Vicki Pettersson - The Touch of Twilight

I returned Cher’s call en route to Master Comics.

“We’re comin’ home,” she said without preamble. “Momma’s not getting any better and I think the humidity is fermentin’ her lungs. Why do people live in places where your hair can get all frizzy?”

“Spoken like a true desert rat,” I told her before growing serious. “What are her symptoms?”

“She’s wheezing and has a fever that causes her to break out in sweats and cry out in her sleep. She has the weirdest dreams…our cabana boy stars in all of them.”

Was that out of character for Suzanne? “Has she seen a doctor down there?”

“Are you kidding? The local medicine man would probably kill a chicken and splatter its blood in a circle around the bed. They’re hospitable enough, but I wouldn’t call them civilized.”

“Cher,” I chided, narrowly avoiding a tourist who’d eschewed an overhead walkway for a shortcut that’d take him twice as long. “That’s so ethnocentric.”

Cher gasped, offended. “I am not a bit religious, and you know it.”

“Look,” I said, blasting through a reddish stoplight. “She doesn’t sound well enough to travel right now. Why don’t you call Dr. Porter and give him her symptoms. He might be able to prescribe something over the phone and fax a prescription to a pharmacy down there.”

“You think?”

What I thought was that the last thing I needed was for those two to come back to town, setting up two more big bull’s-eyes for Regan to train her sights on. What I said was “I sometimes manage it, yes. Call me if Suzanne gets any worse. And give her a big smooch from me.”

I didn’t just say it because Olivia would have. Both Cher and her mother had grown on me, and I was as protective of them as if they were my own family. Natural, I suppose, since I didn’t have any left. Keeping them out of Vegas wasn’t just necessary because of Regan; now I had the doppelgänger to contend with. If she knew about me she might know of Olivia’s friends as well.

The next call I made had to be done in person. It was almost closing time when I walked back into Master Comics, and I’d intended to head straight to the storeroom-flipping off Zane on the way-only pausing long enough to pick up this week’s Shadow manual, the Light presumably still not showing up. But one look at the little girl peering up at me with wide and hopeful eyes was enough to have me dropping to my knees.

“Oh, Li,” I whispered, cupping the soft oval of her face in my hands. There were no bandages covering the claw marks marring her face, an effort to get the wound and stitches to dry out, and my heart broke as I wished I could help her heal faster.

“It doesn’t feel as bad as it looks,” she said, in an attempt to be brave, tilting her head so her straight hair swung over the angry red slashes. The fissure in my heart widened.

“Yes it does,” Jasmine cut in sharply, standing at Li’s right side, one hand dropped protectively on her shoulder. It reminded me of Helen’s hands on Xavier, though I didn’t know why. “She screams when my mother cleans it, and now the rest of her skin is starting to crack. She looks like Humpty Dumpty.”

Li blushed furiously, which only accentuated her scars and made the cracking Jasmine was talking about more noticeable. She was right. Li’s once pristine skin now resembled a chaotic inner city road map. Blue veins and red vessels had risen to canvass the thinned-out skin, and I noted her eyes were beginning to bulge a little too.

Jesus, I thought, it even looked like the muscles beneath the skin were thinning. How did I fix this?

“You know you should be a little more sensitive,” I told Jasmine. “This could kill you too.”

“I’m not the one with draining life energy, and besides, I’d rather die as a hero than live as a weak mortal. I’m never giving up my powers.”

“You’re not superhuman, Jasmine. I am.”

“Really? Then how can I do this?” And she bent over and lifted me from the ground as easily as I would a suckling babe. With one arm.

I blinked, bit my lip, then asked without turning around, “Carl? How can Jasmine pick up a hundred-and-twenty-seven-pound woman?”

“One-thirty-two,” he corrected, and Jasmine nodded as she balanced me. Bitch. “Part of the broken changeling deal, Archer. You’ve blitzed a chunk of her humanity and replaced it in the changeling vessel with your own chi . That’s why the manuals aren’t being written. Her personal energy is registering as yours, and Li’s isn’t registering at all. You could always try to convince her to give it back, though.”

I raised my brows, peering down at Jasmine. In answer, she dropped her arm and I landed on the ground. Crouching, I peered up at her. “Not even to save your sister? An innocent?”

“I’m superhuman,” she clarified, before gesturing to me with her too-strong hands. “You’re the superhero. You fix it.”

“She’s going to die if you don’t help her!”

That gave her pause, causing her little jaw to tighten, but only for a moment. “She’s mortal. She’s going to die anyway.”

I shook my head in disbelief, and glared at her so hard and long, she finally looked away, pursing her lips. “You’re right,” I whispered. “You’re no hero.”

I bit my lip and turned back to Li. “I’ll fix this, sweetheart. I swear I will.”

She nodded without hesitation. “I know.”

Tears staining my eyes, I thought about Regan’s black makeup compact settled in the bottom of my bag, but Li and I had vastly different coloring, so it wouldn’t do her any good. I’d ask Chandra, and see if something similar couldn’t be made for the changeling. “You should go home and rest.”

“But you might need me.” And, more faithful than Old Yeller, she followed behind as I made my way to the counter. Zane was there, studiously ignoring the goings-on in the shop as he ran a pencil across a sheet of paper, the marks disappearing as swiftly as they were made. The half-dozen changelings, save Jasmine, crowded around me, shouting out questions about what Zane “saw” and suggestions on how to make the ink appear. Zane ignored them out of habit; I did so because I couldn’t get Li’s tattered face out of my mind.

I leaned on my elbows to peer up into Zane’s face. His nose twitched.

“We’re about to close,” he said, moving his papers aside and continuing his work.

“Get ahold of the Tulpa for me.”

He didn’t even look up. “What do I look like, your local operator?”

“I know you can get ahold of him.” My voice hardened. “Now help me.”

He flipped his greasy hair back from his forehead, equally greasy. It immediately fell into his eyes again. “I don’t have time to help you work out your daddy issues. Now get out of my light. I’m busy writing a manual you’ll probably never get to see.”

I folded my arms. “Look, Zane, I don’t know what happened to the changeling. I wore her aura but I got it back to her on time. If you have any idea what I can do to fix it, you should tell me.”

He sneered as I pulled back, so I decided to try appealing to his morality. “Fine, don’t do it for me. But look at Jasmine. Shit, look at Li-”

“I see them every day!” he screamed back in my face, gesturing widely with his writing hand. “While you’re out trying to figure out who to screw, I practically live with the little kids your bad decisions are destroying!”

Spit flew from his mouth, and my own fell open, while the kids in the half moon around us froze, unnaturally silent. Zane threw down his pencil, swallowed in an obvious effort to control himself, and when he got his breathing back under control, he said, “I want to help them, I do. But you’re the only one who can mend the changeling.”