Vicki Pettersson - City of Souls

Hunter led me from the ballroom, careful to keep a discreet distance between us. I put an extra sway in my hips but kept up the pace. We had to get clear of Valhalla, and the Eye-in-the-Sky security system, before we could look like we actually knew each other. Here, in the Archer dynasty’s hallowed gaming halls, we were Olivia Archer and Employee.

“We think they got her while she was on her way to you, so they shouldn’t be far.” Hunter nodded to another guard, who goggled at me when we passed. I shot him a smile that could melt iron and kept walking. “Same message sent to everyone on her contact list. Riddick, Jewell, and Warren were all together when they got it. It’s how we figured it out so quickly.”

And Hunter, who acted as a security guard at Valhalla when not saving the world, had been the closest to me. I should’ve known he wouldn’t have taken off his uniform and climbed into a cake unless the situation was absolutely dire. “Whoever has her is trying to use her to get to me, aren’t they?”

where R U

He lifted one shoulder noncommittally, which meant yes, and pushed through the door into the open air. Beyond Valhalla’s ornate porte cochere and winding drive, Las Vegas stretched like a winking rainbow, light scoring the ground and sky.

Hunter halted as we reached the fountains, lifting his phone to his ear. I bit my lip, waiting as he listened silently, nodded once, and hung up. “Gregor traced the call.”

“Find the phone?”

“Yes.”

“And Vanessa with it?” My heart pounded as I waited for the answer.

“Sorta.” He turned his back to the street and gazed back up at the casino.

Worry washed over me from head to toe. “What do you mean ‘sort of’?”

“The phone was wrapped in a package. With a bow.” His slumped shoulders gave away the bad news before he spoke again. “And her tongue.”

We raced across Maryland south of the university, the busy street teeming with college students letting off weekend steam and enough traffic that we had to dodge headlights. The sound of laughter and music rang from the off-campus apartments, the gas stations were bright, and the restaurants dim but bustling.

It wasn’t until I spotted the tiny variable star winking above the side entrance of a tavern that I realized where Hunter was leading me. I stifled a groan, knowing it would only earn me an arch look. This tiny star marked a portal, an entrance into the washed-out flip side of reality. If you knew how to look, they could be found almost anywhere.

But that didn’t mean I liked entering them. Sure, it reduced the chances of being spotted by both mortals and Shadows, but reality’s flip side reduced the landscape into a hazy black-and-white line drawing, and the molecules comprising air zinged in my mouth with every breath, snapping in my throat when I swallowed. Most disconcerting, though, was never knowing what lurked on the other side of these supernatural thoroughfares. The weather was capricious, the terrain more like something found on another planet than this one, and the basic universal rules-like time and space, and sometimes even gravity-were as bendable as straws.

I followed Hunter through the dented metal door, eyes locked on the portal’s star for as long as possible, though I knew it wouldn’t wink out until the entry closed behind us. As soon as it had, the street sounds ceased, and we took a moment to acclimate ourselves to what looked like a street scene from some grainy gumshoe film set in the forties.

“I mean to solve this crime, ya see, and you’re not going to like it, ya see.”

I snorted, gratified that Hunter was thinking along the same lines, and we started off down Rainbow Boulevard, a good fifteen miles from where we’d entered. Entries and exits between the two sides never matched up.

We walked on, easier without the threat of Shadows to contend with. In the past we’d found snow or rain or rainbows shaped like lucky horseshoes marring the landscape, but this time there was a knotty ball of power gathered in the sky. The clouds were dense around the center bulge, the layers extended in frayed wisps, which disappeared at the valley’s edges. It was as if the victim of a very large spider had been wrapped up tight. Every so often there was a flash, like sheet lightning was caught in that bulbous center. I gave thanks that the odd cloud bump was only on this side of the portals, and caught Hunter giving it a wary glance as well.

Yet even given that, what really stood out in the achromatic gloom was the one thing that shouldn’t have been there at all.

Us.

In the smeared, dulled, monochromatic milieu, Hunter’s aura pooled around him like a full-body halo, a snapping gold that played off his burnished skin like light cutting on glass. It trailed behind him as he walked, a colorful cloak dissipating with the absence of heat from his body. I lifted my hand to run it through the trailing light when he wasn’t looking, sending sparks pinging from my skin in his wake.

Which was how I noted my aura, or lack of it. Aura represented life force, and what had once fairly pulsed in a vibrant red band was now nothing more than a wispy cloud, barely colored at all.

“Worse than the last time,” I said, ducking my head when I realized Hunter had heard. But it was. Thankfully, he said nothing, and we continued on in silence until we reached the Spring Valley Park, and the others. Six agents of Light were gathered under a green steel awning, and they greeted us with subdued nods. The two newest agents, Riddick and Jewell, were flanking Felix, who was only a little older but already a senior troop member. Tekla, mysterious and tiny, was an island unto herself as usual. Gregor was behind Micah, our troop’s physician, and was using his one good arm to unconsciously rub at the stump of the other as he watched Micah rifle in a trash bin. Hunter and I joined the first three agents and were quickly filled in.

They’d found two more body parts. Micah was pushing aside soda bottles, empty fast food wrappers, and bags of chips, in search of a third body part that we all could readily smell. He finally found it-an ear-and added it with a sigh to his growing collection. He wouldn’t throw them away, I knew. No matter what happened to Vanessa, we would later burn them as relics, give our thanks for her sacrifice, and if needed send up prayers for her soul.

I turned at a sound, and found my troop leader jogging toward us, though it took me a moment to recognize him. Warren Clarke had a multitude of covers meant to keep the Shadows from tracking him, though his favorite was that of a weary, timeworn indigent. His matted hair, crusted fingernails, and bloodshot eyes regularly sent people scurrying the other way, but the Shadows had recently put a new agent on patrol in the city’s homeless shelters, so Warren decided to take time off, appearing as a regular Joe instead.

He jerked his head in the direction he’d just come and we followed without a word. Colorful auras trailed behind the others, reminding me again of my faded red hue. I didn’t have time to regret it much beyond that, though. Two hundred yards away we found a big toe with shiny silver polish. Micah’s giant shoulders drooped. Tekla bent to pick it up.

They weren’t trying to kill Vanessa. Not yet. No, these were just tokens. Teasers. Her tongue left in the middle of the street, her right ear in the trash. They’d severed a thumb, and left it hanging like an ornament on a tree. Very creative. We also found her hair, which didn’t technically count as a body part, but it was the one thing that took the same amount of time to grow on us as it would on a mortal, so the shearing was symbolic. I looked at the mass of shining dark curls and couldn’t help my tears.