The Touch of Twilight

by Vicki Pettersson

  I finally turned from Laura’s bed, checkbook in hand, my answer as silently bold the man’s question. I decided it needed further clarification.

  “Make sure she’s cared for,” I said evenly, and held out my hand for a pen.

  The second stop of the day, the second reason I couldn’t return the animist mask to Xavier’s mansion, was prompted by my twisted paranormal attempt at being the good Samaritan. I’d decided I wasn’t the only one who needed to start taking responsibility for her actions. Regan was going to as well. It was a two-hour trip out to the Desert Valley Correctional Center, but on the way there I had plenty of time to rehearse my cover story—I was a reporter for a true crime magazine doing a feature on recovery programs for pedophiles—and I also had time to figure out what I was going to say to Regan DuPree’s mortal father. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. On the relatively rare occasion an agent of Light had turned to a mortal for companionship, they’d done so out of love. However, Shadows scoured humanity for a vessel where their own dark attributes could stew and spawn and therefore be given additional purchase in the world.

  So I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the guards had brought me a being with horns and a tail, but the thin, blinking, and bespeckled man who dropped into the plastic chair across from me had me blinking back. He picked up the wall phone with a hand that would have been elegant were it not for the scars scoring his wrists and palms. I might have felt some pity for him then, except the crosshatching of scars on his fingertips were especially thick. The former Father Michael had worked hard, and with some degree of success, to rid himself of his fingerprints. I had a feeling the wounds on his palms and arms had been due to slips in concentration rather than any deliberate attempt to harm himself.

  There was also an odd angularity to the man’s face, and after a moment I realized it was because his features—jaw and cheekbones and brows—should’ve been placed on someone larger. The rest of his face was sunken, aged before its time, though unlined and pale from the lack of sun. His deep-set eyes sat passively on mine, though it felt like they looked everywhere at once. I saw another scar on the hollow of his neck, a perfect square raised so thickly and neatly, it had to have been traced by a blade over and over again. I realized it represented the collar on a priest’s frock and thought of the nerve it would take to cut so deeply and precisely right next to one’s own jugular. Father Michael, for all his humanity, had the grit of a Shadow.

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” he asked in a silky voice, when we’d finished looking each other over.

  I neither agreed nor disagreed, in case this call was being recorded. “I know your daughter.”

  Something akin to emotion passed over his face, and his lids flared a bit, nostrils widening as his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Did she send you?”

  “She’s why I’m here.”

  He smiled now, and his cheekbones rose into sharp angles. It was like his face was made of putty; the grin changed him entirely. How many faces, I wondered, did this man have? “It’s amazing you found me. I know I’m not in the manuals, I’ll never be worthy of that, but it’s important that you know, that she knows, the human element weakens nothing. In fact, knowing my weaknesses has made me a master at pinpointing them in others. Like my daughter, I bet. She probably has incredible focus, right? An uncanny ability to wait out even the greatest threat to her survival?”

  I thought of the first time I met Regan, how she’d betrayed a senior Shadow in an elaborate effort to get to me. How she’d risked even the Tulpa’s wrath. How she was stalking me through Ben. “Actually,” I said softly, “she’s a lot like her mother.”

  He let out a wistful sigh as he remembered the woman who’d steered him directly into lifelong incarceration. “A great beauty, then, but with no patience for sentiment. I often think about her. Not Brynn, she always took care of herself, but my daughter. I always wondered how she fared growing up under the care of a woman devoid of sentiment.”

  That little nugget snagged my attention. “What do you mean?”

  Father Michael’s eyes blazed again as he realized he knew something I didn’t. I had a feeling it’d been a long time since he’d been able to talk about our world with someone. Good.

  “Brynn DuPree only had passion for one thing. She was determined the Cancerian star sign stay in her direct bloodline. She wouldn’t even entertain the idea of it passing on to her younger siblings, much less anyone in the extended family. That’s why she didn’t mate with a man of the Zodiac, choosing instead to propagate with a mortal of the same sign. Thank God she settled on me.” He crossed himself in a sincere mockery of piety.

  “Why would that cause Brynn to turn to you?”

  “The men of the Zodiac actively court a woman who can improve their lineage, but because the line is matriarchal, the women can turn to a human for their needs…if they find one worthy of them, someone whose humanity provides them with an even greater strength of will and resolve than the male members of the Shadow Zodiac.”

  Which was exactly what Regan had said about Ben. I fought off a wave of fear so strong it felt like nausea.

  “Like you?” I asked, but Michael interpreted it as a statement of fact.

  He inclined his head. “As we don’t possess the more obvious physical skills of our supernatural counterparts, the chosen must work to turn their weaknesses into strengths. From that, true greatness is born. Of all the chosen, I worked the hardest to curry her favor, and she repaid me by allowing me to share in her illustrious bloodline. I am humbled that I could serve. Honored I gave her a daughter of the Shadow.”

  I glared at the top of his bowed, balding head, and saw my eyes darken in the glass between us. “You lured two girls and a boy from a elementary schoolyard. None of them were ever seen again.”

  “There are casualties in every war.”

  “They were seven,” I said sharply.

  He looked at me like he couldn’t comprehend what that had to do with anything, and it was all I could do not to dive through glass and pummel him with the phone still clasped at his ear. Of all the things I’d seen in both my mortal and supernatural lives, this man was one of the scariest. His expression wasn’t bland; it just reflected a psyche void of culpability on the too-wide face of a mortal who cut down innocent lives without reason or care. I could attempt to make sense of the Shadows’ purposes, but I could make no sense of this: a man who’d been birthed, suckled, cared for, and raised in a world he decided to destroy for others.

  And that was what Regan wanted with Ben. To infect him with this stoic indifference. To turn him into a monster.

  I sat back, needing a moment to compose myself. His vacuous eyes followed me, making me feel like he could shake my hand, kiss my cheek, and kill me all in the same minute. It was all the same to him, and I realized despite the benign appearance, Brynn had chosen correctly. How she’d initially seen past the simpering veneer and the priest’s robes was beyond me, but right now—even through the pane of unbreakable glass—the stench of a man whose soul had shriveled like a dried acorn was strong enough to have bile rising in my gorge.

  “Your lineage shows in her,” I finally managed, truthfully. “Regan has many of your attributes.”

  She was also this vile.

  “Regan,” he whispered reverently, and I realized he hadn’t known until now. He shot me a smile that was almost shy, almost kind. “Thank you. You’ve given me a gift.”

  “It’s just a name,” I muttered, pissed I’d given him even a second of happiness.

  His too-wide lips pursed. “Oh, but a name is everything. A name is all. You know that.”

  I shuddered when he winked at me, and decided enough was enough. I felt dirty even sitting across from this man, and found myself wishing we were on some darkened street so I could take his scarred neck in my hands and squeeze. Instead I reached into my bag. “I have another gift for you as well.”

  I let the package drop from the sleeve of my
cuffed shirt where it’d been tucked in the crook of my elbow. Michael’s gaze lit on it greedily.

  I put a finger to my lips, and let out a long, slow Shhhh…

  He froze, eyes shining like marbles above the bulging cheekbones.

  I erected a thin, mirrored wall, blocking the partition from the view of the guards and cameras, so they saw no movement between us. Then I put my hand to the glass with the package gripped in my palm, Michael mirrored me on the other side of the glass, and the barrier dissolved like steam. Our fingertips met, and I barely contained a shudder. It was like touching a cold slug, spineless movement the only thing giving it life. I’d never felt anything like it around a human before. I hoped never to again.

  “What is it?” he asked, weighing it in his palm.

  “You’ll know soon enough. Just don’t open it until you’ve received a clear sign.”

  He nodded. A man who carved his own flesh would have the patience to wait.

  “Will she contact me this way? My girl, my Shadow, my Regan.”

  “Oh yes. So keep it with you at all times. It won’t be long, I promise.”

  “Bless you, child,” he said, tears welling in his glacial eyes as he slipped the package away. From his lips, it was a curse.

  I inclined my head and let the shielding wall drop. “And may you be so blessed in return.”

  My meeting with the prodigal father took longer than I planned, and the drive back into town was lengthened by the caravan of Californians making their weekend trek into Sin City, a ritual echoing the pilgrimage to Mecca in fervency. As Valhalla was known for being particularly hedonistic, most were also headed there, and all this combined to make me late for my first night of work. I’d convinced Xavier to give me the swing shift after explaining to him noon was too early to recover fully from whatever event I’d been attending the night before, and though he still didn’t want me working there, he didn’t want me appearing foolish in front of his employees either. Anything an Archer did in public was a reflection upon him, so while he expected—even hoped for—failure in what he’d termed my “occupational nonsense,” it wasn’t going to be because of him.

  So as I stuttered haltingly down I–15 toward Valhalla, I tried to make sense of my jumbled emotions. I hadn’t anticipated the visit with Regan’s father to affect me so much. I’d planned to go in there, garner enough supplemental information about Brynn to help track down Regan, pass along my little “gift,” and be done with it.

  But more, I admitted, I’d gone there to reassure myself there were distinct differences between Ben and Father Michael, that there had to have been even before Brynn had gotten to the guy. I wanted reassurance that despite Regan’s attempts to turn Ben into an accomplice and a murderer, she hadn’t achieved the level of competence her mother was famed for. I wanted to know beyond all doubt that no matter how much time Ben spent in Regan’s presence, there was an overpowering goodness in him that wouldn’t allow him to deteriorate into a fleshy shell housing a heart no larger than a nut.

  But it was Father Michael’s earnestness that had me taking halting breaths, as if I was running, not driving. I swallowed hard as I swung into valet, and pushed the fear away. “It won’t happen. It can’t.”

  But anything could happen when a life was rear-ended by someone bent on destruction. An image of Laura Crucier attached to so many machines that she looked like a science experiment assailed me. I swallowed hard, guilt like granite in my throat.

  I was slipping from the car when the valet attendant scurried to my side. I flashed him a distracted glance, but he didn’t offer me a ticket and a spot up front. Instead he shifted on his feet. “I’m sorry, miss, but employees have to park in the back lot.”

  I tilted my head, which made the attendant swallow hard and lose eye contact. So that’s how Xavier was going to play it, I thought, offering the poor messenger a reassuring smile. “Okay, so where’s the back lot?”

  Ten minutes later, after a long hike in impractical shoes, I entered Valhalla via the back of the house and took the service elevators up to the casino, then the private elevator to the executive offices. From there, the hits kept on coming.

  “I’m going to work where?” I asked Xavier’s secretary, who was waiting for me after her shift and was none too pleased about it. Glancing at her Chopard watch, she pushed back her shoulder-length pageboy and rose to straighten her papers. The activity didn’t hide her smile.

  “Gift shop,” she said slyly, motioning to a white-collared shirt and baby blue polyester slacks. “There’s your uniform.”

  I laughed, sobering only when she threw a name tag with the Valhalla logo on top of the pile. A security guard entered the smoked-glass doors of the executive office, and she motioned him forward, summarily handing me off. Without farewell, or even a backward glance, she sailed from the office, obviously pleased to be rid of this pesky duty, probably assuming I wouldn’t even make it one entire shift. I glanced back down at the uniform, thinking the message from Xavier couldn’t be any clearer: there would be no free rides at Valhalla. Not even for the boss’s daughter.

  I excused myself and escaped to the ladies’ room while the guard waited. One look at my sister’s bunny body in the shapeless uniform and I laughed out loud again. I doubted she’d ever even worn polyester before, and wondered briefly if I’d break out in hives.

  “Cher would be appalled,” I murmured, and set to pulling my glossy mane back into a low bun, and lightening the color of my lipstick. I still looked like I should be walking the red carpet, though the name tag would’ve set me on the sidelines. The guard raised a brow when I returned, clearly surprised I was going through with this, but said nothing as he led me from the executive tower, down to the main casino floor, and into the corner gift shop. Looking around, I had to sigh. The place was more spacious than any art gallery this side of the Mississippi.

  Within thirty seconds the store manager, Ginny—whose name should have been Attitude—halted in front of me with a dour expression and a readied lecture about being late and how all Valhalla employees were held to a higher standard than blah-ditty-blah-ditty-blah…I mentally tuned her out, philosophically deciding to make the best of it. Sure, I’d thought I’d be given some high-level position in the company. But my intentions in seeking employment were dishonorable, so it was hard to complain about this turn of events. At least I was in.

  I’d make this work, and not just for the troop. I’d do it to spite Xavier and his lack of faith in my sister; I’d do it to annoy, and perhaps surprise, the woman across from me until she looked at me with something other than dismissive resignation. And even if that never happened, I’d let it go, accepting her prejudice as her shortfall and not my own.

  But mostly I’d do it to vindicate Olivia. Sure, she was dead, beyond caring and probably having a pearly white cocktail at a pearly white party beyond the pearly white gates. But I still cared about her; she was alive in my mind. Fighting for her kept the past from being so bitterly final.

  So I followed Janet, the sales clerk Ginny had ordered to show me around, and revved myself up to learn about the fascinating world of stocking baseball caps.

  21

  “Don’t mind her,” Janet said as we left Ginny and her grim disapproval behind. “She’s been fixated on you ever since the article came out in Desert magazine.”

  The one detailing the perks and privileges of Las Vegas’s glitterati. It was the last interview Olivia had given before she died.

  “The columnist called me ‘socially promiscuous,’” I said, baffled why a bad interview would interest, much less antagonize, anyone.

  “Yeah, and she wishes she was getting some,” Janet said, smirking as she began our tour of the storefront. Janet was a typical college kid with straight brown hair and the freshman ten. There was a hint of the right coast in her voice, buried beneath a sorority smile, and I felt myself nodding hypnotically as she droned on about layout, merchandising, and the importance of product location, all the wh
ile aware of Ginny’s hard stare burning through my neck. I placed my hand there, making sure the obnoxious cocktail ring was in plain view as I pretended to rub my neck. Olivia had mentioned the ring in the Desert article. Let that fuel Ginny’s raging schadenfreude, I thought, turning my attention back to the crowded mishmash of collectibles.

  Just in case giving your money away to the casino didn’t do it for you, I thought wryly, you could always throw it away. The shop was a monument to the unnecessary: T-shirts, stuffed bears, perfumes—What did a Viking smell like, anyway?—shot glasses, key chains, used dice and cards, snow globes, and a wall cooler filled with vodka…all stamped with the Valhalla logo. Xavier should’ve just lifted a leg to mark the place, and been done with it.

  I let myself smile at that, but it fell when I spotted the two security guards canvassing the shop from outside the glass wall. Clearing my throat, I looked away.

  “Is security always so vigilant about watching the gift shop?” I asked Janet as we headed to the back.

  “They’re probably checking out the new merch,” she answered pointedly, causing me to blush while she shot the guards a cheery finger wave. I kept my eyes averted, relaxing only after we’d disappeared into the storage room, and away from Hunter’s frown. “Or at least Kevin is. Even you wouldn’t have a shot with the big one. He doesn’t date Valhalla employees. Come on, we’ll start over here.”

  With no way to immediately steer the conversation back to Hunter and his dating proclivities, I let Janet lead me through a maze of cardboard boxes.