Gods & Monsters

by Lyn Benedict

  Alex had ducked, turned away, had covered her face by yanking up her shirt. The cotton mesh wasn’t fine enough to protect her for more than a few moments. Sylvie, sobbing helplessly, letting the tears go, trying to flush out the toxin even as the smoke still eddied in the room, dragged Alex closer, dragged her under her jacket. Alex’s fingers clutched Sylvie’s side, tight bands of panic and fear.

  Cachita had rolled sideways, was vomiting feebly, her face streaming tears and snot.

  Gas-masked men bulled in after the tear gas, and Sylvie heard the first one scream, his cry ending bloody and wet, when Erinya tore into him with talons extended.

  “Erinya, go!” Sylvie said. “Just go. Find us later.” Each word was hard to get out. Each word felt like an eternity between a panicking heart and challenged breathing.

  Erinya’s growl echoed through the room; she dropped the first man, and the others slowed. She turned once, red-black eyes shining like lanterns, and snatched Alex away from Sylvie so quickly, Alex’s nails left gouges through her shirt.

  Erinya vanished.

  Sylvie, fighting to breathe, to stay in control of herself, fumbled her gun from her holster and slid it away from her.

  The last thing she wanted was to be shot by the triggerhappy ISI SWAT team. They couldn’t be anyone else.

  Their timing, as usual, was utterly, world-endangeringly, awful.

  16

  Enemy Engagement

  TWO HOURS LATER, SYLVIE HAD BEEN DETAINED, DETOXED, STRIPPED, scrubbed pink, and given a pair of white cotton pants and a tee to replace her clothes. Her clothes were gone down to her boots. She wiggled her bare toes on the cold tiles, wiggled her ass on the cold, plastic bench, and thought dark thoughts about the goddamned ISI, and the surveillance team who’d decided they’d had enough of watching.

  “Get up,” Agent Riordan said.

  It’d only been a day since she’d dealt with him, and already his shiny was wearing off. He looked ruffled, rumpled, and pissed. His suit jacket was gone, and his white shirt showed sweat stains at chest and pits.

  She leaned against the slicked, easy-to-wash wall, and held back her shiver at its chilly touch. Small defiance. Enough to make his cheeks flush, to make his head jerk sideways to see if the men in the doorway noticed her refusal to respect him.

  If they did, they were either too polite or restrained to show reaction to it.

  “Up!” Riordan said, and gestured them forward. They hesitated.

  “Uh-uh,” Sylvie said. “Bad form to make your men put down their guns to come wrestle with a prisoner. How new are you to this job, anyway?” She stood, stretched. “So where are we headed? Cells? Or interrogation?”

  “Just walk,” Riordan said.

  “So bossy,” Sylvie said. She moved anyway. She wasn’t up for a fight. Or at least, not a pointless one. Azpiazu was still out there, still glomming up power.

  The hallway was clean, crisp, tile-floored, white-walled. Not the hotel this time. Some other facility. Still in the city, but where? Would anyone know to look for her?

  Sylvie felt the first trickles of real worry creep into her blood. She mocked the ISI often enough, and they did earn her scorn, but . . . they were still the government, with government resources and the laws on their side.

  All she had was Alex. And maybe not even her. Memory flashed; Erinya yanking Alex away.

  The two silent men sandwiched her, a wall of armed muscle on either side. She might not respect Riordan, but he respected her enough to hem her in.

  They moved her along at a quick pace, trying to deny her the chance to cause trouble, trying to keep her off balance. The tear gas might have been cleared from her system, but she still felt shocky and sore.

  An elevator took her upward, and, stepping out, she got a view through a narrow window. The downtown skyline, up close. They were probably in one of the newer condominiums, barely finished and foreclosed on. Snapped up cheap by the government.

  Sylvie had expected, given the scrubs, the bare feet, the escort, to be shoved into a room turned cell. Instead, she was marched through a reception area and into one of the single most ridiculously opulent offices she had ever seen, all white marble and dark, glossy furniture. The man behind the mahogany desk didn’t raise his head, just jabbed his stylus at one of the steel-and-leather chairs. “Sit.”

  Riordan leaped to attention and Sylvie evaded him, taking a seat herself and propping her dusty bare feet on the edge of the desk. “I’m seated. Now what?”

  The man raised his head briefly, flipped his attention back to the tablet before him. He matched his office. Steel grey hair, black eyes, all hard edges and gloss. The nameplate on the edge of the desk read DOMINICK RIORDAN, and Sylvie looked back over her shoulder. “Aw, you joined the family firm.”

  The younger Riordan shifted uncomfortably in the doorway, and Dominick Riordan set down his tablet with a click. “Ms. Lightner, you’re here for serious reasons, not to harass my son.” His voice . . . was unfair. Mellow, rich, exactly the kind of voice to elicit trust and contentment in his listeners. Sylvie, looking at that cold gaze, thought it was a warmth as deceptive as a succubus.

  “What would those reasons be?” she asked.

  “You’ve been consorting with monsters.”

  “Is that a crime?” Sylvie said. “No, really, I’m curious. Is that going to be a crime in your new rule book?”

  Riordan hmmed quietly, and said, “I’d forgotten. Demalion was your man. He shared information with you.”

  “Shared more than that,” a woman said, eeling under Riordan Jr.’s arm, and dropping into the seat beside Sylvie. “They were quite a power pair from everything I hear.” She gave Sylvie a bright, insincere smile.

  She was familiar. The agent who’d given Adelio Suarez his ride home. The agent who’d mentioned Demalion with easy familiarity. The agent with the strangely marked hand.

  “Ms. Stone,” Riordan said. “You’re late.”

  “Things to do,” she said. “You know how it goes. I was checking up on Chico in the infirmary.”

  “He make it?”

  “No,” Stone said. “Sylvie’s friend ripped his head off. Kind of impossible to reattach.”

  Sylvie let her feet drop from the desk. Dammit.

  “Still feeling smart-mouthed?” Riordan asked.

  “Didn’t ask you to break into my office. You’re the one who—”

  “Be realistic,” Riordan said. “What did you think would happen? You made enough ruckus that the police were called. Of course we sent someone in. You’re a troublemaker, Shadows. A barometer of things going wrong.”

  Sylvie leaned forward, clenched her hands on the edge of her chair. “Such a waste of your time. There’s going to be a massive smack-down happening somewhere in the city that makes the ruckus at my place seem like a fenderbender. What are you going to do about that? You’ve seen the signs. I saw your people in the Everglades.”

  “Is it you we have to thank for our men missing time?”

  “Focus!” Sylvie said. “A god coming to Miami. Sooner, rather than later—Kind of on a time line, here. If you lock me up, what can you do in my place?”

  “Do you expect a meteorologist to stop a hurricane?”

  Her breath caught in her throat, a thousand words trying to escape at once, gagging her. Beside her, Stone cocked her head as if she could sense even a fraction of Sylvie’s outrage.

  “That’s your plan? To run around telling people to get out of the pool. That a thunderstorm is coming?”

  “What can we do against gods? Nothing. Statistically, it’s irrelevant. Deaths caused by gods are massive, but the real casualties are the deaths caused by witches and sorcerers, by monsters. By people like you.” It all sounded so reasonable in his newscaster voice.

  “You think I’m a part of the Magicus Mundi?”

  “You’re telling me you’re not? That being the new Lilith means nothing? That it’s a human thing?”

  “It’s the quintessential h
uman thing,” Sylvie said. “The ability to say fuck you.” Whatever else it meant, whatever expectations the title came with—Sylvie knew that much was true. She was still human, still had free will. Everything else was just details.

  He leaned across the desk, and said, “What was the creature in your office?”

  “No one you want to tangle with.” Sylvie sneered at him. “She’s one of your hurricanes. Too much for you to handle. Maybe you should just . . . report on her. Tell people to run for their lives.”

  “Caridad Valdes-Pedraza said it was a Fury,” Stone said beside her. “One of the creatures who turned Chicago inside out.”

  “And you wonder why we name you an enemy,” Riordan said. “One city through turmoil’s not enough for you? You want to go for two?”

  “I want to save my city,” Sylvie said. “You’re the ones who’re jeopardizing it.” She turned on Stone. “When you talked to Cachita? Did she tell you that she’s got a god waiting on her words? That he’s not a patient god? That he’s not even a particularly bright god? He’s been manipulated by a sorcerer he meant to punish. He’s not happy.”

  “And you can make him happy?”

  “Nothing can,” Sylvie said. “At best, we can keep him . . . elsewhere.”

  Riordan tapped his stylus thoughtfully on his desk. “Convenient that it requires you to be set free.”

  “And Cachita,” Sylvie said. “Just to be clear.”

  Riordan said, “And Ms. Valdes-Pedraza.”

  “She was carrying an obsidian knife,” Stone said. “A nice weapon. Sharp. For ritual use, I’d imagine.” She gestured obscurely; her red-mottled hand held an imaginary blade with a deadly competence.

  “The kind that might carve symbols in dead women’s skin?”

  Sylvie let out another careful breath. “If you’re trying to suggest that Cachita is the Everglades killer, you’re dangerously off target. If you’re planning on using her as a scapegoat, it won’t last. Azpiazu’s appetite is too big.”

  “Take her away,” Riordan said, shaking his head. “It’s late. I’ll deal with her tomorrow.”

  “Am I charged with anything?” Sylvie snapped. “Are you sure you can keep me?”

  “Bella Alvarez went missing earlier today. I think we can keep you until she shows up. As a person of interest. Actually—” He paused to smile. It was a nice smile, showed just the right number of teeth, made his eyes crinkle with laugh lines. Whatever he was going to say made him happy. “We’re the ISI. We can make you disappear. With no questions asked.”

  “Here I thought you were going to study the supernatural for years before you started carting people off. What was the plan? Five years of study, three years of legal tests, and two years of preparing the world? You’re in year four. Jumping the gun a bit, aren’t you?”

  “Demalion talked too much,” Riordan said. “We’ve had to accelerate the ten-year plan. Because of you.”

  Stone leaned close as the guards moved in. “Should have had that chat with me, Sylvie. I could have given you a heads-up.” Her whisper was a brush of warmth against Sylvie’s cheek.

  That whisper lingered even once Sylvie had been dragged back down into the cold, sterile hallways below, a reminder of a political current she didn’t understand. She hadn’t paid enough attention to the ISI, and she was paying for it. The problem was keeping the city from paying the price as well.

  THE CELL THEY PUT HER IN WAS CLOSER TO A HOSPITAL WARD’S SECURE room than the steel and concrete cage Sylvie had expected. Four walls, a solid door with a wire-mesh glass panel, a number pad beside the door. Sylvie watched the guards punch in the release code—six digits long, easy to understand, that day’s date—but the knowledge wouldn’t do her any good when she was on the wrong side of the door.

  They shoved her in, and she staggered a few steps, stubbing her toes on the bare floor and cursing. When she looked up, she found she had a roommate. Cachita, looking small and huddled in her white scrubs, sitting knees to chest on the lower bunk.

  There was one flickering fluorescent light pressed close to the ceiling, a toilet, and a sink. The walls were highgloss white, shiny enough that she could track almost-reflections in it.

  “Spartan,” Sylvie said. “But at least it’s new and shiny.”

  Cachita’s eyes were red-rimmed; but then, Sylvie was sure hers weren’t much better. Tear gas was wicked stuff. She knuckled an eye in reaction to phantom pain and peered out the window. There were more doors in the hallway, at least three that she could see, but none of them had keypads beside them. Guess she and Cachita were roommates by necessity. The ISI wasn’t prepared for the full-time jail business yet.

  She wandered back over to the sink—ten steps at a tight stride—and slurped some water from the faucet. Mineral strong and chlorine rough on her throat, but it felt good going down.

  “Well, this sucks,” she said. “You think we’re being monitored? I don’t see anything. No mikes, no cameras, but they’re making them so small these days.”

  Cachita let out a strangled sob, and Sylvie turned. Maybe her eyes were red from the tear gas. Or not exclusively. “Hey, you okay there? They hurt you?”

  Cachita knotted herself tighter, wrapped her arms around her knees, her hands around her shoulders. Her hair was loose and messy and dark, stringy from the chemical shower they’d been put through. Tears leaked steadily down her cheeks.

  Sylvie ducked her head, sat down beside Cachita. The mattress gave, springs squeaking with newness, still smelling of the plastic it had been wrapped in. “Huh. Bet they outfitted this room today. IKEA, you think?”

  Cachita dropped her head into the tangled cradle of arms and knees; her shoulders shook. Not with laughter. Even her feet were trying to huddle up into her scrubs. Utter terror and retreat.

  “It’s okay,” Sylvie said. “It’s going to be o—”

  Cachita raised her head, found a spark enough to express her fear. “I’ve been to Mexico, Sylvie. People disappear there. If the government doesn’t like you. If los narcos don’t like you. It’s not supposed to happen here.”

  “We’re not here forever,” Sylvie said. “It’s just gonna feel like it.”

  “Sylvie, no one will miss me.”

  “Maybe not, but you know? I’m a big pain in the ass. They’ll miss me. Besides,” she said, feeling her mouth stretch in a grim smile, “we’ll get out. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

  “Yeah?” Cachita asked. Skeptical. Wanting to be reassured.

  “Yeah,” Sylvie said. “You said it yourself. Tepeyollotl’s impatient. Sooner or later, he’ll be checking up on you, and we can get out during the—”

  “Slaughter,” Cachita said. She didn’t look reassured.

  “Hey, on the bright side, maybe Erinya will come instead?”

  “Not funny,” Cachita said, but she relaxed her defensive posture, stretching her legs out before her.

  “No, not funny,” Sylvie agreed. She started pacing again, too antsy to be still even when she knew she should be reserving her strength. Too many worries. Azpiazu and the god, of course. But Alex, also. Was her memory right? Had Erinya abducted Alex in the midst of the chaos? Then there was the ISI and their call to arms, which meant, apparently, arresting her.

  She wasn’t ready for the ISI to get aggressively involved with the Magicus Mundi. She didn’t think they were ready, kept imagining new recruits like Riordan Jr., stumbling into a firefight like today’s, facing a Fury with technology and expecting it to do the job.

  To be fair, Erinya probably could be brought down by bullets. But could she be kept down?

  “Sylvie?”

  “Yeah,” Sylvie said absently. She shivered; the room was chilly. They were going to have an uncomfortable time of it if they were stuck there. The ISI had bought mattresses, but no sheets, no blankets.

  “The woman who interviewed me took the knife.”

  “Good,” Sylvie said. “Less temptation for you to summon him.” She peered at the narrow windo
w inset into the door. It was slowly going as white as the walls. She touched it, jerked her finger back.

  Cold.

  She licked her lip, nervously, sudden images of government “interrogation” techniques coming to her. Environmental discomfort was just the start.

  Except—she held her hand toward the air vent. The air coming out of it felt . . . warm in contrast. The cold was centered outside the door. Then at it. Then inside.

  Sylvie stepped back, shuddering all over. She knew this type of cold. Something beyond physical. A chill of the spirit. A tiny piece of death moving through the living world.

  A ghost walking.

  Cachita hissed and pointed toward the glossy white walls. A third shadow had joined theirs, a narrow human-shaped blur, and when it swayed closer to the wall, it grew grey-shaded and sharper; the wall frosted over.

  “Marco,” Sylvie said. The shadow ducked its head in a nod.

  Cachita shot her a wild-eyed glance. “Who?”

  “Wales’s . . . pet.” But what was he doing here? Sylvie jerked her gaze from the wall to the spot in the cell where Marco stood and saw nothing at all. Damn ghosts. Even when they wanted to communicate, it couldn’t be easy.

  At least, not for her. Not for a non-necromancer.

  Why was Marco here?

  Sylvie shook her head abruptly. Stopped asking herself a question she couldn’t answer and asked Marco instead. “Why are you here?”

  Only after she asked did she realize it wasn’t an easy question to answer if all they had for communication was a ghost shadow that could nod or shake its head. But it seemed to be what Marco was waiting for.

  That bitter cold, that chilled rot swooped in on her again, something biting at her mouth, her lips, a bitter, deathly kiss. She tried to push him off, but only pushed through the gelid unseen mass of him.

  His fingers wrapped her skull, an icy cage around the back of her neck, her cheek, and a freezing fog pressed into her mouth. She gasped, choked. He backed off, and she coughed the fog out.

  It came out, warmed by her living breath, and created sense out of ghostly silence. His words. Her voice. “Wales needs you.”