by Lyn Benedict
“I try not to think about it,” he said, breath catching as she pushed his shirt farther up to chase the rib all the way to his sternum, letting the orb slip and slither over his nipple. “We’re talking about this now?” He licked his lips, laughed, but his eyes were wary. “I don’t think this is the time to talk about my mother.”
Sylvie said, “I don’t think anytime is that time. I really didn’t like her.”
“I’m sure it was mutual.”
“You say the sweetest things.” She let the crystal roll away like a bead of water. She wanted to taste his skin, see if the crystal, like water, had left a trail. “But you’re right. This is not the time.” The ache in her chest told her that, the weariness in her bones, the brittle edge to her mood. She felt lazy now, but the rage still simmered, waiting to be woken to life again.
He leaned up, leaned close, and said, “Answer a question?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“What’s up with the clothes? How bad did you piss off Cassavetes?”
She blinked at him, flashing back to six months on the run, learning that all the monsters of her childhood night-mares were real, before realizing he meant Val, not her dead husband. “Did cracking that crystal crack your head? What about the clothes? Yeah, they’re kinda wrecked but—”
He tugged on the collar of Erinya’s jacket, pushed it back, touched the lumpy seam of the inside-out T-shirt. “That jacket belongs to one of Dunne’s bodyguards, the punk one. The T-shirt isn’t yours either, unless you have some tastes the ISI isn’t aware of, and is inside out, besides. The pants are cut for a man. Supernaturally speaking, you’re running under a stealth shield.”
“Like that would work,” she said, then paused. “Would it?”
“Traditionally,” he said. “I don’t believe we’ve ever tested it.”
“All talk,” she said. “Here I thought the ISI was going to be a good resource for a moment. But no, you were picking my brain.” She lifted herself off the floor just enough to slide herself onto the couch; the hard floor was beginning to create new aches. “Besides, maybe this is my T-shirt, and the ISI doesn’t know all about me. Not all of us can have a formal sense of style, you know.”
“Don’t dis the suits,” he said. “If you want fresh clothes, you’ll be wearing pieces of them tomorrow.”
Sylvie sighed. “This one’s too small, this one’s too large. I’m living in a Goldilocks world.”
She eased herself up from her not-so-comfortable slouch, finding her ribs bothered her more now that she wasn’t enjoying herself. “Aspirin?”
“Bathroom,” he said. “There’s Tylenol 4, Percocet, and Vicodin.” At her raised brow, he said, “The ISI believes in a fully stocked first-aid kit. Not so much in insurance benefits.”
“Figures,” she said. “Guess a bunch of people with unusual injuries all in the same insurance group might attract attention.”
“I think that’s their justification,” Demalion said. “But it bites when you’re getting stitched up by a student veterinarian in the backwoods who’s freaking out about putting needle to nonfurry flesh.”
“Life’s tough all over.” Sylvie wandered off to find the promised land of painkillers. Running her finger over the selection, she chose a handful of ibuprofen. Other painkillers might slow her down too much. She shucked the shirt, admired the bruises that had come up, stuck her tongue out at the dirt that had ground itself into her skin, and gave in. The world could wait while she showered. The hollow-eyed woman reflecting back at her agreed.
“Sylvie!” Demalion said. There was controlled panic in his voice, strong enough to bleed through a shut door.
Maybe not.
Sylvie pulled her shirt back on, and went out, gun in hand, though she doubted it was needed urgently. She might not trust Demalion all the way from heart to head, but he wouldn’t call her out to face a deadly foe with only that bare warning.
She found him standing in his kitchenette, bent over the counter as if he’d been injured, one hand compressing a Chinese take-out container, the other white-tensed against the laminate.
“Sylvie?” he said, turning, seeming oddly off balance, as if the world had shifted beneath his feet. As if he’d suddenly been deprived of a sense.
“Blind?” she asked. She didn’t need confirmation; the way he jerked and tracked her voice was enough.
“My crystal?”
“All right,” she said, and went to fetch it. “I thought this only happened when you spied on them.”
“At first I did, too. I mean, that’s what we were doing when it all blew up in our faces. Sylvie . . .”
“I’m hurrying,” she said.
“Lilith was there,” he said. “It must have been her. A dark, angry force, watching us, watching them. We knew there was something else, but we never saw it. Just felt it.”
“You’d know it again?” she asked, casting her gaze about the floor. Amazing how something so shiny-glossy could become invisible when you wanted it. She knelt, set her gun on the nearest cardboard box, and peered beneath the sofa. There it was. Sylvie forced her hand under the couch, stretching. “You said, at first? What’s blinding you now?”
“It’s nearness to something Dunne considers his. His lover, his house, his car. Took me a week to learn where Dunne parked and avoid passing by that garage.”
So was this Dunne on the move? Coming back to check in at long last? Sylvie doubted life would be that easy.
Sylvie closed her fingers over the glass, scraping her arm against the sofa frame, and wincing.
“Hurry, Sylvie,” Demalion said.
“What?” she said. She found herself in a crouch, waiting, gun in hand.
“It’s getting closer. It’s like pressure in my head.” He cocked his head, listening to something inside it, and she tensed.
“Demalion, incoming, twelve o’clock,” she said, and chucked the crystal at him. His hand closed on it as she bolted for the door. Even if it were Dunne, he and the ISI weren’t a good combination.
“Sylvie,” Demalion called, but she was already gone. She took the first flight of stairs down at a near gallop but drew up short with the agonizing pinch of ribs grating. She took the second flight more gingerly, slow enough, dammit, that Demalion, even blind, had found the elevator and caught up.
“Go back,” she snapped. “Or at least, stay put.”
Through the lobby glass, the night sky seethed with sheets of color. The aurora borealis ran loose in the streets of Chicago like the risen tide, a shimmer of blue and gold and deepest purples that made her scalp tingle. It parted the air with the sound of distant bells.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, a prickling warning. She didn’t think this was Dunne’s work, despite Demalion’s blindness. Dunne was all storm cloud behind his eyes, leashed thunder, and this gaudy display—
A figure breached the stream, like a drowning victim making one last flailing attempt at breath and air and life. There was a flash of teeth, a choked-off growling, then the tide crashed down on her again, dragging her under as inexorably as a riptide.
“What is it?” Demalion asked. The light reflected off the shiny silver of his eyes, got caught in dancing sparks in his crystal.
“A god,” Sylvie said. “It’s eating Erinya.”
“Dunne’s bodyguard—”
Sylvie nodded. The gun was a weight in her hand, but Sylvie knew when a gun was outclassed. Even a magical one. She gritted her teeth; she wanted Erinya out of the lethal tide. For all she knew, Erinya had the linchpin piece of information Sylvie would need to save Bran.
A breath of superchilled air touched her, dropping down fast like ice water. She went from cold-scared to cold-frozen in half a moment. The icy air brought the scent of salt with it, the tang of a winter sea, and as it hit the sidewalk, the asphalt, and buildings heated by the day’s sun, small tornadoes formed, wisping upward, taking glass in its wake, taking small stones, then bigger ones.
Sylvie dre
w back into the doorway of the apartment building, pushing Demalion ahead of her.
“Amazing,” he said. A breath hidden in the howl of wind.
“What do you see?” she asked.
“A man’s hand pulling a woman’s long hair,” he said, staring at his crystal, “pulling her away, and an animal tangled in the hair.”
The aurora swept upward, spiraling as it went, twisted into the storm, leaving a shape hunched and growling, on buckled tarmac.
Sylvie kept her gun out and cautiously approached. The Fury’s head snapped up, teeth bared, eyes full of phosphorescent heat. Her short, punk bob stood out as stiffly as a porcupine’s quills.
“Erinya,” Sylvie said. “Eri.” The Fury let her hackles settle.
“Is the attack done?” First thing first. If the gods were going to start brawling again, she wanted to be elsewhere.
“Not an attack,” Erinya muttered, breathy gasps of explanation. “Just a squabble. Hera took a chance. Kevin found out.”
Demalion followed Sylvie into the street, and Erinya’s calm disappeared. Her eyes went hollow and dark, bloody gaps beneath tangled lashes. “Why are you with him?” she growled. “Traitor—”
She eased to a low crouch, veering between shapes, and Sylvie said, “Don’t start a fight, Eri. You’re beat. Demalion’s going to help us.”
“I’ll kill him—”
“You’ll have to heal first,” Sylvie said. She holstered the gun and crossed to Erinya’s side, ready to help though her ribs winced at the thought. Erinya got to her feet, unaided, slunk after them into the elevator.
In the light, Sylvie grimaced. Erinya looked worse for wear, and nothing much of human. If Sylvie were grading on human disguises, Erinya would get a C minus. And that was on a curve. The Fury had always looked lanky; now she looked like a puppet about to come apart at the joints.
“It’s all his fault,” Erinya said, and the petulant little-girl whine did nothing to belie the menace in her presence. “He doesn’t want to help.”
Demalion, wisely, stayed silent, though he turned a betrayed look on Sylvie when she said, “You don’t trust him? Go on, then. Look for yourself; read him. Judge his sincerity.”
It was a risk, but one Sylvie found worth taking. If Demalion couldn’t be trusted, better to know now, and if he was found wanting—Sylvie wouldn’t have to do anything about it. Not with Erinya’s shape rippling through cloudy spikes of scale and claw.
“Don’t feel like it,” Erinya said. She didn’t check; Demalion, still standing mutely before her, hand raised with his crystal “eye,” was proof enough of that. Sylvie remembered the rigor tension of the girl in the bar, her own collapse in Miami. Being read took something from you.
The elevator dinged open, and Erinya slumped with the jolt. Sylvie reached out, wrapping an arm around the Fury’s waist. Pins and needles, a shocking cold/heat confusion, and nerves firing in overload—Sylvie nearly jerked away. Demalion reached out and steadied her, fumbling only a little.
Together they manhandled the quietly growling Fury to his apartment, with only one gaping eyewitness.
Sylvie just shook her head. Normally, she’d worry about it, but with all that was going on in the city? A single, bleeding, mythological monster wasn’t much of a secret.
They dropped Erinya on the couch, Demalion fidgeting, the crystal going hand to hand, until Sylvie stopped it with her own. “You should go elsewhere,” she suggested. “Erinya’s presence is causing the blindness.”
“It’s my apartment,” he said. “End of discussion.”
“At least go into the bedroom, shut the door.” Like that would even slow the Fury down if she lost it. Sylvie wasn’t going to endanger Demalion; wasn’t that what she had told Anna D?
“No,” he said. “I’ll be watching.” He tapped the crystal meaningfully.
“Fine,” Sylvie said. “We’ll be getting cleaned up in the bathroom. Eri—you ever had oxycodone?”
18
Playing Doctor
“I’LL HEAL,” ERINYA SAID. “DON’T NEED YOUR HELP.”
Sylvie stared at the strange, smoky stain leaking through the Fury’s skin and mesh shirt, staining Demalion’s pale couch. “Then get up,” she said.
Erinya raised herself a bit, fell back panting. Sylvie helped her up, ignoring the growl. Hell, Eri’s growl was becoming an almost familiar sound track to her life.
“Before we get cozy patching you up, is Hera gonna come back for you?”
“No.”
Demalion made a quiet scoffing sound. Sylvie was on the same page. Nothing was so untrustworthy as a flat denial.
She asked again. Erinya snarled, made a sudden sharp whine as she stumbled over one of Demalion’s boxes, and nearly fell.
Sylvie got closer, put an arm around her waist again, and was bombarded once more by the sensation she’d just grabbed hold of a live wire. She gritted her teeth. Bran lived with the Furies, and he was human; he could stand their touch. Loved a god, and invited him into his bed. Sylvie could walk a Fury to the bathroom and the first-aid kit.
“As long as I’m not trying to get to Kevin, they don’t care,” Erinya said. “You told me to tell him about Lily. I haven’t been able to.”
“I thought Hera lost power. You couldn’t beat her?”
“She made me,” Erinya said. “I can’t raise my hand to her. But she could destroy us at will. Once. Now, she can only hamper.”
“Some hampering,” Sylvie said. “You look half-dead.”
Erinya growled beneath her shaking hands. Supporting the Fury was not doing Sylvie’s ribs any good; the Fury was surprisingly heavy, as if magic weighed more densely than flesh and bone.
“First aid and triage, coming right up,” Sylvie said. “Get out of the way, Demalion.”
“She’s a monster,” Demalion said. He leaned up against the wall to the tiny bathroom, his blind eyes disapproving.
“So don’t watch,” Sylvie said, and with a last grunt of effort, dragged Erinya around Demalion and into the bathroom. She kicked the door shut in Demalion’s face and sank to the floor, Erinya landing atop her. “Ow, ow, ow,” Sylvie said, and pretended that was release enough from the pain, that the tears on her face were from exertion, not hurt.
Erinya nuzzled her throat, and Sylvie managed to still her instinctive reaction to jerk away. If she torqued her ribs once more today, she’d probably faint. If she passed out, the Fury might eat her; right now, Erinya had the teeth for it, curving needles the color of ancient ivory. Bony stubs protruded from her shoulder joints, flared back and ended abruptly, like stripped bat wings, broken off.
“You smell like that old cat,” Erinya complained. “That’s where you were? Hidden beneath her time? Smothered in her memories of sand?”
Old cat, Sylvie thought, mind dragging away from pain into rational thought. Old cat. Anna D. “How old is she?” Irrelevant really, to everything else, but—she cast a furtive glance at the closed door, at the man behind it—she wanted to know.
“Forever,” Erinya said. “The only one. The oldest thing ever.”
The oldest thing—well then, maybe, Sylvie would allow that Anna D might know what she was talking about. Maybe. Still didn’t excuse playing games with the information.
Sylvie knelt up with a wince and reached for the first-aid kit. She scored another Advil or two for herself and dry-swallowed, then pulled out gauze, sutures, the curved needle.
“Take off your shirt,” Sylvie said. Erinya grinned wolfishly, and the spiderwebbed, torn mesh of her shirt began to sink into her skin, first, like dark veins moving beneath pale flesh, then like a shadow sinking into deep water, vanishing.
“That’ll work,” Sylvie said, and tried not to wonder about the jacket she had borrowed. Surely the Fury wouldn’t have let her wander off with a chunk of her skin? No, Erinya had said Bran had bought it for her.
Sylvie shook the thoughts away and stopped her hands from trembling. Erinya seemed minded to allow her to play doctor;
still, best not flaunt an unsteady hand.
The wound was worse than she had thought—the mesh of the not-shirt had tangled shadows over it, disguising its depth, its breadth. A raw slash ran from just above Eri’s hipbone, across her muscled belly, up under her scant breast, going deeper. Sylvie put her hand out and leaned Erinya forward, looking at her back. Exit wound there, a triangular tear where the spine should be.
“Spear?” Sylvie asked.
“She was pushing me all over this city,” Erinya said. “Wrought-iron fence.”
They bled, for lack of a better word, but nothing so ordinary as blood. Sylvie touched the wound with a cautious hand, drew the loose flap of skin upward. Dark fluid leaked over her fingertips like ether, cold, slippery, not quite weighty, and drizzled up her palm. It was like the ghost of blood, and her hand buzzed and shook with the touch. Inhuman, Sylvie thought again. On the surface and within.
Sylvie’s mouth dried. The skin, pulled away from the wound, revealed nothing human at all beneath. There should have been outraged tissue, carmine and gory, the creamy slick shine of exposed bone, the smell strong and foul. If Erinya had been human, the makeshift spear would have shish kebabbed the lung, liver, stomach, and severed the spinal column.
Erinya wasn’t human, and there was nothing within her flesh but the roiling ghostly blood.
“You healed fast enough when I shot you,” Sylvie said, and didn’t Erinya bridle at that reminder.
“It’s bigger than a bullet hole,” Erinya said. “And I’m . . . tired. But I’d heal, even without your help.” She cupped her hand beneath the thickest stream; the blood stained her hand, then faded inward like the shirt had done, reclaimed by her body.
“Such gratitude,” Sylvie said. It wasn’t blood; it was power. The core that was Erinya. The soul her shell was meant to contain. Soul, blood, power; for a creature like the Fury, it was all the same.
Sylvie threaded the needle, trying not to broadcast that her skills were all theory, no practice. She put the first stitch in; Erinya didn’t bother to flinch. What every med school needed, Sylvie thought, feeling a little light-headed, a practice dummy that bled but didn’t feel.
