“Sure,” he said, stepping closer to me, invading my space this time. “I’m not beyond stealing secrets from the enemy.”
“All right. Just one hint.” I looked up into his face, past the thin lips, into those empty eyes, and held my ground. “Look behind you, Joaquin. Even when you think you’re alone, even when you feel safe and secure in your lair, even when you sleep. Don’t ever stop looking behind you.”
“A little tip for you as well, then,” Joaquin said, lips curling into a cruel sneer. “Try number 5142. It’s the record of the night we first met. I’m sure you’ll find it fascinating.”
Some may have taken it for weakness, but I let him have the last word. I watched him back away from me, only watched as he blew me a parting kiss, and stood where I was even when the door chimes split the air, severing the tension linking us together. Besides, I was too busy smiling to respond. He had glanced back over his shoulder, just before the door shut behind him, just as I wanted. And damn if it didn’t make me feel powerful.
I should have known better than to try and follow. I thought if I could at least get a good look at the kind of car he drove I could add it to my growing trove of information about him, and the Shadows in generaclass="underline" a lab in the basement of Valhalla, an original manual with the facts needed to destroy the Tulpa, an initiate gone bad. Badder. Whatever.
So I pulled down the edge of an Aquaman poster, half expecting to see the Batmobile parked outside. My hand was slapped away, though, and one of the twins snarled, his elongated teeth dripping with saliva as he leered in my direction.
“Oh, back off, Beavis,” I said, and slapped him upside his sooty gelatinous head.
“Ow-w,” he whined, his features shrinking, skin losing its dark color, like leaking ink, until he regained his ruddy mien. His jaw snapped back into shape with an audible pop.
“You can’t watch him leave, Archer,” Carl said. “It’s part of the rules-”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, turning away from the window. I’d figured as much. “How do I get her off me?”
“Who, Jas?” he asked, and I thought, No, the other preteen affixed to me like Cling Wrap. “Just return to her shell and touch her. She’ll take over from there.”
I did, and Jasmine peeled from my frame like a Band-Aid, color rushing along her limbs like it’d been released from a dam; no more pale skin, and no more scary monster fangs. Waking as though from a dream, she blinked up at me, wide-eyed and expectant. “Are you okay?”
“Of course,” she answered sweetly as I helped her to her feet. “How did we get into the hallway?”
I picked up my belongings and turned to Carl, who’d come with me after the other kids had morphed back into pockmarked pubescents. “She really remembers nothing?”
He started walking backward, keeping an eye on us as we all headed back into the shop. “Memory is unnecessary for changelings, and would actually inhibit function in their own lives. Besides, if they remembered these events as adults they’d have to be institutionalized.” Carl slumped against the back wall and gave me an appreciative once-over. “You handled yourself well, Archer. That last nose-to-nose bit is going to be a beaut to draw.”
“What did we miss?” one of the twins asked.
His brother hit him. “Dude, they never tell us. We’ll have to wait and read the manual.”
“Man, I hate that!” he replied, slapping his thigh. “Carl, we should at least get a discount if we’re in the fucking thing!”
“Language! There’s a lady in the house,” Carl said, and the boys began looking about.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to Carl. “Thanks for your help back there. I didn’t know…” I trailed off, thinking of all the things I didn’t know. Carl, reading my thoughts, waved the appreciation away.
“Anytime. Joaquin’s right about one thing, though,” he said, leading to obnoxious cries of “Joaquin? The Shadow agent? Where? When?,” and had to raise his voice to be heard. “You need to grow in power before you take him on. If you acted in the outside world the way you did in the hallway, you’d be dead right now.”
“I know,” I muttered as I headed to the register. But that was going to change.
“You all right?” Zane asked when I reached him.
You care? was the first retort to come to mind, but it wasn’t really his job to care, and it was nice of him to ask. Still, when I nodded, I didn’t meet his eye. I didn’t want him to see the frustration there. I’d hate for him to write about it in the Shadow manuals. Then Joaquin would really know he’d gotten to me.
So I fumbled with my wallet instead, hunting for the cash to pay for my purchases, pausing when my eyes fell on the papers in front of him. The pages to the left were filled with dialogue, a shorthand version of Joaquin’s and my conversation minutes before, but the one to the right-the one he’d been working on when I entered the shop-was blank. But for two words.
Liam Burke.
“It was nice of you, you know,” Zane said, seeing the direction of my gaze as he slipped the manuals into a plastic bag. “You allowed his name to be recorded in the manuals of Light.”
I shrugged. “It’s what I would have wanted.” I took the bag and handed him the money.
“He’d have snuffed you out without a second thought,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.
“Always a pleasure, Zane.” I pocketed the change, took my receipt, and turned to leave.
“It’s strange, though.”
I turned back, warily. “What is?”
He tapped his pencil against his man-boobs. “Well, these events, your actions…they come to me in visions, bubbling up suddenly in my consciousness, and they come in color. The agents of Light are always bathed in a golden iridescent glow, the Shadows always silver.”
So it was some sort of psychic energy manifesting itself, the same as mortal dreams. I’d wondered. Curious to hear more, I took a step back toward the counter. I believed in energy, that we were all created by it and created it in turn. Shit, these days it was practically the only thing I believed in. Nevertheless, I tried to hide that I was impressed. “So?”
“So, before you snagged the aureole, before my mind went blank and all I saw were those two words,” he said, annoyance flickering over his face as if I’d flipped the channel while he was watching his favorite program. Voyeur. “I could have sworn there were two entities in that aquarium.”
“You mean you saw another Shadow agent?” I asked innocently.
“No. The vision wasn’t strong enough for that,” he admitted, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. “But I know I saw something. I saw someone.”
He couldn’t see initiates, I realized. And the aureole had blunted my capture and conversation with Regan. So while he might have intuited Regan’s presence, he couldn’t prove it. “Well,” I finally said, shooting him Olivia’s brightest smile. “Good luck with that.”
He snorted in disgust and turned his attention back to his work as I walked away. I’d find out in two weeks what he was writing. For now I peered outside, glancing left and right before stepping into the day’s full sun. The only person in sight was the skateboarder from before, and he rolled directly over to my car, flipped up his board, and tucked it under his arm, while squinting at me through the bright afternoon rays.
“It’s okay,” he said. “He’s gone.”
I nodded at him-another changeling, I gathered-though he was only partly right. Joaquin was gone. On the other hand, I thought, turning the Porsche’s engine over, things were far from being okay.
8
After my confrontation with Joaquin, after I’d watched a little girl turn into a monster-and ultimately my savior-and after running through a drive-through to pick up a cheeseburger, and wishing it came with a shot of Chivas, I was ready for sanctuary. Dusk was closing in fast, and the time of crossing from this reality to the other was less than an hour away. Crossing wasn’t like walking through a portal. Any old agent could do that at any time, but crossing had to be undertaken at exactly the time when day and night were split evenly in the air, when the veil between the mortal world and ours was thinnest, if it was to be done at all. One second late and the door would be shut until twelve hours later, and the next split second day and night fought over the skyline.