by Lyn Benedict
Even if the murder hadn’t happened practically in her backyard, Bella/Patrice could be linked to Sylvie easily enough through Lio. And Lio thought poorly enough of her at the moment that he might do something rash, something like talking to the ISI. If Bella disappeared, Lio’d be unhappy but unable to get the justice system rolling.
Sylvie said, “You get the body. I’ll get the head.”
Erinya shifted foot to foot. “But I did all the work.”
“I’m the one who summoned you to do it,” Sylvie said. “Cleanup’s part of the job.”
“Fine,” Erinya said. She bent, scooped up the body; blood dribbled down her shoulder. “Where’s your truck?”
Sylvie said, “Give me your jacket.”
“Again?” Erinya dropped the body, shrugged off the jacket. “You’re hard on my clothes, Sylvie. It’s a good thing I like you.”
“It’s a good thing you like bloodstains,” Sylvie said. She spread the jacket on the ground, toed Patrice’s head into the center, and made a neat bundle of it. “Can’t you just magic her away?”
“Not and keep us invisible,” Erinya said. “I’m not really good at the magic part. I’m good at the killing-things part.”
“Yeah, I get you,” Sylvie said. Her mouth stung; she realized she was smiling, straining her split lip. Smiling over a dead body. She stopped.
Erinya sighed. “I’m going to ask Dunne to make you a Fury when you die. You and I can hunt forever. I know he worries about what he should do with you.”
“Nothing,” Sylvie said, “I’m not his.”
“You fight for justice,” Erinya said. “You could be his, no matter your lineage. When it came to it, when you asked for help, for vengeance . . . you drew the scales of justice on Patrice’s doorstep.”
“Tell you what,” Sylvie said. “We move the body now. And God and Dunne can fight over my soul when I’m dead.”
“But that could be such a very long time,” Erinya said.
“Not the way my life is going,” Sylvie said.
“Yeah,” Erinya agreed. “You should be more careful. Tepeyollotl’s skulking around, and he’s a real bastard god. If he hates you, you get your heart ripped out. If he loves you, you get your heart ripped out. Oh! You should take Patrice’s invulnerability charm. It’s not as good as Lilith’s was. It’s only a temporary one, but it’ll help you.”
“No,” Sylvie said. “Those things have hidden costs. I wear it, and someone else suffers, right? Like the tourist who got clipped by a bullet meant for Patrice?”
“Could have been a bad ricochet,” Erinya said. “Guns are no fun. Always best to fight teeth to teeth.”
“That’s not an answer,” Sylvie said.
“Always so suspicious,” Erinya pouted.
“Am I right?”
“Fine. Yes. The talisman would bounce your injuries, your death, to someone else.”
“No,” Sylvie said.
“But you’re more fun than other people,” Erinya said. “You’re sneaky and you’re dangerous and you brought me good sport. A ghost that changed bodies to escape death. I didn’t know humans could do that.”
Sylvie’s breath stuttered in her chest; she stumbled. Patrice’s head squelched nastily inside the jacket. Erinya paused, predatory instincts firing. “Sylvie?” It was a growl.
“Tripped,” Sylvie said.
Erinya’s dark-eyed gaze narrowed; her eyes burned out, leaving black pits in her head. Her hair shifted and spiked toward feathers, losing control of the quasi-human form and taking on the pure aspect of Fury. Sylvie jerked her eyes away, focused them on the safer sight of the lumpy jacket in her arms, growing steadily damper and darker. Looking a Fury in the eyes led to nightmares at best, madness at worst.
Her day was too full for either option.
“You smell like . . . secrets,” Erinya said, keeping pace with her. Her feet on the pavement were clawed; leathery boots shifted into sinewy legs and strong paws.
“It’s my job,” Sylvie said. “Lots of secrets.”
Warmth along the side of her face, and the pinprick of needle teeth closing gently, warningly, along her nape. Sylvie stopped. Her heart rocketed. Erinya would be tasting fear, along with sweat and adrenaline and secrecy.
Sylvie dropped Patrice’s head, punched Erinya in the muzzle as hard as she could. Her knuckles split; the skin of her neck stung as Erinya’s teeth were jarred free.
“Get off me,” Sylvie said. She drew her gun, turned to face the monster. “Look, Eri, I’m probably happier than I should be that you’re not gone, not dead. That doesn’t mean I won’t do my best to make you that way if needed.”
“Something . . . important,” Erinya said. She turned her head this way and that, that strange nightmare creature, half dog, half bird, all hunger. Her forked tongue tasted the air, cleaned the thin smear of Sylvie’s blood from her curving teeth. “I’ll find out.”
“You know what?” Sylvie said. “Leave the body. I’ll take care of it. You, go back to Dunne.”
Erinya laughed, shifting back toward her human guise. Her smile had no warmth in it. “You’re not the boss of me, Sylvie.”
“I summoned you; doesn’t that count?”
“That’s the trouble with calling in mercenaries,” Erinya said. “They’re hard to control. They like to be paid. Give me something, and I’ll leave your secrets alone.”
“And here I thought you were on a god-given mission,” Sylvie said. She picked up Patrice’s head again, grimacing at the splotch it had left on the pavement, and headed for the truck. She focused her thoughts on practical matters, tried to soothe the worry from her mind and body. Erinya’s senses were sharper than any animal’s, and she coupled that with rudimentary mind reading. Sylvie thought hard about whether she’d left the tarp in the truck lockbox, whether the olive fabric would be enough to hide stains, whether the tide was right to drop a body, and when all of those didn’t ease the suspicion on Erinya’s face, she went for the sure shot. She thought of Patrice, dead. Sylvie’s own guilty satisfaction that Patrice wasn’t going to prosper. That her enemy was destroyed.
A sated smile curved Erinya’s lips; her lashes came down, changing anger to pleasure. “I did good.”
“Yeah, you did,” Sylvie said. She gave the praise without hesitation. For one thing, a happy Erinya was an Erinya less likely to pry. For another . . . Well, it had been a job neatly done.
Sylvie had hoped for a more subtle way to kill Patrice. She’d hoped for something that could pass for a medical condition. As far as the world was concerned, Bella Alvarez had already had one serious medical episode. But, once Patrice had started throwing witches Sylvie’s way, it could only end violently.
Erinya slung the body into the back of the truck without even a shrug of effort, wrapped it with the tarp, and climbed into the cab humming tunelessly. Sylvie shivered. It was a human thing to do, and it sounded nothing like human at all. She put the truck into gear and headed out.
Erinya stayed with her long enough to see Patrice’s body slip beneath the deep waters, weighted down with broken concrete and rebar, before vanishing. Sylvie hoped the Fury had gone back to Dunne, to Olympus, to anyplace other than Miami. She didn’t even let a wisp of Chicago cross her mind. Erinya’s disappearance was a bullet dodged. Made Sylvie crazy, though. If she hadn’t been carrying that dangerous secret, she might have been able to recruit Erinya to fight against Azpiazu.
Sylvie ran the truck through a car wash, rinsing off any blood that might have seeped into the back, and called it done.
14
Mirror Mirror
SEEN IN FULL DAYLIGHT, CACHITA’S HOUSE SEEMED ALL THE MORE out of place in what was otherwise a nice old neighborhood. Sylvie parked the truck in front of the massively overgrown lawn, scattering lizards and spotted cats. Feeling eyes on her, she turned. Cachita’s next-door neighbor stood in the doorway, staring over at Sylvie. When she realized she had Sylvie’s attention, she beckoned imperiously.
Sylvie g
ritted her teeth but adjusted her path. The woman, dressed neatly in jeans and a silk shell, looked like the type to get difficult if thwarted. Sylvie wasn’t in the mood for difficult. She forded the grass and stepped onto the neighbor’s close-clipped lawn.
“Are you with the city?” the woman asked. She was younger than Sylvie had thought. In her fifties, not the seventies she had imagined when Cachita had mentioned her cat-crazy neighbor.
“Nope,” Sylvie said. “Just visiting.”
“She’s your friend?” The woman’s mouth wrinkled in disgust.
“Not that either,” Sylvie said.
“Well, tell her I’ve called the city. She needs to get her house cleaned up. It’s an eyesore. It’s always been an eyesore, but we were assured the new tenant was going to fix it up.”
“Your cats seem to be enjoying it,” Sylvie said. “Isn’t there some limit to how many you’re allowed?”
The woman’s brows rose sky-high. “My cats? They’re not mine. They came with her.”
Sylvie absorbed that with a spark of strangely potent anger, nodded once, and stalked off the woman’s lawn.
“Where are you going? I’m not done.”
“Don’t care,” Sylvie said. She stormed up Cachita’s front path, pounded on the door. When there was no answer, she studied the warped front door, the gap that let AC bleed out. She kicked hard just beside the latch; the door groaned. She shifted her weight, braced herself better, and kicked again. The latch ripped through the humidity-rotted wood frame, and the door slammed open.
Sylvie kicked it shut behind her, found Cachita scrambling out of her bedroom, Taser in hand, bare feet, and panicked.
Recognition blossomed as Sylvie snapped on the overhead light, but her expression stayed wary.
“Did you lie about absolutely everything?” Sylvie asked. “Even your goddamned cats?”
Cachita’s shoulders drew tight, then dropped. She said, “You going to shoot me? Or you going to wait for answers?”
“You’re the one with the Taser,” Sylvie said.
“You’re the one with the gun,” Cachita said. Her eyes flickered downward.
Sylvie followed her gaze. One thing Cachita was right about. Sylvie didn’t even remember unholstering the gun.
Fallout from killing Patrice, from hanging out with a Fury. Her temper burned hotter and faster than usual. And that was saying something.
“How ’bout we both put our toys away,” Cachita said. Her voice quivered.
Another act? Or honest fear? Sylvie hated that she didn’t know. “You first.”
Cachita bit her lip, running calculations.
“I’ve got the gun,” Sylvie said. “I’ve got the advantage here.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got nosy neighbors.”
“Put it down,” Sylvie said.
Cachita sighed, let the Taser drop. “Happy?”
“Not even close.” Sylvie gestured Cachita closer, edged around her, picked up and pocketed the Taser; only then did she holster the gun.
“So your little assistant looked into me, I guess,” Cachita said.
“She did. Elena Valdes isn’t your cousin. You aren’t a reporter.”
“Hey, I could be,” Cachita said. It was a feeble rebuttal. The young woman looked suddenly tired. Burdened. It was more than just the sleep disruption; it was ground-in stress that she had managed to cover up with her act.
“Sit,” Sylvie said.
“I’m the host here,” Cachita said. “Just so you remember.”
“Sit,” Sylvie repeated.
Cachita flounced into a seat, a little of her previous attitude surfacing. “If this ends with bondage, I’m going to be pissed.”
“Who are you?”
Cachita laughed. “That’s your question? Isn’t that obvious? Sylvie, I’m you.”
* * *
SYLVIE LOOKED AROUND THE ROOM, THE GLOOM OF IT, THE FILES stapled to the walls, the disorder and chaos of a life, and grimaced. She pulled up the only other seat in the living room, a rickety ladder-back chair with a cane seat, perched on it. “You’re a PI?”
“I’m a god’s bitch,” Cachita said. “Just like you and Justice.”
“I’m no one’s dog,” Sylvie said.
“Then you’re lucky. Or deluded,” Cachita said. She put her face in her hands. “Or your god is kind.”
“Gods aren’t kind,” Sylvie said. “Not their nature.”
“Tell me about it,” Cachita gasped. Laughed again. “Oh god.”
“So you’re Tepeyollotl’s—”
“Yes.”
“He hired you? To find Azpiazu?”
“Hired is a human word,” Cachita said. “I’m not sure there was anything human about what happened to me.”
Sylvie said, “Tell me?”
Cachita shuddered.
“C’mon,” Sylvie said. “You’ve latched onto me. You’ve studied me. You’ve been hunting any excuse to talk to me. You’re dying for an audience.”
“Your girl looked me up? She tell you I was an anthro student?”
“Yeah.”
“Latin American culture,” Cachita said. “I went down there. I worked there. In Mexico. I went down worried about los narcos. About my health. About making something new and noteworthy academically out of plowed ground. I didn’t worry about gods. I didn’t even believe in them.”
“Atheists are fair game,” Sylvie said.
“Know that now.” Cachita rubbed her face. Her lashes were spiky with tears that didn’t quite fall. Too controlled for that. Too tired for the catharsis of it.
“So instead of finding a study topic, you found Tepé.”
“He found me. My dreams first, then my waking hours. Until every moment of every day was filled with his presence. He’s not . . . He’s not very good at communicating,” she said. “It was like being forced under a waterfall while someone yells at you. Except the waterfall was blood and screams and knives. I thought I was going insane. I was insane after a month of it. Then I started waking up with a jaguar in my room.”
“Off-putting,” Sylvie said.
“One word for it,” Cachita said. “ ‘Terrifying’ was another. But it shocked me sane again. It wasn’t in my head, you get that? Something there. Something impossible. But real. Something I could touch. Something I could smell. Other people saw it. I could tell by the screaming.” Cachita shrugged. “The last time I saw it was in a hotel, and it had stopped first to eat some woman’s dog.
“So the next time the yelling started, I yelled back. It was that or crumble. It helped. He stopped sending jaguars and shaking things. Still get house cats and uncontrollable kudzu. And a lot of anger. He wants Azpiazu found. He wants Azpiazu dead.”
“He give you any ideas on how to accomplish that?”
“I just need to summon him,” Cachita said. “That part’s easy. It’s finding Azpiazu that’s fucking things up.”
“Been there, done that,” Sylvie said. “Let’s back up. Summon Tepeyollotl? That’s not going to happen on my watch.”
“You found him? And you didn’t call me?” Cachita wailed it, a woman who learned her chance at freedom might have escaped her.
“You lied to me,” Sylvie said. “I didn’t have any reason to think you’d be useful. Your own damn fault.”
Cachita panted, brought herself under control. “I thought we were going to be partners.”
“You researched me,” Sylvie said. “You know I don’t do partners.”
“What happened?” Cachita said. “With Azpia—”
“I know what you mean,” Sylvie said. She closed her eyes briefly, the better to shut out Cachita’s burgeoning hope. “We found his lair. We saved one of the women. Then he came back and caught us in the act.”
“No,” Cachita said. “No, dammit, he’ll have moved by now! He’ll be gone. You ruined our chance. He’ll be in a new state.”
“He’s not going anywhere,” Sylvie said. “Stop panicking. He wants something, and he’s close
to getting it, Cachita. Stop reacting and start thinking. Why did Tepeyollotl change his mind?”
“What?” Cachita said. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, dared to rise and start pacing. Sylvie watched, but didn’t try to make her sit again. Cachita looked like she was the kind who thought on her feet. “Tepeyollotl changed his mind. . . . You mean the curse?”
“I do,” Sylvie said. “First he curses Azpiazu with uncontrollable shape-shifting and immortality. Then he . . . decides no? To kill him instead?”
“Azpiazu controlled the curse,” Cachita said. “That was never Tepeyollotl’s intention.”
“But it took him this long to decide to send someone after him? A human agent? No. That doesn’t make sense. Something changed, Cachita. You’re not a reporter. But you were a student, and you’ve done decent research. Take yourself out of the equation and think about it. Why kill him now?”
Cachita said, “I’m the first human he’s reached out to in centuries. I knew that. His language. His thought patterns. He’s archaic and totally uninvolved with this modern age. He’s violent and simplistic. He wants. He takes.”
“So what does he want?” Sylvie said. “You can’t tell me you didn’t research him. Not if he’s holding your leash.”
Cachita shook her head, not a rebuttal, but a sort of exasperation. “You want to talk about Tepeyollotl now? Azpiazu’s the problem.”
“Yes and no,” Sylvie said. “Azpiazu’s pissed off the god. He’s outthought Tepeyollotl’s curse and punishment. But if we don’t know how Tepeyollotl thinks—”
“He doesn’t,” Cachita said. “He’s broken. Badly broken. Look, Shadows, here’s a history lesson. Tezcatlipoca was one of the primary gods in Aztec culture. He had . . . aspects, like a mirror. He showed different faces, different things, to his people depending on their needs. He juggled personalities. He reshaped himself, over and over and over. He was clever. He was cunning. He was . . . everything.”
“ ‘Was’ being the operative word,” Sylvie said.