The Scent of Shadows Free with Bonus Material (16 page)

We’d always been here, Micah said. We weren’t extrater
restrial like Superman or Captain Marvel, and we hadn’t always been referred to as superheroes. But as long as there’d been humans, there’d been individuals who could access places and planes others could not. People who were faster, stronger, better healers.

“Ever wonder what a mortal would be capable of if he or she utilized more than just ten percent of their brain at any given time?” he asked me one day while fine-tuning the work he’d done on a tooth I’d chipped but Olivia hadn’t.

A few mortals do use more than that, of course, and even one percent is enough to make a perceptible difference. For example, there are those individuals who can control pain enough to, say, pin themselves with a foot-long needle—in one side of their body and out the other—with no apparent damage done and no blood to show otherwise. There are others who can spontaneously inflict a sort of self-hypnosis, slowing their bodily functions enough to place themselves into an almost catatonic state. This was particularly helpful, Micah said, if there’s some mortal injury done to the body and no medical help readily available.

So it was possible, in part, for humans to attain greater strength and control and ability…given a healthy amount of discipline and practice. “For us, though,” and here Micah winked as he peered into my mouth, “it’s as natural as the blood moving through our vessels.”

Yet even we have our limits. We might be able to manipulate the boundaries of our minds and bodies, but we’re still bound by the universal laws of gravity and physics, and a good deal of our abilities can be explained by quantum mechanics, something Micah said humans are only marginally beginning to understand…and which I didn’t understand at all.

So, though free of mortal law, we were still confined by universal law, which is why the troops had developed ways for science to augment our abilities; chemistry to mask our pheromones, biochemistry to study how different we really
are from human, and genetics, because—like mortals—we’re constantly evolving, even still.

I laughed, however, when Micah claimed even astrology was considered a science. I couldn’t stop myself, though I wish I had when he drew back, leaving a suction hose hanging from my mouth, his fierce expression made fiercer by the sharp dental instrument held aloft in his hand. “Myths—Greek, Roman, Neopagan—die out, Joanna. But you can’t kill the stars. Astrology
is
a science. Maybe not a well-understood one, but back in the day doctors like me were called shamans. Scientists were called mystics, and these were the mediators between the visible and invisible worlds. There’s no difference between the cabalistic and medical fields, not if you really think about it. Both still have impenetrable secrets, and if you can’t bring yourself to believe that, just remember this:
every
life and death is written in the stars.”

But I was struggling with something much more basic than that. I was having trouble wrapping my brain around the idea that I wasn’t human, that I was something…extra. Something other. Micah, realizing this, tried to simplify things for me.

“Look,” he said, a smile reaching his eyes, my insult about the science of astrology all but forgotten. “Think of us as being related to mortals in the same way primates are. We’re long removed cousins, but on the opposite side of the developmental spectrum.” And then he shot me a full smile. “What? You didn’t think the human race was all there was, did you?”

Yeah, I kind of had. But there was no denying what had happened to me. Or the things I could do now. My lungs felt like they’d been expanded to twice their size. I could run without losing my breath…fast too. I could climb without fear of falling, because I could fall without fear of dying. Metamorphosis had changed every molecule, and I didn’t even need Micah to explain that. I knew it as soon as I began healing from injuries any mortal would’ve died from.

So, I accepted Micah’s explanations, and began viewing the once colorful world—of Vegas and comics and the world in all its varying shades of gray—in terms of black and white. The bruises applied by the makeup artist—a new one; Raine had refused to return—were now applied in a light dusting. I grew used to seeing Olivia’s face greet me every day in the mirror. And the day would soon come, I knew, when I’d have to step beyond the sanctuary of the hospital walls and face my new life as her. And, as strange as it sounded, as some sort of superhero.

“She’s going to get too muscular,” Warren complained one day when I was training outside. It felt amazing to move, and I reveled in the stretch and give of my muscles as I jumped and lunged and lifted. I longed for the discipline of my Krav Maga gym, yet I knew if I walked in there like this, as Olivia, Asaf would die. From laughter.

“She’s not,” Micah argued from his position on the shaded porch. It was one of the few times since that first day the three of us had been together, and unsurprisingly, we’d picked up exactly where we left off. Squabbling like kids. “I’ve layered her in soft tissue. She’s well-protected.”

“What am I? A fucking Christmas ornament?” I asked, punching at the weighted bag.

“I don’t know why you’re bothering with your mortal skills anyway,” Warren said to me. “You’re faster and stronger than you’ve ever been. A human could never touch you. Once you acquire your personal weapon, your own conduit, you’ll be nearly invincible.”

I steadied the punching bag with my gloved hands and shot him a sidelong look. It was the “nearly” part that bothered me. “Invincible,” I repeated, jabbing with my right. “Like Butch? That kind of invincible? Or do you mean like Ajax? If I recall correctly, his weapon wasn’t so invincible.”

“Don’t get cocky.”

Micah chuckled. “She’s got a point.”

“Olivia doesn’t box,” Warren said, ignoring Micah. “She doesn’t fight.”

I stepped back from the bag and wiped my face with my forearm. Then I smiled wickedly, petulant at best on this angelic face. “She does now.”

“No,” Warren said, stepping forward. “You have to appear to the world just like the Olivia of old. There can be nothing of Jo in your words or your actions. Your life, and all of our lives, depend on that.”

I’d been alternating jabs and cross punches while he spoke, a rapid staccato of beats overlaying his words, but now I stopped, breathing heavily, and smiled. He didn’t smile back, which I couldn’t hold against him. Even I could smell my defiance. “Warren. What kind of person could watch her sister get thrown through a plate-glass window and not be changed in some way? People aren’t static, everyone grows. I’ve given a lot of thought about what Olivia would do, and I think she’d start studying Krav Maga.”

“Another good point,” said Micah.

“You’re just projecting what you’d want her to do.”

“I think I know her better than you.”
Knew
her, I corrected mentally, and started punching again, uppercuts this time.

“You’d better hope so,” he said. “Because it’s time to go.”

That stilled me. I lifted my chin, sniffed. “Where?”

“Back into the mortal world. Back into your life.”

Olivia’s life, I thought, and looked away. “I’m not ready.”

“Sweetie,” Micah said, the arbitrator, “if Olivia doesn’t return soon, the Shadow agents are going to get suspicious.”

“Won’t they be suspicious anyway?”

Warren shook his head. “Ajax saw you alive, but he didn’t see Olivia die. He didn’t even know she was there that night because by the time we showed up her scent had been—”

“Murdered,” I said dully, and combined my punches. Jab, cross. Jab, cross, hook.

“Anyway, we always disengage,” Warren said quickly. “Change our identities so even our closest friends and family won’t recognize us. That way the temptation to return to the old life is eliminated. Ajax knows this, so there’s no reason for him to look for you there.”

“Besides,” Micah added, “Olivia is Xavier Archer’s daughter, and anything with the Archer insignia on it is off limits. They wouldn’t dare touch her now.”

I raised a brow. Hadn’t my name been Joanna Archer? Hadn’t I been under the protection of that insignia when Ajax first attacked me? Warren shook his head, reading my thoughts. “Who do you think wrote that note to Xavier?”

Micah nodded. “It was more of a bullet than a letter. He should have just put a bull’s-eye on your forehead.”

I ripped my gloves off and reached for some water. “But won’t they be able to tell it’s me and not really Olivia? Smell me or something?”

He shook his head. “It’s different now that you’ve metamorphosized. You’re harder to track. We’ve also given you an injection for extra coverage. The only time your real pheromones might be clearly recognized is when you’re either injured or overly emotional. So practice the meditation exercises we’ve taught you every day,” he added helpfully.

Warren said, “And no fighting.”

No losing, I thought, but kept silent.

“Look, all you have to do for the next few days is hang around Olivia’s apartment,” Warren said. “If she kept a diary, read it. If she had a hobby, study it. Pillage her wardrobe, examine her photo albums, and create a past for yourself. Do everything possible to become your sister. When you’re ready, we’ll take you to the sanctuary.”

“Where you’ll meet the other star signs,” Micah added. “So you can learn how to be the Archer.”

“But first you need to learn to be Olivia. Only when you can fool even those who knew her best can we introduce you to the others.”

“Why only then?”

“Because if you’re not convincing, if you’re not
Olivia
,” he said soberly, “there’s only one other person you could be.”

“He’s right, Jo,” Micah said, noting my reaction. “Nobody can know who you really are, do you understand?”

I leaned my head against the nylon bag, suddenly weary. Then I tilted and looked up at the sky. It was an unending sprawl of baby blue above me, without a cloud to hide behind. “Is there no safe place?” I finally asked.

Nobody answered me. It occurred to me then that nobody could.

I called Cher to pick me up the next morning, which she sounded completely, frighteningly, thrilled to do, and promised me she’d be there within the hour. I’d argued about this with Warren and Micah, but in the end reluctantly agreed it was exactly what Olivia would have done. I replaced the receiver, shaking my head. “I can’t stand that woman.”

“She’s Olivia’s best friend.”

“She’s as plastic as a Visa.”

“So are you,” Warren pointed out. I glared at him in reply.

Cher showed up at noon sharp in a candy-apple-red convertible and a matching cat suit. I actually looked for the stripper’s pole in the backseat. As it turned out, Cher had a matching cat suit for me in the nylon Prada bag slung over her shoulder. I shot Micah a look of pure desperation as she pressed me into the bathroom. He smiled and waved me away.

“Fucking doctors,” I mumbled under my breath, and knew he’d heard when he cleared his throat loudly in the next room.

“Sorry?” Cher said, turning cornflower blue eyes upon me like question marks.

“Nothing,” I said. It was obviously not the answer I should have given. Her face dropped, but an overly bright expression popped up almost immediately. I looked away, which I was sure was a relief to us both. “What is this thing, anyway?”

“It’s your traveling suit, darlin’,” Cher said cheerily as I fingered the shiny cloth. “Just like Evel Knievel. Or Thelma and Louise. If you’re gonna go, you gotta go in style.”

Note to self, I thought later, catching a startling glimpse of the two of us in the lobby windows. Get. New. Best. Friend.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Livvy-girl?” Cher said as we sped across town in the low ’vette, breaking at least three major traffic laws that I counted. Cher drove the same way she walked and breathed and lived—like there was no one else who would dare take up her sprawling southern space. “You know you can always stay with me.”

“Yes,” I said, thinking
No
as she took a turn at thirty-five miles an hour. No, to doing any of this. No to an apartment that reminded me of the last time I’d seen my sister’s beautiful, stricken face; no to being a superhero; and—as I ate glass on the next curve—definitely no to Cher!

Maybe I could move north to Carson City. Or really north. Like Alaska. Yeah, I thought, that sounded good. What were the chances of running into evil igloo dwellers? I made a note to ask Micah about it later. Ice fishing sounded attractive right now.

We arrived at the high-rise and ascended to the ninth floor in silence. Exiting into a deserted hallway, the only sound was the jingle of the keys as Cher fumbled at the lock. I took a deep breath as the door opened. She shot me a worried look, I tried on a reassuring smile, and Cher immediately pulled the door shut again. Shit. I’d probably grimaced.

“Olivia, darlin’,” she said, her drawl even more pronounced with troubled sincerity. “Come on home with me.
You know you’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like.”

“I know.” I didn’t meet her eye.

She tried again. “We can brunch every day, and get manicures and spray-on tans, and have that big guy you like, Trevor the Tank, rub
très
essential oils all over our bodies!”

It was enough to have me reaching for the door. “It’s okay. I can do this.”

I wanted to ignore the hurt that passed over Cher’s face. I wanted to push past her and just shut the door behind me, but something about it touched me. After all, I told myself, she’d lost Olivia too. She just didn’t know it.

“Look, Cher,”
Cher-bear
, Olivia would have said, but I’d cut out my tongue before allowing that to pass my lips. I faced her squarely and said, “I loved…love this apartment. You know I do. The doctors say I have to reclaim this space for myself, and the sooner I do that, the sooner things will be…”

What? I thought, searching for the right word. Normal? Better? Fixed?

“I know what you’re saying, darlin’,” she interrupted, with a shake of her head. “But I worry about you being here alone.”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” I assured her. “At all.”

“At least let me go through the apartment with you,” she said, and noting my hesitation, flushed with indignation. “Just this time, for goodness’ sake. I’ll leave as soon as we get you settled, I promise. Just let me come in and show you what I’ve done with the place.”

In truth, I was grateful for the company. Olivia may have had a plethora of pleasant memories to bind her to this apartment, but I had only a few, and the very last of these kept making guest appearances in my psyche. Cher kept up a solid monologue as we moved from room to room, a cheerful din that only added to the unreality of the neat and orderly apartment. It was bright, the January sun streaming in through the wide windows nothing like the
black-skied storm I’d fled weeks earlier. It was clean too; freshly aired, and redolent with flowers that floated in crystal vases everywhere I turned.

Cher explained that after the police and the repairmen and cleaners had all finished their work, she’d come in herself and added the small touches she knew I loved. Irises in the vase by the entryway. Vanilla candles for the thick candelabra on the dining room table. A cluster of daisies in the living room. Things
I
didn’t even know Olivia had liked. She’d even bought a replacement cell phone for the one that’d ended up on the ground the night of Butch’s attack. This one was encrusted with Swarovski crystals—bloodred lips pursed against a shining diamond background—and Cher informed me she’d already programmed it with all the numbers of “my” various contacts, liaisons, and lovers.

I immediately turned the phone off, dropped it atop a chenille throw, and felt panic skirt through my veins. No wonder Cher kept looking at me like she didn’t know me. No wonder Xavier had been all too willing to let her drive me home, uncomfortable with the long silences that had never pooled between him and Olivia before.

I don’t even know what kind of flowers she liked, I thought desperately. How the hell was I to know what she’d say or do? What she ate? Who she’d call? It was with a dull stab to the chest that I suddenly realized I’d never really known my sister at all.

Then I spotted the package. Still aligned on the corner of the coffee table where Olivia had left it, it seemed to have been forgotten by everyone, until now. I reached for it and clutched it to my chest, eyes squeezed tight. My birthday present. The last Olivia would ever give me.

“I didn’t know what you wanted to do with it.” Cher’s voice made me jump. I turned to find her wringing her hands nervously, a wary expression on her face. “It didn’t seem right to open it, or throw it away.” She hesitated. “Was I right to keep it?”

Her uncertainty, as sweet and fragile as any of Olivia’s
objects, was what broke me. I nodded, but couldn’t speak, my throat astonishingly thick with tears. I hadn’t realized I had any left to shed. My face crumpled.

“I don’t think I can do this,” I said, sitting heavily. “I don’t know how.”

“Why, of course you can.” Cher rushed to my side in an onslaught of concern and perfume. She finally had something useful to do, some way to help. “And I’m going to help you. You’re gonna reclaim this space you love so much and erase all the bad memories. Fill it with good ones again. New ones. Jo would want you to.”

I wondered about that. Would I? Would I want Olivia to get on with her life? To forget that anything evil had ever touched her inside these walls? “Yeah,” I sniffed, and glanced at the present in my hand. “Yeah, she would, wouldn’t she?”

“Sure she would,” Cher encouraged. “Why, I remember the first time I met Joanna. She kicked us outta her bedroom, and never let us back in. Remember? Never was one to look back, that Jo Archer.”

“You were making out with her four poster bed.” I stood, wiping away the tears with the back of my hand. “You were demonstrating how to French kiss on her headboard.”

“Well, she needed the lesson. Before Ben, she was useless when it came to boys.”

She was right, and that irked me enough to have my tears drying. I put the package down and stared out the window where cars and pedestrians passed below us in miniature. I felt like reaching down and picking one of those people up, then putting them down in an entirely new location. I felt like changing someone else’s fate forever. I felt mean and small, and I didn’t even have to wonder which side of me—Light or Shadow—was talking. I closed my eyes to the view.

“You never liked her,” I said, before I even knew I was thinking it.

“Oh,” she said softly, joining me at the window. “Is that what this is about?”

“This what?” I peered over at her.

“The way you’ve been acting. The way you keep putting Joanna between us, like a ghost challengin’ my every step alongside you. Like she’s still alive.”

If only you knew, I thought, turning away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do,” she said, too softly. Her gaze was uncomfortably hard upon mine. “Now I don’t expect you to get over something like this in a minute, but you’re holding onto Jo like she’s the only person you ever lost. And while she always was a strong pillar for you to lean on, she was by no stretch of the imagination perfect.”

“I never said I was!”

Shit.

Cher blinked once, then again. “Well, no sugar, you’re not either. But at least you don’t pretend nothing’s ever touched you. That no one ever will again.”

My jaw clenched. “Neither did Jo.”

“The fuck if she didn’t,” Cher said, surprising me. “She was like a clock, dropped the day she was attacked. Outside she looked normal, but inside she no longer worked.”

I sucked in a breath so deep and quick that it was as if I’d been punched. “You bitch.”

Cher’s chin shot up, pointed and perfect. It made me wonder if she and Olivia practiced that look in the mirror together. “I’m going to ignore that comment because I know you’re under severe mental stress, but I need you to keep going, Olivia. Don’t stop
working
. Find a reason, a purpose, to get up in the morning. Don’t you remember how good that feels? To have a goal? It used to be your computer work, or the semiannual sale at Saks, but you have nothing motivating you now. And do you want to know why?”

“No.”

She told me anyway. “Because you think you are nothing. You feel guilty because she died and you didn’t.”

“That’s not true! I have nothing to feel guilty about. I
tried to save her,” I said, not knowing if I was saying this as Olivia or myself. “I tried but I couldn’t!”

“So stop kickin’ yourself over it!” she said, and forced me to look at her. “It’s like you died that day too, right along with Joanna, who never did learn how to live again—”

I gasped.

“—after the attack.” She drew away, as if just realizing what she’d said. Shaking her head, she said, “I’m sorry, sugar, but I have to say this. We swore we’d always be honest with one another.”

“Honesty doesn’t mean being hurtful,” I shot back, knowing even as I said it that sometimes it did.

“It means being truthful, the way you wanted to be truthful with Jo. You were just too afraid she’d tune you out, or turn you off, or do whatever it was she was doing to the rest of the world.”

“She’d never do that to me!” Would I have? If Olivia had pushed me? If she’d tried to get me to be more open and exposed…more like her? And Cher?

“How do you know? You never tried! And now that it’s too late, now that you’ve been gravely hurt, you’re wondering—”

“What are you, a psychoanalyst?”

“—if she was right,” she continued, ignoring the acidity of my words. “If it’s just easier to shut everyone and everything off. To feel nothing—”

“I’ve been isolated at the hospital if you haven’t noticed!”

“—and so you’re becoming just like her. An empty shell. A broken clock. Pretty soon, you’ll be just another ghost walkin’ around, haunting the world with your empty presence.”

It was too close. Too close to what I’d felt like. Too close to what I’d believed.

“Get out,” I said through clenched teeth. “Get out of my apartment.”

She offered up a small, bitter smile, as if I’d just confirmed
all she’d said. “That’s just fine, Livvy-girl. I’ll give you the space you think you want, but at least I won’t regret not speakin’ my mind. And there’s one more thing…”

I heaved an impatient sigh.

“No, don’t turn away. I want this to be like crystal between you and I. Your sister did not like me, she did not respect me, and she did not treat me well. I want to help you, Liv, but I’m not…” She pursed her lips, fighting for control. “I mean, I
refuse
to be your punching bag too.”

I thought she might break there, even hoped for it a little, but she didn’t. She took a deep breath and finished what she had to say.

“If you keep comparing me to Joanna, you’re not going to like what you see. I’m just me, same as always. And I’m not going to change. Not even for you.”

“And what would you know about change?” I said, my voice gravelly and low. “What could you change if you really had to, Cher? Your nail polish? Your hair color? Your wardrobe?”

She whitened at that. “Well, congratulations.” She swallowed hard. “Looks like one of us has Joanna down to a T.”

And she whirled away, heading for the door in a blur of color and scent and indignation.

I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth together so hard my jaw ached. “I don’t understand what you want from me!” What
anyone
wanted from me. “I watched my sister die, Cher!
I
almost died!”

“Well, we’re all gonna die, darlin’. Until then—” Cher flung the door open and threw me a hard look over her shoulder. “—you’d better learn to fuckin’ live.” And the door slammed behind her.

The bitch.

Though no sooner had Cher left than I wanted to call her back. Isolation crowded in around me, silently shaping itself to my body, Olivia’s frame. I turned one way and then the other, sniffing, before I relaxed. There was nothing and
no one there. I was quite simply alone. Just as I wanted to be. Right?

“Paranoid,” I muttered, zeroing in on the bedroom. It was the one room Cher and I hadn’t gotten to yet. I kicked the wall as I headed toward it. “Let’s get this over with.”