3

It was hard to argue against people being predisposed to chaos, JJ thought as he hauled a skinny mortal from a seedy downtown strip club. The idiot had been about to challenge a Shadow over a woman who called herself Destiny. Yeah, JJ thought, posing as a bouncer, Destiny was really worth getting your head ripped, literally, from your shoulders.

“Maybe it’s why you guys need protection in the first place,” he mumbled.

“What?” the man asked, his tone matching his terrified face.

“I said you should take a serious look at the way you spend your free time.”

“Look at you, man!” The scrawny redhead jerked down his shirt after JJ threw him against the wall. “Like you have any right to judge!”

Score one point for the village idiot, JJ thought, because as much as the comparison rubbed, for the first time he was indulging his darker side, too. And enjoying it. Still, he had a job to do, and was finding a perverse joy in that again as well. He reentered the club and headed back to the VIP room to give the lone Shadow a real taste of destiny.

“I don’t think the Kairos will be found entertaining a late night stag party,” JJ said, parting the curtains of the private room, and dropping into the seat nearest the door. “But that’s just me.”

The Shadow, a small but stocky man who was all but lost between two manufactured breasts, froze. He swallowed hard, dark eyes darting, the glyph on his chest beginning to smoke, but he otherwise didn’t move. When he saw that JJ was alone, visually measuring the distance between them as being great enough, he tried to play it cool. “Can’t be too thorough, though, can you?” he said, smiling, as he ran a hand down Destiny’s thigh.

“No. You can’t.” And JJ unfurled his whip with a crack. Destiny screamed even though she’d been a whole four inches away from the nearest barb, and began tottering from the room on Lucite heels. JJ caught her in one arm, pulling her close to his chest as he yanked, snapping her john’s neck.

By the time Warren arrived, Destiny was “resting” in a dark corner, the Shadow appeared passed out on the velvet sofa, and the room’s security tapes were in JJ’s pockets.

“Who?” Warren asked, eyes assessing JJ for injury.

JJ smiled, handing the tapes over. “Shadow Pisces.”

“Where?”

He jerked his head back at the club. Warren motioned, and a cleanup crew emerged from the night like ninja warriors, slipping inside the back door. The corpse would be gone in five minutes. The kill spot—with the Shadow’s death and JJ’s claim to it—would remain forever.

Warren clapped him on the back, a wide grin splitting the furrows of his craggy face. “Nice to have you back, son. On the side of Light.”

“The side of might,” JJ finished for him.

Though pleased with the night’s work, he wasn’t sure Solange would feel the same. He arrived at their meeting spot, a motel off the I–15, sure she wouldn’t come. If she did, it would only be to end their affair. In fact, she might even break their unspoken truce by bringing her troop with her.

Instead, she met him wearing silk and garters and holding a glass of champagne.

“I’d have been worried,” she murmured as he closed in on her, “if you’d wrapped that thing around one of the girls instead of the guy.”

The morbid humor stoked their lovemaking like rocket fuel. JJ stroked her hair, remembering how it trailed behind her as she’d fled Gregor. He thought of her tomahawk whirring through the air, and it was all he could do not to laugh into her mouth. How could he explain the rush of knowing this dark, lethal beauty was his? Who would believe that he fought hard and well and heroically to return to that wry, promising smile? Coming together with Solange was, very simply, like riding a cyclone.

“That was wonderful,” Sola said after their final collapse, sending him a look that would have sucked the air from his chest, were any left. “But the next time you save me from being cornered by the Scorpio of Light, I’ll kill you.”

She was referring to a small skirmish two days earlier. He’d been sure she hadn’t noticed. Tucking a strand of hair behind the delicate shell of her earlobe, he said, “I know, sweetheart.”

“I wouldn’t stop any of my allies from slaying you.”

He hummed his understanding against her lips.

“And you’ll kill me as well?” She pulled back, but said it like she was asking for a date.

He shrugged, dropping his eyes. “If you’d like.”

“It’s not about what I like,” she said, biting off the last word. She forced him to look at her. “It’s about authenticity. We need to be as honest in that as we are in all else. Otherwise, this means nothing.”

“In that case,” he said, licking at her skin, “I’ll wrap my whip around your middle, let the barbs bite into your organs, and rip it free before you even make a sound.”

He kissed her lightly and she sighed into his opened mouth. “You’re such a romantic.”

JJ swallowed her wicked laugh, and met the lift of her hips.

“Find the Kairos yet?” she asked, licking at the hollow of his neck.

He kissed the top of her head. “Stop fishing.”

She put on a pout. “Like you don’t care what we’re up to.”

“Honey, if your side had our world’s weapon of mass destruction, I wouldn’t be lying here now.” And a part of him was careful to keep this in mind, even when he was notched deep inside her. “You guys have no idea where the Kairos is.”

Knowing she was beaten, she curled up, back to his chest, leaving JJ to wonder if she wasn’t merely a gorgeous, exciting, and, yes, dangerous pet project. Proof that even someone raised by people dedicated to chaos and destruction could choose the right thing, if only provided the opportunity. Perhaps, he thought, stroking her hair, if they had someone to believe they were good.

Playing savior was no basis for a relationship, but as his actions weren’t being reported in either the Shadow manuals or the Light, he didn’t worry too much. Disguised as comic books and consumed by mortal minds, these manuals were as important for what they omitted as for the battles they recorded. Perhaps his deeds weren’t being shown because he was getting through to Sola. He chose to believe the Universe knew she needed anonymity if she was to continue working her way toward good. After all, his side would try to stop him if they knew what he was doing, and hers would kill her outright.

Thus, he decided, the Universe itself was upholding their right to choose—to choose each other or to choose to walk away—and to do it without interference from those who wouldn’t know of the affair unless they saw it with their own eyes. That was a natural law; and therefore an obvious sign to JJ that Sola was wrong and he was right.

So he held out hope she would soon realize this, even while unable to fathom such a reversal in his own moral code. The great irony? His involvement with her hadn’t lessened his desire to save the world, but strengthened it. So how could it be wrong? Besides, his heart’s longing was a small, private matter: he wished only to love whom he wanted, to be with whom he chose.

But she was right about one thing. Why should he be the only one not getting what he wanted? Why should every small pleasure be sacrificed to duty? If he was going to die in the same gruesome fashion as his parents—a risk he took every time he stepped from his sanctuary—then he should be allowed to take joy where he could. So when she woke and turned to him in the middle of the night, asking yet again why he bothered fighting her kind, he smiled against her side.

“I need to,” he said simply. “I’m a superhero.”

“You’re a man,” she said, her throaty voice soft as smoke, her hand resting on the tattoo that was both shadow and light. “I have what you need.”

Yes. For some reason he needed her, too.