Read Online The Neon Graveyard by Vicki Pettersson - Free Book Online
Authors: Vicki Pettersson
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me with a raised brow. He already knew what I wanted. It was what I always wanted.
“Make any progress on those maps I gave you?” I asked anyway.
“Shaa,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Been kinda busy fending off wicked desert coyotes and burying the dead. Doke shit like that, ya know?”
“Excuses, excuses,” I said, and held up the manual Joseph had brought us this afternoon. Kai’s eyes lit like a kid’s on Christmas. He’d been burying Neal, so he hadn’t seen it yet, and comic books—unsurprisingly—were his passion.
I put my left hand on my hip and hid the manual again with my right. He could easily take it from me, which he considered before his gaze darted over my shoulder. Vincent, I knew, stood nearby, and I smiled when Kai’s gaze finally returned to me.
“Maps,” I said.
Groaning, Kai simultaneously slumped and looked into the sky, muttering something I couldn’t hear but had Vincent snorting behind me. “Step into my office,” he said louder, and scratched his ass.
He lifted his floor mat—knocking over a large bag of Cheetos and three cans of Mountain Dew dangling on a six-pack ring—and I yanked out a pocket flashlight and took a seat across from him, watching as he pulled out a cache of maps. Yawning widely, Kai took his time sorting through his papers—most of which were astrological calculations none of us were sure he could even read—until he found the three that I wanted.
These maps had been stolen from a warehouse in central Vegas by a gray named Harlan Tripp. It was a place the Light had designed for their weapons master, so he could create and customize conduits, the magical weapons that matched and amplified a particular agent’s strengths. Yet that weapons master—Hunter Lorenzo, my Hunter—had also secretly created these maps.
Viewed together, they depicted the underground system leading to Midheaven . . . except that they didn’t. Some entrances lay in the wrong places, and others were missing entirely, which I’d double-checked by placing them next to the official map created by the city’s Flood Control District. Each time I studied the trio of maps, I prayed I’d learn something new. That I’d magically discover some clue as to their meaning and purpose . . . any small thing to tell me what the hell Hunter had been doing.
Obviously he’d been searching for a way into Midheaven. He’d been obsessed with finding the woman who’d escaped there with his unborn child. The child of fate, I thought, biting my lip. The one the Tulpa was after, that we all now knew was the true and sole Kairos: a now seven-year-old who was a perfect blend of Shadow and Light.
A half sibling, I acknowledged with a now-familiar shock, to the baby I carried now.
Yet other than laying bare incorrect entrances to a paranormal underworld, the map wasn’t particularly spectacular. Every agent already knew of the fifty-mile pipeline that wound beneath the city, though if they’d followed Hunter’s wrongly marked routes, none would have ever gotten in. Which might have been for the best, I thought, with a small sigh.
In any case, each time I’d entered the tunnels, they’d twisted and turned in impossible angles, growing warmer and narrower the farther I ventured inside. Even entry via the same tunnel wouldn’t ensure you wound up traversing the same path. Switching it up was the paranormal world’s way of letting you know you were broaching a new realm, and a final warning to keep all but the most determined travelers at bay.
“Man, I don’t know why you keep lookin’ at those things,” Kai said, throwing a fistful of Cheetos into his mouth as he leaned in from the other side. “Nothing’s changed. It’s as boglius as ever.”
“Maybe coming at it fresh will let me make new mental connections.” I didn’t have the experience of a lifelong troop member, or the knowledge that a Seer had, but I had wits, instinct, and a naturally suspicious nature, and all
“Make any progress on those maps I gave you?” I asked anyway.
“Shaa,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Been kinda busy fending off wicked desert coyotes and burying the dead. Doke shit like that, ya know?”
“Excuses, excuses,” I said, and held up the manual Joseph had brought us this afternoon. Kai’s eyes lit like a kid’s on Christmas. He’d been burying Neal, so he hadn’t seen it yet, and comic books—unsurprisingly—were his passion.
I put my left hand on my hip and hid the manual again with my right. He could easily take it from me, which he considered before his gaze darted over my shoulder. Vincent, I knew, stood nearby, and I smiled when Kai’s gaze finally returned to me.
“Maps,” I said.
Groaning, Kai simultaneously slumped and looked into the sky, muttering something I couldn’t hear but had Vincent snorting behind me. “Step into my office,” he said louder, and scratched his ass.
He lifted his floor mat—knocking over a large bag of Cheetos and three cans of Mountain Dew dangling on a six-pack ring—and I yanked out a pocket flashlight and took a seat across from him, watching as he pulled out a cache of maps. Yawning widely, Kai took his time sorting through his papers—most of which were astrological calculations none of us were sure he could even read—until he found the three that I wanted.
These maps had been stolen from a warehouse in central Vegas by a gray named Harlan Tripp. It was a place the Light had designed for their weapons master, so he could create and customize conduits, the magical weapons that matched and amplified a particular agent’s strengths. Yet that weapons master—Hunter Lorenzo, my Hunter—had also secretly created these maps.
Viewed together, they depicted the underground system leading to Midheaven . . . except that they didn’t. Some entrances lay in the wrong places, and others were missing entirely, which I’d double-checked by placing them next to the official map created by the city’s Flood Control District. Each time I studied the trio of maps, I prayed I’d learn something new. That I’d magically discover some clue as to their meaning and purpose . . . any small thing to tell me what the hell Hunter had been doing.
Obviously he’d been searching for a way into Midheaven. He’d been obsessed with finding the woman who’d escaped there with his unborn child. The child of fate, I thought, biting my lip. The one the Tulpa was after, that we all now knew was the true and sole Kairos: a now seven-year-old who was a perfect blend of Shadow and Light.
A half sibling, I acknowledged with a now-familiar shock, to the baby I carried now.
Yet other than laying bare incorrect entrances to a paranormal underworld, the map wasn’t particularly spectacular. Every agent already knew of the fifty-mile pipeline that wound beneath the city, though if they’d followed Hunter’s wrongly marked routes, none would have ever gotten in. Which might have been for the best, I thought, with a small sigh.
In any case, each time I’d entered the tunnels, they’d twisted and turned in impossible angles, growing warmer and narrower the farther I ventured inside. Even entry via the same tunnel wouldn’t ensure you wound up traversing the same path. Switching it up was the paranormal world’s way of letting you know you were broaching a new realm, and a final warning to keep all but the most determined travelers at bay.
“Man, I don’t know why you keep lookin’ at those things,” Kai said, throwing a fistful of Cheetos into his mouth as he leaned in from the other side. “Nothing’s changed. It’s as boglius as ever.”
“Maybe coming at it fresh will let me make new mental connections.” I didn’t have the experience of a lifelong troop member, or the knowledge that a Seer had, but I had wits, instinct, and a naturally suspicious nature, and all
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