Vicki Pettersson - Cheat the Grave

There was absolutely nobody else in the room. No washed out men curled about the dozen or so poker tables, bartering for chips containing their personal powers-speed, strength, and soul.

You can still cash in the ones you wo… .

Tripp’s words mocked me because I still didn’t know how.

“Back so soon?”

Solange appeared like a Vegas stage magician, absent one moment and there the next, though I didn’t applaud. Her face was what romance novels would term dewy, her hair pulled back into a slick brown plait, revealing the only adornment I’d ever seen her wear-simple gold chandelier earrings, ones she obviously cherished. She wore a long black coat with gold fur at neck and wrists, shining buttons lining the front to land at mid-calf, where black stiletto boots disappeared beneath the soft hem.

“You learn quickly. Already able to move about in the aetheric of your own accord.” She clapped her gloved hands once. “Bravo.”

“Forgive me if I don’t take a bow,” I said evenly. “That would entail taking my eyes off of you.”

Her jaw clenched, prettily of course, and she tapped her chin with a finger. “I distinctly recall telling you, in no uncertain terms, to leave the Rest House and never return. Did I not?”

“Well, you have something that belongs to me.”

She lifted one slim brow then leaned back on the glossy bar, pushed with her palms, and was sitting crosslegged in an instant. “Just as well. We have some accounts that need settling. Join me for a drink?”

She blinked prettily. I crossed my arms and stayed where I was. The last time I drank something this woman provided, I awoke to her holding a sliver of my soul between a jeweler’s tweezers. “I owe you nothing. You’re the one who threw a shit fit and crushed your pretty glass room. Believe me, I had no desire to be there.”

“Of course you did,” she snapped, and her boots hit the floor. Fuck, she was fast…and her fuse as short as ever. I made a point of staying within reach of the pagoda lantern. “Our truest desires are always revealed in Midheaven.”

Exactly what Shen said. Where the hell had the little bastard gotten to anyway? “Yeah? So how many times has Hunter asked to leave?”

She pursed her lips prettily. “You mean my husband? Jaden?” Her face rearranged into a sweet smile. “Joanna, he came here to find me.”

No, he’d come to find Lola, the daughter she’d saved from the Tulpa and stolen from Hunter by destroying another child’s soul. But no reason to allow I knew that much. Solange’s knowledge of me was already too great, and her next words proved it.

“How’re things in Vegas?”

“I think you know,” I said, jerking my head toward the piano, but not taking my eyes from her.

“Jaden and I have been talking about going back. He’s asked me to marry him again, you know.”

“Before, after, or during the waterboarding?”

She put a black-gloved hand to her chest. “You think he’s here against his will? Dear Joanna. Or should I say Olivia? Look at you and then look at me.”

“Looks are deceiving.”

“Sure,” she agreed, eyeing me narrowly. “But I’m talking about power. It’s what attracted him to me in the first place.”

“Hunter’s not driven by the need for power.”

“But Jaden always has been.”

I shook my head. “No, he wants autonomy.”

She smiled beautifully. “He wants to be ridden into the next world.”

My jaw clenched. “I’m not going to argue with you over who knows him better.”

“Good, as you’ve no grounds to.” She lifted her chin. “He’s with me, isn’t he? Crossing over of his own accord?

And don’t forget, I tasted him first.”

Maybe it was the way she said it, her tone as she bit off that final word, or the quick jerk of her chin as she tossed her hair, but by the time I caught my reflection grinning fully from behind Solange’s back, I knew. “But I’m the one who tasted him last, and that’s what’s got your silk thong in a bunch, isn’t it? He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t even want you. Probably the only man in Midheaven who ever turned you down.”

“The only man anywhere,” she corrected, the bite alive in both her gaze and her voice. “And he didn’t turn me down. Not before you. You have a hold on him, a connection the past can’t sever. And it has nothing to do with who he prefers.”

A soul connection. The aureole tying Hunter to the last third of my soul, then-even between worlds. “And that’s why you wanted me dead.”

“And because freeing the rest of your soul will finally finish my sky.”

I thought about leaving then, just calling out to Io and getting the fuck out of the O.K. Corral because Solange wasn’t just batshit crazy-she had the power to back up batshit crazy. “And what does Hunter think of that?”

She didn’t bother to correct his name this time. “He’s going to love the idea. Soon.”

“I’d like to hear it from him.”

The almost beautiful smile visited her face again. “He’s tied up at the moment.”

And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

“Jaden told me they believe you are the Kairos in your world,” she said, like she’d never belonged there. Of course, she’d been here a long time, and despite her earlier taunt, had no desire to return to Las Vegas. Why would she? There, she was a rogue, on the run from both Shadow and Light. Here? A goddess. The Goddess. She crossed her feet at the ankles as she leaned back on the bar again. “It’s why you once told me that you and Tripp were natural enemies, though you weren’t exactly an agent of Light.”

“I’m not the Kairos.”

“Oh, I know.” She smirked but stopped short of saying she had birthed the fabled child, now hidden somewhere in the folds of this alternate reality. “Though there’s something about you. Some power you possess which others don’t. You should have died the last time you were really here.”

“You mean when you threw me down the stairs.”

Solange nodded absently. “You were somehow protected then…and when I tried to sliver away your soul to augment my beautiful night sky. That stone’s deformed. It won’t ever fit.”

“Guess you should give up.”

“Why? I get at least one more try.”

“You’re not getting the last third of my fucking soul,” I said, widening my stance.

“Because you’re still protected.” She sighed, and the sound grated like sandpaper against my spine. “I can feel it.”

Well thank goddess for small miracles, though I remained close to the lantern. She smiled like she found my wariness endearing. “By the way, learn anything more about the constellations since we last met?”

“I’ve been kinda busy,” I replied flatly.

“Then let me tell you about my favorite, Canis Major. It contains a star called Sirius, the brightest in the sky. It’s part of a pattern we call the Winter Triangle.”

“Does this boring diatribe have a point?”

“In gemology,” she continued, shooting me a sly wink, “and you know I’m a fan…in gemology an asterism is an optical phenomenon reflecting the shape of a star on a precious stone’s surface. So you see, I’ve decided a star as remarkable as Sirius needs just such a gem to do it justice in my rendition of the night sky. Something with the right amount of power and heat to fuel that Big Dog. The soul bits you gave upon crossing here twice came close to what I was looking for, but another third and my masterpiece will be completed. And I will finish it, Joanna. Once I do, my sky will hum with enough power to fuel multiple worlds…and I’ll rule them all.”

“I told you-”

“I know what you said! But Mackie will either bring me your soul pierced on the tip of his blade, or I’ll flashcook ‘Hunter’ until the connection between you burns.”