Sins & Shadows

by Lyn Benedict

Frustration rose in her, woke the little dark voice within. “Go away,” she said, letting its utter contempt for human frailty bleed through.

  They stiffened and blinked. Their faces took on individuality again; panic, confusion, embarrassment. She turned her back as they scattered with confused murmurs.

  After checking that the cops were out of sight, Sylvie tested the knob. The door opened. Maybe Tish Carmichael was a trusting soul who believed in a literal open-door policy. Maybe not.

  Sylvie slunk through the door, wincing as the volume increased. Her hand settled in the small of her back; the gun gave an eager pulse.

  The apartment was long but roomy and seemingly empty. The bottom floor, one large brick-walled room that doubled as bedroom and living area, held signs of Tish: discarded clothes, a plate left on the tiny kitchenette counter, a scatter of cameras beside the plate—Polaroid, 35mm, and digital—a proof sheet left out, images circled in red. The futon was opened out, sheets rumpled, sagging toward the floor. A miniscule bathroom stood empty, save for a clutter of hair products and dropped towels. Sylvie climbed the narrow stairs, following the music, and soft thumps and scuffles.

  Dancer, Sylvie remembered as she came out onto the second floor and found the girl alive, well, and working hard in a homemade studio. One wall was mirrors; the wood floor was sanded smooth and oddly springy. Sylvie caught Tish’s eyes midspin, and the girl came to a graceless halt.

  “Kevin Dunne sent me,” Sylvie said. She pitched her voice to compete with the music. Tchaikovsky, she thought, now that the distortion was gone. “I’m Sylvie. Your door was unlocked.”

  Tish hit the remote, and the stereo fell silent.

  “Okay,” Tish said, and picked up a hand towel. She wiped the sweat out of her tousled black hair, fluffing it with the ease of old routine.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Sylvie said. Make nice when you meet people, Alex told her. Sometimes Sylvie tried.

  “I think Bran’s more important, don’t you?” Tish said.

  Sylvie sighed. Nice worked for Alex; people opened right up to her, even with the exotic haircut and cosmetic insanity. But Sylvie—even when she tried, it went wrong. “Of course I do,” she said.

  “I hope I can help,” Tish said. “But I don’t really see how. I told the police everything, told Kevin everything—God, I wish I’d never made Bran come. I knew he didn’t want to. But I thought it’d be good for him.” She pressed the towel to her face again.

  Sylvie watched her sniffle, trying to get a read on the girl. Tish was careless for sure—to leave the door unlocked after Bran’s disappearance, to accept Sylvie’s identification without question—but careless didn’t mean stupid.

  Tish dropped the towel in favor of a well-faded Joffrey sweatshirt and pulled it over her soaked leotard. She reached for a pair of running shorts on the floor.

  “Good for Bran, how?” Sylvie asked, leaning back against the mirrored wall so that she didn’t have to watch herself interview Tish.

  Tish folded herself to a cross-legged seat on the floor-boards. She tugged nervously at her ankles, pulling threads from the edges of her slippers. Her blue eyes, reddened now around the rims, met Sylvie’s and flicked away.

  “He—he’s been different of late. He stopped wanting to go out, to do things he used to do. It worried me. Especially since Kevin’s been so busy.”

  “Doing what?” Sylvie asked, curious to see what Dunne’s cover story was.

  “He’s security for . . . Olympus Group Ltd., I think he said. Some big, global tech company.”

  Sylvie kept her face still. Olympus group? Surely it couldn’t be coincidence. A Greek god? Kevin Dunne didn’t sound like a Greek name. Maybe he just liked the reference. Cocky bastard. “I see,” she said.

  “I’ve never heard of it, but honestly, if it doesn’t involve dance, I’m probably not going to know about it.” Tish sighed. “Bran says I have a one-track mind. I wish I did. Then I’d be more than just a fill-in member of the troupe. Bran’s got me started on photography, though. That way, when I can’t dance, I can maybe still get a job in the arts—”

  “Artists give the best parties,” Sylvie agreed. Get her back on track. “But Bran didn’t want to come to yours. He give a reason?”

  “Sort of,” Tish said, rubbing her fingers over the callused soles of her feet, hesitant.

  “Don’t make me guess,” Sylvie said. “I don’t have the time.”

  Tish let out her breath in a rush as if Sylvie’s words were a blow. “I know. It’s just . . . I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  “About what?” Sylvie said, sitting down opposite Tish.

  “Bran was getting paranoid. I mean, really paranoid. You know the kind where you think your enemies are everywhere and know everything about you? He came over and checked my phone for wiretaps. Like he would even know what one would look like—he’s a painter! He was so scared all the time. I was worried. And now this happened—” Tish’s voice faded.

  “You thought he was delusional,” Sylvie said.

  “No,” Tish said. “I mean, not like that.” She gnawed her lower lip, darkening the pink of it to red when she released it. “He’s had some troubles, you know?”

  “No,” Sylvie said. “I didn’t.” The clients always lied. Always.

  “Yeah,” Tish said, and in a gesture that put unwilling chills up Sylvie’s spine, drew the tips of her fingernails up each soft inner wrist and the veins underneath. “He’s got scars. Old, though. I guess I just thought—I didn’t think it was real.” The tears gained ascendancy in her voice again, and Sylvie tossed her the towel.

  This changed things. Dunne knew it would, undoubtedly why no whisper of Bran’s instability had touched the police reports. The police would look hard for a young, rich abductee. Would they look as hard for a delusional young man? In this case, Sylvie knew the answer was yes, but only because Dunne was seeing to it. Still, it changed things, she thought, reduced the odds of Bran’s survival.

  It also put Sylvie on a tighter schedule than she had first thought.

  “Stop crying,” Sylvie said. “Talk to me. Did he say who he thought was following him? Or why?”

  “Government.” Tish hiccuped through her sobs.

  “Of course,” Sylvie said. The number one paranoia fantasy. But in this case, with Dunne in the picture, it was possible. Sylvie knew at least one government group that just loved sticking their fingers into every magical pie they could, heedless of the damage they caused.

  “Yeah,” Tish said, finally dragging her tears to a stop. “That’s why I had a hard time taking it for real, you know? Why would anyone be after Bran—he’s just a sweetheart; everyone l-loves Brandon. They just can’t help themselves. I mean, even those bitches that Kevin works with, they’re sweet as sugar to Bran.”

  “There’s all sorts of love,” Sylvie said. “Some of them will turn your stomach.”

  Tish shut her eyes but soldiered on. “I made him come to the party, and he did, brought Kevin along, and everything was all right. He was having a good time. But then Kevin had to go.”

  “And Bran—”

  “Was fine with Kevin leaving him here. He was having fun. I stopped worrying, but he must have wigged out,” Tish said. “All I know is he was suddenly telling me he had to go, all wired and shaking. I tried to get him to come up here, wait, and I’d take him home ’cause he was too drunk to drive for sure.”

  Sylvie slid the reports free from their rubber band. “He didn’t wait.”

  “No,” Tish said. “I thought he went to walk it off. He usually did. He would never drive drunk.”

  “But he left anyway, to do that?” Sylvie said.

  “No, I told you,” Tish said. “He wouldn’t. He probably took the El. He likes to ride the El late at night, just looking at the city through glass. He said it was soothing to be on the outside. It let him see things as they really were.”

  Sylvie paused in her leafing through the reports, looking for the list of pa
rty attendees. “The El? The reports said he disappeared between your house and the parking garage north of here.”

  “Well, the El’s in there,” Tish said. “There’s a station about halfway between here and the garage. So the report’s right, isn’t it?”

  “Technically,” Sylvie said. She felt her breath quicken. Not much of a lead, but maybe a start, given that she knew more than the cops, knew that magic was involved. She itched to get going, to walk Bran’s path on her own, and see if she could find where the path disappeared.

  Instead, she riffled through the report and found the roster of partygoers. After all, someone had spooked Bran, made him flee a place where he had earlier felt safe.

  She put the list in front of Tish. “Who came after Dunne left?”

  “Oh crap,” Tish said, looking at the sketchy collection of names, sometimes just first names, sometimes just a description of who they’d come with.

  “It’s not that bad,” Sylvie said, though her first reaction had been just as dismayed. “It’s not like you have to go through it all. Only the people that came late, and people that you don’t count as Bran’s friends. Of course, that leaves us with mostly the unknowns—”

  “Wait!” Tish said. She jumped to her feet and ran downstairs.

  For a dancer, she made enough noise for a marching band, Sylvie thought. She was back in another rush of sound and movement, clutching a double handful of what looked like Polaroids. The same kind Dunne had handed her earlier as the most recent photo of Brandon.

  “Pictures,” Sylvie said, smiling.

  “They make fun party favors, and people like posing for them,” Tish said. “But I’m going to switch to digital—Polaroids are costing me an arm and a leg. Well, mostly Bran keeps me supplied—”

  “Didn’t the cops want these?”

  “They took a whole bunch, one of everyone pretty much, to look for criminal records. Didn’t find anything more than a couple of dopers and a few DWIs. But I still have these, and maybe they’ll help me remember the names better.” Tish laid them out on the floor, and Sylvie smiled again. A good many of them were taken against the wall where the wet bar had been set up, right below the kitschy ballerina clock, her legs pointing the hours and minutes. Dunne had left about eleven. . . . Sylvie started weeding through those taken when the hour was past that, listening to Tish mumbling, trying to match names to faces.

  A quick flash startled her, and she looked up to see Tish lowering the tiny digital camera, frowning at it. “Hmm. I’m not sure I like it—you want to see?”

  Sylvie shook her head and went back to flipping pictures. One-track mind, indeed, she thought. But if Tish couldn’t get through a single conversation without snapping pics, the odds just went up that whoever scared Bran was documented. It was only a matter of recognizing it.

  Sylvie flipped another shot, looking first at the clock, then at the partygoers beneath. She dropped the photo and stared at the blank black back of it for a moment.

  Surely not. She picked it up again and took stock. A woman and a man, the woman whippet thin, her face petulant and of no interest to Sylvie. But the man with dark, sleek hair, eyes concealed behind dark glasses, and leaning on a white-tipped, crystal-hilted cane—recognition shocked her anew. She flicked her eyes to the clock above his head, as if she even needed confirmation of the time. Michael Demalion could only have been at Tish’s party for one reason.

  “Whatcha got?” Tish said, peering over Sylvie’s shoulder. “Oh, the yummy blind guy. Came with Denise, that slut. Can’t see it in that shot, with the glasses, but he has really pretty eyes. Sort of—”

  “Dark brown with little bits of gold? Like a cat,” Sylvie said. She took the shot from Tish again, not waiting for the girl’s nod. There was a government agent after all, Sylvie thought. Brandon’s paranoia was founded in fact.

  “You know him?” Tish said.

  “Yeah,” Sylvie said, calm as ever, though her heart thumped at the unexpectedness of it. Michael Demalion of the ISI, the constant thorn in her side, had shown up in Chicago just in time for Bran’s vanishing act. It couldn’t be coincidence.

  6

  Allies, Enemies, and the Spaces Between

  WITH MORE HASTE THAN GRACE, SYLVIE SHOVED ALL THE PAPERS back into their tattered folder. “Thanks, Tish.”

  “Wait,” Tish said, and caught at her arm. “That’s it?”

  “For now,” Sylvie said.

  “Who is he?” Tish said. “You can’t just say you know him and walk off. Bran’s my friend. I have a right—”

  “People have fewer rights than they think,” Sylvie said. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  At Tish’s startled and hurt eyes, Sylvie blinked.

  “Sorry. It’s been a long day, and it’s not near done yet. The man in the photo is a government agent. He doesn’t work for very nice people.”

  “If he comes back?” Tish said.

  “If he comes back, we’re in real trouble,” Sylvie said. “If he comes back, it means they didn’t take Bran. And while they’re generally assholes, and dangerously shortsighted, they’re not casual killers. If they have Bran, there’ll be a happy ending.”

  “Why would they even want him?”

  “Don’t know,” Sylvie said. “Gonna ask.”

  “They’ll tell you? If they have him?” Despite the hope-fulness of Tish’s voice, some deep doubt lurked beneath.

  “I can be very persistent,” Sylvie said. She freed herself from Tish’s sinewy grip and headed down the stairs. Tish clattered down after her.

  “You’ll come and tell me what you found out?”

  “Sure,” Sylvie said. An empty promise, really. Her first duty was to Dunne, and she might uncover things he preferred to keep quiet.

  Tish studied her, then nodded. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Sylvie let herself out, and behind her, Tchaikovsky started up again, the sound mingling with the thumping bass of a sedan passing on the street. Tish working out her anxiety on her body.

  Sylvie sighed. Now what? Her temper nagged, urging her to go drag information out of the ISI, out of Demalion in particular, but there were good reasons to wait.

  First, she wanted to walk Bran’s path, see if she could find something the cops hadn’t been looking for—something magical and malevolent, some tangible proof of a kidnapping, even an occult one.

  Second, she and the ISI were not friends. She’d lived under their watchful and condemnatory gaze for too long, and Dunne’s place-hopping might have swept her out of their sight. She wanted to have a damn good reason before she put herself back in their sights.

  If the ISI had taken Bran, had locked him away in some magically shielded cell, she’d find it. The ISI were many things; subtle was not one of them. They didn’t have to be. They had the monetary weight of the US government behind them and the instinct of pit bulls. Once they seized something between their teeth, they never let go. At least, not without a firm smack to the nose. Sylvie had administered such a smack before. The price she paid for winning was their nonstop attention.

  The last time she dealt with them directly, they’d taken a three-year-old child right out of preschool when the boy had given in to his genetic potential and gone wolf on the playground. It had been a bad situation to start with and ended immeasurably worse.

  One of the lesser casualties was Sylvie’s brand-new relationship with Demalion grinding to a savage halt when she realized he was one of them.

  No, better by far to avoid the ISI as long as possible, to gather all the proof she could before confronting them. Before confronting Demalion.

  Sylvie started down the sidewalk and was jostled by a young man running past. Reflexively, Sylvie checked her bag, her gun, her papers. All there.

  She sighed. It was really the wrong time of day to be doing this. Not only would she lack that all-important feel of the late-night street Brandon Wolf had traveled, the taste of who and what hung about at 3:00 a.m., but it was difficult to keep a
n eye out for some nebulous clue when she was playing dodge ’em with a growing crowd of the homeward-bound.

  Sylvie evaded a tangle of leashes and a woman walking three huskies at once. The lead dog growled low in its throat as Sylvie passed, and she shuddered. Dogs just reminded her too much of the freaky, frightening Eumenides sisters.

  She bit her lip, wondering how much damage those women-things would cause in her city, wondered if Alex would, for once, have the sense god gave small kittens and stay the hell away from the office.

  The way things were going, though, Sylvie thought Alex might have gone straight back to the office to have it out with her and run headfirst into the sisters.

  Her stomach clenched and roiled. The gun at her back throbbed in time with her accelerating heartbeat. She couldn’t lose Alex. Then you’d better stop whining and find Brandon Wolf, her internal voice said. Soonest found, soonest Dunne and his bitches are gone. Sylvie started walking again; she hated that voice, its spit and spite and rage. But hell, it could always be counted on to keep the goal clear.

  The entrance to the El appeared, a dark stairway in the sidewalk. Sylvie headed for it, thinking how Chicago it was, that to board an elevated railway, she had to go underground. This city made so little sense, contrary with age. She missed Miami with a passion. Sure, Miami could be brutal, and the forces of good nominal at best, but everything was out in the open. The sun saw to that. A city like Chicago, with its underground and its history, kept its secrets close and guarded them jealously.

  Sylvie forded a wave of ascending businessmen and -women, and started down the dimly lit stairs, trying to take them slow, to keep her eyes open, but between the crowds and residual light dazzle, she saw only blurs of movement and color.

  Didn’t make a difference, anyway, Sylvie thought in discouragement. What kind of evidence was she expecting to find? What could remain firm in this kind of daily traffic? The only constants were the gritty walls, graffitied and stained, and the sweating cement beneath her feet—Sylvie yelped as the meat gun twitched against her spine, like someone receiving a static shock. What in hell had he done to her gun? She put her hand on it and felt it throbbing like a frightened heart.