The Neon Graveyard Page 7

  “Oh.” My lips twitched, and I lowered my eyes, fighting a smile. “That.”

  My last “act” as Olivia Archer, heiress and newly minted owner of Archer Enterprises, was to have a sign moved from the Neon Boneyard, the place where the city’s old, historic signage was collected and stored. The sign I chose for removal was a fifteen-foot, bulb-studded Plexiglas shoe that had once spun above the Silver Slipper Hotel and Casino, and outwardly it was a philanthropic gesture. The historic sign was restored to its former glory and erected downtown for the photo-snapping pleasure of hundreds of tourists nightly.

  But the agents of Light had used that Slipper as an entrance to their underground sanctuary, which lay deep beneath the Boneyard. Mounting it on what was essentially the world’s largest stripper pole was a big middle finger in Warren’s direction, petty but satisfying when I thought of the expression that must have stormed over his face once he learned of it.

  Chandra snorted, recapturing my attention, but her sturdy face remained blank. Glancing at my guards, she jerked her head at the wide expanse of desert. “Can we walk?”

  I looked at Vincent, who inclined his head after a long moment. “You stay on your side of the line. She stays on hers.”

  So with bass thrumming against our backs, Chandra and I turned from the glow sticks and whistles on her side, the campfire littered with rogues on mine, and strode into the desert in much the same way we’d interacted as troop members. Together . . . yet very much apart.

  The word cosmos means “harmonious order.” Solange—ruler of all Midheaven, keeper of my love, and bitch supreme—had told me that. She’d also said that if you could read the skies correctly you could anticipate what would happen next; that nothing was in the sky by mistake.

  I craned my head up at the cosmos as Chandra and I began to walk, looking for harmony or order. Either one would do. Yet the sky above merely winked and flared, flirting impersonally as stars shot across its poker face.

  When we were far enough away that the music no longer rattled pebbles and bones, I stopped to face Chandra across the chill spring night. “So I don’t suppose you’ve come all this way just to tell me where the Sanctuary’s new entry is?”

  “ ’Fraid not. Just in case Olivia can reach from beyond the grave and move it again.”

  “So why are you here?” And how? We hadn’t thought the Light knew about the raves. Chandra’s appearance meant they obviously did . . . so why weren’t they swarming?

  “Felix is missing.”

  She said it like the words were burning her tongue, and watched for my reaction. She got one too. I jerked back, the breath leaving my body in an almost painful whoosh. Whatever I’d been expecting, it wasn’t that.

  “Felix?”

  Felix was party boy, playboy, and superhero all rolled into one. He had a laugh as lithe as his body, a joke ever ready on his tongue, and a conduit that fit his personality perfectly: an edged boomerang that looked like a plaything but killed with honed precision. Felix had been one of my closest friends in the troop—someone I truly did consider an ally—and despite everything, I still mostly thought of him that way.

  “Vanessa was the first to know.”

  Of course she was. Other than opposing star signs, lovers were most attuned to an agent’s death.

  “And?” I asked, though the strain around Chandra’s eyes had my throat closing on me.

  “His glyph went dark. Two weeks ago.”

  An ache shot through my chest, my knees buckled, and I sank to the desert floor. The glyph she referred to was both on an agent’s chest—the superhero symbol popularized in comics—and in the troop’s sanctuary. In a room representing the troop’s star signs and powers, these symbols pulsed with life as long as an agent’s body pulsed with blood. The star sign snuffed out only when the agent died.

  Chandra dropped down across from me, the pain I felt etched across her wide brow. We stared at each other, sharing grief across the invisible line.

  Felix, who sang badly and danced well. Felix, who was impulsive and dreamy and impossibly mischievous. Poor Vanessa. Poor everyone. I looked up, wishing the sky would show me some of its infamous “harmonious order.” But either I couldn’t read it, or Solange was wrong and there was nothing there at all.

  “It wasn’t us,” I managed, my voice croaking from me in syllables so stilted it sounded like a different tongue.

  “We know,” she said, speaking the same broken language. Her shoulders slumped, her round cheeks suddenly glistening with tears. Her open vulnerability was so strange I almost thought it a ruse, that she’d been ordered to use my affection for Felix to get to me, but all I saw was grief.

  Felix.

  I closed my eyes. “So why are you here?”

  “Because even after his glyph went dormant, Warren refused to cease his campaign against the Shadows. He said there was no point in sending out a search party, risking the rest of the troop, or losing ground against our enemies if Felix was already dead.”

  I winced, and the small hope that Warren would someday care for people more than causes splintered and fell to dust. “Sounds like Warren.”

  Chandra looked away. “That’s not all. The next day Vanessa was gone.”

  “No.” And this time my voice shattered.

  “Not dead,” she clarified, and waited for my relieved sigh. “Just gone.”

  But I could tell there was more than that. “And?”

  “I let her go,” she said quickly, her eyes tearing up again. “I somehow knew she wouldn’t come back, and I let her do it anyway. If I’d said anything, Warren would have known I allowed it. He’d have seen or scented it on me. He’s been increasingly . . . suspicious since you left.”

  She meant paranoid. Having always mistrusted those on the outside of the troop, its recent mutiny from the inside—first from a woman named Greta, then Hunter’s longtime hidden obsession, then my refusal to obey his ruthless commands—he was now turning that same calculated consideration within.

  Chandra sniffled, running a hand under her nose before lifting her head. “I haven’t been sleeping well. So I went up into the Boneyard before dawn, you know how you sometimes did?”

  Yes. I’d watched dawn emerge over the battered signage of the Neon Boneyard countless times. There was something peaceful about the spent remnants of our city in those hours. I’d often wished I could press my ear against some kitschy tin castoff and let its metallic secrets slide into my ear, curled shavings whispering of the past.

  “I was trying to get my head straight for that day’s campaign. It’d been a late night. Some of us met in the cantina to talk about Felix,” she explained, “so I was surprised when I heard someone emerge from the chute.”

  Chandra was going to call out when she saw Vanessa, but thought of the way she must have been grieving, and left her alone. “She walked straight to the retaining wall. By the time I got the nerve to yell, it was dawn, and she was walking through it.”

  Because if you knew when and how to look, you could pass into the yard magically.

  “She didn’t say anything?”

  Chandra shook her head, long bangs slapping at her cheeks. “She didn’t even turn her head, just kept walking like she never even heard me.”

  I bit my lower lip. “When was this?”

  “A week ago, Tuesday.”

  I tried to think of all the places I knew of that Vanessa might find comfort; retreats and hidey-holes where she couldn’t be found unless she wanted to, but there weren’t a lot of options. Either she was alone in places accessible to Shadows, or in safe zones and havens that the Light would check. The latter had already occurred if Chandra was searching me out, so I shook my head. “I haven’t seen her.”

  Her shoulders slumped, her outline breaking against the distant city lights in a way that made me want to reach out to her, this frenemy of mine. “But she can’t go far, right? I’m sure you’ll find her soon.”

  “She left this.”

  Vincent
suddenly appeared next to me. I startled at the movement, but Chandra didn’t react at all. She’d known the grays would be watching us, and slid the weapon forward until it lodged itself against the invisible barrier. Then, because I could, I reached over and took it.

  It was a pretty steel fan with flanged blades that flared to reveal a steel clawed tip. A debutante’s homicidal flirtation. I swallowed hard, though not at its elegant deadliness. I’d never before seen it outside of Vanessa’s hands.

  “You think she’s gone rogue?” I asked, and Vincent grunted in surprise behind me, though he’d fallen back into the shadows.

  “She’s gone somewhere,” Chandra said sadly, the shock in my voice helping her recover somewhat. “And with your new connections, you have the best chances of finding her.”

  “I told you. I haven’t seen her.”

  “But you can ask around, right?” She looked up hopefully. “You know people now . . .”

  Ask around. Yeah, right. And then I’d ask the Tulpa out for a nice round of golf. “I have my own problems.”

  “Please.” She didn’t lower her head or look away, the plea a straight volley toward my heart. There was a time when this woman would have cut off one of her own limbs before showing me weakness. But I wasn’t the only one to suffer heavy losses this past year. I recognized that . . . for the first time, recognized myself in Chandra.

  Could she be doing the same with me?

  She watched me silently, just waiting with those dark circled eyes. I finally sighed. “Does Warren know you’re here?”

  “He won’t care if I can bring her home.” She shook her head hard, convincing herself. “Warren feels guilty over the way things were left between them. He doesn’t say it but I see it. He’ll take her back if we can just find and talk to her.”

  Of course he would. He couldn’t afford to lose another agent. Even their loyal sister troop in Arizona would start refusing to send valuable second daughters and sons to a troop that was clearly flailing. His resources were rapidly dwindling, and I couldn’t help but be glad.

  Chandra knew exactly what I was thinking. “Look, I know how you feel about Warren, and his views of you are pretty much the same. But when it comes down to it, the Tulpa’s increasing power isn’t good for any of us.”

  It was true. Forget the Neon Boneyard; if the Tulpa reigned with impunity, the whole city would be a neon graveyard.

  And Warren hated me for that too. Though my every choice had been for the Light—live with them, fight with them, save them—each had inevitably weakened their position against the Shadow. I had no doubt that at this point even battling the Tulpa took a backseat to washing the city streets with my mortal blood.

  “Warren’s not asking to work with us, Chandra. He wants us out of the picture more than he does the Shadows.”

  At least with them he’d always strove for balance between the two sides. His philosophy regarding their place in the valley was very yin/yang. Can’t have the good without the bad, and all that. Rogues, though, were unpalatable in every way. A good rogue, he’d always said, was a dead rogue.

  “Vanessa won’t last long on her own. Not without her conduit, not in this frame of mind. We’d just like her back with us so we can help her heal. At the very least, we want to know she’s safe.”

  I stood and dusted the dirt from my jeans. I hated that the troop’s worry over Vanessa made me melancholic over their complete abandonment of me. Carlos’s open acceptance was gradually helping me realize I’d never really belonged with them, but I just wished that fact didn’t hurt so much.

  “I don’t assist the Light anymore,” I said stiffly, tucking Vanessa’s conduit into my pocket. Why not? No one else could use it.

  “I’m not talking about helping our cause,” she said, her own reply gone cold. “I’m talking about Vanessa.”

  I shrugged. “It would be the same thing.”

  Jaw clenched hard, she lowered her head and shook it. “You know, Warren’s right. You’re our troop’s greatest problem.”

  I turned back to the bonfire, and the other outlaw grays. Back where I belonged.

  “Let me finish.” Chandra jogged to catch up on her side of the line. “He’s right. Rogues can’t be trusted. Anarchy can’t be allowed in this valley. But, at times, he might just be a little obsessive.”

  “You don’t say,” I said wryly, still walking. Vincent’s footsteps sounded closely behind.

  Chandra darted a glance backward, then spoke more hurriedly. “He gets tunnel vision when it comes to the troop’s safety even in the best of times, and we’re far from that now. But he’d die for us if he had to. Same as always.”

  I whirled on her, my finger jabbing so close to her chest it was probably on her side of the boundary. “Because ‘same as always’ is all you know, Chandra! But I knew something different before Light dropped into my life like a bomb, and I know something altogether different now!”

  “What does that mean in terms of helping Vanessa?”

  “It means gray is the new black,” I snarled, and started walking again. It meant you couldn’t do what you’d always done once you discovered a new way, a better way, existed. It meant that if Vanessa had gone rogue I’d welcome her to the grays with arms open wide.

  Chandra stilled, then sighed. “Warren won’t stop until you’re all dead. You know that, right?”

  “You can tell Warren that this time I’m the one who won’t stop.”

  “Oh, he knows,” she said, turning away. “And he’s ready.”

  And with both Felix and Vanessa gone from the troop—something Warren would undoubtedly find a way to pin on me—there was more reason than ever for him to wish me dead.

  “Chandra?” I called after her. “You never said how you found me.”

  She shot a bitter look over her shoulder. “Felix was watching out for you. He patrolled this goddamned boundary without Warren knowing. He told Vanessa about the raves. Vanessa told me.”

  My gaze winged to the crowd of dancers swaying on the night wind, half expecting to see Warren emerge from the flashing laser sheets and flickering flames. I looked back at Chandra, confused.

  And she hadn’t told Warren?

  Still shaking her head, she turned away.

  “Wait!” I yelled, taking a step after her. “How does it feel?”

  She didn’t move.

  I licked my lips. “Finally being the Archer of Light, I mean.”

  She turned slowly, her silhouette washed out at the edges, and though the night and firelight competed for the planes of her face, her frown was plain. “Not like I thought it would.”

  And before I could ask what that meant, she rocketed forward and was gone.

  6

  “We can look into it,” Vincent said, suddenly behind me, causing me to jolt. I was staring at the place Chandra had stood only seconds earlier, now nothing more than a smudged footprint on the unforgiving earth. He’d heard every word between Chandra and me, so there was no need to recap the discussion about Vanessa. “Maybe another manual will help us piece together her whereabouts.”

  “And Felix too,” I said, because that had been Warren’s critical mistake. Chandra wouldn’t have traveled miles alone otherwise, risking her own life against the grays to talk to a woman she’d long resented. He should have recognized his troop’s need for closure when it came to someone as greatly loved as Felix. It didn’t matter if he was dead. What mattered was that he’d lived.

  I certainly wasn’t going to abandon his memory to the Shadows, allowing his missing status to be his last defining act. Future agents would know that someone cared about him, dammit. Even if it wasn’t his own troop.

  “You miss them?” Vincent asked, probably scenting my emotion.

  I shivered. It’d grown colder out in the high desert’s black crevices . . . or maybe the question had just taken me by surprise. “I never really fit in with them, I guess,” I finally said, as we headed back toward our camp. “I mean, I tried, they tried.
But the fact remained, I wasn’t full Light. I liked them though . . . some of them anyway.”

  “Not Chandra.”

  I hummed, unsurprised that he could sense the residual emotion remaining between us. “Not at first. And there really wasn’t much time after that.”

  “But this Vanessa? And Felix?” He knew the answer even before I nodded. “Even though they abandoned you completely?”

  I glanced up at his expression, half obscured, though he stood close. “You think I’m foolish to miss people who betrayed me?”

  He shrugged, more admission than judgment.

  I blew out a long breath. “Maybe I am. I wanted so badly to be who they wanted me to be.”

  “It’s hard pretending to be someone you’re not.” He offered up a rare smile, fleeting and wry. “Then again, some friendships aren’t meant to last forever. They carry us through a certain time in our lives before being relegated to the past. Things change.”

  “Nothing changed,” I muttered, half to myself. “I kept my part of the supernatural bargain. I sacrificed my life to save a young girl. To save them.”

  “And became a different person because of it.”

  “I’m the same as ever.”

  “Really?” He stopped dead, forcing me to do the same. “So you’re the Joanna Archer of a couple years back, the vigilante mortal who once sought to kill the man who attacked her?”

  “Sort of,” I answered, because I wasn’t sure. That woman—defiant and angry and disconnected—had to be a part of me still, though it felt like Vincent had described someone else, or a foreign land I’d once visited.

  “Olivia Archer, then? The glossy socialite who used her looks as a shield and a mask?”

  No, I’d never altogether been her. I’d taken on enough of Olivia’s identity to stay alive.

  “And now you’re neither of those two women, yet you’re both. Again you’re something this world has never seen, and again trying to fit into a troop you’re supposed to lead. And you know what? Next year you’re going to be someone else again.” He jerked his head down toward my belly. “A handful of months into being a mother, and you won’t even recognize the woman who stands in front of me today. I think that’s why Warren is really pissed off.”