Gods & Monsters

by Lyn Benedict

  Even so, wariness tightened her shoulders and chest; if Wales was going to stick around in south Florida, he was going to have to move. She ducked peeling paint as she went through the doorway, maneuvered her way up the cluttered staircase, avoiding the detritus, the empty soup cans, the empty bottles, broken glass, snarls of fishing line, all of it designed to trip a careless visitor.

  The last time she’d come to see Wales, it had been dark, and the halls had been shadowed corridors with burned-out bulbs. Daylight made no difference. The shadows were the same, and the smell was worse with the heat of the sun seeping through the plaster.

  Second floor—Wales’s one-room apartment, and Sylvie pounded on the door, keeping a wary eye on the hallway, peeling paint the least of the blight visible in the gloom. “C’mon, Wales, I know you’re home.”

  Lie, of course; she hoped he was home. Hard to tell. Last time she’d shown up unannounced and pounded on the door, Wales had slapped her into soul shock with a Hand of Glory; she’d woken tied to a chair. She thought they were on better terms now. Or maybe he’d just had second thoughts about using necromantic talismans after the whole mess with Odalys. Maybe he’d had second thoughts about staying in the city at all, and she was kicking a dead dog.

  She stopped knocking, stopped calling his name, and just listened.

  Scuffling from the other side of the door. Rat? Particularly large roach? A soft murmur that might be a voice in distress or one whispering threats. A chill brushed her skin, a drift like an air conditioner kicking on where there was none. Sylvie drew her gun; the door opened soundlessly before her, ushering her in.

  Wales was pressed face-first against the wall, a young man leaning into him, skin-close, blade in his hand. Either the attacker was deaf or insanely determined because he didn’t bother to turn around. Then again, Wales was a necromancer, and it was never a good idea to release a magic-user once you’d started threatening them.

  “Hey,” Sylvie snapped.

  The young man forced Wales around, kicked his legs out from under him. Wales went down hard on his bony knees, wincing. Wales might be magically talented, but he wasn’t physically strong. His pet ghosts took care of physical danger. So where were they? Sylvie licked dry lips.

  The man’s knife stayed tight on Wales’s throat, a strange weapon when guns were easy to come by; but then, the attacker was a strange weapon himself. He dressed like the men outside, but he wore their clothes like a costume. His eyes were cold, purposeful, and calm, with none of the formless anger she associated with the Miami gangs. The knife, now that Sylvie could see it as more than a quick shine, had symbols etched into its blade.

  Tread carefully, her dark voice suggested. This was magic versus magic, and she had a gun. Sometimes, that was like quenching a fire. Sometimes, it was like touching a lit match to black powder.

  Sylvie let out a steady breath, and said, “Did I come by at a bad time?”

  Wales said, “Depends on if you’ve got a lighter on you.” His long-fingered hands reached toward her, and the knife man jerked him back. Sylvie got a quick look at something Wales had wanted her to see: the gape of his jacket pocket—and the Hand of Glory within it. A tool that could drop the attacker in a second. Of course, it would drop Sylvie, too. Even if there were some way to light it without turning Wales’s shirt into a torch.

  The knife man dug the very point of his blade into Wales’s neck, skin and blood swallowing the tip. The temperature in the room dropped precipitously; the knife man’s teeth chattered once, then the symbols on the knife began to glow. Wales shuddered, face going grey with more than pain; whatever spell he was attempting was fighting him.

  “Call it off,” the knife man said, gritting his teeth. Sylvie could see his skin raised in goose bumps from five feet away.

  “Marco,” Wales breathed.

  The air warmed; the knife’s glowing symbols faded back to scratches in the metal. “Good choice,” the knife man said.

  “Better than yours,” Sylvie said. “Attacking a necromancer in his own home.”

  “Lady, just walk away. The Ghoul is going to send a message for me.”

  “I’m not the walking-away type,” Sylvie said. She narrowed her gaze. It was going to come down to bullets. Something about the way he said “message” made her think that the words were going to be written with Wales’s blood and bone. It made the risk smaller for her. If Wales was going to die whether she shot or not . . .

  “Shadows—” Wales slurred. He was listing to the side, and the blood was still sliding down the edge of the knife, a crimson drizzle on the floor. Not a bad injury, but he looked shocky. Maybe it was the spell on the knife; maybe it was simply fear. Either way, she thought, time was getting short.

  “You’re Shadows?” the knife man said. “Then listen. Odalys has a message for you.”

  Sylvie raised her gun. She had no interest in anything Odalys had to say.

  “If she can kill a necromancer from a jail cell, what do you think she could do to your sister, Zoe?”

  Fear and fury ran twin bolts of sensation through her body. Her finger twitched on the trigger. Both Wales and the would-be assassin flinched. Zoe was already protected, Sylvie thought, and backed herself from the edge. After the first night alone—post Odalys—Zoe had decided that staying with Val Cassavetes at her well-warded estate where she could learn more magic trumped the need to show she could be independent.

  “Don’t bother,” the knife man said. “I’m protected.”

  “Yeah?” Sylvie said. She studied the talisman he indicated with his chin, a stone amulet with more of the same carved symbols that decorated the knife. She felt the grin spread wide across her face, all toothy nastiness—she recognized that talisman, knew what it was good for. And what it wasn’t.

  Sylvie fired; the tense hush in the room exploded, and when the echoes of the gun and the knife man’s shout faded, a new tension took hold. The knife man slammed down to one knee, a hand clamped over his shoulder; his knife hand dangled, the blade dripping steadily onto the floor as if it were an oversaturated towel. Wales pushed away from him like a swimmer leaping into blue waters, skidding forward, and showing sense enough to stay out of Sylvie’s line of fire.

  The knife man cursed, anger and fear and outrage all mingled together.

  “You should know your tools better,” Sylvie said. “That talisman is protection against the dead, protection against necromancy. This gun? Is all real-world.”

  The knife man pressed himself against the wall, his blood adding new swirls to the already stained wallpaper. His fingers tightened on the knife, considering coming back at her, at Wales. Definitely a pro. Sylvie liked big-caliber guns, liked the way they knocked men down and kept them there. This guy was used to being knocked down but not out. She aimed again, and said, “Don’t. You delivered her message. Now deliver mine.

  “Odalys needs to stay away from my life, my family, my friends, and my city. If she knows what’s healthy for her, she’ll stay tucked up nice and tight in prison and behave herself.”

  “She’s a witch; she’ll eat your heart—”

  “Someone’s been watching too much Disney,” Sylvie said. “Go on. Get out. Give her my message.”

  He rose; she tracked his movement, kept the gun leveled at his heart. “By the way, leave the knife.”

  He growled, dropped it, and she shifted stance enough to let him sidle around her, hand white-knuckled on his shoulder. Sylvie kicked the door closed after him.

  “You got careless,” she said. Wales glared up at her, untangled himself from the heap he was in, and folded himself into a seated position.

  “I’d noticed, thank you,” he said. “You put Odalys in jail? Guess that means you saved the day.”

  “Something like that,” she said. “Get up, Wales. We gotta go.”

  “I’m all packed,” Wales said. His voice shook, as did the hand he pressed to his neck. The blood seemed to have stopped, though, and Sylvie felt her shoulders relax. />
  “So you are,” she said, allowing herself the luxury of looking around now that there wasn’t a knife-wielding assassin taking up her attention. The room had been bare the last time she saw it—furnished with a single table, a chair, a futon, and decorated by a dozen or more Hands of Glory dangling from the ceiling. Now the mobile from hell was packed away, only small hooks showing that anything had once hung from the ceiling, and the futon was covered with taped-shut cardboard boxes. “Leaving town?”

  “That was the plan,” he said. He pushed himself to his feet, a scarecrow rising, making the room seem suddenly smaller. “Thought I might have made myself unwelcome.”

  Sylvie’s response faded before she voiced it. The puddle of blood—Wales’s and the assassin’s mingled—was disappearing, small half circles curving inward, revealing the linoleum squares in damp spots. “What the hell—”

  “Marco,” Wales murmured.

  Sylvie grimaced. Marco, the murdered convict. The ghost associated with Wales’s favorite Hand of Glory. “I thought they snacked on souls, not blood.”

  Wales didn’t look at her, let his gaze fall to his blood-spotted hands. “Some ghosts like both.”

  “And you just let them wander loose?”

  “Marco and I came to a new agreement.”

  “Well, it doesn’t seem like a good one. Where was he when you were attacked?”

  Wales raised his head, grinned. “Doing the only thing he could. Letting you in. Amazing what a little independence in a ghost can get you.”

  The blood on the floor began disappearing again; Sylvie was torn between being creeped out that she couldn’t see him, and grateful. Her imagination was bad enough, showing her a man kneeling facedown in a puddle of blood and licking pale lips.

  “Get your shit and let’s get out of here,” she said.

  “Where’d the we come from, Shadows? I’m leaving. You’re not invited.”

  “Stop fussing and be grateful. I just want a consult on a case. It’s right up your alley. Dead people.”

  “It’s been two days!” he said.

  “You’ve been hanging around the dead too long. Life moves fast,” she said. “C’mon, I’ll let you store your boxes in my office. I’ll even buy you lunch.”

  She hefted the first box—distressingly light and rustling—eight boxes in the room, and she had to have picked up his box with the Hands of Glory. . . . But she’d lose her momentum if she dropped it and danced around, shaking off the squeamish.

  He growled. “Y’know, Shadows, I thought Southern women were supposed to be sweet and courteous. You’re pushier than a damn wheelbarrow.”

  “Yeah, yeah, bitch too much, and I’ll take you to Mickey D’s instead of someplace good. Time’s a-wasting, Wales.”

  He caved all at once, his scarecrow body easing from the stiffness he’d been holding tight.

  “Fine. Fine. But it’s going to cost you more than a lunch. I want a consult fee.”

  “Everyone’s greedy,” she said. “Hurry it up, Wales. And hey, do we bring that knife or what?”

  Wales looked back at it, his aggravation swapping back out for remembered fear. “Only if you need a knife that can hurt ghosts.”

  Sylvie shook her head and laughed. “Odalys. Christ. She would have been better off just sending someone to shoot you through your window. There’s a convenient roof right across the way. That’s the problem with you magic-users, always reaching for the esoteric answer.”

  “I’m so glad you’ve thought of ways to kill me,” Wales said. He kicked the knife toward the wall and stalked out.

  “Don’t take it so personally,” she said. “It’s my job. Besides, it’s not like she didn’t have a go at me already.” Even as she said it, she was wondering. Why would Odalys bother to send a messenger to threaten Zoe when she’d already sent a witch to kill Sylvie? Threats only meant something if there was someone alive to feel threatened.

  While Wales loaded boxes in her pickup, Sylvie took the opportunity to call Zoe. There was a small but quantifiable difference between knowing her sister was safe at Val’s, and knowing it. Zoe picked up just before the phone went to voice mail, and said, “Too early! Call me later,” and hung up. Sylvie doubted she’d ever really woken up. Zoe liked her sleep. But hearing that familiar whine had soothed the worst of her nerves. Sylvie called Val also, got the machine. No surprise there. Even if Val had agreed to take care of Zoe, to teach her Magic 101, AKA how not to get yourself killed in a truly freakish fashion, it didn’t mean things were copacetic between Sylvie and Val. That was going to take some time.

  “Hey, Val,” Sylvie said. “Just a heads-up. Odalys sent a magically armed thug after Wales, and he made noises about coming for Zoe, too.”

  Wales returned, sweating, pushing his hair out of his face, and gave her a dirty look. “We’d be out of here faster if you’d help.”

  It took them three silent trips to get the rest of the boxes into the truck, and Sylvie spent the time thinking about Odalys with increasing grimness. She’d known that jail wasn’t going to be the end of things if they even managed to get Odalys convicted. The charges Suarez had arrested her on were approximations at best, real-world analogues for magical misbehavior, and hell, Suarez hadn’t even had jurisdiction. A single wrong step, and the entire house of cards would fall, setting Odalys free. Sylvie had been willing to wait and see. That no longer looked like an option.

  The problem was that the bars imprisoning Odalys also protected her. Odalys had contacts she could reach on the outside, but Sylvie’s only friend on the inside was in the hospital and out of the loop. Still, something had to be done.

  Sylvie didn’t know if it was just a bad idea, or a really bad idea, that made her think she had a solution.

  But first . . . she battened down the last of Wales’s boxes and slung herself into the truck’s cab. The Ghoul was a sullen presence in her passenger seat, idly tapping his fingers against his inner jacket pocket.

  Like her, wearing a jacket in the Miami heat was more a matter of practicality than comfort. Sylvie used her collection of Windbreakers to help disguise the gun she carried at the small of her back. Wales used his ratty leather jacket for much the same reason, though in Miami, her gun was less disturbing than what he carried. She eyed the bulge over his heart, and said, “So, why cart Marco’s Hand around? Thought you came to a new agreement. Gave him independence.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, a narrow, unwelcome gaze, before he deliberately settled on an answer. “I find his presence comforting,” he said.

  She licked her lips, and said, “That’s payback for the sniper comment, isn’t it?”

  “You tell me, Shadows. Since you know me so well.”

  The boxes slid as she made a turn onto the highway, and she sighed. Time for a little Alex diplomacy maybe. “Sorry. I don’t like Odalys’s threatening people I care about.” She kept it vague, let him wrap himself into one of those people if he chose.

  He let the leather seat cradle him more firmly, his spine losing some of its rigidity. Apologies could do that even if they weren’t sincere. It was the veneer of civilization—the hope of rational discourse. It worked more often than Sylvie cared to let Alex know.

  Thing was, she did care about Wales more than she wanted him to know. Alex had done more digging in the days between their first interaction and this one, and had pulled up enough on his past to let Sylvie know that Wales was pretty much like her. They’d both been normal once. Both cared about their friends and family, were the designated problem-solvers, the ones who just couldn’t sit by and let trouble happen to other people. Then they’d run into the Magicus Mundi and learned a whole new world of trouble existed.

  Their paths had forked at that point. Sylvie had picked up a gun; Wales, like a child, had been formed by what he’d seen—the CIA and Hands of Glory. In other words: necromancy and paranoia.

  She could have wished he’d gone a kinder, fluffier route, except the Magicus Mundi didn’t reward gent
le tactics, and she knew better than to rue things that couldn’t be changed. If she ever started that, she’d be useless, left mired in hopeless nostalgia for an easier time, when she lived in ignorance. No one should ever strive to live in ignorance.

  “Where we going?” Wales asked. “You said you had a job?”

  “I’m not sure what I’ve got other than an unholy mess,” Sylvie said. “You follow the news at all?”

  Wales shook his head. “News feeds the fear.”

  “There’s something new and nasty in the Everglades—”

  “And it involves necromancy?”

  “It involves dead things waking up and savaging people.”

  “Zombies?”

  “Bear,” Sylvie said. “Or so I was given to understand.”

  Wales patted his pocket again, that nervous tell. Sylvie put her attention back on the road, suddenly quite sure that he’d told her nothing but the truth; that Marco’s severed Hand was a comfort to him.

  With Wales’s worldly possessions sliding gently in the back of her pickup, with the reminders of his personality flaws—things she’d glossed over in her memories since she needed him—she decided that stopping at the office was not only desirable but an absolute necessity.

  If she dragged Wales straight out to the Everglades, all his stuff still boxed, after her unfortunate comments about shooting him, he’d probably assume she was clearing out one more necromancer from the city. He looked like he expected betrayal at any minute.

  When Sylvie pulled the truck to a stop outside her office, Alex was waiting in the doorway, framed nicely by midday sun, and with Sylvie’s thoughts still running on Odalys and on sniper shots, the sight sparked aggravation and concern. Alex had the self-preservation instincts of a lemming.