I sank into the concrete pocket and widened my stance. Though tight, my costuming allowed for movement as I stretched for the other side of the drop inlet. Rock climbers stemmed from improbable places all the time; all I had to do was calm myself enough that I didn’t fall on the Tulpa as he passed beneath me.
That could give me away, I thought, and extinguished my glyph.
Even in the void, I knew when he’d gained the corner. The air was instantly harder to breathe, infused with a carbon burn and a soured hook. Stinging at my tear ducts through my mask, at my mouth, even my ears, it was as if a poisonous cloud wafted from the man, infecting and defiling anything within range. The darkness, nuanced before, was now absolute in its opaqueness. I couldn’t see the titan he became when no one was looking, or his sheer bulk, but I felt it. It was like an airplane slipping into a private hangar. Too late, I wondered if the tunnel was large enough for both of us, or if I’d soon feel the osseous scrape of horns across my naked belly.
I pushed the thought from my mind before it bloomed into emotion.
“Show yourself now…or I might just get angry.” Heat accompanied the warning, one that burned rather than warmed.
I considered revealing myself-I’d fought toe-to-claw with him before-and I itched with the need for action. I opened my mouth, but another voice startled us both.
“I’m over here.” An audible swallow. “Sir.”
A swishing, the Tulpa’s tail whipping around in the dark, and then, “You…”
“I didn’t think you’d want to see me. I thought you’d want to repair…alone.” The words ran together in a half-swallowed hiss, even without the sibilant sounds. Oh, shit.
“Regan.”
The source of her speech impediment? Fractured vocal cords and a sliced tongue, courtesy of the Tulpa. Those things, combined with her banishment and what amounted to a paranormal fatwa on her head, were supposed to keep this situation-her talking to him now-from ever happening.
“Sir. I don’t mean to intrude. I’ll wait. Until you’re more fully recovered.”
A growl. “I’m not-”
“It’s okay.” There was a slap and slide as she stepped closer, and the briny scent of her nervousness covered my own growing panic. “You need to regenerate. It was a hell of a battle.”
“The biggest yet.” I’d never heard the Tulpa sound fatigued. And I didn’t understand what they were talking about. The last battle between the Tulpa and Skamar had left razored clouds in the sky, but that wasn’t unusual. Not anymore, anyway.
“Your senses are blunted…otherwise you’d have discerned me before. I’ve been down here since my…banishment.”
Of course.
It made perfect sense. Regan hadn’t been seen since her exile, and as she’d disappeared with my conduit, I’d looked. The general stench and decay of things washed into the tunnels would help cover Regan’s stench, if anyone bothered coming in this far, which made it the perfect place for her to hide…though it couldn’t be doing much for her open wounds. I was so busy thinking of her languishing for weeks in the fetid underground that it was another moment before I realized the Tulpa hadn’t contradicted her about what he was doing here.
Oh, my God. He came here to reform, to regenerate.
And that made sense too. Skamar had taken on her own identity and features when given a name. But the Tulpa lacked a name and thus that power, so his features regularly shifted, mutated, wobbled on his face. It had always appeared to be a strength. He could evade reach, elongate his limbs, disappear altogether…but that took power. Which, right now, he apparently didn’t have.
But he also hadn’t slain Regan on the spot, as he’d promised he would if he ever saw her again. Panic joined the awe that’d wedged its way into my belly. The two beings that hated me most were blocking my exit. I had no doubt that together they could cobble together a very creative lesson in payback. I strengthened my hold.
“You’re still alive. Despite my punishment. Despite the pain.” He hadn’t thought she would be. Being flayed was a hard way to die, but an even harder way to live.
“I’m…brave.”
It was obvious even the words pained her.
“Come here.”
Yeah, do that, Regan. Because brave and stupid are exactly the same thing.
Apparently Regan was of the same mind, because there was no answer or movement. It would take a good deal of energy, which the Tulpa was clearly trying to amass, to reach out and touch her by magical means. But to step within reach? Even a glancing swipe of those claws could cleave her in half.
“You betrayed my trust, brought the third sign of the Zodiac to life, and now you’re going to cower in the dark like you even have a right to be standing there? Come here,” he repeated, and there was nothing tired in the command, “Or I’ll come and get you.”
An immediate scuffling followed. “I want only to serve.”
A little late for that, I thought…which is what the Tulpa said. “But I suppose banishment has given you a change of heart.”
No, her heart had changed the moment his index finger plowed through it.
I kept my grip strong.
Knowing the Tulpa demanded absolute loyalty from his troop, and that she’d failed him, Regan didn’t defend herself. She switched subjects. “I have a gift.”
Something metal and weighty scraped across the concrete floor, followed by a sharp click as it came to rest against what was probably a honed talon.
“As you’re the Shadow Archer, this should be just as powerful in your hands.”
And now I was trapped in a hole with my two greatest enemies and the one weapon that could totally obliterate my existence. I teetered, my knees and elbows wanting to buckle.
“This is handy,” he said, nails clacking against my conduit. I grimaced, swallowing hard as he pulled back on the crossbow. It felt like he was pawing one of my internal organs.
“I’ve also been following your daughter, gathering intel on her haunts and friends, her habits. May I share them?”
She waited, and so did I, heart slamming, a lump closing my throat. The news that she’d been following me was a surprise, but it was a concern I shunted aside for later. Because consent now would mean forgiveness, and would make Regan dangerous again. The Tulpa took a long time before delivering his verdict.
“Speak.”
I closed my eyes and fought not to sag. And Regan began telling him about the real me, the one the rest of the world thought dead, the one he knew was alive…but not how or where.
“She’s a woman of surprising regularity, coming and going from her residence like clockwork. Admittedly one with a skewed sense of time, but regular for someone who abides by the rules of two realities.”
“Where is it?”
“The Greenspun Residences. Do you know it?”
Of course he did. His main mortal ally’s daughter, Olivia Archer, lived in the same building. Crafty, I thought. Regan both was and was not telling him my identity. Her ass was in tatters and yet she was still covering it.
“You think she’d know better,” Regan was saying, “but hubris is her greatest fault.”
The Tulpa let the useless remark pass. “What else?”
The effort to speak was paining her, and as Regan swallowed, I imagined congealing blood clots sliding down her tattered throat. She might be substantially more helpless than she’d been as a Shadow agent, but her determination was still terrifying. “She visits Master Comics with shocking regularity.”
“As you said. Hubris.” His voice was noncommittal, but that he was allowing her to continue spoke volumes.
“She’s no longer in contact with her mortal boyfriend, and as far as I can tell, cares nothing for him. He has no memory of their relationship beyond their dalliance as teens.”
The romance between Ben Traina and me had popped up in the Shadow manuals over the last few weeks, now that the information couldn’t be used against me. Still, I tensed.