Vicki Pettersson - Cheat the Grave

Her vocal cords stretched in her throat as she leaned toward me. “I’m entitled to that and more! I was birthed to reign over the underworld. I’m a tulpa!”

“You’re a leech.”

A scurrying behind her drowned out her gasp-a sound that could have been anger, injury, or insult-before another figure, followed by more still, slipped up behind her. Warren stepped into the circles of light.

“Oh, good. I’m glad you’re here.” I turned my weapon on him and recocked the hammer. “If you haven’t already heard, I’m in the mood to pick some bones.”

“Where did you get that?” Warren, thinking me harmless, jerked his head at the aging conduit in my hand.

“Some new friends gave it to me. You like?” My voice was cold, hard, and unwavering. “Admittedly not as shiny as the ones Hunter used to make, but since he’s locked up tight in another world, you won’t be getting any more of those either. Too bad, huh?”

Warren’s eyes narrowed and he licked his lips. He knew I was getting at something, but not yet sure what. Gratifyingly enough, the Taurean glyph on his chest began to glow faintly. “You’ve been keeping things from us again, Jo,” he had the nerve to counter. I almost laughed, except there was nothing funny about this man’s need for control. “You failed to mention the appearance in the valley of Sleepy Mac.”

“Oh, you know how Midheaven is, Warren.” I shrugged the concern away. “You can’t speak of things or people in that world to someone who has never been. In fact, there’s no explaining the absolute and debilitating horror an agent-and a man, especially-has to endure once there.” I clenched my jaw. “I mean how could you possibly understand the pain of being reduced to an object for someone else’s use? How could I begin to even tell you what it costs in terms of mental and physical anguish to enter that world? Or,” I said, widening my stance, “the myriad of ways it might be achieved?”

I was depending on the troop at his back to regulate his composure, but if I thought my words would have him on his heels, I miscalculated. He was suddenly in front of me, a breath away though I hadn’t even blinked. I suddenly realized, as I unexpectedly stared into a face of controlled fury, that here was the being without a conscience. “Let me see your fingertips,” he whispered, lips barely moving.

When I stayed still, he grabbed my palm so roughly the bones rubbed together.

“How sweet,” I said, matching his tone. “You want to hold hands.”

We held the stare as he rubbed the smooth pads of his fingertips over my newly printed ones. “The fuck you playing at?” he hissed harshly, pushing my hand away. It forced me three full steps back. “You’re mortal.”

“And no use to you, right?”

A woman ain’t put in any world for her usefulness. You got a purpose beyond the things you can do for others.

“Well, I count,” I told him, and raised my voice so Skamar and the agents behind her could hear me clearly as well. “And Hunter does too. We may not be agents of Light, but we have our own reasons for existing.”

Warren sneered. “Tell me your reasons, Joanna. I’d love to hear them.”

I smiled thinly. “Why? So you can strip them from me too?”

If someone’s tryin’ to keep you from your reasons…you’d do damned well to question theirs.

“It’s enough that you know I can still touch magical weapons.” And while Warren pondered that, my expression brightened as though I’d just remembered something, and I gave a signal behind my back. “And speaking of weapons, there’s one other thing you might find of interest…animals love me.”

Buttersnap’s low growl throttled through the tunnel and Warren jolted. His eyes darted from mine to the warden I’d retrieved from the warehouse, suddenly at my side and baring canines sharper than switchblades, salivating as she waited for my signal. Now his glyph fired like a lit wick.

“Don’t,” Warren warned, barely daring to breathe.

I lifted my saber so the tip was touching his chest, and his heart thrummed through the long blade. Power pulsed through me in a heady rush. Sure, I’d probably die in this tunnel. Buttersnap could take Warren, but there were half a dozen other agents fanned out behind him, and a tulpa who’d already proven she didn’t overly care what happened to me. But Tripp had told me to honor my own reasons, and if revealing the truth about Warren’s actions wasn’t a reason, I didn’t know what was.

“I’m not afraid to die again, Warren,” I told him, weary as someone who’d just climbed from a car wreck.

“There’s nothing more to strip from me in this world. An unstoppable demon wants me dead, and not even one of those who call themselves Light-not even the tulpa created by my own mother-will lift a finger to help me. So my finger is on this trigger, poised there because you brought me into this underworld only to throw me away. In a way, as much as my mother and the Tulpa did, you created me.”

“Not for this.”

I tilted my head so a blond lock fell over my eyes. I blew it away. “No, because this is out of your control. You wanted someone you could manipulate, which makes you no different than the Tulpa.”

“Bullshit,” he said roughly.

“Really? How else would you explain why you erased the memory of a man-an agent of Light-from the minds of an entire troop, just so you could reinvent him into a superhero more to your liking?”

“I discussed it with them ahead of time. They agreed it was for the best.”

“Though no one would remember that. ”

His weather-beaten face hardened, the lines deepening. “You’re making shit up, Joanna. I suggest you be careful.”

“Or what? You’ll alter my memory too?” I laughed, and its harshness surprised even me. “What you-and the Tulpa, for that matter-don’t seem to realize is that while thought can be manipulated and controlled, emotions cannot. They’re willful. Unpredictable. They’re what you really wish you could dampen and tame. Emotion threatens your authority. It inspires change.”

“Nothing’s changing,” Warren replied, but his teeth were again clenched.

“You set Hunter up.”

Warren’s eyes slitted, his nostrils flared, and his mouth went flat. “Don’t.”

“You let the troop believe Jaden Jacks was another man entirely, a Shadow even, and that he’d disappeared years ago. You arranged the Hunter identity, kept his past from everyone who trusted you to tell the truth, and ordered him silent as well. And when you found he was still searching for Solange, you decided to rid yourself of him for good by locking him in Midheaven.”

“Jacks cost a mortal child his life!” he said, protesting way, way too much.

“Solange tricked Hunter.” I raised my voice, using the name the rest of the troop associated with the man they’d once counted as their friend, ally, and brother. “She stole the child’s aura from him, knowing he would never destroy an innocent. She used it to escape into a world the Tulpa could never follow, but let Hunter live.”

“Why?”

The voice popped up behind Warren, surprising us both. He half turned to shoot a warning look at Vanessa, who was frowning like a kid trying to puzzle out a word problem. Her dark eyes darted from him to me. “Why wouldn’t she just take Hunter…I mean, Jaden’s life?”

“Because she really did love him, inasmuch as a Shadow can love anyone beyond themselves.”

And recalling Tripp and the lengths he’d gone to attain vengeance for his own family, I knew it was possible. Which made me fear for Hunter all the more. And to get to him, I was going to have to get others to believe it too. So I delivered the final truth. “And because she was pregnant with his child.”