The Neon Graveyard

by Vicki Pettersson

  “Hey, Buttersnap,” I said, nuzzling the cause of the test site’s whispered rumors under her chin. The giant dog responded by unfurling a tongue as long as my forearm and lapping at my hand, practically swallowing it whole. For some reason the beast had taken a liking to me, which was surprising as she’d once been a Shadow warden. She didn’t care for mortals, and she rabidly loathed agents of Light.

  Guess my father’s heritage was more potent than I thought, I mused, scratching behind ears the size of army boots. Though after the demonstration in the desert, it wasn’t an especially comforting thought.

  My protectors took a step back now that Buttersnap guarded my side. The newly arrived rogues took two.

  “Fletch, Milo, take Neal’s body to Io for cleansing. We’ll bury him at midnight, and honor him before the evening’s . . . festivities.” Carlos gave the newcomers an apologetic smile, though he didn’t elaborate. Not yet. “Meanwhile the rest of us will retire to the commons.”

  The shorter man’s shoulders slumped with relief. His partner held himself autocratically, looking like an English butler despite his torn T-shirt and jeans, but he too let out a visible sigh of relief, and Carlos gave them a little nod. “You’ve come a long way and are probably hungry.”

  Carlos’s standing policy was to welcome any rogue, though they wouldn’t be allowed to stay until they were thoroughly vetted and had agreed to the grays’ objectives and rules. They also wouldn’t be allowed alone with me. I was mortal, pregnant, and—Carlos believed, wrongly—still the reputed Kairos, a sort of savior to my chosen troop. He wasn’t going to take a chance that some rogue would attempt to gain himself a vaulted place in the manuals at my sake. Of course Buttersnap helped disabuse most of that idea as well.

  Our bunker was a burned-out post-apocalyptic sinkhole, a dystopian’s wet dream, but also pretty homey. Though it was a far cry from the mansion I’d grown up in, I was comfortable in these cable-lined passageways and rough dirt rooms, all studded with stout candles, carved benches, and talismans cemented into the walls by the dozens of rogues who’d visited here. I had no idea what that said about me, but it was enough that I relaxed degree by degree as we descended into the hidey-hole.

  Next we made our way through a room containing a second sinkhole, this one covered by protective wiring and surrounded by blasted rubble. I trailed my hand along a charred scrap of metal that might once have been a car, one of many melted and mutilated objects left over from the atomic cities used to test nuclear survivability. As one might expect, not much survived.

  On the other side of this testament to humankind’s propensity for destruction was a simple iron door that led to our version of King Arthur’s round table. The sparse, circular room held sandy alcoves lined in hemp pillows, barrel tables, and flat-topped sawhorses, which currently contained heaps of beef, rice, and the best frijoles north of the border. Stomach growling, I practically dove into my usual alcove, the newly arrived men forgotten. Impending motherhood had lent my appetite an edge I didn’t remember from my first go-round a decade earlier. Of course, I was only sixteen that time, and a bit preoccupied with recovering from a life-threatening attack, so the finer physical details of pregnancy were a bit hazy. Still, I didn’t know I could be so hungry. These days I could medal in competitive eating.

  When I finally came up for air, it was because I was tugged by the room’s silence. Though the dog weighing more than a MINI Cooper was giving me a disgusted stare, every man in the room had his gaze politely averted, save Carlos. He gazed at me openly, and with amusement. He could hide his feelings when he had to, but one of his most striking characteristics was that he chose not to. He was vulnerable to each of the rogues in one way or another, giving them whatever they needed, whether a sympathetic ear or the shirt off his back. It had the odd effect of making them more vulnerable to him too.

  Carlos smiled, his teeth bright against his honeyed skin, reminding me of an old silent film star. “We were just talking about the Shadows’ odd behavior. They’ve obviously captured someone. Maybe even killed one of the Light.”

  I looked down so no one would see the worry in my gaze, and nodded as I poked at the last of my rice. “It would seem that way.”

  “There’s been nothing about it in the manuals yet,” Gareth pointed out. He had the best luck scoring the comic books. As the youngest of us—and with his lanky build and spiky blond hair—he fit right in with the mortal kids and teens hungriest for our stories.

  “Maybe it occurred in the last couple of weeks,” Vincent said, the Bronx in his voice barreling through the room.

  It took time for our actions to show themselves in comic book form. Once they did, the kids could imagine and believe in us, and we’d use that mental energy to fuel our battle against our enemies. Those in the troops could read only their own side’s manual, but I could read all—back issues, new ones, Shadow, and Light. So as weak as my return to humanity made me, I still had abilities that made me unique—the weapons, the manuals, the soul blade that had taken two fingers from the Tulpa, which never left my side. Without these things, I wasn’t sure even the staunchest gray would tolerate, much less follow, me.

  Except Carlos, I thought, refilling my plate and returning to my bench. His belief in me remained steady even when my own wavered.

  “Be nice if we could find out for sure,” Vincent went on. “It might help in our campaign against the Light.”

  “We’ll look into it,” Carlos told him, but his voice was soft and we traded a brief glance. He knew I didn’t feel the same way as Vincent, the other grays . . . or even the Tulpa. Not when it came to the Light. I just couldn’t count my former allies as enemies yet. Not all of them, anyway.

  “We know nothing of the Light in this valley,” said one of the newcomers, who called himself Joseph. I didn’t need super senses to know he’d been a Shadow. There was a look to all of them, something that lurked like a shark beneath still water. Everyone here, save Carlos and the late Neal, possessed it. Even me. Maybe that’s why he held the manual he’d been hiding out my way. “But we have this . . . it’s how we found you. It shows the Shadows relinquishing their conduits at the feet of their leader.”

  I crossed the room and took it from him, secure enough with my troop of grays—especially Carlos, next to him—to risk getting close. I then dropped it on the room’s center table, and waited for the others to draw close.

  “It’s why Harrison was so bitter,” Carlos said, as I turned the page.

  Panels that would have previously flared to life in my hands remained flat, the action one-dimensional. I’d once been able to elicit an air-popping “Pow!” or “Bang!” from these pages, along with echoing battle cries, agonized death howls, and colorful bursts of furious action. Yet compared to everything else I’d lost, it was a small thing, so what caught my attention was the accompanying text. “Holy hell. The Tulpa is making his own agents cross into Midheaven.”

  “According to this,” Joseph said, having joined us, “the Tulpa has sent three agents to Midheaven already. None have returned.”

  “Men rarely do,” I muttered. I knew because I’d escaped twice. Midheaven was a woman’s world, entirely separate from our own, and fueled by the soul energy of the men trapped there. “It’s a pocket of distended reality. It requires a third of your soul in return for passage. It changes you at the cellular level.”

  My throat closed up on me after that, and though Joseph looked at me funny, the other grays were used to it. It was a cosmic law: I couldn’t speak of what happened in Midheaven to anyone who hadn’t been there.

  “Then what does the Tulpa want over there?” Foxx asked, hands on his hips. “Why weaken his dominant position against the Light by sending his agents to a place from which they never return?”

  “The child,” I said, because everyone knew about that. The new Kairos.

  The only one, I thought with a heated flush. Because although I might still possess the required divided lineage, I no longer had any
power. That meant I couldn’t be this world’s “chosen one.” Fine with me. The designation had put a bull’s-eye the size of the state on my chest. Still, I felt the newfound lack like it was a personal failure. “He’s trying to get to Solange and Hunter’s child.”

  My throat wanted to close up again, but this time it was only because I hated putting that woman’s—that goddess’s—name next to that of the man I loved. Yet it was the realization that their non-love child was the Tulpa’s, and probably Warren’s, true objective that had us all exchanging wary glances.

  “Control the Kairos and he could easily rule three distinct realms,” Carlos said thoughtfully. The mortal world, the supernatural one, and the twisted, hidden underworld as well.

  “Forget risking his agents’ souls,” said Fletcher, shaking his head. “What wouldn’t he risk for that?”

  “That’s why he wants us out of here. Less competition. Less . . .”

  “You,” Carlos said softly. Because as a woman, one who’d been to Midheaven before, I was the one most likely to beat him to it.

  If in the meantime the Shadow agents didn’t understand how Midheaven stripped a man bare from the inside out, they were discovering it pretty quickly . . . and too late. Few men could enter and survive that woman’s world. Question was, did the Tulpa know that? Or even care? After all, as a soulless being, he had nothing to risk, lose, or barter for entry into that world. It was hard to impart empathy to someone who’d never been in a vulnerable position, and the Tulpa had been powerful from the first thought.

  “No.” Foxx stepped away from the table. “It don’t make sense.”

  I looked at him. My impression so far was that he was impatient, edgy, but shrewd. Yet he’d been subdued since returning to the cell, and in a normal, well-adjusted person I’d say it might have something to do with Neal’s death. However, I couldn’t give a former Shadow the benefit of either of those things. Still, something in the calculated way he spoke, the furrowing of those dark brows, made us all perk up. “What?”

  Looking at me, he licked his lips. “They didn’t even try to kill you when they had the chance. I’m not sure we could have withstood that ambush if they had . . . certainly not all of us. Even Harrison pulled his punch there at the end. I saw him hesitate.”

  It was a valid point. Lindy hadn’t attempted to kill me outright, and she hated me more than did anyone else, save the Tulpa.

  The proverbial light flicked to life in my mind like a fat neon sign. If the Tulpa captured me, he could harness the last third of my soul, enter Midheaven and wield my female energy once there. And he didn’t even need to draw me close to the underground entry to do it. Capture me alive and he could just put his mouth to mine in reverse resuscitation, suck out the remains of my slivered soul, and race there himself. It would also rid him of my presence in this world so that I was no longer a thought, much less a threat to him, his goals, and his troop.

  “He wants her alive,” Carlos finally said. “That’s how he plans to take over Midheaven.”

  We’d circled around the issue after that, and while there was a lot of speculation about the varied ways the Tulpa could strip my soul from my body and use it to take over the female-dominated underworld—each more gruesome than the other—we got nowhere. By the time Gareth suggested our enemy might ingest my soul by literally consuming my beating heart, my frijoles were threatening to climb back into my throat.

  I rose quickly, and the sudden movement had the effect of quieting the room, but it was only after shutting the door behind me that I took a deep breath. Though maybe that wasn’t the wisest decision considering the atomic radiation coming off all the anteroom debris. The collection had grown so greatly that there was barely room to walk around the sinkhole scarring its center. I skirted car parts, twisted girders, and household riffraff from headboards to china . . . all shattered and scorched within an inch of existence.

  “Hey, Marge,” I muttered, passing a charred mannequin, but Marge didn’t answer. The bitch.

  At any rate, I thought as Buttersnap loyally joined my side, what more was there for anyone to say? Despite our efforts these past weeks, we were back to square one, and still with no way to get into Midheaven. Without the ability to quickly increase our numbers, we couldn’t survive in this valley . . . or anywhere else. And soon I’d be too far along in my pregnancy to walk without a waddle, never mind kill a Shadow as I had today. Forget about rescuing Hunter.

  God. Hunter.

  Sighing as I maneuvered down my wing’s dirt passageway, I ran a hand along the rough, brutalized walls. It was getting harder to wait, and harder to think of Hunter trapped in that other world. Though he was a superhero, though he was still stronger than me, I had to fight the urge to rush into those tunnels and take up his defense. Something had shifted inside me since learning he was trapped there.

  No, that wasn’t quite right. Something had shifted upon our first touch, the first taste. And now that I knew Hunter had never betrayed or truly left me, my mind was locked and loaded on him with a near-violence. Which was surprising if only because the fury arose from considering him precious.

  In short, Hunter was mine. Not in the possessive, I didn’t believe people belonged to each other that way, but in the part of me that had shifted to make room for him, much like my body was shifting to make room for the child we’d created together. I needed to get to him. I didn’t care how much stronger than me he was . . . strong people needed soft places too.

  So that’s what had shifted. I could now be someone else’s soft spot.

  I sighed again, letting my fingertips trail over the embedded stones, glass shards, jewelry, and bits of clothing—talismans placed there by grays in homage to their respective pasts. There were parts of everyone’s life, it seemed, that were better left behind. So when my hand passed over my talisman, I didn’t give it any more weight or thought than the others. The photo I’d cemented there—the people in it too—belonged to another time and place.

  The electricity didn’t run as far back as my room, so the candle wax coating the walls spilled over onto the floor, making it necessary for Buttersnap and me to stagger our steps. My room was similarly utilitarian. All it contained were five squat candles waiting to be lit, and a bed still stamped with my imprint from the previous night. The walls appeared to have been carved with dull spoons, and the floor had been given even less consideration than that. I waited for Buttersnap to lie down, and after lighting the candles, settled against her.

  “Good girl,” I said, patting her hubcap-sized head, and dodging her responding lick as I leaned forward to open a stainless steel toolbox. Forget solitude and rest. This was what I needed to calm me. My mother had given me this box only weeks earlier, before fleeing the Las Vegas valley for good. At that point, her long-held cover identity had finally been blown, and having done all she could to protect me, she had a new charge to care for: my birth daughter, Ashlyn. A future agent of the Zodiac.

  I’d gotten no further than settling the box in front of me before a knock sounded at the door. “Come in,” I called, unsurprised, because I already knew who it would be.

  “I brought you another plate,” Carlos said without preamble, giving me a smile too sweet for a leader of an underground band of brigands. I took the food with a murmur of thanks, rolling a tortilla before giving a sheepish shrug.

  “Guess I did leave rather abruptly.”

  “I don’t think anyone could blame you,” he said lightly, closing the door, though he remained standing. As his eyes darted to the toolbox, I realized I wanted to talk to someone about my mother. Carlos knew of her, had even met her once, and respected her as well. He’d certainly be a captive audience. More than that, though, the conversation with the grays had shaken me. There were so many people trying to kill me. Carlos, at least, wasn’t one of them.

  Sure, he had his own reasons for wanting me on his side, but unlike Warren—who’d manipulated me into joining the Light—Carlos had been completely upfro
nt about them. In return, I’d been honest about helping him as long as that got me to Hunter. So far we’d both kept our word . . . though neither of us had met our goal.

  “It’s okay, you can look,” I said, when his gaze lingered on the box. I motioned for him to look through it. “I decided that if the Tulpa is after my soul, I need to arm myself as thoroughly as possible.”

  He dropped cross-legged across from me and eagerly opened the box, though he frowned up at me almost immediately. “And this will help you do that?”

  I didn’t fault his uncertainty. Inside was the most unassuming and unlikely cache of weapons ever seen. Glittery and girly, there wasn’t a honed blade in the bunch, though that made sense. Men were generally direct in dealing out treachery, but a woman’s bag of tricks was an endless supply of smoke and mirrors; strengths disguised as weaknesses, agendas hidden three layers down. Infinite flexibility that, if mastered, could be applied to everything: appearance, identity, home.

  “My mother lived a long time as a mortal. It makes sense that most of her weapons were defensive.”

  “Yeah, but . . . what the hell is this?” Carlos said, wrinkling his nose as he pulled out a small bag of dry, green powder. When mixed with lemon juice it created the paste needed to apply the intricate designs in henna tattooing. Nothing overly special, much less magical, about that. What was notable were the accompanying design templates, one of which had been applied to my skin at a bridal shower shortly before my first journey into Midheaven.

  Who armored you? Solange had asked me then.

  “I hadn’t known then,” I said to Carlos, explaining all this, “and neither could Solange, but the intricate mandella my mother had chosen for me was actually a protective charm.”

  She’d left the henna unsealed so the visible design would immediately wash away, but the imprint left behind had allowed me to escape Midheaven before Solange could effectively rape my soul.