"Really?" she asked softly.

"Of course, really."

She lifted her chin. "You're right. That would be my kind of hero, anyway...you know, when you were asking earlier? I've been thinkin' about it, and I've decided I wouldn't need someone from the pages of a comic book. He wouldn't have to leap over buildings for me, or even surprise me with the latest designs from fashion week. I have a personal shopper for that. But if somebody would just...be there."

"Girl, that ain't a hero," one of the nail techs put in. "That's a prince."

Cher tilted her head and thought about that for a moment. "You think Wills or Harry would be interested in a slightly experienced southern woman?"

We all laughed, but a small part of me sighed. Be there? Ben would have done that.

Later, as we lounged in the dressing area, now surrounded by a comfortable silence, Cher said, "Thanks for letting me take you out today, Livvy-girl. I've really missed you."

"I've missed you too. This was...the most normal thing I've done in a long time." I ran the back of my hand over my eyes, mortified to find myself close to tears. All this girly stuff was getting to me. I probably just needed to hit something.

"I'm sorry we argued before."

"It was my fault," I said, shaking my head. "You were right. I had shut down. Thank you for being a good enough friend to say something."

On a sob, Cher opened her arms for a hug. Thrilled-it was an indisputable sign that I'd pa.s.sed this test-I held open my arms too. I'd no more than taken two steps toward her when she gasped so violently I jumped and whirled to defend myself against...anything.

"What?" I said, whirling back. Then I realized she was pointing at my chest. "What?"

"You're streaked! The b.i.t.c.h streaked you!"

I turned to the full-length mirror and looked for myself. Sure enough, there was a medium-sized white blotch right in the middle of my chest.

"s.h.i.t." Would this have happened to Olivia?

"Now you don't have an even, all-over tan!" Clearly more distraught than I was, Cher had tears rolling down her face. "You're not going to look cute naked! Oh, sorry."

"It's okay," I said doubtfully. I wasn't planning on anyone seeing me naked anyway. "How long did you say this stuff lasts?"

Cher wasn't listening. She was moaning and cursing-delicately, of course-and pulling at her hair extensions. "I wanted this to be perfect!"

"It has been," I a.s.sured her. "Really. I can't think of the last time I've had this much fun."

"Truly?" She sniffed, and stared at me through tearstained eyes.

I nodded. "This is the most fun I've ever had naked with another woman."

"Except for that time in Cozumel."

I'd puzzle that one out later.

"But now you have to wear turtlenecks for two whole weeks!"

Facing the mirror, I sighed. That answered that question.

"It's not right!" Fresh tears welled in her eyes. "First you ruin your Louboutins and now you're marked for life!"

"It's not for-" I broke off, whirling to face the mirror again and looked closer. Marked.

"I think I'm faint," Cher continued behind me. "I need a drink with something stronger than cuc.u.mbers in it."

"It looks like..." I found I couldn't finish. I cleared my throat and tried again. "It's a..."

Cher gasped as she came up behind me. "I see it!" Her amazement, my horror, and the symbol on my chest were all reflected clearly in the gla.s.s across from us. Cher was the first to find her voice, and it was reverent. "It's shaped like a stiletto!"

s.h.i.t. She could be right.

It was blurred, smudged around the edges, and not entirely drawn in-like a half-finished tattoo-but dammit, Cher just might be right. If I angled myself just so, squinting...

d.a.m.n. My glyph, I thought, turning to view it from another angle, was a f.u.c.king stiletto. But at least this time I didn't have to wonder what Olivia would say.

"Well," I said, and blew out a sigh. "At least it's cute."

15.

I'd once thought myself a stranger to darkness, but as I drove back to Olivia's apartment I thought back to my encounter with the construction worker earlier that day-cursing myself for remembering his name, Mark-and of the pain that had bloomed in his face as realization struck. At my words. Words Olivia would never have uttered. I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable with myself. Darkness, I was finding, came in many forms.

And what about what had happened in the comic store? Carl had seemed not only genuinely surprised that I could pull from both the Light and Shadow series, but I'd recognized that flash of fear as he looked from me to Zane and back at the comics in my hand.

So you're the one, Zane had said.

The only one. Micah's words hurtled back at me.

And then Warren's, you're the first sign.

I parked in Olivia's spot in the underground garage, grabbed the comics from the trunk, and decided to read through them all tonight. I needed to fill in the holes Warren and Micah had left in my supernatural education...and in my life.

The phone was ringing as I slid the key in the door, and smelling nothing out of the ordinary, I jogged to the bedroom and grabbed the portable from its hook. Luna wound her silky body between my legs, nearly tripping me up.

"h.e.l.lo." I perched on the edge of the bed and leaned to stroke Luna's head. She arched fluidly under my hand just as Warren's voice reached my ear.

"Olivia, it's time. We've got to get you out of here, to the sanctuary." He sounded panicked and out of breath.

My hand froze on Luna's back. "You said I wasn't ready."

"No choice. Every agent is ordered off the streets."

"Why?"

"I don't have time to tell you...hold on." There was a m.u.f.fled sound, like he'd placed his hand over the receiver or m.u.f.fled it against his chest. After half a minute he was back. "Remember when I told you the Shadows had found a way to kill off our star signs? One by one?"

I nodded, though he couldn't see it.

"Well, they're tracking us; I don't know how, but they have their next target. That's why we all have to go."

"Who are they after?"

There was another silence. "Me."

I stood and paced to the window, where shadows, once again, were soaking into crevices along the valley floor. "But why do I have to go? You said I wasn't ready. And remember, Olivia is an Archer. They won't touch her, or me, right?"

"Joanna Archer," he said, surprising me by using not only my real name, but my full name, "they don't want me for my sterling personality. They want me because of you."

Oh.

"Meet me at the Peppermill on the Boulevard. Walk, don't drive. We don't want Olivia's car anywhere near the pickup point. There will be a cab waiting out back. Pack like you're going to summer camp, and bring only what you need."

I looked around the room, with no idea where to start. "How long will I be gone?"

"Long enough to learn what you need to, but not long enough for anyone to miss you."

"That narrows it," I muttered to myself. "What about Luna?"

"She'll be taken care of."

I paused as the image of Mark and his naked pain and disbelief crowbarred its way back into my brain. "I need to tell you something, Warren. Or ask you-"

"Later. There's a window of opportunity for the crossing, but it's short. We must hurry."

"The crossing?"

"From your world into ours," he explained impatiently. "It can only be executed the exact moment day turns into night, or vice versa."

I drew back and actually looked at the receiver. "That's called dusk, Warren. It lasts more than a moment."

"Not the point at which the light and shadow are divided evenly in the air. Be there, mid-dusk sharp." He hung up in my ear.

I scowled at the phone, then down at Luna. "Bossy for a homeless man, isn't he?"

I packed swiftly, only throwing in items I was comfortable with...or relatively so, considering Olivia's wardrobe. Nothing silk, nothing with heels, and no lace. Sure, the jeans I stuffed into the duffel bag were Sevens rather than Levi's, and the sweats were velour lined with satin rather than simple cotton, but at least they were items I could move in. I could run. I could fight.

Figuring discretion was the way to go since Warren had been specific about not using Olivia's car, I donned a turtleneck and loose slacks, both black, though I decided to bring her crystal-studded cell phone along; after all, Olivia couldn't just drop off the face of the earth, could she? Then I started throwing in the usual toiletries.

Underwear, socks, hairbrush, toothpaste, lotion...camera.

"Oh, my G.o.d," I whispered, freezing with the cheap cardboard camera in my hand. I held it in my palm as gingerly as I would a baby bird. On it were the last images I'd taken as myself; the images I'd snapped in those early morning hours before returning to Warren to tell him that yes, I would accept his offer to become a superhero.

The ones of Ben, smiling in his sleep because I was alive.

I looked at the clock. Did I have time? My heart thudded at the prospect of viewing these photos. I'd have liked to develop them myself, to play with the shadow and light in the confines of my own dark s.p.a.ce, but I knew that wasn't an option. My home was being watched, and even if it wasn't, Warren would never agree.

Still, there was a one-hour photo shop located inside a Quik-Mart only one block east of the Peppermill. If I drove that far and hurried, I might be able to make it.

The drive was a short one. I parked a block away, then crossed an intersection and three stop signs on foot to get to the store. I was only hara.s.sed by one motorist and one panhandler, so I figured my day was improving markedly.

I was greeted inside the Quik-Mart by a sleepy-eyed girl who looked barely old enough to vote. Perhaps greeted is too strong a word because she actually looked disappointed to see me, like I'd interrupted her life-in-progress and she wanted only to go back to her regularly scheduled programming. I wanted to tell her I could relate.

"How fast can you develop this?" I asked, handing her the camera.

"The sign says an hour."

"I need them in half that."

"So does everyone else, lady. Can't do it." She pushed the camera back at me and turned away.

"This says you can," I said, sliding a hundred beneath the box. She looked from the money to me, and returned to the counter.

"You'll have 'em in twenty."

She may have been lazy, but she wasn't stupid.

I decided to wait outside, thinking twenty minutes was enough to get started on at least one comic. The November air was sharp, but freshly so, and comfortable enough with the turtleneck on. I sat with my back against a stuccoed pillar and pulled the stack from my duffel bag, wondering where to begin.

Light, I decided. Definitely. I chose the one with the earliest date-volume two, number twenty-five-and flipped it open to learn more about the "independents" Warren had so distastefully mentioned the night of my metamorphosis. Apparently independents-also known in less flattering terms as rogue agents-were a constant threat to a troop's equilibrium. In a world where lineage meant everything, the compet.i.tion for open star signs was fierce, and even those of the Light had been known to take out their matching star sign just for the opportunity to usurp them in the Zodiac. That meant the independents weren't liked or trusted by established troop members, and were rarely tolerated within city boundaries.

Fortunately, most of the time there was no disputing a star sign's lineage; it went from mother to daughter, or if there was no younger female left, to the eldest son. But every once in a while a sign opened up with no obvious heir, and according to the manual, that's when things got "interesting."

I grimaced and flipped the page, remembering the way Warren's mouth had curled when he spoke about the independents. Why did I get the feeling "interesting" was a euphemism for "deadly"?

I also had to wonder how my ascendancy into the Archer sign would be viewed by the star signs in his troop. If the Archer sign had been empty since my mother's disappearance, might some of them liken my sudden appearance to that of a rogue agent? At the least, wouldn't it be seen as "interesting"?

Not having these answers, and not liking the direction my questioning was taking, I quickly flipped that manual shut and picked up another. This time I ignored the chronological ordering and just snagged the one with the best-looking superhero on the cover, shoving the rest back into my pack. Stryker, it was called. Agent of Light.

"Stryker is striking," I murmured, settling back. The rating on it was PG-17, and I could see why; leather clung to the man's thighs, snug in all the right places, and a loose-knit cashmere sweater revealed tremendous biceps...as well as the glyph pulsing like a heartbeat on his chest. It was, in fact, pulsing on the page. Though no expert in astrology, I thought it might be the glyph for Scorpio, the sign and month before mine. Stryker was holding what I a.s.sumed to be a weapon, bent like a crossbow, but with a chain attached. Its use was totally unfathomable to me.

"I'd be willing to find out, though," I said, my eyes grazing his figure again. Note to self: side benefit of being a superhero? Getting to know other superheroes.

I paused as my eyes caught the author's name stretched across the top band in black stencil. Zane Silver. The same Zane who worked in the shop? I wondered, before my eye caught the second name ill.u.s.trated there. Carl Kenyon, penciler.

"Wookie-boy?" I wondered aloud, shifting so the comic was lit from the streetlight above the store.

Ten minutes later I had a tenuous grasp on some of the events that had plagued me recently. I followed Stryker-a character, or a real person?-through a series of events leading to his metamorphosis. He'd been taken to an empty warehouse on Industrial and Pollack, and was surrounded by eleven other men and women, though it was difficult to tell one s.e.x from the other. Each person wore a loose-fitting robe, white and dotted with what I took to be golden-threaded constellations.

"Nice job, Carl," I said, placing a finger on one of the sparking star cl.u.s.ters. It pulsed warmly beneath my hand. I smiled and continued reading.

"Your first life cycle ended at p.u.b.erty, and the second ends tonight." The words bubbled up from a man who looked suspiciously like Warren. Only it couldn't have been Warren, I thought, tracing the image with my fingers, because Warren had never been this clean-shaven. "To enter the third life cycle, you must go through metamorphosis and be willingly initiated into the seventh house of the Zodiac, under your mother's sign of the Scorpio. Do you accept?"

"c.r.a.p dialogue," I muttered. "Who wrote this s.h.i.t?"