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between a Wall Street executive and a construction worker, interesting, as he took the physical form of a person’s expectations. I’d seen him as a casino mobster, a suave college instructor…and a hairless, spine-horned demon. To be honest, that was the visage I preferred. At least I knew exactly what I was up against when staring into the face of a demon.
    My allies pulled in tighter as a result of his arrival, but we held our ground. As powerful as the Tulpa was, even he couldn’t violate a safe zone.
    “My gawd, Harrison. You’ve practically dismantled that agent. And yet her allies are just standing around talking.” He sauntered into the entry, hemmed in the doorway like he was both posing for a picture and caught in its frame. He smiled slyly at me. “And you call yourself the Kairos.”
    That’s what
they
called me. “I call myself the Archer.”
    “And Joanna,” he said lightly, tilting his head. “What else?”
    “Nothing I can repeat in such polite company.”
    His eyes traced the mask covering my eyes, temples, and hairline, and his fingers twitched reflexively, causing me to smile. He’d been angling for my Olivia Archer identity for months now.
    Reining in the need for a little while longer, he folded his hands before him and settled into himself. “Well, you should check the temper, daughter. That’s how I pinpointed you.”
    That brought my black humor to an abrupt halt. “My temper?”
    “Anger is a gift. In this case, my gift to you. It lurks in your heart as surely as my blood resides in your veins. It’s how I found you.”
    “Bullshit.” I was not linked to the foul nonhuman being. Not in any way that mattered. “You orchestrated this.”
    He shrugged. “Of course. But I can’t stand around waiting all day for my troop to capture an agent of Light, torture her—bonus points for inventiveness, Harrison—”
    Harrison smiled, and both Felix and Micah strained forward like they were leashed.
    “—and draw the rest of you in. I’m a busy man.”
    “Yes, your dates with Skamar must keep your calendar quite full,” I said.
    Finally, a barb that hit home. His overly pleasant expression fell and his nostrils widened. Skamar was the Tulpa’s nemesis, enemy, and equal. Also a tulpa, and as such, she was the first being he’d never been able to completely overcome. And though new to the valley, she also had a power he did not: she was named.
    Where was Skamar, anyway?
    The Tulpa settled himself, pulled at his jacket sleeves, then sniffed once as he lifted his nose into the air. His placid gaze landed directly on me.
    “Kill them,” he said softly. The glyphs on every agent of Light’s chest shot to life. Depicted in comic books as a superhero’s lettering across the chest, they only did so when in danger, but we were in a safe zone, so for a moment no one moved.
    Then the Tulpa tilted his head and the Shadows surged forward. I saw hands go up all around the room, the Light deflecting the advance and turning the Shadow agents’ powers upon themselves. But they kept on coming. Vanessa managed to force a scream past her tongueless mouth, and it hit me then, as it did all the Light: she hadn’t been struggling so vehemently to get free. She’d been struggling to warn us.
We were not safe here.
    I only had one second to return my attention to the Tulpa, catching the anger and hatred in the red flare of his eyes, before the order of the world turned upside down. He flicked a finger, and even though I was twenty feet away, I was catapulted through the air to slam head first into an ornate concrete pillar. On one level I was aware of the activity around me—the Light fleeing, conduits useless, no offense available to them but a good defense; the Shadow chasing, battle cries in their throats; Vanessa struggling, screaming and forgotten on the far side of the bakery—but blanketing all that concern was one greater than the rest.
    I lifted my head slowly and found the Tulpa staring at