Vicki Pettersson - The Touch of Twilight

“We had a doppelgänger in Phoenix,” Kimber said, as soon as I’d finished. “It was years ago now, I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, but he took out almost a dozen mortals while trying to get to a particular agent before he was stopped.”

“Children too,” Jewell added grimly. “I know this story.”

“Not children,” Kimber corrected. “Embryos. In particular, their developing pink spinal cords.”

I couldn’t help myself. “What?”

“Concentrated energy,” Tekla provided.

“How’d your troop finally stop him?”

Kimber looked at Hunter. “They didn’t. He was targeting a Shadow agent. The Shadow Zodiac just handed that agent over, and afterward took in the fully realized doppelgänger as their own.”

“Oh my God,” said Vanessa.

“Wow. With friends like that…” Felix began.

“Who needs an opposing Zodiac troop.”

And if I’d ever seriously considered joining the Tulpa’s organization, the image of someone devouring another man’s quivering spinal cord would’ve cured the impulse.

“All right, then,” Warren said, after a moment, but I had a feeling he said it less for my sake than his own mounting impatience. “Let’s move on.” And he eagerly picked up the mask. “Has anyone seen one of these before?”

“I have,” Kimber said immediately, then cleared her throat and came down off her toes when Riddick groaned next to me. I smirked. “In my studies, I mean. All of my electives for the past five years have been in Tibetan myth and culture. Animism, the belief everything has a soul, is a big part of it.”

She looked at me, and I had an unreasonable urge to shoot a spitball into her dreads. Teacher’s pet .

“That’s right. The Tulpa is a diehard animist. Someone who believes wholeheartedly in imagined entities, and that souls inhabit ordinary objects as well as animate beings.”

I snorted. He was an imagined being who’d turned into the leader of the paranormal underworld. Of course he believed it. And that’s what mattered. His belief would spur his thoughts into actions.

“I too have seen masks like this one before, though not in texts.” Warren held the mask in both hands as he stared down into its screaming face. “They direct soul energy from the wearer and convert it into raw energy for the Tulpa. I expect he ordered Xavier to meditate, though I doubt he told him why.”

“Didn’t we destroy an entire cache of these things a decade ago?” Gregor asked, the first to step closer to the mask.

“All but one,” Warren said softly, causing Gregor’s head to jerk in surprise. “But it was plain wood, not decorated.” He looked at me, waiting for me to indicate that Xavier’s mask had been plain as well, and I nodded my reply. Eyes shining, he fought back a smile. “If I’m right, this one is special, and infinitely more powerful.”

Gregor ran a tentative finger over its shell. “I remember making a bonfire of those masks. They screamed as they burned.”

Warren nodded as the memory played itself out in his mind as well. “It was the same night we destroyed the Tulpa’s home. It was why he built Valhalla, with its guards and security and cameras studying every person who enters the place.”

I shook my head, wondering if Xavier had known what he was getting himself into when the Tulpa approached him with his offer. Selling one’s soul for money wasn’t a new concept, and even though Xavier had more cash than one man could ever spend, I remembered how he’d looked with smoke billowing from his masked face, and would have even felt sorry for the guy…if I thought he’d had a soul to begin with.

“So if this isn’t one of those, what is it?”

Now Warren smiled.

“This is a tool. An animist’s mask designed to show the wearer his greatest desires…and the means to achieving them. I believe it’s also how the Tulpa has been able to anticipate our moments, foil most of our plans, and stonewall us at every turn.”

“The one of legend?” Tekla stepped forward to stand beside him, all her previous annoyance gone.

“The same. See the stylized curve of the mouth? The mismatched brows? I studied the texts after Zoe left…” He paused, quickly addressing me. “She was a fervent student of animism-”

“As she had to be,” Tekla added, “living with the Tulpa.”

“This is where he gets his omnipotence, his seeming omnipresence,” Warren took over again, with the fervency of a zealot. “But he isn’t godlike. He isn’t even that powerful. He simply had the right tool.”

And the satisfied smile that swelled on his face said what he did not. And now we have it .

“So what are we supposed to do with it?” Vanessa asked, picking up the mask between a thumb and forefinger. Her straightforwardness made me smile. I liked her because she was quick, witty, and unerringly practical. She was also tough without sacrificing her femininity, which had gone a long way to helping me feel more comfortable in my sister’s curvaceous body. Where I’d once dared people to point out my femininity, Vanessa had never been at war with her body. It was simply hers to do with as she pleased, like her mind or her time; and while others sold, squandered, or cheapened these gifts, she owned and improved upon them, and took joy in every return on her investment. I felt more comfortable with her than any woman since my sister’s death.

“We try it on.”

“Oh, hell no.” She tossed the mask onto the table, obviously unconcerned about the spirit trapped inside. “I’m not letting my soul essence ooze out of me like air from a leaky tire.”

“It doesn’t work that way. I know this legend too,” Kimber spoke up.

Of course you do , I thought, as she stepped forward and leaned on the table to peer into the face of the mask. “You’re already aware of its purpose, and you have a will strong enough to match the spirit buried within the wood. If your wills are opposed, the only thing that will happen is a sort of private interchange, like a song heard by someone wearing headphones. I suspect Warren wants us to try it on in order to learn the secrets it already holds, am I right?”

“Very good.” Warren inclined his head, then picked up the animist’s mask and held it out to her. “And since you’re the resident expert, we’ll start with you.”

Her sure smile wobbled, and I snorted, crossing my arms. Nobody likes a know-it-all.

Unsurprisingly, Kimber didn’t back down. She bit her lip as she reached for the mask, chipped black polish running over the painted features before she raised the mask to shoulder height, a move that looked stiff and overly formal-like she’d studied but never performed it-and brought it to her freckled skin.

If I hadn’t been looking, I’d have never seen the wood grain shifting, though her quickly indrawn breath as the carved ears bent inward would have betrayed the activity.

“What do you see?”

Her fingers splayed to begin her explanation, but nothing came out at first. “I see myself…except it’s not me. It’s a future me. I’ve metamorphosed into a full-fledged agent and I’m holding a blowgun. I’ve slain the Shadow Scorpio with a dart to the artery in his neck.”

I glanced at Hunter, and he at me. I’d seen the template for the conduit she mentioned, but I could tell by his face that she hadn’t. He hadn’t even finished making it yet. After another few seconds where she was left too breathless to talk, she lifted her hands and removed the mask. Her steel blue eyes seemed to catch all the light in the room, and her face was glowing with excitement. “It was just like the textbooks said. All you have to do is stare through the eye slits, but use your mind to see what’s on the other side, not your vision. I could feel the other spirit residing in the mask, but it was peaceful, almost welcoming. It wanted for me what I wanted most. We were in harmony for as long as I chose to wear it.”