The Touch of Twilight

by Vicki Pettersson

  “She loved him?”

  He nodded. “She said she did. And he loved the church…could’ve loved Regan. One thing Brynn couldn’t ever abide was competition.”

  I remembered that; Regan taunting me over defending my lover, saying bad habits were hard to break. Brynn had certainly succeeded in her quest to twist her lover, and her daughter. And now Regan was using my first love against me. “Effective,” I murmured darkly, but strangely not feeling a bit sorry for Regan. Go figure.

  Gregor looked at me sharply.

  “I didn’t say it was right,” I said, fingering the palm-sized frame I’d dropped in my pocket, “just effective.”

  And it confirmed something I’d already suspected. If there was something Regan couldn’t have—a place in her birth father’s life, a love to share that life with—then she wasn’t going to let anyone else have it either.

  “Do you have a rash?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I glanced down. The skin above my V-neck T-shirt was red to the point of being raw. I must have been scratching it for a while now. “I might.”

  He glanced at my chest where the doppelgänger had swiped at me, moving his eyes along the rest of my torso, pausing at my left arm where even I hadn’t noticed red bumps popping up over a new, and still sensitive, scar. “It’s spreading. You should have Rena make a salve for it,” he said, then grinned and imbued his tone with motherly censure. “‘I swear, sometimes you full-fledged star signs are worse than my initiates.’”

  I grinned back. It sounded just like her.

  But our levity dropped away when we reached the briefing room, where it was immediately clear there’d be no meeting today.

  Tekla was there, but she didn’t note my arrival, nor did the others surrounding her. She was prone on the floor, and at first I thought she was crying, but then I saw she was only there for support. A keening rose from the circle, the bubble of people shifted as one, and I caught sight of Kimber, sobbing and splayed on the floor like a broken doll. The animist’s mask was lying on the ground beside her.

  “I wanted to see my fate again…” Kimber was saying as Micah held her. Vanessa stroked her hair. “I didn’t think it would attack me. I didn’t know her ill chi lives in the mask…”

  The her in question backed out of the room unseen and unsensed, ears roaring with blood while everyone else’s horrified attention remained fixed on Kimber. Even Gregor seemed to have forgotten me, and I placed his coffee on the ground outside the door before I ran.

  My mind ticked with possible routes of escape: boneyard, cantina, locker room, other reality…no, no, no, no! Thankfully my movements were as rote as my thoughts, and I turned automatically to my sanctuary within the sanctuary.

  Throwing open the door to the sparse, utilitarian room, I tossed my messenger bag on the large platform bed, but remained standing, palms to eyes, emptiness pressing in around me. I’d added little of myself to the room, choosing instead to leave it as it was when my mother lived here. The walls were white, relieved only by chunky end tables and floating mahogany wall shelves. Granted, there wasn’t enough room to do much more, but I could have added color in the form of a painting or photos or a rug overlaying the concrete floor. I could have added life in the form of a plant or a vase of flowers or mementos that would’ve truly made it mine, and I didn’t need a psychologist to tell me why I didn’t. The clothes I left hanging perfectly spaced in the closet—clothes not mine—told me I was in a holding pattern, a moratorium, waiting, still hoping she would come back.

  “She’s not going to rescue you, Joanna,” I muttered darkly to myself as I rubbed a hand over my face, then jerked it away as I thought of the mask in the dojo. Rescuing wasn’t what I needed anyway. Tough love, the kind my Krav Maga instructor, Asaf, had used to bring me back from the walking dead, was more effective. Yet all I had was self-love, and a tenuous thread too. But I could fake tough. I could be my own trainer and mentor, wear yet a different hat for the time it took to see a way out of this trouble. Again.

  Rescue yourself.

  Okay, I thought, opening my eyes. I would do that. I strode into the bathroom and leaned into the mirror, trying to see any difference than there’d been a month ago, before the third sign had been revealed. I didn’t feel like I had bad chi. No stiffness or soreness, no loss of equilibrium or sudden bouts of vertigo. And wouldn’t there at least be something to indicate some sort of imbalance? Maybe not physically, but if I was destined to, oh, say, kill my own mother, there’d be something to indicate the predisposition, right?

  Then again, did the Shadow agents wake up with heartburn every morning just because they had the desire to exterminate the soul of humanity? Did humans who killed other human beings spend their days feeling like a walking meat suit, unable to process emotion unrelated to their violence? I had to at least concede the possibility that just because I didn’t feel it didn’t mean it wasn’t there. If anything, I’d learned how to strip past the layers of my multiple identities and get comfortable analyzing my own interpersonal neuroses.

  So what about Kimber’s accusation, her injury? She said it was bad chi; the Tulpa had rescinded his offer to allow me to join his troop for the same reason. Even the doppelgänger, with her deadly focus on me, “the golden ring,” had said the spirit of the Kairos shouldn’t be shackled to a body with damaged chi.

  I didn’t know. The only clear thing was that of all the problems plaguing me, the doppelgänger was public enemy number one. Get rid of her and I’d nullify the danger posed to everyone by the chaos brought on by her violent ruptures of the fabric of our world. But would that entail having to work with dear ol’ dad?

  I had to admit, if anyone knew how to move seamlessly along different realities, it was the Tulpa. I’d seen him call someone to his side with nothing more than a thought; disembodied, he’d once assaulted me using nothing more than the windy torrent of his breath. He clearly knew how to access alternate planes, what was possible as well as what was limited. And even given all that, he thought he needed my help. But at what cost to myself?

  Meanwhile, I still had to figure out what to do about dear, sweet, smells-like-a-carcass-marinating-in-a-putrid-swamp Rose. In the past few months Regan had manipulated my relationship with Ben, made me infect my allies with a deadly virus, had me chasing my enemies—and my own tail—and nearly cost me my place in the troop. I could be philosophical about all this if she’d done those things just because I was Light. If she’d just killed me…or tried to. But she hadn’t, which made this personal. She wanted more than my death, but what? And why?

  Learn that, and I could anticipate her next move. For now I prioritized: doppelgänger, Regan, and then Tulpa. Eliminate these one by one, I thought, tapping the side of the sink, and surely my ill chi would take care of itself.

  15

  The next day found me back in mortal reality, sans Chandra. Despite Warren’s orders that we all remain partnered up, I no longer had to work to ditch her, probably because she’d suddenly—and not so subtly—paired up with Kimber, whose hear-me-roar girl power had fizzled into a feeble whimper. The initiate refused to even look at me as we all piled into Gregor’s cab for dawn’s crossing, and hid her face behind her thick blond plaits and shaking hands. I’d anticipated at least a modicum of resistance to my going it solo, but it seemed Kimber’s run-in with my ill chi had the others wanting to avoid the same, and though Warren didn’t confront me about what’d happened to the new initiate, he clearly hadn’t stuck up for me either. The others went their way, and I went mine.

  After Gregor dropped me off at my condo, I showered and pulled on a cashmere turtleneck and pinstripe trousers. The ensemble was expensive, but nondescript enough for everything I had to do that day, and as I dressed I decided I didn’t need so-called allies who didn’t believe in my inherent goodness. Going it alone also meant not having to fight with anyone about returning to Xavier’s. I wanted to put some pressure on him about the Valhalla job, and as much as I wanted to believe that wa
s because of Warren’s blessing, I knew Hunter’s objection to my employment was equally motivating.

  I called Cher’s hotel room in Fiji on the way to the mansion, but was asked to leave a message by some man at the front desk with overpolite mannerisms and a thick, lovely accent. I sighed wistfully, gave the clerk my name and number, thinking a long vacation with nothing more complicated than frothy mixed drinks sounded divine. Given the benefits my new powers and strengths afforded me, my inability to leave the valley was an insignificant limitation, but it still chafed. At least the mortals most likely to be affected by my current troubles were temporarily safe. All except Ben, and I’d be taking care of that exception soon.

  Reaching Xavier’s estate, I batted my lashes at the guard dozing in the gatehouse, then gunned the Porsche’s engine, knowing my arrival was being phoned in even as I drove. I screeched to a stop outside the mansion, raced up the white, palatial steps, and used the key I’d remembered to bring along with me this time to open the door. I didn’t want to be stalled by Deluca, accosted by Helen, or spend more time in this gloomy mausoleum than I had to.

  I hurried through the servants’ quarters and used Xavier’s private hallway to access his office. I still had to walk through the stupa, with the throne identical to that in my rooftop vision, and with the animist’s masks I now knew were aching to glue themselves to my face. I controlled a shudder by moving fast, though the spirit I’d felt living inside the one I’d worn wasn’t in evidence in any of the grainy faces staring back at me. However, there was a glaring blank spot where it’d once hung, and I knew Helen would’ve noticed its absence by now.

  All the more reason to hurry.

  I skipped the customary knock on the office door and flung it open, taking a deep breath to airily explain my unexpected intrusion. But Xavier wasn’t glaring up at me from behind his gigantic desk. The tinny jangle of foreign chimes once again filled the air, muting my steps across the Persian rug as I inched toward the gaping mouth of Xavier’s secret room. I’d misjudged him, I thought wryly, shaking my head. Because if he was spending this much time siphoning off his soul energy, he must have had a soul to begin with.

  But my dark humor abated as I peered around the bookcase and into the hidden chamber. Xavier was kneeling again; his hair disheveled like he’d sprung from bed, still clothed in pajamas that showed more of his frame than his custom suits would allow. A tremor of shock moved through me. The once-giant man was absolutely gaunt.

  But this time he wasn’t meditating or lost in prayer. Helen loomed behind him, hands on his shoulders, thumbs on his neck. They weren’t, I noted, placed there in support. In fact, her entire demeanor had lost the solicitousness that’d always marked her servitude in the Archer household. Instead it looked like she was holding Xavier in place; stilling his shoulders as they twitched beneath her palms, grounding him like he might float away.

  “It hurts,” he was saying, head bowed, snaking wisps of incense twining around him. “I feel like my ribs are going to pop. Look, they’re still bruised from the last time.” He tried to pull up his pajama top. “They’re bruised from the inside.”

  She pushed his arms down, shushing him. “Because you’re holding your breath.”

  “No, it gets trapped inside and expands like—”

  “No, it doesn’t!” she snapped, her arms straight as she levered him forward again. “The matter is pouring from the mask like a smoky waterfall.”

  “But that’s not my breath! It belongs to the one who lives inside.”

  “Just put it on, Xavier. You don’t want to make him angry, do you?”

  I thought he whimpered. “No, but—”

  “He wants more.”

  “It hurts,” he whimpered.

  “Put it on!”

  Helen’s roar was so loud I didn’t hear my phone ring, but I felt the accompanying vibration, and acted instinctively, darting from the room before the ring tone could sound again. The theme to Gilligan’s Island just didn’t fit the mood.

  I knocked on the door as I swung it shut, knowing they’d both hear that. My heart was pounding as I backed away from the door, and I whirled to give myself time to regain my composure, answering the phone in the middle of the next refrain. As the office door whipped open behind me, I turned with a bright grin on my face, held up a finger in Helen’s glaring one, and giggled into my BlackBerry.

  “Cher, honey, let me call you back. I’m at Daddy’s, and you know how he likes my full attention.” I paused, then laughed cheerily as Helen shifted on her feet, the hands that’d been stilling Xavier now planted firmly on her nonexistent hips. “Oh, I know! That humid island air hates me too. Just tell your momma to make a Nyquil smoothie and she’ll feel all better in the morning.”

  Helen cleared her throat impatiently.

  “Oh, darlin’, gotta go. There’s a shark outside Daddy’s door too.” I laughed again at Cher’s reply as Helen’s hooded eyes narrowed into slits. I blinked prettily after I dropped the phone back into my handbag, though it didn’t have the same effect on her as it’d had on the guard at the gate.

  “Your father’s busy,” she said before I could ask for Xavier.

  “Helen,” I said, batting at her like she’d told a joke. “You know he’s never too busy for his favorite daughter. Just be a gem and tell him I’m here.”

  I made a move toward the office, and her hand shot out, palm on my chest. “You don’t understand me,” she said firmly, letting a cool gleam enter her gaze. “He’s not well, and can’t see you now.”

  “Not well?” I exclaimed, stepping back from her touch. She let her hand fall, and I put a hand to my face, covering the deep breath I allowed to coat the bridge of my mouth, my teeth, and throat. I closed my mouth, ran my tongue over the fresh air molecules, exploring their texture and taste. “Then I must tend to him!”

  “I’m tending to him. It’s my job, remember?”

  I tilted my head. “I remember you telling me to take care of myself because you weren’t anybody’s nurse.”

  “That wasn’t you. That was your sister.”

  “Oh,” I said, nodding slowly, before straightening. “Well. It was still bitchy.”

  Her nostrils flared. I was careful not to breathe. “Either leave now or I’ll throw you out myself.”

  I fell still and serious, and finally met her eye. “Oh, Helen. You’re making a very grave mistake.”

  She snorted, rolling her own. “I’ll tell your father you stopped by.”

  I bit my lip like I was confused about something, then turned away as she wanted. I felt her watch me as I crossed the throne room, and knew she continued to watch on the office monitors as I left the house and climbed back into the car. It was only after I’d sped through the gates that I let out my own scented breath.

  “A very, very big mistake, Helen Maguire.”

  And it was either the first one she’d made in the twenty years she’d been employed in the Archer household, or else I simply hadn’t had the tools to notice such a slip before. But I had them now—skin so sensitive to texture I could pick up the marble-smooth fingertips even without seeing them. A palate so refined I could taste decayed emotion. And an internal alarm alerting me to Shadow agents, one that currently had me smiling to myself…and sharpening my metaphorical knives.

  I returned Cher’s call en route to Master Comics.

  “We’re comin’ home,” she said without preamble. “Momma’s not getting any better and I think the humidity is fermentin’ her lungs. Why do people live in places where your hair can get all frizzy?”

  “Spoken like a true desert rat,” I told her before growing serious. “What are her symptoms?”

  “She’s wheezing and has a fever that causes her to break out in sweats and cry out in her sleep. She has the weirdest dreams…our cabana boy stars in all of them.”

  Was that out of character for Suzanne? “Has she seen a doctor down there?”

  “Are you kidding? The local medicine man would prob
ably kill a chicken and splatter its blood in a circle around the bed. They’re hospitable enough, but I wouldn’t call them civilized.”

  “Cher,” I chided, narrowly avoiding a tourist who’d eschewed an overhead walkway for a shortcut that’d take him twice as long. “That’s so ethnocentric.”

  Cher gasped, offended. “I am not a bit religious, and you know it.”

  “Look,” I said, blasting through a reddish stoplight. “She doesn’t sound well enough to travel right now. Why don’t you call Dr. Porter and give him her symptoms. He might be able to prescribe something over the phone and fax a prescription to a pharmacy down there.”

  “You think?”

  What I thought was that the last thing I needed was for those two to come back to town, setting up two more big bull’s-eyes for Regan to train her sights on. What I said was “I sometimes manage it, yes. Call me if Suzanne gets any worse. And give her a big smooch from me.”

  I didn’t just say it because Olivia would have. Both Cher and her mother had grown on me, and I was as protective of them as if they were my own family. Natural, I suppose, since I didn’t have any left. Keeping them out of Vegas wasn’t just necessary because of Regan; now I had the doppelgänger to contend with. If she knew about me she might know of Olivia’s friends as well.

  The next call I made had to be done in person. It was almost closing time when I walked back into Master Comics, and I’d intended to head straight to the storeroom—flipping off Zane on the way—only pausing long enough to pick up this week’s Shadow manual, the Light presumably still not showing up. But one look at the little girl peering up at me with wide and hopeful eyes was enough to have me dropping to my knees.

  “Oh, Li,” I whispered, cupping the soft oval of her face in my hands. There were no bandages covering the claw marks marring her face, an effort to get the wound and stitches to dry out, and my heart broke as I wished I could help her heal faster.