by Lyn Benedict
When nothing happened except Sylvie throwing the ruined lipstick at her feet, Patrice laughed. “What’s that supposed to do?”
“You’ll find out,” Sylvie said. “Watch your back, Patrice. I will be.”
She turned, dragged Wales away from his brow-wrinkled contemplation of the lipstick sigil, and drove them off.
It was a mile or so down the road that he spoke. “So what all was that about? What’d you try to bring down on her head?”
“Nothing at all,” Sylvie gritted out. “It was a bluff. She just pissed me off. If I can’t kill her, and you can’t evict her—”
He shook his head. “She’s wrapped up good and tight in some type of protection spell. I don’t have the magic to even slow her down.”
“Then the least I can do is scare her, maybe make her day run rough.”
“A bluff?”
“It’s a petty victory,” Sylvie said. “I know that.” God, did she know that; her internal voice was still demanding bloodshed, hadn’t been appeased at all. Its appetite had only been sharpened by the brief fear on Patrice’s face. “Sometimes,” she told Wales. “Sometimes, just making’em flinch feels good.”
Another several miles, and he said, “Are you sure it was random? It’s just . . . It kind of struck me familiar like. Something I’ve seen before.”
Her hands tightened on the wheel. It felt familiar to her, too. Not the look of it, but the creation, the motion of it. It mimicked the blade work her little dark voice had guided her through in her dream.
“Probably,” Sylvie agreed. “It’s not like I wander around memorizing random magical sigils. It’s probably some company’s logo. I’ve probably just invoked the wrath of Starbucks on her ass.”
Wales’s lips twitched, creased in a smile. “Starbucks is a curse all on its own.”
BY THE TIME THEY MADE IT OUT TO THE EVERGLADES, THE SUN WAS AT full zenith, and the road before them was smudgy with heat mirage. Sylvie wondered if it was the idea of slogging through the heat of the day or a fear of the unknown that made Wales relax into a tiny smile when the nearest access point to the crime scene was still jammed with cars—cops and press alike.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Sylvie said, driving by. “We’re going around back. The route Tatya took me.” She cast another glance over her shoulder at the huddle of press drinking sodas out of their cars, AC cranked high, and thought maybe Cachita had a point. Reporters should be like Kipling’s mongoose, filled with the need to “Go and find out.”
He sighed, and said, “You sure about this? It’s not wise.”
“Client wants what the client wants,” Sylvie said. It was easiest to think of Suarez that way. She owed him a favor; he had things he wanted explained. Therefore: client. Though she’d better set Alex on to a bunch of the littler cases—spouse shadowing, background checks, and the like—or they wouldn’t have enough money to pay Wales and Tatya, not to mention the rent and themselves.
Bright side was, keeping Alex out and about made her less a sitting duck should the nameless witch make another attempt on the office and Sylvie. Downside, Alex would bitch. She hated doing research on the run.
Sylvie turned off the main road two miles farther on, trading asphalt for dirt and limestone gravel, a sandy, weedy stretch of lane just wide enough for her truck.
“They won’t notice us coming ’round the back?” Wales asked, found his own answer as the track they were on curved abruptly, taking them away from the scene of the crime. Sylvie continued the drive for another few minutes until she spotted the tiny yellow flag planted near the base of some scrub.
She pulled the truck over and cut the engine; it gave a diesel cough and left them in silence. “ATV track. We’ll have to walk it, but it should bring us up pretty close, then we can just wait for them to clear out.”
He whined in his seat, and she said, “I brought snacks?”
He opened the door, and said, “Hope you brought water. Hot as fuck out there.”
“A Texas boy complaining about the heat?” Sylvie said.
“A Texas boy smart enough to make a career in Web design. Indoors. You know. Before.”
Before the Magicus Mundi stuck its fingers into his life, changed his path.
“There’s water in the lockbox; never travel without it.” She chucked the keys at him. “Come on, Tex.”
“Tex?”
“You rather I go back to calling you Ghoul?”
The walk they took was quiet, almost pleasant—the scuff of their shoes in the trail dust, carefully carved along what passed for high ground in the ’Glades. Wales wasn’t a chatterer, just slunk along beside her, studying the landscape—all grey-green and gold—with the curiosity of a man who spent the better part of his life between four walls. There was water moving nearby, some slow tidal wash created by something moving through the river marsh. Turtle, maybe a soft-shelled slider, all push and glide. Her school field trips were years and an entire world away.
Even the heat wasn’t too bad, not yet; Sylvie felt her bones relax like caramel beneath the sunlight’s weight.
It took her long minutes to realize that the sun wasn’t doing its job any longer, that despite the peace and quiet and the pressing warmth that urged languor, the muscles along her spine were slowly tightening, the sweat-damp hair at her nape prickling.
Beside her, Wales’s head was up, looking around with more intent than before. No longer a tourist in a strange world but prey sensing a predator. His lips moved silently, some conversation not meant for her ears. Meant for his ghost companion, maybe.
Sylvie swallowed, her throat dry with more than heat and exertion. The sounds about them—plop of water, rustling grass, the cry of distant birds—just reminded her of how much was unseen around them. She settled a hand on her gun, the other locked tight around a water bottle, and tried not to think about alligators or panthers or any other predators that might be out there.
“Wales?” she said.
He shook his head briefly, and she wasn’t sure if it was in response to her implied question or if he was still focused on Marco and hadn’t heard her at all.
Sylvie checked her mental map. They were nearing the crime scene; some of the bird-cry sound might actually be human voices twisted by distance and the wind over the water. She licked her lips, thought, Go back? Give up because she got spooked? She felt like something was watching them—so what? That was the state of the world. Nature was nosy.
She stiffened her shoulders, twist-tied her empty water bottle to a belt loop to get her hands free. “Pick up the pace,” she said, and moved on. She didn’t give up, and she didn’t turn tail without good reason. Sometimes, not even then.
They smelled the scene before they saw it, Wales wrinkling his nose against the stinging, acrid scent of burned metal and gasoline. Sylvie thought that was darkly funny. The Ghoul, thinking a little bit of char was bad? Then the breeze shifted and brought the underlying scent to her—burned flesh. She dropped her gaze and concentrated on breathing, trying not to think of the cops who had died.
The ground at her feet was growing dark and damp. They were leaving the ridge of the ATV trail, and the water level was rising. The saturated soil had taken on an oily sheen, contaminated by the explosion. It made the footing more slippery than it should have been, like a tattered carpet laid over grease. The bird cry of voices stabilized, became the sporadic chatter of men and women trying to piece together a puzzle they didn’t understand, frustrated outbursts that allowed single words to drift in Sylvie’s direction.
Not finding any signs of a bomb.
Is that an alligator tooth?
Should have brought a porta potty.
Wales said, “So, what’s the plan?” His voice was a whisper, and even then, she twitched at the sound of it. The sense of being watched was still strong and sharp in her blood.
But there was nothing in any direction that she could see. The slough ahead of them, ground ceding to water. The hammock to their distant l
eft, a low smudge of trees on the horizon, crackling with birds.
Be careful, her little dark voice murmured. Some things don’t need eyes to see.
Sylvie shut it down. One paranoid companion per expedition was enough. Another last glance—saw grass, hammock, slough, the seeping track behind them, and sounds of life everywhere: frogs, birds, the rustle of quick lizards. Maybe there had been something or someone watching. Something that had been still enough not to spook the wildlife. Or maybe it had been and gone, and the only spectators they needed to worry about were the police.
Stay careful.
“You getting anything at all?” she asked, keeping her voice to a hush. “You picking up anything death-magical?”
“From this distance? No.”
“So we wait for the cops to leave, then.” Sylvie hesitated. Waiting had sounded okay in her office, but in the actual ’Glades? For one thing, they weren’t that well hidden, not by the landscape, anyway. But if they retreated, they could miss any narrow window of opportunity that might present itself.
“They look pretty damned entrenched to me. I’m not really in love with the idea of waiting until past dark to do my look around.”
“You and me both,” Sylvie said. The idea of lingering out there, exposed in the tall grass, was bad enough in daylight. In the dark? “We’ve got to get closer.”
“All right,” he said.
He drew out Marco’s Hand and his lighter, and Sylvie said, “Wait, what?”
“What’d you think I was going to do?” Wales asked. “Put on a suit and pretend to be a cop? Sorry. I got just one spell that’ll get us up close.”
Sylvie growled. “You want me to ignore the fact that lighting up Marco is going to result in soul shock for people who already feel fragile? Some of those cops are cleaning up bits of their colleagues.”
Wales shrugged. “Then you should have brought a different type of witch,” he said. “One who could send them off chasing a will-o’-the-wisp or give them the compulsion to go back to the station. But you pissed off the local witches, and now you’ve just got me.”
You could have called on Zoe, Sylvie’s little dark voice whispered.
That was enough to steel her spine. Bad enough her little sister had gotten a yen for practicing magic, worse that she showed talent enough she had to be trained, worst of all would be Sylvie’s encouraging her.
Two types of pragmatism warred in her, and, finally, she just shook it all off. “You light Marco, and I go down, too. I’ve had enough soul shock for a while.”
Wales frowned. “There is that.” He set Marco’s Hand down on the grass, fumbled through his pockets some more. Sylvie kept a close eye on the Hand of Glory. Last thing they needed was some random raccoon running off with it. Problem with nature. It was always lurking, always hungry.
“Ah,” Wales said, drew out a pocketknife, a convenience-store special, the kind that lived in plastic bins beside the dollar lighters. “Blood’ll do it.”
“Yours or mine?” she murmured, but the question was already answered. Wales dragged the thin, brittle blade across the heel of his hand, left a bloody smile slowly forming. He wiped the blade on his jeans, shoved it back into his pocket, then dipped his fingers into the blood.
“Hold still,” he said, brought his fingers toward her face.
She shied back. “Blood goes where exactly?”
“On your skin,” Wales said. “So Marco knows you’re part of me.”
“Marco was licking your blood earlier—”
“He won’t lick this,” Wales said. “Trust me.”
He touched her cheeks, two quick strokes and a squiggle, some symbol she couldn’t see; the temperature of her body, the heat of the day, was such that she didn’t feel the dampness at first, only smelled the old-penny copper of it.
Then it started to trickle sluggishly down her skin, nothing like sweat, sticky and already going rank. She had to force herself to hold still for the next two touches, marking her forehead and chin. No point in doing this half-assed, and she really didn’t like the idea of having her soul munched on by a ghost who wasn’t all that fond of her.
The last time she’d seen Marco—more than just his remnant Hand—he’d gotten in her face and told her he killed women like her.
If there was anything that would break the deal between Wales and his pet ghost, it would probably be her: Recidivism was more than just a word, after all, and while alive, Marco had made a habit of killing women.
She was trusting Wales on two fronts here—that he knew what he was doing and that his word was good—and that made her nearly as edgy as the hunt they were on. She watched him, her vision narrowing until the flick of the lighter, his long, pale fingers, and bony knuckles, the quick and tiny spill of sparks, got eaten by the wash of the Hand of Glory coming alight.
The last time she’d seen Marco, they’d been confined and close in a single room. The last time she’d seen ghosts, they’d been focused on their victims. Both events left her utterly unprepared for the speed of Marco now.
Her breath went out in a rush, and Marco breezed through the small crowd of policemen and technicians, bending close, sending them into unconsciousness with a kiss—a bite—before they could even realize something was happening.
Marco moved like wind, a grey shape in the air, unfettered by human requirements of energy or space. He blew through the equipment, set one machine to shrieking an alarm, and took out the technician before she had time to turn her head. The woman crumpled, face-first, and Wales hissed in disapproval.
“What is it?” Sylvie said.
“Hurry up, hurry up!” Wales muttered more to himself than her, then broke, running with graceless haste through the slough, going knee deep in places, forcing his way through, leaving a muddy wake. Sylvie, finding a drier path, finally saw what Wales, with his greater height, had seen: The female technician was facedown in the water.
Marco hadn’t changed at all since his death. Sylvie wished she could be surprised.
4
Magic and Monsters
SYLVIE PICKED UP HER PACE, FELT THE SAW GRASS LASH AGAINST her legs, heard the low hum of it rasping against her clothes; she got there as Wales manhandled the woman out of the water, checked her airways.
“She all right?” And wasn’t that a careful distinction of all right? Was the soul-shocked woman still breathing? Morals and the Magicus Mundi didn’t line up all that well.
“She is,” Wales said. Marco shrugged, an insincere oops. “They all are,” he said, nodding decisively as if saying it made it so.
“Yeah, let’s just do this,” Sylvie said. She directed her attention to the scene, trying to splice the two images together in her mind. When she’d been there last, it was a peaceful scene—minus the dead women, naturally—glimmering waters, green duckweed, saw grass stretching out toward the sloughs and the hammocks.
Now there was char everywhere, scraps of metal in the process of being collected; scorched grass, oily water, the detritus of investigation, and a double handful of dropped cops. Sylvie wandered over to the collected evidence bags, reading labels. Might as well start there.
There were two men fallen near the bags, dressed in Fed-standard suits, in Fed-standard colors—one blue, one black. Miami detectives had more sense, wore khakis and short-sleeved polo shirts. Sylvie pulled out the first man’s ID: Dennis Kent, ISI. She burned his face into her memory. Odds were, she’d be seeing him again. Dark hair, grey flecked, a Roman nose. Soft hands.
The second man—dirty blond, smooth-skinned, a babe in the woods—was Nick O’Neal, and definitely the junior of the pair.
Strange suits, indeed. Lio’s rumor mill had been right.
But these two looked more like an exploratory team than the first wave of an ISI incursion. Someone wanting to make sure that this was worth their time. Sylvie grimaced.
Using the Hand of Glory on them would probably go a long way to convincing them that this was ISI-interesting. Couldn’t win f
or losing, sometimes.
In the background, Wales held a furious, whispered conversation with Marco, a series of snake hisses on the breeze. Sylvie tipped her head, let the air cool her skin, drying the blood on her face until the streaks pulled uncomfortably. She reached up to scratch, then saw Marco studying her, his hollow eyes eager even from twenty feet away, and dropped her hands. Yeah, better not.
She put their IDs back, flipped through the evidence bags.
“You sense anything? Find anything?” Sylvie asked. She was coming up blank, blanker, blankest. Yesterday, the landscape had held that strange charge to the air, the sense that magic had been used, had altered reality. Today, it was just heat, breeze, sun, water, smoke, oil. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. She slapped at a mosquito that made a heat-slow sortie at her exposed wrist and pulled her sleeves back down.
“Nothing much,” Wales said. “Bit of a ghost presence. The dead cops. The burned woman. But they’re only traces, and they’re fading fast. They’re so far gone, holding ’em back’d be nothing but an act of cruelty.”
“You could do that?” Sylvie asked. “Pull them back?” That made her twitchy. It wasn’t just that he could keep them there, but that Wales—scarecrow klutz of a man—could pull their souls away from whatever gods lay waiting to claim them.
“Could. Won’t,” Wales said. “They can’t tell me much more than they already have, whispering about confusion and being lost.”
“You can hear them?”
Wales turned away from the empty space he was studying so intently that she knew he saw more than she could. “You don’t know much about necromancy, do you, Shadows?”
“Never needed to,” she said.
Wales hmmed thoughtfully, then spotted an open cooler of drinks, ice sparking against the sun, and said, “Thirsty?”
“Yeah,” Sylvie said, caught the icy soda he tossed her way with relief, set the can against her nape. “So we’re done here?”
