The Neon Graveyard

by Vicki Pettersson

  Tilting my head, I frowned at that. “What do you mean?’

  “You changed the rules on him. Whether you meant to or not, and in a way nobody anticipated, you changed the entire world of the Zodiac.” We were almost back at camp, so near we could make out the expressions on the other grays as their heads turned our way, so Vincent stopped to finish what he wanted to say. “But that Warren? He’d rather see you dead than risk changing himself.”

  My mind raced back. Warren had once dug fingers into my skin and told me that I was a wild rosebush that needed pruning. That he wouldn’t hesitate to cut off anything that threatened to weaken me . . . or the troop. I bit my lip. Maybe my new status as a gray wasn’t the problem. Maybe Warren’s resistance to a reality he couldn’t control was what needed refining. I looked at Vincent. “What about you? Do you miss your troop?”

  Squinting into the sky, Vincent took a deep breath of the crisp, cool air. “Sometimes I miss who I was with them.”

  I nodded. There were times I’d have done anything to change the fact that I wasn’t really the Kairos, or the chosen savior to the agents of Light.

  “Well, I like who you are now,” I told him, patting his arm.

  The rare smile flashed again. “I like you just fine too.”

  Whoever I am, I thought as we turned back to camp. “Hey, Fletch,” I called out, holding out my hands as I approached the fire. “Did Carlos ever make it?”

  Fletcher only glanced at Milo, who pursed his lips, but neither said a word.

  “Come on, guys. You know Carlos. Dark hair. A little bossy. Can’t hold a tune worth a shit. Carlos?”

  Milo finally sighed, his big chest deflating by degrees. “Just give it to her.”

  “No,” Fletcher answered stiffly. “He said morning.”

  “Give what to me in the morning?”

  “What’s the difference?” Milo countered.

  “In what?” I asked sharply, stepping forward.

  Fletcher arrowed Milo with a last hard look, then shook his head as he dug around in his pocket. He handed me a folded letter over the low flames, and I felt the others gather around me. Storytime, it seemed. Though as I unfolded the paper I had a feeling most of them had already heard this one.

  I’m afraid, mi amiga, that you were right when you said we could wait no longer. I don’t know a lot about pregnancy, but the early days of your second trimester will soon give over to the late ones, and then it will be rest that is needed, not action. More than that, the Shadows’ decision to cease carrying conduits means there’s no way for you to gain the immortality you need to enter Midheaven and free our ally rogues. At any rate, the Tulpa’s actions today have convinced me that it’s too risky to try. You are both a female and a part of him, and it’s your soul he covets in order to trump Midheaven’s matriarchs. And because soul power is what’s needed to approach Midheaven’s entrance, I have decided to use my own . . .

  “No . . .” And, too late, I saw that Carlos had been planning this all along. This was what he’d been talking about when he said finding a way into Midheaven was not my worry, and that he’d figure out how to deal with the “new developments.” It was why he’d suggested I remain behind at the bunker instead of going to the raves, and said he’d been considering backup plans for a while now.

  This, I thought, with panic bumping in my chest, was his backup plan. Sacrificing a third of his soul in order to enter a world where men were tortured and enslaved. Yet as unreasonable as that was, as much as I’d been able to tell him about the horrors he’d have to endure there, he’d clearly thought it out.

  And because a third of one’s soul is needed to enter, I will still have two-thirds to spare . . .

  “Dammit!” I crumpled the paper in my fist. Solange would trick him out of the rest of his soul, either through drink or gambling or feminine guile, and then she’d fashion the pieces into jewels and string them up in a makeshift sky. That’s why the men were trapped there. That was their purpose—to fuel that female underworld with their souls.

  “You idiots!” I yelled, taking my frustration out on the men surrounding me. “You didn’t try to stop him? You just let him go?”

  “We let him, Joanna, because you can’t go.” And, of course, that’s what they were all banking on. If I couldn’t gain the aureole in order to access Midheaven’s entrance, then they’d never have a large enough troop to succeed against the Shadow and Light. They’d forever be outlaws, banished to a desert bunker, scarcely better off than before. It was more than they’d ever have as paranormal outcasts, but the whole point of the grays was to provide choice. Carlos’s dream was for every gray to live openly, where and how they chose, and he was willing to risk anything to achieve it. Shaking, I smoothed out the note and forced myself to finish.

  Our run-in with the Shadows today was informative but, if anything, it drove home our need for reinforcements. The entry is open, yet no rogues escape, so I must find out why. I promise, wedita, I will be careful, and I’ll find your baby’s father as well. What I need you to do is stay safe . . .

  “That’s not going to help,” I answered aloud, panicked. He had no idea what awaited him in Midheaven. He was walking into a situation, a literal world, he didn’t understand. Worse, if Solange got ahold of him—and she would—what she’d force him to tell her would forever fuck up my chances to save Hunter. So it wasn’t enough for me to stay put, safe. I had to go after him.

  Of course you’ll want to rush after me [the note continued, because he knew me], but remember this: While the Shadows and Light believe balance is key to survival, grays know that choice is what creates our fate. Balance yourself; survive. And I will choose my own fate.

  “Fuck balance,” I spat out, crumpling the note in one hand as I looked up. “Go after him.”

  “Joanna—”

  I pulled my blade on Vincent, nearest, but the entire group had clearly scented my growing anger and I was immediately faced off against a baker’s dozen of wary rogues, all grouped on the other side of the fire. “Go, goddammit, go! Why are you all just standing here?”

  But none of them could fathom Midheaven’s horrors either, and I was met only by silence.

  My panic and anger grew. I knew I looked rabid, but I had to stop Carlos. They had to. “You don’t know what it’s like over there,” I said, swallowing down the heat scratching at my voice, trying for reason. “Midheaven will rip out his soul, and strip him bare. The longer he’s there, the less he’ll resemble the man you know. Listen to me!”

  “Calm down, Jo.”

  “I will not calm down,” I said lowly, gritting my teeth. Carlos was going to cost me my last chance at Hunter. “In a minute I’m going to get so riled up that—”

  “That what?” Fletched risked a step toward me . . . though left with only mortality keeping me upright, it wasn’t such a great risk. “You’ll slay us all with your soul blade? Or head to the tunnels yourself with the Tulpa needing you alive and Warren wanting you dead? And do it all without backup?”

  They wouldn’t go with me?

  “Don’t you understand? We have to hurry,” I whispered, eyes wide. “Or I’m going to have to save him too.”

  No one answered.

  For a moment I considered running. It was how I used to move through the world . . . barreling forward with weapons and fists cocked, righteous determination flattening everything in my path. But Vincent was right. The Tulpa, the Light—agents on both sides—were all looking for me. I couldn’t afford recklessness. Not with Hunter’s life at risk. And now Carlos’s. Not, I thought, with a child growing in my belly, a fact I was finding harder and harder to ignore.

  So, clenching my jaw, I tried reasoning with the grays again. “Look, the Tulpa has sent three of his most valued Shadow agents into that world and none have returned! They can’t . . . and Carlos will be no different. We have to stop him.”

  “Stop Carlos?” Fletcher shook his head, and turned away.

  “He knows what he’s get
ting into,” Milo said, but he didn’t sound so sure. He could sense my rising panic, they all could. They knew I’d seen things in that magical underworld that they could never imagine, so I let the scent of my emotions erupt from my pores like a volcano. I entertained the thought of Carlos burning, his soul enslaved, sliced to bits, his body discarded once fully relieved of that precious fuel. Worse, I actually allowed myself to think that Hunter might already be gone, and I just didn’t know it. Even I almost scented my anguish.

  And still nobody moved.

  I was about to start screaming when another thought stilled me as well. Someone else could help me get to Midheaven. She’d done so before, I thought, biting my lip. It was unusual . . . and dangerous, but it could be done. Besides, there was no choice. Carlos would perish quickly over there, and so would Hunter—if he hadn’t already—once Solange learned about us—and our baby. How ironic that in trying to keep me safe, Carlos had actually thrown me upon Midheaven’s doorstep.

  Sheathing my blade, I stalked toward Vincent. “Take me to Io.”

  I’d recovered enough from my shock by the time we reached the bunker to apologize to the other grays for my angry outburst, and thank Vincent for gallantly helping me back. Biting the hand that fed was one thing. Biting the only helping hand offered you was just plain stupid. Yet instead of heading directly for Io, I returned to my room one last time. I was still going to see the cell’s unofficial den mother. I simply had to arm myself first.

  Pulling my short, dark hair back into a slick club, I inserted my razor-sharp chopsticks into the blunt ponytail, even though I knew they probably wouldn’t make the transition into Midheaven. Weapons made outside that world, conduit or mortal, never did. My clothes were already tightly fitted, hugging the smooth S-curves that had been sculpted onto my boyish frame in order to turn me into my younger, more voluptuous sister. The cover, like my mother’s, had worked wonderfully for a while. No one looked at an airheaded debutante and expected to see a sharp mind, never mind honed edges.

  Though I wasn’t as comfortable in soft, round flesh as I’d been with my own stronger, leaner lines, I hadn’t bothered to alter them yet. My body was going to change yet again with the life growing inside it. Besides, the latent strength that was me was still underneath, and always would be, no matter what I looked like on the outside. I knew that now.

  After donning the kundans from my mother’s toolbox, I took a moment to meet my own gaze in the mirror, mind-blanking in a way I hadn’t since I’d begun hiding in this bunker. For some reason it gave me confidence. I didn’t look as worried as I felt. And it was the warrior’s mind that I needed now, I thought, studying my narrowed eyes.

  “Though the weapons don’t hurt,” I muttered, strapping a knife sheath to my right thigh. The soul blade had been forged in Midheaven and was composed of the same worldstuff as the rest of that place. So it would make the crossing just fine. One couldn’t be too careful when going head-to-head against someone who owned a piece of every soul who entered that realm.

  Which brought me to the weapon I’d used the last time I’d done so. I pulled out a bag of gray-brown cigarettes, quirleys, and withdrew two, immediately tucking one away in my hip pocket, but holding the second long enough that my fingertips tingled with the contact. Putting the unlit stick to my lips, the tingle immediately jumped to my tongue, and even with mortality dampening my senses I smelled something curdled; the potential death in its smoke.

  When I finally reached Io’s room, she scented it too, though she didn’t bother glancing up from the dissection she was performing. “You won’t get an opportunity to use that against Solange again. She’ll be ready.”

  I instinctively winced at the memory of beautiful flesh burning from the inside out as the quirley’s smoke attacked Solange’s pores, soaking in like sulfuric acid. I still heard her scarred screams when I dreamed.

  “I know. But they’re too powerful not to take. And there are others who wish to harm me there. You don’t seem surprised to see me.” I managed coolly, trying to discern what sort of animal she was working on. It looked like a mix between a starfish and a cucumber, but was undoubtedly neither.

  Then again, I silently mused, Io probably wouldn’t be surprised to see every crack on the moon’s surface with her bare eyes. Black pupils took up the whole of her lidless sockets, and that unblinking stare caught everything.

  “It wasn’t exactly a matter of ‘if’ you’d show up,” she said, giving one last frown to her work before covering it with a blue cloth. Snapping off her gloves, and wiping away the light powder dusting covering her dark hands, she finally looked up. “I know what you want here.”

  To travel to Midheaven without my body. To astral-project into a world waiting to harm me.

  “Did Carlos know I’d come to you?”

  “Of course.” She shrugged one large shoulder, ropy with muscles, then patted at the cloud of hair that surrounded her head like a black halo. “He just hoped to get a good head start before you did anything rash.”

  “Let me guess. He said something annoyingly cryptic like, ‘Fate will see to the rest,’ ” I said wryly, earning a short nod.

  “I don’t have to tell you he’d prefer you not attempt to go after him at all.”

  “I’d have preferred for him to discuss this with me first,” I said, throwing the letter down in front of her.

  Io only shrugged. “I guess he knew neither of you were going to bend.”

  And she turned away and began cleaning her tools in a rubber basin in the corner. Clenching my teeth, I leaned against the table centered in the room. I was getting tired of being so easily dismissed. “So you didn’t even try to stop him?”

  “Should I have?” she asked lightly, scrubbing.

  “After seeing me return from there with a gem Solange had fashioned from a man’s soul?” I said, feeling the shape of Hunter’s gem next to my heart, in the lining of my shirt. I carried it ever with me now. “Fucking A, you should have!”

  I was backed up so fast my heels hit the wall before I knew I’d moved. Io, herself named after both a moon and a goddess, leveled me with that moonscape stare. “Look here, missy. The menfolk may be treating you with a soft hand because of your ‘condition’ but I know all about a woman’s body and the strength it holds. Creating something miraculous with blood and bone requires the same strength it takes to keep breathin’ on the hard days. It might be brave, but it still comes natural. Don’t curse at me again.”

  I swallowed hard, nodded, and was allowed back on my feet. Normally I liked Io’s inability to mince words, but we were usually on the same side of things. Still, she was right, so I softened first. “I’m sorry.”

  Besides, Io wasn’t named after just any moon. I’d looked it up. She was named after Jupiter’s worst moon, one that was bathed in sulfuric fumes, and that grew so cold each night it collapsed the atmosphere around it. It was best to stay on the good side of a woman with that violent namesake.

  “Look, I understand you’re worried. I do,” she shot over her shoulder, altercation already forgiven and forgotten as she returned to her tools. “But Carlos knew what was at risk.”

  “No, Io. He couldn’t know.” No one ever knew what the stakes were in Midheaven, not until they’d crossed over, and by then it was too late. I couldn’t speak of it, and they couldn’t dream of it. “And you’d have stopped him if you did.”

  Because despite this world’s dangers, it was upon entering Midheaven that the real risk taking began. The invite was simple enough. Sit down in what looked like an Old West saloon. Play a hand of poker dealt by dealers with spinning eyes. Have a drink on the house from a bartender with unnatural speed and strength. But both the game and drink were never ending, and the very act of barter became the energy that fueled that woman’s world.

  Meanwhile, as the men sweated in the pseudo gambling hall, atrophying in body and soul, the women lived at the top of a winding staircase where they created their own versions of nirvana. Four d
oors, four rooms representing the basic elements: earth, water, fire, and air. Each room was a tiny paradise created for and by the women who acted as goddesses there, indulging in pleasures both exotic and plain, entire micro-worlds fueled with the energy derived from a man’s soul.

  Men, I thought, swallowing hard, like Carlos. Like Hunter too, though Solange had something special planned for him.

  “Ever think he might have just done it anyway?” Io asked, drying her hands as she turned to me.

  “Gone over there by himself? Knowing what I know?” I asked, immediately shaking my head. “No way.”

  She smiled her disagreement. “Carlos sees you as the key to a new life for those of us who once believed ours was over. You’re hope for those who thought it lost, the bringer of a new world order and prophesied revolution. But with a target on your chest, and that child growing like a weed in your belly, fate remains in flux. He couldn’t just sit here and allow the probable to turn into the possible.”

  Yes he could. I clenched my jaw against a scream. “He’d be safe.”

  “He’d be miserable.”

  Even through my worry, I knew she was right. That’s what hiding away did, whether it was from the world or yourself, your past, or even your dreams. It took absolutely no effort to have a miserable life. But building a glorious one? A life worth living and sharing with others? That’s what was hard.

  “I should have anticipated this. I’ve been too complacent as well.” I gave my head a small, sad shake. I mean, had the Universe given me a lobotomy along with removing my powers? Why was I waiting for Carlos or Io or anyone else to give me a thumbs-up before blasting my way back into that world? To the life I wanted?