Free The Neon Graveyard by Vicki Pettersson

chasing it still. If he wanted it, so did we—and first.
    “You know what this is?” Tilting his head, Fletcher stepped forward, and the other men crowded closer as well. Kai shrank on his mat, cringing like a dog that expected to be kicked.
    “I told her I did, man.” He jerked his head at me. “In her world—the mortal one, I mean—it’s the healer, dudes. You know . . . it’s on the back of ambulances, doctors’ business cards, that sort of thing. The snake and staff, get it?”
    I fought the impulse to hit myself in the head. No wonder it looked familiar. It was so obvious, so normal, we hadn’t seen it at all.
    “Motherfucker,” Milo whispered, feeling just as stupid as I did.
    “What’s the Tulpa going to do with a doctor?” Gareth asked, crowding closer. The rave behind us had been forgotten.
    “Heal people just so he can kill them again,” cracked Gil.
    Vincent folded giant arms over his chest. “Maybe he’s planning a resurrection, dudes. Just in case.”
    I shook my head. “He can’t be killed now. ”
    “Seriously?” Kai leaned back on his palms, looking from face to face. “You shoobies really don’t know what this is?”
    “The fuck’s a shoobie,” retorted Vincent.
    I put a hand on his chest. “You really do?”
    Kai snorted. “There.”
    We all craned our necks to where he pointed.
    “Just north of Scorpius? See the star cluster?” I quickly located the Scorpio star sign, one of the twelve on the Western Zodiac, and well known to us all. However, this other cluster was not. “That’s Ophiuchus. The god of healing. The Serpent Bearer.”
    My jaw dropped.
    “It’s a fucking constellation?” someone said behind me.
    A tingle went up my spine. I didn’t know why the Tulpa would be interested in the Healer’s star cluster, but in the world of the Zodiac, constellations ruled all. Shivering, I pulled my short coat tighter about me and handed Kai the manual.
    “Research this symbol and that constellation, Kai. Find out the history behind both. The mythology. If it’s Buddhist in origin, study the Buddhist texts. If there are ties with Latin, find the root.”
    “Shaa. I’ll get right on that,” he said, reclining and turning away from us all.
    “Where’s Carlos?” I said, turning to Milo. He’d already told me Carlos had gotten hung up doing something else, yet he hadn’t mentioned anything to me earlier. Milo looked at Fletcher, but we were interrupted by Gareth, running our way.
    “We got company,” he announced, his rooster-comb hair bouncing as he came to a stop in front of us. His eyes were wide, and whatever emotion the others scented on him made them all straighten and turn to the border as one. Vincent, Milo, and Fletcher all edged in front of me so I had to push to my tiptoes. “Another rogue?”
    Vincent grunted. “I don’t think so. She smells . . . Light.”
    She? I inched from behind my would-be protectors, immediately spotting the female form, backlit by bonfires and utterly motionless. My breath left me . . . and stayed gone. “Chandra,” I still managed.
    Vincent’s head tilted my way. “A friend of yours?”
    “Not exactly,” I said, but started forward anyway.
    “So what does she want?” he called out behind me.
    I just shrugged—flanked by Milo and Fletcher—and headed to my old troop mate, my old enemy, to find out.

5
     
    “T hat’s interesting,” I said by way of greeting, inclining my head at the steel baton Chandra had palmed, two-fisted, in front of her. The rogues might come to us weaponless and covertly, but Chandra was a full-fledged troop member now—given the Archer sign when I left—and she stood, chin jutted daringly as her eyes raced over the faces of the grays behind me. I crossed my arms over my chest, and stopped short of the boundary line. “Who made it for you?”
    “We took on a new weapons master,” she answered, making no move to lay aside the weapon, instead looking at Milo and Fletcher like she