by Lyn Benedict
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she said.
He growled. “Why the hell not? You’ve been slinging orders all day. Maybe it’s my turn.”
“News flash,” she said, snatching up the discarded boxers and yanking them on. “I’m not one of your ISI flunkies, and one round in the sheets doesn’t mean you’re in charge.”
“Goddammit, Sylvie. . . .”
She studied his face, watching for intent. Movement to her left, and she sidled away from what turned out to be a lamp cord running along the wall.
He ran his hands through his hair, much as she had done, and it seemed to ease his temper. “You think we’ll ever stop fighting?”
“You’re the clairvoyant,” Sylvie said. She sank back down beside him, into his warmth.
He rubbed her back, kissed the nape of her neck.
“You really don’t hear anything?”
To his credit, he paused, head cocked, listening. “No,” he said. “Not a thing. How long have you been awake now?”
“I slept,” she said. Curled next to Tish, smelling of charred flesh, and drowning in dreams of flame.
“But not well,” he said. He stroked a tendril of hair back from her face.
“Comes with the territory,” she said. She closed her eyes, felt the exhaustion lurking, that snake-flash of movement again, and a sudden, silent blue sky. She twitched awake. Gun, she thought, and slipped out of Demalion’s grasp to get it.
He sat up and watched her, professional wariness on his face. Wondering how many monsters came through his door today, her dark voice said. Wondering if Erinya was only the obvious one.
Sylvie stepped into the dark living room, shied as something cool, muscular, and slick slithered past her ankle. She slapped on the light, and there was nothing there. Didn’t keep her heart from racing. Maybe Demalion was right, she thought. Maybe she was sleep-deprived, hallucinating, delusional.
She looked back; he patted the sheets, and they looked warm, inviting, safe.
Faint hissing, the scent of must and mice—Sylvie backed toward the couch, collected her gun with one hand, and tucked herself into the cushions, sweeping the room with her gaze.
“Sylvie?” Demalion padded into the room, bare all over, and she tore her eyes away.
“I’ll take first watch,” she said. She spotted her sneakers, set down the gun long enough to drag them onto her feet, and curled up against the couch’s arm again, gun in hand. “It’s just midnight. I’ll wake you in—”
“The door’s locked. The alarm’s on. The apartment’s secure. Come back to bed, Sylvie.”
“There are things out there that scoff at locks,” Sylvie said. “You know it. I’ve seen it. Never let your guard down.”
“You need sleep,” he said.
“Sleep when you’re dead,” Sylvie said. She stared hard at the crack beneath the apartment door, at the pale line of light seeping through from the hallway beyond. Anything that crept through there would be seen. She needed to worry about the less overt entry points.
“What will it help anyone if you’re too tired to think straight?” He shook his head and closed the bedroom door behind him.
It was the ISI, she thought, that weakened him, made him rely on external safety precautions, like alarms, like backup and calls for help being answered. A bureaucrat’s world. He didn’t understand the dangers here, not down deep in the bone the way she did.
Sleep? No, she couldn’t risk it. Not when her nerves felt as shaken as a rattlesnake’s tail. But she didn’t need all of herself to keep watch. Only her senses, the gun in her hand, like an animal lying in wait. Her world degenerated into fragments. Sit still, shift in the darkness, aim the gun, assess. Relax. Repeat.
The shadows gave way all at once to daylight, a blue sky washing her dreamscape, and she jerked awake. Even she had limits. Three in the morning, and she couldn’t stay awake another minute. She ghosted toward the bedroom; Demalion slept through the faint creak of the door opening, through her path to the bed. He roused when she touched his shoulder, coming awake with an alacrity that pleased her.
“Your turn,” she said, gesturing to the living room.
“What am I guarding against?” he asked. His voice was delicious with sleep, a low rumble in his chest. She wanted to shuck off the clothes, drop the gun, crawl into his arms, and listen to his voice from up close. She didn’t.
“Anything,” she said.
“Something,” he corrected. “You’re afraid of something specific.”
“Snakes,” she said. “I see them, hear them. They’re not there. Not yet. Maybe it’s some warning.”
She waited for him to give her grief, to play the paranoia card, the exhaustion, the hallucinations; instead, he touched her cheek and slid out of bed.
“Put the gun on the nightstand, huh?” he said. “Not beneath the pillow. Be stupid to shoot yourself by accident.”
He stood over her until she laid it down, the soft thunk of it leaving her hand, and kissed her hair, still shower-matted and sex-tangled. “Go to sleep, Sylvie.”
The bed beckoned; she slid into his warm spot and nearly moaned at how good it felt, the smooth cotton, the lazy heat lingering, and his scent, sandalwood and lime, steeped in it. Sleep dragged her down like a sinkhole opening beneath her.
“It’s about time,” a woman said. “Stubborn creature.”
Blue skies arched above Sylvie, a blue so pure and deep that the heavens looked hot to the touch, and shot through with veins of gold fire. Lapis lazuli, she thought, but freed from cold stone; lapis lazuli, alive.
Her eyes watered; she blinked but couldn’t check the tears. She raised her arms before her to block it out and nearly fell from her seat when it proved to be backless.
“Too much, hmm?”
The world shifted. The sky fell in and darkened, turned teak netted with fishermen’s floats in worn and pitted glass. Sylvie’s stone cup of a chair turned to leather and grew a back and arms. The walls shifted from white marble to plaster, and Sylvie smiled. She knew this place, the Mucky Duck, a vacation restaurant she used to go with her family, when she was still young enough to giggle over the waiter’s bottles of string ketchup that they pretended to squirt on customers.
“A dream. This is all a dream. But you’re not,” she said to the voice. Familiar voice. It hadn’t been a wrong number after all. And Erinya had said that Kevin was smart, that he’d find a way to contact her. Guess this was it.
“Quick,” the woman said, making her appearance. A tiny woman wearing something out of Sylvie’s onetime art-history book approached. A toga, Sylvie thought, the woman’s arms bared from fingertip to shoulder bone, showing multiple semicircular scars. No, chiton. But as soon as she identified it, the fabric changed, adjusting itself to the setting. The woman, now sundressed and sandaled, sank onto a stool next to her. “I’m Mnemosyne. Kevin Dunne sent me.”
19
All Gone to Hell
SYLVIE SAID, “DOESN’T HE GET AROUND,” BUT HER ATTENTION WAS gone. Outside the plate-glass windows, beyond the scrubby parking lot, two girls played on the narrow shell-strewn beach, one all gawky legs and windblown hair, racing into her teens, the other a toddler, chasing after her sister so fast that she fell. The older girl turned, dusted the child off, and comforted her with a hug and a smile.
“Things change,” Mnemosyne said, and waved her hand irritably. The window closed over, turned into another netted wall. “You cannot go back. That is the nature of history, that it is in the past. All that can be done is study it, to see the seeds that were planted and anticipate the growth coming.”
“Shut up,” Sylvie said. “I’ve had a long day, and this might be a dream, but I bet it’s not helping my sleep deficit.”
Ignoring her, Mnemosyne continued, “I do not usually involve myself in these matters, but I owe Dunne a great debt.”
“Yeah?” Sylvie said. “Save your life did he? Like a god’s life is worth it. You’ve all lived your share and more.”
Sylvie bit her lip and made a note to herself: Dreamworld equaled no rein on her mouth.
“He did,” Mnemosyne said, still placid, which, perversely, Sylvie found more irritating than a relief. “Do you know how we are created, what we are?”
“Power, flesh shell, broken or unmade, big puff of stealable stuff, got the gist.” Sylvie squinted into the dark corners of the empty restaurant and sighed. She was hungry. She was in a restaurant. Didn’t seem right. A waiter loomed out of nowhere, green duck on his white shirt, and asked for her order.
Mnemosyne squeaked and made the moment sweeter. Guess she hadn’t expected the dream to be more Sylvie’s than hers. But just because she set the stage didn’t mean Sylvie couldn’t control it.
The waiter turned around, her food instantly ready; Sylvie sank her teeth gratefully into the French dip, but it tasted nothing of food and everything of memory. Of sandy days, of salty air, of skin gone sticky with seawater, and the ever-present scent of coconut oil and rubber flip-flops. It exploded in her mind like a little bomb, and she set the sandwich down, near tears. Innocence tasted strange on her palate now. Inedible.
“I apologize,” Mnemosyne said. “History lives around me. It is my task to keep it, to record it, to watch it. I am the Muse of history, and I see all.” The bare skin of her arms rippled, and what Sylvie had taken for dozens of tiny scars blinked open into eyes. In each of them, in the heart of the pupils, Sylvie saw bits of her past.
“Stop it,” Sylvie said. Mnemosyne turned her palms up, showing two moments that Sylvie could only identify as Before and After, Then and Now. In Mnemosyne’s right palm, Sylvie saw herself striding across campus, determined, head held high, and anger in her eyes. Portrait of Girl with a Cause.
In the left palm, Sylvie saw a woman with a gun, eyes blacked by shadows and rage, but a curling smile on her mouth. The face of a murderer. L’enfant du meurtrier.
Do you like what you see when you look in the mirror?
“Stop it,” Sylvie repeated, and Mnemosyne closed her hands. Sylvie felt heat in her own palms and realized she’d brought the gun into her dreams, had it pointed at the Muse. “Dunne sent you. Let’s leave the psych tests and parlor tricks behind and get down to business. I’ve found out who’s behind this. Lilith, the Lilith. If he wants to lend a hand, maybe prove his ability to find anyone he’s laid eyes on, he could drop by.”
“Dunne’s busy,” Mnemosyne said.
“I’ve reached a dead end,” Sylvie said. “I need his help. If you’re all about history, you know I don’t say that often or easily.” Her hand tightened on the table edge; a crack ran from side to side, widening. Sylvie tucked her hands in her lap, like a chastened child. Her dream. Her temper.
“Dunne is trusting you to do what he cannot, while he defends your world and himself. Dunne is not a loved god.”
“No one loves a cop,” Sylvie said. Some of her temper faded. History, huh. Mnemosyne might be able to give her some of the answers that eluded her, questions about Dunne.
“Especially not petty-minded greater gods,” Mnemosyne said. “Whose wives were turned inside out and drained to fuel Dunne. Zeus hates him, and he has never been the most rational of gods. When Dunne first came to power, Zeus had to be coaxed into accepting him, and he laid in a caveat: As it was love that allowed Dunne’s ascension, it was love that kept him there. Should love ever leave Dunne, then he was fair game to be destroyed, the power reclaimed, Hera restored.”
“And now his love’s left him, not by choice, but gone all the same,” Sylvie said. “I don’t suppose Zeus had a hand in arranging that with Lilith.”
“No,” Mnemosyne said. “Zeus would rather concentrate on their rivalry than admit any threat could be poised by a human. It’s shortsighted. If Lilith gains power because Dunne is weakened fighting Zeus, the results will be wars across the multiple heavens.”
“Better than on earth,” Sylvie said. “Look, I’m doing my job. Don’t expect me to care or cry for gods. I like Dunne—sort of—but it’s the man he was, the glimpse I get of that, that I like. Not his opinionated justice-freak god act. And I’m hunting Bran because he’s an innocent, and I’m hunting Lilith because I—”
Beneath her hand, the crack in the table widened, and scales rose to touch her fingers, the faint flicker of a tongue. “Fuck!” She threw herself back and watched the snake slip free, a beautiful, deadly swath of red, gold, and black that poured itself over the edge of the table and vanished.
“Do you see that?” she cried.
“It’s a curse come searching,” Mnemosyne said. “You do make enemies, don’t you?” She reached down and collected the serpent. The coral snake coiled and thrashed in her grip. The eyes along her arm opened to better look at it.
Another sleek head began to protrude from the table crack, and Sylvie said, “So what do I do?”
“Nothing,” Mnemosyne said, and dropped the snake. It curled and hissed, tongue flickering. Sylvie aimed the gun, but hesitated; Mnemosyne didn’t seem concerned, and while gods couldn’t be trusted to care about human lives, they needed her.
“Nothing?”
“It’s questing. It can’t see you. Not cloaked as you are in the scents of others, splashed with inhumanity, and dreaming under my aegis. It’ll vanish with the dawn. A limited sort of curse, all spite and petty arrogance. Borrowed power fuels it.”
Sylvie watched the snakes slipping around her ankles and growled. “A curse on me.” The satanists, she thought, scavenging Dunne’s bleed-off in Miami. The curse alert going active, and Alex on the run. “Can I shoot them?”
“They’re not real to you, as you’re not real to them.”
“I want to hurt them,” she said. They’d made a mistake. Their being human had kept Sylvie from her guns, but now, by stealing power, they’d forfeited that status. She killed monsters.
Mnemosyne shook her head. “Better to elude—”
“No,” Sylvie said. “I’m not going to wait around for them to try again. I want them to see me, feel me, fear me.” At her feet, the coral snakes merged and melded, doubling, tripling, growing in size, until it rivaled the mass of an alligator. Her heart pounded in her ears, panic and rage mingled together.
“Do as you will.”
“I always do.”
The snake suddenly rose and struck, and she dodged on pure nervous reaction. She leveled the gun, and the snake raised itself again like a cobra, and hissed her name, “Shadows.”
“Go away. I’m too much for you to handle,” she said, and pulled the trigger. The bullet blew its head into spatter, and it dissolved back into a dozen or more regular coral snakes, all retreating through the cracked table. “What, giving up so soon?”
Mnemosyne said, “Many people throughout history have taunted their enemies. Many learned to regret it.”
“Shove off,” Sylvie said. “You’ve delivered your message; I’ve given you mine. So the sooner you go, the sooner I can wake up and get back to work.”
Mnemosyne raised her hands, and Sylvie turned her head. “No. No more pretty pictures. Just go. It’s my dream. I don’t want you in it.”
When she looked back, the Muse was gone. Sylvie propped her feet up on the table and noticed that the window to the beach had returned, though the girls were long gone, and night had fallen. Phosphorescent waves curled lazily across the sea, and Sylvie leaned back and watched the sun rise over the water.
Maybe, when all this was done, she’d take a vacation. Make it a long weekend, and pull Zoe out of school. Take Alex, too. They could lie out, watch the tourists burn, and count license plates from around the country. Alex could teach her to parasail, and Zoe could whine when Sylvie wouldn’t let her trot off after cute lifeguards. Maybe it wouldn’t be the carefree time of her childhood, but it wouldn’t be bad at all. Hell, maybe she’d even invite Demalion, if he could be convinced to give up his suits for board shorts.
Sylvie woke to noise with the sensation of having been smiling in her sleep; before she could enjo
y it, the ringing phone was answered, and Demalion’s voice, first sharp, went quiet and furtive.
Maybe I won’t invite him, Sylvie thought. ISI, secretive, son of a bitch. She never even considered that he might be keeping quiet out of basic courtesy; he knew the phone would have woken her, hair-triggered as she was.
She ghosted to the door, leaned into the dim hallway, and heard, “. . . condition?” He listened for a long moment, and the answer didn’t please him. He swore into the phone, still at a whisper, then said, “I told you to watch her. What about the other?”
Watch who? Sylvie wondered, though the prickling heat of her resurgent anger suggested a name or two. You trusted him, the dark voice gloated. You thought you and yours were safe with him.
“No, no, there’s no help for it. Bring her in. But discreetly! And be careful with her, she’s an innocent. She’ll be scared.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t send men to scare her.”
Demalion jerked; his eyes widened, and he looked away despite himself. Guilty, Sylvie judged. But of what?
“Got to go,” Demalion said, and set the phone down.
“Why do I think that I’m involved in that conversation? Why do I know I’m not going to like it?” She crossed her arms across her chest, tucked her hands away when he reached for her.
“Sylvie,” Demalion said. He licked his lips. “I—”
“What did you do?” Sylvie asked. “Bring her in. Who’s her?”
“Zoe,” Demalion said. “Your parents are on vacation, and she’s not safe where she is. Her school was canceled on account of snakes in the lockers—”
“She’s my sister. I’ll protect her. Or I’ll arrange protection for her. I thought we had an understanding—”
Demalion said, “Sylvie, please. I’m trying to help.”
“I don’t need your help,” she said. Her hands fisted. She wanted to throw herself at him, but held back, a little uncertain whether angry grappling wouldn’t lead back to the bedroom. And if he was going to betray her, she wanted it to be a point of pride that she walked away first—