by Lyn Benedict
“People were panicking,” she said. “They crashed through the window, and it startled him. I pulled, and he let go. He ran into the street, then ran into the dark. Out of the light. He howled. . . .”
“Una pesadilla, verdad,” Cachita murmured. “You were very brave. Then and now.”
Gloria shrugged. Unwilling to take praise for simply surviving. She pinned Sylvie with her dark eyes. “Are you a reporter, also?”
“No,” Sylvie said. “I’m a monster-hunter.”
“Bueno,” Gloria said, and disappeared into the kitchen.
Cachita whirled on Sylvie. “What? I come to you with monsters, and you give me shit about being crazy, but her? You just tell her you’re a monster-hunter?”
“She didn’t annoy me,” Sylvie said.
Cachita blew her hair out of her face in aggravation. “I’ve been nothing but forthcoming—”
“You didn’t tell me another woman was missing.”
“You didn’t tell me who Maria Ruben was.”
“You’re the one who wants to make nice,” Sylvie said. “You’ve got the motive to share. And so far, you haven’t. You’ve got a list of missing people you could give me.”
“But you won’t let me work on your team. You’d have shut me out tonight if I had let you.”
“It’s for your own protection—”
Cachita’s lips twisted. “You know what? You can get your own ride back. I’ve got things to do.” She clutched her briefcase, headed into the women’s room. Sylvie propped herself on a table and waited.
She wanted to shake the names out of Cachita but thought the woman was reporter enough to bite her lips and keep silent. Didn’t matter. Sylvie had pictures and Detective Adelio Suarez. She could get the names another way.
Cachita came out of the bathroom, dressed to kill—bright green blouse that dipped low in front and cut out in back. She wore a tight black skirt, bright yellow heels; her hair had been tousled into curls. She rocked back a bit when she saw Sylvie, licked newly red lips. Everything about her was designed to draw attention, down to the leopard-print bangles on her wrists.
“Hitting the streets?” Sylvie asked, pure bitchiness, then paused. Cachita had blinked agreement before her mouth said, “It’s none of your business.”
“Holy shit,” Sylvie said. Pictures of the spellbound women flashed across her memory. All young. All attractive. All Hispanic. “You’re putting yourself out as bait.”
Cachita raised her chin, tossed her hair out of her face. “If the cops won’t, I will. I want him found.”
“And what if you do find him,” Sylvie said. “Or more to the point, what if he finds you? Then what? You’ll whip out your pen and write at him?”
“Better than doing nothing,” Cachita said. “You could always come with me. Lurk in the shadows. Ready to run to my rescue. Oh wait. I’d have to pay you first, wouldn’t I?”
They had attracted an audience, and Sylvie grabbed Cachita’s arm. Tried to. The woman evaded her. Sylvie finally threw up her hands in defeat. “Fine.”
It was irrelevant, really, she thought with a pang of guilty relief. Five women to power the spell, and there were five women she’d left behind. If Mr. Monster was the sorcerer, then Cachita could play monster chum all she wanted, and he wouldn’t bite.
It wasn’t much—there were all-too-human monsters out there—but Cachita was right. It was none of Sylvie’s business. It still felt a little like leaving the spellbound women behind, that guilty discomfort twitching in her veins, when she went outside and called a cab.
THE OFFICE WAS BRIGHTLY LIT AGAINST THE NIGHT WHEN SYLVIE entered, and even better—it smelled of dinner. She sniffed, trying to be discreet, and Alex grinned. “Cuban sandwiches, black beans, and rice. Yours is in the fridge.”
“Thank you,” Sylvie said.
“Petty cash paid for it,” Alex said. She dangled the key to the tiny lockbox from her fingertips, then dropped it back into the desk drawer, kicked back, and put her feet up.
Wales was draped across the couch, barricaded behind the enormous screen of his laptop. Sylvie drifted over, peered behind it. “You know, that’s pushing the definition of laptop,” she said. “Any luck? I’d expected to find you surrounded by occult books by now. You haven’t even cracked a box? Dinner that exciting?” Despite herself, she couldn’t help but let her gaze drift between Alex and Wales suggestively.
Alex laughed.
Wales went scarlet. “I’m a man on the move, Shadows. It’s all in the hard drive. Every occult book I’ve ever laid hands on is scanned in this baby. When you’re wanted by the CIA, you might not get time to pack.”
Sylvie eyed the boxes still piled about the office. “So what’s all this, then?”
“Nonessentials,” he said. “Just because I can winnow all my necessities to one bag doesn’t mean I don’t like having other stuff.”
Alex headed into the kitchenette, dished up Sylvie’s food, and nuked it.
Sylvie swallowed, belated hunger catching up with her.
She snagged it out of the microwave before the timer had run down, ate rice and beans while they were still lukewarm, and said, “So, Tex, the symbols?”
“They’re old,” Wales said. “It’s a strange thing, magic. Trends occur in it, too. This is an old form of symbology. I’ve got two alchemical symbols—” He turned the computer screen toward her, highlighted the images, etched in skin.
“The thing that looks like a calligraphic F on a plain attached to a lowercase y? That’s fusion. This one? The tilted V with loops? Purification.”
“What about the lumpy swastika-looking thing,” Sylvie said.
“It’s not a swastika; it’s a lauburu,” he said. “It’s a Basque symbol, but it’s older than that. It’s a little hard to be sure, but given context—shape-shifting—I’m going to assume it’s Paracelsus’s symbol for animal healing.”
Sylvie frowned. “Purification and healing—”
“Yeah,” Wales said. “I think our sorcerer’s sick.”
“He put women into magical comas and left them in the Everglades. We knew he was sick,” Sylvie said. “Sorcerers tend toward depressingly good health, though. Sick could mean cursed.” It would fit with the man that Gloria and her sons had seen—a sorcerer who lost control of his borrowed skills at shape-shifting.
Alex said, “Tell her about the eye.”
“The bull’s-eye with a line through it,” Sylvie said. “The one Maria Ruben has on her forehead?”
“It’s pretty basic,” Wales said. “It’s a blinding spell. To keep his deeds hidden.”
“It doesn’t work, then,” Sylvie said. “Tatya found them, I found them, the cops found them, we found them again.” She traded the rice for the sandwich, wanting to bite and rend at something. Even when she thought they’d gotten a clue, it was useless. “Are you sure you’re interpreting it right?”
“You’re missing the point, Shadows. That blinding spell ain’t aimed at us. It’s a specific blinding spell. Our sorcerer’s got an enemy.”
Sylvie blew out a breath. She couldn’t tell if that was good news or bad. The enemy of her enemy was her friend. But that only worked in black-and-white worlds. In the real world, there were endless permutations of evil.
The sorcerer who had abducted, enchanted, and bound the women was evil—that, she didn’t doubt. The man he feared?
“What’s the last symbol?” she asked. “The linked ovals.”
“Transformation,” he said. He traced the lightly sketched symbols with his finger, his nails ragged, bloody at the edges. He’d been chewing them, internal anxiety clawing its way out.
“Problem?”
He twitched, opened his mouth, let it close. Fidgeted. Alex leaned closer, said, “What is it? You can tell us. Even if it’s weird.”
“Not one of your clients,” Wales reminded her.
“Then don’t play coy,” Sylvie said. “My clients always hide things from me. Or try to. What’s rocking your
world?”
“Two things,” Wales said. “I think I know what he’s doing. Broad strokes at least. Not the why, not even the specifics, but—”
“Tex—”
“It’s like a power filter,” he said. “Transformation. The power that’s coming in isn’t the same as what he’s getting from it.”
“Like a plant,” Alex said. “Turning carbon dioxide to oxygen.”
“More like money laundering,” Wales said. “Turning power that’s actively trying to injure him into power he can use to protect himself. Using the women’s lives as filters. He’ll have one of these sigils carved into his own skin, the better to link himself to them. To feed off them.”
Sylvie grimaced. “Ugly.”
“It gets worse. I think I know who’s doing it. Except I never thought he was real. He’s a sorcerer’s bogeyman. The soul-devourer.”
“The soul-devourer?” Sylvie repeated. “You’ve seen this before?”
“Not this; if it were this, I would have said at the scene. But it reminded me of something. Got back, started looking at the symbols, and it twigged. There was a kill zone in the Louisiana bayou. A pile of women’s bodies found, their hearts torn out. Some local sorcerers took a look but said they couldn’t even summon the murdered women’s ghosts. That their souls were—”
“Devoured, got it,” Sylvie said.
“I remember that,” Alex said. “That was just after Katrina. They thought it was a serial killer.”
“Serial killer, sorcerer, potato, potahto,” Sylvie said. “Where’s the link, Tex? Our women aren’t dead.”
“There were symbols carved into the flesh,” Wales said. “The police started asking around. And in Louisiana, they don’t make any nonsense about asking the magical folk. If this binding spell is truly a filtering system, the last step would be to kill the women.”
“And steal, bind, or devour their souls,” Sylvie said, flatly. Her shoulders felt heavy, her breath leaden. She loathed magic. Loathed necromancy, which denied the dead even their final rest. “Don’t suppose you can fix it, now that you’ve recognized it? Can you call for help from the others in the community? Your good necromancers?”
“They’d be more like to never speak to me again if I brought them to the soul-devourer’s attention. And if I mess with his spell, believe me, I’ll be a shining beacon for him.”
“Can you do it? Unbind the women before they wither away or get dragged off to have their hearts yanked out?”
Wales lifted a single shoulder, his gaze avoiding both Sylvie and Alex. “No. Maybe? I might be able to slip each of them out of the binding. Thing is, breaking the stasis doesn’t mean I can free them from the power pouring into them. Or the power from changing within them. Those symbols were carved into their skins. They’re black holes for the power.”
“I’m lost,” Alex said. “Who’s pouring all the power into them? Why?”
“It’s a curse,” Sylvie said.
Wales raised his head, caught by surprise, and his eyes were wary and wide. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s my thought. The blinding spell? The soul-devourer is putting some serious effort into hiding his presence. Which implies—”
“Someone’s putting nearly an equal amount into finding him,” Alex said, pleased with herself. Then her triumphant expression froze, faded. “Wait. The soul-devourer’s a sorcerer’s bogeyman.”
“Yeah.”
“And he’s hiding from someone his equal or worse?”
“Got it in one,” Wales said. “We’ve just stepped into a grudge match between seriously amped sorcerers, and I for one would like to go home and beef up my security.”
“You moved out of your apartment,” Sylvie reminded him. “You’re homeless.”
“That’s what hotels are for,” he said. “I’ll call you if I get any leads.” He collected his computer, a change of clothes, the box with the Hands, and headed for the door.
“Hey, Wales,” she said.
He looked back, raised a shoulder. “Yeah?”
Sylvie said, “The ghost girl—Jennifer Costas. She’d be able to tell you more, don’t you think? Who’s hunting him? Why? If you can get her to calm down.”
“Yeah,” Wales said. “She’d know. Guess I’m going to be talking to her tonight.” He didn’t look happy about it, his shoulders stiff, his arms tightening about his boxes so hard the cardboard dented.
Sylvie didn’t feel that good herself. Jennifer Costas should be on her way to her afterlife, claimed by one god or another, whisked away from mortal concerns, and Sylvie kept conspiring to keep her from her rest.
“Wales?”
“What?” he snapped.
“You’re gonna pay for the hotel room, right?”
“You gonna pay me now?”
She hesitated.
“Yeah. Thought as much. Besides, I prefer to stay under the radar,” he said. “And the Hands need to be fed.” At her grimace, he said, “Don’t ask if you don’t want to be told.”
She flipped the latch after him and took his place on the couch.
Alex perched on the desk, and said, “Soul-devourer? That really doesn’t sound good.”
“A necromancer so secretive and vile that the other necromancers won’t name him? Not good is an understatement. Christ,” she muttered. “I hate necromancers.”
“Not Tierney,” Alex said. “He’s helping. He helped you earlier, and he’s helping you now—”
“Ease off,” Sylvie said. “I’m not bad-mouthing him. He’s all right. For a ghoul.”
“I think he’s sweet,” Alex said.
Sylvie said, “Alex? Just hold off on falling for him until we get this resolved? He’s twitchy. You jump him, he’s gonna run. Let’s finish the case first.”
Alex grinned. “Can’t be too long. You guys have a plan.”
“Plans so rarely survive contact with the real world,” she said. She poked listlessly at her sandwich. It was tasty, but she lacked the appetite now. Wales’s pulling the ghost back was dangerous, even if he hadn’t made a big deal of it. Dangerous and repugnant. And necessary.
Sylvie’s thoughts circled. When did necessary stop being an acceptable excuse? When did the means stop justifying the end?
Her little dark voice growled, Someone has to do what’s needed.
“So I called Demalion,” Alex said, and successfully derailed Sylvie’s morbid speculation. She swallowed the first thing that came to mind, the eager question of How was he?
“He going to help with the Odalys issue?” Sylvie sat up on the couch. Alex fidgeted, her gaze on her brightly colored sandals.
“Sort of,” she said, when Sylvie let the silence linger.
“Sort of?”
“He wants you to call and ask,” Alex said.
Sylvie let her breath out. “Well, I guess I don’t need to ask you how he’s doing. That’s classic Demalion.” Her traitorous heart jumped in her chest at the idea of talking to him. Anxiety, excitement, something of both. She dragged herself off the couch, headed up the stairs for dubious privacy.
She closed the door to her private office, sat down, and stared at her phone for a long while, then dialed. The phone rang, and she was concentrating so hard on her lines that she forgot what his would be.
“Wright.” The voice was familiar and not. Demalion’s cadence in Wright’s tenor. It twisted her stomach and made her mute.
“Alex?” he said, then more surely, “Sylvie.”
“Yeah,” she whispered.
A breath let out, a rush of relief in her ear. “I wasn’t sure you’d call.”
“You basically blackmailed me into it,” she said. And maybe this wasn’t so hard after all. They were falling right back into their usual patterns.
“I know you, Syl. You were going to try to cut me off while I . . . accustomed myself to a new life, then you’d get weird and decide it was better not to call. And time would keep passing.”
A smile tugged at her lips, warmed her from the inside out. �
��You learn all that in high school? Either you had a lot of bad breakups, or you didn’t have any.”
“Hey,” he said, “I was suave for my age. Very. You can check my yearbook out if you want.” The background noise around him swelled: people shouting suddenly, a fight going from zero to sixty and ending just as fast.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Police station,” he said. “Seemed simplest to just walk Wright’s beat for a while. Gets me out of the apartment anyway. Gives me an excuse to stay late.”
Yeah, she thought, an excuse to stay away from Wright’s wife and son. She wanted to know how that was going, didn’t want to know at the same time. That was another reason she hadn’t called. She felt like someone’s mistress.
“So, Odalys,” she said, ignoring the whole mess, retreating to the safety of business. “You still have any way of getting info to the ISI?”
“I can’t believe you want me to,” he said. “That’s an about-face.”
“She’s a threat,” Sylvie said. “And I don’t have time to deal with it.”
“You all right?”
“I’m working with the Ghoul on a case,” she said. “My client is Adelio Suarez, and the body count is already at four, three of them cops. Oh, and the ISI is sniffing around again.”
Silence from his end, then, “I can be back in Miami by morning if you need me.”
Oh, she was tempted. They brought out the best in each other, worked well together. Did other things well together. She bit her lip hard, said, “Just get Odalys off my back. I’d do it myself, but oddly, it’s as hard to get into a prison as it is to get out.”
“All right. I know someone who can pass the information on.”
“Thanks,” she said. She hesitated. She should hang up now; their business was concluded. “You doing all right?”
“Miss you like hell,” he said. “And I’m in way over my head, but I’m coping. Mostly.”
“Anything I can do?”