Vicki Pettersson - The Touch of Twilight

I thought of the first time I met Regan, how she’d betrayed a senior Shadow in an elaborate effort to get to me. How she’d risked even the Tulpa’s wrath. How she was stalking me through Ben. “Actually,” I said softly, “she’s a lot like her mother.”

He let out a wistful sigh as he remembered the woman who’d steered him directly into lifelong incarceration. “A great beauty, then, but with no patience for sentiment. I often think about her. Not Brynn, she always took care of herself, but my daughter. I always wondered how she fared growing up under the care of a woman devoid of sentiment.”

That little nugget snagged my attention. “What do you mean?”

Father Michael’s eyes blazed again as he realized he knew something I didn’t. I had a feeling it’d been a long time since he’d been able to talk about our world with someone. Good.

“Brynn DuPree only had passion for one thing. She was determined the Cancerian star sign stay in her direct bloodline. She wouldn’t even entertain the idea of it passing on to her younger siblings, much less anyone in the extended family. That’s why she didn’t mate with a man of the Zodiac, choosing instead to propagate with a mortal of the same sign. Thank God she settled on me.” He crossed himself in a sincere mockery of piety.

“Why would that cause Brynn to turn to you?”

“The men of the Zodiac actively court a woman who can improve their lineage, but because the line is matriarchal, the women can turn to a human for their needs…if they find one worthy of them, someone whose humanity provides them with an even greater strength of will and resolve than the male members of the Shadow Zodiac.”

Which was exactly what Regan had said about Ben. I fought off a wave of fear so strong it felt like nausea.

“Like you?” I asked, but Michael interpreted it as a statement of fact.

He inclined his head. “As we don’t possess the more obvious physical skills of our supernatural counterparts, the chosen must work to turn their weaknesses into strengths. From that, true greatness is born. Of all the chosen, I worked the hardest to curry her favor, and she repaid me by allowing me to share in her illustrious bloodline. I am humbled that I could serve. Honored I gave her a daughter of the Shadow.”

I glared at the top of his bowed, balding head, and saw my eyes darken in the glass between us. “You lured two girls and a boy from a elementary schoolyard. None of them were ever seen again.”

“There are casualties in every war.”

“They were seven,” I said sharply.

He looked at me like he couldn’t comprehend what that had to do with anything, and it was all I could do not to dive through glass and pummel him with the phone still clasped at his ear. Of all the things I’d seen in both my mortal and supernatural lives, this man was one of the scariest. His expression wasn’t bland; it just reflected a psyche void of culpability on the too-wide face of a mortal who cut down innocent lives without reason or care. I could attempt to make sense of the Shadows’ purposes, but I could make no sense of this: a man who’d been birthed, suckled, cared for, and raised in a world he decided to destroy for others.

And that was what Regan wanted with Ben. To infect him with this stoic indifference. To turn him into a monster.

I sat back, needing a moment to compose myself. His vacuous eyes followed me, making me feel like he could shake my hand, kiss my cheek, and kill me all in the same minute. It was all the same to him, and I realized despite the benign appearance, Brynn had chosen correctly. How she’d initially seen past the simpering veneer and the priest’s robes was beyond me, but right now-even through the pane of unbreakable glass-the stench of a man whose soul had shriveled like a dried acorn was strong enough to have bile rising in my gorge.

“Your lineage shows in her,” I finally managed, truthfully. “Regan has many of your attributes.”

She was also this vile.

“Regan,” he whispered reverently, and I realized he hadn’t known until now. He shot me a smile that was almost shy, almost kind. “Thank you. You’ve given me a gift.”

“It’s just a name,” I muttered, pissed I’d given him even a second of happiness.

His too-wide lips pursed. “Oh, but a name is everything. A name is all. You know that.”

I shuddered when he winked at me, and decided enough was enough. I felt dirty even sitting across from this man, and found myself wishing we were on some darkened street so I could take his scarred neck in my hands and squeeze. Instead I reached into my bag. “I have another gift for you as well.”

I let the package drop from the sleeve of my cuffed shirt where it’d been tucked in the crook of my elbow. Michael’s gaze lit on it greedily.

I put a finger to my lips, and let out a long, slow Shhhh …

He froze, eyes shining like marbles above the bulging cheekbones.

I erected a thin, mirrored wall, blocking the partition from the view of the guards and cameras, so they saw no movement between us. Then I put my hand to the glass with the package gripped in my palm, Michael mirrored me on the other side of the glass, and the barrier dissolved like steam. Our fingertips met, and I barely contained a shudder. It was like touching a cold slug, spineless movement the only thing giving it life. I’d never felt anything like it around a human before. I hoped never to again.

“What is it?” he asked, weighing it in his palm.

“You’ll know soon enough. Just don’t open it until you’ve received a clear sign.”

He nodded. A man who carved his own flesh would have the patience to wait.

“Will she contact me this way? My girl, my Shadow, my Regan .”

“Oh yes. So keep it with you at all times. It won’t be long, I promise.”

“Bless you, child,” he said, tears welling in his glacial eyes as he slipped the package away. From his lips, it was a curse.

I inclined my head and let the shielding wall drop. “And may you be so blessed in return.”

My meeting with the prodigal father took longer than I planned, and the drive back into town was lengthened by the caravan of Californians making their weekend trek into Sin City, a ritual echoing the pilgrimage to Mecca in fervency. As Valhalla was known for being particularly hedonistic, most were also headed there, and all this combined to make me late for my first night of work. I’d convinced Xavier to give me the swing shift after explaining to him noon was too early to recover fully from whatever event I’d been attending the night before, and though he still didn’t want me working there, he didn’t want me appearing foolish in front of his employees either. Anything an Archer did in public was a reflection upon him, so while he expected-even hoped for-failure in what he’d termed my “occupational nonsense,” it wasn’t going to be because of him.

So as I stuttered haltingly down I-15 toward Valhalla, I tried to make sense of my jumbled emotions. I hadn’t anticipated the visit with Regan’s father to affect me so much. I’d planned to go in there, garner enough supplemental information about Brynn to help track down Regan, pass along my little “gift,” and be done with it.

But more, I admitted, I’d gone there to reassure myself there were distinct differences between Ben and Father Michael, that there had to have been even before Brynn had gotten to the guy. I wanted reassurance that despite Regan’s attempts to turn Ben into an accomplice and a murderer, she hadn’t achieved the level of competence her mother was famed for. I wanted to know beyond all doubt that no matter how much time Ben spent in Regan’s presence, there was an overpowering goodness in him that wouldn’t allow him to deteriorate into a fleshy shell housing a heart no larger than a nut.