Vicki Pettersson - The Scent of Shadows

“I said take off the mask,” Hunter said suddenly, loudly. He hadn’t, of course, but I was up to speed now.

“Fuck you,” I said, placing one hand on my head as though to prevent its removal, pushing him away with the other. He twisted my arms behind my back and slapped cuffs on them.

“Hey!” The panic in my voice was real. I didn’t like being cuffed, my conduit out of reach, but there was a warning in Hunter’s eye and I stopped struggling so much. I knew there was no way a masked woman could get through Valhalla without being apprehended by hotel security. The outfit was one thing—it was Vegas, after all—but a mask was another.

I also knew that once detained, a suspected robber would be escorted to a holding room for interrogation, either by hotel security alone or in tandem with Metro. That’s where I was headed now, though in this case the place Hunter was dragging me was precisely where I wanted to go.

Which got me to thinking. If hotel surveillance had caught me entering with my mask on, hadn’t it also caught Hunter coming in off-shift, changing into a uniform, and escorting me to the back of the house? Wouldn’t he be questioned about it later by those who worked for the Tulpa? And wouldn’t the answers, ultimately, reveal his true identity?

His entire life would be compromised, I thought, and the Zodiac troop would have no one on the inside of the Tulpa’s organization. Again.

Of course, I knew Hunter had already thought of this. He was giving it all up, I realized, everything he’d worked for. His identity. His life. The job that would help him infiltrate the Tulpa’s organization.

For now, though, he was dragging me across the main casino floor, around slot banks and carousels, between bleary-eyed tourists who’d been at the tables all night and garishly flashing neon that seemed to me to say “Go back! Go back! Certain death lies ahead!”

We reached a pair of towering double doors and Hunter punched the handicapped access button. They swung open automatically like a cavernous mouth opening to reveal Valhalla’s bowels. Where the real work, both natural and supernatural, was done.

“Stay close. It’s easy to get lost,” Hunter said, his grip easing, his pace increasing. “There are no cameras back here, bad for morale, but there are eyes everywhere.”

He turned left, then right, then a series of quick lefts. After the first two passageways we saw no one, which was strange for a casino. Hunter gestured down a long corridor. “Loading docks are that way. Might be a possible escape route later, but I think the freight elevators are a better bet. Less traffic.”

I looked at him. His face was drawn tight, as if strings were winging his features downward. “I can smell you,” I said.

“I know,” he said, and his voice was tight too. He wasn’t sweating, but his scent reeked from his pores.

“You’ll be a target.”

He looked at me, still for the first time. “That’s why I’m telling you where the loading docks are.” I swallowed hard. “Now pay attention.”

We entered a seemingly unending hallway, steel-plated from the floor to about four feet up, a barrier against carts and trolleys and other equipment that bumped along on the hotel’s daily business. “The Tulpa is headquartered down the longest corridor in Valhalla. Ever see those horror movies where someone’s running down a hallway that just keeps getting longer and longer?” I looked behind me. We were a hundred yards in. I looked ahead. At least a hundred more to go. Hunter glanced over at me. “Now imagine running it with a dozen Shadow warriors at your back.”

I swallowed hard. “I’d rather not.” But I looked above for possible escape routes, at the walls and floor for possible weapons. There was nothing. Just smooth, shiny walls and a disturbing fluorescent trail of elongated wall lamps.

“They call it the Gauntlet,” he said, watching me.

“Of course they do,” I said. That earned me a chuckle.

The hallway dead-ended, which I hoped wasn’t symbolic, and we shifted right, stopping abruptly. An elevator bank stood right in front of us, the numbers above winging from one to twenty-four. Hunter and I faced the doors, neither of us talking nor looking at one another as he unlocked my hands and placed the cuffs in his back pocket. Then he pushed the button. It began its downward descent with a loud ding .

I turned to him suddenly. “Hunter, I have to apologize.”

“For what?” He was only half listening. The elevator was on the top floor. We were in the basement.

“For all this.” His eyes flicked to me, then back. Ding . Floor twenty. “I know what you’re risking today. I know you’re going to lose everything.”

I knew also what it was to lose everything.

“Let’s not talk about it.” He glanced up at the lighted numbering above the doors, but the way his jaw clenched gave him away. Ding . Ten floors away. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I said, tentatively, “but just one more thing.”

“What?”

Half turned, I didn’t look at him as I rubbed my wrists where they’d been shackled. “I’m sorry.”

“You said that already.”

“Not for that.” Ding . Eight now. “For this.”

And I stepped into him, unwinding with my shoulders so my elbow struck him just below his temple. He went down like a tree trunk. I had to lunge to keep his head from whacking the concrete floor, and as I lowered him he somehow managed a belated attempt for my throat.

“Ungrateful bastard,” I muttered as his hands fell away. Strong ungrateful bastard.

I pulled the cuffs from his back pocket, secured them around his wrists, and kept the keys. I hated to cuff him but it would be less believable that he’d been overcome if I didn’t. I told myself it was for his safety, then removed his guns—stuck one in my boot, the other at my waist—his baton, and the telltale mark of an agent of Light, his conduit.

“You’ll kill me when you wake up,” I said to him. “But at least you’ll wake up.”

Which led me to the last thing that needed doing.

Leaning over Hunter, who cut a fierce figure even in an unconscious state, I thought of what I’d learned about him. Not a lot. But there was that way he watched people, the quiet scrutiny belying his casual manner. I admired that. I thought of the way he created things with his hands—weapons, sure, but artistry was a skill I’d always coveted. Then I thought of the way he’d intended to sacrifice himself today, and hadn’t said a thing about it, knowing nobody would realize his intentions until it was too late.

Ding . Until now.

Allowing this paltry information to coalesce in the forefront of my mind, I bent and very gently covered his mouth with my own. The spread of flesh upon flesh was intimate, but nothing compared to the even more private opening of minds and souls. I exhaled, breathing a soft stream of essence into his mouth.

My mother had been right. You could taste the Light in another person, like bubbles on the tongue, and you could smell a person’s soul on their breath. I glimpsed Hunter’s strength, the sweet ardor of his physical essence and the surprising gentleness of his inner spirit. I continued to breathe, allowing our breaths to mingle so that I drew him up, in, and knew that somewhere in his unconscious state he was doing the same with me. In doing so, he was experiencing far more of me than any man ever had.

I allowed it, seeking the connection that would allow me to pass not only my knowledge and memory and experience to him, but my power as well. My kiss became a prayer, my breath a shield. I cupped his cheek with one hand—my touch now a weapon, shared—and closed my eyes to pour myself into him.