“Wait, wait!” Micah stood, holding up his hands. “We don’t know for sure that we’re all infected. Maybe Felix is right. Maybe full-fledged star signs can’t be affected.”
“But the children,” Rena said, hand fluttering helplessly to her chest, then her mouth, then back to her chest. If she’d had eyes, they’d be fixed on me just as accusingly as Warren’s were.
I sighed, weariness overtaking me suddenly. I needed this to be over now. “Riddick, will you come here?”
He frowned, but didn’t move. I smiled wryly and motioned him forward. “I promise. I won’t even touch you.”
Warren gave his consent with a stiff jerk of his head, and only then did Riddick rise to stand at my left side, though I noted he didn’t come too close. That was fine because I then crossed the room, bending to whisper in Jewell’s ear. She didn’t jerk away, for which I was grateful, but a look of surprise bloomed on her face, followed by a fast and furious blush. She glanced up at me as I straightened, then nodded. “Okay. If you’re sure.”
Acutely aware that every eye was on her, she went to stand at Riddick’s side. She didn’t touch him, not even when she cupped a hand to his ear, but when she told him to close his eyes, he did. And when she said the rest of what I’d instructed her-things I knew she’d wanted to say to him for a while now; how much she was attracted to him, how his body and mind moved her, how she dreamed of him when alone at night-a slim wisp of smoke escaped his parted lips, evidence of the disease rising to curl about him like an entranced cobra…and all in the room gasped as one.
Jewell backed up against the wall, her hand covering her mouth in horror. Riddick’s eyes flew open, catching on one shocked face after another. “What?”
No one answered. I turned slowly and faced Warren. “The disease is dormant until sexual contact, any one of you, save Hunter, will die from just one kiss.”
For a moment he didn’t move. Then he advanced on me, his limp pronounced, and his mouth drawn in a thin, sharp line. An image of a blood-splattered machete slashing through the air, over and over again, rocketed through my mind, and I began to shake where I stood.
“I am sorry,” I whispered again, and got a brief flash of understanding from his storm-dark eyes before they shuttered again. Then his face took on the aspect of a squall brewing in the middle of the sea. His whole face sank into the storm erupting inside him, and his fists bunched and released, lips worked, not getting anything out…until he did. “Get out.”
And even though I’d been prepared for that-even though I knew I was lucky that was all the leader of the Zodiac troop did, and demanded of me-I was still numb as I made my way to the launchpad. I’d already successfully retrieved the disks from my locker, and stashed my bags where I’d left my satchel a week earlier. What I wasn’t prepared for was for Warren to follow me up the chute and wordlessly strip me of the mask that would allow me to re-enter the sanctuary.
Then he returned inside, leaving me to make the crossing on my own.
I shook as I waited, like some refugee victim who knew she was alive, but wasn’t sure how…or even if she wanted to be. And when I felt dusk silently settle over the boneyard, I went ahead and created another breach in the wall, stepped through it one final time, and returned to the mortal reality. Warren, I knew, would be along shortly to shore up the fissure I’d made, but that would be out of habit. There’d be no breach of the boneyard’s wall from the Shadows now. Why should there be? They were already in.
While I was on the outside. Alone.
21
The memory of Marlo’s lifeless body kept me going those next few days. That and the disgust and horror on Hunter’s face as he realized what I’d made him into. That last look had been a telling one. He’d never forgive me-I hadn’t really expected him to-and he’d never look at me with longing or lust again either. And that was okay. If I could just regain enough trust to be allowed back in the sanctuary, the closeness we’d once held after sharing the aureole would be replaced with professional reserve, which was all I really wanted.
Wasn’t it?
I was wondering about that as I parked in front of Cher’s house, where I’d been staying since my ejection from the sanctuary. Olivia’s home was unsafe now that the gloves were off between Regan and me, and even though she was supposed to be tucked away in some safehouse in preparation for her metamorphosis, I wouldn’t put it past her to have revealed my hidden identity to Joaquin-or even the Tulpa.
“Heya, honey. What’s up?” Cher said when I entered her guest room, her eyes never leaving the comic she was leafing through while lying on my bed. Not a comic-a Shadow manual. Shit. Had she gone through my stuff? Or had I left that one out on the nightstand after combing through it the night before? It had to be the latter, though I knew Olivia wouldn’t have made a stink either way. Those two, I had to remember, kept no secrets from each other.
“Not a lot,” I said, keeping my tone light as I toed off my tennies. “Just back from the gym.”
She was propped up on her elbows, and as I tossed a few local magazines down onto the bed-weeklies that offered underground commentary on the city, politicians, and entertainers-she gave me a horrified once-over. “Darlin’, did you…sweat?”
I hadn’t actually. If I were to work out to the point of breaking a sweat I’d break whatever machine I was training on. There wasn’t a free weight made that I couldn’t lift a thousand times, and sparring with mortals was a total waste of time. I had been at the gym, though. The repetition of running or biking in place helped me think. My conscious mind zoned out while my subconscious pondered whatever problem I was trying to figure out. Besides, it was the last place the Shadows would think to look for me, and these days I was taking refuge where I could find it.
“Um…” I’d applied water to my chest after the workout to make it look a little more realistic. I should have known Olivia didn’t sweat. “See, there was this girl next to me on the treadmill, and a cute guy on the other side of her, so I thought if I just went faster than her I could get his attention, but every time I upped my speed, so did she.”
“That whore!” Cher threw the manual aside as she sat up.
“Yeah, so I ended up sprinting for like, five whole minutes, and when I looked up, the guy was gone.”
Cher shook her head. “Next time why don’t you just ask him how to work the machine? That always works for me.”
Oh yeah. The this-inanimate-object-is-smarter-than-me approach. That was so me. “I’ll do that,” I said, and shot her a weak smile.
“What are these?” she asked, holding up one of the weeklies.
“Just local newspapers. They’re free at the gym, and they have lots of good articles.”
She looked at me suspiciously as she smoothed her hair back from her face. “You sure are readin’ a lot these days.”
Comics and angry criticism was considered reading a lot? “I’m not really reading them,” I said, and her expression immediately shifted to relief. “I just look at the social events in these, and I like the pictures in the others.”
“Oh, but I’m not talking about this,” she said, picking the Shadow manual back up. “This is really good.”
The lights and movement that animated the manual when I touched it were dormant in her mortal hands. Apparently it had some sort of sensory on and off switch, and it looked like any other comic as she thumbed it open. “What issue is that?” I asked, leaning forward.
“It’s called Daughter of Blood, about Dawn, the Shadow Gemini.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Oh, I can’t stand her. She’s a real bitch.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, flipping through the pages. “But she dresses cool.”
I drew back, studying the panel she flashed at me, unreasonably annoyed that my/Olivia’s best friend would find one of the foremost supervillains in the city attractive. “No, she doesn’t. She’s totally hooker-fied.”