The redhead had been the muscle. The other car was just an escort. One filled with Shadows. This one, the lead one, held me. Why? Because I was the only one who could get through the additional security measures Warren had implemented after the last time the Shadows infiltrated the boneyard. Similar to the light that attacked all Shadows if they tried to enter our sanctuary inside the boneyard, this system had to detect Light in order to allow passage.
“Shit.”
The Shadow tapped on the Plexiglas dividing us, letting me know it was unbreakable…even for us. “That’s one way to put it.”
And another way to put it was to say I was surrounded-no, trapped-by my enemies, in a speeding car, without the ability to heal even from the impact of the crash through the wall dividing our realities. The Tulpa might not wish me dead, but chances were, I would still end up that way. It almost made me wish I’d remained in Midheaven. Almost.
Okay, so I didn’t possess any weapons to help me combat the Shadows. I had no allies, no power to heal, no ability to erect walls to shield me from assault, and I was missing something else represented by two mysterious triangles.
I really needed to figure out what those were, I thought, holding tight to the bag holding my remaining powers as we hurtled down Washington Avenue. If I got out of this alive. It was a big if.
The now confirmed fact that the Tulpa did indeed want me alive could be seen as a positive, but as the redheaded Shadow had said, there were a lot of ways to hurt an agent and still keep them alive. So was it good news or bad, I wondered, that I wouldn’t survive the impact of the cab hurtling through cinder block?
Yet the second car couldn’t even attempt that. There were no agents of Light in the Honda, so it would have to stop…which meant we would too. My best guess was that they’d climb in with me before the driver took a run at the wall, like a bull spotting the matador. God, I thought, swallowing hard, I needed more time!
Question was, time for what?
Well, there was enough time to pray, I thought as the car whizzed under the freeway. I guess I could start doing that. Though if God were a cynic, he probably wouldn’t appreciate my last minute scramble.
Time to say good-bye. Thanks for the memories, everyone, it’s been a nice ride…wish I could have stayed around to fulfill my destiny as the savior of the paranormal realm, but you know how these things go. Yeah, I thought, clenching my fists. That was so me. Going gently into the night.
Time to think of dwindling options. Regret not getting another shower of Micah’s fortifying preservative.
Nah, that was just depressing.
Time to imagine something new.
That thought snagged my attention. I tilted my head as the driver smiled at me through the rearview mirror and went back to that thought again.
It was true that I could no longer form the concrete walls from mere thought in order to shield me from the Shadows, but with a mortal’s flesh, concrete wasn’t my best friend right now anyway. Yet there was another option. Another risky, long shot of an option since I’d only succeeded in creating it on a small scale before. But it too was an ability only afforded the Light. Shadows couldn’t do it because it involved a sort of birthing, and beings that were essentially dead inside couldn’t bring something outside of themselves to life. But this meant they wouldn’t be expecting it, I thought, closing my eyes. It was chancy, but that-along with the element of surprise-was pretty much all that was left in my paranormal arsenal.
“Hey. Hey! What are you doing?” I felt the weight of the Shadow’s gaze as we barreled past Bunkers Mortuary, but kept my own eyes closed. I settled my senses and mind as much as possible, and began imagining the softest, most succulent, most enormous cactus buried below the dusty earth in front of the Neon Boneyard’s entrance. It was a Joshua tree, native to the area-which was important-and I pictured its fibers as being silk-soft, airy, and far less dense than a tree grown from seed. That would absorb the impact of the vehicle. I conceived it, and more importantly, I believed in it-which was key to its creation.
Joshua trees are normally top-heavy with a shallow root, so I reinforced the base of this one-I didn’t want it toppling to allow access into the wall just beyond-and then I visualized the branches lower, to match the driver’s height. As I continued to imagine this, the car veered to a halt. I needed to have most of the cactus conceptualized before the others clambered in. Once there, they’d never let me continue my meditation. The driver was already yelling obscenities at me, knowing I was up to something but not sure what. How could she? She didn’t have the capacity to even imagine what my Light side could create.
One final tweak: already naturally and conveniently bayonet-shaped, I reinforced the tapered leaves with iron, and made the spiraling clusters dense and tight and unyielding even under the full impact of a speeding car. As I finished off the last cluster, the Honda’s doors slammed behind us. I opened my eyes and stared straight ahead. I could make out the boneyard wall in the distance. It was still solid, and I took another moment to give the underground cactus an extra energy pulse, mentally softening the ground above it. Had any of the Shadows been looking, the shift in the wide swath of earth could be attributed to the wind, but the backseat doors were winging open, and the driver was already yelling.
“She’s doing something!” the woman screeched as sharp elbows and toxic breath suddenly hemmed me in. I knew them all, either from previous run-ins or, in the case of the newbies, from reading the Shadow manuals, an ability I possessed because I was half Shadow. I dampened my responding cough to their scent, forcing down bile, and continued staring straight ahead as Harrison slid in beside the driver. He shot me a little finger wave. The driver, still in animate cadaver mode, was like a snake spitting venom. “She’s up to something!”
“She’s trapped in a car with five Shadow agents and no conduit.” Harrison was talking to her but still smirking at me. I carefully envisioned an extra sharp barb arrowing into his skull. “Now watch the wall.”
Tariq leaned so close, his dump-site breath stirred my hair. “We’re going to cross over to the boneyard’s flip side and cut your troop down as they exit your sanctuary.”
“Looks that way,” I said woodenly, hoping no one would notice how much I was sweating beneath my hoodie and mask. It was harder to concentrate on creation with my eyes open. I’d never tried it that way before.
Sloane, next to me, was apparently looking for a greater reaction. She slapped my face so hard her nails raked the skin beneath the mask. Fortunately, she was too close to use her full power. I felt a tooth loosen at the back of my mouth and winced, which made her laugh. And that made my face burn.
“Don’t sit there like a statue,” she said as I lifted my chin and continued to stare at the wall. Dusk was splitting. The only good thing about this was that it divided and diverted their full attention from me. “You’ve gotta at least be getting excited.”
I lifted one brow. “Because murder and destruction are so thrilling?”
She slapped me again. I really hated being slapped. “You’re gonna lose that fucking hand,” I muttered.
She slapped me again. Now I had matching red cheeks…and matching red eyes.
“Wow, she looks just like-”
“Him,” Harrison said, and pointed at the sky.
The Tulpa was barreling toward us like a bull on acid. Damn it! The Shadows looked surprised to see him, so I knew it was my anger that had led him to us. He leveled out, going at least eighty miles an hour, swooping over the top of the car so it shook beneath his thundering cry. “Go!”
But it wasn’t yet time. The boneyard wall was beginning to ripple, like the shimmer of sun off asphalt, but it hadn’t softened yet. Impatient, the driver revved the engine, and everyone stared straight ahead, except for Tariq. He was watching the Tulpa behind us.