropped to a whisper. “My name is Regan DuPree. My mother was the Cancerian Shadow until she was killed by your Cancerian Light nine years ago. We’ve had an interim agent acting as the Shadows’ Cancer since then, but I’m to take up the sign on my birthday.”

“So you’re twenty-four.” Would be twenty-five, and undergo metamorphosis into a full-fledged Zodiac member by the end of the summer. I filed that information away as she nodded, and crossed my arms. A young initiate, helping out one of the agents whose troop was responsible for her mother’s death nine years earlier. That didn’t compute…though I suppose it depended on what kind of relationship she’d had with her mother. But she was also defying the Tulpa, who was still very much alive. There had to be a good reason for that.

“So what did you have against Liam? He was a Shadow”-I jerked my head at him, then her-“you’re a Shadow initiate. You’re all still on the same side, aren’t you?”

“As far as I know there are still only two sides. Black or white. Bright or dark. Light or Shadow.” Her voice had gone cold, and I could tell she didn’t like being talked down to. Maybe that had caused some friction between her and Mommy Dearest. “Do I look like Light to you?”