by Lyn Benedict
“Sylvie?” he said, turning, seeming oddly off balance, as if the world had shifted beneath his feet. As if he’d suddenly been deprived of a sense.
“Blind?” she asked. She didn’t need confirmation; the way he jerked and tracked her voice was enough.
“My crystal?”
“All right,” she said, and went to fetch it. “I thought this only happened when you spied on them.”
“At first I did, too. I mean, that’s what we were doing when it all blew up in our faces. Sylvie . . .”
“I’m hurrying,” she said.
“Lilith was there,” he said. “It must have been her. A dark, angry force, watching us, watching them. We knew there was something else, but we never saw it. Just felt it.”
“You’d know it again?” she asked, casting her gaze about the floor. Amazing how something so shiny-glossy could become invisible when you wanted it. She knelt, set her gun on the nearest cardboard box, and peered beneath the sofa. There it was. Sylvie forced her hand under the couch, stretching. “You said, at first? What’s blinding you now?”
“It’s nearness to something Dunne considers his. His lover, his house, his car. Took me a week to learn where Dunne parked and avoid passing by that garage.”
So was this Dunne on the move? Coming back to check in at long last? Sylvie doubted life would be that easy.
Sylvie closed her fingers over the glass, scraping her arm against the sofa frame, and wincing.
“Hurry, Sylvie,” Demalion said.
“What?” she said. She found herself in a crouch, waiting, gun in hand.
“It’s getting closer. It’s like pressure in my head.” He cocked his head, listening to something inside it, and she tensed.
“Demalion, incoming, twelve o’clock,” she said, and chucked the crystal at him. His hand closed on it as she bolted for the door. Even if it were Dunne, he and the ISI weren’t a good combination.
“Sylvie,” Demalion called, but she was already gone. She took the first flight of stairs down at a near gallop but drew up short with the agonizing pinch of ribs grating. She took the second flight more gingerly, slow enough, dammit, that Demalion, even blind, had found the elevator and caught up.
“Go back,” she snapped. “Or at least, stay put.”
Through the lobby glass, the night sky seethed with sheets of color. The aurora borealis ran loose in the streets of Chicago like the risen tide, a shimmer of blue and gold and deepest purples that made her scalp tingle. It parted the air with the sound of distant bells.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, a prickling warning. She didn’t think this was Dunne’s work, despite Demalion’s blindness. Dunne was all storm cloud behind his eyes, leashed thunder, and this gaudy display—
A figure breached the stream, like a drowning victim making one last flailing attempt at breath and air and life. There was a flash of teeth, a choked-off growling, then the tide crashed down on her again, dragging her under as inexorably as a riptide.
“What is it?” Demalion asked. The light reflected off the shiny silver of his eyes, got caught in dancing sparks in his crystal.
“A god,” Sylvie said. “It’s eating Erinya.”
“Dunne’s bodyguard—”
Sylvie nodded. The gun was a weight in her hand, but Sylvie knew when a gun was outclassed. Even a magical one. She gritted her teeth; she wanted Erinya out of the lethal tide. For all she knew, Erinya had the linchpin piece of information Sylvie would need to save Bran.
A breath of superchilled air touched her, dropping down fast like ice water. She went from cold-scared to cold-frozen in half a moment. The icy air brought the scent of salt with it, the tang of a winter sea, and as it hit the sidewalk, the asphalt, and buildings heated by the day’s sun, small tornadoes formed, wisping upward, taking glass in its wake, taking small stones, then bigger ones.
Sylvie drew back into the doorway of the apartment building, pushing Demalion ahead of her.
“Amazing,” he said. A breath hidden in the howl of wind.
“What do you see?” she asked.
“A man’s hand pulling a woman’s long hair,” he said, staring at his crystal, “pulling her away, and an animal tangled in the hair.”
The aurora swept upward, spiraling as it went, twisted into the storm, leaving a shape hunched and growling, on buckled tarmac.
Sylvie kept her gun out and cautiously approached. The Fury’s head snapped up, teeth bared, eyes full of phosphorescent heat. Her short, punk bob stood out as stiffly as a porcupine’s quills.
“Erinya,” Sylvie said. “Eri.” The Fury let her hackles settle.
“Is the attack done?” First thing first. If the gods were going to start brawling again, she wanted to be elsewhere.
“Not an attack,” Erinya muttered, breathy gasps of explanation. “Just a squabble. Hera took a chance. Kevin found out.”
Demalion followed Sylvie into the street, and Erinya’s calm disappeared. Her eyes went hollow and dark, bloody gaps beneath tangled lashes. “Why are you with him?” she growled. “Traitor—”
She eased to a low crouch, veering between shapes, and Sylvie said, “Don’t start a fight, Eri. You’re beat. Demalion’s going to help us.”
“I’ll kill him—”
“You’ll have to heal first,” Sylvie said. She holstered the gun and crossed to Erinya’s side, ready to help though her ribs winced at the thought. Erinya got to her feet, unaided, slunk after them into the elevator.
In the light, Sylvie grimaced. Erinya looked worse for wear, and nothing much of human. If Sylvie were grading on human disguises, Erinya would get a C minus. And that was on a curve. The Fury had always looked lanky; now she looked like a puppet about to come apart at the joints.
“It’s all his fault,” Erinya said, and the petulant little-girl whine did nothing to belie the menace in her presence. “He doesn’t want to help.”
Demalion, wisely, stayed silent, though he turned a betrayed look on Sylvie when she said, “You don’t trust him? Go on, then. Look for yourself; read him. Judge his sincerity.”
It was a risk, but one Sylvie found worth taking. If Demalion couldn’t be trusted, better to know now, and if he was found wanting—Sylvie wouldn’t have to do anything about it. Not with Erinya’s shape rippling through cloudy spikes of scale and claw.
“Don’t feel like it,” Erinya said. She didn’t check; Demalion, still standing mutely before her, hand raised with his crystal “eye,” was proof enough of that. Sylvie remembered the rigor tension of the girl in the bar, her own collapse in Miami. Being read took something from you.
The elevator dinged open, and Erinya slumped with the jolt. Sylvie reached out, wrapping an arm around the Fury’s waist. Pins and needles, a shocking cold/heat confusion, and nerves firing in overload—Sylvie nearly jerked away. Demalion reached out and steadied her, fumbling only a little.
Together they manhandled the quietly growling Fury to his apartment, with only one gaping eyewitness.
Sylvie just shook her head. Normally, she’d worry about it, but with all that was going on in the city? A single, bleeding, mythological monster wasn’t much of a secret.
They dropped Erinya on the couch, Demalion fidgeting, the crystal going hand to hand, until Sylvie stopped it with her own. “You should go elsewhere,” she suggested. “Erinya’s presence is causing the blindness.”
“It’s my apartment,” he said. “End of discussion.”
“At least go into the bedroom, shut the door.” Like that would even slow the Fury down if she lost it. Sylvie wasn’t going to endanger Demalion; wasn’t that what she had told Anna D?
“No,” he said. “I’ll be watching.” He tapped the crystal meaningfully.
“Fine,” Sylvie said. “We’ll be getting cleaned up in the bathroom. Eri—you ever had oxycodone?”
18
Playing Doctor
“I’LL HEAL,” ERINYA SAID. “DON’T NEED YOUR HELP.”
Sylvie stared a
t the strange, smoky stain leaking through the Fury’s skin and mesh shirt, staining Demalion’s pale couch. “Then get up,” she said.
Erinya raised herself a bit, fell back panting. Sylvie helped her up, ignoring the growl. Hell, Eri’s growl was becoming an almost familiar sound track to her life.
“Before we get cozy patching you up, is Hera gonna come back for you?”
“No.”
Demalion made a quiet scoffing sound. Sylvie was on the same page. Nothing was so untrustworthy as a flat denial.
She asked again. Erinya snarled, made a sudden sharp whine as she stumbled over one of Demalion’s boxes, and nearly fell.
Sylvie got closer, put an arm around her waist again, and was bombarded once more by the sensation she’d just grabbed hold of a live wire. She gritted her teeth. Bran lived with the Furies, and he was human; he could stand their touch. Loved a god, and invited him into his bed. Sylvie could walk a Fury to the bathroom and the first-aid kit.
“As long as I’m not trying to get to Kevin, they don’t care,” Erinya said. “You told me to tell him about Lily. I haven’t been able to.”
“I thought Hera lost power. You couldn’t beat her?”
“She made me,” Erinya said. “I can’t raise my hand to her. But she could destroy us at will. Once. Now, she can only hamper.”
“Some hampering,” Sylvie said. “You look half-dead.”
Erinya growled beneath her shaking hands. Supporting the Fury was not doing Sylvie’s ribs any good; the Fury was surprisingly heavy, as if magic weighed more densely than flesh and bone.
“First aid and triage, coming right up,” Sylvie said. “Get out of the way, Demalion.”
“She’s a monster,” Demalion said. He leaned up against the wall to the tiny bathroom, his blind eyes disapproving.
“So don’t watch,” Sylvie said, and with a last grunt of effort, dragged Erinya around Demalion and into the bathroom. She kicked the door shut in Demalion’s face and sank to the floor, Erinya landing atop her. “Ow, ow, ow,” Sylvie said, and pretended that was release enough from the pain, that the tears on her face were from exertion, not hurt.
Erinya nuzzled her throat, and Sylvie managed to still her instinctive reaction to jerk away. If she torqued her ribs once more today, she’d probably faint. If she passed out, the Fury might eat her; right now, Erinya had the teeth for it, curving needles the color of ancient ivory. Bony stubs protruded from her shoulder joints, flared back and ended abruptly, like stripped bat wings, broken off.
“You smell like that old cat,” Erinya complained. “That’s where you were? Hidden beneath her time? Smothered in her memories of sand?”
Old cat, Sylvie thought, mind dragging away from pain into rational thought. Old cat. Anna D. “How old is she?” Irrelevant really, to everything else, but—she cast a furtive glance at the closed door, at the man behind it—she wanted to know.
“Forever,” Erinya said. “The only one. The oldest thing ever.”
The oldest thing—well then, maybe, Sylvie would allow that Anna D might know what she was talking about. Maybe. Still didn’t excuse playing games with the information.
Sylvie knelt up with a wince and reached for the first-aid kit. She scored another Advil or two for herself and dry-swallowed, then pulled out gauze, sutures, the curved needle.
“Take off your shirt,” Sylvie said. Erinya grinned wolfishly, and the spiderwebbed, torn mesh of her shirt began to sink into her skin, first, like dark veins moving beneath pale flesh, then like a shadow sinking into deep water, vanishing.
“That’ll work,” Sylvie said, and tried not to wonder about the jacket she had borrowed. Surely the Fury wouldn’t have let her wander off with a chunk of her skin? No, Erinya had said Bran had bought it for her.
Sylvie shook the thoughts away and stopped her hands from trembling. Erinya seemed minded to allow her to play doctor; still, best not flaunt an unsteady hand.
The wound was worse than she had thought—the mesh of the not-shirt had tangled shadows over it, disguising its depth, its breadth. A raw slash ran from just above Eri’s hipbone, across her muscled belly, up under her scant breast, going deeper. Sylvie put her hand out and leaned Erinya forward, looking at her back. Exit wound there, a triangular tear where the spine should be.
“Spear?” Sylvie asked.
“She was pushing me all over this city,” Erinya said. “Wrought-iron fence.”
They bled, for lack of a better word, but nothing so ordinary as blood. Sylvie touched the wound with a cautious hand, drew the loose flap of skin upward. Dark fluid leaked over her fingertips like ether, cold, slippery, not quite weighty, and drizzled up her palm. It was like the ghost of blood, and her hand buzzed and shook with the touch. Inhuman, Sylvie thought again. On the surface and within.
Sylvie’s mouth dried. The skin, pulled away from the wound, revealed nothing human at all beneath. There should have been outraged tissue, carmine and gory, the creamy slick shine of exposed bone, the smell strong and foul. If Erinya had been human, the makeshift spear would have shish kebabbed the lung, liver, stomach, and severed the spinal column.
Erinya wasn’t human, and there was nothing within her flesh but the roiling ghostly blood.
“You healed fast enough when I shot you,” Sylvie said, and didn’t Erinya bridle at that reminder.
“It’s bigger than a bullet hole,” Erinya said. “And I’m . . . tired. But I’d heal, even without your help.” She cupped her hand beneath the thickest stream; the blood stained her hand, then faded inward like the shirt had done, reclaimed by her body.
“Such gratitude,” Sylvie said. It wasn’t blood; it was power. The core that was Erinya. The soul her shell was meant to contain. Soul, blood, power; for a creature like the Fury, it was all the same.
Sylvie threaded the needle, trying not to broadcast that her skills were all theory, no practice. She put the first stitch in; Erinya didn’t bother to flinch. What every med school needed, Sylvie thought, feeling a little light-headed, a practice dummy that bled but didn’t feel.
The soul-blood clung to Sylvie’s fingers, trickled upward, and coated her palms and wrists like rising smoke; she reached a point where the shaking of her hands could grow no worse, then she was done.
“Turn around,” she whispered. Erinya twisted front to back, baring the smaller wound.
“You’re pale,” Sylvie said, touching the white-mottled skin, the color of a blanched corpse. “Is it shock? Can you suffer—”
“No,” Erinya said. “Finish.”
Sylvie dragged the needle back to work. She ran her fingers along the ridged line of blue thread, testing for leakage, for wisps of ethereal blood and power. Erinya sighed, and her skin grew dark, glossy. A new shirt appeared out of flesh—this time, a scaled, leather tunic, more warlike than fashion-goth.
“If you shift shape, will the stitches—”
Erinya knocked her over in a single fluid movement. Sylvie’s back impacted against the tub, sparking white-hot pain and driving the breath from her lungs in a pained yelp.
Even before the black spots could clear from her vision, she grated out, “I kicked your ass when you weren’t injured. Do you really want a rematch—” Her bluff broke off in a gasp as Erinya licked a long swath across her defensively raised hand. Hot, damp heat licked around her wrist, diving into her palm, and sucked her first two fingers into the Fury’s mouth.
“Sylvie?” Demalion asked. “Are you all right?” The doorknob rattled and Erinya spun a leg out and kicked the door shut again.
“Mine. Taking it back,” Erinya growled through another mouthful of Sylvie’s flesh.
Taking it back? Oh. Sylvie relaxed. This wasn’t hostility, it was cleanup; Erinya was reabsorbing that spilled power, the smoky blood that stained Sylvie’s hands.
“Okay,” Sylvie said. Response enough for both of them, and all her brain could cope with at the moment.
Erinya chased the spilled power up Sylvie’s wrist, and her eyes gle
amed at Sylvie’s hammering pulse. “I scared you.”
“Not even close,” Sylvie said. Never show weakness.
“Breathless,” Erinya said.
“Pain,” Sylvie said. “Broken ribs. Mishandled. Next time, ask.”
“Next time?” Erinya said, and grinned as she licked a section of skin that was completely bare of blood, a section that had never had blood on it—the tender juncture of Sylvie’s elbow. Erinya nipped at it, a tiny pinch of needle-sharp teeth that sent shock waves through Sylvie’s nerves. “Would you say yes?” Suddenly, this wasn’t about spilled power anymore, but something far more intimate.
“No,” Sylvie said. She’d played rough-and-tumble with a monster before. She didn’t repeat her mistakes. Sylvie tugged her arm away; Erinya let it go.
“I like you. You’re savage. Like me.”
Sylvie looked at Erinya’s shape, human-shaped, but not human at all, remembered the emptiness inside—Erinya was a shell, no more. At her core, all she was was hunger.
“Not in the mood,” Sylvie said. “Broken ribs, remember?”
Erinya’s predatory look became something thoughtful. She shuffled closer and tore Sylvie’s shirt open.
“I said no, Erinya.”
Erinya eyed the red scraps of T-shirt clinging to Sylvie’s skin, and pushed them off.
“Ribs,” Erinya said. She touched the bruised area with a surprisingly cautious hand. “I kill people. I trap them in the certainty of their guilt. I rip them apart with claws and teeth, because I crave the struggle. But”—she put a finger to Sylvie’s mouth—“I can kill with a thought. Crumble bone to dust, boil blood, liquefy minds.”
Sylvie’s attention never wavered. Erinya’s fingers dropped back down, traced the contours of the swollen ribs, and she said, “It’s just reversal. How hard can it be?”
“What?” Sylvie asked. Then her body jerked as pain lanced through her, a scorching supple line that zoomed up her spine, and slid out along her rib cage, winding, compressing, burning the air from her lungs like a python. She gasped, and Erinya smiled.