Vicki Pettersson - The Touch of Twilight

She threw a stack of loose-leaf flyers at me, hard enough to pelt me in the chest, though most went flying through the air, colorful as confetti. I shot Jasmine an annoyed glance as she picked away a flyer plastered to my chest. It was one of the street rags advertising sexual entertainment, peddled to tourists along the Strip. There had been a county law restricting the practice at one time, but the ban had been deemed unconstitutional, and the peddlers were as aggressive and ubiquitous as ever. I didn’t recognize the phone number printed below the “direct to your room” statement, but the man whose chest it was superimposed upon was definitely Hunter.

“Ew!” Jasmine dropped the flyer and kicked away another plastered against her Skechers. Li squeaked and covered her eyes with tiny hands.

“I take it from the look on your face that Olivia Archer didn’t know she was going around on the arm of a professional escort?” Regan giggled maniacally. “My God, what will happen when that news breaks? ‘The Heiress and the Call Boy’ would make a great cover story, don’t you think?”

Xavier would have a stroke. I tried to cover, though. “You think you’re telling me something I didn’t already know?”

And did Warren, or the others? Was I the only one in the dark about Hunter’s erotic side work?

“Oh, I know I am. Though you have Benny-boy to thank for that priceless spot of dirt. All I gave him was that plate number. Superior detecting skills for a mortal, that one, and for some reason he’s highly protective of his dead girlfriend’s little sister.” She tilted her head, the spark in her eye hardening to flint. “In fact, he’s now so determined to find something to take to the authorities on Mr. Lorenzo, you’d think he was worried the man might be after her inheritance.”

Which told me she was about to plant that seed in Ben’s mind, further aggravating his suspicions.

The shop was technically a safe zone, but these changelings were still green. I was willing to bet I could drag her outside and pummel her to pulp in the parking lot before they even knew what was happening. It was worth a shot, and I transferred my weight onto the balls of my feet.

Regan thought I was straightening up. “Oh, the Kairos gets angry. Could this be the ‘rise of your dormant side’-the third sign of the Zodiac come to life? Take notes, Douglas. We’re in the presence of greatness here. Are you shaking in your high tops?”

Douglas actually looked down. Regan rolled her eyes. “Breaking in new changelings is a bitch.”

I made a face, though I happened to sympathize.

“Guess that leaves me to sum up the situation without the wisdom of the adolescent set. So how’s this for a pithy little roundup?” She sauntered to the center of the room, and I angled to keep her in view as she dropped her weight on the arm of one of the chairs. Douglas shadowed her. “Your real boyfriend is about to hop in the sack with your mortal enemy, and your fake one is getting horizontal with everyone else.”

“That’s just nasty,” Jasmine told me, leaning against a bookshelf crammed with Shadow manuals.

“But the surprising thing is that a man like Lorenzo would need to pimp himself out at all.” Regan took a slow breath. “After all, I’d do him for free.”

“Even that would be charging too much.”

Regan’s left eye twitched and she rose to her feet before she could stop it. I closed the space between the fireplace and me and saw alarm flash in her eyes. Steady, I thought, staying myself where I was. I didn’t want to spook her too soon.

“Jasmine!” Li pulled her sister into view, straining with the effort. “Help her!”

Jasmine yanked away and Li toppled onto her butt. “Get bent, runt.”

Li looked up at me in bereft helplessness.

“Don’t worry, Archer. That lazy bitch can’t help you in any way that matters.”

“Hey!”

“Oh, now you protest?” I muttered to Jasmine, who was suddenly standing attentively beside me. “And do I look worried to you?”

Regan’s brows rose. “If you’re not you should be. Your cover identity is starting to unravel at the edges. It’s only a matter of time now.”

“Does that mean you’re ready to show your hand? Let the Tulpa know his daughter is posing as…” I mouthed, Olivia Archer , erring on the side of caution, not wishing to risk the information leaking into the manuals. Paranoia, one of the few superstitions we did entertain.

Thoughts, actions, and even conversations with an enemy remained private unless the acting agent willed their actions to be known. Otherwise we’d never be able to make love or have a meal, or even go to the bathroom without worrying it would end up on the glossy cover of a graphic novel. Our private moments and thoughts, the same ones mortals kept secret from others-and sometimes themselves-those things remained hidden. Right now these confrontations between Regan and me were parries and thrusts of a personal nature, but if she ever chose to truly strike, the world would know it.

“Not quite yet.” She edged herself back onto the armchair and shot me a sly look. “Though I could tell him about other family members.”

My teeth clenched, but I relaxed when I realized she would only hint at my daughter’s existence as well. She didn’t want to talk about Ashlyn in front of the changelings, and wouldn’t risk the girl’s name showing up in the Shadow manuals either. An empty threat then, I thought, relaxing marginally.

“Or,” she continued, “I could make this really interesting. Even the playing field a bit. Show you my true identity.”

Why? I wondered, instantly distrustful. “You’d better not. You’ll scare the children.”

She remained undaunted. “But don’t you want to know what exactly Ben is fucking, say, this time next week?”

That was why.

She gestured to Douglas before I could answer, and he completed the transformation from jellied shadow to roaring monster. His outline wavered as if a chill wind had swept over him, and the scrawny preteen frame thinned even further. He was the width of a dime as his mass expanded outward and upward to mirror Regan’s. He looked like the ugliest paper doll I’d ever seen. Then he pivoted in front of her, she took one step forward, and their bodies married. His husk-all the parts she didn’t need-fell away, hitting the ground like stoneware. He didn’t move again, and the new Regan, the real one, grinned.

In relative terms, she was pretty. Joaquin, our enemies’ Aquarian, was the last Shadow I’d glimpsed from behind the viscosity of his changeling’s aura, and he’d been all ebony bone and rot, skin hanging from him in blackened strips of aged decay. Regan, in turn, was merely skinless, like some barbaric beauty treatment had shaved it all away, and her blood had dried around her muscles, making her look like she’d been dipped in a thin layer of burgundy candle wax.

Her glittering, pale blue eyes stood out against this dull sleekness, though I spotted a section near her collarbone where the blood had scabbed over unevenly, like a human’s would. It was trailing fresh blood and pus, and when she saw I’d noticed, she began worrying it with her fingers, icy eyes daring me to react. I spotted the white bone of her elbow peeking at me through the ruins of her flesh, still smooth but with a hairline crack, and knew that fissure would widen. Every time she moved, some other muscular system popped open and began to bleed, and though she was meaty-unlike Joaquin-she was still rancid. The wriggling I saw pulsing inside her chest wasn’t from a beating heart.

I decided to wait and drag her from the shop when she wasn’t so gooey. “Let me guess? You guys start decaying as soon as you metamorphose into full-fledged agents, am I right?”