The Scent Of Shadows Part 32

22.

Doors that won't open, elevators that won't come when you call...they'll come now.

Intending to test this theory, I entered a locker room almost oppressive in its silence, my heels clicking sharply on the cement floor. The lockers fanned around me like sentinels guarding the perimeter of the circular room, and there was the faint hum of energy coursing through the illuminated emblems. My eyes went immediately to the centaur, glowing steadily and rea.s.suring in a soft green neon.

I tried to ignore the five dormant signs, but Warren's admission kept sneaking up on me-ten agents, not five, had been murdered in the past few months-and the unlit glyphs belonging to those agents looked like bullet holes to me. Soundless, colorless, empty voids where no light could penetrate as long as their deaths remained unavenged.

Dragged from the recesses of a broken mind, the true memory of my mother made me believe that I could do that. Avenge them. I turned my attention back to my locker. Whatever was inside this steel trash bin was going to help me be the woman she'd given her life for me to be. It would teach me how to be the Archer. It would help me create a safe place for myself in this world again.

So forgetting about the empty eyes of the fallen star signs bowing around me, I put my hand to the palm plate. The b.u.t.ton in the middle lit up in a red, inviting square.

"Just so you know," I said, whispering into the locker's horizontal slats, "the answer to my own life's mysteries aren't inside of you. They're inside of me." I pressed the b.u.t.ton, a bittersweet smile touching my face. "My name is Joanna. I'm the Archer of Light."

And as easy as that, a click, and the latch released. I shook my head. All I'd had to do was take a trip down into myself...and come back as a different person.

The photo Warren had shoved in the day before wasn't lying at the bottom of the locker as expected, but was taped to the inside of the door, along with three others, and my breath caught as I viewed the four together.

The first was of my family as I once knew it. My mother, bent forward, one arm around Olivia, another around me. We were all wearing matching smiles, and it looked like we were at Disneyland. Xavier was in the picture too, but he was relegated to the background, arms folded resolutely across his chest, studying the domestic scene as if wondering who those people were. His impatience with the moment was set in his shoulders, though I couldn't read his expression. His face had been cut from the photo.

The second was of my mother alone, obviously taken at the sanctuary. She wore a black bodysuit that clung to the muscles of her able body, her bright hair gathered high atop her head, arms stretched forward as she aimed some sort of weapon at an invisible enemy. Her face wore an expression I'd never seen before-determination, hatred, strength-and I smiled looking at it.

Then Ben's picture, a smile lifting one side of his mouth as he slept, dreaming of a future that would never be. I traced his jaw in the photo, remembered how it'd felt beneath my fingertips. This photo would also serve as a reminder that some loved ones had to stay tucked safely away. My mother had taught me that much.

Finally, Zoe with another woman. Their arms were thrown about one another's shoulders, and they were laughing into the camera, looking impossibly young. It meant nothing to me, but it obviously had to her, so it would remain.

The only remaining item was nestled in the corner on the floor, a small package wrapped in brown postal paper, secured with aging twine, with a note tucked between the folds of the paper. I weighed it in my hand. St.u.r.dy and small-the length and width of one palm-it was weighty for its size. Removing the note for later, I ripped open the packaging.

"Ha!" I laughed in triumph. My mother's conduit. I glanced back up at the photo, compared the two weapons, and mimicked her stance. My conduit. Thumb-sized arrows were lined in a chamber much like a gun's, waiting to be c.o.c.ked. Flat-headed, the bowstring was made of some shiny and supple wire, while the body of the weapon shone like onyx stone. Anxious to see what she'd said, I fumbled with the accompanying note, addressed to: The Archer.

They're coming for me. I've foreseen it. To keep me from speaking truth they'll take away my voice. Help me. My eyes for your voice? Speak, and I'll show you the way to redemption. To the outside world. To the traitor.

I gasped. This couldn't have been written by my mother. I started over, noticing this time the crispness of the paper before my eyes fell to the signature, an initial only, the letter T. It was followed by a postscript.

Look behind you.

A hand fell on my shoulder. I yelped and whirled around, automatically tucking the conduit behind me.

"You got it open," Vanessa said, jerking her head at the locker. Chandra, to her left, said nothing, but her jaw clenched convulsively.

I shifted to stand in front of her, and she stiffened when I shot her a knowing look. "Well, someone delivered a little package to my room earlier, and it kept me from sleeping. So I thought I'd come up and give this a try again. Funny, isn't it? That something meant to hurt me led me to this?"

Chandra's cheek twitched. "Congratulations," she said, but I could tell by the dark violet hue ringing her body that she didn't mean it.

Vanessa cleared her throat and pointed at the note clutched in front of me. "What's that?"

"Just a note from my mother," I lied, turning away to tuck it back into the wrapping with the conduit. I settled the package in the locker and was swinging the door shut when Chandra stopped me.

"Hey! It's Tekla!" She pointed to the photo of my mother and her friend, which answered the question as to who the other woman in the photo was. And, I thought, might answer who the note was from as well. Who else but a woman with the Sight would speak of lending me her eyes?

In exchange for my voice, I corrected mentally, as Chandra and Vanessa crowded in closer. But what was I supposed to say on her behalf? And to whom? The knowledge was emerging inside me, I could feel it like the stirring of bees in a hive, but it was deep still, too remote to be understood. But...

There's a traitor among us.

I swallowed hard. That wasn't just the babbling of a madwoman, I thought. Tekla had known this was coming, and wanted my help.

"Your mother was beautiful," Vanessa said, turning to me. "I've always loved that photo."

My brows lifted before I could stop them. "You've seen it before?"

"Oh, sure. That's one of her trading cards." She shrugged, and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. "I guess she liked it as well."

"It seems so," I agreed, while nervousness grew inside me. I didn't really know either of these women, and since I was still trying to figure out what was so important about the items in this container, their studied gazes made me feel exposed. As if they were looking inside of me as well.

A traitor. Among us.

"What's that?" Chandra asked, pointing at the package, providing the opening I needed. With a flick of my wrist I slammed the locker shut.

"Nothing," I said coolly, and leaned against the door. It was nicely symbolic, if I did say so myself. "What're you guys doing up here?"

"Nothing," Chandra said, her voice like arctic ice.

"You guys," Vanessa sighed wearily, and left to open her own locker.

"I don't have time for this," Chandra muttered, heading back to the exit. "Meet you down there, okay, V?"

Vanessa nodded and rummaged around in her locker. "Tell the others. Just because Warren's gone doesn't mean we shouldn't do it."

"You got it." Chandra left, and now I was staring at Vanessa.

"What do you mean he's gone?" I asked, coming closer.

Vanessa shot me an irritated glance, and waved me out of her light. She'd sunk to the floor and was holding a rag in one hand and a can of oil in the other, alternately polishing and squirting at a steel club the width and length of my forearm. There was another piece of metal at her side that looked like nothing so much as a large nail file, but I didn't know for sure. More superhuman toys, and I'd had my fill for a while.

"I mean, he left an hour ago to retrieve Gregor," she said, bending close to her work. "If he's made the crossing, they'll be back soon. Otherwise they'll wait for dawn."

I bit my bottom lip, wishing I'd gotten to see Warren one more time before he'd left. I could've shown him this note. And with us linked the way we were, he'd have known what happened to me in Greta's office as soon as he saw me. With just a look, one sniff, he'd know I was someone he could trust. We could have figured this out together.

Instead, I stood in frustrated impotence before Vanessa, all the newly acquired power and energy swirling in my bloodstream, flowing in my bones, straightening my spine...and with nothing to do with it. I sighed, attracting Vanessa's attention.

"You look different," she said, peering up at me as she picked up the large nail file. "Did you do something with your hair?"

I shook my head, and glanced toward the door. "He's really going to leave the city without protection?"

"Warren?" She shrugged, looking down, and pressed a b.u.t.ton I hadn't noticed before. Five steel claws burst from one end of the bar. She began sharpening them with the large file. "That's what he said."

"But what about all the innocents? What about the city?"

"It'll just have to survive without us."

"It's Las Vegas," I said, drawing the words out.

"I know." Vanessa rolled her eyes as she tossed her rag back into the locker. "Kinda makes you wish you were born in Kansas, huh?"

I forced thoughts of Warren, and trust, aside and tried to decide on the most logical next step. Unfortunately, I hadn't thought that far ahead yet. "So what do we do now?"

"Nothing to do but wait," she said, standing and moving a safe distance away. With a deft flick of her wrist the steel bar arched open, a yawning half smile followed by the curling claws. It was a fan, similar to the kind used in the Victorian era, but far more deadly. She fanned herself delicately and glanced at me from behind it. "My conduit. You like?"

"It's beautiful," I said, allowing the touch of jealousy I felt to tinge my words.

That stunning smile lit her soft, round face as she flipped it closed, pleased. Then she snuck another glance up at my face, and cleared her throat. "Listen, a few of us are meeting over in the cantina for drinks. Want to join us?"

I wrinkled my nose. "A cantina? You mean...like a superhuman kegger?"

She laughed at that, flipping her fan open and closed, slicing it through the air in a deadly dance of familiarity. "Yeah, I guess so."

I hesitated. I certainly didn't want to walk into a repeat of the day's earlier performance, me against them...because even though I sensed mistrust swirling between them, they were still unified in their uncertainty about me. Then again, going would give me a chance to study each of them individually. n.o.body knew about my note from Tekla...or about my session with Greta. Vanessa was right. Why wait for Warren?

"You did really well today," she said, glancing over at me as I continued to remain silent. She put away the file in a large tool chest, and tucked the fan into the small of her back. "Not just against Chandra, but Hunter too. Most people find him too intimidating to effectively spar against."

"He was intimidating," I said, not adding: Right up until the moment he p.i.s.sed me off.

"Well, you didn't look intimidated," she said, then paused. I could feel her choosing her words carefully. "You looked powerful. Frightening."

And there it was, out in the open. She shut her locker door, turning to me, and unlike in Saturn's Orchard, she met my eye. "Look, today, when we did nothing...I just want you to know we're not like that. We protect our own. We stick up for one another. We were just reacting, or not reacting, to the Shadow in you. I'm sorry things got out of hand. We all are."

I glanced at the double doors Chandra had just disappeared through and made a disbelieving sound.

Vanessa answered it with a sigh of her own. "Look, Chandra's one lifelong ambition has always been to serve this troop as the Archer. Every child of the Zodiac grows up dreaming of what it's like to be an agent of Light." She touched my arm, willing me to understand. "Your arrival here was a big blow to her, but she'll come around in time."

I remained unmoved, refusing to look her in the eye as I said, "She wants to vote me out of this troop. She called me a...an independent." A rogue agent.

Vanessa's impatience got the best of her and she snapped, "Yeah, and in doing so revealed her greatest fear. Because if you're this generation's Archer, what does that make her?"

I opened my mouth, before closing it again. Vanessa was right. Chandra might have the trust I so coveted from the rest of the troop, but she'd never be the person she aspired to be as long as I was living. I knew what that was like, not getting to be who you truly wanted.

I looked down, finding I was unconsciously rubbing at my arm. The puncture marks from Hunter's whip could still be seen there. Injuries from conduits, I remembered, always scarred. "I don't know if I can handle too many more training sessions like that," I said, letting a trace of my own vulnerability show through. It'd be interesting to see what Vanessa did with it. Interesting...and telling too.

"It's not just you, okay?" Vanessa glanced at the door to make sure Chandra had really left and no one else had arrived. "Things have been boiling over for weeks, months now. It's never been like this before, we were all raised together, and we keep putting on a front like everything's okay, but it's not. It's just...not."

"Because Tekla said there was a traitor?"

She hesitated before nodding. "And no matter how much Warren denies it...well, look around."

She gestured at the dormant glyphs, and the feeling of emptiness reached out to snag my attention again.

"Look, just come to the cantina," she said, voice soft and imploring. "Let us start over."

I'd have liked to have just said yes, but I had to wonder why she was being so open and friendly. I'd probably have jumped at the chance if only there wasn't one big question mark surrounding her. Could she be the traitor?

Only one way to find out, I thought, and because of that I gave her a nod that had her smiling as she led me from the locker room.

"What are you guys celebrating, anyway?" I asked, our heels clicking in tandem against the stone floors.

"We're not," she said. One hand on the frosted double doors, she sighed, and turned her head to stare past me, back into the cavernous room. Her gaze landed on the dead Scorpionic glyph, so dark her eyes were almost smudged. "We're remembering. It's been six months to the day since Stryker was killed." And she pushed open the door and disappeared.

The cantina was probably the most surprising room in the sanctuary so far, with couches in cubes of midnight velvet cl.u.s.tered around silver tables, the silver accenting echoed in the corner bar. As Vanessa made herself at home behind it, I looked up to find a ceiling glowing with stars, and shapes in the form of constellations-the Big Dipper, the Little, and others I recognized but couldn't name.

There was a fish tank spanning the length of one wall, its occupants floating around in colorful, blissful ignorance. The opposite wall held a flat screen television. Sting was crooning softly about watching every step I took, and I smiled as the steel candles on each table shot to life as Vanessa pushed a b.u.t.ton. It was more ultralounge than cantina, I thought, sinking into a velvet chair and the feeling of being enveloped in a futuristic womb.

"The four elements," Vanessa said, gesturing around the room. "Fire, earth, water, air."

I frowned. I saw the air amid the stars above, fire in the slim candles, and water, obviously, represented by the fish tank. But earth? I looked to Vanessa.

She smiled wryly. "From dust to dust."

Us, I thought. We represented the earth, and the pa.s.sing of all beings from it. Well, it certainly lent poignancy to the occasion.

"Maybe I shouldn't be here," I said, watching Vanessa stir one of two pitchers she'd filled with vodka, some sort of syrupy schnapps, and at least three other juices. The liquid was turning a disturbing shade of brown, like overbrewed ice tea, though Vanessa didn't seem worried.

"You're one of us now." Taking in my skeptical expression, she tapped the spoon on the side of the sink and set it down. "I mean it. You just have to let the others get used to it...uh, you. That can't happen if you seclude yourself away."

I knew that, of course. But somewhere from the locker room to here all my I-am-the-Archer-hear-me-roar power had trickled away, and the thought of sitting in this intimate little enclave with five people who needed to "get used to me" was less than inviting. "I don't want to intrude. I didn't know him."

"Well, I did, and he'd have liked you. Not just your looks, but your spirit." She placed one pitcher in the stainless steel refrigerator to chill, and brought the other, along with two tumblers, over to me. "Stryker said we reinvented ourselves every time we stepped outside the sanctuary. Your effort, he would say, just your intention in being here, should be met with respect for what you left behind. He'd want you here."

Her words settled me, so when she poured me a cup and held it out to me, I accepted it and sipped, tentatively. I took a larger swallow when I found it fruity and bright on the tongue, and it left my palate to settle gently in my belly with a low, glowing warmth. I'd stay. I'd watch. For a while anyway.

Then the door swung open and Chandra strode in, her brows burrowing down when she saw me. "What is she doing here?"

I didn't snap back because what Vanessa had told me about Chandra had softened me a bit...and the drink was slowing my tongue anyway.

"Looks like she's drinking," Felix said, following her in. He flashed me his boyish smile, but I could see the worry lingering beneath it. Worry over the occasion? Or, like Vanessa earlier, worried about me, frightened of me? I couldn't tell.

Micah wasn't far behind, and he beelined for me, bending over to check again that his handiwork had survived the afternoon, his own worries about me apparently resolved. But after a moment he cupped my chin, eyeing me curiously. "You look different somehow. Can't put my finger on it, though. Are you feeling okay?"

"Actually, I feel great. Like I just woke up from a long nap."

"Sounds auspicious," he said warily. I went ahead and watched him back. After a moment he blinked, then shrugged as he lowered himself into a seat, the bulk of him barely fitting between the armrests.

"If you believe in fairy tales." Chandra dropped her weight into a chair across from me, but I was saved from having to think of an Oliviaesque reply by Hunter's sudden appearance. He too paused when he saw me, and colors around him shifted from black to silver to gold as the energy spiked between us. I had no idea what that meant.

He settled himself next to Chandra, and I had a moment to think he'd be a joy to photograph. He was so composed in the flesh that a still shot wouldn't have made much of a difference from what I was seeing then, but at least I could study him at length-searching for what exactly ran beneath that still facade-without him knowing I was doing it. If, that was, I ever had the nerve to point my camera his way. "So. We're all here."

All save Warren and Gregor. And Tekla, came the unbidden thought, even though she wasn't supposed to count. I took another sip of Vanessa's concoction, and looked around at what was left of Zodiac troop 175, paranormal division, Las Vegas.