Vicki Pettersson - Cheat the Grave

“Those men look up to you, they’re your army. So why don’t you unlock Midheaven? Fight your own war.”

I’d had my share. Turning, I held the gun out to him. He ignored it.

“We need more than just the lock removed. We need a woman to enter and free our men.”

Because Midheaven was ruled by women who could move about freely, while the men were slaves. I thought of the abject bitterness living in Shen’s gaze. Even in dreams, even unwittingly, I’d told him what to do with my will alone. Wishing might not mean shit in this world, but in an entire realm created from thought? It was everything.

But Carlos knew nothing about Solange, or Hunter, or the way I’d been treated the two times I’d managed to enter. If possible, Midheaven was more dangerous to me than this world. “Let my mother do it.”

Since you’re so buddy-buddy and all .

“Mortals can’t get near Midheaven.”

“I’m mortal.” And I was exhausted. I dropped the gun back into the chest.

“But you won’t be.”

I turned at the smile in his voice. “Really? Got a phone booth I can change in? Maybe an invisible plane and bulletproof bracelets while you’re at it?”

“No. Only the opportunity to help you achieve what you’ve already done twice before…” He paused for an imaginary drum roll, smile widening. “Gain the aureole.”

And even jaded, tired, and mortal, I could see how well that could work. The aureole allowed a person to wander the earth like a ghost-no one could sense, touch, or even see them unless they willed it. Yet to acquire such power, you had to kill an agent with his own conduit, turning their own magic against them. As Carlos had said, I’d done it twice, something no one else had managed. I swallowed hard. The whole plan was starting to make sense. “Look, if I don’t convince the Tulpa that I’m Olivia Archer, he’ll take me out. And if Warren suspects for one instant I’m work ing with you, he’ll do the same.” As much as I’d like to believe otherwise, I knew that much to be true. “There’s no way I can just hide out here, or take time off to go traipsing off to another world to gather an army meant to usurp them both.”

Surprisingly, Carlos didn’t disagree. “So continue being Olivia. Attend your meetings at Valhalla. Live in the mansion as the Tulpa expects. We will watch for Mackie…as well as a chance for you to gain the aureole.”

A chance to kill a Shadow agent. And then re-enter Midheaven and usher every last trapped rogue-men who’d gone there to escape something unsavory in their past-back out into the Vegas valley. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.

But I thought of Tripp, and how he’d been the one to step up against Mackie. I thought of the men I’d spent time with in Midheaven, washed out lithographs of their old selves, sweltering in heat no living thing should have to bear. Even Shen, as much as I disliked him, deserved to be free of a tortuous place that slowly siphoned his soul.

But how unlikely that they’d follow me, that I’d succeed, or even manage to escape once I was there.

How much that would piss off Solange and her ilk, who fed off the souls of the agents trapped over there .

I was smiling faintly at the thought when I had another. Looking at Carlos, I said sharply, “I’m not killing one of the Light. I know you’re all one giant paranormal Woodstock lovefest here, but that’s not how this is going to play out.”

“Sí, mon. ” Carlos shrugged one shoulder, recrossing his legs on the desert floor. “Only Shadow. The Shadow.”

I jolted, self-preservation jump-kicking in my gut. “Which Shadow?”

“The one you’re closest to, of course.” Carlos squared on me, filled my vision, causing the desert and all other worries to disappear. Replacing them with a new one. “The Tulpa.”

I swayed, but shook off Carlos’s steadying hand. “The Tulpa can’t be killed.”

That’s what made him so effective and dangerous and powerful. Even conduits were useless against him. In fact, the energy spent trying to bring him down made him even stronger. He fed off the intent of his attackers. Even Skamar, another tulpa and the most powerful being to ever challenge him, hadn’t found a way to kill him outright.

“That’s because nobody ever tried to turn his own weapon against him.”

“But he doesn’t have…” I stuttered into silence under Carlos’s weighted stare. A magical weapon, a conduit, was as much an extension of an agent as a limb. Once made and bestowed, it was a part of them, and by striking them down with it, you turned their own magic against them. It was a natural law in any world. No person could stand divided, or in conflict against a part of themselves. And true, the Tulpa didn’t have a conduit forged in a smithy, and fitted to his attributes, abilities, or whim.

But he did have a daughter. Someone who was a part of him. Someone who, over the past year, he’d simultaneously courted, feared, and wanted dead.

“You are that weapon,” Carlos said, supplying the thought’s end for me. “Better, now that the whole of the paranormal world knows you’re mortal, he will never suspect you might be his downfall, blood against blood.”

Io’s lesson about the body’s connections was still fresh in my mind, as were the scents it’d brought to life. Coupled with her warning about Ashlyn’s fast approaching second life cycle, I realized there was more at stake in the immediate future than my life. So regardless of what Carlos said, I didn’t have a choice. I needed to do this for her. But damned if I wasn’t going to get something out of it too.

“Maybe,” I finally conceded, nodding slowly. “But if I’m going to kill the Tulpa, then enter Midheaven and free an army-”

“Then lead it,” Carlos added, seeing no reason to hold back now.

“Right,” I said dryly. “If you want me to do all that while still running from Mackie and hiding it all from my former troop, then I want something in return. Something equal to the risk.”

He finally looked wary. I let him think about it, and it didn’t take long. He shook his head. “She won’t like it. She may even stop working with us. Helping us.”

“I may stop working with you,” I said testily, and turned back to the weapons. “Look, Io said she worked on my mother before. She probably gave her the same protective coating for her organs, right? What else did she give her, Carlos? What else do you know?”

“Nothing. Zoe Archer is infamously paranoid and secretive. She trusts no one.”

“But you’ve been in contact with her.” Pulling the ancient trident from the chest, I flicked the blades open. They winked sharply in the full day’s light.

“She’s in contact with us. That’s how it is with her. I go along with her whim.”

Because he hoped she’d lead him to me. “I thought she had your father killed?”

“I don’t blame her. She was newly mortal, had no defenses against attack in the Guardian Angel Cathedral. Besides, she has done many helpful things for us since. While others merely sit around and talk, her actions are proof of her intent.” He pursed his lips and locked his dark, serious gaze on mine. The lone wolf act, coupled with a tragic past and dark good looks, was a heady mixture. His expression alone could gain a hundred beds. If I wasn’t already actively avoiding dangerous men, I might have inched closer. “But I can’t find her, no more than the Tulpa, or Warren. We’ve all looked, you know.”

I hadn’t known that about Warren…but it didn’t surprise me. He did a lot of things without the rest of the troop knowing.

I straightened, still determined. “But they don’t have her lineage and bloodline living inside of them. I do. I just need you and Io to help me develop my hereditary gifts.”