by Lyn Benedict
“Sylvie,” Lio said, a rumble that carried desperation. “They just want to talk.”
“I’ve got a phone,” she said. “And I’m in the book.”
“We’re old-fashioned,” the ISI squad head said. “We like face-to-faces to be on our turf. Don’t worry. We can be gracious hosts.”
It took more willpower than she’d expected to take her hand off her gun, to let the female agent take it from her, to let them surround her. She felt a little like a tiger in a big-cat press at the zoo, and from their wary expressions, they felt like newbie vet students.
But then, the ISI’s numbers had taken a hit in Chicago. They might be as green as they looked. The woman patted her down, her touch tentative. “She’s clean, Riordan.”
The squad head—Riordan—opened the door, and she had been right. A black SUV had appeared out of nowhere; no doubt it had been burning gas circling the block, just out of sight. Sylvie took the passenger seat and dared the waiting driver to object. If she was going to be hauled in by the ISI, she was doing it on her terms.
Lio was handed into the back of the SUV, moving stiffly, his bandages evident. They were pristine white, recently placed, and with loving care. Sylvie looked out the tinted window, saw Lourdes slumped against the door frame, and when Lio said, “I had to call you,” she didn’t bite his head off.
“I know,” she said. It wasn’t forgiveness, but it was understanding. The ISI could be real bastards. She didn’t think their threats were anything more than bullyboy posturing, but she couldn’t blame Lio and Lourdes, immigrants from a Castro Cuba, for taking them seriously.
“Just next time, Lio? Give me a fuckin’ hint.”
The SUV growled into movement and Sylvie closed her eyes, wondering what the hell the ISI wanted this time.
There was so much to choose from.
* * *
SHE AND LIO WERE HUSTLED THROUGH A CLAMMY PARKING GARAGE, taken into a basement room big on white paint and cheap furniture, short on charm. They were locked in and left.
Lio swallowed. “Shadows, what’s going on? Feds don’t usually—”
“Did they tell you they were FBI?” she asked. “They’re not. They’re the ISI. Internal Surveillance and Investigation. They’re all about the magic. Did they say what they wanted?”
Lio shook his head, winced, put a hand to the healing lacerations.
Sylvie paced, thought aloud. “It has to involve both of us, or they wouldn’t have brought you along. You’re no kind of leverage against me. No offense, Lio, but it’s true.”
“Lo sé,” he said. “So, the ladies in the Everglades, then? Do you think they know you studied the bodies?”
“They do now,” she muttered.
He grimaced. “Sorry.”
“Ah, they probably knew. Though”—she raised her voice a bit, put an edge on it—“it’s amazing how many things manage to happen right below their noses. Would you believe that a crazy immortal wandered in and out of their Chicago offices at will? And they didn’t notice until she started killing them? I could tell you stories—”
Lio frowned, lost. The door to the room opened, and two agents came in. Agent Riordan from Lio’s house, and a blond fireplug of a man with an ugly expression.
The blond leaned up against the door, crossed his arms over his thick chest. The dark man leaned over the table, tried for smooth and intimidating. Demalion had done it better. “I’m Agent John Riordan. I’ve been assigned to your case.”
“Man,” Sylvie said. “Sucks to be you.” She met his stare head-on, keeping just enough focus on the rest of the room that when the blond agent rushed forward and slapped the table, Lio was the only one who jumped.
Riordan said, “Janssen.” It wasn’t quite a reprimand. Had the weary edge of a We’ve talked about this—you said you’d do better moment.
Silence fell over the room again. Lio, wincing, crossed his arms over his broad chest, gave the young agents a flat stare.
Sylvie said, “You know, I’ve got a complicated reputation. I’ll admit that. But you know what no one’s ever said? That I’m psychic. If you have a question, ask it. I’m not going to guess.”
“Odalys Hargrove,” Janssen said.
“What about her?”
“Tell us about her,” Riordan said. “You two conspired to put her in jail on charges that frankly don’t stand up to decent scrutiny. What’s the real deal?”
Lio said, “You’re here for Hargrove? What about the women in the Everglades?”
“Not my case,” Riordan said. Utterly disinterested. “You’re my purview, Shadows. Not some magical serial killer.”
Sylvie interrupted Lio’s next comment, put her hand down hard on his wrist. His cheeks, beneath the dark patchwork of stitches, flushed to a brick color that made Sylvie think of strokes and heart attacks. “Odalys Hargrove is a necromancer,” she said. She didn’t usually approve of telling the ISI anything, but hell, she’d put this in motion by asking Demalion to pass the word. It wasn’t Lio’s fault they were there. It was hers.
And if she wanted them to do something about Odalys, she needed to make her case against the woman. Otherwise, bad-tempered Janssen and disinterested Riordan would have no problem leaving Odalys to the usual justice system just to spite Sylvie. “She started a nifty little business that transferred the souls of the rich and recently deceased into the bodies of teenagers. It killed the teens, and endangered a hell of a lot of other people in the process. Odalys Hargrove is not someone that jail will keep down for long. Necromancers use organic matter for their magic, and jails are full of that. A scrap of nail, a lock of hair, a bit of blood, and Odalys could take back her power, person by person. Odalys is—”
“Dead,” Riordan said. He dropped into the seat opposite Sylvie; the tight anger on his face eased back, shifted toward skepticism. “You didn’t know.”
“No,” Sylvie said. Kept her denial flat, her surprise minimal. He was ISI; he wouldn’t believe any protestation she could make.
“Get up,” he said. “I have something to show you.”
Curiosity got her to her feet when irritation at being bossed around urged her to settle herself more firmly in her chair. Lio rose a beat behind and was waved back to his seat.
Janssen said, “Want to keep your shield, Detective? Take a seat.”
“It’s all right, Lio,” Sylvie said. Better for him to stay out of it if it was even possible.
The Miami ISI headquarters had moved since the last time she’d looked for it. Given what she could see after a trip up in the service elevator—wide hallways, plush, patterned carpets, the sheer number of doors they passed, all identical, all evenly spaced—she assumed they had taken over the fourth floor of a Miami hotel. The ISI were big on having their offices among other buildings.
When Sylvie had asked Demalion about it, he’d said that it meant they had nothing to hide. Sylvie thought it meant that they had facilities they wanted to hide very badly, and this was their way of throwing off suspicion.
Whatever their reasoning, it made it surreal—her body keeping count of rooms, of familiar proportions—to find, instead of a hotel laundry room, a makeshift morgue.
It wasn’t much of a morgue. Sterile, but small. More like a one-room research lab with a very hefty budget and very small space. Lots of technology; very narrow table in the center of the room. It actually looked more like a chest freezer than anything else. It hummed like one. A chest freezer with a plasticized white sheet draped over a humansized form.
“They found her late last night in her cell,” Riordan said. “Strung up against her bars, and”—he flipped back the sheets—“mutilated.”
Sylvie swallowed hard, concentrated on keeping her face impassive. She had a reputation after all. Hard as nails.
She wished the word “nails” hadn’t crossed her mind. They made her think of hands, and Odalys was down two of them. Sliced off cleanly at the wrists.
“Sends a message, don’t you think?” Riordan said
. “My question is from whom to whom? Can you shed some light, Shadows?” He wasn’t as calm as he wanted to be. His fingers twitched; he stuffed his hands into his pockets.
Sylvie pulled the sheet back up over Odalys’s contorted face; the woman hadn’t died easy. A vicious wound nearly bisected her chest, tearing through ribs and organs, like the world’s worst autopsy student had made a desperate last attempt to impress with effort if not competence. Another agent might take it as a weakness on her part to cover Odalys, but she thought Riordan was just grateful he didn’t have to do it himself. Besides, it bought her some time to think.
Odalys’s death was on her head. She knew that. She’d asked Demalion to pass the word along; she hadn’t anticipated them killing Odalys—though truthfully, she hadn’t thought it through. What had she expected them to do?
Demalion had passed the word along. The ISI had responded. And Odalys was dead. So why were they dragging her in and asking her questions that felt . . . honestly confused?
“Shadows,” Riordan said. “I’m waiting.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “She killed some very influential people’s children. That kind of thing makes powerful enemies.”
“You have a reputation for being a powerful enemy,” he said.
“Does my reputation give me the ability to walk into a secured jail, armed with what? A machete? Hedge trimmers? Sorry, Agent. You’ll have to look beyond me for the killer.”
He leaned back against the door, keeping her contained. “That your only answer?”
“The only one I have that you’ll like.”
“I don’t like it. You could try again. If you have any plans for the day other than babysitting Odalys’s body. I’m curious. Do you think necromancers recover from being dead?”
“No,” Sylvie said. “They’re just dead.” She studied him again, began to get his measure. He might be Janssen’s boss, her new personal spook, but he wasn’t much more than a researcher, someone dragged out of the labs to fill in a manpower gap.
Might even be the answer to why he dragged her in. Odalys’s death provided him a chance to take a crack at her, something all ISI agents wanted.
“You could have gotten into the prison,” he said, testing. “I’ve been following you. You associate with the Ghoul. Our files suggest he has the ability to break in anywhere, unseen and unstoppable. The CIA has him marked down as a threat to national security. You expect me to believe that he couldn’t get you inside the jail?”
“Are you kidding?” Sylvie laughed. Wales spent all his time trying to keep a low profile. Magical murder behind prison bars was not low-profile. “Sorry. I think the bad guy you’re looking for is much closer to home. You should be careful. You might be stepping on toes above your pay grade.”
She turned her back on Odalys’s corpse and reached for the doorknob. He put his hand down over hers; his skin was soft, unmarked. Definitely a newbie in the field. “What do you mean?”
“You said it yourself. The ISI watches me. They probably saw me dealing with Odalys. They probably recognized the threat right away. What do you think the higher-ups decided to do about Odalys’s existence?”
“We don’t kill people,” Riordan said.
“You can tell yourself that all you want,” Sylvie said. “Doesn’t make it so.”
He gave ground; she let herself out into the hall, breathed in the softer air of recently vacuumed carpet, slightly dusty light fixtures, and nothing of bleach and death.
Lio and Janssen broke off their staring contest when she opened the door. Janssen’s face twisted into a scowl. Lio’s didn’t warm much either; in fact, he looked downright angry. “You done playing, Shadows? ’Cause Lourdes is going to be frantic.”
“Yeah, we’re going,” Sylvie said.
Janssen said, “No, you’re not—”
Riordan just shook his head. “Yeah, she is.”
Lio pushed himself up out of his seat; the table creaked beneath his palms. Still hurting, still sore. Sylvie reached to give him some support, and he jerked away from her touch, headed slowly out the door.
“Are you giving us a ride back?” Sylvie asked. “Or do I bill you for the cab fare?”
“I’ll get you a driver,” Riordan muttered. “Don’t get used to it, Shadows. I’m still going to . . .” He trailed off.
“You’re not very good at being threatening,” Sylvie said. “Work on it.”
Sylvie made her way back out toward the front of the hotel, found Lio there, blinking and swaying in the sunlight, and reached to steady him again. He shook her off. “Don’t touch me.”
“What’s your problem?” Sylvie asked. “I should be the pissy one. You’re the guy who turned me in to the ISI.”
“You killed Odalys,” Lio said.
“I did not,” she said. “Christ, Lio, she was in jail.”
“Don’t blaspheme,” he muttered. He paced, forcing some fluidity into sore limbs, gone stiff with his hospital stay, and the no-doubt bed rest that Lourdes would have prescribed. “Janssen said the killer took her hands. That she was tortured before she died. You did that?”
“I didn’t,” Sylvie said. “You have a hearing problem? I don’t kill people.”
“No,” he said. “Maybe not directly. You have pagan gods do it for you.” His voice broke, and in the crack it left, Sylvie saw fear.
She should have expected it. She had expected it days ago, back when she first started to explain the Magicus Mundi to him, had seen a glimmer of panic in his hospital bed, but this—this was the corrosive terror that meant he wasn’t going to cope. He’d wanted to know, and the knowledge was going to break him.
She’d made a mistake telling him.
Into the silence, Lio said, “This is a democratic country. There’s a contract that we keep faith with. We arrest people, we try them, we find them guilty or we acquit them. They are sentenced. Their punishment takes their time and their freedom, or a death that we make simple and clean. We don’t torture for punishment or for proof. We don’t sentence people before their trials. An eye for an eye leaves the world blind. Vengeance destroys what makes us human.”
Sylvie growled. “You were pleased enough that your son’s killers were destroyed. You are a hypocrite, Lio.”
“Perhaps I am. But I didn’t sentence them. You did.”
A black SUV pulled up, smooth as silk, into the roadway before them; a dark-haired woman in a suit got out, and said, “So where am I taking you?” The question was directed at both of them, but the woman’s focus was all on Sylvie.
“You’re taking him home,” Sylvie said. “I’ll find my own ride.” Best to give Suarez some space, some time to calm down. He’d lived through a Castro Cuba, earned citizenship by fighting in the Gulf, worked his way up the ranks in the Miami police. He was a tough bastard.
“Damn,” she said. “I was hoping we could chat.”
Lio eased himself into the passenger seat, closed the door with a solid thud. The driver lingered, standing on the curb, waiting for Sylvie’s response. Sylvie blinked; she hadn’t thought the woman’s attention was anything more than ISI attitude.
“Doubt we have anything to talk about,” Sylvie said. She badly wanted to be out of there, away from the ISI. And this suit in particular was beginning to set off alarm bells. It wasn’t the woman’s poise or confidence, wasn’t the tough-girl vibe that made Sylvie convinced the woman was a brawler and a gunfighter. It was that she acted like she knew Sylvie.
“We could start with the favor I did for you. Or we could talk about Michael Demalion,” she said. “But if you won’t, you won’t.” She saluted Sylvie briefly, a quick twist of her fingers near her brows, a casual gesture that should have been mocking. But the woman’s hand, drawn to Sylvie’s attention, looked . . . bloodstained. A mottled, muddy crimson wash over her knuckles and palm, rising upward to her wrist and beyond.
It wasn’t a birthmark or skin ailment. Sylvie had seen that mark before, and recently.
“Too late,” the woman said. “Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll get together at some point.”
The agent climbed into the SUV and disappeared into the steady stream of traffic. Sylvie, despite wanting to get away from the ISI, found herself meandering gently to the nearest bench and dropping into it. The metal slats were soothingly warm through her clothes, and she leaned back. Her head was going to burst. Ducks squabbled on the green surface of the nearby canal.
Too much information—murdered Odalys, Tepeyollotl, the need to find Azpiazu, Azpiazu’s theoretical immortality, the falling-out with Lio, and now this ISI mind game?
Murderer, her little dark voice whispered, belatedly identifying the female ISI agent. Not by name, but by profession.
Even if she hadn’t mentioned Demalion and a favor in the same breath, Sylvie would have known. She’d done some quiet research on her own since Zoe’s incident, since that same magical scar showed up on her sister’s flesh, trying to figure out what that scar meant. Rumors proliferated—the only clear truths she could grasp were that the scarring was rare and only blossomed on specialized killers. What made them special, no one knew.
Sylvie plucked at the gaps in the bench, drew lines between the bars, bridging the eternally distant, and gave in to impulse. She called Demalion.
It rang, but he didn’t answer. She disconnected before Wright’s voice mail could pick up, waited.
Her phone buzzed. “Shadows,” she said.
“Sorry, honey,” Demalion said.
“You’re at work,” she said. “And not alone. They think it’s your wife calling?”
“Seemed easiest,” Demalion said.
“You got the word out on Odalys?” she asked.
“Took some careful maneuvering, but I did find a willing ear,” he said.
“Did you know they’d kill her?”
The radio sounds in the background, the tangle of voices, and the clatter of movement through a crowded room kept her from demanding an answer when he went silent. Her patience paid off; the background noise changed to wind and distant murmuring. “Taking a cigarette break?”