by Lyn Benedict
“It’s just too sloppy,” Val said. “Even if someone wanted to try to open the oubliette again—which doesn’t make sense—the spell just doesn’t look right.” She dragged Sylvie closer, gesturing with her free hand toward the first looping coil. “Look at this. That Greek there? It’s the signifier—the identity card, the thing that kept this station from becoming a Bermuda Triangle. But it’s not Wolf’s name. It just says Love, and that’s damn broad.”
“Or it says a lot about how they saw him. No one in his own right, just an appendage to Dunne. Their weapon against him.” Sylvie frowned, liking this less and less. How in hell a onetime mundane cop had made such serious occult enemies . . . ?
Well, that was it, wasn’t it? A onetime mundane cop now bearing a god-quantity of stolen power. That had to make enemies. It sure as hell didn’t make the kind of friends you could trust at your back. Maybe it wasn’t that they wanted anything at all from Dunne. Maybe they just wanted to make him hurt, and Brandon was the tool at hand.
Just another innocent in the line of fire.
“It’s still careless,” Val said. “It’s too open-ended. There’s a physical descriptor here, which would narrow it down some.” Val traced an elegant series of squiggles in the air. “Red hair, hazel eyes; sound like your boy?”
“Yeah,” Sylvie said.
“Then you’ve got some bad news for your client,” Val said. “And I’m done.” She began tucking her tools away, pausing to look up at Sylvie. “If he wants the body, I want no part of it. I don’t deal in necromancy.”
“You think I do? Thanks, Val,” Sylvie snapped. “Maybe all I meant was that there’d be closure for him if there was a body found. You’ve been hanging around bad magic too long. There are other things to do with a corpse than fuck it or use it for spellcraft.”
“Uh-huh,” Val said, “And maybe that’s all bullshit.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sylvie said. “He’s not dead, according to Dunne. Weren’t you the one saying that Talents could feel these things?”
“Even Talents can fall into wishful thinking,” Val said as she snapped her case shut. “A normal man could not survive—”
“Not all that sure he’s normal,” Sylvie said. Proximity to the Magicus Mundi changed things, changed people. Brandon Wolf lived with a god.
Val raised an eyebrow, tapped the spell circle with her foot. “Human. That’s in the descriptor, too. You like to rub facts in people’s faces. Here’s one for you. Wolf is de—” A sound penetrated the bubble Val had sealed them in, the click-clack of impatient high heels.
“The hell?” Val said, attention diverted, face shifting from anger to wariness. “Someone’s at the spell edge.”
“Guess I’m not the only one who’s a hard sell,” Sylvie said, though her gut was churning. Silly to think she could recognize the quick steps up above. There was only one set of them anyway. Didn’t they run as a pack? Of course, the other two hadn’t worn high heels when she’d seen them that morning; they had moved soundlessly.
Val licked her lips as if they’d gone suddenly dry. The cobweb spell wavered; a place at the entrance showed the air rippling like a curtain stroked from behind. Sound increased; the previously silenced noise from the streets slipped downward, complaints that the station was out of order, passing vehicles, sirens in the distance. Then, two distinct voices came clear, not caught by the spell, but pushing through it. Sylvie stiffened.
Never deny the gut instinct, she thought.
“He didn’t say to wait—”
“He didn’t say not to—”
“Stop arguing.”
The first two voices were regrettably familiar, the rasping, hungry contralto and the poison-sweet tones: the leather-clad Alekta and the punk one. The third voice, sounding surprisingly normal, if weary, had to be Magdala.
Alekta’s heels clicked on the concrete, distinct bursts of sound that made Sylvie want to find a hiding place and disappear. Beside her, Val muttered frantically, trying to reinforce the spell or trying to dismantle it before it blew apart—Sylvie couldn’t tell.
The Furies took the choice from her, pushing through the wavering shield as if it were nothing more than the cobweb it had come from. Val yelped, her hands flying to her head.
“Sylvie,” the punk sister said, and skipped down the stairs toward her, pleated skirt flaring. “Were you hiding?”
“I’m working,” Sylvie said. “And, hey! Don’t step on the evidence, okay?” To her surprise, the Fury stopped in her approach, blinking down at the spell circle.
“What’s that?” Alekta said. She slunk alongside her sister to split her glare evenly between Sylvie and the circle.
“Oubliette,” Sylvie said. “Swallowed Bran. I was—”
“Kevin,” Magdala said, “come here.” She never raised her voice. “Your PI found something.” Sylvie bristled at the surprise in the girl’s voice.
“Sylvie,” Val whispered, face pale, hands trembling where they clutched her bag. “What are they?”
“Client’s pets,” Sylvie said. Magdala shot her a disgusted glare that had real menace in it. Sylvie put a hand to her back, touching the gun, but their attention had turned again, their gazes all shifting to a point about mid-stairs.
Beside her, Val shuddered; Sylvie heard the faint jangle of her jewelry complain with her movement, but kept her eyes on the man who had appeared without any fanfare.
Since she’d seen Dunne that morning, she had accepted that he was a god, that he had power to spare, that his whims were physical laws the world wanted to obey; she’d forgotten how much like an ordinary man he looked. How tired. How scared.
He came down the stairs, hope flickering in his worried eyes. “You found something?” His voice was rough and quiet.
“Spell circle,” Sylvie said, her own voice uneven, thinking of Val’s conviction that Bran was dead, of the sisters waiting to see this scene play out.
Dunne reached the intersection of spell edge and stair and paused. “This it?”
“Yeah,” Sylvie said. He stepped into the curve of spell, and it went wild.
The swirling greens and blues rose as if they were the water they resembled, winding around him like a whirlpool. Cold winds blew through the station; Sylvie’s ears popped and ached under the pressure.
Over the roar of the not-water, she could hear the Furies shouting. Through wind-stung eyes, she saw Dunne at the heart of a cyclone, and had time for a frantic thought that she was going to lose her client, and was that good or bad, when the spell collapsed in a rush of heat and a sound like tearing metal.
In the lingering silence, Val’s whimpers became gasping breaths. The spell circle gleamed and cracked, its paint flaking and drifting upward into brightly hued mist and dispersing, leaving only faint hints of its presence behind.
Dead spell, Sylvie thought. Very dead. If the Maudits intended to trap Dunne with it, they’d failed. But if they hadn’t—why had it opened at his feet?
“Oh God,” Val gasped, and surged to her feet. “Oh—God—” Her eyes wide with shock and horror, she darted for the entrance.
It took two steps before the Furies were on her, slamming her up against the stained concrete walls. “Witch, why do you run?”
“Stop it!” Sylvie yelled. She grabbed the nearest sister, trying hard not to think about what she was doing, just reached out and grabbed, getting a handful of warmed leather, and yanking her away. Alekta hissed, tongue narrow, black, and pointed, her teeth going sharp.
“Get away from her,” Sylvie said, putting herself between Val and Alekta.
The preppie sister growled, and Sylvie’s gun was out before she had thought about it, out and unwavering in Magdala’s face, Sylvie’s arm braced on Val’s trembling shoulder. Sylvie got a wild-eyed view of the punk sister leaning back against the wall—laughing?
“Dunne, call them off.”
“A trap,” Dunne said, and now Sylvie had no problems seeing him as inhuman. There was an utter blankness
to his eyes, warning that no humanity was at home.
“Val didn’t do it,” Sylvie said, talking fast, hoping to break past that alien barrier to the man beneath. “Val’s my research witch. You know, like an informant? She identified the spell. Hell, she was going to tell me more about it, maybe how to undo it, except someone had to lose his almighty temper and blow up the only piece of evidence we had. Guess being a god doesn’t rule out being an idiot.”
Something touched the barrel of her gun, and Sylvie’s gaze flickered back to Magdala, who was, eww, licking her gun, with an avidity out of place with her prim and proper wardrobe.
“Won’t kill me,” she said.
“Maybe not, but I bet there’d be splatter. Get your button-down all splotchy,” Sylvie warned. “Dunne?”
“Magdala,” he said, “Alekta. Erinya. Stop.” The words seemed to be dragged out of his throat, as if it were an effort to remember how to talk. An effort to act human.
Sylvie shivered, remembering him saying that it was hard to be less than he was.
Val ducked beneath Sylvie’s arm the minute Magdala relaxed, and headed for the street, yanking herself to a walk after a first rapid step that brought the sisters’ attention right back to her. Running was definitely a no-no around those three.
“Excuse me for a moment,” Sylvie said, holstering her gun and setting out after Val. She collected Val’s bag on the way.
She caught up with Val halfway down the block, her pale clothes a beacon in the evening light. “Val—”
Val swung round on her, and Sylvie ducked, waiting for the glimmer of spell casting, that telltale flicker between Val’s fingers. Instead, Val dropped her hand to her side.
“We’re through,” Val said, voice quivering. “I owe you nothing after this. A fucking god, Sylvie. You exposed me to a god.” She snatched her bag from Sylvie’s fingers, hurled it into the street, watched one car swerve around it, and a second drive over it with a soft thud-crunch.
Still the drama queen.
“You done? ’Cause I still have some questions, including why the hell that oubliette tried to eat Dunne. I thought you said it was keyed to Bran?” Sylvie asked. She didn’t have time for Val’s histrionics. Her only lead was gone, and Dunne—she rather thought he was on the ragged edge. Val’s dramatic fits could find a better time to come out and play. Luckily, they were usually short in duration.
Val’s breath rasped in her throat. “Get another witch.”
Usually. Sylvie wondered if this time Val was covering fear with temper. She softened her tone.
“Val, I know you’re scared, but I need you, need your talents,” Sylvie said. “Please.”
Val closed her eyes, her face a pallid, shocky oval in the dark. Her lips trembled. “You don’t have a clue. Do you know what happens to a witch when a god goes off? It’s like being hurled headfirst into a nuclear reactor. I’m burned, Sylvie. Burned to bits. Find another witch. I’m not one anymore.” She wrapped her arms tightly about herself, shuddering.
Sylvie let the shock of it wash over her, felt the rising sickness of guilt trying to claw into her belly. Maybe this wasn’t just another of Val’s melodramatic starts, a sneaky way to get out of a task she didn’t want to do. “Val—”
“What?” Val said. She saw a cab up the street and gestured. Sylvie saw her moment dwindling, while behind her Dunne and the sisters waited. She imagined Alekta’s heels tapping impatiently in the subway and the world suffering tiny seizures at each impact.
“You could still help,” Sylvie said. “You can’t use the magic, but you can still help me—”
“Like I’d want to,” Val snapped, and it sparked Sylvie’s quick temper in response.
“Fine. Don’t help. Then give me the name of a witch who will.”
“You’re cold,” Val whispered.
“No, I’m on the edge of disaster,” Sylvie said. “My only real lead just went up in colored smoke, and while it was pretty, it doesn’t make me happy. You’re hurt, you’re scared, you’re going to split, fine. I can’t blame you. If I could, I’d join you. I can’t. You said it yourself. Dunne’s gone nuclear, and there’s only me between him and a really big flash.”
Val’s face was streaked and blotched with tears, all her cool poise stripped bare. A memory jolt fed Sylvie, the image of Val on a sixth-grade playground, sobbing, while Sylvie fisted her hands and rounded on the class bully who had made her cry.
“I’m sorry, Val. I wouldn’t have called you if I’d known.”
“Yes, you would have,” Val said. The cab drew to the curb, and Val nodded at the driver, darted into the street to retrieve her misshapen briefcase, and climbed inside.
Sylvie put her hand on the cabbie’s door, a wait-a-minute. “Val—” she said. “Your abilities are really truly gone? Don’t abilities grow back, sometimes?”
“You think I’m making it up?”
“You did a lot of lying, in school.”
“This is a little different than avoiding essays. Fuck off, Sylvie.” Val scrawled a phone number on the spell fax and thrust it out the window at Sylvie. “Here’s your new witch. Anna D. A local power. Arrogant as hell. You deserve each other.”
The cab merged into traffic and disappeared, becoming one of many. Behind her, a faint shriek rose, as someone attempted to go down the station’s stairs and ran right into a nightmare, emerged again, shaking and breathless. Sylvie’s paralysis broke as the man ran by. She would apologize later. At the moment, there was simply too much at stake to worry about the damage already done.
Sylvie turned her back on the streets, and rejoined the monsters waiting below.
9
Finding Trouble
IN THE COOL DIMNESS OF THE STATION, THE SCENE HADN’T changed. Dunne stared at the destroyed oubliette, the greasy reminders of paint and malign intent, his expression as blank as a dropped doll’s.
Sylvie thought about that perfect, inhuman stillness and shuddered. People had thoughts; the thoughts reflected themselves on their skins. But Dunne, at the moment, seemed empty. Waiting for something, anything to wake him to movement and purpose.
Before him, Alekta and Magdala walked the oubliette, eyes closed, tracking something intangible to mortal senses.
Erinya winked into sight on the stairs, a punk mirage turning real, startling a shamed yelp out of Sylvie. It echoed the sound she’d heard earlier, the scared man who’d fled down the street.
Alekta raised her head to look at Sylvie, eyes reflecting silver-blue in the sputtering fluorescent light. She lunged forward like a Doberman, all the power in her shoulders, and vanished before she landed.
Erinya brushed past Sylvie and leaned into Dunne’s side.
Dunne blinked at her touch, but made no further movement, never moving his gaze from the stairs, as if he could draw Bran out by sheer attentiveness.
Maybe he could have, Sylvie thought, catching a glimmer of something behind the set stone of his jaw. Some tinge of guilt, self-condemnation. Maybe, if the spell had stayed active, he could have worked his way through whatever it was that shielded Bran from him. If Bran were—
“He’s not dead,” Dunne said.
“What?” Sylvie said.
“The witch thinks he’s dead. He’s not. Don’t let her plant doubts.”
“What, you’re a mind reader, now?” Sylvie said. She felt flicked on the raw. She’d cautioned herself before about assuming it was too late.
He turned his head and looked at her. Blank eyes. Inhuman eyes. Eyes that saw her as nothing more than a faulty collection of molecule and meat. A god’s eyes.
“Shit,” Sylvie said, under her breath. Mind reader, check. Probably went with the whole omniscient thing. Well, might as well hang for a sheep—“You sure ’bout that not-dead thing? Really sure?”
“If he were dead,” Dunne said, each word precise and cold. “If he were dead, the results would be unmistakable. If he were dead, I’d have a name and a face to blame.” His voice rose to a ragged shout;
his jaw clenched until Sylvie imagined tooth enamel cracking. Beside him, Erinya whimpered and dug her head into his ribs, pushing hard enough to hurt.
Sylvie licked dry lips, twitching when Magdala vanished as Alekta had.
“Don’t doubt me, Sylvie.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sylvie said.
Dunne’s hand rose, ruffled through Erinya’s spiky crest of dark hair. “Wrong trails,” she whispered.
“Is that what they’re doing?” Sylvie asked. “Trying to find the sorcerer who laid the spell?”
“As you said,” Dunne said. “I destroyed your lead. The sisters are trying to salvage it, but this is a busy station, and the feel of souls fades.” He tightened his mouth.
Hunting souls? Sylvie said nothing, not wanting to think about the damage that could lead to.
“I’m sorry,” Erinya whispered. “I can’t track as well as the others.”
He tangled his fingers back into her hair. “Not your fault,” he murmured. “I know you’re trying.”
Trying means you go down fighting, that’s all. Trying doesn’t mean you win. Sylvie paced a circle of her own, tired of waiting, sick of that voice in her mind, preaching bile and pragmatism in equal measure.
“We’re running short on time, Sylvie. In my search, I’ve played fast and loose with the rules, and it’s been noticed. They won’t let it stand much longer.”
“They? Other gods?” Sylvie said. Just what this whole mess needed. More powerful looky-loos.
Dunne nodded. “Zeus. Ostensibly, he commands me.”
“I know how that goes,” Sylvie said. “It’s amazing how underrated free will is.”
Erinya stutter-growled deep in her throat, an oddly warm sound. Was she laughing? It almost sounded like it. Erinya eeled out of Dunne’s grip. “I’m going hunting.” She smiled at Sylvie and disappeared.
Sylvie didn’t even recoil when Alekta reappeared at a jog, ducked her head over the circle, and vanished again.
Instead, she said, “What about time? You reversed it this morning. Why not just unwind the moment when he vanished? Or when you blew up our only lead a moment ago?”