The Taste of Night by Vicki Pettersson Page B

bent-kneed as she backed away toward an opened door. I flipped open the manual, and caught a flash of color as a howl of rage splintered the silent room. The word nooo-o-o! bubbled up from the page before popping in a angry red spark.
    “This is the one where she killed him, isn’t it?” I asked Jasmine, flipping to the back. “The Tulpa’s originator. When she thought killing Wyatt Neelson would weaken the Tulpa.” It hadn’t though, I thought, scanning another page where she escaped through a sewer lid portal. Instead it had loosed Neelson’s hold on him, the creator’s death doubling back to make the Tulpa stronger.
    Jasmine nodded, rising to her tiptoes to flip back to the beginning with me, revealing the panels that showed my mother using manipulation, patience, her body, and pure chutzpah to gain that information from the Tulpa. She was already pregnant, I saw. And she was worried that with the hormone shift that came with pregnancy, the Tulpa would soon smell it on her. It would give her Light identity away.
    I would give her away.
    “This is my favorite,” Jasmine breathed, as we watched Zoe sneak from the Tulpa’s bedroom, him sleeping peacefully—face only partially revealed in black and white—while she stood framed in the doorway, her silhouette backlit, fists clenched, glyph fired. “She was wonderful.”
    But she had failed. Killing the Tulpa’s creator had only freed him from the power of the original mind. From then on he’d been free to think and feel and act as he wished. And what did he wish for more than anything? To kill the woman who’d betrayed him.
    The very last page showed her returning to the sanctuary, being wheeled into the sick ward by an impossibly young Micah, who told her not to worry. He was going tochange her identity so the Tulpa and his agents would never find her.
    And they hadn’t, I thought wryly, closing the book. They’d found me instead.
    “There are others,” Jasmine said softly, watching my face with those giant doe eyes. “Lots. Would you like me to find them for you?”
    “I don’t know.” Which surprised me. I wanted to find my mother, right? I wanted to exact revenge on the Tulpa for forcing her to run, leaving Olivia and me. So why was I so conflicted now? Why did it feel like watching events that had profound impact on my life through my mother’s eyes would somehow be a betrayal to my younger self? “I don’t know,” I said again.
    I looked around the room, wondering how many of these books had the power to forever change my impression of myself, and how many times that perception would flip-flop. Where I would end up when I finally knew all. I looked back at the schoolgirl in front of me. “How long have you known all this, Jasmine?”
    A half smile flashed, a question she could answer, and a dimple flickered with it. “I was born knowing. Just like Carl, and Sebastian, and the twins. We’re changelings.”
    “Changelings?” I asked, recognizing the word from one of Warren’s lectures, but not what it meant.
    The embarrassment in my voice touched her. She took my hand and swung it back and forth in hers, like we were schoolgirls on a playground. “We keep the secrets of the Zodiac and make sure the knowledge is passed on to the next generation. We need the agents to continue the battle of good versus evil, of course, so that the legends are put into print, but you need us just as much. Here, read this.” She passed me another manual, then waved for me to follow.
    I glanced down as I did. “Why?”
    “Because it’s the story of your troop’s emergence,” she said, facing me as she continued walking backward. “Your genealogy is in there. It’s a good place to start.”
    “No…er, thanks,” I said, tucking it under my arm. “But I meant why do agents need you?”
    She halted so suddenly I almost ran her down, but looked more amused by the question than annoyed. “Because we think about you. We read your stories and believe in