Free The Neon Graveyard by Vicki Pettersson Page B

okay with that now.
    Of course, that just meant whatever had her trekking all the way out to the Mojave’s ass side had to be important.
    “How’d you find me?” I asked. Who else knew that we were raving for rogues? The dueling sides of the Zodiac could track each other through the scent of elevated emotion, but rogues, by necessity, were experts at masking their stronger feelings.
    “Well, it wasn’t by your sassy new do,” Chandra finally replied, tilting her head. I let her look: I had nothing to hide. Seeing that, she nodded once to herself. “It looks good on you.”
    I had to fight to hide my surprise. “Well, it’s more to hide from the mortal population than anyone else now. The Tulpa has already seen me like this. So have all the Shadows.”
    “Yet as far as those in the real world are concerned, both daughters of the Archer dynasty are now dead.” One from a nine-story fall from a high-rise, the other victim of an international kidnapping. Now that the sensationalism surrounding both deaths had died down, the local socialite scene was a bit less shiny than before, and most people appeared more annoyed than distraught by our “passing.” It was as if someone had changed the channel during their regularly scheduled programming. “How does it feel?”
    “Freeing,” I said honestly. I could be whomever I chose now. And while my forced approximation of my sister had turned out to be good for me in many ways, it was a relief to lay down that bubbly blond package too. The identity felt like clothing that no longer fit—dated, uncomfortable, and belonging to another time and era. So Chandra was right. Both Archer girls belonged to the past.
    “So you’ve finally stopped hiding,” Chandra said in an overly showy voice.
    “I never hid. I was as transparent as I could be when thrown into a hidden underworld where half the population was already seeking my death.”
    “Well, you did a good job,” she said, crossing her arms. “All that bubble-gum gloss certainly had me fooled.”
    Already forming a retort, my mouth snapped shut. Had Chandra just paid me a compliment?
    “Of course, you did seem to revel in the Olivia Archer disguise.” She lifted her square jaw at my raised brow, then shrugged. “The power it brought you at least. Your last act, in particular, was exceedingly annoying.”
    “Oh.” My lips twitched, and I lowered my eyes, fighting a smile. “That.”
    My last “act” as Olivia Archer, heiress and newly minted owner of Archer Enterprises, was to have a sign moved from the Neon Boneyard, the place where the city’s old, historic signage was collected and stored. The sign I chose for removal was a fifteen-foot, bulb-studded Plexiglas shoe that had once spun above the Silver Slipper Hotel and Casino, and outwardly it was a philanthropic gesture. The historic sign was restored to its former glory and erected downtown for the photo-snapping pleasure of hundreds of tourists nightly.
    But the agents of Light had used that Slipper as an entrance to their underground sanctuary, which lay deep beneath the Boneyard. Mounting it on what was essentially the world’s largest stripper pole was a big middle finger in Warren’s direction, petty but satisfying when I thought of the expression that must have stormed over his face once he learned of it.
    Chandra snorted, recapturing my attention, but her sturdy face remained blank. Glancing at my guards, she jerked her head at the wide expanse of desert. “Can we walk?”
    I looked at Vincent, who inclined his head after a long moment. “You stay on your side of the line. She stays on hers.”
    So with bass thrumming against our backs, Chandra and I turned from the glow sticks and whistles on her side, the campfire littered with rogues on mine, and strode into the desert in much the same way we’d interacted as troop members. Together . . . yet very much apart.
    T he word cosmos means “harmonious order.” Solange—ruler of all Midheaven,