Lies & Omens: A Shadows Inquiries Novel

by Lyn Benedict

  Downstairs, the front door opened and closed, Alex heading out on a food run. Lupe’s footsteps were soft on the terrazzo, but Sylvie, listening to Demalion’s breath in her ear, could hear when Lupe’s pacing faltered, when she sank onto the couch with creak of leather and the soft gasps of someone fighting tears.

  “Sylvie—”

  Sylvie lost interest in the game. “I was hoping she could find me a reliable witch. One with a healthy slug of power and a good attitude. One who will make house calls. I’ve got a client with one hell of a nasty curse.”

  “I’ll give her a call, but don’t count on anything. She’s—”

  “Still holding a grudge against me?” It was fair enough. Sylvie had gotten Demalion killed, bad enough for any mother. When that mother was the Sphinx and had spent a thousand years gestating the only child she’d have? Sylvie counted herself lucky Anna Demalion hadn’t slaughtered her.

  “And me,” Demalion said. “I asked her to do something she didn’t want to do. She’s been ignoring my calls ever since. I don’t think a human in trouble is going to get her to break her silence.”

  “Well, fuck,” Sylvie said. “What about the ISI? You keep records, right? Of known witches in the country?”

  “Mostly the ones who leave a trail of dead behind them,” Demalion reminded her. “I could bring Yvette in on it if it’s urgent. She’s pretty damn skilled at what she does.”

  Sylvie choked back her gut reaction, a profane and profound negative. She thought about it, turned the idea around from different angles, and decided her gut instinct was absolutely right. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “She can probably help—”

  “Michael, no. It’s not a matter of ability,” Sylvie said. “I think you’d see that. For one thing, my client can’t afford ISI scrutiny right now. They’d lock her up and worry about the cure later.”

  “She’s dangerous, then?” Demalion asked. “Sylvie. You take on some crap clients.”

  “Regardless,” she said. “No on Yvette. Besides which, if you don’t want her to associate your new life as Adam Wright with Demalion? Don’t point out that we’re on good enough terms to help each other. Good way to blow your new and secret identity right out of the water.”

  “She might know—”

  “And you want to confirm it? You trust her that much?” Sylvie heard the ugly edge in her voice and winced. It wasn’t about jealousy. It was about the basics. Yvette Collier had two strikes against her. She was a government agent, and she was a witch. Both of those made her someone to distrust.

  “Syl, the ISI is not your enemy.”

  “Did you forget they tear-gassed me and tried to make me vanish?”

  Demalion said, “If they wanted you gone, they’d have done a better job.”

  “Not your best rebuttal ever, just so you know,” she said. “They’ve been keeping a careful distance, I’ll admit it, but it’s not because they want to make nice. They’re scared of me. Every time they get close to me, their agents end up dead or damaged. That caution won’t hold forever. “

  “You’re paranoid.”

  “You’re drinking the Kool-Aid. You want to believe they’re the good guys, and I admit, their goals sound good. Study, research, integration of the Magicus Mundi with the human world … but what government group ever sticks that close to its charter?”

  “At least they have one,” Demalion said. “Your charter is all over the place. You’ve got the luxury of taking things on a case-by-case basis. We’re the government. We don’t.”

  “Fine,” Sylvie said. Her cell phone creaked in her hand, plastic protesting her grip. “Just do me a favor. I bet they’ve got files on me—”

  “You know we do. The new Lilith. Of course, we do. Not that they say much. We don’t know what the new Lilith is.…

  “Don’t look to me for answers,” Sylvie said, irritated at his fishing. “But I bet the ISI recommendations aren’t to wait until they figure me out. ISI’s not much for live and let live. You want to believe in them, fine. Just realize that, sooner or later, you’re going to have to pick a side. Them or me.”

  She disconnected with an angry stab of the END button, hit it so decisively that the phone not only truncated the call but shut itself down. Sylvie let out her breath in a shaky gust.

  The new Lilith.

  She’d been letting it slide, letting the words be nothing but another soubriquet people slapped on her. Loud-mouthed bitch. Shadows. L’enfant de meurtrier. The new Lilith.

  Hiding from reality doesn’t change it, her little dark voice purred.

  All right then, she thought. One goal, two reasons. Find a witch who was either trustworthy or clued in enough to the currents of the Mundi to make the risk worthwhile. Use the witch to cure or calm Lupe’s problem. Then use the witch to find out if being the new Lilith meant anything beyond the general resistance to magic and a potentially increased life span. Do all of it without letting the ISI spy on her business.

  She grimaced and tossed her cell phone onto her desk, where it landed with a clatter. Finding a witch was going to take time.

  We have time, the voice in her head suggested.

  She might have time. More time than Sylvie could imagine if her fears were accurate.

  Immortality loomed before her like a void, endless, pointless, terrifying. She closed her mind to it. She might have time.

  Lupe didn’t.

  2

  Unwelcome News

  IT WAS PAST MIDNIGHT AND STARTING TO STORM BY THE TIME SYLVIE made it back to her apartment. The flash and crash of the night suited her mood well enough. Three days spent hunting witches for Lupe, and she’d managed to chase down a single reference to a brujo who specialized in shape-shifting curses and cures. It had been a long shot for a lot of reasons, most especially because he was supposed to live in Orlando. Sylvie knew it was unfair, but she couldn’t take a Mouse-City witch seriously.

  He’d been the real deal, though. He’d also been long gone when she got there, chased out of the city by the Green Swamp werewolf pack, who didn’t like a witch encroaching near their territory. It had been a long drive for nothing. He hadn’t left a forwarding address.

  She shrugged off her jacket, removed her holster, looked at the empty shelves of her fridge, and called for Thai. If only all her problems could be solved that easily.

  Sometimes, there were things that just couldn’t be fixed. She wasn’t ready to consign Lupe to that file, not when her curse was Sylvie’s fault, but all the signs were there.

  A god’s curse on a mortal was a nightmare of pantheon politics and power. Usually, the only way those curses were removed was by the god forgiving the mortal. Tepeyollotl, even if he wanted to, no longer had the ability to take back his curse; he’d lost that power to Azpiazu, then to Erinya.

  Even if Erinya had his power, it wasn’t her curse to remove. Gods didn’t interfere with other gods’ punishments, not unless they were willing to war over it. From what Sylvie understood, all the pantheons were carefully circling each other in a wary cease-fire.

  Even so, maybe Erinya could help.

  Sylvie shook her head. Asking Erinya for aid was a bit like asking the pyromaniac neighbor kid for help with a campfire. Something would burn, all right. The campfire, the trees, the houses. Erinya was a resource best left untapped.

  Besides, Sylvie and Erinya were negotiating a wary truce of their own. Erinya wanted to hunt Demalion down. Sylvie had stopped her from doing so. She wasn’t ready to rock that boat.

  The doorbell buzzed, and Sylvie shook herself into movement, grabbing for her wallet.

  She had just paid the delivery boy for three cartons of Thai when all the fine hairs on the back of her neck stretched toward the ceiling. She waved off her change and braced herself before turning around.

  She should have expected it. Ordering late-night Thai was like sending up the Bat-Signal. Erinya tended to mooch whenever she could.

  Erinya’s habit of popping into Sylvie’s
tiny Miami apartment made Sylvie crazy, but she marked it up as part of the price to be paid. Erinya hadn’t turned full god on her own. Sylvie had basically force-fed her the power. Now Erinya kept a close eye on her.

  Sylvie regretted her actions at least once a day. But if she hadn’t done it, a vengeful and broken Mesoamerican god would have turned Miami into a feeding ground, and there’d be no chance of delivery food after a long and hellish day, so maybe Sylvie had made the right choice after all.

  The looming presence in her living room grew stronger, took on a crackle of lightning. “Yeah, yeah,” Sylvie said. “Let me get you a fork—”

  It wasn’t Erinya making herself at home, propping her booted feet up on Sylvie’s long-suffering couch, staining the pale fabric with indescribable bits of destroyed “sinners.” Or flouncing around in her punk-goth wear—torn plaid skirts, fishnets, and spiky hair—demanding that Sylvie stop what she was doing and pay attention to her.

  Instead, a man, midway between six feet and seven stood there, looking mildly disappointed. He had a kind face, but Sylvie’s guts clenched hard; she dropped the cartons, fumbling for her weapon, though she knew there was nothing in hell she could do to stop him if he’d come gunning for her.

  He might look human. Until you took a more careful look. Beneath his skin, an entire sky roiled, a landscape of lightning-struck clouds and looming thunderheads. She’d met him before. Worked for him once. Solved his case to his satisfaction.

  She still counted him an enemy. Not least because he was her introduction to the messed-up world of godly politics: Kevin Dunne, onetime human, now the Greek god of Justice.

  He frowned; her gun transferred itself from her hand to his. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Not interested,” Sylvie said. She wanted to slip out into the night, but running was the wrong thing to do. The worst thing she could do.

  The god of Justice was like any human cop on earth in that respect. Running equaled guilt.

  Sylvie turned her back on him though it made her inner instincts protest, and picked up the dropped cartons. She found the one with the mee grob, grabbed the chopsticks, retreated to her couch, and did her best to pretend he was a particularly stubborn hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation and too much exposure to witchcraft in the past week.

  She clicked on the TV, turned the volume to destroy-all-possibility-of-conversation, and he sighed. The tiny sign of displeasure shuddered down her spine, made her first mouthful of spicy-sweet goodness utterly mechanical. An act of will to chew her food and not give him the satisfaction of looking rattled.

  He sighed again, and the TV muted itself.

  She swallowed, and said, “Godly powers cover remote control of television? Who knew? Maybe your lot is handy after all.”

  “Shadows,” he said, and took a seat opposite her on a chair that hadn’t been there a moment ago. She tried not to like him for conjuring up a squashy, comfortable, obviously aged recliner. It’d be easier to keep up her hatred if he had magicked himself a throne.

  “A throne?” he asked, reading her mind easily. “What have I ever done to make you have such a low opinion of me?”

  “You blackmailed me into working for you. You let your Furies kill my lover when he was helping to save yours.”

  “Demalion came back,” Dunne said.

  Sylvie felt her heart stop, her breath lock up, as if she’d suffered a sudden blow to her chest. He wasn’t supposed to know that.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t know?” he said, and yeah, it hurt to admit, but Sylvie had hoped that the god of Justice would have missed Demalion’s less-than-triumphant return.

  “Don’t hurt him,” Sylvie said. It wasn’t pleading. It was a command, came out rough and certain and angry. It felt like a plea. What could she do to stop him?

  “Erinya told me not to.”

  “Told you not to.” And dammit, he’d drawn her into talking to him. Last she’d heard, Erinya took orders, didn’t give them.

  “That’s why I’m here. Do you know what you’ve done?”

  “I’ve done a lot of things, most of which you disapprove of,” Sylvie said. “If I recall, you considered me … what was it? A trigger-happy vigilante? You would have let your Furies kill me except that you needed me.”

  “You gave Erinya god-power. You released her from my pantheon. She’s running loose, killing people at will, changing the world, and she’s only getting started.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Sylvie said. “Christ, Dunne, she comes here afterward to tell me about it. In detail. Graphic detail. She doesn’t wash up first. It puts me off my food. And I’ve had to have the carpet professionally cleaned. Twice.”

  “So you understand it’s a problem—”

  “It’s your problem. You know why you’re pissed?” Sylvie was off the couch, in his face, her hands braced on either arm of his recliner, leaning over him in a way that had her common sense yelping in terror. “She’s killing people at her will. Not yours. The only difference between Erinya now and Erinya three months ago? She’s choosing the targets.”

  Dunne was gone from the chair, the chair vanished; Sylvie tumbled forward, caught herself, and found him behind her again. “Vigilante justice. I shouldn’t be surprised you approve.”

  “I was out of options, Dunne. I had to protect my city, my world. There were only two choices left: me or Erinya. Would you rather I have kept the power for myself? Turned myself into a god?”

  It took some effort to startle a god, since mind reading was as natural as breathing for them, but Sylvie had managed it. Dunne sat back again, this time on her couch, as if his concentration had been blown so thoroughly he couldn’t even spare a thought for a familiar chair. He studied her, his brown-eyed, human gaze altering bit by bit until there was only a band of churning grey god-stuff instead of a human face.

  No eyes, and yet Sylvie felt as seen as she had ever been.

  “I hadn’t been aware that was possible,” he said slowly.

  “Surprised the hell out of me,” Sylvie said. “But so much for your godly omniscience.” She was surprised to find that she felt disappointed. She had questions, and though she’d never wanted Dunne here, she’d been hoping to get some answers out of him now that he was. But he just looked blank.

  Probably adding up how many people she might kill if she stuck around longer than a mortal’s span of years.

  That was the thing about god-power. It was heady stuff. Strong stuff. The kind of stuff that blew a mortal body into pieces. A human couldn’t hold god-power unless they held immortality first. The only way Dunne had made the transition was by his lover, Eros, granting him immortality first. Even then, by Erinya’s accounts, Dunne had nearly gone mad under the weight of godly power.

  Sylvie had held the god-power for a horrifying minute, had even used it. She still woke from nightmares about those actions: using that kind of power, containing that kind of power—it had made her want to claw her insides out. Repulsive. Repellent. Wrong.

  “The new Lilith,” Dunne said thoughtfully. “You replaced her.”

  “Yeah, thanks, I’ve heard that.”

  Sylvie waited to see if he’d elaborate on the theme. If he’d let slip what being the new Lilith actually meant.

  He merely said, “I see.”

  “So I’ve been told. You want to tell me what that means?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Would I ask if I knew?” Sylvie let all her irritation and frustration come to the surface. She made it a point of not asking things she could find out on her own.

  “You’ll figure it out eventually,” he said.

  “I’m impatient, sue me,” Sylvie said. “Spit it out, Dunne.”

  He stood, rolled his shoulders; the light in the room shivered as if the storm core of him were passing overhead, dimming the real world. “You’re her replacement. You kill things that shouldn’t be killable.”

  Sylvie threw her carton of Thai food at him in sheer,
sudden rage. He didn’t dodge; the carton replaced itself on the table, not a single noodle spilled. “Look, asshole—” she said, and somehow that was the mistake. Maybe it was leftover cop, reacting to being disrespected, maybe it was his own burst of impatience—he loomed over her and pinned her to her couch with a look.

  Thunder rumbled inside her apartment; the smell of cold rain was bright and strong and sharp, laced with the threat of lightning. When she looked up at him, there was nothing human in his shape, only churning cloud.

  “You never thought about her at all, did you?” Dunne asked. “You killed her, and you didn’t know her. Did you ever think it strange that she opposed her god so fiercely, acted against him as she could, and was never punished? She birthed monsters to destroy his peoples, and he did nothing. She walked with demons and erased the protective charms men put on their homes—she laughed when the demons crept inside and devoured his blessed children. And he did nothing.”

  She coughed, tore her eyes away from the angry, hypnotic surge of storm cloud, and said, “So he has a hands-off policy—”

  “He created her. He had a purpose for her. You killed her. Now that purpose is yours. Lilith lived thousands of years and never was called to fulfill her purpose. His purpose. I don’t know what it is, but I bet you won’t like it. Whatever it is, it’s important enough that he let her get away with murder.”

  “Stop,” she said. Her heart raced in her chest, painful and panicky. She twisted, tried to escape his psychic grip. “Stop.” She didn’t know what the new Lilith was? Maybe because she’d never wanted to. Maybe it was safer not to know. More bearable.

  “You’ll be alive for a very long time, Shadows. Until he has need of you. Or until you’re … replaced by another of her lineage, another shortsighted killer hungry for blood, filled with rage, refusing to bow to anyone.”

  “I don’t want it,” she said. Her throat crackled with dryness; her voice disappeared beneath the thunder of his presence.

  “Oh, you know that lesson,” he said. “We don’t always get what we want. I wanted a nice, orderly system for meting out justice. I got a Fury-turned-god wreaking havoc.”