The Taste of Night by Vicki Pettersson

side will usher in an era the likes of which have never been seen before. Our mythology tells us the second sign of the Zodiac will soon be fulfilled. I want to sit at your right-hand side when you rule this city. I want to tell my children and grandchildren I was born in the generation of the Kairos.”
    I looked at her and smiled wryly. When most people heard of the zodiac signs they thought of the sun signs, the positions each of the twelve houses held on the horoscopic wheel. What Regan was talking about, though, was an actual portent signaling one side of the Zodiac’s ascendancy over our enemies. The signs were revealed only as the one before them was fulfilled, and the first sign had been the rise of the Kairos. That was me, and my discovery six months ago. Once I’d satisfactorily proven myself to be theKairos—causing mayhem, destruction, and ultimate victory for my chosen allies, in that order—the second sign was revealed.
    A curse upon the Zodiac’s battlefield .
    Cheery, huh? Regan obviously thought this obscure riddle meant the Shadows would come out the victor, and therefore I, the Kairos, would have to switch sides. I could only assume this belief had been passed down from the Tulpa. Why else would he be content to sit back and let me come to him? Especially when the second sign indicated a battle had to be fought and won?
    But there were two problems I could see with Regan’s theory. First of all, it just plain wasn’t going to happen. I’d shoot myself with my own conduit before becoming a Shadow. And second, even if I did want to switch sides, I doubted it’d be as simple as just waltzing into the Tulpa’s house and announcing my intentions. Nothing in this world ever was.
    “You guys kill innocent people for fun and profit,” I told Regan, not caring if I sounded prudish. Murder just kind of niggled me that way.
    “I haven’t killed anyone,” she said, ignoring Liam’s death. “See, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. You think we’re wired differently than you, but it’s not true. We have a job to do, and do it to the best of our abilities. Like you.”
    I looked at her like she was a toddler with a fork and a light socket. This from the girl who’d just sacrificed a senior troop member to be part of the most wicked era in Shadow history. Yeah, I thought, unable to keep my eyes from rolling, she was just like me. “But there’s another reason you’re keeping my identity a secret, isn’t there, Regan? If you befriend and convince me to become your troop’s Kairos, you incur the debt of the Tulpa. And it’ll be your name that’s passed down for generations to come.”
    Her jaw clenched, and she returned her hard gaze to mine, as if to say, So what?
    “So what if I don’t play along?” I continued. “What if I just keep hunting Shadows?”
    “Then after I become a full-fledged star sign—”
    “You come after me yourself,” I finished for her. “You kill me—”
    “And still go down as one of the most celebrated Shadows in history.”
    “Perhaps the most.”
    She inclined her head, and her pretty blond ponytail swung slightly. “Perhaps.”
    I nodded slowly. “Quite a coup. It would’ve been easier all around to kill me while you still could.”
    “If you’re into short-term gratification.” She shrugged. “As satisfying as it would be to know I was the one who’d killed you, I’d rather wait until the world could know it too.”
    “All the world’s a stage, huh?”
    “And I could’ve killed you at any time in act one,” she said, and paused so I could think about it. “You may die yet if you foolishly stick with your current allies. The Tulpa has plans for them, and it doesn’t matter to him that you’ve been filling your star signs. It’s a—what did he say?—a nonissue .” She shot me a sly smile. “He’s found a way to wipe you all out in one fell swoop.”
    “And that’s what you were going to warn me about?”
    Regan nodded, and though