Holidays are Hell(120)

Wardens.

Fear reared instinctively. The animals sensed it, and the whining strengthened. But fear can still be attributed to my humanity, Zoe thought, whirling blindly again. Who wouldn't be afraid, trapped in a dark underground pound?

"Uh… babe?" she tried, revealing her fear and all-too-human nerves in the shake of her voice.

"Still alive, then?" the Tulpa asked casually from directly above. Zoe looked up and saw his slim outline blocking the dim light from the children's classroom.

The question was telling. It meant he hadn't expected her to be. She felt a sniffling along her arm, a wet nose, then the tentative lick of a very large tongue. The Shadow wardens were dogs, paranormal pets that could scent out enemy agents and rip them apart in seconds. They were the only things, other than conduits, that could actually kill an agent. Well, thought Zoe looking up again, conduits, wardens… and the Tulpa.

"Clearly. But, and this is just a wild guess, I take it you have some other questions for me?"

"I have one." Then his voice was in her ear. "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

And one after another, four giant spotlights boomed to life, flooding the cave with light so bright Zoe had to cover her face. The wardens whimpered, their claws scratching as they scampered blindly away. Zoe fished for the shades she'd dropped in her pocket and slipped them back on. Her eyes still teared as the light assaulted her from beyond the lenses, but she could finally make out the perimeter of the room… and it chilled her to the bone.

It was a stupa, a building in the Tibetan tradition meant to honor Buddha. The Tulpa had always meant to build one… but his, he'd said, would be dedicated solely to himself. Zoe had researched the subject when she'd lived with him, so she knew there were three types of stupas: ones to commemorate events or occasions in Buddha's—or, in this case, the Tulpa's—life. Ones erected to gain favor… but those were generally small and this was anything but. Finally, there were those used for the burial of relics from a funeral pyre. Zoe felt the grit caked beneath her fingernails from her abrupt landing and swallowed hard.

Yep, she thought, looking up. The room was cone-shaped, indicating solar worship. There was also an altar to her right. And while most burial stupas held vessels containing the bones and ashes from a crematorial fire, Zoe didn't look for them. The entire room was the vessel. All that was missing was fire.

"I mean, you must think I'm stupid," he went on, voice circling her like a vulture from above. He was circumambulating, walking in a clockwise direction, reflecting the movement of the sun and rotating planets. Zoe fought back the whimper that wanted to come. "I have to admit you caught me by surprise, just waltzing up and knocking on the door that way. That was a stroke of brilliance, as was the way you've obviously clothed yourself in humanity. But it only means you're that much easier to break… I'll have to be careful if I want our time together to last."

She wrapped her arms around her middle. "So you don't believe me."

The understatement of the year.

"Believe that you went to my creator intending to free me? To name me?" Outrage made his voice shake, but his outline above had gone unnaturally still. "No, Zoe. I know you went there believing that his life, and death, was linked to my own."

She jerked her head. "But you'd broken free of him! You already had enough consciousness and ability to rule the mortal and supernatural plane. I knew that. So why risk killing the creator only to leave behind my signature scent?"

"You didn't know. You expected me to weaken and die." He paused and his exhale rolled over Zoe, pushing her hair back from her shoulders. "And you never loved me."

Sweat broke on Zoe's forehead, though only part of it had to do with nerves. "Then what am I doing here now?"

Three of the spotlights powered down, and his voice was again in her ear. "That's what I intend to find out."

Zoe whirled, but he wasn't next to her. He was across the ash-strewn chamber, outline obscured, but eyes glowing red.

"Why can't you just believe me?" she asked him, shaking her head.

"Because look at me!" He bellowed. "I look exactly as I did before! You have created me in the same image, even the same fucking clothing! Which means your intentions are the same as well. But you will die for your betrayal this time, and your death will benefit me."

And as the temperature suddenly soared in the spherical chamber, she knew there was no way to sway him. He'd sought a way to get to her for too long now, and she'd just walked in and given it to him.

Zoe lowered her head, bit her lip, then slowly lifted the glasses from her face. She looked at them for a long moment, then threw them to the ground in front of her. When she looked up, her face was resolute. Slowly she began to walk toward him, the mirrored lenses splintering beneath her heel.