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in my gut like butterflies trapped in netting?
    I patted the extra crossbow bolts I’d clipped to my waist, pulled my conduit so I was holding it upright, and continued to climb.

3
    The density of the airless space lessened the closer I got to the building, and without it bearing down on—and
in
—me, I felt like I was suspended in space. Peacefulness threatened to slip over me again…until I glanced down to find the glyph on my chest warming like the coil of an electric burner, the razor-slim outline of a bow and arrow appearing like a beacon in the blackened sky. Warren was going to be pissed, I thought, before the prospect of imminent death pushed the worry from my mind.
    Remaining perched on the jib wasn’t an option, and I couldn’t turn around and show my back. Backing up like a tightrope walker would take too long, and while I could feasibly jump to the platform below this one, even a cat needed to spot the ground. I couldn’t see shit, and didn’t see the purpose of breaking a leg just to flee an unseen threat. I might not heal in time to actually run away. So I continued forward, leaping to the steel scaffolding in a noiseless jump.
    I ducked behind a bright red vertical beam, and had just caught my breath when a hoarse, off-key voice sang out over the lifeless air. “‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…’”
    Now I wanted to jump.
    “Tulpa,” I whispered, then charged the largest platform, dead center of the unfinished building. Not safe, but safer. I slipped halfway and ended up straddling the beam, my pelvic bone smarting under the weight of my fall. Jostling my conduit, I fumbled it like a second-string quarterback, and ended up lunging to catch it, my thighs clasped tightly around the steel. I ended up upside-down, thankful I wasn’t saddled with a man’s more fragile parts.
    A chuckle joined the name—and me—still hanging in the air. “That’s me.”
    It
was
him, I thought, righting myself. His description, his title, and his identity all rolled into one distinctly foreign word. A tulpa was an imagined entity, one wrought into being by thought rather than birth. For centuries Tibetan monks had practiced and perfected the skill of creating thought-forms real enough that they could influence the mortal realm, though the man who’d created this tulpa had been a Westerner. An evil one.
    Even when drawn from the most benevolent mind, the creation of a tulpa was considered a dangerous accomplishment. Wyatt Neelson’s original intent was to use the thought-being for personal gain. The Tulpa couldn’t be killed. It could be sent into the most dangerous situations, deal with the most nefarious beings, and come out unscathed. Yet the Tulpa didn’t want to come out, and he quickly grew tired of the evil mind that had created and commanded him. Once he was actualized in the world, he began exercising his own will and judgment, and in the process, became even stronger and more wicked than his creator.
    In short, the dude has some powerful fucking juju.
    “You caused the vibrational chaos.” It wasn’t a question, but the way the air suddenly moved about me, whistling across all the empty floors below, I knew he’d given me an answering nod. It also gave me his approximate location. I angled sideways, putting a second pallet between us. “And there’s no one else here, is there?”
    I didn’t need to feel the air shift to know the girl in the smoke—the one Felix had been so sure was Dawn, the Shadow Gemini—had really been the Tulpa. Able to take the shape and form of anyone he chose, he’d been reacting to Felix’s expectations. Like I said, powerful.
    “Disappointed? I can call in some backup if you’d like.”
    And do it with nothing more than a thought. “No, no,” I said airily, and quickly. “Let’s just keep this between the two of us.”
    It wasn’t necessarily an improvement, but what were my options?
    “Good. Because I think it’s time you and I cleared the