Vicki Pettersson - The Touch of Twilight

I straightened, impressed by his recovery. I didn’t know if an agent had ever broken into the shop before, much less his private quarters, but he seemed almost bored by my appearance here…and that just wouldn’t do. “Nice selection,” I said, motioning to a squat bookshelf with rare printings of every major graphic series ever written, including the script I’d pulled down.

He drew back at what he perceived was a verbal attack. “Entertainment reading isn’t a crime, and Whedon’s instinctive grasp of the primeval laws of the Universe is revealed as clearly in his ’Verse as any ‘true’ manual written throughout the history of-”

“Yeah, yeah.” I stood, waving off the rest of his explanation. I swear to God, get the guy started on the mythos of any particular worldview and he might never shut up. “I just have one question to ask you, and then I’ll leave.”

He looked at me like he’d bitten into something sour.

I leaned over and patted the platform of the nearby bed, inviting him to sit. Zane slouched on the edge like he was being told of his imminent execution, and listened listlessly as I explained how the doppelgänger was stalking me, but had been told by someone to wait for me to offer my energy to her, so that she could return to where it would redouble upon itself.

“So she hasn’t been creating the breaches in the fabric of our reality just for the fun of it.” I settled back, draping my arms across the sides of the afghan-covered armchair, and crossed my legs. “There’s something that keeps drawing my double back to the flip side of this reality, and do you know what I think?”

“I know you’re going to tell me.”

“It’s Midheaven.”

“The myth?”

I raised a brow. “Is it?”

He shrugged. “They say so.”

“What do you say?”

His turn to raise a brow. “You’re asking the record keeper for his opinion? That’s a first.”

“So?”

He stared for a long moment, then huffed. “I know there’s something.”

“How?”

He leaned forward, palms splayed on his knees. “Because if the original manual was somewhere in this city, on this plane, I’d have found it by now, and I’d have my ticket out of this adolescent hellhole.”

The original manual-a.k.a. Zane’s obsession-documented the split between Shadow and Light, foretelling that troops would one day be located in every major city around the world, as well as predicting the rise of the Tulpa. The means to killing the Tulpa was also supposed to be inked in its pages, but no one could confirm that because our city’s sole copy had been lost. Agents kept looking, though, because the knowledge in that one manual was so great it could forever tip the scale of power in favor of the troop that possessed it.

So Zane’s point was valid. If the original manual still indeed existed, it certainly would be well hidden in a land everyone had dismissed as a myth. But what interested me more right now was his ending statement, so I watched carefully as he crossed to his bookcase where he pulled out a lighter and cigar I recognized as a Graycliff. Xavier smoked the same. And suddenly it was as clear as day. He no longer looked like one of the iPod people. He had the hunched-over mien of either a street fighter who’d been tapped too many times…or an octogenarian.

“Exactly how old are you, Zane?” He looked no more than twenty-seven, but the books and furnishings and comforts he surrounded himself with put him closer to…

“Seventy-three last March.” He sighed, blowing out a thick stream of fragrant smoke. “I’ve been this valley’s record keeper for almost half a century.”

That explained a lot. “Made a deal with the devil, huh?” I said wryly, nodding when he pointed to a cognac decanter. “Did the original record keeper trick you into it?”

“Oh no.” He poured two snifters of honey-gold liquid, and crossed to hand me one. I didn’t even have to taste it to know it was quality. I could smell the silky finish from across the room. “He laid it all out, my obligations, my restrictions, my abilities. We’re required to tell the truth to any potentials we have in mind for the job. I just haven’t found anyone in the last half century as stupid as I was to take it on.”

“And you can’t just leave it?” I asked, sipping lightly. Zane was more relaxed, friendlier now that he had someone to talk openly with. I could imagine it got pretty lonely being the only person in a group who remembered World War II. Or even the Looney Tunes.

“I can’t leave this building, Archer, never mind the city or state.” He snorted gruffly, and scratched at his chin. “The voices would drive me crazy.”

No wonder he was always in such a bad mood. There was a cantankerous seventy-three-year-old in that non-aging body.

“About Midheaven, Zane,” I said, more softly this time.

“Why are you asking?”

“Why aren’t you answering?” I shot back, before sighing and running a hand over the top of my head. “Look, I understand you’ve taken an oath of omerta that’ll probably result in some sort of terrible death if you were to break it, but I’m not asking you to divulge anything that isn’t already widely known on both sides of the Zodiac. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m a little late to this game, but I can’t really afford to be red-shirted. The doppelgänger said she needs a word, some sort of proper noun from me, but she can’t tell me what it is because it would break some tandem law in both our worlds. Where else would that be but Midheaven?”

Zane blew out four perfect smoke rings as he considered that, licking his lips as he watched them, waiting until they’d all dissipated. Then his eyes again found mine. “In astrology, Midheaven is where our actions reflect our true selves. Circumstances naturally arise there to-how do I put it?-bring your deeds into alignment with the seat of your emotions. Ultimately, you gain the trust of those around you, as well as reputation and fame.”

“Sounds like a nice place to visit,” I commented.

“But you wouldn’t want to live there,” he said immediately, and returned to the bed, leaning forward, elbows on knees. “See, in the Zodiac’s mythos, Midheaven was created for one of the twin First Mothers.”

I shivered at that. A twin. That at least paralleled the Tulpa’s words. And a woman…a “she” had told the doppelgänger to come to me, that I was smart. That I would help. “Go on.”

“The First Mothers were sisters, complete opposites, and eventual enemies. The original manual details what happened between them, but since most cities’ manuals are long lost, including ours, the story has been passed on orally. Obviously there are a hundred different versions about what caused the rift, but what’s important-and what remains unchanged in all tellings-is that one sister was banished to a sort of purgatory, a place where things get twisted. If you’re at all divided in your ambitions, unsure of what you really want, it can be sensed in that other world. Used against you. The worst thing you can do is cross into Midheaven with a divided heart or mind.”

A person cannot be divided against herself .

“Why is this considered a myth?” Because, like a chord being plucked inside me, it rang true. I knew it like I knew my own name.

“Maybe because nobody who had ever crossed into Midheaven has returned.”

Except for the doppelgänger, I thought with certainty.

“See, you need a soul to enter Midheaven. If your theory is right, and the doppelgänger originated there, then she’s made of the same material stuff as that world and can exit at will, but-”

“The Tulpa can’t follow her there.” You’ll never touch her in Midheaven .