The Neon Graveyard

by Vicki Pettersson

  I raised my brows. “I’ll still end up fighting to the death?”

  “You’ll still end up with me.”

  Carl groaned behind the counter, not looking up. “I can’t believe I have to write this shit.”

  “Yeah,” yelled Douglas, all four chair legs firmly planted on the ground. “Can you guys do your mating dance elsewhere? We have serious Zodiac business to attend to here.”

  I looked at Hunter, who added a shrug to his smile. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather dance.”

  A matching smile bloomed on my face and, pulling him to the door, I kissed him. I could fill him in on the back issues myself later, preferably somewhere alone. As for the future, and anything the aureole might have to reveal about it? I decided I could wait and see for myself.

  “Hey!” Carl called out to us just as Hunter reached for the handle. We turned. “Will one of you at least give me a hint as to what comes next? I’d like to get a head start on the next issue. These voices are burning a hole in my mind, man.”

  “Sorry, Carl.” I shrugged. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  Tekla had offered me back my position as Archer of Light. Carlos had allowed the same for the grays.

  Carl threw down his pencil. “Fine, then what about you, Hunter? I mean, you’re returning as weapons master, right? You’re going to make some badass new conduit for her? ’Cause as the Kairos she’s going to need something representative of her supreme powers, like a lightning bolt or some shit like that.”

  “I’ll get right on that.”

  Snorting, I gave Carl a backward wave. “I’m okay with my bow and arrow for now.”

  But with Hunter’s hand on the small of my back, and his gaze warm on my face, I suddenly realized I had other weaponry now. Forget a troop, I had a partner. Someone I trusted to protect me, and who trusted me to do the same.

  And the child we’d created between us, I decided. That was my armament too. This little person, this being that I was supposed to nurture and protect, was, in some ways, the unlikely protector of me. Already she was making me choose things I otherwise wouldn’t, defining my life by her very existence. Defining too what my life was not. Or what it wasn’t any longer.

  Which troop will you join?

  I reached into my pocket and flipped one of the soul chips between my fingers.

  Freedom for all arises from the Serpent Bearer.

  I thought about that, and of the fixed stars ever looming overhead, their stillness an illusion. Right now the earth was roaring around the sun. The planets were flinging themselves madly on their hinges. The Milky Way rotating like some great wave always on the verge of cresting. As we talked about gray and Light, life and death, the Universe continued to expand above and around us, growing infinitely larger, bloated with endless choice.

  I glanced back at Carl and Li and Douglas, and the five other preteens peopling the shop, and knew that even though the months and years would roll differently across the landscape of all our lives, the elemental chaos directing them was the same for us all. Our days would be lived out under the same celestial sky, given meaning only by the choices we made . . . or the ones that were chosen for us.

  And with that thought, I suddenly knew exactly what I was going to do.

  The Fireside Lounge at the Peppermill was not only Las Vegas’s original ultra-kitschy ultra-lounge—what choice was there with the dated seventies decor, retro cocktails, and waitresses outfitted like silver screen sirens?—it was also a known safe zone, though far less geeky than the preadolescent stronghold, Master Comics. So it was there that I asked the two people I considered the valley’s reigning troop leaders to meet me. I knew neither Tekla nor Carlos would agree to do so outside the safety of those walls. The Light and gray might be able to trust each other in time, but for now, Tekla and Carlos only agreed to meet because each considered me the rightful leader of their respective troops.

  “I have something for you,” I told Carlos, since he’d arrived first, again demonstrating his unfailing trust in me. Seated across from him, next to a fire pit bubbling with water and flame, I smiled at him, but held out my hand before his expression could grow too hopeful. He was a good man who believed he was doing the right thing, and he’d been kinder to me than most anyone in the supernatural underworld. I didn’t want to mess with his emotions when I already knew I wasn’t choosing gray. His shoulders slumped as he took the chunk of silver I gave to him, and the light from the sunken fire pit caught his wince. Tekla, at my other shoulder, saw it too, and almost smiled. I stopped her cold as well. “And this is for you.”

  She gazed down at her portion of the halved silver, squinting and unmoving, like she’d never seen the key before. She had, of course. Along with the lock to Midheaven she’d handed to me. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s the key to unlock Midheaven’s entrances. You have half. Carlos has the other. If either of you ever wants to enter that place again, you’ll have to work together.”

  Carlos lifted his chin. “We would never want that world open again.”

  “And we’d never work with rogues who might long to,” Tekla said stiffly.

  I looked at the steely, small woman, heard her pointed, cold words, and softened toward her anyway. She was also working hard to do the right thing, using the only resources and knowledge she’d ever known. After fighting in tandem to help me bring down the Tulpa, they’d each withdrawn to their side of the philosophical line, knowing that whoever won the Kairos’s loyalty and favor would naturally trump the other.

  I felt both Tekla and Carlos were right in their opposing positions . . . yet neither was right for me. “So don’t,” I told her, without emotion. “I don’t care.”

  My tone, though absent of malice, didn’t touch her. All she heard was a decision that didn’t include her. The key disappeared into the sleeve of her robe as she folded her arms. Lifting her chin, she said, “Then you’re choosing not to lead the Light.”

  For his part, Carlos, ever the believer, held out hope. “She doesn’t want to lead those who’d choose their allies based on lineage instead of deed.”

  “I don’t want to lead any troop,” I said, correcting them both.

  “But, weda—” he began.

  “Joanna—” said Tekla, and I held up a hand to each.

  “I’ve fulfilled what you both wished of me,” I said loudly, staring into the blue flames that leaped from the pit of boiling water. “I’ve done what each of you wanted since learning of the Zodiac world. Yet never once have I been asked what I wanted.”

  The silence that followed was epic. Tekla only stared at me, as nonplussed as Carlos, who usually had no problem adjusting his point of view. But both their faces were etched with surprise, like it had never even occurred to them to ask. I laughed without humor when I realized that was exactly right. It never had.

  “What I want,” I offered, since they still weren’t asking, “is to lead a life. Not two lives as two different people, even sisters. Even mine. Not a hidden identity with one foot in the mortal world and the other in that of the Zodiac. Just one world. One life. Mine.”

  This only seemed to perplex them further. “But you brought the sixth sign to fruition,” Tekla pointed out eventually. “You are the Kairos. And there will be more signs yet.”

  I didn’t doubt it. “Which is exactly why I have to leave. If I stay, both troops will be waiting for me to take up leadership. Someone will want to use me for their purposes.” I looked at Carlos and Tekla again, who exchanged uncomfortable glances. “Even you two will want me more on one side, yours, than the other. So as long as I’m around, neither of you will fully lead.”

  Then I thought of Chandra, her forced deference to me, and for a position I still wasn’t sure I ever really wanted. “People will refuse to take up the star signs that are rightfully theirs.”

  Carlos looked down, twirling the key between forefinger and thumb, his good eye narrowing in confusion. I imagined the
one behind his eye patch doing the same. “But what about your destiny?”

  Biting my lip, I nodded slowly. “I can’t really be the Kairos unless I stop trying to be someone I’m not. In order for any of this past year to have mattered—beyond the immediate circumstances, I mean—I have to simply be myself.”

  Because every choice I’d made—from going on a blind date with a poker-wielding maniac to facing down a tulpa instead of fleeing the city—had led me to this moment. A person truly took their stand not while their heels were being pressed to the fire, but in the quiet moments of choice. And whereas it had always felt like my past had been some sort of mountain to climb and overcome, this moment felt like a field, wide and endless and green. For once I was in a place that felt like a newly opened gift.

  Who knew such a place could exist after all that strife?

  Leaning forward, I placed a hand on each of their knees. They both remained very still, bent slightly forward, as if listening closely. I hoped they were.

  “War or peace,” I told them, smiling bittersweetly, “it’s up to you now, but you’ll both be stronger against any Shadows who try to infiltrate the valley if you stick together.”

  And then I stood, giving one last glance around at the tables and walls studded with square mirrored tiles, the line of green neon cresting over the room’s similarly mirrored ceiling, the faux foliage sporting bright pink and red blossoms that drooped lazily over red velvet booths.

  “I’ll miss you,” I muttered softly, and even I was unsure if I was talking to Vegas, to the grays, or to the Light. Slowly I climbed the small staircase leading from the rounded fire pit, tracing the polished gold railing with my fingerprints, and deftly dodged a cocktail waitress.

  “Wait . . . where will you go?”

  I looked back at the two troop leaders, united only in their wariness. Then I gave them a closemouthed smile, a little finger wave, and left.

  30

  Of course, we left under the cover of shadows.

  After taking a cab through the all-night drive-through of an In-n-Out Burger, we had the driver drop us at a time-share complex on the Strip’s south side, where we jacked one of the residents’ Olds. The plan was to ditch that at Stateline, grab another, play the lotto, and be cruising through the dry lakebed toward San Bernardino before light began its soft caress of the sky.

  Yet there was suddenly one last place I wanted to see before leaving the valley for good, and when I ran it by Hunter, he didn’t even pause before giving the steering wheel a hard jerk. The danger in it was small, after all. The Shadows had fled. The Light and grays wouldn’t harm us, at least not for now. And besides, everyone in the Zodiac world had clearly forgotten about the lonely destination.

  Everyone but me.

  We turned into the gravel lane of the cemetery’s back entrance, where headstones and unnaturally green lawns yawned along each side of the long road. In the predawn hour, where even the sharpest objects were smeared at the edges, it had the effect of making the narrow road feel like a bridge, as if what was buried underground supported that which lived on top. That was certainly true in my case, I thought, searching out the headstone bearing my name—Joanna Archer—cradled by my sister’s casket beneath.

  “I don’t have any flowers.” I stopped short, suddenly panicked as I turned to Hunter. My voice was too loud and I looked around hurriedly, but Hunter kept his gaze trained on me, and put his hands on my arms.

  “You’ve got something else in bloom,” he said softly, motioning me forward with a jerk of his head. “I bet she’d love to hear about that.”

  I nodded after a moment, put a hand to his cheek in thanks, and continued on alone.

  The crunch of my footsteps dropped into silence as I hit the turf, still wet from a late night watering, the arid spring night not yet warm enough to instantly dry the drops. Though I’d only been there once, I arrived at the grave without error, and dropped down next to it before my shaking legs could give out altogether.

  “Nerves, I guess,” I told Olivia without preamble, greeting, or introduction. If she couldn’t hear me in whatever passed for the Great Beyond, then it wouldn’t matter. If she could . . . well, she’d already know I was nervous. And probably that I was leaving as well. This good-bye was primarily for me. “The folly of the living, huh?” I muttered.

  Then the silence crowded in and I lowered my head. “Do you remember telling me that everyone has their own talents? You told me that yours was keeping us together. You said even though I didn’t trust a lot of things or people in this life, that I could trust that.”

  I bit my lip, looking up into the cool, quiet sky. The day after telling me that—taping it as a birthday video message to me, actually—Olivia was dead. Yet she was right. Even now, I felt her with me. And it had nothing to do with the way I looked either. I wasn’t pretending to be her anymore.

  I closed my eyes, thankful at least one of us had recognized that strength. She had kept us together. Kept me alive as well. Every day that I looked in the mirror and saw Olivia had been one more day of breath taken in a world that wished me dead.

  Yes, I’d been the one to dispatch the Tulpa. Finally. And Tekla had orchestrated Warren’s ousting. Hunter had placed a soul blade between Solange’s vertebrae. But none of it would have been possible if this bright, bubbly, vibrant girl hadn’t lived. What an unlikely savior. What an incredible hero.

  “Anyway, I wanted you to know that a day doesn’t go by that I don’t still think of you, and that altering my appearance hasn’t changed that. Leaving this city, our home, won’t either. I just wanted you to know I do trust someone else now. I’m more like you when I’m with him too. More, I don’t know, vulnerable, I guess. Anyway . . . I just wanted you to know.”

  The silence moved in again, though it felt less uncomfortable, at least until a familiar tingle worked its way through the earth and up my spine. I looked over to find Hunter’s face pinched as well, and he joined me at Olivia’s grave, literally stepping to my side at the exact moment that shadow and light split the skies. The two warring factions of night and day battling for dominance despite the inevitable end result. Soon dawn would bear down on us like it was giving chase, but for now I jolted as it spread invisibly along the flat, unending terrain, stretching from one side of Vegas to the other, wiping out neon and sharpening all the other edges.

  “We should go,” Hunter said softly. I nodded and let him lift me to my feet, though I paused for one glance back at the rose marble headstone.

  “By the way, we’re naming her Olivia,” I whispered, smiling slightly. “Though we haven’t decided on a last name yet.”

  Whatever kept us safe, I thought, seeing the same answer—and lopsided smile—on Hunter’s face.

  “We’re going to let her pick out her own middle name, though,” Hunter added, surprising me—which Olivia would have loved. “After all, a woman should have a choice in deciding who she wants to be.”

  For a moment I thought I heard my sister’s laugh.

  Then the sun’s rays unraveled like ribbon across the lawn, the new day staking its claim. The far-off mountain ranges sat up against the soft blue sky, pale purples and pinks flowing from their peaks like extravagant robes trailing the valley floor.

  It was, I thought, as we climbed back into the stolen car, a gentle arrival to a day that almost hadn’t come. And as we left the city, and the wide desert landscape reached out to claim us, I opened my window and breathed in deeply of the dry air, wanting to believe this day was the first of many good ones before us. Somewhere behind us, in the scooped-out innards of that bright basin, agents of Light crossed realities, grays slipped from the city’s edge, and mortals went on with their lives like true darkness would never touch them.

  But no life was without its strain and strife, not if it was fully lived. Opening up to experience, even the good ones like trust and love, was to open yourself up to pain. I suppose the key was to not compound matters by making the rest of it unnecessari
ly hard. My need for control had certainly done that in the past. So I made a promise to myself in that moment.

  I would make a concerted effort to reach for what was soft and good in this world. I’d find a place to settle into, and hold still so that this world’s good and soft could reach back and touch me as well. Olivia would have liked that.

  And while there was still the possibility of being this world’s Kairos hanging over my head, I’d decided that having a kairotic nature really meant adapting to life’s ever-changing circumstances. And anyone could be the Kairos, really. They just had to be prepared to be the hero of their own life.

  I turned around only once more that day. I wanted to catch the Vegas skyline disappearing behind the rocky granite hillside. Oddly the Valhalla Hotel and Casino, for all its power and prestige, couldn’t even be seen. It simply blended in with all the other gaudy monstrosities that collectively made the city awe-worthy, one more amazing thing in a city that never ceased trying to top itself. Still, I had to smile at the Stratosphere’s obnoxiously jutting spire. I couldn’t help but think of it as an indiscriminate middle finger given to anyone who thought bright, bulging cities shouldn’t exist in the desert. Yet a few miles later Las Vegas had disappeared altogether, scrubbed from existence in the way all tangible things eventually were—though distance, perspective, and time.

  I turned back to find Hunter, still tangible, watching me. He gave me that slow, lazy smile that made my heart pulse in a strange, new rhythm, and put a hand on my knee.

  “A little breather, baby,” he said, somehow knowing my thoughts. “Vegas will be there, but we need to catch our breaths.”

  So we tucked in close and settled in for the ride. If we wanted to, I suddenly realized, we could go on forever. We could stop where we wanted and leave upon whim. We could talk about everything and nothing. We could do things that normal people did—find a place to settle down, make love until our strength gave out, laugh until our throats burned. A world had suddenly opened up before us, but only because we’d left another one behind.