by Lyn Benedict
“You aren’t listening.”
“You’re not saying much,” Sylvie said. “You want me to piss off the cops by sharing stories out of school. You want me to confirm your theory about a monster who’s stealing women. Even if I played along, then what?” Sylvie shook her head. “Crazy talk’s not going to get you far as a freelancer. You’d be better off peddling predigested stories.”
“I’m disappointed,” Caridad said. “I thought you’d respect the truth. But you’re just another cover-up artist.”
Where the previous attempt at scolding hadn’t stung, this one did.
“Tell me something,” Sylvie said. “You know Maria Ruben?”
Caridad’s eyes went wide, sensing some sort of chance in the air. She chewed her lip, flipped through her mental files, raised her chin. “Should I?”
Sylvie sighed. Maria Ruben was the missing person most likely to be newsworthy—her husband saw to that with his ranting about alien abduction. If Caridad Valdes-Pedraza hadn’t put her name on her list of missing people, she was no kind of reporter at all and a waste of Sylvie’s time.
When Caridad stood, preparing to follow Sylvie from the restaurant, Sylvie snapped, “Sit. I’m leaving. You’re not.”
“We could be allies, Sylvie,” Caridad said. “Help each other.”
“You sure you want to volunteer? My most recent ally’s in a bed at Jackson Memorial, torn all to hell.”
2
Looking for Trouble
SYLVIE WOKE THE NEXT MORNING, MOUTH DRY, PANTING WITH ANGER, with a headache born of another night of fitful and furious dreams, trying to solve real-world problems in her sleep.
She hated when daytime frustrations bled into her dreams. It could wreck the whole next day.
Sylvie slapped at the light-blocking blinds, got a quick view of bright, morning sunlight—past time to get up. Time to go get Wales, go look for trouble in the swamps.
She thunked back against her pillow, crooked her arm over her face.
She’d slept like crap, and, while she was tempted to blame late-night indigestion caused by bad pasta, she knew it was all her own doing. Most of the time, she was glad of her own stubborn determination to see a problem through to the bitter end. Most of the time. That same determination turned ugly when the villains went free. When her youngest employee, Rafael Suarez, had died, her dreams had been nothing but her brain chewing on the injustice of it, a hundred different revenge scenarios, ways she could find them and make them pay; she hadn’t actually slept well until his killers had been dealt with.
In the aftermath of the Odalys mess, she’d expected to sleep poorly. Four teenagers had died. Her sister had nearly died. And the mess with Demalion and Wright was nightmare fodder all on its own. Two ghosts, one body; only Wright’s unexpected sacrifice had led to Demalion’s survival. For which she was grateful down to her toes, but it needed adjusting to. How did you deal with your lover walking around in another man’s body, when everything that should have been familiar was strange? Sylvie was still trying to work that one out.
She’d gotten a bit of breathing room when Demalion retreated back to Chicago with his own plans and goals. First, he told her carefully, aware that it was going to be a sore point, he wanted to rejoin the ISI, wanted to be recruited all over again. Sylvie was too glad to have him back to argue.
Besides, his second goal was one she agreed with. Demalion wanted to make sure Wright’s wife and son were taken care of. “No pension for his death,” Demalion had said, “not while I’m wearing his skin.”
How that translated to his pretending to be Wright for a time, Sylvie wasn’t sure. She had ideas of her own. Demalion had grown up without knowing his father. He didn’t want Jamie Wright to do the same.
Sylvie closed her eyes again, trying to figure the damage. Worse to think your father abandoned you? Or worse to see him turned into a stranger?
She started to drift off, dipped into her dreamscape again, and jerked awake, breath fast in her lungs. Again with the violence. Right back where she’d left off the first time. Trying to kill Patrice.
Her dreams had been chaotic things—vivid, distorted images and a strange, wild growling, the scent of blood and corruption. The dreams centered on Sylvie tracking Patrice Caudwell through the city, scouring the dreamscape for sight of Bella Alvarez, the teenager whose body Patrice had taken for her own. But Patrice proved as tricky to deal with in dreams as she was in the real world— Sylvie emptied clip after clip of bullets into her smug face, but the woman refused to die.
That was when her dreams had gone weirder, when a voice rasped over her shoulder, a hand closed over hers, felt but not seen. Like this, her little dark voice said. For vengeance. Like this. Her gun shifted to a blade, her hand guided along a bloody pattern as Patrice fell apart before it.
It had been deeply satisfying in her dreams, less so when she was awake and faced with the reality of the situation. Bella Alvarez’s death was only on the tally Sylvie kept; as far as the police were concerned, the girl was alive and well.
She would have to do something about Patrice. Pity the world was determined to keep her otherwise occupied.
It wouldn’t take long to shoot her, leave her dying in the body she killed for, her little dark voice suggested. Sylvie swallowed back the rage before it could really get started, accepted the thought instead of arguing all the reasons shooting Patrice would be problematic, and moved on with a mental wrench. It was Alex’s idea—a plan to defang the danger that lurked beneath Sylvie’s skin.
A plan to tame you, the voice growled, and Sylvie had a harder time shaking it back: It was true. She had promised Alex she’d try it, but she thought it was doomed to failure. The little dark voice, Lilith’s rage at the status quo, had survived generations and generations; Sylvie didn’t think it could be shut off and ignored like a kindergarten bully. Alex said the voice was part of Sylvie, and therefore hers to control. Sylvie agreed because it was always easier to agree with Alex; but in all honesty, the voice felt separate, a piece of her but not part of the whole. Something extra.
As opinionated as the voice was, it wasn’t always right, and it didn’t make allowances for real-world considerations. Shoot Patrice in Bella’s body and do what with the body, the inevitable investigation? At the moment, it was just too much risk.
Patrice, as little as Sylvie liked it, could wait for Sylvie to come up with a plan. It was simple math. One known murderess roaming free, sampling the joys of being flesh once more, or shape-shifting dead women who could and would kill cops.
Showered, dressed in time-smoothed khakis, boots, and a long-sleeved green T-shirt, she faced the day, knowing that as soon as the dampness from the shower left her skin, sweat would start. But if she was going to be hiking through the ’Glades again, covering up was a necessity. Snakebite, saw grass, and sunburn were a miserable trifecta.
She grabbed a couple of protein bars from the back of the cupboard, made sure she had an extra clip in her bag, and clattered down the concrete risers. That early, the parking lot beside the complex was a tangle of people leaving for work, jockeying for the single exit onto the highway. Sylvie munched her protein bar—mmm, sandy—and bided her time.
Her cell phone rang as she was reaching the main entrance to the Palmetto Expressway, and she fumbled it to her ear. “Yeah, Alex.”
“You’re not at work,” her partner said. “I brought coffee and everything.”
“Not at the office,” Sylvie said, “but I’m working. You catch the news last night? That bomb in the Everglades?”
“. . . You’re not a cop, Sylvie.”
“And it wasn’t a bomb,” Sylvie said. “Five dead women, one of whom burst into flame hot enough to blow up a helicopter, and another turned into a bear—”
“Okay, okay, it’s definitely your case,” Alex said. “What can I do?”
“Hunker down and get ready for company. Seriously, Alex, this whole bomb cover story is thin. Lio thought they’d have Feds desce
nding on them for the bodies in the’Glades—serial killer in a national park. But once this happened—”
“ISI,” Alex said. “Those bastards.”
“Yeah,” Sylvie said. The Internal Surveillance and Investigations agents were never fun to have around. They coupled the usual government-agency attitude with levels of manipulation and secrecy that made them about as trustworthy as the average con man. They talked a good game about controlling the Magicus Mundi, but people still ended up dead. “That’s one of the reasons I’m headed out to the scene today. I want to get there before they do.”
Alex let out an exasperated sigh that Sylvie nearly felt through the phone. “Sylvie. The scene’s going to be swarming with cops and press, and even if it’s not—dead shape-shifters who can’t be all that dead if they’re tearing into people? I don’t like you going alone.”
“Didn’t say I was going alone,” Sylvie said. “I’m picking up Tierney Wales on the way out of town.”
“The Ghoul? Like that’s any better—”
“Later, Alex,” Sylvie said. “Actually, wait—you want to look up monster myths in the Everglades? Just on the off chance that I’m dealing with something more monster, less magic.”
“Swamp apes, chupacabras, three-tailed gators,” Alex said. “Cryptozoology? Be still my heart.” The words were delivered flat, deadpan, but Sylvie thought there might be a genuine thread of excitement in Alex’s tone. Alex did so love the out of the ordinary.
“Just don’t get sucked too much into monster geekdom.”
Alex sighed. “Fine, fine. You sure about the Ghoul? I thought he was small-potatoes magic, a collector, not backup material.”
Sylvie changed lanes, slipping around an obstructionist driver puttering along in the fast lane, garnering curses and blaring horns. It was getting too hard to hear Alex chattering away.
“I think Tierney Wales is a lot smarter and a lot more sneaky than I gave him credit for,” Sylvie said. “At least, I’m hoping so. I don’t have a lot of credit left with the local witches, and I need a researcher.”
“And you think you’ve got credit with him?”
Sylvie hung up on Alex, content in the knowledge that she could blame it on traffic later. She doubted Wales would be glad to see her, but she thought she could still make him see things her way.
* * *
PARKING IN OPA-LOCKA DURING THE DAY WAS NO LESS NERVE-wracking than parking at night. Young men hung out on the corners, too bored, too restless, too angry to be anything but a threat. And they were far less dangerous than the watchers she couldn’t see. Sylvie parked as close as she could to Wales’s apartment, bumping the truck up over the broken curb and bringing it to a halt in the scrub grass and gravel. She showed off her holster as she swung herself out of the truck cab, moved with purpose and intent, and, though the men catcalled her briefly, they didn’t rouse themselves to more.
Even so, wariness tightened her shoulders and chest; if Wales was going to stick around in south Florida, he was going to have to move. She ducked peeling paint as she went through the doorway, maneuvered her way up the cluttered staircase, avoiding the detritus, the empty soup cans, the empty bottles, broken glass, snarls of fishing line, all of it designed to trip a careless visitor.
The last time she’d come to see Wales, it had been dark, and the halls had been shadowed corridors with burned-out bulbs. Daylight made no difference. The shadows were the same, and the smell was worse with the heat of the sun seeping through the plaster.
Second floor—Wales’s one-room apartment, and Sylvie pounded on the door, keeping a wary eye on the hallway, peeling paint the least of the blight visible in the gloom. “C’mon, Wales, I know you’re home.”
Lie, of course; she hoped he was home. Hard to tell. Last time she’d shown up unannounced and pounded on the door, Wales had slapped her into soul shock with a Hand of Glory; she’d woken tied to a chair. She thought they were on better terms now. Or maybe he’d just had second thoughts about using necromantic talismans after the whole mess with Odalys. Maybe he’d had second thoughts about staying in the city at all, and she was kicking a dead dog.
She stopped knocking, stopped calling his name, and just listened.
Scuffling from the other side of the door. Rat? Particularly large roach? A soft murmur that might be a voice in distress or one whispering threats. A chill brushed her skin, a drift like an air conditioner kicking on where there was none. Sylvie drew her gun; the door opened soundlessly before her, ushering her in.
Wales was pressed face-first against the wall, a young man leaning into him, skin-close, blade in his hand. Either the attacker was deaf or insanely determined because he didn’t bother to turn around. Then again, Wales was a necromancer, and it was never a good idea to release a magic-user once you’d started threatening them.
“Hey,” Sylvie snapped.
The young man forced Wales around, kicked his legs out from under him. Wales went down hard on his bony knees, wincing. Wales might be magically talented, but he wasn’t physically strong. His pet ghosts took care of physical danger. So where were they? Sylvie licked dry lips.
The man’s knife stayed tight on Wales’s throat, a strange weapon when guns were easy to come by; but then, the attacker was a strange weapon himself. He dressed like the men outside, but he wore their clothes like a costume. His eyes were cold, purposeful, and calm, with none of the formless anger she associated with the Miami gangs. The knife, now that Sylvie could see it as more than a quick shine, had symbols etched into its blade.
Tread carefully, her dark voice suggested. This was magic versus magic, and she had a gun. Sometimes, that was like quenching a fire. Sometimes, it was like touching a lit match to black powder.
Sylvie let out a steady breath, and said, “Did I come by at a bad time?”
Wales said, “Depends on if you’ve got a lighter on you.” His long-fingered hands reached toward her, and the knife man jerked him back. Sylvie got a quick look at something Wales had wanted her to see: the gape of his jacket pocket—and the Hand of Glory within it. A tool that could drop the attacker in a second. Of course, it would drop Sylvie, too. Even if there were some way to light it without turning Wales’s shirt into a torch.
The knife man dug the very point of his blade into Wales’s neck, skin and blood swallowing the tip. The temperature in the room dropped precipitously; the knife man’s teeth chattered once, then the symbols on the knife began to glow. Wales shuddered, face going grey with more than pain; whatever spell he was attempting was fighting him.
“Call it off,” the knife man said, gritting his teeth. Sylvie could see his skin raised in goose bumps from five feet away.
“Marco,” Wales breathed.
The air warmed; the knife’s glowing symbols faded back to scratches in the metal. “Good choice,” the knife man said.
“Better than yours,” Sylvie said. “Attacking a necromancer in his own home.”
“Lady, just walk away. The Ghoul is going to send a message for me.”
“I’m not the walking-away type,” Sylvie said. She narrowed her gaze. It was going to come down to bullets. Something about the way he said “message” made her think that the words were going to be written with Wales’s blood and bone. It made the risk smaller for her. If Wales was going to die whether she shot or not . . .
“Shadows—” Wales slurred. He was listing to the side, and the blood was still sliding down the edge of the knife, a crimson drizzle on the floor. Not a bad injury, but he looked shocky. Maybe it was the spell on the knife; maybe it was simply fear. Either way, she thought, time was getting short.
“You’re Shadows?” the knife man said. “Then listen. Odalys has a message for you.”
Sylvie raised her gun. She had no interest in anything Odalys had to say.
“If she can kill a necromancer from a jail cell, what do you think she could do to your sister, Zoe?”
Fear and fury ran twin bolts of sensation through her body. Her finger t
witched on the trigger. Both Wales and the would-be assassin flinched. Zoe was already protected, Sylvie thought, and backed herself from the edge. After the first night alone—post Odalys—Zoe had decided that staying with Val Cassavetes at her well-warded estate where she could learn more magic trumped the need to show she could be independent.
“Don’t bother,” the knife man said. “I’m protected.”
“Yeah?” Sylvie said. She studied the talisman he indicated with his chin, a stone amulet with more of the same carved symbols that decorated the knife. She felt the grin spread wide across her face, all toothy nastiness—she recognized that talisman, knew what it was good for. And what it wasn’t.
Sylvie fired; the tense hush in the room exploded, and when the echoes of the gun and the knife man’s shout faded, a new tension took hold. The knife man slammed down to one knee, a hand clamped over his shoulder; his knife hand dangled, the blade dripping steadily onto the floor as if it were an oversaturated towel. Wales pushed away from him like a swimmer leaping into blue waters, skidding forward, and showing sense enough to stay out of Sylvie’s line of fire.
The knife man cursed, anger and fear and outrage all mingled together.
“You should know your tools better,” Sylvie said. “That talisman is protection against the dead, protection against necromancy. This gun? Is all real-world.”
The knife man pressed himself against the wall, his blood adding new swirls to the already stained wallpaper. His fingers tightened on the knife, considering coming back at her, at Wales. Definitely a pro. Sylvie liked big-caliber guns, liked the way they knocked men down and kept them there. This guy was used to being knocked down but not out. She aimed again, and said, “Don’t. You delivered her message. Now deliver mine.