“The Kairos? A myth,” the hooker scoffed.
“You mean the Tulpa told you it’s a myth,” Vanessa corrected.
“The legend is that the woman who bears both sun and moon inside of her will have to choose her allegiance. Like a fulcrum, her fate is not fixed. She begins by belonging equally to the day and night,” the man said.
“Which means,” added Dawn, “that we have as much chance of spawning the Archer as you.”
“Is that what your manuals say?” Hunter said. “Interesting. Because ours tell us that one night in the season of Jupiter, eight Shadow warriors will infiltrate the Neon Boneyard, and battle there until dawn breaks over the Black Mountains. Some will die, but the rest will be given a choice to lay down their arms and live, the first time in history either side has offered a truce. If the Shadows don’t accept, however, they die en masse, along with the warriors of Light. Either way, one star sign walks away. This marks the rise of the Kairos.”
Hunter motioned to me, and I took a small bow, though more because he expected me to than out of any belief in what he’d said.
The Shadows looked at one another. Then the man said, “Prove it.”
I glanced at Hunter. He shrugged. “Zell wants you to prove it.”
So I squared on the Shadow agents, and without removing my shield, allowed my bones to rise from beneath the shroud of my skin, rearranging themselves on the surface; elongating, gleaming in the light of the full moon, revealing the face of my father. I blew him a kiss as I sucked the bones back in. It came out on a scalding wisp of breath, and I smiled prettily.
“Shit,” one of the Shadows said softly.
The man behind Hunter lowered his ax, then tossed it on a pile of scrap metal. Vanessa, in turn, folded her steel fan. Dawn removed her machete from Felix’s middle, hand shaking, and threw it aside. Felix doubled over, clutching at his stomach.
“Felix!” Vanessa rushed to him.
“Oops,” Dawn said, laughing. She shrugged at Vanessa’s upturned glare. “Well, don’t look at me. I did that before the deal was made. Though it was a good strike if I do say so myself.”
“Get him to Micah,” Hunter ordered Vanessa.
She gave a sharp nod, her face gone pale. “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”
“You can’t come alone,” Hunter argued, then jerked his head at the three Shadows. “This isn’t all of them.”
“Then wait for me.”
“There isn’t time.”
Vanessa looked at the lightening sky, then back at him, frustrated resignation clouding her face.
“Bad luck all around,” Zell said, shaking his head. “Was that in your manual too?”
Felix straightened long enough to slam a fist into the guy’s mouth…then collapsed in a heap.
Vanessa caught him, gathered him up, and Hunter motioned for me to guard the Shadows while he assisted them to the base of the Slipper.
Zell chuckled, licking the blood from the side of his mouth, then turned to me. “Why the mask, sweet cheeks?”
“It’s not a mask. It’s a shield.” I hesitated, then said, “My Shadow side won’t allow me to enter the sanctuary without it.”
“What happens if you try?” the whore-debutante asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“Same thing that happens to all of you. I get microwaved from the inside out.”
They all shuddered.
Zell, whom I took to be some sort of leader, folded his arms as he studied me. “So if those two are going back into the sanctuary, and you and Hunter are going after Ajax, who’s supposed to keep us all rounded up here like good little sheep? Those invisible initiates you were talking about?”
I shook my head. “They don’t exist.”
“I thought not,” Dawn muttered.
“Don’t worry,” Hunter called down from the top of the slipper, “we have something far more frightening in mind.”
Before the Shadows could ask what, Hunter called out, “They can come up now, Rena.”
There was a moment when we all wondered what might exit the mouth of that slipper. This pause was followed by a deep internal rumble that had the Shadows glancing around them, looking ready to bolt. Zell caught me watching him, glared at my smile, and stayed put.
Seconds later two dozen children of the Zodiac tumbled out like ants pouring from the mouth of a mound. They were screaming gleefully, zipping to the far reaches of the boneyard and back, their faces alight, literally, with joy. Rena followed closely behind.
“I don’t approve of this, you know,” she said to Hunter. “It’s past their bedtime.”
“It’s good practice for them,” he replied, watching as more children tumbled over the Slipper. “Have they eaten?”
“Double chocolate banana splits and espresso. They’ll be up all night.”
“Shit,” the woman next to me muttered again, squinting against the residual zips of light.
Little Marcus raced past me, his face an intense chocolate-smeared mixture of joy and determination. As he passed the Shadow man he leaned in and gave a ferocious growl, his expression so fierce it sparked the entire boneyard to life. Zell cried out and covered his eyes with his arms.
Marcus, of course, thought this hilarious. He circled the Shadow warriors, leaning in and leering at them so that his face blinked on and off like a little bulb. The other kids, shrieking, began to do the same.
“Brilliant,” I murmured, squinting even from within my mask. Like baby rattlers, the children’s strength was in their inability to control their power. If the Shadows found the rest of us hard to bear, then the children’s raw and undiluted power was insufferable. And the little vessels of pure light, I thought, smiling, could keep these Shadows immobile for as long as they wished. I heard a howl of pain as one of the kids poked their quarry in the stomach. Sparks flew as flesh met flesh.
“Linus! Stop that this instant! What did I tell you about torture?”
Hunter was suddenly beside me again. “You ready?”
I nodded, backing from the raucous melee and the cringing Shadow signs. “Guess we don’t have to worry about these guys for a while.”
“Don’t worry. There will be more where we’re going.”
“The Hall of the Gods,” I muttered, following him toward dawn and another reality. Toward Valhalla.
27
As we circled the casino, looking for the best place to stage our entrance and Warren’s eventual extraction, the Strip was coming to life. Early morning joggers bounded up the near-empty streets, dodging slower pedestrians who’d emerged in quest of sunlight or breakfast buffets. Life, I thought, went on. I studied the building before us, the faux castle facade, the lush landscaping that surrounded it like a moat. It was no longer a mere casino, I realized, but a guarded fortress. And I was trying to scale its walls.
“I have an idea,” Hunter said, and headed toward the casino. “Give me five minutes.”
“Wait! You can’t go in alone!” The Shadows, were they there, would scent him. And I was sure they were there.
He shrugged off my arm with an irritated jerk. “Just five minutes. Meet me at the main entrance.”
It passed like five hours. By the time I rounded the building from the street side, Hunter was already on patrol, dressed in a Valhalla security uniform and scanning the area intently. His back was to me, so I exhaled to let him know I was there. He whirled immediately, heading straight for me.
He was fearsome, even clothed as a mortal. His blueblack hair was no longer loose, slicked instead, and banded at the base of his neck. He had his warrior’s face on, and though I knew who the game face was really for, the murderous look in his eyes still sent a chill down my spine. His whip was nowhere to be seen, but his mortal weapons were secured at his sides.
“Two guns?” I said, eyeing a holster on each side and a baton at his back.
“The Tulpa’s paranoid.”
The Tulpa wasn’t the only one. I glanced behind me, staring down a senior citizen about half my height. I didn’t like how exposed I felt on the street. And I could smell Hunter, his adrenaline and nerves as acute as smelling salts in my nose. “Let’s go.”