“There’s no other way with the Tulpa.” The leader of the Shadow side had long made it known that any Light in the valley would be exterminated. His position was as inalterable as Israel versus Palestine. The only way to stand firm against attack was to preempt it yourself.
“Ah, but there is. True balance in life comes only when there is total freedom of choice…from either side.”
Carlos sat back so suddenly my mortal eyes only picked the movement up in panes. “Let me ask you something. What do you see when you look at me?”
My eyesight blurred as it trailed his features; cinnamon face, hair a soft, black blot. “You’re the Latin archetype. The one they write songs about.”
“Thank you,” he said, beautiful smile widening. “But I meant, what do you see of my intent? My nature?”
“Oh.” I flushed, but then chalked it up to the drink, and shrugged. The idea of a flirtation or romance was about as attractive as a harelip. “Well, you’re Light. I’d be able to tell even if I hadn’t been an agent. I bet even lifelong mortals flock to you.” Especially the women.
His smile went closed-lipped, modest and knowing, and he lifted his chin, angling his eyes over my shoulder.
“And what about Tripp?”
“Clearly Shadow. Even Fletcher and Milo would have been easy to spot.”
“Once, you would have been right. But things are different when you’re reduced to gray, and that’s what being a rogue truly means. We walk the line between both sides, accepted by neither. We are all gray.” He laughed then, which made no sense to me until he explained, “That’s what we call ourselves. Grays.”
“So what about me?”
“Born gray,” Carlos replied immediately. “A natural blending of Shadow and Light.”
“Natural?” I laughed so loud and long that disapproving mumbles rose between my decidedly unfeminine snorts.
“What, you had to work for the ability to enter the sanctuary of the Light? Or bring to life the glyph on your chest? To leap to rooftops? To survive man-made weaponry?”
“I had to learn,” I remembered, thinking specifically of the way my glyph, a bow and arrow, burst to life in glowing brilliance upon my chest when in danger. That didn’t happen anymore.
“A different thing altogether.” He waved the protest away. “And now you have the added ability to walk the line between superhuman and mortal.”
I began to scoff, but he cut me off with a lazy flick of his wrist. “Oh, I can tell you think you have nothing by the way you carry yourself. There is a fatalism about you that says you expect to be attacked and killed and there’s noth ing you can do about it. But do you know what I see when I look at you?”
“A pin-up with attitude?”
He didn’t smile. “I see a woman with everything.”
“I’m not the Kairos.” I said flatly.
He surprised me by agreeing. “Not right now.”
“So what can I be to you?” What exactly was Carlos after?
“You can be saved. Join our cell, or at least consider it, and I promise our full resources in protecting you from Sleepy Mac.”
“You’re rogues. You have no resources.”
He lifted a brow. “You didn’t know of our existence until now, right?”
I bit my lip. True, nobody in the troop had mentioned it. And Warren was obsessed with the subject. If he thought a splinter group of former agents was living in his domain, he’d blow the whole place up.
I glanced back at Tripp, Milo, and Fletcher. These people-Shadow, Light, gray and super- still had a use for me. Sure, they’d bred chaos the world over, but they were already working to change that-at least if Carlos was to be believed. And while I wasn’t sure I did believe him, I could go along with it for a while, at least until Mackie was subdued. Then I’d get back to my mortal life.
“What about Mackie? True death to the monster, or just a one-way ticket back to Midheaven to get him out of your hair?” I thought about the men in Midheaven, and what Mackie’s absence might mean to them. Each would have a better chance of escaping that twisted world without the knife-wielding piano player there to intercept. That Hunter was over there still had nothing to do with it.
“Oh, no.” Carlos’s dark brows creased low. “Most of the men in Midheaven are rogue agents. Tripp wasn’t able to tell us about them”-because what happened in Midheaven stayed in Midheaven, I thought wryly-“but he could tell us of Mackie’s purpose there once he began interfering with this world’s mysteries.”
He meant once Mackie came after me.
“Okay. Get rid of Mackie,” I said, turning back to Carlos. “And I’ll try to keep an open mind.”
Carlos allowed only a small twitch to his lips. “And may I ask why?”
I thought about my drowning, about being abandoned in a desert wash along with broken bottles and stripped tires, and left with a body too weak to hold its own weight. Yet I spoke of my most recent loss. “Because the bastard killed my cat.”
12
I stood, my chair bumping over the aged floor, wondering if we’d leave via one of the cabs at the neighboring yard or if we’d walk. Or, I thought, amused, maybe one of these grays would pick up their new “amiga,” fling me across their shoulders and vault into the night. Mackie was probably free by now. He’d start tracking my scent as soon as I was on the street. He could be tracking it now. I shuddered…then shuddered again when I saw what Carlos, still sitting, had done.
“You’re joking, right?”
He leaned back, a full smile branding those soft wide lips as he motioned toward the last of the mescal he’d poured into my shot glass…along with the worm. “Gusano rojo. It’s the ingredient which lends the true complexity to the drink.”
I crossed my arms. “I’m more than happy to keep it simple.”
Carlos nodded, but I could see he was enjoying this. “It’s a delicacy.”
“It’s a fucking worm.”
“Larvae, actually.” He laughed at my grimace. “But don’t worry. It’s nonparasitic.”
“I don’t want it.”
Carlos fell still. “This one is…special.”
I studied his smooth face like a map, then picked up the stunted glass for a closer look. The worm looked like a moth with no wings. It was bloated and soft from marinating so long in the alcohol, its destroyer and preservative all at once. I wondered if it’d sunk to the bottom of the bottle thrashing and alive, fighting in inelegant bends and sweeps, or if it had sunk resignedly to its fate. It might have been palatable stewed with some garlic or sweet onion, but sushi style? I didn’t think so.
I followed the length of its velvety sides, which ribbed outward and wide, until my eye caught on an unnatural bulge in the middle. Some sort of device. “Tracking?” I asked, glancing back up at Carlos.
He nodded. “It’s old technology like most of our weaponry, but it works surprisingly well. The sensors inside react to adrenaline and body heat, so even if we’re not near you, we’ll know when you’re in trouble and be able to swiftly pinpoint your location.” He motioned for me to drink again. “Please. I’ve been saving this bottle for a long time.”
I stared at his hands, the liquor I’d already consumed making them appear larger than they were. Yet they tapered nicely, almost elegant in their jointed shape and warm skin. Not at all like the worm.
“Trust me, Joanna,” Carlos said, somehow both composed and imploring, strength and vulnerability living in the same melodious tone. “It will open your eye to things previously hidden.”
I sat the glass back down. “I’d prefer my taste of the forbidden in the form of an apple. Tradition, ya know.”
He pursed his lips, eyes lowered on the small glass containing the large worm. Larvae. I shuddered again.
“Did you know worms have been around for more than 120 million years?”