I froze amidst the pile of crumbled plaster, knowing I’d never escape that wheeling vortex of limbs. He was a rocket, faster than anything I’d ever seen, and when a scream escaped that decaying mouth, the building shook, plaster and tiles fell from the ceiling, bulbs shattered in their sockets, and I ducked.
A wall of sheet silver appeared between us, too instantly for the Tulpa to avoid. The crash was like a car wreck, and I looked over to find Tekla with both arms outstretched. So we weren’t entirely powerless.
“Get Vanessa!” she yelled, flinging up wall after wall as the Tulpa, screaming now, continued to punch through them. I bolted. We were lucky; Vanessa’s opposite was Regan, now an outcast, and Tekla’s had been Zell, whom I’d helped kill last month. But the Cancerian Shadow, Drake, had heard Tekla’s cry, and was reaching for Vanessa along with me. Without thinking, I pulled out the Micro Uzi-the weapon I’d thought useless-and rolled off an ear-shattering round from arm’s distance away. No, mortal weapons wouldn’t kill him. But as evidenced by Vanessa-they were still effective. He jerked backward, spraying blood.
I didn’t waste time on Vanessa’s ropes. I just swung the Uzi to one side and picked up the entire chair with the other hand. It wasn’t heavy, just awkward, and with Tekla covering my back, thrusting up walls to cover my retreat, I ran. Outside, I vaulted over the ornamental wall, silently apologizing to Vanessa for the rough landing, but kept spraying bullets at anything that moved…or moved too fast. I was one of those things, of course-fleeing so fast that all the mortals would see was a blur-but fast and fast enough were two different things.
With our lives depending on it, I put on the speed. I needed to be the latter.
4
My phone rang in my pocket.
“Peppermill. Cab. Hurry.”
Warren. Without preamble. Or good-bye.
Carrying Vanessa as gingerly as possible, I headed to the Peppermill Lounge, formerly another safe zone. Gregor masqueraded in the mortal world as a cab driver and regularly parked behind the classic Vegas lounge. So I knew both he and Warren had made it there safely.
Fifteen minutes later, Hunter and Felix gingerly took Vanessa from my arms. Micah patted the space next to him in the cab, which meant there wasn’t a lot of it, and I clamored into the backseat, practically on his lap as I pulled the door shut behind me.
“We’ll have to circle because of all the blood,” Warren told Gregor, who took off in a screech of rubber and exhaust. Vanessa’s blood was already scenting the air.
Gregor nodded. “I’ll hit the beltway from the Strip. It circles the entire valley.”
“One pass,” Warren agreed. “Then we drop Micah, Hunter, and Vanessa at the warehouse.”
Located in industrial Vegas, the troop’s warehouse wasn’t a safe zone, but right now it was as safe as we were going to get. Hunter, our weapons master, crafted our conduits there, but more importantly, there was a panic room where Vanessa could hide.
“I’m going too,” Felix said in a tight voice. Warren drew in a breath, but only hesitated momentarily before nodding. Felix would be a wreck if he was trapped in the sanctuary, not knowing how Vanessa was doing. He was a wreck now, arms hanging helplessly, afraid to touch her anywhere. She groaned as we hit a speed bump.
“Where’s Tekla?” I asked as we flew up the on ramp.
No one answered.
“Where’s Tekla?” If she’d gone down while saving me…after Vanessa had endured this because of me…
“Calm the fuck down!” Warren yelled, half turning in his seat. “He’s following us!”
“I’m trying.” But the thought of the Tulpa tracking us had the opposite effect of calming me. Gregor glared at me through the rearview mirror.
“Jo!”
“Shut up!” I closed my eyes and thought of grassy fields and fuzzy bunnies and shit. But my anxiety had spiked and the fields were burning up behind my lids, the bunnies turning into blood-splattered carcasses.
I realized belatedly that Warren was yelling at me. “…if you would listen!”
I opened my eyes. “What?”
“You have to go.”
“Go?” My heart jumped again. Where the hell was I supposed to go? There were no safe zones any longer. No place to hide and heal and find refuge from our enemies.
“Go away, for one. The Tulpa will be able to track us because of you.”
Keeping the troop safe, then. As always.
He sighed, and worked to calm himself as well. “Look, I’m not just throwing you out on your own. Find Skamar. Make her tell you about Midheaven.”
“Midheaven?” Hunter turned to stare at Warren. The cab fell oddly silent.
Warren held Hunter’s look for a long moment, then blew out a breath and tried to tuck a tuft of hair behind an ear, a habit left over from the days when it was dreadlocked. It was an uncharacteristically nervous gesture. “Just tell her about the safe zones. She’ll tell you how to walk the line so you can get help, and do it without-”
He turned back at a sharp crack behind us, followed shortly by a sonic boom, as if the sky was made of ice floes, shifting and breaking apart. The Tulpa was having a fit. And he wasn’t far off.
I shivered when he raised a brow at me. He wanted me to leave now? “Wait-”
“We can’t.”
“But-”
“You broke the changeling, Joanna! You caused the fall of our safe zones! You’re the only one who can fix it, and the answer is in Midheaven!”
“But-”
“Look, we’ll find you as soon as possible. Let me get the rest of the troop safe first. You alone can fix this. Go find Skamar. Go be someone else-”
“Find her where?” The female tulpa had a habit of disappearing for days at a time, reemerging only to battle with my homicidal father. She was as elusive now as she’d been in her previous incarnation as my doppelgänger. “Be who?”
Warren looked out the back windshield again. The Tulpa seemed to be dropping back.
“Anyone,” he finally answered, voice ragged with fatigue. “Just…don’t be Jo.”
I drew back, stunned. He turned back around, and the others refused to meet my eye. I stroked the butt of my Uzi like it was a security blanket.
Warren, finally realizing I wasn’t going to say anything, muttered one word. “Micah.”
There was barely any room for Micah to turn his head, much less his body, but he managed to shoot me a look of sympathy as he shrugged. “Sorry, Jo.”
“For wh-”
My ass hit the ground before my feet, as did my head and palms and right cheek as I flipped over myself. The cab was nothing but a wink of distant taillights by the time I looked up, and I cursed as I limped to the side of the road. Sure I was already healing from the fall. The push, I corrected, as I began walking in the opposite direction. But what the hell was I supposed to do alone, with an automatic weapon, and instructions to be anybody but me?
They threw me out at the north end of the Las Vegas Beltway, at the top of Charleston, near a chichi casino where savvy locals played and an upscale boutique mall housing independent eateries and one-off shops. It was late now, all the shops closed, and the indoor/outdoor restaurants were shut tight to the winter chill. I set my Micro Uzi on the wall of a marble white fountain, and figuring a head cold was better than a decapitation, climbed in to wash off the remainder of Vanessa’s blood and scent.
“Don’t be Joanna,” I muttered, flipping my mask atop my head like an oversized headband. I loosened my low knot and tried not to be offended by Warren’s parting remark-or the skid marks on my ass-and shook out my hair. It was fine, really. I impersonated Olivia the majority of time anyway. And subtracting my real name from the equation did nothing to diminish my status in the troop: the Archer of the Zodiac, the Kairos, and the chosen one of our entire world.