Visions of monsters lunging from the closet and from under my bed had me sighing. Dammit. I’d only just gotten over that phobia.

The elevator slid open and we stepped into a stunted hallway leading to a set of double doors, again in smoked glass.

“Hold the elevator!” The glass swung open and a figure rushed past before halting and backpedaling. “Oh. Hello, Warren.”

“Vanessa.” Warren inclined his head. “This is Olivia, our new Archer.”

“A new Archer? I hadn’t heard.” She feigned shock, then held out a hand. Her grip was surprisingly firm, and I could feel her too-smooth fingertips pressing against my palms, but the rest of her was amazingly normal.

Bronzed skin of middling color, she was of middling height, also, and average weight. Her hair was dark with soft wisps of fringe escaping the bun she’d piled on her head, and revealed a natural curl. There was the taste of the exotic about her, some lineal bent that darkened and thickened the lashes around her honeyed eyes; a cast on her heritage that would allow her to tan easily in the faintest beam of sun, but it didn’t immediately step forward. She could have been anything from African to South American to Middle Eastern. Which meant, I realized, that she’d disappear easily in a crowd. “Vanessa Valen. I’m the Leonine force around here, your sister sign in the Zodiac.”

“Also a fire sign,” Warren offered.

I looked from one to the other, feeling stupid. “Which means?”

“It means you two should make quite a team.”

“It means we kick ass,” Vanessa corrected, smiling, and that’s when everything average about her disappeared. Her smile was wide, brilliant, and infectious…or would have been if it had blanketed her eyes. This smile merely lifted the corners, like light blazing through a drawn curtain before being shut out again. Warren didn’t seem to notice, but knowing about such things, I wondered what past sorrow was presently denying her the right to smile. She turned her half smile on Warren. “Speaking of fire, I heard about the one at the federal building on Friday. Two Shadows, five innocent hostages. What’d you do, smoke them out?”

He nodded. “And sang ‘This Little Light of Mine’ at the top of my lungs.”

“Then they fled willingly. I didn’t know you were religious.”

“Recovering Southern Baptist,” Warren said.

“My brother,” she said, and they high-fived. Vanessa smiled wryly at me. “A style all his own, our Warren.”

“Different drummer and all that,” I said. “Yeah, I noticed.”

“So, see you in the Orchard?”

Warren said, “We’ll be right there.”

“Nice meeting you, Olivia.”

“You too,” I said, and watched as the elevator doors shut behind her. “Seems nice.”

“Vanessa’s one of our most dangerous agents. Sure, she’s nice, but nice like a sleeping cobra. Nice like the calm before a storm. Nice like you.”

“I can be very nice when I want to,” I said, following him into what looked like a dim foyer, though larger, more like a theater-in-the-round.

“Let me know when the urge hits. I’ll log the date and time.”

“Har, har.”

“Now, every city needs all the star signs, a full Zodiac, to be in balance.” He turned in a circle, centered in the middle of the bowed room. It was actually more octagonal than round, a large star stamped into the pavement where Warren stood, motioning to the steel paneled walls. Some of the panels were marked with brightly lit emblems that even I, with my spotty astrological knowledge, knew represented different signs in the Zodiac. “I won’t lie. Our ranks have been blighted in the past year. Either the enemy is getting stronger or we’re getting weaker. In any case, we’re missing five signs, and that’s with you taking up the Archer.”

“And how many star signs does the Shadow side have?”

He bit his lip, and worry swirled in my gut. “All twelve.”

“But Butch is dead.”

He shook his head, eyes clouding over darkly. “They’ve replaced him by now. Whomever it is simply hasn’t revealed themselves yet, and while the new Shadow won’t be as strong, not at first, their initiates are fast learners too.” His voice echoed through the cavernous room as he turned and approached one of the panels. I glanced up at the domed ceiling, a single speck, like a star, binding the corners of the room at the apex. I was sensing a theme here.

“Here,” Warren said. “This one’s yours.”

I lowered my gaze, latching onto the symbol he pointed out, an etching of a centaur; the half-man part of the mythological beast looking suspiciously half woman.

“Go ahead,” Warren urged. “Touch it.”

I did, laying my hand flat on a palm plate, and the emblem flickered, blinked on, and remained glowing in a steadily pulsing heat. It made my eyes ache to look at it. Still, my stomach jumped, and unexpected pride swelled at seeing it, glowing there with the others. Then my eyes fell to a latch, waist height. I jiggled it, and felt an incredulous expression bloom on my face. “It’s a locker?”

“Well, Superman had a phone booth, didn’t he?” he asked, brows raised. “This is much more useful.”

A superhero locker? I drew back. I mean, what was in it? A cape? A mask? Not those gawdawful tights, I hoped. I turned back to Warren. “So, what’s the combination?”

He shrugged. “Only you know.”

I felt my brows climb my forehead. I did? “No, I don’t.”

“Sure you do. Push the button next to the middle slat and speak into it slowly. Think of a password, a phrase, something meaningful to you. Something symbolic.”

I looked back at the locker doubtfully, then grudgingly pressed the button. “Open up, motherfucker.”

“Colorful,” Warren commented.

“Open Sesame!” I tried again. “Abracadabra! Hocus-pocus! Shazam! Shalom! Anyone home?” Then I smacked the panel a few times with my palm.

I straightened and smiled innocently at Warren. “Still not opening.”

“I can’t imagine why,” he said dryly, before suddenly shooting me a smile of his own. Quickly, before I could react, he pulled the photo of Ben from his pocket and shoved it through one of the tilted openings in the locker. My cry of protest was met with a stone hard stare. “When you can open that locker, you’ll be ready to face, and mask, your emotions for Ben.”

Ruthless, Greta had called him…but this was just downright cruel. I clenched my jaw, preparing to argue, but in the middle of my first eye roll my vision snagged on something peculiar, on something that wasn’t there, actually. “That’s the sign of the Scorpio, right? Stryker’s sign?”

My question knocked him off balance. Warren swallowed hard, the cords working in his neck like the breath had caught there. “It was.”

I stared at the symbol; vacant, dark, dead. And though Greta had already explained it, I wanted to hear what Warren had to say. I needed to discover for myself just whom I could trust. “You said the lineage of the star signs was matriarchal. Didn’t this sign revert back to his mother when he was killed?”

“Stryker’s death…” He paused, searching for the right word. “…unhinged Tekla. She’s been in solitary confinement, recuperating in our sick ward for months.”

And he’d put her there. Left her there. I pursed my lips at that. “So the Scorpion sign remains empty? Even though she’s alive?”

“Half alive, and not especially happy to be so.”

This time I felt a sorrow that wasn’t mine coursing through my core. It felt like raw onions curdling in an empty stomach, and I touched a hand there, surprised. I didn’t know it worked both ways. I also didn’t think emotion that strong could be fabricated. “Well, maybe that’s because she’s alone, and has no one to talk to.”

“Maybe it’s because her son was torn apart in front of her eyes,” he said shortly.

I swallowed hard and thought of Olivia, limbs pinwheeling into the night. I nodded. “Can someone else take her place in the Zodiac even though she’s alive?”