Vicki Pettersson - Cheat the Grave

Io, who had touched me on the inside, took my hand with her own. “You’ve got your own vigilante guardian angel. Always have.”

I gritted my teeth. All I’d wanted was a mother .

“Let’s go for a little walk,” Carlos said, and I realized the rest of the room had fallen silent. I wondered belatedly what my bitterness smelled like, and tried to dam up the emotion before these strangers learned anything more of the woman who was supposed to somehow lead them into a new existence. Yet holding it back was like trying to stop floodwaters with a single sandbag. Besides, my dreams had been invaded, my insides fondled, and my body told the secrets I’d long denied to myself. I had a daughter in the world. She would need to know about her fate. I had a mother too.

And though absent from my life, she somehow unfailingly continued to manipulate mine.

I emerged from the rogue’s lair hesitantly, squinting like a newborn into a blinding winter day. For some reason I’d expected nighttime, but the sun rode high above the desert, sprawling around us like a forbidden planet. I felt like a cactus thrusting up through the crusty terrain, surviving despite the harsh climate, eking out an existence with only the barest of necessities. Not too far from the truth, actually.

Looking at Carlos-busy not looking at me-I wondered if he felt the same, emerging from an environment no one knew existed. Looking past him, I saw something else residing on the desert floor. Like the cactus, like me, it too was built for survival. And like most things on Frenchman’s Flat, it was also built for destruction.

“Go ahead,” Carlos encouraged, as I took an involuntary step toward the cache of weapons…those I’d just learned my mother had left me. “I always feel better about things after I hit something.”

I did too, I thought, gazing down at the trident, gun, cane and saber. They’d been returned to the original black chest, retrieved at some unknown point from Caine’s destroyed home. Its lid was propped wide and, in additional invitation, a bull’s-eye was set up across from it in the distance.

I reached for the saber, stroking its small antique firearm. Though still upset about the drugging, I wasn’t unaware of the faith Carlos was putting in me by bringing me here, revealing not only his location but the bulk of his plans. There was nothing keeping me from going back to Warren with the information, trying to insinuate myself back into the troop…or even to the Tulpa in efforts to exact revenge on my former allies.

Though Carlos wasn’t entirely without protection. The agents wouldn’t be able to destroy the bunker beneath Frenchman Flat because they couldn’t leave the city, unlike the rogues-and now me-who could travel freely. And right now, I thought, leaving didn’t sound half bad.

Lifting the saber, I tested its heft. Two months ago I’d have been able to propel the thing across the desert floor like a javelin, striking dead center ten out of ten times when standing still. Squinting, I sighted down the silver barrel. I’d be lucky now if my mortal eyesight would allow me to hit the thing at all.

I squeezed the trigger. There was a swift chuff, as if I’d shot air instead of a bullet, then silence. A miss. Gazing in the opposite direction, I sighed.

“You could do it,” Carlos said, reading my mind. “You could just start walking, head northeast toward Salt Lake. Use Olivia Archer’s money to alter your appearance, draw up new personal documents, build credit under a new name. Even enterprising mortals have managed all that.”

It wouldn’t be so different than how I was living now, I thought, reloading. All my possessions and habits dependent on the woman I was impersonating. Going through each day ever conscious of appearances. I sighted again.

“But-”

“There’s always a but,” I muttered, firing. Damned sun. Its glare was relentless, even in winter. I immediately reloaded.

“You can’t unlearn what you know. Your experiences this past year have shaped you into a different person entirely. Even with a full memory cleanse, there will be dreams. I know…because there was a time when I tried to forget as well.”

“What I need to forget,” I said, squeezing air-whoosh! “Is that last shot.”

Yet Carlos’s words made me think of my old boyfriend, a mortal and my first love, who’d recently undergone a memory cleanse. I wondered if Ben had dreams featuring him in the arms of the woman he’d known as a boy?

Or of watching the daughter he never knew he had playing in her yard, his own dark curls lying damp on her forehead?

Had I done him any favors in allowing his memory to be erased? The idea had been to free him from the knowledge of the Zodiac world, and keep him from being targeted by the Shadows. Maybe the cleanse worked better on those who’d always been mortal. I propped the saber back in the chest with a sigh, picking up the gun instead. I sincerely hoped so.

“You know I’m right. You’ve tried to forget the past before.”

I looked up at Carlos, a breeze shifting long strands of hair across my face. He meant the attack that had claimed my innocence, and nearly my life, when I was a teen. Brushing my hair back, I again turned away. “I never forgot.”

“No, you fought.” He joined my side, arm brushing mine. “But you cannot fight who you are. You must accept it, let the knowledge wash over you, and allow it to change you. The truth forces you to become who you are meant to be.”

“I’m not Shadow, Light, a rogue agent, or a leader. I don’t have any power and-as you might have noticed-I don’t really play well with others.” Relaxing my shoulders, I sighted the target. “I’m human, and nothing else.”

He snorted next to me. “So you’re exactly like all those who are unaware of beings who fight to control this valley and every person in it? Is that what you really want? A return to ignorance despite the truth tunneling beneath your feet?”

Sometimes . It would be infinitely easier to believe people acted of their own volition for both their good and evil deeds. Like the guy who’d tried taking my wallet while I sat alone and defeated on the cold winter ground by a loading dock. Could he take responsibility for the impulse…or had a Shadow once whispered in his ear? Had a not-so-coincidental series of misfortunes sent him spiraling into self-indulgent madness, making him prone to exert his control over someone who appeared weaker? Or was he just a prick?

I fired. A bubbling green vial shot forward, the barrel burned. The target stayed intact. My shoulders slumped.

“Face it, Joanna,” Carlos said, moving behind me. “You’ll never be blissfully ignorant again, wish it as you may.”

Wishes don’t mean shit.

You must take action.

“I want to be normal.”

“That’s different for everyone, isn’t it?” He put his arms around me, guiding the gun back to the target. Sighting for me, he guided the weapon higher than I would have. The liquid vial gleamed in the sunlight. “You, mi weda , will be normal when you accept your destiny as Kairos.”

Warren once believed that meant working on behalf of the Light. The Tulpa had been hedging his bets toward the Shadows…though if what Io had told me was true, he hated agents on both sides of the Zodiac. And now Carlos thought I could represent neither…and both. The Shadow will bind with the Light.

And do what? Create gray?

We fired together. The target’s center exploded…and disintegrated in an acid burn. I lowered my arm. Satisfying…though not as much as if I’d done it on my own.

“Well, I still don’t understand why it has to be me. You’re El Jefe,” I said, giving Io’s words a bite she hadn’t.