“But-”
“It’ll put you in danger.” She raised her voice, her tiny nose stubbornly upturned. “You should get on with your…life.”
“I know, I’m trying-” I rambled quickly, so she’d hear me out. I hadn’t slept in two days, and everything I owned was at Olivia’s midtown penthouse. Sending someone to pick up things for me was like handing them a death sentence, yet Mackie would have all of Olivia’s information by now so I didn’t dare return alone. I needed to grab private disks and journals, and retrieve Luna as well. Funny how the wealthiest woman in the Las Vegas valley valued only a few small, priceless items. “Please. I’m blind here, Skamar. There’s a man, a monster, looking for me. He could be behind me and I wouldn’t know it.”
Her eyes flicked over my shoulder. “He’s not.”
“Give it another minute,” I retorted wryly.
She said nothing, which caused me to tilt my head, a hand cocked on my hip. “You already knew about Mackie, didn’t you?”
She widened her eyes in innocence. “Only since last night.”
I stepped forward. “Then you know what I’m up against.”
My mother conceived of Skamar in Midheaven because the Tulpa couldn’t access that realm without a soul. When Skamar was actualized enough to take on a personality and self-will, yet still malleable enough to pass through the threshold between the two worlds, she relocated here…and found me.
After I’d named her, she was free to take on her own identity and life, and had been battling the Tulpa ever since. With the small exception of once being pinned to a makeshift cross, she’d mostly prevailed, and now, with her name recorded in the Zodiac manuals, she had the additional power of mortal minds behind her. The manuals, seemingly innocuous comic books, were critical to the Zodiac world. They recorded each side’s actions in graphic titles, both Shadow and Light, putting it in print for young, nubile minds to read, dream about…and, in turn, provide the energy fueling their chosen side’s battles. So if anyone could protect me from Mackie, it was Skamar.
I opened my mouth to say as much, but she cut me off with a jerk of her head. “And you know what I’m up against as well.”
“The little ol’ Tulpa?” I scoffed, fisting one hand on my hip. “You’re winning, Skamar! He was in a wheelchair today. He’s conserving energy like a starving python.”
“That’s right. I’m winning!” She punched her chest so hard I felt it. “And I intend to keep on winning. I know who he is, what he is, and how he formed. I know what it’s like to hunger for more substance in this world, and I can anticipate what he’s willing to do to get it. But Sleepy Mac?” She shook her head. “I don’t know how to fight him.”
I didn’t blink, and I remained silent until she again met my eye. “I’ll die, Skamar.”
She just looked at me.
“Oh.” I got it. It wasn’t her problem. I was no longer the Kairos, or a part of the world she considered her own. I couldn’t help her…therefore she saw no reason to help me.
Seeing my realization, she shook her head. “That’s not it. I need to conserve my energy too. The Tulpa may be weakened, but he’s resourceful and established. I can’t rest until his last cell is stamped from this earth.”
“You wouldn’t be able to tap your fucking toe if not for me,” I whispered lowly. And though I hadn’t known the sentiment was there until it was out, my fury flared with it. “I gave you a name. I’m the one who fought to get it recorded.”
“And so I owe you?”
“Fucking right, you do.”
It was a stupid thing to say to someone who could pulverize me with one fist, but if she didn’t help me, I was dead anyway. We locked gazes for a full raw minute, visually arm-wrestling, the one area where I was as strong and willful as she.
Finally, she sighed. “Once, but then we’re even.”
It didn’t feel even. I had sacrificed all and she had gained all, but with the Tulpa closing in on the only remaining Archer in his dynastic cover, and Sleepy Mac determined to carve me up like holiday meat, I could only nod. Right now, I thought, leading her back to my car, I’d take whatever help I could get.
Skamar fell into sleep as soon as we settled in the car. It was hard to impart a sense of paranoia in a being with no equal in power. Yes, she understood the gravity of my plight on one level, but it was like a virgin’s understanding of sex. The textbook explanation could only get you so far.
When we arrived at the Greenspun Residences, Skamar roused herself enough to scan the perimeter of the highrise condo. She returned in time to place herself before me when the lobby’s elevator doors opened, moving ten times as fast as a mortal. The doorman hadn’t even known she was gone.
“What do you remember about Mackie?” I asked, fishing Warren’s phone from my pocket, thumb hovering over the panic button.
Skamar snorted. “What do you remember of your birth, Archer?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, my gestation in Midheaven was like your evolution in the womb. The right components in the right environment leading to a rising consciousness. But I had no words to put to my existence while there, and without words, images are meaningless. Without meaning, they fade. I simply can’t remember.”
I blinked, momentarily forgetting my fear. “Then how did you know about Mackie? You weren’t a bit surprised when I said he was after me.”
She quirked a fine brow and waited.
“Because my mother knows.” Of course she did. Zoe Archer had been in Midheaven long ago, and Sleepy Mac was the oldest semiliving being there. But if she’d known of his escape, why hadn’t she alerted Warren?
Why wasn’t she helping me now?
“Don’t ask me,” Skamar said, reading my thoughts. “I can’t get involved.”
“I’m mortal too.” I hated how injured my voice sounded. I hated to beg for information about my own mother.
“She knows, and she’s still working on your behalf. She still…believes in you.” While Skamar’s tone said she clearly did not.
“Then why won’t she-”
“She doesn’t tell me why.”
“So make her!”
She turned her gaze back to the panel where the floors ticked by. “I don’t care enough to make her do anything.”
I angled myself before her, putting myself in potential danger when those doors snicked open. “If you thought I was the Kairos would you care?”
“If you were the Kairos,” she said, using one finger to push me aside, “I wouldn’t be here.”
The bell chimed at our floor and the doors opened. The hum of empty air stretched, and trailing Skamar, I thought maybe this would be a nonevent.
That hope died as soon as the giant French doors swung open. “Oh my God.”
The phone nearly slipped from my hand as I stared at the gleaming foyer, the remnants of Olivia’s physical life strung over it like confetti. Skamar whizzed from room to room, leaving a whistle in her wake, but I simply pushed the door shut and slumped against it.
Every item Olivia had collected on vacations, sprees, and whims…destroyed. The Swedish crystal she valued for its thickness and curves was smashed on the marble floor. The built-in shelves housing them were carved up, symbols scratched into the surfaces, though it was mostly a cross-hatching of random, furious scrawls that left wood shavings scattered among the broken glass.
The antique scrolled daybed in the room’s center was dumped on its side, the gorgeous wood equally bladeraped. Its silken throws and pillows hadn’t been spared either, and soft down, cotton, and wool lay in destroyed puffs and strips. Graffiti marred the entire room-glass tops and walls, ceiling and marble floor-though it wasn’t paint scrawled over every surface, but the mark of that deadly blade. Each score was a warning even though the damage was already done. I didn’t know what sort of strength was needed to make marble scream, but knew if Mackie had his way, there was a death cry waiting in my body too.