City Of Souls (28 page)

“I’m afraid I’m out of my league there.” I shrugged, a move that betrayed my self-consciousness. “It’s easy most of the time here. Vegas, I mean. Big fish, small pond. But this other woman is…formidable.” I handed Suzanne a plate and slid her the syrup.

She put off answering long enough to cut into her food, groaning with the first bite, taking a second as I poured more batter. She spoke with a full mouth. “You still don’t get it, do you? Want me to spell out for you what a real man finds most attractive?”

I was talking about might, not men, but I nodded for her to continue. She lived, very simply, in another world.

“An authentic woman. Someone who walks through this world following her own whim. He’ll see her, he’ll watch her, and he’ll continue to stare, unblinking, as if mesmerized by the tail of a kite soaring and tossing about on the wind. For the right man, one who’s ready, just watching his woman move around scores new patterns on his retina, creates new pathways in his mind—or, for the first time, lights up the ancient ones—about what a real woman is.”

I tapped my spatula on the side of the pan, sharply, and put a hand on my hip. “Really? So what about all that lingerie and…”
Shit.
“...stuff?”

“Oh.” She sat up straighter, popped another bite into her mouth. “That’s not for a man. That’s for me.”

I stared.

She stabbed some more cooked batter. “These are really good.”

I glanced down, realized it was time to flip over another. “My sister showed me how to make them,” I said softly, moving another pancake to a plate.

Suzanne reached over the countertop and touched my arm. Her fingertips were cool and light, almost like she could float away. “You look tired, honey. Do you want to lie down in the guest room after breakfast? Just for a bit?”

I was exhausted, flipping the last pancake. But my mind was wired, and I still had too much to figure out about Jasmine and Warren. Solange and Jacks. Hunter and me, I thought, returning to Suzanne’s words.
An authentic woman?
I frowned, pouring the syrup.

“Suz,” I said hesitantly, not looking at her. “You know when you told me that women were the color of the world? That we were the life and—”

“The beauty.” She nodded, sighing to herself. “It’s so true. It’s our natural state. It’s—”

“I’m not,” I said suddenly, and I didn’t know why, but I wanted to cry at the statement. I swallowed hard. “I’m gray.”

“Has someone been telling you that? Who? That woman?” She was suddenly at my side, soft blue eyes burrowing into my own. I looked down. Solange had
shown
me. But Warren, I now realized, was the one treating me that way. And it wasn’t in words, but specifically in what he didn’t tell me, in the things he kept close to his chest. He claimed that he wanted me close, but then he’d sent me away. He said he valued me, but he continually put me at risk.

“Nah.” I shook myself, realizing I was frowning and staring into space, and that I hadn’t yet answered Suzanne. “A man, actually.”

“Then you don’t want him in your life. A man like that is poison, do you understand?”

A man, sure. A mortal, and I’d agree. But I wasn’t sure the same held true of a powerful and overbearing superhero. I also wasn’t so sure that “want” had anything to do with it. I took a bite of my own pancakes just to avoid answering, when a movement at the back door window caught my eye. I froze, fork halfway to my mouth, as I was caught in the gaze of a tulpa.

Suzanne, seeing my stricken look, whirled. Of course, there was nothing there but the strangely blotted sky, and a small dust devil blowing up debris behind her pool. She turned back around and I raised my brows.

“Just had a thought. Gotta go.”

She lifted her brows as high as the Botox would allow. “What?”

“Yeah, um…funeral plans. Gotta get it done. But the pancakes fortified me.” I patted my tummy before dropping a hand on her arm. “And so did the chat. Thank you.”

She rolled her eyes and shook off my hand. “Well, sheesh. Just hold on.”

I did, tapping my foot impatiently as she disappeared at the back of the house. Skamar popped up again, and I made a face, waving her away. Suzanne rounded the corner again, and I turned the gesture into a smooth patting of my hair, smiling grimly.

“Here,” she said, holding out her hands.

“What is it?”

“A necklace given to me by my first husband. Actually, it was the first gift he ever gave me. Said it shields you from the evil eye. It’s Asian, so Arun will most certainly know what it is…and he wouldn’t understand if I hung onto it. I want you to have it.”

I frowned, and stared at her, Skamar forgotten. “What about Cher?”

Why me?
Though, too late, I remembered Suzanne didn’t differentiate between the two of us. We were both daughters to her.

She rolled her eyes as she circled behind me. I lifted my hair and she slid the necklace over my neck. “She’s the one who thought of it. Actually, she wanted to give it to you herself.”

I looked down. It was a solid pendant of intricate scrollwork and bright gold. There were seven places for precious stones, all different colors, though I noticed there were a couple missing. I attributed that to age, which meant it was all the more valuable. “It’s beautiful. But I can’t possibly accept it. It means so much to you both.”

She nodded, like she’d been expecting that, and folded my fingers over it. “Then just wear it to your father’s funeral.”

“Okay,” I said, deeming it easier not to argue. “Thank you.”

She followed me to the door. “Cher’s going to be upset that she missed you.”

“I’ll see her at Thanksgiving. Tell her I’m doing okay.” I stepped from the patio and into a gust of whipping wind as I headed down the drive.

“Olivia!” Half out the door, Suz shook her head. “You’re not gray. You’re a fuckin’ rainbow. Got it?”

I could only smile and wave…and hope that she was right.

“Yo, Rainbow Brite,” Skamar said, meeting me around the corner. I hoped we looked like two neighbors swapping recipes on the street corner. Or, from the way Skamar had her hands fisted on her hips, at least like two women fighting over the same man. That, at least, wasn’t too out of the ordinary. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Don’t criticize her,” I said, ignoring the latter half of her question. I walked a bit farther so we could duck beneath the concealing shade of a giant plum tree. “I’m being Olivia. What the fuck are
you
doing?”

“Oh, just dodging the Tulpa.”

“You mean he’s here?” I couldn’t keep the panic from bleeding into my voice, and I cleared my throat, remembering that revealed emotion normally caused my troubles.

“Not yet. But he’ll find me. He always does.”

I wanted to tell her that
I’d
been trying to find her, but the fatigue in her voice had me softening toward her, as did her explanation. It couldn’t be easy. She’d only come into full being a month ago, and had been fighting nonstop ever since. Not exactly the homecoming most newborns were given in this world.

“Look, I’m sorry for showing up here. I had to get you alone.”

My full attention narrowed back on her, along with my hard gaze. “You’re not going to try to eat any of my vital organs again, are you?”

She gave me a tight smile. “It no longer appeals, no.”

Good. Devouring the organs, and particularly the heart of the person whose face and life a doppelgänger mirrored—and I mean that in a twisted, funhouse sort of way—was the fastest, most efficient means of becoming a fully realized entity. Fortunately, I’d satisfied her greed for life with something even stronger than my flesh: her name. Skamar meant
star
in the Tibetan tongue. I’d thought it apropos for someone who’d begun life as a mere thought-form constructed out of the myth and meditation so critical to the eastern culture.

“You look different.”

What I meant was she didn’t look like me.

When we’d first met, Skamar was a doppelgänger, the evolutionary precursor to a full-fledged tulpa. Sporting a body of ripples and waves, one as malleable as tensile foam, she’d shone with a light that made her skin snap with every movement, like a diamond in the sun. Intent upon killing me and taking over my life, that bubble and light had solidified into a body mirroring mine so closely in both physical aspect and mannerism that even I wasn’t able to discern the difference. However, in the weeks since I’d last seen her, Skamar had taken on an identity of her own.

Thin and small and pale, she’d have been plain too, were her features not so sharp. Her short hair was blunt and red, her matching lashes so light she looked bald-eyed, but her lips were defined even without color, and her nose arrowed between cheekbones you could hang laundry from, wide and high. I’d have commented about one of Jane Austen’s characters inadvertently wandering into an action flick, but I didn’t think she’d appreciate it.

Her clothes were dark, but silk and lightweight, obviously chosen for comfort and mobility rather than warmth. Not remotely appropriate for a chilled winter day, I thought, but from the looks of them—tattered and bloodied—she’d been wearing them awhile.

For a moment I wondered what I’d choose to look like were I given physical creative carte blanche. As much as I loved my sister, and had come to accept my transformation into her, I wouldn’t have been a buxom, blond socialite who needed a calendar just to keep up with her physical maintenance.

“I need more power, Joanna. The energy from the name-giving is no longer enough.”

“What? You want a middle one? Fine. Matilda. Take it.” I flicked my hands at her, more of a nervous gesture than a dismissive one. “Be merry.”

That almost earned a smile. “Skamar is sufficient, thanks. But a true live birth in this world is always recorded in written form. Mine still hasn’t been.”

I drew back at that. “Like a birth certificate?”

“Exactly.”

“Dude. You were born of thought and, like, bubbles.” She’d been practically see-through when we first met. “No offense, but the drones down at County probably won’t certify someone who could have once passed as a bath product.”

“The manuals, Joanna. My name must be made public in the manuals of Light.”

Again
, the manuals. But the sharpness in her voice obliterated my sarcasm. A chill passed through me as she glared, and I checked my attitude. It was a good idea to remember that the creature in front of me wasn’t an ordinary woman. In fact, one got the idea that she could take over my troop if she wanted to, the same way the Tulpa had waltzed into the top position with the Shadow agents. Right now, however, she was focused on one thing.

“It’s the only way I can harness that.” She was pointing at the sky.

I looked up and winced. “Ozone? Smog? Unusual cloud coverage?”

“Power.”

So that was what was spinning behind those wispy layers, just as Hunter claimed on my recent return from the underground. The sky now appeared blown up with fog that glowed with soft blues and greens, which bounced off each other, making them appear alive.

“That’s the unclaimed power given off every time the two of us fight but don’t win. Neither of us can lay claim to it.”

“So stop fighting.”
That
seemed kinda obvious.

“And let him just kill you instead?”

“Oh.”

Her expression said
I told you so
. I swallowed hard, looking with renewed respect at the sky. The unclaimed power of two tulpas whipping above like an energetic freeway. “So what happens if all that energy is funneled into either of you?”

“If I get it? I’ll reduce him to ash. If he does?” She swallowed hard. “He’ll knock me from the globe like a figure from a chessboard.”

“But you’re beating him! I heard him in those tunnels. He was gasping for breath. He needed to be encased in total darkness just to heal.”

In solitude and silence. Safe from eyes that might impose expectation upon his figure and form, which would siphon off the very energy he was trying to recoup. So now that we knew his lack of permeability was a weakness, why weren’t we trying to exploit it?

“Speaking of the tunnels. Your mother was not happy to learn you’d been in there.”

“Then tell her to take it up with me herself,” I said smartly. “Besides, I tried to find you. Warren wanted me to ask you about walking the line. I just got lucky and found it myself first.”

“You didn’t get lucky, Jo. Quite the opposite.” And she looked at me like I’d lost something irreplaceable.

Please don’t let it be irreplaceable.

I hid my fear under a thin layer of bravado. “Well, I think we should all go back in together. Ambush the Tulpa after one of his battles with you. He’ll be alone, his energy at its lowest.”

“Let me worry about the Tulpa. You fix that changeling. And get those manuals written. But stay away from Midheaven. I haven’t shown you—” She whirled in response to something I could neither see nor feel. “Fuck. He’s on the move again.”

“But—”

Turning back, she grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard. “I’m doing my best to keep him away from you, Joanna! Now, please. Fix those manuals.”

An explosive gust thrust me backward, and I was alone in the expanse of a breath. My shoulder angled awkwardly into the tree trunk, but my grunt was drowned out by Skamar’s battle cry. A second later theÂŤeco in two tulpas reengaged, the sound like a rocket firing across the valley.

Save the life of a little girl, restore safety for my troop, not to mention power to both the agents of Light and Skamar. And now, I thought, cringing as I looked above, keep the sky from falling in and crushing the entire city. It would’ve seemed like a full plate but for one thing. It all hinged on healing one little girl.

I needed to find her now.

I ducked into dark pockets created by the low-lying blue haze and slowly made my way to the modest development where the Chans had their home, keeping to side streets and dusty lots. Unfortunately, Midheaven was actually the second-to-last place I wanted to go. The very last was the Chan household, where an eight-year-old little girl, Jasmine’s sister, was suffering because of something I’d done.