The Taste of Night by Vicki Pettersson Page B

bathed in the aqua light of the tanks, leaning there next to sharks.
    “Make one move from that spot, and I’ll pin you through your heart and yank it back out of your chest. Got it?”
    One corner of her mouth lifted, and she blinked slowly, inclining her head.
    “Don’t follow me, and swear to stay away from my…Olivia’s house. No tailing me, no contacting me, no trying to convince me to come to your side. Any of that, and I’ll killyou.”
    “Okay.” She waited for me to leave. “But where will you go?” she asked, then held up her hands when I half turned on her. “Not that I’d follow. But I can’t help wondering…where does a woman belonging equally to the sun and moon escape to when she can’t be followed? Where does Joanna Archer go in a world that no longer believes she exists?”
    I wanted to tell her there was no escape, and that being a superhero wasn’t something you shed like clothing, or that just because I was alone didn’t mean I could be and do what I really wanted in this life. But I was afraid that answer would reveal even more of myself than she already knew. Besides, she’d be a full-fledged Shadow agent within months. She’d find out for herself.
    For now, though, I left her reclining against the shark tank, thinking she’d won something tonight just because she was still alive.
    “Nice shoes,” she called as I left the aquarium, and though she didn’t move, her bell-like laughter followed me down the Boulevard.

4
    I was too antsy to return to the auction, and knew if I made myself sit down in a confined space I’d just spend the night berating myself, replaying the events that’d led me to the aquarium, near death, and Regan. So ignoring the nightly bacchanalia of the Las Vegas Strip, I took a succession of rights on the gridlike streets and climbed into the city’s gritty underlife, where I truly felt at home.
    When I’d been me, Joanna, I’d canvassed these streets religiously, snapping pictures and documenting the welfare of Sin City’s displaced and forgotten. Back then I’d been tough, a student of a fighting system called Krav Maga, but these days I was practically immortal, and I didn’t have to worry about my safety while handing out sandwiches to the men and women pooled in the city’s darkest crevices, or while helping the runaways I found cowering beneath the possessive arm of someone bigger and meaner and more predatory than themselves. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get off on that. Now I could protect people without worrying about getting hit or stabbed or shot, and how cool was that?
    Tonight I had the additional protection of the aureole, which meant I could climb into bed with my greatest enemyif I desired, and he’d never even know I was there. I was like a ghost in both the paranormal and the mortal world, and right now that suited me fine.
    About a block away from a run-down strip club I spotted a man watching the building’s back door. Actually I scented him first. He was breathing hard and smelled like wild game and curdled desire. So I began to stalk him, the spikes of my heels ticking like a time bomb as I snuck up behind him. He was already jittery with ignoble intentions and fled easily, even as one of his prey slipped out the back door.
    By the time we hit Carlisle Street, the sweat rolling down his neck had nothing to do with the evening’s warmth, and he was breathing harder still. If there was one thing I hated, it was a human predator. And after a night in which I’d been on both sides of the hunt, his ill intent struck me like a punch to the gut. Finally he swerved down an alley filled with large green metal Dumpsters, weaving his way past stripped tires, broken bottles, and the carcass of something that used to be small and furry and living. Scenting that his desire to stalk had been blunted, I let him escape over a fence topped with cyclone wire, whimpering under his breath as the scent of fresh urine joined the stale urine