The Harvest

by Vicki Pettersson

  “Mrs. McCormick,” Gregor said, while everyone else held their breath. “Do you still have that card?”

  She pushed her chair back and stood with a small, victorious toss of her head. “You bet I do.”

  The address matched one of those Micah had given them. Phaedre and Gregor disappeared with a hasty goodbye to the McCormicks, leaving Zoe to wind things up … and leaving her alone with Warren afterwards. He was waiting at the corner—the others had taken the car—and they fell in stride without speaking, she walking normally, he with the limp from a blow that’d almost killed him years before. As if knowing her thoughts, Warren accelerated his pace. He’d hardly feel it, but knowing she was mortal, he’d also know she would. She gritted her teeth and bore it. The next persona she donned would just have to be extremely fit.

  “So what happened to your car salesman identity?” Zoe finally asked, when she couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

  “What always happens,” he answered shortly.

  The Shadows had discovered it. “Which one?”

  “Taurus.”

  It figured. That was Warren’s sign, too, and if an agent’s identity was going to be found out it was usually their opposing Zodiac sign who did it. Just like the old saying, opposites attract. “Breca?”

  He nodded, before a clearly satisfied smile overtook his face. “The new one is named Graham.”

  But when Zoe smiled back, Warren caught himself and turned away. She bit her lip and increased her pace.

  “It’s your birthday,” he said, staring back at a man in a pickup who’d slowed to stare at him. He grinned grimly when the pickup sped away. Both the look and the statement were typical Warren—no preamble or apology or emotion— and it was totally different than wishing her a happy birthday. Zoe was surprised he’d acknowledged it at all.

  She shrugged, not wanting him to know the day was any more significant for her than any other mortal. Most didn’t share the day with their firstborn daughter and granddaughter. Besides, she knew he was just warming up, and if she waited he’d finally come around to the heart of the matter.

  “Why would you give up your chi, Zoe?” he asked, stopping in his tracks.

  Because I love my daughter even more than I loved being a heroine. She turned to face him and leaned against a streetlamp. “For the troop, Warren,” she answered truthfully. “And its future.”

  “Bullshit. You’ve never done anything unless there was something personal at stake as well.” He pressed when he saw Zoe’s jaw tighten. “Then again, getting out from under my command would qualify, wouldn’t it?”

  “It’s not always about you, Warren,” she said, and let the fatigue she felt bloom around her. She knew what it would smell like to him; apples just past their ripeness, and a soft-petaled flower wilting in the sun.

  As expected, he pounced. “What happened? Get tired of bouncing from bed to bed?”

  She blanched even in the harsh morning light. “You’re lucky I’m mortal,” she whispered.

  “Don’t hide behind that.”

  And don’t let him bait you, she told herself as he limped past her so that she, again, had to follow. Because as long as she was doing the right thing, it didn’t matter what he thought. He’d know the truth in time. She just wished she could see his face when he discovered how wrong he’d been.

  So she swallowed her retort and tried again. “Speaking of hiding, how’d you go from being a salesman to a vagrant? Was becoming a walking cesspool your only choice?”

  Stubbornly, he kept limping along. “I chose it because it’s the exact opposite of everything you’d want me to be.”

  “Warren, please,” She stopped walking and sighed. “You don’t mean that.”

  He whirled so fast all she saw was the blurred hem of his trench coat. “I do,” he said, almost violently. His face was contorted, all the pain he’d been hiding and the anger he’d stored twisting it into a jumble of emotion. His brown eyes were murky and cold. “You’re toxic, Zoe. You even believe your own lies. You say ‘love’ and you mean ‘hate.’ You don’t even know what it means to work as a team or troop. All you know is deceit.”

  She wouldn’t let him get to her or bait her, she swore. And she wasn’t going to fucking apologize. Warren had known what he was getting into the first time he’d climbed into her bed. She’d kicked his ass in enough training sessions for him to have no illusions about that. And after? They’d spoken clearly of what they’d give and how far they’d go to conquer the Shadows. They’d give it their all. It wasn’t her fault he’d changed his mind about her, or the men she’d already targeted.

  Because there had been other men. Two, to be exact. She’d stayed with the last, Xavier Archer, for sixteen years, a mortal who was the human lackey to the Shadows’ leader, a man who traded information—and lives—for power and money. That was Olivia’s father.

  But the first man—if you could call him that—had been the Shadow leader himself. And Zoe knew it was this relationship that bothered Warren the most. Fooling a mortal was one thing—even humans could lie adeptly to one another—but deceiving the Shadow leader took uncommon nerve. Someone with Zoe’s particular skills.

  She never had found out what Warren found most irritating. That she’d faithfully return to his bed after months of lying in another man’s embrace, or that he, just as faithfully, would let her?

  All she knew was that every time she returned to the sanctuary they’d end up yelling at one another until their throats were raw. So she never told him when the Tulpa got her pregnant. Or, after she’d changed her identity to go back undercover, when Xavier did the same two years later. Her daughters were hers alone. Not pawns to be bargained with, manipulated, or—God forbid—destroyed because of Warren’s jealousy, spite, or sense of duty.

  But all of that was in the past, back when she still thought she could make a difference. When she thought she was invincible. Back, she thought as Warren stalked on ahead of her, when she believed she and this smelly, stubborn, and impossibly good man still had a future together.

  They trudged on in silence.

  Chapter 4

  Nurse Nancy’s real name was Melania. She was the Shadow Zodiac’s Libra, firstborn daughter of Treya, granddaughter of Patrice the Cruel, and by the time Zoe learned all this, Nancy was also dead. Not only had she been working at the decoy clinic when Phaedre and Gregor got there, but she’d been alone.

  The only problem with this? She was alone. No child, and no faux adoptive parents. But before Phaedre killed her with a fire-tipped wand that burrowed through flesh to incinerate her core, she “convinced” Melania to tell her where they’d taken the babe.

  “The Tulpa’s house,” Gregor reported back, when they’d all gathered at the Smoking Gun Inn, a battered roadside motel dumped conveniently in the middle of town. “And most of the Shadow Zodiac is gathered there as well.”

  Zoe’s head shot up. “That’s odd. The Tulpa never allows the Shadows into his home. Or he didn’t when I was with him.”

  And if he’d changed that practice in the years since, Zoe would’ve ferreted the information out of Xavier, either with alcohol or sex or both. So it was a recent development. But like the others, she could now only guess at the reasons why.

  Yet even odder than that … “Why would the Shadow leader take a mortal child into his home?” Warren wondered.

  Because she’s the granddaughter of his most hated enemy.

  “I don’t know,” Zoe lied, keeping her eyes downcast, weaving the wide straw she’d made Warren stop for at the crafts store on the long walk back to the Inn that afternoon. He’d raised a brow but hadn’t asked her why, pretending not to care.

  Who knew? Maybe he really didn’t by now.

  She shrugged off the weight of his gaze and let them debate the pros and cons of risking their lives for one mortal child, keeping her hands moving in an even to- and- fro, like she had nothing vested in the outcome. She’d already made up her mind, so the particulars of
their actions interested, but wouldn’t affect her.

  “Whatever you’re doing,” Warren said suddenly, “it’s not going to work.”

  Her lips curved—leave it to him to know she wasn’t merely weaving—but she didn’t stop. Instead she said, “Did you know another name for the cornucopia is ‘the horn of plenty’? In the past people would fill it up with fruit, nuts, and seasonal vegetables, and offer it as a blessing when visiting a neighbor’s home.”

  “Zoe—” He sang her name, turning it into a long warning.

  She went on, not looking up. “But before that tradition, it was a part of the ancient harvest festivals. See, bringing in the harvest meant stripping the land bare, which left the spirit that lived amongst the crop homeless. A corn dolly— or idol as it was more popularly known—would act as the spirit’s receptacle for the winter, until the idol could be furrowed under again at the start of the new season.”

  Yet in Greek mythology it was a goat’s horn, and had the power to give its possessor whatever she wished for. How convenient that it was now associated with Thanksgiving, a holiday—or holy day—that the Tulpa considered one of the best. An extremely superstitious being, he believed celebrations, like ceremonies, gave shape to the days and years of mortals, making their actions nice and predictable as they clung to their rituals. He used to say it kept them in their place, and he loved it when events conformed to his expectations. He banked on it.

  Of course, Zoe had already blown that expectation once— blown it like an A-bomb—so she wasn’t expecting a joyous reunion. And showing up on his doorstep on Thanksgiving Day was the least expected thing she could do.

  But the more she thought about it, the more she was sure it would work. Because though the design of the universe was intricate and mysterious, nothing was left to accident. Here she thought she was powerless to influence anything of import due to her mortality, but by weaving this basket herself, by imbuing her work with her intent and passionate belief, she was doing the one thing all humans had the power to do. She was turning her deepest desires into reality.

  After all, wasn’t that what the man who created the Tulpa had done?

  So all she had to do was believe in this task just as strongly as he had. Strongly enough to bend the universe to her will. And that’s what she had specialized in when she was a troop member, she thought, gritting her teeth. Bending others to her will.

  “Thanksgiving is an opportunity,” she murmured, more to herself than the others now. “The holiday gives me an opening. The Tulpa will be fixed on gaining power from all the emotions associated with the holiday—hope, joy, thankfulness— things humans believe unerringly in. He’ll never sense my true intent above all the emotional static. It’s perfect.”

  And she fell back into the rhythm of the weaving, visualizing it now, everything else secondary to what she wanted.

  “It’s not perfect,” Warren broke in. “It’s suicide.”

  She didn’t look up; her fingers continued their smooth slide-and-weave, and the basket began taking shape. “Chin up, Warren. At least this time you’ll know for sure what happened to me.”

  He dropped a strong palm over her hands, stilling them. “You’re not going. Hear me?”

  She remained still, head bowed, voice soft. “I’ve always heard you, Warren.”

  He removed his hand quickly. “Then you’ll have no problem obeying when I order you to give up your star sign. Tonight.”

  “I said I heard you.” She did look up now, her voice cold as his. “I didn’t say I listened.”

  And he knew that, too.

  Warren’s chin shot up, and the eyes that’d once followed her every move with an earthy softness were now petrified in an equally unyielding face. “See that she doesn’t leave this room … even if you have to tie her down.”

  Zoe returned to her weaving as the door slammed behind him.

  “Oh, Zoe,” Phaedre said, running her hands through her rich hair on a sigh. “Your plan was to show up on the Shadow leader’s doorstep on Thanksgiving Day, clothed in mortality, and bearing a gift cursed with ill intent?”

  Zoe shrugged, ignoring Phaedre’s use of the past tense. So it didn’t sound like such a great plan when stated like that. But she would still go through with it. “I’ll charm him into opening his door for me.”

  Because if she could get inside, get him alone for even a moment, it would work. Getting in without getting killed might be more of a problem.

  Phaedre had turned her back, ostensibly fixing her hair in the dresser mirror, but Zoe knew she was studying her. “Except this time he’ll be on his guard. He’ll sense an attack coming a mile away. He’ll be expecting it from you.”

  “He’ll drop that guard once he sees my humanity. My vulnerability.” She said the words to convince herself as much as Phaedre, flipping the straw horn on her lap, starting a new row. “Everyone is always on their guard around him—”

  “Because he’s the psycho kingpin of the paranormal underworld.”

  “—and he hates it.” She looked up to meet Phaedre’s disbelieving stare through the mirrored pane. “He does. It’s one of the reasons he loved me.”

  Phaedre turned. “You weren’t on guard because you’d already gained his confidence.”

  “And so when I say I changed my mind and ran away from the agents of Light, he’ll believe I’ve been hiding from you all these years, not him. He’ll believe what he’s always wanted to when he looks at me.”

  Phaedre leaned against the dresser, crossing her arms. “And what is that?”

  “That I love him,” she said, setting the corn idol aside. “That we’re destined for one another.”

  “Zoe—”

  “Trust me, Phaedre.” She stood, brushed off her pants, and headed to the door Warren had exited through.

  The movement was quicker than the human eye, so Zoe found herself sprawled facedown across the bed without knowing how she’d gotten there. Phaedre was straddling her, so close Zoe could scent the mint on her breath and the powder of her perfume; pleasant, were it not for the wand tip pointed at Zoe’s throat.

  “Warren said you stay,” Phaedre murmured in her ear, meaning the bodily assault wasn’t anything personal.

  Zoe craned her neck to peer into Phaedre’s face, despite the risk of a fiery death. “And what the troop leader says goes, right?”

  Annoyance flickered behind Phaedre’s jewel-green eyes. “I understand it might grate, Zoe, especially considering your former status, but maybe it’s time you listened to someone other than yourself.”

  Zoe dropped her head and lay limp, knowing she’d get up only when—if—Phaedre allowed it. “You want to put your conduit away? It’s a bit of overkill.”

  Phaedre shifted atop her, but that was for her comfort, not Zoe’s. She inched the wand closer to Zoe’s left eye, her favored point of insertion. “Bother you, does it? Make you nervous? Because the Tulpa doesn’t have a conduit, you know. He is a conduit. A whole being through whom energy is conducted, amassed, multiplied. That’s why he can affect the weather, move things with his mind, manipulate environments and—most importantly—read your intentions.”

  “I know all this,” Zoe said, testily. She twisted again and this time Phaedre got up, letting her turn. “I’m the one who told the rest of you, remember?”

  “So then you also know that he’s been working on the time/space continuum, using special relativity to attempt to return to the past?”

  Zoe pushed herself to her knees. It was evident from her silence that she hadn’t known. So how had Phaedre? “The manuals?” Zoe guessed.

  Phaedre inclined her head. “He’s conducting experiments, gathering energy around him to return to the moment of his gravest betrayal. When you, Zoe, exposed his vulnerability.”

  “That’s not possible,” Zoe whispered, kneeling in the ratty bedspread, mind whirling. Was it?

  Phaedre pursed her lips wryly as she rose and tucked her conduit back in her pocket. Zoe gave an in
ward sigh of relief. “He thinks there’s only a finite amount of energy available on this earth, in this valley in particular, and since he’s bound to Las Vegas and can’t derive energy from outside this city, he’s working on creating more of it here, storing it. Hoarding it, if you will, for himself.”

  “And that’s what he’d use it on?” Zoe asked, noting she looked as bewildered in the opposing dresser mirror as she felt. “Saving Wyatt?”

  Phaedre laughed humorlessly and shook her head. “He’s not going back to save his creator, Zoe. He’s going back to kill you.”

  And even as Zoe’s mind whirled with disbelief, she knew it could be done. Anything was possible, if the mind believed strongly enough … and the Tulpa possessed an iron mind. “He’d need a tremendous amount of energy,” she murmured. So how was he getting it? What law of physics or powerful magic—or both—would enable him to contract time and alter the terrestrial setting?

  Phaedre shrugged. “We haven’t figured it out yet. All I know is if you show up on his doorstep, plain as day and clothed in mortal skin, you’ll save him the trouble of having to find you in the recesses of time. And you’ll die for nothing.”

  Not nothing, Zoe thought, standing. Because now she was more determined than ever to get her granddaughter back. Whatever the Tulpa was doing and however he was deriving power, she was sure it involved Ashlyn.

  “I need to speak to Warren.” Zoe started, then smiled grimly when Phaedre took a warning step forward. “He can hold me down himself if he’s so inclined.”

  It was Phaedre’s turn to smirk. “He just might,” she said, but motioned to the door.

  The manuals Zoe had referred to recorded the battle between good and evil in the Nevada desert as it’d gone on for the past millennium. In the mortal world the manuals were called comic books, and were devoured by the young minds that lived the stories out in their imaginations, and in turn, gave energy to the agents and troops through their detailed daydreams and belief. The connection between reader and agent was very much a partnership, and without one the other would fail to thrive.