Cheat the Grave by Pettersson Vicki

Author:Pettersson, Vicki [Pettersson, Vicki]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-01-14T19:09:22+00:00

16

So they took me back to Vegas to do what was previously thought impossible. Kill the Tulpa.

The opportunity wouldn’t come immediately. I was hosting Suzanne and Arun’s rehearsal dinner at the estate that night. Though far less crowded than the eight hundred wedding guests due at Valhalla the following day, it was still a big undertaking. Making sure there were enough hors d’oeuvres would be challenging. Killing the Tulpa might be a little too ambitious for cocktail attire. Which meant I had to stay alive at least until the next day.

Valentine’s Day, I remembered with a frown. Silk-lined boxes of chocolate. Intimate candlelight dinners. A body studded with weapons in order to kill a friggin’ tulpa.

Just like every other girl on V-Day, I thought wryly. Dressed to leave an impression.

I shook my head. Weaker than I’d ever been in my life and I was going to attempt to murder a being birthed through calculated thought and mean ambition. One who had taken over the Shadow organization with a virtual snap of his fingers. If it was really the thought that counted, why couldn’t I just wish him away? As it was, I had no better plan than to leap and lunge at the opportune moment.

Speaking of leaping and lunging, I glanced to the back of our stolen van to find Gareth, Vincent, and Roland all eyeing me speculatively.

“No,” I told them all. “I won’t go to the dance with you.”

Gareth and Roland shot me small smiles, and while Vincent didn’t offer me a promise ring, his scowl didn’t deepen either. Guys who looked at you and smiled, or at least didn’t frown, always wanted something, so I waited. Gareth finally held up a comic book…a manual depicting the last days of my time in Zodiac troop 175, and as an agent of Light. I assumed that’s what it was anyway. The cover art showed me drowning.

“You were the Kairos,” Gareth said, jutting out his pockmarked chin.

“So they said.”

“But you gave up all your powers for a mortal child. Someone less than even a rogue.”

I shook my head. “She wasn’t lesser than anyone.”

“And that’s why I will follow you.” Vincent crossed his arms over his beefy chest, his nostrils flaring. “Not because Carlos tells me to. Not because you’re a female and you can enter Midheaven and increase our numbers.”

“’Cuz the only number you care about is one,” Gareth snorted.

Vincent punched the kid’s shoulder so hard his entire arm went limp. I winced, but Vincent’s eyes were back on me. “Because I’m independent, and I am honorable. I don’t mask my deeds, good or bad, with lies. I won’t deceive you like that.” He jerked his head to the manual where the story of Warren’s trickery was literally spelled out. “I won’t betray you like the other one either.”

I’d wondered if Hunter’s story would show up. I swallowed hard. Now my personal life was splayed along those pages in the comic book equivalent of a gossip rag. And all these men had read it.

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