“Exactly! Spoken like a true Vegas girl,” he said, peering up at me in the growing light of dawn. “And in return for this guise, we give these human allies support. Sometimes it’s a transfer of power, convincing other mortals to give him or her an important place in society. Sometimes it’s a bit of physical strength where there was none before. I know of at least one mortal who won a gold medal in the last Olympics because of it. And then there are those who ask for—”
“Money,” I finished for him.
“Money,” he repeated, nodding. “Xavier is your true father’s chief contact in the mortal world. His pet, if you like. He provides a cover for the Shadow side, allowing them to exist and operate on the mortal plane, and in return he is provided all the wealth he could ever desire.”
“So by marrying Xavier, my mother was looking to infiltrate the wolf pack.”
“By marrying Xavier,” Warren corrected, “your mother was living in the wolf ’s den. And you? Everyone believed you were really Xavier’s daughter.”
It explained a lot. Xavier’s meteoric and unprecedented financial rise in the world of gaming. The pitfalls experienced by anyone who challenged his supremacy. It also explained the unmarked, unsigned note he’d received earlier in the week, and his complete unwillingness to question its origin. It came, after all, from his benefactor.
I shook my head slowly. That asshole had been a part of it all along. He’d sold his soul for money, and in doing so, contributed to his own daughter’s death.
“So, theoretically speaking,” I said, “if I did join your forces and the Zodiac troop become more powerful as a result, this would help bring Xavier down?”
“Definitely. In fact, anything with the enemy’s emblem would be open to ruin. In times of strength, like now, it’s a sign of victory. Otherwise, it’s a target.”
I frowned. “What’s his emblem?”
Warren looked amused. “He’s your mirror opposite in the astrological chart, Jo. The Shadow side of the Zodiac. Anything with the word Archer on it belongs to him.”
“So it’s like a brand?”
“It is. It warns, and it protects.” Which put Xavier under the protection of my enemy. Who knew it was possible to feel even more animosity toward the man? “What’s your second question?”
I glanced down at the photo on the table before meeting Warren’s eye. “Where is she?”
“Your mother?” He shrugged, though his shoulders had stiffened. “In hiding.”
“But she’s alive? You’re sure?” and when he nodded, I said, “But you can’t tell me where?”
“I don’t know where. Nobody does.” He paused, as if caught between two thoughts, but his expression quickly shuttered and he hurried on. “If the Shadow Archer knew where Zoe was, he’d be after her in a shot.”
“He hates her that much?”
“He hates us all, but yes,” he said softly, eyes filled with some memory. “He hates Zoe even more.”
I wanted to know why. What had she done to incur such long-held wrath? But more important right now was my third question. I took a deep breath. If Zoe had married Xavier to infiltrate the enemy’s key organization, then what had forced her to leave? I looked at the man in front of me—both crazed and sane, open and guarded, helpful and hard—and the only one who might know. Then I asked him the hardest question of all. “Was this man, my real father, responsible for the attack on me when I was sixteen?”
Warren opened his mouth, shut it again, then swallowed hard. “Yes.”
Even expecting it, the truth hit me like a lead bar. Squeezing my eyes shut, I pinched the bridge of my nose between forefinger and thumb and shook my head. My blood father had had me attacked. Raped. Left for dead.
“My mother slept with this guy?” My voice cracked.
“He didn’t know you were his daughter. He still doesn’t. It…it’s complicated,” Warren said, in what was, perhaps, the understatement of the year. “And it’s not my story to tell.”
I stared at him for a long while, then nodded and returned my attention to the table. “Okay, just one more question, then. What’s the worst that can happen? To you, I mean. What would happen if these…Shadows won? If they succeeded in wiping out your troop?”
Warren’s Adam’s apple bobbed at the thought, and the other man shifted uncomfortably on the bed. They shared a look, a whole conversation passing between them in that short glance before Warren turned back to me. “Chaos, Joanna. Sodom and Gomorrah stuff. What do you think happened there? What happens whenever all lusts and baser evils go unchecked? Every man for himself. Society disintegrates, mortals become enslaved to their baser emotions. And the Shadows? They are their captors.”
I stood still and silent for another good minute before saying anything. At last I returned to the photo I’d thrown down in front of him and pointed to Zoe, the woman I’d once thought lost to me forever. “This man, this Archer, has cost me my mother.
“My sister,” I continued, moving my finger to Olivia, who really was.
“And my innocence.” I pointed to myself, then picked up the photo and handed it to him. “This city is all I have left.”
Warren looked at it for a moment before glancing up. “You realize you’d be entering a whole new realm, don’t you? A different reality. More than one, actually.”
“My reality’s already different.”
“We kill these people, these Shadows, Joanna. That’s what you’d be signing up for.”
People like Butch and Ajax. People who sent madmen after little girls in the desert. “I got it, Warren.”
“And do you think you could kill your own father if given the chance?” I nodded once. “In cold blood?”
“I’ve trained my whole life for it,” I said, and even though I’d always told myself my training had been for defense, this was the truth.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, Warren nodded. “I can give you that chance.”
“And so the hunter becomes the hunted.” I smiled wryly as I threw his own words back at him, and held out a hand to shake. “You’ve got yourself a heroine.”
Warren ignored the hand. Instead, with tears suddenly springing into his eyes, he leapt from his chair and plowed full force into my arms. I staggered backward, and the other man, silent all this time, caught my eye over Warren’s shoulder and shrugged.
“Okay, okay,” I said, pulling away. “Sheesh.”
“Did you hear? The first sign has come to pass,” Warren said, turning to the other man. “She’ll do it. She’ll join us.”
The man simply nodded. He was beefy, but not in the hard way that Butch had been. More like Santa Claus, I supposed, if Santa had lived in Vegas.
Warren turned back to face me. “This is our witness from the troop’s council. He’s just here to make sure you’re joining us of your own free will, and haven’t been coerced in any way.”
I looked at him blankly. “You’re joking, right?”
“Under any direct duress from me, I mean.” He smiled self-consciously, wringing his hands. “I didn’t twist your arm or knock you around or anything, did I?”
“No.” I turned to the man. “He didn’t.”
“Good enough for you?” Warren asked impatiently. The man nodded and rose. Ah, there was the difference between him and Santa. He was nearly seven feet tall. “Oh, but where are my manners? Micah, this is Joanna. Jo, Micah.”
How did I know he wouldn’t have a nice, normal name like Bob or Joe? “Nice to meet you,” I said, holding out a hand.
Micah, the behemoth, finally spoke. “I hope you still feel that way when you wake up.”
“Wake up?”
The blow came from the side, and caught me on the back of my neck. My legs folded neatly beneath me, and as my eyes rolled into my head I saw Micah looming above me with a steel baton in his hand. I had only a second to think he was faster than he looked before Warren caught me beneath the arms, his lips close to my ear.
“Remember,” I heard him say, “we all become who we need to in order to survive.”