Vicki Pettersson - The Scent of Shadows

He doubled over instantly and began to laugh; maniacal, breathless spasms rocking his body back and forth while tears streamed over his grimy cheeks. I looked around to see what was so funny, and came pretty quickly to the conclusion it was me. His laughter broke off into wracking coughs, and he bent over, hacking away. I pounded on his back, trying to help.

“You ever read comic books?” he asked, straightening suddenly, all signs of ill health vanishing with the movement.

I wiped my hand on my pants. “You mean like Donald Duck?”

“I mean like Superman, Wonder Woman…Elektra.” He said this last word with all the panache of a seasoned lounge act, fingers splayed in the air with theatrical introduction.

“No.” This whole conversation was getting stranger by the moment. I took a step back, muttering to myself, “What do I look like? An adolescent boy with cystic acne and bondage fantasies?”

“Not fantasies,” he said, overhearing me. “History. Research. The truth multiplied by the collective consciousness equals fact stranger than fiction.” He began chuckling again.

“Sorry?”

“I’m a superhero!” he announced, raising his arms like a competitor in Mr. Olympia. “Hero to the superheroes. Command leader of Zodiac troop 175, division of anti-evil, La-as Vegas!”

After what I considered an amazingly brief period, I closed my gaping mouth. I even formed words. “I really think you should get in the car, sir. I’ll pay for an exam.”

“You’re sweet,” he announced to the desert, grabbing my arm. “So sweet. So good. One of the good guys. Like me.”

Yeah, I thought. Just like you. “Ah, look. At least let me take you to the shelter. They’ll give you food. You’ll have a place to stay for the night.”

“Day is night and night is day in this, your city, your home,” he said, pointing back toward the neon lights. “Vampires, if they existed, would love it here. Cats too.” He craned his neck at me pointedly. “It’s a great place for all nocturnal hunters.”

“What did you say?”

“I said hunters. Like you. Like me too, because I found you.” He jumped, performing a dusty heel click. “Eureka!”

Now, getting run over by my Jaguar XK8 coupe could hardly qualify as a discovery, but I wasn’t going to argue the point with someone obviously suffering severe mental trauma. Then again, I thought, studying his lopsided grin, maybe I hadn’t hit him hard enough. “Let me take you to the hospital. You really need help.”

“Aren’t you kind?” he said, tearing up, grasping my arm again. “Aren’t you special? I can just smell the uniqueness on you.”

I jerked away and stumbled as Ajax’s short lesson on pheromones flashed through my mind. I was suddenly very aware I was standing in the middle of the desert with a complete—and, apparently, completely mad—stranger. “Look, mister, I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing special about me. Got it? You just need help.”

“You don’t think you’re special? How sad. So sad.” He shook his head, and really did seem dispirited by the thought. “But you are. You have special skills. Warriors’ skills. That’s why you’re being watched.”

“By whom?” I asked, though I already knew of two people. Ajax. And Ben.

“Power is knowledge, and knowledge is power. Know thyself. All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than the animals that know nothing…”

I’d have sworn on my life Ben and I had been alone in my father’s office, but we spoke the final words together. “…and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

We both stared, the cold, dry night sharpening between us. He was no longer bumbling about. And I was no longer feeling kind. “Where did you hear that?”

He tilted his head at my threatening tone. “You must develop your skills. Realize your potential. Your power, indeed, lies in your knowledge, but right now you know nothing.”

I decided then I’d had my share of nutcases for one night. I turned my back and began to walk away. “You don’t know me, old man.”

His next words halted me cold. “You’re Joanna Archer, sister to Olivia, daughter to Xavier and Zoe. You have a birthday tomorrow, midnight, an auspicious one…” He waited until I’d turned back. “Auspicious, that is, if you live long enough to see it.”

And I was on him before I knew it, the lapels of his tattered jacket twisted in my fists, my face thrust in his despite the stench and craziness that lived there. “Who are you?”

He placed his hands over mine, and I felt the strength in them and was surprised by it. You couldn’t tell by looking at him, and that was something I should have remembered. You could never tell who a person really was just by looking.

“Your second life cycle ends today. Tonight, Joanna.” He lifted my hands from his lapels, gently, and returned them to my sides. “I’ve come to warn you.”

I shook my head, and wrapped my arms around my body, but kept my eyes on him as I backed away. “You talk in riddles, old man.”

“Ah, but you’re a straight shooter, aren’t you? An Archer, you are.” He made a motion like shooting an arrow into the night, and tilted his head, considering me. “Not just a hunter, though. A target too. The hunter becomes the hunted.”

The wind suddenly picked up, shifting so a breeze blew my hair across my cheeks, setting the hem of the man’s trench coat fluttering around his ankles. He lifted his nose, and his nostrils drew wide, then narrowed again. “Smell that? They know you’re here. But don’t worry. They know I’m here too.”

“I don’t smell anything,” I said, and I had no idea what he was talking about.

He tilted his head in that crazy way he had. “Because you haven’t been taught to recognize their kind. Close your eyes and think of once living things decaying in the ground. A pet rabbit buried then unearthed after a week. Fungus rotting on overripe fruit. Hot sulfur rising from a hole in the earth to taint the wind. Now try again.”

I turned my face into the wind just to humor him, and immediately caught a whiff of something that reminded me of sulfur. Possibly tin. A rusty can.

With the flesh of a long-dead animal sweating inside.

“Christ.” It smelled like Ajax, and I turned my head away sharply, only to find the bum regarding me solemnly. The look sent chills through my spine and into the soles of my feet. Someone this crazy shouldn’t look so sane. I pivoted to leave. Fuck this guy. He could just stay here with his riddles and delusions and rotting scents.

His voice rose, carried to me on the filthy breeze. “You were walking through the desert when you were sixteen years old, leaving your boyfriend’s house in the early morning hours, smelling of passion and love and hope, the same scent that clings to you tonight, in fact.”

My heart was beating so hard I wouldn’t have been surprised if it leapt from my chest into my hands. How did a homeless man who jumped in front of cars and smelled like a sewer know anything about my personal scent? How did he know about me? I turned to find him closer than I expected. So close I had to hold my breath.

“You were attacked by a solitary man who seemed to be everywhere at once,” he continued, dark eye boring into mine. “You were raped, strangled, and left for dead. You awoke with a broken memory beneath the scorching midday sun, and no idea of who you really were. Your memory gradually returned, but you never fully recovered your burgeoning sixth sense. You mended your broken body and turned it into a machine, a weapon, a warrior’s tool. Good thing too. You’ll need it now.”

“How do you know all this?” God, but I hated how small my voice sounded.