The Neon Graveyard

by Vicki Pettersson

  Then every gaze slid from mine and I also remembered that our rooftop truce had expired, and we were firmly enemies again. A brief glance at Chandra—alone on the room’s other side, with her arms crossed over her chest—confirmed it. Hunter stepped between us, blocking my view of her—a warning—before placing himself between Warren and me.

  “Stay behind me,” he said sternly, clearly expecting an argument.

  I couldn’t blame him. Usually Hunter could insist all he wanted and I’d still step forward for a fight. I’d also just stubbornly risked my life again to save his in spite of his warnings . . . and Warren’s, Solange’s . . . even Carlos’s. I knew there was no perceivable reason for me to stop now.

  Yet my reason for hanging back was just the opposite of that: it was unperceivable. If love was a good reason to cross worlds, as Vanessa said, then the life created because of it was an irrefutable one. Hunter had fallen under Solange’s control because he thought it was his only chance to recover his child. If he lived and I died—if he found out our child had died with me—the sacrifice would have been for nothing. He’d never be able to go on after that. And he’d probably curse me for risking his child’s life all the way into his grave.

  So his surprise as I tucked in tight behind him was palpable.

  So was Warren’s. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally stopped confusing agreeableness with vulnerability?”

  “I can actually honor the wishes of others,” I said, though his taunting words had me fighting to stay put. “Unlike you.”

  “Don’t compare your selfish choices to those I’m charged with making as troop leader. You’ve considered only yourself from the day we met. I remain conscious of the whole of the troop.”

  Neither of those things was true, but it wasn’t worth arguing now.

  Warren had taken a lopsided, testing step in Hunter’s direction. I checked myself only because Tekla, still guarding the door, was perhaps even more of a threat. She had her weapon out, one similar to my old crossbow, but with a chain and retracting anchor to recover her missiles. I stared at it, numbness and exhaustion hitting me, before returning my gaze to those gathered around Vanessa, also armed. Who was I kidding? I didn’t have enough physical strength to take on a “Real Housewife,” much less a Zodiac agent. Yet I was still expected to fight.

  What was wrong with these people, this Zodiac world, that they couldn’t just let me live?

  “Joanna didn’t kill Vanessa,” Hunter finally said, breaking the silence with that dark, dusky voice. The others turned their faces up as if he were Lazarus, and why not? As far as they were concerned he was risen, a man come back from a world where men never returned. Their lifelong familiarity with him indisputably played a part in the automatic reaction, overriding any newfangled orders that he was the enemy.

  Warren saw this, and took another threatening step forward.

  I kept my eyes on him, mostly because I couldn’t look at Hunter at all. Tears were threatening to fill my eyes—God, we’d almost made it!—but I blinked, cleared my throat, and with a little more effort, emptied my mind of the thought.

  “Vanessa gave her life for Joanna,” Hunter continued, the accusation—while the rest of you turned your backs—piggybacking on his inflection whether he intended it or not. Riddick briefly closed his eyes, and Jewell began to shake, but no one refuted it.

  “A waste, then,” Warren replied coolly, either not noting his troop’s emotions, or choosing to ignore them. So much for being conscious of the whole of the troop. Nodding at Tekla to keep Hunter in her sights, he strode to the room’s center in his uneven slap-and-glide gait. There he eyed the Serpent Bearer with narrowed curiosity. “Though lots of people seem to lose their lives around Joanna.”

  Then he flicked his gaze dismissively at Hunter. “Except you.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” Hunter replied, but like me, he remained cautious. One small move that Tekla didn’t like and he’d suddenly be sporting a very bloody third eye.

  But Warren was disappointed. It was as clear as the bent nose on his face . . . at least to me. His back was to the rest of his troop, so only Hunter and I saw his thoughts flashing behind his eyes like fast-moving minnows. He was trying to figure out a way to kill Hunter without it looking like blatant homicide.

  “Gregor, Micah,” he said suddenly. “Take Vanessa to the hospital. Revive her. Riddick, go with. You share the same blood type—”

  “Warren, she’s gone—” Micah tried.

  “I won’t accept that,” Warren said, angling his head sharply. My heart began hammering. To some it might look like he was broken up over Vanessa’s death, blaming himself, acting out of guilt and denial. Even when Zane eventually wrote this up in the comics, it would show a troop leader pulling out all the stops before acknowledging one of his agent’s deaths.

  But I knew better. He was ordering away the people who might be most sympathetic to us. Yet there was no way to say that without losing that selfsame sympathy.

  “Jewell, you remain here, but aboveground. Guard against Shadows.”

  Which would leave us alone with Tekla and Warren, bedmates in their quest for troop power. And Chandra, I thought, catching her gaze before she bit her lip and looked away, but she was a well-known enemy of mine.

  Well, at least our odds will be better, I began thinking . . . but that was before I realized no one had moved.

  “Vanessa is dead, Warren,” Micah said, and for a moment I thought I scented soured regret, and a rancid bite of anger. The moment, and scent, were quickly gone. “I think we all have the right to know why.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Warren look so surprised. His brow was both furrowed and raised, and would’ve been comical were it not for his fighting stance. But every one of his agents was steely-eyed and -jawed. Chandra had her arms folded behind her back, probably cupping the steel baton I’d seen before. The others looked more relaxed, though I knew their weapons were also at the ready. Yet right now they were all looking at Warren, the only one who didn’t carry a weapon—other than Hunter and me, of course. He hadn’t donned one since ascending to troop leader. Since murdering his own father.

  A little fact, I thought wryly, that probably should have given us all pause sooner.

  “Fine.” The word was clipped with annoyance. “Joanna, do you care to tell us why Vanessa is the latest in the long trail of bodies left in your wake?”

  “That’s not fair—” Hunter began.

  I put a quieting hand on his shoulder. “I’d love to.”

  Stepping from behind him, though not breaking the touch, I stared directly at the group on the floor. “She died from a broken heart.”

  Warren exploded. “Bullshit!”

  “I heard it crack,” I said louder, but ducked back behind Hunter. I had no defense against Warren, even if he didn’t have a weapon. But my words were weapon enough. They’d all heard Vanessa’s cry. It’d rung out across the city like the sky itself was shattering. “She died because you people can’t seem to care for anything good or soft in this world. You break it.”

  “We’re at war!” Warren thundered, and though he was obviously trying to marshal the others behind him, he looked more rabid than convincing.

  “Yes. And that’s why you’re losing it. You don’t even understand the basic joys you’re fighting for.”

  “Worried for us, dear?” asked Tekla lowly.

  A shiver went up my spine as I turned to her. “Worried, anyway,” I answered honestly.

  “Well, don’t,” Warren said shortly. “We take our battles one at a time, and right now? It’s seven full-fledged agents of Light against two outcast rogues . . . or one and a half anyway.”

  “You’re right,” I said, surprising him again. “My humanity does make me different. I don’t walk around playing God with other people’s lives. And I fucking fight for the things I love.”

  My words sizzled through the room, and Gregor dropped back to Vanessa’s side like the strength had gone from
his legs. Riddick slumped against a honeycombed wall, eyes squeezed shut like he was trying to push through it and disappear. Jewell still trembled. But Micah, dry-eyed and still frowning, didn’t move at all.

  Warren’s stubbled, weathered face hardened further. “Well, thank you for the soapbox rant,” he replied stiffly. “But we’re doing fine without your morality tales. Or we will be once we have the Kairos on our side.”

  And he looked back, greedily, at the emblem on the ground. I gaped, incredulous.

  I wasn’t the only one.

  “Wait a minute,” Micah said, shaking his head as he slowly rose from Vanessa’s side. “When we have the Kairos? You said we were here to look for Vanessa.”

  I watched realization dawn on all their faces, a heartbreaking truth that I’d long known finally emerging: in their leader’s quest for this world’s chosen one, they were just collateral damage. What was a regular ol’ agent or two—or five, or all—if it meant gaining this world’s destined savior as his personal puppet?

  Warren’s jaw clenched. “And now we have her.”

  “Too late,” said Gregor, just as tightly.

  “But with a chance still to gain the other.”

  Hunter let slip an involuntary groan . . . and a muttered suggestion.

  Warren’s head swiveled like a weathervane turning direction. “What?”

  “I said be your own fucking Kairos for once.”

  And no one, not even Tekla, argued with him.

  I made a noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh, and though I was again tucked behind Hunter, I knew all had heard. But kairos was a word with two meanings. Yes, it meant the person destined to forever tilt power in favor of its chosen troop—team Shadow or team Light. Rah. Rah. But its secondary meaning, one less oft expressed, was a measure of time. It was the Supreme Moment: the short, perfect period in which something phenomenal could happen, if one would only act.

  Warren lifted his chin. “You’re only saying that because you clearly couldn’t gain the chosen one yourself.”

  “There is no chosen one,” I snapped, encouraged by the troop’s collective silence. Hunter stiffened in front of me, and I did too when I realized I’d just shown the last card in our precious hand.

  “What?” Warren’s hard voice cracked to a whisper.

  “The child is dead,” I said, lifting my chin.

  “You killed her too?” Tekla asked, startled.

  I shook my head, a slow left to right. “No, but I saved her from a fate worse than death.”

  “That wasn’t for you to decide, Joanna.” Warren’s hard voice was a cracked whisper.

  “Wait, why the fuck are we talking about this?” Micah said, and his voice sounded like there was thunder rising up inside him. I tried to remember another time when I’d heard him curse, and came up empty. “That girl wasn’t a part of our troop. Vanessa was. So was Felix. And . . .” He hesitated now, but plunged forward like a man diving into a whirlpool, knowing there was danger but forced by something outside himself to go on. “And so were Hunter and Joanna. What no one has told me yet—and by no one, Warren, I mean you, our leader—is why. Why the fuck are they all dead?”

  Warren stared like he was hearing another language. Then something about him shifted, subtle, cobra-like. I wouldn’t have been surprised if his neck actually flared.

  But Micah’s bravery, and righteous anger, was catching. It was a good question, and everyone wanted Warren to answer it. But just in case the subtext was unclear, I leaned forward.

  “I think what Micah is asking,” I said softly, “is who you’re going to so blithely sacrifice next?”

  “Don’t question me, you half-breed! If anyone has led us to this place—these deaths!—it’s you! I had it all firmly under control until you came along!”

  “We know,” Hunter muttered.

  “I’m troop leader!” Warren hollered, so enraged that chunks of earth fell from the sandy walls.

  I gave a small head shake. “Not mine.”

  “You’ve got that right,” he snarled, and reached into his pocket. Hunter widened his stance, and Tekla raised her anchored crossbow in response. Warren jerked his head. “Hold her, Chandra.”

  She was behind me before I blinked.

  “Bitch,” I whispered, feeling her hands on mine.

  “I’m going to throw you both back into Midheaven,” Warren said, his fury barely contained. “And this time you’ll stay there.”

  I glanced down at the shining key held between his dirty fingertips. In his other hand was a strange lock.

  “It’s a new one,” he affirmed, as I squinted at the globe. It squished between his fingers, glowing, but possessing a definite keyhole center. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Warren glanced coolly at Hunter. “Invented by our new weapons master.”

  “Let me guess,” Hunter said. “You’ve had one made for the tunnel entrance as well.”

  “Already there.” He nodded, a cruel smile twisting his face even further.

  “There are other ways to exit Midheaven,” I told him, as Chandra shifted behind me, securing both of my hands with only one of her own. It was humiliating.

  “To other realms,” Warren replied, shrugging. “Not my problem.”

  So just as he’d done since we first met, Warren was offering me an impossible choice . . . then making it for me.

  Chandra shifted behind me.

  I jolted in surprise, then fought off a cold, calculating smile.

  Warren whirled away. “I’m going to tell you—all of you—just why I’ve been able to keep this valley so clean.”

  Go for it, I thought, widening my stance. Because something phenomenal had just happened. Something that was textbook kairotic.

  “Haven’t any of you ever wondered why rogues don’t flourish in this valley as in other major cities across the world?”

  I snuck a glance at Tekla as Warren began his customary, exaggerated pace, making sure I was angled so we were all faced off against each other. For a moment I thought I’d gotten it wrong, but no . . . there. She shifted as well.

  “It’s no great secret,” Warren continued, conversationally if not for the dagger in his voice. “But it is interesting. See, most rogues—and I suspect this is the case with you, Joanna—set themselves up to be caught. I mean, true agents can go thirty, forty years without having to alter so much as one cover identity. This is the kind of agent I am. The kind that true Light is.”

  He glanced at Hunter, letting him know he was excluded from this group. I leaned into him, ostensibly to soothe, but hoped my actions said, Stay put.

  “But most rogues leave little clues lying about to their secret roles. Ones that any canny enemy could pick up and study like the flawed facets of a jewel. And do you know why?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “Because deep down they loathe who they are. Their self-hate is so great that they’d rather be taken down by an enemy than live with their flawed natures.”

  “Believe me, Warren,” I said, keeping him talking because I saw what he didn’t: Riddick frowning, Jewell gaping, Gregor clenching his one good fist. “The hate I feel right now has nothing to do with me.”

  He shrugged off my contempt like an old coat. “You have to say that. It’s the classic example of protesting too much. Most rogues go to great lengths to explain away their bad luck when what they’re really describing are their faults. They, in essence, are the failures.”

  “Well, you’re right about one thing. Vanessa is dead because of me.” I nodded, registering the surprise of the rest of the troop. “But she’s also dead because of you.”

  Warren stepped forward, and I tensed, but his left foot nicked the Serpent Bearer symbol and the room bowed with black light. He jerked back, catching himself, then narrowed his gaze at me. He might hold the key to another world, I thought, adjusting my weight, but he had no interest in visiting there himself.

  Yet his misstep was good. Our triangle with Tekla shifted into a single line. “You’re no
leader,” I said, goading him on, and picking up the mental thread Micah had left lying out in the open, just waiting for a little tug. “At least the Tulpa directly attacks those he hates.”

  “So you admire his hard-on for world dominance?”

  “It’s better than your masturbatory leadership,” I replied, the cool one now.

  “I’ll remember that tonight while I’m safe in my sanctuary and you’re locked in a world devoid of anything but what you create.” He tossed the key in his palm, and glared at Hunter. “If I were you, I’d start with food and shelter. You know,” he said, lips curling, “the basics. Bring her here, Chandra.”

  “It’s not my fault she no longer loves you.”

  I didn’t even know I was going to say it until the words tumbled from my mouth, but when the room fell still, I knew we’d reached the tipping point. I wondered if anyone had dared to mention my mother to him since they’d last met. Though they’d once been in love, the emotion had suffered. Like a porous cliff facing the sea, it had been worn away by time and events and the small acts that drilled holes in any life.

  Of course Warren didn’t see it that way. Instead he’d fixated on a sole event, one that had harsh words flying between them because of me. His back, already ramrod straight, stiffened further, his hand white-knuckling as it closed over the key.

  “Never mind, Chandra,” he said. “I’ve got this one myself.”

  He started for me with a smile. Hunter tensed, but I smiled back. And faster than he could blink I whipped my conduit from behind my back, aiming for his shoulder, striking his chest.

  “Oops,” I said, as he staggered backward into the wooden trestle, and dropped the key. “Rusty, I guess.”

  Meanwhile, Hunter lunged for Tekla, but she wasn’t there. She was on the room’s other side, her anchor pointed at Warren as well. Hunter halted, dumbfounded, and Tekla and I stared at each other over extended arms. Slowly she lowered her weapon.

  I directed mine at Warren’s chest for the killing shot.