The Taste of Night (9 page)

“Changelings?” I asked, recognizing the word from one of Warren’s lectures, but not what it meant.

The embarrassment in my voice touched her. She took my hand and swung it back and forth in hers, like we were schoolgirls on a playground. “We keep the secrets of the Zodiac and make sure the knowledge is passed on to the next generation. We need the agents to continue the battle of good versus evil, of course, so that the legends are put into print, but you need us just as much. Here, read this.” She passed me another manual, then waved for me to follow.

I glanced down as I did. “Why?”

“Because it’s the story of your troop’s emergence,” she said, facing me as she continued walking backward. “Your genealogy is in there. It’s a good place to start.”

“No…er, thanks,” I said, tucking it under my arm. “But I meant why do agents need you?”

She halted so suddenly I almost ran her down, but looked more amused by the question than annoyed. “Because we think about you. We read your stories and believe in you. Were Zane to stop writing them down, or die without passing the craft on to another, or were we to enter puberty without recruiting new changelings from the six and seven age group, your stories would cease to be told. Your alternate realities would fade, your portals would close forever. You would cease to exist.”

“Impossible,” I said, on a half laugh. “I exist whether you believe it or not. One thing has nothing to do with the other.” Though I thought about the Tulpa—how someone else’s thoughts had created him, how a group’s belief had strengthened him—and had to suppress a shudder.

Jasmine half laughed back. “You have an immunity to mortal harm and a chest that lights up like a Christmas tree whenever danger is near. Who’re you to say what’s possible or not?”

Shit. She had a point. I motioned for her to go on. The dimples flashed again. “All I know is belief in something is what makes it real, and not just paranormal episodes but regular things too. Love, hate, fear. Perception colors all our experiences.” She gestured back the way we came, to the shop front and those still there. “For instance, Sebastian believes the Shadows are going to win the fight for the valley, and it’s his job to convince other mortal children to believe along with him. They go home, read the manuals he’s given them, and begin to dream about a world where evil rules the day. Those dreams become energy that feeds and fuels the Tulpa, giving strength and purpose to his troop’s deeds.”

“Can’t disappoint their fans, eh?” I said wryly. At least I had a clear explanation as to why the kid couldn’t stand me. “Maybe we should lock Sebastian up in a cabinet until he reaches puberty. Then, poof! He’s gone. And no more Shadows either.”

I was surprised no one had thought of it earlier.

She gave me a smile a parent would give to a pouting two-year-old, and handed me a comic depicting a man being mutilated on the cover by an unseen assailant, body parts tossed into an abandoned freezer after they were carved up. Nice. “But then you’d have to lock me away too. I’m Sebastian’s opposite. I approach all the mortal children who are inclined to believe in the Light and I tell them the story of the Archer, how she not only survived, but overcame an attack that would have killed any other agent, how she made herself into something stronger, and how she’s the Kairos, fated to bring down the Shadow side in our fair city forever.”

Sheesh. The hyperbolic prose was bad enough. Now I had to worry about ruining some rugrat’s bedtime story. “Thanks…I think.”

“No problem,” she said sweetly, dimples flashing. “Like I said, I’m a changeling. It’s my…”

Jasmine’s gaze left mine as a look of astonishment passed over her face, and she looked through me, as if seeing something just on the other side of my bones. The manuals she’d plucked from the shelves fell to the floor, and she stiffened.

“Jasmine?” I said, putting a hand on her arm. She trembled beneath my touch, small warning shudders before a greater quaking overtook her. It was some sort of seizure, I realized, as her eyes rolled to white, her little mouth opening soundlessly. I didn’t know what to do. I knew CPR, but had no idea what to do with a seizure victim. Lay her down? Stick something in her mouth to keep her from biting her own tongue? I couldn’t even decide if I should try and help her, or if I should leave her and run for help.

What happened next decided it for me.

Her smooth skin began to shimmer, just around the edges at first, like she was backlit, but it soon spread to the center of her frame, like wind rippling over water, except that this was a human being. I felt the texture of her skin alter beneath my hands, softening like putty, and quickly let go
when I saw what looked like bruises popping up beneath my thumbs. But the bruises lifted also, like they were attached to my hands, and I jerked away. Her skin, like rubber, snapped back into place. It must have hurt because Jasmine’s wide, rolling eyes seemed to fix on mine. Her open mouth shifted, like something had come unhinged inside, and her jaw extended into a gaping yawn. By the time I realized her teeth had grown unnaturally pointed and deadly sharp, her misshapen jaw was as long as my forearm and growing longer.

God help me, I thought, backing into the shelves with a startled crash. I was going to get eaten by a preteen!

Jasmine—or what used to be Jasmine—reached out to me with her hand, and I noticed the bruises I’d accidentally inflicted had spread. Her whole arm was that deep, shimmery color…and that hand had grown speared claws. I jerked away, dodged another swipe, and began to run across the great room, back into the tunnel leading to the shop, back to where little girls didn’t turn into voracious monsters.

Jasmine roared behind me.

I hurtled through the dark passageway blindly, banging like a pinball against the narrow walls, but keeping my eyes fixed on the pinprick of light at the other end. Was it me, or was this tunnel getting longer? And was the panted breathing behind me getting closer?

“Zane!” I yelled, picking up speed. “Help!”

I’d have stopped to fumble for my conduit, but the-child-formerly-known-as-Jasmine was closer now. I could hear the report of little feet slapping behind me, needy growls erupting from her elongated throat, and knew if I stopped she’d be on me before I could draw and aim. Besides, shimmering spawn of Dracula or not, did I really want to kill her?

Finally, as the light grew larger and the hallway shorter, I could make out the shop beyond the doorway. There were chairs and shelves and—far, far off—the front door. I ran
faster. Jasmine roared again. A figure stepped into the doorway of the passage, and I heard a gasp before Carl came barreling toward me as well.

“Carl, no!” He must not have seen the monster on my ass. “Move!”

He did…just enough to send his shoulder barreling into me. My breath left me in a whoosh, and I ended up on my back, Carl on top of me…Jasmine poised for attack at the tip of my head. But she wasn’t looking at me. Carl was yelling, telling me to calm down and let Jasmine get in front of me. His other instructions were hurried, mumbled, panted—something about mask, identity, hide—but I got the gist of it.

“What, Carl? What is it?” I asked as Jasmine squeezed past us with feline grace, limbs blackened to the point of opaqueness, stretching, elongating, and retracting as needed. No wonder she’d been gaining on me. She was a life-sized Gumby! So fixed was I on the sight of her gelatinous legs, I almost missed what Carl said next.

“Joaquin.”

Jasmine roared again, and ahead of me a shadow moved to block the light from the shop. All the breath left my body on a shaky exhale. My conduit was out of reach, dumped on the floor when Carl tackled me, and my glyph had failed to fire in warning. But Carl was right. Joaquin had arrived. And Master Comics had just turned into the little shop of horrors.

He wore no mask, though I’d have known who he was beneath it anyway. Silhouetted in the doorway where Carl had been moments earlier, he wore a suit that accentuated his frame, making his shoulders as broad as a linebacker’s, but narrow at the hips. Sugar-coated heat rose in roasting waves from his body, and the air in the hallway gave way to a cloying sweetness that clung to my nostrils, coating my throat. The scent was unmistakable, as was the man. He took a determined step forward.

Still down, I began backpedaling madly, knowing just how Linda Hamilton had felt against the Terminator.

“Stop, Archer. Stop!” Carl tugged on one of my legs. I shook him free and struggled to my feet, still backpedaling. Carl grabbed one of my arms and dug in. “Just let Jasmine stay in front of you. You’ll be fine.”

From a half crouch I looked again. And slowly straightened. Joaquin was still there, outlined in the doorway with one hand cocked on his hip, head tilted as he tried to peer around Jasmine. But she had grown, stretching to a cut-out form that eerily echoed mine, a shadowy barrier between him and me. I straightened, and she did too, my mirror im
age but tinged in a vibrant shade of violet that pulsed from her body with each beat of her heart.

“She won’t let you come to harm. That’s her job. Your identity’s protected as long as she’s between you.”

I turned my head toward Carl, to show I was listening, but kept my eyes on Joaquin. “So, what’s he seeing?”

“Nothing but your outline right now. And I do mean
your
outline. The real you. As you were before.”

I glanced at Carl. Jasmine, in front of me, mirrored the movement. “Really?”

He nodded. “If you want to be fully seen as you were before, then just step through her. She’ll try to echo the movement, but move a little faster and her aura will become attached to your own. It’ll mold and shape this body into your original frame. Right now it’s just like using a medium to reveal who you are. Step through her and you actually become the medium.”

I swallowed hard, but my heartbeat was slowing. Joaquin didn’t come any closer, and Jasmine didn’t look like she’d let him. “I don’t get it.”

“She’s the frame,” Carl said, motioning ahead, “you’re simply what’s being mirrored.”

It made sense in some unbelievable way I no longer questioned. Still. Step
through
another person so their aura could stick to my own? “I don’t think so.”

I did take a step forward, though, and when nothing happened—other than Jasmine mimicking the movement—took another. Reaching my bag, and the comics I’d dropped when Carl had plowed into me, I gathered them together and sought out my conduit, trying to ignore my shaking hands. Jasmine mirrored my movements exactly, keeping my Olivia identity hidden from Joaquin on the other side. A changeling, I thought, shaking my head slightly. And here I thought she was going to eat me.

Just as I began to compose myself, Jasmine roared. It sounded like the earth quaking at its core, and I realized too late that she was backing up as Joaquin charged forward. As
wind rushed ruthlessly down the hallway, the pages of the manuals flipped madly before they were wrenched away from my grasp, and Carl’s voice faded as he flew backward.

“Hold still!” he yelled, his voice trailing off as he tumbled away. I held still. Jasmine backed into me. And like the slamming of a storm cellar door, the wind abruptly died. Rolling to my back, I hit the floor, and was looking up at a man who’d cleared twenty-five yards in less than a breath. My arm whipped up; I sighted his chest between the crosshairs of my conduit and fired.

Nothing happened.

“Worth a try,” Joaquin said, his smile shining in the light of my glyph, finally lit. He shrugged. “For both of us.”

And he turned and sauntered back into the shop. I watched until he disappeared before I breathed again. Then I looked down. My hands, I realized, wiggling my fingers. And my arms. I felt my chest…wonderfully unimpressive. My hand flitted to my hair. Mine—short, bobbed, brown—wonderfully mine. And other than everything being tinted in a deep violet hue, I looked like me. Me, Joanna. Me, me.

Then, letting my head loll to the side, I saw her. “Oh my God! Jasmine, no!”

She was her normal size again, curled in the fetal position, legs drawn tightly up to her little chest, eyes squeezed shut, a wince of pain on her frozen face. She wasn’t breathing.

“Don’t touch her!”

I let my hand fall short of her too-white skin as Carl skidded to a stop next to me, breathing hard. His dual faux hawk had divided and multiplied into a dozen different styles, and he stepped between me and Jasmine as if to protect her.

“We have to help—” I began.

“She’s fine,” he said, holding up his hands. I strained to get around him. “Archer! She’s fine.”

I licked my lips nervously as I glanced back down the hallway—no sign of Joaquin—then back at Jasmine. “She
doesn’t look fine.”

“Well, she will be,” he clarified, looking down at her. “As soon as you give her aura back to her. She can’t move without it, of course. And she won’t live if you keep it beyond a twenty-four-hour period…oh, and if you happen to be injured or die while wearing it. But other than that, she’s pretty much just sleeping.”

Just a few little contingencies then. I swallowed hard. “She looks…waxy.”

“She’s fragile,” he admitted softly. “Like an egg with the yolk blown from the center. She gifted you with her vitality, her life force. Without it, she’s just a shell.”

Great. No pressure. My greatest enemy was one room away, and not only did I have to watch out for my life, but another that was connected to it.

“You look just like I pictured you,” Carl said, sizing me up, squinting one eye. “God, I’m good.”

I rubbed a hand over my face. “What the fuck just happened?”

“Jasmine did her job, that’s what. Changelings always protect their agents…even if the agent is too stupid to protect themselves.”

“Hey!” I snapped. “How was I supposed to know he’d rush me?”

“Joaquin. Enemy. Duh.” I grimaced because he had a point. “Now, are you just going to stand there, or are you going to go out and face your mortal enemy like a true heroine of Light?”

“What about her?”

“She’ll be fine. Probably more comfortable on a lounge chair in the back, but no one will disturb her here.”

I glanced at him dubiously, then down at the conduit still clenched in my hand. “Why couldn’t I kill him?”

“The shop is neutral territory. Both sides of the Zodiac come here to study, so it’s considered a safe zone, even for those on the Shadow side. Neither of you can touch the other.”

Which Regan had known when she gave me Joaquin’s location, I thought wryly. But the rest of her information was good. Joaquin was here. As unprepared as I was for my conduit not to work and my glyph not to fire—not to mention having my own demon-child protectress—Regan hadn’t put me in danger. She’d even said she’d give me enough information to catch him…when the time came. Smart girl, I thought again.

“Are you sure?” I asked Carl. The last thing I needed was to waltz into the shop front and face another surprise attack.

He nodded. “Jasmine will preserve your identity as long as her aura is molding your true frame. Just don’t make any jerky movements. Limbs sometimes disengage—it’s gross—so if he lunges at you just ignore it.”

Easy for you to say, I thought, but nodded as I took a step forward. It was a strange feeling at first, like hearing my footsteps fall a second after I felt them land, but there was a sense and rhythm to it, and after steeling myself with a steadying breath, I entered the shop.

He was seated at a gaming table in a chair that was too small for him, one long leg crossed over the other, hands linked at his knee. Sebastian, as slate-colored, slack-jawed, and long of tooth as Jasmine had been, was stationed at his right side. The twins had also morphed into onyx-colored changelings, and were standing guard on each side of the door, though whether they were keeping us in or everyone else out, I had no idea.

And right now I didn’t care. I only had eyes for Joaquin. He shifted, and I glanced down, expecting to find a weapon in his hands. I was actually surprised to find them empty. It was something he carried around inside him, I then realized, a sort of vigilance that made him look ever-armed. He was one of the few agents who didn’t have a conduit fashioned just for him. His body was his weapon, and it was all he’d ever needed.

Sebastian tried to shield him from me, but Joaquin
brushed him aside with a flick of his wrist. As he did, his hand passed behind the changeling’s form, and I got a glimpse of the real Joaquin. Blackened bone, cracked nails, and charred flesh hung from his frame. My nose was right. He was as corrupted and rotted on the inside as he smelled. He watched me watching him, and after a long pause, slowly licked his lips. My jaw clenched reflexively as I fought the urge to gag.

“Back off, changeling,” he told Sebastian. “Nobody in here frightens me.”

I was half insulted, half relieved. I didn’t really want to view the rot lying beneath that composed exterior. I should’ve realized long ago that his disguise was that he was alive. Human.

“Nobody?” I asked, and let the darkness living inside me temporarily rise to the surface. It was little more than a parlor trick, but Joaquin swallowed hard, which gave me a glow of satisfaction. I increased the effect, and Sebastian hissed. I grinned at him and let my father’s face fade.

“Neat trick…if you weren’t hiding behind a child’s aura while you did it.” He’d recovered well, and motioned to the chair across from him. “Have a seat.”

I didn’t move. “Sitting would indicate an interest in talking with you.”

“Refusing would imply you’re afraid to do so.”

Which, from my mad scramble back in the hallway, he already knew. I crossed my arms and remained where I was.

He shrugged. “Back in the archives, eh? What were you searching for? Clues to your past? Some link to Mommy? Buried treasure, perhaps?”

I didn’t answer. He didn’t expect me to.

“Carl, you should get the Archer manuals number 3543 and 4721. They document Zoe Archer’s failure, as well as the many innocent lives she cost in her quest for notoriety. Amusing reads, both.”

“Forget it, Carl,” I said, my eyes never leaving Joaquin. “The Shadow manuals don’t interest me. Except as a tool for
hunting their agents.”

“But how else will you keep from repeating history’s mistakes? Your troop leader obviously tells you nothing.” He was talking about my reaction to Jasmine, and how I hadn’t known her function as a changeling.

“Warren tells me what I need to know, when I need to know it,” I replied coolly, because Warren had actually mentioned it. It had just slipped my mind while staring into Jasmine’s sharp, elongated jaw.

“He lies to you,” Joaquin said flippantly, examining his fingernails like he was just making conversation. My eyes fastened on those fingers, and though I tried not to stare I couldn’t help it. I’d have known those hands anywhere. I’d felt the knuckles pummeling my bones, the fingers scraping my throat, the tensile strength in those palms pinning me to the desert floor. I had to force my gaze from his hands to concentrate on his words. When I met his eyes, he smiled, knowing what I’d been thinking. Dammit. “He doesn’t want you to know the extent of your powers. The truth is, he thinks you’ll turn on him.”

“That’s not true.” I shook my head, not allowing the thought, like a fly, to settle. “Besides, Warren saved me.”

And that was the truth as I knew it. I used it to anchor me while my nerves settled.

“But for what purpose?” Joaquin said, one brow raised in question. “To be a puppet for his whim? To string you along just so he can say you belong to him?”

That rattled me—I’d never thought of it that way before—but I put on a good front leaning against the wall of comics behind me. “You know what purpose, Joaquin. He believes I’m the Kairos. They all do.”

“Then why do they fear you?”

Zane, who’d been scribbling furiously throughout this whole exchange, looked up. I felt all the kids’ eyes on me, including the Sebastian-thing, and Carl next to me, who’d exclaimed softly at Joaquin’s words.

“They’re training me and teaching me to grow in power,”
I said stiffly.

Zane’s pencil was flying again, scratching against a yellow pad, his tongue stuck out between his chubby lips in an obviously unconscious habit. He glanced hurriedly from us to his pad, back and forth, and I wondered which series this exchange would show up in—Shadow or Light.

Joaquin, following my gaze, glanced over his shoulder, then turned his face back to me. “Ah, the record keeper. A tedious job, if a necessary one.” He smiled at Zane apologetically. Insincerely. “He’s bound by two laws: to tell the truth, and to resist favoring either side of the Zodiac. But when you think about it, it’s not such a hard line to walk. He has the power to color our stories. He chooses the words and verbiage to describe our realities, our existence. Without him, we wouldn’t exist. Now that, my dear, is power.”

“What about me?” Carl muttered under his breath. “I’m the friggin’ penciler.”

“Power isn’t about inflicting your will upon other people’s lives,” I told Joaquin. “It’s the ability to control the impulse to do so.”

Joaquin clucked softly, shaking his head. “Spoken like someone who has none.”

“That’s not true,” I said softly. “Simply being alive is power.”

He blanched at the reminder that he’d failed to kill me, and it was my turn to smile. As I did, he tilted his chair back. “And snuffing out a life is all that power amplified.”

I felt my eyes grow empty and flat. It was arrogant to engage him in conversation, I realized, and we were both all too aware our words were being recorded. So I thought for a moment and abruptly changed the subject. “And is that what you have planned for the agents of Light? You think it’ll be easy to wipe us all out in one fell swoop?”

For the first time Joaquin looked unsure. He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up a manual of Light, one of the ones he couldn’t touch or read, and could only fathom what was inside. It was a red herring, contained nothing pertinent
to this conversation, but he didn’t know that.