by Lyn Benedict
Or he might be on the other side of the magical divide, mourning his glory days, too lazy to be bothered with human insecta.
Azpiazu had told Sylvie that Tepé would follow him; but then again, Azpiazu expected attention, demanded it. Sylvie had only met the sorcerer once, but she had that much of his personality figured out. Sociopath. Attention whore. It was all about him. Either his fear of Tepé was inherent and false, or a frightening possibility. Gods ruined every party they crashed.
It still didn’t make sense. If Azpiazu was cursed by Tepeyollotl, bartering with another god couldn’t happen: “Curse” or “claim,” the words meant the same thing in divine circles.
There was no way that Azpiazu was bartering with one god to keep another one at bay. But if he was dedicating the souls to Tepeyollotl, if he was trying to appease the god . . . That wasn’t it either.
Somehow, Azpiazu was using Tepeyollotl’s own power against him. Using Tepeyollotl’s strength to hide from Tepeyollotl’s curse.
The god wouldn’t stand for that. He’d come searching for his prey. Azpiazu had said as much.
“Sylvie?” Cachita said again. This time, when she spoke, Sylvie ceased her pacing all at once, found her breath rasping in her throat.
If Tepeyollotl were in the area, the world would bend around him. When the god of Justice had walked the streets, the world had rippled and changed according to his will. And he’d been trying to keep the damage minimal.
If Tepeyollotl were in Florida, there would be signs. Undeniable signs.
“Cachita,” she said.
The woman jumped. The chair rattled against the floor like a chattering of teeth, and Sylvie said, “You brought me here to show me your files.”
Cachita nodded. “The women—”
“You’ve got more on the board than just the women,” Sylvie said. She’d get to the women later. Their information could be easily digested. Tepeyollotl required more thought.
“Where they were last seen, that sort of thing.”
“You’ve been hunting Azpiazu. How?”
Cachita frowned. “You know how—”
“How do you choose the clubs you do?”
“Oh!” Cachita said. “Weird shit happening around them. Like the Casa de Dia restaurant. A man who was a monster. Or a wolf seen in the streets. A street where all the lights failed at once. No explanation. Or other things that might be magic.”
Sylvie graced the woman with an honest smile. Cachita wasn’t Alex. Lacked the intuition that made Alex a gem. But she wasn’t that bad. “Things that might be magic. Like . . .”
Cachita said, “Like a murder?”
“Are you asking?” Sylvie said. “Or telling me?”
Cachita shook her head. “Sorry. I meant, there have been some weird murders in the last couple of days. People with their heads torn right off—”
“That’s . . . special,” Sylvie agreed. “But not what I’m looking for.” Murder was pretty direct for a god; she was expecting smaller, more pervasive things. World-warping things.
“You don’t think so?” Cachita asked. “There are some strange circumstances—they were all killed behind locked doors.”
“Were they bastards?” Sylvie said. “’Cause murder’s easy. Sorcerers. Witches. Human hit men. Hell, corrupt cops can call a crime scene secured when it’s not. I’m looking for really weird. Like el monstruo.”
Cachita said, “I’ll keep looking. It would help if you’d let me in on your epiphany. Tepeyollotl means something to you.” Eagerness sharpened her voice. “You know something about him. Tell me. How do you deal with him?”
Sylvie dropped into a chair, studied Cachita across the table, trying to figure out how this was going to go. There was a quantifiable difference, Sylvie had noticed, between someone accepting the sorcerers and monsters of the Magicus Mundi and accepting the gods.
“If the stories you heard are true—if Azpiazu is the original recipe, then Tepeyollotl is a god.”
Cachita’s lips parted. She looked . . . rapt. “A god,” she whispered. Sylvie fought off a shiver. Cachita was a junkie for the Magicus Mundi, which meant working with her was about as safe as working with a known spy. She could go double agent at the drop of a hat, or magical bribe.
“How do you deal with a god?” she went on to ask. “How do you talk to one? Do you think he’ll help you?” Lip-lick. Dilated eyes. Could be fear; could be excitement. Could be both. Cachita seemed like the type to enjoy a scare. “Help us?”
Sylvie grimaced briefly. “Gods are bad news, Cachita. They don’t make a habit of helping. At least not in my experience. Tepeyollotl cursed Azpiazu. I don’t think asking him to remove the curse is going to go over well. Gods don’t like to change their minds.”
Cachita said, “But Azpiazu’s not suffering. He’s pushing it onto others. That’s not what Tepeyollotl intended. He’s probably furious. Probably ready to punish Azpiazu all over again. If he could find him. And if you, if we, tell him about the binding spell in detail, I bet he could find Azpiazu again. . . .”
“And the women?” Sylvie said. “I’m all for Azpiazu getting his just deserts, but Tepeyollotl won’t care about the women. Their souls are already his; living or dead, it’s the same to him.” She wrapped her arms about herself, remembering the hotel room, hiding from that angry, hungry force coming to claim Jennifer.
“Look, Cachita, for all we know, Azpiazu’s curse is specifically designed to feed souls to Tepeyollotl. Aztec gods are big on sacrifice. So, Tepeyollotl’s hitting the mundane world’s about as safe as standing at ground zero when a volcano erupts. People will die. Depending on how much power Tepeyollotl wields, a lot of people.”
Something brushed against the wall, a rasp behind the paper, and Sylvie jumped, realized that Cachita had taped her files right over the window. She peeled back the nearest sheaf of files, and a cat leaped off the narrow sill, slinking back into the depths of the overgrown yard.
“That bad?” Cachita said.
“With gods, it’s best to think worst-case scenario. Best to solve it ourselves and keep Tepeyollotl from even getting involved.”
Cachita said, “You make it sound like kids cleaning up a mess before Mom gets home. How do you hide things from a god?” Cachita had finally caught Sylvie’s growing fear. Her questions were whispers; her eyes flicked around the room as if she expected eavesdroppers.
“Azpiazu’s apparently found a way,” Sylvie said. “But mostly, it’s about acting quickly and not getting their attention in the first place.” She grimaced. Don’t get their attention. Easy enough to say, but their entire plan—breaking the binding spell—hinged on doing something that would set off the equivalent of a neon sign flashing for Tepeyollotl’s attention.
“The binding sigils,” Cachita said. “Can I have copies of them? Maybe I can get some help?”
Sylvie said, “I don’t have them with me.” It was a lie, but the last thing Cachita needed was to start messing around with magic. “I’ve got someone researching them.”
“The Ghoul?” Cachita asked. “He has them?”
Sylvie scowled. “Christ, you are a stalker.”
“I just . . . Those women are in danger,” Cachita said. “I want to help.”
Sylvie sighed. As determined as Alex. She wanted to be useful. Sylvie wanted to use her. Problem was, Sylvie couldn’t trust her. From the furrow in her brow, Cachita was picking up on that. The space between them, littered with names of dead or dying women, grew tense.
“Tell me about those murders, again,” Sylvie said. It was a peace offering of sorts.
“You’ll tell me what the Ghoul finds out?” Cachita countered.
“Sure,” Sylvie said. She might. When Hell froze over. Cachita might want to dive headfirst into the doings of gods and sorcerers, but she didn’t know what she was asking for.
Gatekeeper’s a thankless job, her voice reminded her. And often futile.
Sylvie ignored it. Cachita might be overeager, potentiall
y treacherous, but she didn’t deserve to get ground up by the Magicus Mundi. Later, when her first excitement had burned off, she’d thank Sylvie.
Cachita eyed her, as if everything she’d thought had been clear on her face, and she was deciding whether to let it slide or pick a fight right then, right there.
Sylvie leaned back in the chair, listening to the wood creak faintly, and put her feet on the table. “The murders?”
Cachita caved. “Three of them over the last two days. Two men, one woman. Heads—”
“—torn right off, I remember,” Sylvie said. Interest sparked despite herself. Three people, two days. Someone was busy. And strong. Cut off could be done by anyone with a sharp enough tool and a strong enough stomach. Torn off was monster territory.
If they’d all been women, Sylvie might have considered Azpiazu for it, but Miami was a big city. Big enough for multiple monsters. She reminded herself that she wasn’t a crusader.
“No one’s freaking out about it because they weren’t great people. A drive-by shooter who killed a kid. A rapist who preyed on schoolgirls. A woman who drove her car through a playground during recess. No one’s really mourning them.”
“Kids damaged each time,” Sylvie said. A signature. But not Azpiazu’s. She didn’t know enough about Tepeyollotl to make a judgment. She didn’t think he was doing it himself, but gods could radiate influence. When Kevin Dunne, the god of Justice, had sought his missing lover, the police had turned all their energies to doing his will.
“You think it means something?” Cachita asked.
“Yeah. But not my something. Azpiazu’s enough to deal with,” Sylvie said. “I can’t afford to be distracted.” Easy to say, hard to do. She was distracted. Odalys threatened her friends and family. Patrice was trying to kill her.
Sylvie scrubbed at her face as if she could scrape off the day’s accumulated frustrations. Outside in the garden, cats screamed, and Sylvie twitched.
Cachita said, “It’s late. We can talk about it in the morning. Are you staying? I’ve got a guest room.”
“Yeah, why not,” Sylvie said. Ungracious, but she was thinking about being greeted at sunrise with Cachita’s eagerness to go play with magic, as mindless as a puppy wanting to chase cars on the freeway.
Her ringing phone gave her an excuse to wave Cachita off; she picked it up, stepped out onto a back porch that stank of tomcat.
“So, Shadows, you dead or what?” Wales asked. His drawl clipped off most of the consonants, turned sarcasm into a tired slurry of words.
“Not yet,” she said. His exhaustion was a weight on the line; it made her confession that much harder to voice. She never liked admitting she screwed up. “Hey, Tex? I slipped up. Let that damned reporter know about the sigils. She might come sniffing around, asking questions. For her own good, don’t talk to her.”
There was a long pause on the line, a heavy sigh. “You’re worried about her?”
“You’re cautious,” she said. “You know what can go wrong. It’s all shiny, new, and exciting to her. She wants to play—”
“Idiot,” he muttered. “Keep her away from me. Lois Lanes get the good guys killed in the real world.”
“Speaking of getting killed,” she said.
“Aw fuck,” he said. “No good ever came of a sentence begun like that, Shadows.”
“You remember that Tepé the soul-devourer talked about?”
“You got a lead on him?”
“Tepeyollotl.”
Wales was quiet a long moment, then said, “Isn’t that an Aztec god?”
“The very one.”
“Aw fuck,” Wales said again. Breathless this time, no amusement in it.
“Thing is, Tex, he’s probably not in the world yet. I’d like to keep it that way. And we might have sent up a flare earlier—”
“The thing that came for Jennifer Costas—”
“Yeah,” Sylvie said. “Tepeyollotl come hunting a soul that was dedicated to him.”
“So why is Azpiazu dedicating souls to him if they’re enemies?” Wales said.
Sylvie sank down onto the rickety edge of the porch, dangled her feet over the dark, tangled grass. “I don’t pretend to know how gods think, but if I were Tepé, wouldn’t it be part of punishment? To force your enemy to consecrate souls in your name? A method of increasing your followers?”
“Except Azpiazu’s devouring the souls instead,” Wales said.
“Hence the problem,” Sylvie said. “But the point of all this—stay out of the ether, Wales. Don’t ghost hunt. Don’t draw attention.”
“What about you?”
Sylvie said, “I’m staying at Cachita’s tonight. I think if I tried to get to yours, she’d only follow.”
“I rescind my welcome,” he said. “I could use some downtime anyway.”
“Just you and dead Marco,” Sylvie said. A week ago, that would have been a taunt. Now it was nearly affectionate. Wales might be a necromancer, but he was proving himself an asset. A necromancer, but a good guy. One step from being her necromancer.
“You know it,” he said, and disconnected.
No sorcerers are good guys, her little dark voice objected. Paranoia is healthy.
Sylvie went back into the house, escaping her circling thoughts and the garden stink; Cachita startled away from the back entry, pasting a quick smile on her face. Sylvie gave her back a tight grin. “Eavesdroppers rarely hear good about themselves.”
“Even when they’re playing host?” Cachita asked.
“Sorry,” Sylvie said. “I’m not so good at following rules.”
10
Politics as Usual
SUNLIGHT GLEAMED JUNGLE GREEN AND GOLD THROUGH CACHITA’S kitchen window, a lacy pattern on the dusty floor. Overgrown trees pressed close against the glass, making the room feel dimmer than it should, the day later than it was. Sylvie checked her watch again—8:00 a.m., and Cachita was already gone, doing god knew what, leaving Sylvie to snoop through her house at will.
Pity of it was there was so little to see. Two bedrooms yielded two beds, and, in Cachita’s closet, a handful of discarded clothes. The living room was empty of all furniture, and the dining room held only the table, two chairs, and the walls of paper.
Sylvie closed another empty kitchen cupboard and checked out a drawer that held a collection of dead spiders. She grimaced and slid it shut again. The refrigerator, bulb burned out, held a single take-out container with a fork and knife resting on top.
Hell, maybe Cachita had gone out for breakfast, and was on her way back, coffees to hand.
Her stomach turned over in hope. Her brain suggested she take advantage of Cachita’s absence to get gone before she was saddled with an intrepid reporter for the day. She was tired; she was hungry; she was dressed in yesterday’s clothes. None of that could be fixed by dawdling in Cachita’s house not-so-beautiful.
Her phone rang. “Lio?”
“Sylvie. I need to talk to you. Now,” he said. “My house. Hurry.”
Then silence. A brief spurt of irritation flared, tramped out by worry. Lio had sounded . . . frightened. Maybe Odalys had turned her attention to the man who’d arrested her.
Sylvie gave up the search for anything edible and headed for her truck. She made a quick stop in the dining room, snagged the pics and files on Azpiazu’s victims. Cachita would be pissed, but whatever. Sylvie could do more with the names and files than she could. Most protection spells worked better if they were specific to the person. Wales might be able to ramp up his unbinding spell if he knew the women’s names. If they could find them again.
While the thought was sharp in her mind, Sylvie texted Alex. New research. Azpiazu’s black van. Caridad’s background. She clicked the phone shut, feeling accomplished all out of proportion.
Twenty minutes of driving brought her to Lio’s house. Like Cachita’s place, it was 1920s stucco, set on a small plot. Unlike Cachita’s, it was immaculately kept. The grass was plush and green, the stucco white, the t
ile roof burnished by sunlight and care.
It looked serene, and Sylvie wanted to bask in it rather than step inside to conflict and stress. She wondered what Lio had gotten into that brought that note of desperation to his voice. Wouldn’t find out by standing outside, admiring the lawn.
The white eyelet curtain in the door twitched.
Busted, she thought. As if her truck’s diesel growl and its coughing sputter of a stop hadn’t betrayed her arrival.
She stiffened her spine and marched up the gravel path.
The door opened before her, Lourdes scowling in the frame. “You took your time.”
“Be glad I wasn’t coming from the office,” Sylvie said. “I’d be stuck in traffic for at least another half hour. What’s going on? Is Lio okay?”
The hallway was dim after the brilliant sunlight outside, and the rooms beyond the shallow foyer weren’t lit—Sylvie jerked back, got her hand on the gun, just as the Suit entered the hall.
“Sylvie Lightner,” the Suit said. Mr. Tall, Dark, Angry from the bar. He looked like he was holding a grudge for the embarrassment of the night before. “AKA Shadows. AKA the New Lilith. Scourge of god. L’enfant du Meurtrier. Have I left anything off?”
“Scourge of god’s a new one,” Sylvie said. “I don’t like it.”
“Oh yes,” he said. “Smart-ass bitch.”
“You don’t get to call me that on our first date. Hell, you never even bought me the drink you suggested,” Sylvie said. Her back was against the door; she had the distinct feeling that if she turned, that quiet lawn and street would no longer be so empty. “So you have a name, or do I get to make up one on my own?”
“Don’t make this difficult, Lightner.”
“I’m good at difficult,” she said.
Behind him, two more Suits lurked, a man and a woman, Lio sitting stiffly on the couch between them. He met her gaze briefly, looked away, his mouth pulled tight. Her simmering anger moved to a faster boil.
You have a gun, her little voice prompted. Even a body shield in the form of one sturdy Cuban housewife.