Vicki Pettersson - The Scent of Shadows

“I don’t have to be this again. I don’t have to do this again.” And I shifted my hips, forcing space between us, and managed to free a leg long enough to ram a knee into his ribs.

“Oh, but you do,” he said, and he planted himself widely over me, like a Greco-Roman wrestler, doubling his weight on top of mine.

I almost gave in. I felt my lungs creaking with need for air, felt his hands fumbling between my legs, but my training and my will kept me struggling. “No…I’m not that girl anymore. I’m the Archer.”

“Yes,” he snarled, face leering into mine, “I could tell by your stiletto.”

I blinked, then felt a smile spread over my broken face. “I’m the Archer…and this is my dream.”

“But we can reach you in your dreams,” he said, grinding into me again. “I can fuck you in your dreams.”

“No,” I said, struggling. “I don’t want this.”

“Fight all you want, but you can’t change who you are…who I’ve helped you become.”

“I’m not like him!”

“Oh, look in the mirror, dear girl,” he said, giving me a sly smile. “You’re exactly like him.”

There was a rustling from behind us, and Joaquin looked behind him, then jerked his head back to look at me. “Fuck,” he said, and disappeared.

And feeling lighter, the weight of both his body and sleep being yanked from me, I really opened my eyes.

The blankets were tangled around my feet, sheets soaked in the outline of my body, and as I sat up I immediately saw the one thing that hadn’t been in the room before; the item that had called me from my sleeping state. A newspaper had been slipped under my door, the sound somehow sneaking through the web of my not-dream. I rose, left it lying on the floor, and opened the door to peer into the hallway. No one was there.

Running a hand through my hair I noted my nose felt tender, though not broken, and my throat was raw, and probably red. But I bent to retrieve the paper, silently thanking whoever had used it to chase away my demons…until I saw the lead article.

“Oh, my God,” I said, and the words from my dream raced again through my head. You’re exactly like him . Slowly, I sank to the side of the bed. Oh, my God, I thought again. Maybe he was right. Maybe they all were right.

The article was brief, a dispassionate assemblage of facts and figures; time of death, the age of the victim—God, only seventeen—what officials thought had happened. I read over it half a dozen times, trying to reconcile the memory of my confrontation with Ajax with the words appearing on the page. A meaningless and random attack, it reported, by what was, most likely, a gang of teens. One of whom had a blade. The statement from the girl’s mother was no more than a single sentence, but it summed up the only real known fact: “My daughter is gone, and my life will never be the same.”

So maybe they were right.

I knew this was what whomever had slid the newspaper under the door wanted me to feel. It was spiteful and obvious, yet it still made me want to bury my head in my hands and never look up. I had failed this girl. I’d put her in danger, just like Olivia, and they’d both paid the price with their lives. So maybe they were right. I was exactly like him.

I was about to toss the paper aside when another column caught my eye. I was holding the whole of the Metro section, the bulk of the day’s bad news in my hands, and today it featured a story of an early morning shooting, a love triangle gone wrong. A woman named Karen was shot by her husband as she tried to leave their apartment. Moments later one Mark Davis had turned the gun on himself.

I closed my eyes, and for a moment I didn’t even breathe. I just sat there, chaos swirling inside me like some nauseating psychedelic drug. The store clerk had been an accident, an innocent I’d never meant to injure. But this. Ajax had nothing to do with the dissolution of this marriage, these lives. This was all me. I had fired up my new powers and blasted through the walls of Karen and Mark Davis’s lives.

I managed to stumble into the bathroom, and splashed cold water onto my face over and over, until I gasped, and realized I was crying. Leaning heavily on the sink, I lifted my head to face the mirror. Olivia’s lovely face, with my haunted eyes.

And the dark shadows that lingered beneath them? I’d created those—and the reasons behind them—myself.

“Who do you think you are?” I whispered at the mirrored image. I watched the reflected lips move, then fall still, with no answer.

I returned to the bedroom, picked up the newspaper and studied the image of Karen Davis smiling up at me from an undated photo. After a moment I shoved it in my duffel bag for safekeeping and left. I wanted to find out for sure if, maybe, they were right.

Even while hoping against hope that they were wrong.

My emotions were under control by the time I reached Greta’s room. My eyes dry, face serenely composed—which, I knew, on Olivia only looked blithely unaware—and my energy carefully controlled. I didn’t want to run into any of the others without all my barriers in place. I half expected to find Chandra lurking around each sharp corner, sure she’d been the one to slip the paper under my door, but she was nowhere to be found. If it had been her, then she obviously thought her business with me complete.

I heard a shot of laughter from the direction of the children’s ward, saw a sole female cat out on patrol, two kittens stumbling along behind her, and increased my pace, intent on arriving at Greta’s undetected. I’d just turned the last corner, casting a final, furtive glance behind me, when I slammed into something, someone, who grunted and gave with the impact.

“Warren.” We both stepped back, each startled by the other, and I frowned when I saw the color drain from his face. “Are you okay?”

“Of course.” His words were as jerky as his movements, and he swallowed hard. “I’m fine.”

But I’d never seen him looking more disoriented. He was sweating, pale, and bleary-eyed, and all the crazed self-assurance I so readily associated with him was gone. In its place was a man who looked tired and old and scared. Whatever had transpired in the hours since I’d last seen him, it had left him uncertain and shaky.

“You don’t look fine. You look funny.” I sniffed lightly at the air. “You smell funny.”

“Well, we can’t all look as good as you, now, can we?” he snapped, a thin hand rising to rub at his face.

“Geez, Warren.” I drew back. “What happened? What did Greta say?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss my therapy sessions with you.” I must have looked as injured as I felt because he cursed beneath his breath and tried to soften his words. “Look, Gregor’s been out there, alone, for over a dozen hours. I’m just…worried. I’m going after him.”

“But…why can’t someone else go? The Shadows have targeted you.” Because of me, I thought, and guilt speared through me now that I could see the toll it was taking on him.

“I’m the most experienced ,” he corrected, standing taller. “We can’t lose Gregor. He’s the only one of us—other than myself—who’s held his place in the Zodiac for more than twelve months.”

“What about Micah? Or Hunter?”

He shook his head. “Talented, both of them, but they’re both new recruits. Micah’s not even supposed to be a star sign. He’s support staff, like Greta.”

“So it hasn’t just been five agents killed in the last few months—”

“It’s been ten. Ten of the finest,” he finished, voice weary.

“Jesus,” I said under my breath.

“We replenish the signs only to have them destroyed again. One, our Virgo, the very next day.” He looked at me, and his face was hard again. I’d seen this kind of determination before. I’d captured it with my camera on the faces of street people who knew all was lost but were determined to go on anyway. “I won’t lose another. I’m going out there, I’m going to retrieve Gregor, and then I’m going to shut down the Zodiac. We’ll wait until the troop is whole again, strong again. Then we’ll take on the Shadow warriors as a team.”