Sins & Shadows

by Lyn Benedict

  Gentle giant? she thought. Let’s not find out. She fumbled through her pockets and pulled out two crumpled fives. “That cover my friend also?” She gestured toward Erinya, now crouched before the lowermost screen, watching the movement within, like a cat fascinated by a fish tank. No one seemed to object that she was blocking the view. It didn’t require any sensitivity to the Magicus Mundi to see that Erinya was best left unprovoked. Even her human-shaped shell suggested that she was the kind of girl who might knock you down in a mosh pit, then kick you in the head if you complained. Kick back, and she’d grab a bottle and brain you.

  The giant doorman looked at Erinya for a moment, thoughtful; as she felt his eyes on her, she turned and stared back. “Her? Twenty dollars for the trouble she’s gonna make.”

  Sylvie forked over a twenty. He folded his hand around her arm and stamped her inner wrist with a crimson A in a circle. In the dim light, with those jagged lines, it looked more like a botched suicide than anything else.

  “C’mere, girly,” the bouncer said, gesturing to Erinya.

  Erinya’s eyes were full of “me?” Sylvie watched Erinya’s nose wrinkle in distaste, then watched her expression slide toward baffled offense once Sylvie nodded, confirming that yes, the bouncer did in fact mean the Fury.

  Erinya surged to her feet, feral even in the low light, muscles shifting under her fishnet shirt. Her eyes sparked like phosphorus, gleaming white, then green. “I don’t want a stamp.”

  He shrugged. “Then you can’t go in.”

  Prudently, Sylvie distanced herself. The bouncer was on his own. After all, either his soul, conscience, memories—whatever it was that the Furies tested—was clean or not. If it was clean, then Erinya’s hands were supposedly tied by her own nature. Soiled—Sylvie had had enough of jostling with the Furies.

  Sylvie slipped past the giant, into the cubicle he had appeared from, and opened the door hidden in its depths. A hallway greeted her, a mural on either side of her. Oil painting, living colors, not what she expected at all, not after the grimy tech of the anteroom. NDNM grew more interesting by the moment.

  The mural on her left was of a naked giant, handing a blazing box to a group of men huddled before caves. In the gold-shot sky, vultures circled a mountain peak. Sylvie leaned closer. There were words mixed in with the blaze of light, created purely by paint layered deeper in sections than others, words made out of shape rather than color. Sylvie touched it, tracing the elaborate curls—something about fire and gifts and gods and freedom.

  The door at the far end of the hall opened on a wave of sound, and Sylvie stepped aside for a sweaty, chattering group of clubbers.

  She looked to the other side. Eden, the temptation of Eve, instantly recognizable. Eve lingered in a smothering verdant world of tangled vines and roots and dangling branches laden with overripe fruit. It made Sylvie claustrophobic looking at it.

  Beside Eve, the serpent waited, silvery in the dark earth; its tail coiled about a tiny sapling with one delicate fruit gracing its branches. Only then did Sylvie see Eve’s hand outstretched beneath it, fingers straining against the pressing vines, pushing back the intrusive greenery, reaching for the tiny fruit that shone like starlight. Eden as a prison. Serpent as savior.

  Sylvie spotted one more tiny piece of brightness in the mural, near the floor, and bent to look at it. A wolf in profile, standing on a pair of crossed arrows, the whole thing small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. Wolf, she thought. She touched the arrow shaft, and felt more of the tricky bas-relief painting. Tiny letters fought her fingertips, fought deciphering, insisted on being merely texture, but she persisted and found an r, an o.

  A signature. Brandon Wolf. He’d been here, working among his enemies. No wonder the Maudit had condescended to work in a club.

  Wolf’s abduction looked worse and worse all the time. The oubliette argued planning, but this type of planning was another level up. This was the careful infiltration that swamped its victim in lies and betrayal.

  The inner door opened again, and a young man in a staff tee came through, a pack of cigarettes in his hand. “It’s not that scary, you know,” he said, grinning at whatever expression had frozen on her face. “You’ll like it in there.”

  He sauntered on by and headed outside. Sylvie opened the inner door, stepped into the club proper, and was numbed by sudden sensation. She shifted to the side, put her back to the wall and rode the moment out.

  After the silent hallway, the club seemed a riot of sensory overload. Alcohol scenting the air, iced drinks chiming against glass, the pounding drive of the rock music—My Chemical Romance, Sylvie identified absently, Alex’s current favorite—dozens of people talking, breathing, dancing, moving, and the chaotic visuals of a room divided into sections, not by walls, but chain curtains and raised or lowered floors: All of it made her pause to catch her breath.

  Slowly, more details kicked in: The bar was situated to her left, running the length of a cracked, mirrored wall. Men and women leaned on the bar in small groups, talking and gesturing. Directly before her, two steps down led to a dance floor that wound its way through raised sections for seating.

  She took the steps down to the floor, heading toward the bar, watching herself approach in the faceted glass, a tired woman with a troubled face. She looked past the weary lines in her skin and focused on the mirror itself. Though she had thought the glass cracked on first glance, now she saw the joins and seams, and realized that it was deliberately done. The pattern eluded her, and she traded that small mystery for that of the bartender, filling glass after glass with a hasty hand, though the club was far from full. A staff member in the NDNM black tee took a tray from the bartender and vanished toward a swinging door. Backroom meeting?

  Sylvie pushed past a chain curtain and climbed the three steps to the bar. Once on the same level, the cracks in the glass made words, scratchy, sketchy words, but easily readable. Ni Dieux, Ni Maîtres. NDNM.

  While Sylvie had only menu-literacy in French, that phrase she knew. No gods, no masters. The rallying call of anarchists, and a sentiment that Sylvie endorsed wholeheartedly. Most of the misery she’d seen came from people thinking they could tell others how to live or think. She smiled, thinking if she weren’t here for work, this might be a nice place to play.

  The bartender barely glanced up, still tapping drinks that were 90 percent foam, tattoos shifting on his forearms, and Sylvie nodded. New carbonation. Mystery solved.

  “Be right with you, Lily,” he said, raising his voice to compete with the music, the four-foot space between them, and the constant hiss of the tap.

  Sylvie twitched, hearing her own name at first. Then she realized that the sibilance came from the tap, and he had mistaken her for one of the regulars.

  His eyes slewed around—hunting black shirts, Sylvie decided, as he hailed one, a girl with frizzed-out hair. “Mickey, come dump these for me.”

  The girl sighed but grabbed the tray. “Where’s JK?”

  “On break.”

  “I thought Auguste—”

  “He didn’t come in,” the bartender said, “It happens.” The cool was put on, Sylvie could tell. He was ticked and refusing to show it, refusing to let the girl show it; she wondered why. Maybe Auguste was the owner’s golden boy. Auguste—Sylvie remembered the dark tee the Maudit had been wearing, before she blew a hole in it. Auguste, she thought, might not come in ever again.

  “He’s such a shit,” Mickey said. The bartender twitched a shoulder toward Sylvie. The movement had a distinct “shut up, teacher’s watching,” feel about it.

  “Vent all you want. I don’t care,” Sylvie said, inserting herself into the conversation. She took a few steps closer, hooked a stool, and sat, putting her between the bartender and a raised table with three young women. They paused in their debate over the merits of a pair of star-shaped sunglasses to stare at her. One of the women caught Sylvie’s expression and stuck her tongue out before snatching the glasses and resting them in her cur
ly hair.

  The bartender looked over at Sylvie, startled. “I’m sorry. I thought you were . . . Never mind, can I get you something?”

  Mickey took the opportunity to vanish, leaving the laden tray behind.

  “Regular Coke,” Sylvie said, “no additions.” The sugar and caffeine would do her energy level a world of good. She sucked half of it down all at once, then turned to look around, pretending she hadn’t scoped the place already.

  Her order caused a furrow to start in his pierced brow, a wariness in his expression. “You gonna want anything else?”

  “Another Coke, for sure,” Sylvie said. “Maybe a little info. I’m looking for a friend of Auguste’s.” Go with the gamble. Really, in a club this size, how many staffers with French names could suddenly not show up for work?

  “Cop,” the curly-haired woman said, with a dismissive sniff and hair toss. The glasses in her hair caught the light and sparked. “Pay up.” She held out a hand to her table mates, a Paris Hilton wannabe and a sulky brunette, and they forked over dollar bills.

  The bartender shook his head. “Sorry. Drinks I can help you with. Anything else, try the Internet.”

  “Hold that thought,” Sylvie said. “Do I really look like a cop?” She split her glance between the table and the bartender.

  The woman who’d declared her a cop spoke up. “You look nosy, and that’s just as bad. People deserve their privacy. No matter what the government would have you believe.” She tossed her head again, a flash of dark glass in her hair. Sylvie imagined her doing it one time too many and breaking her own neck.

  “Some people forfeit it through their actions,” Sylvie said. She took another long sip of her Coke, crunched ice. They wanted to argue; she could do that.

  “Typical authority viewpoint,” the woman said.

  “You don’t like it, don’t eavesdrop,” Sylvie said. “I’ll just chat with the bartender instead. He’s paid to serve, after all.”

  The bartender’s lips tightened.

  “Kinda ironic, considering the slogan at your back. But there’s always going to be someone like you, just trying to make a living, working under someone else. I’m not trying to hurt you, or anyone like you. I’m looking for one of the alpha types, someone who uses people like you. A woman, a friend of Auguste’s.”

  “Auguste doesn’t have friends.” The bartender walked down the bar to an emptied glass and waved hand, but had to come back for the refill. He refused to meet Sylvie’s eyes.

  “Don’t you tell her anything,” the woman said, with another aggressive nod. “Next thing you know, she’ll be demanding names and making threats. Her kind always does.”

  “Look, chickie,” Sylvie said. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you about the golden rule? If you don’t have anything useful to say, butt out.” From the corner of her eye, she saw the bartender slipping away again.

  “Watch yourself,” the girl said. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.” She raised a hand and wispy flames began to sprout from her palm. Paris and Sulky shared take-that smiles with each other.

  Sylvie swallowed a piece of ice wrong, then laughed until she was breathless.

  “Oh God,” she gasped. “The only way fancy fire-starting could scare me, after the day I’ve had, is if you lit a cigarette with it. Secondhand smoke’s a killer.” She dropped away from the bar and pulled up a seat at the table, unasked. Paris and Sulky screeched their seats aside. “But, hey, if you can do that, you have to know Auguste, right? Two magic-users and all that.”

  Though magic-user was a stretch—what the girl had shown her was akin to a toddler getting to its feet. All show, prone to collapsing at a single touch. The Maudit had undoubtedly scorned her, not only an amateur, but a female. That didn’t mean, though, that the girl had no interest in Auguste.

  The flame wavered in the girl’s hand, and Sylvie said, “Do I need to spell it out? I’m not impressed. Put it out before I put it out for you.” Sylvie slapped the table, and all three girls jumped; the flame went out as if Sylvie had snuffed it. “Thanks,” Sylvie said. “All friends now?”

  “Why don’t you just wait and talk to him?” the Paris wannabe said. Sylvie bit back a grimace. Like that was possible.

  “I’m impatient,” Sylvie said. “It’s a character flaw.”

  The chain curtains parted with a slithering clink just as one song drew to a close on the speakers. In the hush, the squeaks from the girls at the table rang out. Erinya stalked toward Sylvie with murder in her eye.

  “Got stamped?” Sylvie asked, catching sight of a reddish smear on Erinya’s inner wrist. Guess the bouncer was a righteous man, after all.

  Erinya growled. Nothing human at all in the sound, deeper than a human throat could even voice. Sylvie flipped the Fury her wallet. “Guess that means you can drink. If you’re so inclined. Then you can come chat with our new friends.”

  Erinya growled, human this time, complete with a “fuck you,” but turned toward the bar. In the mirror, her reflection swirled, as if it wanted to reveal the monster beneath the skin.

  The pyrokinetic girl leaned forward, capturing Sylvie’s attention, and said, “Auguste has a wand up his ass, but he’s tough enough to take you down.”

  “Unlikely,” Sylvie said. “But Auguste isn’t my interest. I want the name of his friend. You know—the only woman he listens to.” Present tense, she thought, keep it present tense. No need for them to remember that you spoke of him as dead when he turns up missing.

  Pyro hesitated; her friends’ eyes rested on her, and Sylvie said, “Don’t balk now.”

  “Lily,” the Paris wannabe said. “What? Like you wouldn’t have told her?” Pyro humphed in exasperation, and Paris ignored her. “Lily. That’s all I know. She comes around here a lot. She’s a bitch. Kinda like you, actually.”

  “She here tonight?” Sylvie asked. She ignored the girl’s insult. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before. “Answers, anyone?”

  “Haven’t seen her tonight,” Pyro said. “She doesn’t come every night.”

  “Describe her for me.” Sylvie’s tension leaked through; Erinya was suddenly at her side, crouched, staring at the girls with predatory intent. Sylvie touched Erinya’s mesh sleeve, a request for self-restraint. The fabric shivered beneath her fingers, and Sylvie took her hand away, nerves tingling as if a current had passed through them.

  “Ordinary,” Pyro said, and Sylvie’s heart sank. Ordinary. That was not a hopeful word; a woman who could manipulate a sorcerer, who could plan and execute a kidnapping beneath the nose of a god, was hardly ordinary.

  “You might be hot stuff, Helen, but you’re blind as a bat. Lily’s creepy as sin,” Sulky said, speaking for the first time. She turned to Sylvie. “I mean, yeah, she looks normal, unlike your freak-friend there . . .” The girl’s voice trailed off as Erinya’s eyes turned to meet hers. A faint whimper came out of her throat; her muscles locked up, her hands clenched each other beneath the table.

  Flames burst from Helen’s palms; Sylvie caught Helen’s wrists before she could interfere. Helen’s bones and tendons trembled under Sylvie’s tight-knuckled grasp. Fire licked at Sylvie’s skin, dry heat promising pain as it stretched and grew even closer.

  One flamelet touched the leather of Erinya’s jacket and turned a virulent green, stretching tall under the sudden influx of god-touched leather, coiling back toward Helen like a serpent.

  “Erinya’s just taking a look-see, that’s all. You interfere, and there’ll be trouble. More trouble than any of us wants.”

  “I can’t stop it,” Helen said, eyes wide on the flames encircling her fingers.

  “You can. You will,” Sylvie said, implacable. “Or you’ll burn. Take control or lose it. It’s your choice. But if you combust, don’t expect me to put you out.”

  Helen shivered, but the flames began to die back as she pulled in her fingers, one by one. Sylvie relaxed her hold, and when Helen’s flame had become puddles of ash in her hands, she said, “No
w, tell me what you consider ordinary.”

  Beside her, Sulky began to drool. Paris sat frozen, head down, shoulders shaking.

  Helen said, “Dark hair, brown eyes. Ordinary. Not too tall. Not a lot of anything. Wears designer clothes. That’s all I know.”

  Sylvie studied the marks of distress in her face, blotchy cheeks, quivering lips, the blisters rising in her palms. “You should learn to be more observant of the world around you. Save you no end of trouble in the long run. You done yet, Eri? ’Cause her mind’s going to pop any moment now, and that’ll be messy.”

  The Fury turned to look at her. “Eri?” she questioned, offense hovering in her voice.

  “You wanted a name that wasn’t a thing,” Sylvie said, watching Sulky collapse now that eye contact was broken. Helen and Paris grabbed her shoulders and dragged her toward the door.

  Sylvie watched them go, sighing. Ordinary. In a creepy way. Not exactly enough to build an APB on. “You get anything useful?”

  “Alekta’s better at mind-tracking,” Erinya muttered.

  “That’s not a yes,” Sylvie said. “You climbed inside that girl’s soul, scared her into catatonia, and I didn’t stop you. Tell me you got a scent.”

  “I got it,” Erinya snapped. “Mostly. She smells a little like every human. Even you smell like her.”

  Sylvie groaned. “So no bloodhound act. Did you get enough to recognize her if we run into her?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s something,” Sylvie said. She picked up her Coke, gone tepid and flat from nearness to the flames, and gulped the rest of it. Her mouth was dry. “Any visual?”

  “Ordinary,” Erinya said.

  Erinya headed toward the door with the determined stalk of a lioness. Sylvie squawked and went after her. She took three running steps and snagged Erinya’s wrist, heart thumping. No way was she letting Erinya out to hunt, not with a flawed scent that smelled like general humanity.