Vicki Pettersson - The Scent of Shadows

“See, we don’t know if the Tulpa can be killed—we haven’t found a way yet, at least—but Zoe thought if we could somehow kill its creator, maybe it would sever any lingering power between the two of them. Create a gap. We could then act upon any resulting weakness, infiltrate the Shadow organization or kill the Tulpa outright.”

“So my mother got close to this Tulpa in order to find out who his creator was?”

“She spent years gaining his trust, concealing her identity, masking her scent. It wasn’t easy, but she was dogged.” Micah shook his head in admiration. “So convincing that sometimes even we wondered whose side she was on. Yet, she always came through with some small bit of information that would give us an edge, or stop an attack, or save a Zodiac member’s life along the way.”

“She was gaining his trust.”

“Getting in tight.” Micah nodded behind me. “And she used whatever means she had to in order to get there.”

Including her body. “He never thought his greatest enemy would be in bed with him.”

“Most men wouldn’t.” Micah placed his hands on my shoulders, causing me to look up and meet his eye. “Don’t think she didn’t love you, Jo. You wanted to know who your father is, and I’m telling you. He’s pure, unfiltered evil.” I flinched. “But he bedded down with pure goodness and didn’t even know it. She had the option to rid herself of the pregnancy, but even knowing that keeping you would risk everything she’d worked for, she didn’t. She wanted you. More, even, than she wanted him.”

She had wanted me. But she had left me too. “So what happened?”

He smiled, but it was reserved. “She succeeded.”

“She did?”

He nodded. “Just in time too. It wouldn’t be much longer before the Tulpa could see she was pregnant, to smell she was pregnant. But she found Wyatt Neelson, and immediately killed him herself. Got away clean, and disappeared like smoke.

“Problem is, every time you kill someone, not only do you destroy their signature scent, you leave your own in its place, like a calling card. Great when you want the recognition, but hell on subterfuge. When the Tulpa found out it was your mother who betrayed him, he became crazed.”

“But did he become weaker?”

Micah shook his head. “Stronger. It was like cutting the strings from a puppet only to discover you’d freed it from shackles. The belief of the other Shadows was already strong enough to keep him going, so he was free to destroy and rage and run the Shadow organization the way he wanted. And what he wanted, more than anything, was to find Zoe and crush her.

“Here’s the genius of it, though. While he was looking far and wide, she masked her scent, created another new identity for herself, and took up with Xavier. Snuck back in and hid right under the Tulpa’s nose. You were born shortly after—Xavier’s child, for all the world knew.”

And then she’d had Xavier’s real child too. It made me wonder if she’d ever been with a man solely for love.

“She just wouldn’t give up,” Micah continued, shaking his head. “A more single-minded and brave woman I’ve never met. She spent years with the Tulpa, then years with Xavier, and in the process forfeited any personal joy she might have had, any chance at a normal life.”

“She still failed,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but she was so close,” he said, tucking a curl behind my ear. “A few more weeks and she would’ve had him.”

“But?” I prompted, needing to know why she’d disappeared so abruptly, both when I’d needed her most and these people had needed her also.

“But you.”

Micah looked at me with utter stillness, a bittersweet smile on his face. “You inherited more than your mother’s cheekbones, Joanna. You possess her genetic makeup, and while she had the ability to hide her own scent, you weren’t protected. You hit puberty, entered what we call the second life cycle, and your hormones went rampant. Shadow agents were scouring the city looking for her, and one of them—”

“Found me.” I closed my eyes as the final pieces of the puzzle clicked together. No wonder her grief had been so palpably guilt-ridden.

“He tried to kill you, to kill everything that was good and pure and…Zoe in you. Just so you know, any one of us would have died that night.”

But I hadn’t. Why? I glanced at myself in the mirror. The eyes were still mine, I noticed. They’d deepened like the night at the mention of my attack. “His genes,” I said. “They protected me.”

Micah inclined his head. “I guess you could say the Tulpa, the creation, was now your creator. You’re something new, Joanna. Something never seen before, though your existence has been foretold. See, you’re the only one who’s ever been both…certainly the only one who’s ever survived such an attack. The only one .”

Then he explained about someone called the Kairos, the fulcrum, upon whom all their fates hinge. It was part of their mythology, both Shadow and Light, and Warren apparently thought I was it. I was silent for a while, trying to let that soak in with all the rest, but everything just seemed to pile up on the surface of my consciousness. “Does he know about me?” I finally asked.

Micah shook his head. “Not that you’re his daughter, thus not that we suspect you’re the Kairos either. He only knows that you’re Zoe’s. We can all smell it on you now that you’ve reached your third life cycle. And now that he’s aware of your existence, he’ll be gunning to take out his revenge on you.”

So the leader of the paranormal underworld—or at least that of the greater Las Vegas valley—had a hard-on for my blood. Fabulous. I bit my lip and looked up at Micah through the mirror. “So did he do it?”

“What? Who?”

“The man. That night. Did he kill…” I searched for the right words, but there weren’t any. There was only the truth. “Did he kill all that was good in me?”

“Yes,” Micah said softly, but smiled. “But that you’re even asking that question should reassure you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Simple, Joanna. He broke the potential hero in you. Then your mother put you back together.”

The machines were silent, no dripping or beeping to mark the passage of time, and the room was painfully quiet as I pondered this. An answer to one of my life’s most enduring questions was taking shape in my mind, but before I could form it aloud, Micah did it for me.

“She gave you everything she could, every olfactory blend we’d created to protect her, every personal power that kept her whole. She used chemistry to mask your pheromones and then she hid you, even from us. But that left her open to discovery and vulnerable to attack. She knew it was only a matter of time before the Tulpa found her, and if he got hold of her…” Micah shuddered.

“But how could she just leave? Abandon everything she’d worked for?” Abandon us , I wanted to say. I wondered if I hadn’t said it aloud because Micah gave me such a look of disdain and annoyance that I immediately felt ashamed.

“She gave it all up for you.”

I didn’t move, not even to swipe at the curl that lay tickling my left cheek. I heard myself breathing, heard Micah behind me, and cast my thoughts in his direction, just to see what I would discover. He smelled like silver powder, rain clouds, and Old Spice. The blend fit him perfectly.

“So what am I supposed to do now?”

Find the Tulpa? Find my mother? Find out how the Shadow agents were killing off the star signs?

“Just learn to stay alive,” Micah said gently, and put the brush down. “We’ll never know what you’re capable of if you don’t at least do that.”