by Lyn Benedict
“It’s a good reason,” Marah said. “Her kind is dangerous. I mean, look at your apartment. Look outside.”
Erinya’s jungle hadn’t lessened—Sylvie’s apartment was one step away from growing moss in the damp, green heat. But a glance out the front window showed that Erinya’s stress had translated on a much wider scale. The chlorine blue pool had gone green and dark; the vines that snaked around Sylvie’s furniture also coiled around the sun deck, creeping into the laundry room. The carved, limestone alligator cracked like an egg and birthed a dozen small, squirming hatchlings.
“Erinya can control herself,” Sylvie said, hoping it was true. It might not be. Gods leaked. That was a fact. Even Dunne, who’d been brutal in his self-control, had leaked. A new god, a god with a history of indulging her appetites? “And she will. Erinya, pull it back.”
“Why should I?” Erinya said. “If I’m living on earth, why can’t I redecorate?”
“You want to play house? Fine,” Sylvie said. “Get a house, and leave the world alone. Pull it back.”
“Not the boss of me,” Erinya said, a familiar complaint. The flowering vines in the kitchen withered, crisped, and burst into dust. Sylvie would need to vacuum, but at least she wouldn’t need a weed wacker.
“Good,” Sylvie said. “Now, go do the outside. And make sure you get the little snappers out there. Kids swim in that pool.”
Erinya scowled. “Don’t eat my steak.” Then she vanished.
Marah shook her head. “Yeah, she needs killing.”
Demalion said, “Stone. Watch the attitude. Or you’ll have Sylvie on your ass as well as Erinya.”
“Not the boss of me,” Marah sniped, imitating Erinya, gaining another growl, this one from Sylvie.
Demalion threw up his hands, disappeared into Sylvie’s bedroom, slamming the door behind him. It had a distinct attitude of women!
Marah made a face as he left. “I thought he’d be in a better mood once he’d gotten laid. Of course, you two were pretty quick about it.”
“What the hell are you even doing here?” Sylvie wanted to be in her bedroom with Demalion.
Marah drew a finger across Erinya’s steak, licked the juice from her skin. “Lilith’s side. So bad-tempered. No wonder you like that damned monster-god. Our side’s a little more sensible.”
“My side, your side. Whatever. You keep playing coy with that info. I don’t think it really exists.” She wasn’t going to ask outright, no matter that she wanted, maybe even needed the answers. Marah was mercenary; Sylvie owed her one already for Demalion. She knew if she asked, Marah would add that to the tab.
“God, you’re difficult.” Marah leaned back against the counter, shifted her weight to one hip, crossed her ankles. “Go on, tell me who my daddy is. I’ll give you a clue if you like. He brained his brother with a rock.”
Sylvie hung her head. Oh yeah. Like Lilith’s side of her genetic line wasn’t enough to deal with. She tended to forget who helped father it. “Cain. You’re Cain’s line. I’m the progeny of Lilith and Cain, and you’re the progeny of Cain and whoever.”
“Got it in one,” Marah said. “This?” She held up her red-stained hand, made jazz fingers at Sylvie. “This is the infamous mark of Cain.”
Sylvie swallowed, thinking of Zoe marked in that way. Her witchy mentor—Val Cassavetes—had to have known. Had to have kept that secret from Sylvie.
“Your first kill, and it blooms if you’ve got the right blood in your veins,” Marah said. “Comes with perks, too. Like a magic shield of sorts. God does seem to like us killers. I mean, you’ve got magical resistance, too, right? The new Lilith and all.”
Sylvie didn’t say anything, didn’t trust anything Marah was saying either. No assassin was going to blithely show off their ace as simply as that. It was false sharing, designed only to make Sylvie feel obligated to respond in kind. She knew better than to fall for it.
Demalion, returning, dressed in clothing he’d scrounged from the oddments he’d left behind the last time he was in Miami, did fall for it. “So why doesn’t Sylvie have the mark? She’s half-Cain, and she’s killed people.”
He fiddled with the sleeves where they pulled a little tight across his arms. He’d added muscle to Wright’s body since the last time he’d worn those clothes. Right now, Sylvie felt like he’d added some muscle to his head.
“Hey, she’s in the room,” Sylvie said. “And she’s killed monsters.”
Demalion shrugged a bare apology. “It’s not like you know the answer, right? Aren’t you curious?” Sylvie groaned. The worst of dating an agent. It wasn’t enough for Demalion to know her; he wanted to know what had made her the person she was. Hell, he probably kept his own set of files on her, separate from the ISI’s.
“Lilith’s stronger,” Sylvie said. “See, there’s your answer.”
“But Zoe’s marked—”
“Hey,” Sylvie snapped. Bad enough they were discussing her. Zoe was off-limits.
Marah’s dark eyes were inquisitive, bright with calculation, but she was polite enough to back off the topic of Zoe. Not polite enough to drop the conversation.
Sylvie, heart beating oddly fast in her chest, wasn’t sure whether she wanted the conversation to continue or not. Marah might have answers. Marah might be full of shit. Sylvie figured it was a fifty-fifty shot.
Don’t trust her, her little dark voice whispered.
Not a problem, Sylvie thought.
Instead, Marah pushed herself off the counter, circled Sylvie, making her very aware that, of the three people in the apartment, she was the only one underdressed. “Lilith is stronger,” Marah agreed. “But harder to wake. You had to have been exposed to her influence, somehow. An inoculation to wake the body to the virus’s presence.
“You could have run into Lilith herself,” Marah continued when Sylvie stayed stubbornly silent. “But from the files, you were already nipping at her metaphysical heels when you killed her. So not the progenitrix. Lilith’s progeny? You play chew toy with a vampire? A succubus? A werewolf?”
“Does it matter?” Sylvie said. “I don’t know how it happened. It just did.”
“Details always matter,” Marah said. “Especially when I’m trying to figure out which side you’re on. You hang out with werewolves. And you’re claiming friendship with a god who’s violent and insane.”
“Marah,” Demalion objected.
“You can’t tell me it doesn’t bother you,” Marah told Demalion. “That she’s close with one of the monsters who killed you? That’s she made friends with the Fury?”
“It bothers me,” Demalion snapped. “Is that what you want me to admit. Fine. It does.”
“Yeah, Shadows,” Marah said, jumping on the wagon she’d started. “You really should put that monster down. Whose side are you on, anyway?”
She looked at them both, Marah’s expression calculating, Demalion’s more honestly angry.
Sylvie felt her own rage surge back—judge her? Over Erinya? She said, “I’m on the only side I can trust. Mine.”
“Well, then,” Marah said. “Maybe we should find more congenial company. Check in with the locals.”
“Most of them are dead,” Sylvie said, bluntly. “Riordan’s son survived.”
“He’s enough to start with,” Marah said. “You coming, Demalion?”
“Yeah,” Sylvie said. “You going with her, Demalion?”
“The agency needs us,” he said.
“I can’t,” Sylvie said. “I’ve got a client in distress and some bastard fucking with people’s memories. Making them forget what they’ve seen. On a citywide scale.”
“Citywide? I know you were looking into memory alterations, but I didn’t realize the scale of it.”
“Neither did I,” Sylvie said, grimly. “And it’s getting personal. It hurt Alex.”
Demalion shook his head. “I know you’re independent, but it’s time to call Yvette in on this.”
“She survived the sand wraith?”
>
“Taking meetings in DC,” Marah said. “Bureaucracy saved her ass.”
“Guess that proves she’s near the top of the food chain,” Sylvie said. “They’re the only ones who benefit from bureaucracy.”
“Yvette’s surviving is a good thing,” Demalion said. “Look, you said your plate is full. You’ve got your client. You’ve got us—”
“Didn’t say I was helping the ISI—”
“You’ll help me, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“So, why not let Yvette take point on this memory thing?”
“Because I don’t trust her,” Sylvie snapped. “I can’t be the only one who’s noticed this memory gap. But I seem to be the only one who cares. So no, no passing this buck.”
“Don’t argue with her, Demalion,” Marah said. “You’ll never convince her. She’s built to work alone. The new Lilith.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Demalion said.
“Yeah,” Sylvie said. “Why don’t you enlighten him, Marah. Since you know so much.” She doubted Marah knew anything of substance. The ISI files, as Demalion had said, were empty speculation.
Marah grinned, a predatory shine of teeth. “How much is it worth to you? A favor? Maybe two?”
Then again, Marah was of Cain’s line. Maybe she did know.
“One more,” Sylvie said. “But I’m not killing anyone for you—my definition of anyone.”
“Hey, I rescued myself,” Demalion protested. “I’m not a favor.”
“Deal,” Marah said, waving him off. “One favor owing. It’s simple, really. I told you. God likes his killers. Both sets of them. It’s politics at its finest. You’ve talked to gods, you know the only thing they hold sacred.”
“Noninterference with gods outside their pantheon. No more godly wars,” Sylvie said.
“No more overt godly wars,” Marah said. “But a free agent, who refuses to belong to anyone, who wreaks havoc—say a woman who disposes of the last Aztec god, strips his power, and gives it to a Fury. A woman who yanks said Fury out of her own pantheon and creates a new one—
“You’re God’s stalking horse,” Marah said. “And for all your independence, you’ll never know if you’re working to his plan or not. The eternal killer who does his bidding even while you spit in his face and assert your disallegiance. You’re his plausible deniability. Congratulations, Sylvie, you hit the jackpot. You’re going to live forever. Or until someone else gets in a lucky shot and takes your place.”
The little dark voice in Sylvie’s blood was roaring in protest, drowning out her own voice, a tight rasp. “I don’t believe you.”
“Think it’s coincidence that you’re immune to most magics? That you can kill things way above your weight class? You’re a stealth bomber in human form. He doesn’t care who you kill, as long as you keep doing it, keep picking off his rivals. It’s a long game. Maybe the longest game ever.”
“Get out,” Sylvie choked. “Out.”
“Truth hurts,” Marah said. She patted Sylvie’s cheek; Sylvie slapped her hand away, and felt a weird numbing echo in her bones as her flesh hit Marah’s. Like to like. Killers. God’s killers. Spreaders of chaos and misfortune.
“Out,” she whispered.
Demalion put his own hand out, a steadying touch at her shoulder. She shrugged him off.
“Fine,” Marah said. “I could use some real food anyway. And I doubt your Fury wants to share.” She headed out, jaunty and pleased with herself. Sylvie wanted to chuck something at her.
Demalion lingered, silent. When she met his eyes, he dropped his. Answer enough to a question she hadn’t asked. Did he believe Marah? Did he think Sylvie’s entire purpose in existence was to kill things? Yes. He really did.
Heat stung her eyes. She blinked furiously. “So how’d you hook up with her, anyway? Think you can unhook her? Maybe while dangling her over a cliff?”
“She saved my life. That’s got to count for something.”
“Yeah, it counts as another one I owe her.”
“Hey, ouch,” Demalion said.
Sylvie shook her head. “Sorry, sorry. You know I didn’t mean it like that. Hell, that’s one debt I’m thrilled to incur.”
“You know, I did my share of the digging,” Demalion said. “I could make a case for Marah and me being even. Hell, we could probably even make a case for her owing me. I warned her the sand wraith was coming. Psychic perks.”
Sylvie nodded. “Take it up with her.”
Demalion, given his cue to leave, hesitated.
“What?” Sylvie snapped.
“Are you okay?”
“Dandy. I’m going to live forever, don’t you know. Which is good because I’m busy. Got things to do. And hey, I’m waiting for Erinya to remember her steak. You want to be here when she is, when she remembers how much she dislikes you?” Her throat felt tight. She didn’t mind being a killer, but she wanted to be more than just that.
Sylvie’s new cell buzzed where she had dropped it, an angry hornet making itself known. She tore her gaze away. “I should—”
“Yeah,” he said.
“You go and take Ms. Mercenary—”
“Yeah.”
The phone rattled, and Sylvie said, quickly, “Be careful, Demalion. The ISI’s in real trouble.
Demalion’s tight, irritated expression cracked. “I know.”
“This might be a good time to quit.”
“Can’t do that,” Demalion said. “I believe in the mission.”
“I know. Just had to put it out there.”
She kissed him too briefly, let him go, and grabbed the phone, expecting Alex. No one else had the number.
Instead of her assistant, she got her sister in a temper.
5
Complications
SYLVIE MISSED ZOE’S FIRST RANT, CAUGHT UP IN WONDERING HOW in hell Zoe had gotten this number, distracted by Erinya’s reappearing to claim her steak, by the sheer amount of noise in the background wherever Zoe was.
“I said, come get me!”
Sylvie pivoted, keeping Erinya in her view. She’d learned the hard way not to leave the Fury unsupervised. Erinya only studied her steak, then shrugged, dragged out a plate, and made a stab at being civilized.
“No,” Sylvie said. “Where are you?” She knew the answer already, just from the loudspeaker in Zoe’s vicinity spitting out distorted messages in English and a dozen other languages—an airport.
“LaGuardia. Heading home. You need to come get me when I land.”
“I thought you were in Ischia. Safe with Val.”
“Obviously, I’m not. Come get me, Syl. I don’t wanna wait around. I’ve been traveling all night.”
“Zoe, this is a terrible time for you to come back,” Sylvie said. “Did Val send you? Does Val even know?”
Zoe huffed. “She’s so damn patronizing. I’m not a child or an idiot. And I had to come back. School starts in three weeks. I’ve got back-to-school shopping to do.”
“It’s not a good time,” Sylvie said, watching a god putter about in her kitchen, warping things as she went. Under Erinya’s touch, Sylvie’s coffeemaker turned upscale, spat out espresso; her tiled floor shifted to rough stone. “I’ve got house guests that aren’t witch-friendly.” Gods could burn out witches, leave them husked out and unable to do magic. Erinya, of course, liked to go one step further and kill them dead.
“What, your god-thing friend? Tell her to go away. I’m family. I come first.”
“And you called Val patronizing,” Sylvie said. “Fine. I’ll be there. Give me your flight number.” When she hung up, she found Erinya watching her as eagerly as a dog whose master had rattled the car keys.
“Are we going to the airport?” Erinya said. “I like the airport. Good hunting.”
“You are not coming,” Sylvie said. “I’m picking up my sister. She’s a witch. Your presence will hurt her.”
“Does she deserve it?” Erinya asked. “She’s a witch.”
“She’s not sacrificing babies,” Sylvie said.
“Not yet,” Erinya said. She ate the last of her steak in one giant, mouth-distending bite. “Can’t trust a witch.”
“Go home,” Sylvie said when she could speak again. “Redecorate your heaven and not my living room.”
“It’s my city,” Erinya said. “I think that makes it my living room.”
“It’s not your city,” Sylvie said. “Don’t get possessive. Don’t make me take Dunne’s side.”
Erinya vanished before Sylvie had finished talking, fading out on the first mention of Dunne’s name. Sylvie filed that away, wondering if it would work more than once.
A draft touched her legs, the AC kicking on, making her shiver. Her hair dripped down her back; the thin poplin of Demalion’s borrowed shirt felt clammy.
She sighed, tried to recover some of that all-too-brief happiness she’d had curled against Demalion in her wrecked bathroom.
Her phone rang again, a text coming in on the burner phone.
Alex.
I’m at the office. Meet me. Bring coffee.
LIGHT GLITTERED FROM INSIDE THE FRONT WINDOW OF SHADOWS Inquiries, hard to see in the sunlit streets of South Miami Beach, noticeable simply because Sylvie hadn’t been expecting Alex to be awake and about anytime that day. Not after her magical concussion.
She really needed to stop underestimating Alex.
When she opened the front door, Alex greeted her and the Starbucks cup with determined cheer that went oddly with the bruising beneath her eyes. “Oh good, you’re here. You need to see this.”
“See what? I thought you were going to rest? Your head was hurting?” Sylvie came at it obliquely, unwilling to trigger another attack.
“’Swhat Tylenol 4’s for. Took a nap, took a pill, feel loads better.”
Sylvie said, “Yeah, that’s why you look like someone socked you in the nose. You should be in bed.”
“Let it go, Syl. You’ll be glad you did. Look at this. Not me. I’ll hit the foundation in a minute or two.” She hauled her laptop across the desk, turned it to face Sylvie, the screen blurring with the vibration.
