The Neon Graveyard

by Vicki Pettersson

  “You look hungry, sweetie,” Solange told it, dropping what would have been a kiss to its bulbous head . . . if she’d still had lips. She left a scattering of charred ash there, but both were too focused on me to notice. “Well, go ahead. Dinner is served.”

  Outside of its cage, the creature looked even more alienlike, though it possessed the same surefootedness as a spider, strangely graceful as four limbs—or more accurately, twenty talons—skittered unencumbered across the web. It was almost beautiful, possessing the same certainty of movement exhibited by a harpist picking across strings, except the web’s shimmer represented one note closer to death for me. I fought harder, and the thing’s teeth began to chatter.

  Solange howled with wild, smoky laughter.

  Time slowed in the strange way it does when you’re panicked and you know it. Thirty seconds, some voice said inside me. That’s how long you have to live.

  Then something else began to shake the web. The hairless, clicking, homicidal beast dropped its head, and I followed its milky gaze to find Carlos fighting to get up to me.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Solange assured her pet, and began threading her way down. The distraction gave me a chance to reach the one thing the magic of this world and web couldn’t touch, and when the creature lifted its head again, I was ready.

  The webbing kept me from striking with the full force of my blade, but it only took one small nick in the pristine—and somehow, I knew, still forming—skin to send the beast howling. Shock and pain nearly wiped the features from its face, and silvery-black blood gushed from its arm as it fell back. Once its skin hit the web, it too was trapped in place. Solange screamed and the remaining stars flickered and dimmed as she rerouted herself my way. I yelled too, a battle cry as my soul blade sliced easily through the silky threads, and I regained movement.

  Unfortunately I was still panicked and cut through strands I shouldn’t. Swinging free, I yelped as I slammed into the creature’s soft body, secured only by a thread wrapped around my left wrist. The thing screamed again, then lifted its mottled head and lunged.

  My blade sunk to the hilt in the soft, wide, exposed underbelly, and when the fangs continued lowering, nearing my face, I gave it a good twist. And that’s when the souls in the blade finally leaped free.

  Maybe it was because I was in Midheaven, where both the blade and this beast had dwelled for so long. Maybe it was because the creature in front of me was a blank slate, and the souls could slip inside it with ease unavailable to them when tearing life from something with full form and consciousness. Or maybe it was just time. Whatever it was, each soul trapped inside that knife appeared on the creature’s unformed features, the faces popping up in a smooth cascade of forgotten men and women.

  And there were dozens. Most were male, probably rogues who’d ventured into Midheaven and were killed by the knife’s first owner, Mackie . . . though the first dozen or so were Native Americans, probably from his original tribe, the Nez Perce, now long extinct. Yet every face was caught in its death grimace, morphing so quickly on the creature’s three-dimensional canvas that they were gone practically before they appeared.

  It was still too slow for me. Solange was in a full rage, her mouth extended so far in an open scream that the muscles attached to her jaw had snapped and hung like a blackened beard. But the violence got me thinking again as only violence could, and I yanked the blade free, and held it to the creature’s neck.

  All movement ceased, the web stilled, though the souls now loosed in the creature’s malleable body continued jostling for expression on the putty face. Solange lowered her head in a smoky growl and the remaining stars in the sky dimmed until they snapped off with a soundless blink.

  “I don’t need your fucking stars,” I rasped, and reached blindly for my other pocket. Extending my arm over what was now my prey, I flipped my blade around, fumbled . . . then lit a match from the book I’d pocketed downstairs. I flicked it at the web and it took off like brushfire, sizzling across the fine strands so quickly they barely curled before they were consumed—splitting, parsing, chasing Solange.

  The fire forced her into a backpedal. I’d have gloated, but the defensive fire also cut the ties binding us, and we fell. I had enough sense to keep my grip on my blade and her pet, and rolled midair, making sure it was beneath me as we fell.

  Carlos saw us coming. He leaped to the cart’s side, though there was a crack, and he screamed as we caught his leg. I felt bad, but chances were our next fall was going to hurt even more. Still holding tight to the creature, my insurance, I looked up to find Solange hiding behind the walls of the shell she’d cut it from, obviously safe from the fire in there. Which meant Hunter was too.

  I looked at him, high above the blazing and quickly disappearing web, and my heart twisted in my chest. Yet his eyes had lost their hopelessness, and his brows were drawn down fiercely. Go! he mouthed, pounding on the sac again. I shook my head, opened my mouth . . . and Carlos wrapped his fist around my blade hand, and swiped at the ropes suspending the cart midair. I let out a cry, reaching up for Hunter, but had to close my eyes as we fell. I needed to imagine a damned trampoline into existence.

  We landed so hard the blade clattered from my hand, breath knocked from my chest. I must have bumped my head too, because the next thing I knew the creature with white marbles for eyes was staring down at me, the knowledge of its inevitable death somehow visible in the blank stare . . . and the desire to take me with it honed on its teeth.

  It lunged before its neck exploded in black blood, the soul blade imbedded there. I sputtered, wiped my eyes, and found Carlos looming over us both, one hand out to me. “She’s coming.”

  We fled, leaning on each other. I had two good legs to his one, but his breath was stronger in his chest. We reached the viewing room’s outer door just as a siren’s cry rose behind us. Then the room behind us, the hall before us, and the entire saloon below, began to shake.

  “Hunter!”

  “You die now or come back later!” Carlos yelled, and I knew he was right. I wailed, but kept going, traversing the hallway in an outright flail. The violent tremors shaking the landing kept us from getting anywhere. Clutching the banister with one hand, I propelled Carlos forward so he could do the same, yet as we crawled forward, the staircase leading to the saloon and lanterns and freedom collapsed.

  The door behind us flew from its hinges. I didn’t look; I could feel Solange’s misshapen bulk, and even more, her rage. Whatever power remained to her, in this world, was about to be unleashed on us. That knowledge alone gave me the courage to take the next, unthinkable step.

  “Hang on to me!” I told Carlos, and I locked on to his forearm as I ran down the remaining length of hallway, where the other three elemental rooms used to be, and only a black void remained. Unable to entertain even a sliver of doubt, I leaped into the darkness, half dragging Carlos with me, but wholeheartedly pouring my every thought, my body, my last slivered bit of soul into the only thing I could wish for that might save us all: home.

  15

  Arriving home, if that’s where I was, was painful. My palms and knees took most of my landing, the shock of my weight a fiery bolt that had me face-planting on a surface that was, by contrast, shockingly cold. But whether prone or standing, hot or cold, my mind had not stopped fleeing. Or, for that matter, released the hope that I was so close, so very close, to saving Hunter.

  To touching him. Hearing his breath. Knowing he was safe.

  I rose to my feet, which alone jarred my bones, and turned my head upward, lifting my hands to the sky. To the darkness. To him.

  The sound I made then was half scream, half growl, and nothing human. Carlos shifted and was on me fast, hand over my mouth, gaze boring into mine, mouth moving as he shook his head fast. But I couldn’t hear him. Blood roared in my ears. So he pulled me to his chest roughly, less to steady me than silence me, which ultimately worked. I couldn’t scream if I couldn’t breathe.

  Letting me pull
back marginally, he stroked my hair, cupping the back of my head as I shook uncontrollably. “Hunter—” I finally managed.

  I’d seen him. I’d been so close. And now he was alone, literally, in that world with her. “Oh God, oh God, oh God . . .”

  Carlos’s voice gradually returned and, as if someone had switched on a radio, muttered endearments in Spanish flowed around me like a river. I dropped my arms and melted into it, exhausted from the flight, the beating I’d taken, the loss of hope. Carlos finally pulled back, wincing in pain as he caught my face in his hands, and when I finally looked at him, I winced as well. The gem that had replaced his eye was still in place, sparking with light, though tears had washed most of the blood away. The sight of it momentarily shocked me from my mourning.

  “It’s a sunstone,” Carlos said, either scenting my horror, or simply reading it in my face. “She said the red-gold platelets would complement my complexion.”

  I didn’t laugh. “Does it—”

  “Hurt?” he finished, when I couldn’t. He shook his head. “Not anymore. Though I confess, my leg has felt better.”

  “Oh God! I’m sorry!” I looped his arm over my shoulders, then turned to do what grief had kept me from doing immediately, squinting into the room around us. Narrow windows lay slitted against a wall in front of me, casting cubes of dim light on what my face-plant had already told me was a marble floor. So it was dark outside of . . . wherever we were. Were we even in Las Vegas? Or in a different part of Midheaven?

  Or, possibly, one of the places the old viewing room had once shown agents entering tunnel systems from around the world?

  “So you must have been feeling nostalgic when you jumped into that black hole.”

  “What?” I said, my voice scratchy from screaming.

  “Look around. You, of anyone, should recognize this place.”

  Despite his leg, he allowed me to propel him in a circle, though he grunted in pain when I jerked back at the sight of the gold throne. “Holy. Hell.”

  I was in the home, the mansion, the estate where I’d been raised. In particular, I was in the room Xavier Archer had built under the Tulpa’s command—one filled with Tibetan artifacts, and shaped like a stupa, a traditional Tibetan burial mound.

  And a stupa, I suddenly realized, was shaped exactly like the thirteenth entrance . . . the Serpent Bearer.

  “Holy hell,” I repeated softly, as I stared at the only thing that could have distracted me from the loss of Hunter.

  Tell me what you know about the Serpent Bearer!

  The Tulpa had bellowed this at me once, though I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about then. He’d been seeking entrance into Midheaven, via the Serpent Bearer, for years. “He couldn’t find it,” I whispered, mind racing, “so he tried to build it himself.”

  “What?” Carlos asked, not following.

  “Stupas are Tibetan,” I told Carlos, pointing at the pinched ceiling. “Just like tulpas. He’d have studied the culture, learned everything he could about his origins. Looking at this room, I don’t think it’s too farfetched to say he became obsessed with everything about it.”

  “Everyone wants to know where they come from.”

  But as a thought form, the Tulpa was realized, not birthed. He didn’t actually come from anywhere. Knowing—as only a tulpa could—what the mind could produce when set to a task, he must have then wondered what other wonderful, terrible, powerful things they’d done.

  And he’d found one.

  Burial mounds that acted as connections to other worlds. And that used souls, which he didn’t have, as transportation.

  “I don’t think he knows he’s done it,” I muttered, flicking at a prayer wheel. A phalanx of them led to the gold throne atop a dais; authentic, antique, and imported from Tibet. Same with the masks leering from the whitewashed walls, ones I already knew trapped soul energy inside their hollowed bowls. “Entering Midheaven requires a third of your soul, even when crossing via a stupa.”

  “Usually the people in stupas are already dead,” Carlos said wryly.

  But the Tulpa had built this one in the home where I’d lived. He’d needed space to build this strange, otherworldly pseudo entrance. So when I’d thought home upon entering Midheaven’s void, that mental energy had taken me back to this entrance in the first place I’d ever considered home.

  “We must have fallen from the peak,” Carlos said, and I looked up. Even in the near-darkness I could make out a point where the room’s thirteen sides met, an apex as definite and sharp as a pinpricked star.

  “So we can get back,” I said, thoughts gelling. Hunter was back there somewhere. Hunter, the rest of my powers . . . and now my soul blade. “Where’s the mark? If I stand on it, we can go now.”

  I took two steps and was jerked back into place. “Wha—?”

  I tried to jerk away but despite the eye, despite the limp, Carlos held strong. “No.”

  “We have to! Hunter’s still there.” I tried to jerk away again, but kept my voice low. The last thing we needed was to get caught. “Solange won’t be expecting it. We can take her off guard—”

  He shook his head. “There’s a better way.”

  “But Hunter—”

  “Will be there. Returning right now will be suicide and you know it. Think, Jo.”

  I ran a hand over my head and blew out a hard breath, but as my blood began to slow, I knew he was right. Dying now wouldn’t help Hunter. “Fine. Then can you just tell me what the fuck we killed back there?”

  Yet Carlos’s expression had changed. His head was tilted, chin lowered, and his one good eye bored a hole into me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was going to charge. I did know better . . . but took a step back anyway.

  “Do that again,” he said lowly, leaning as far forward as his good leg would allow.

  “What?”

  “Breathe.”

  I frowned, licked my lips, and inhaled deeply. Then I blew a stream of breath directly into his face, watching his reaction closely as he took it in. Even if I were an agent, I wouldn’t be able to scent myself. Agents never could. Yet Carlos both knew me and could break down air molecules with the power of concentration alone. Whatever had forced his concentration now was enough to pull it from his pain; enough too to cause him to jerk back and swallow hard. He grabbed my arm, his fingertips tense with urgency, the gentleness from before gone.

  “Is it my soul?” I asked, immediately panicked. “Is it all gone?”

  “Worse,” he said, and from the look on his face, I believed it. “Or I guess I should say congratulations.”

  “What?” I shook my head, not following. “Why?”

  “Because, Joanna”—his mouth quirked at one side, though he didn’t look happy—“It’s a girl.”

  “It’s a—?” I shook my head to clear it. “You mean, I’m a . . . I’m having . . .”

  Carlos just nodded. The room began to spin, but I forced it still.

  “Shit. We have to get out of here.” And I knew with what was left of my soul that Hunter would understand. I was in my enemy’s lair and I stank of humanity, frailty, myself . . . and motherhood. Sure, I’d been sick in my pregnancy. I’d been a bit clumsy recently too, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Having my center of gravity shift on me, in me, was nothing compared to the way the world kept shifting around me. But this was different. It was the first time I’d felt internally vulnerable. Which was absurd, because anyone—Shadow, Light, or gray—could kill me with a backhanded swat. But only if they could find me.

  And now I was far enough along in my pregnancy that they could . . . by scent.

  A girl.

  I squared my shoulders. “This way.”

  Carlos had been here once before, so he knew how heavily guarded the mansion was. Now that everyone who was previously unaware the Tulpa regularly lurked here was either dead or banned from the house, my guess was that Daddy Dearest probably spent even more time under this roof. Also, our dear girl from the desert
ambush, Lindy Maguire, was now firmly installed as the lady of the mansion. Therefore, instead of heading toward the rooms leading to the foyer, we whirled in the opposite direction to where the stupa dead-ended in an office.

  Which was locked.

  “I’ve got it,” I muttered, because I might be mortal and oozing the hormones that revealed my pregnant state, but unlike Carlos I had the use of both legs. I kicked the door open and we rejoined sides, ready to bolt together through the office windows. But we both startled at the sight of the room.

  Lindy was doing a little redecorating.

  The giant mahogany desk my stepfather had liked to work behind was gone, the antique rug that had sat beneath it also removed.

  “Books are gone too,” Carlos muttered, staring at the floor-to-ceiling shelves, now empty.

  “Lindy probably had trouble sounding out the big words.”

  My gaze settled on a hinge in the wall across from us. Apparently she also saw no reason to hide the once-secret entrance that led to the hidden room just behind this one. It’d once been a place of ritual and smoke, where incantations and chants led to the slow stripping of my stepfather’s soul. Hiding it must have seemed unnecessary now that he was dead.

  I shrugged as I looked back at Carlos, who hesitated a fraction too long before limping toward the heavily curtained window. His face was drawn tight with pain, but also etched with a fresh determination.

  It stopped me cold.

  “Come on,” he said, jerking his head.

  Pursing my lips, I shook mine. “What do you not want me to see?”

  He neither reacted nor looked at me. Even after surviving a woman who fashioned his soul into a shiny eyepiece, after facing down her hairless pet that, while four limbs short, best resembled a mutant arachnid, and after landing in the Tulpa’s sitting room, he hadn’t reacted like this. He had acted, yes. But he hadn’t reacted.

  Turning, I ignored his soft protest, one he already knew was futile, and crossed to the secret door. Bracing myself for what Carlos’s heightened sense of smell had caught on the air; some nuance, some olfactory hook wafting from behind that passage, I peered inside . . . and the room spun.