by Lyn Benedict
Sylvie wanted to cry alongside Bran, but her tears were gone. Crocodile tears, anyway, she thought bitterly. Maybe it had been necessary. But there might have been another way. One that didn’t make her a monster.
The wind picked up, howled in her ears, pressure dropping. The rain curled in the sky, went from westerly to northern, and stung them both.
In her arms, Bran shuddered again, and his silent tears gave way to coughing. Blood speckled the back of her hand, brief spray of crimson washed away in the rain.
“Bran?” she said. Her heartbeat, already fast, sped up until she felt light-headed. She’d broken him. She knew that. But physically? He’d touched his own raw heart. He’d split himself apart under his own power; he’d dragged himself inside out to take them back to earth. Barely more powerful than a sorcerer—how fast could he heal from that? A sorcerer would be dead.
She put her hands to his throat; his pulse was shallow, fast, and uneven. He moaned.
Have to get out of this storm, she thought. Have to assess the damage. Hospital would be best. But where the hell—She squinted at the door behind them in the dim light. There was a number. She traced it with her fingertips, with her eyes.
Oh God. She pushed the door off its hinges just a little and looked into a burned-out shell of a house, still smoldering with blue fire under the rain.
Where would a scared and injured god go? Home, of course. They were in the wreckage of Bran and Dunne’s home. And from the remainders of the uncanny fire, probably ground zero for one or more of Zeus’s strikes. What now? Sylvie gnawed her lip. Somehow, she’d expected Dunne to appear the instant Bran had returned to earth, but it had been fifteen minutes at least. And no Dunne. No Furies. Nobody at all. A nagging thought crossed her mind. Bran in tears. Maybe—
She dropped down to her knees beside him. “Bran, c’mon, Bran. Is he alive?” Bran responded about as well as a catatonic. Sylvie wrapped her arms around herself, shivering in the cold and wet. Suddenly all she could imagine was that they’d missed it all. That the city was dead, that everyone in it was dead . . .
Bran had finally stopped crying; now that the misery had left, he just looked blank, as lifeless as a pretty mannequin. She rested her hand on his pulse, and was reassured. It actually felt stronger, his skin warmer. Maybe he wasn’t in shock, but concentrating. Healing took effort.
Thunder rumbled, then continued long past the time it should have dispersed. Sylvie raised her head. Vehicle. Big one. Passing by. Military? She reached for her gun, but of course it was gone, burned up in the oubliette. She crouched, dragged Bran through the broken door with her. The rain poured in through the torn-out roof, but at least now she had a little shelter from whoever was out wandering the streets.
She should be glad. Evidence of life meant she wasn’t too late, but she doubted people who were out in the storm were people she wanted to meet.
Sylvie maneuvered them closer to the still-burning rubble. The blue flames flickered and spat, and despite their icy appearance, raised the ambient temperature around them.
“My home,” Bran said.
She nodded.
“Can’t go back again,” he murmured, sounding drugged, sounding dazed. Lost.
“Dunne?” she asked.
He closed his eyes. “Not sure—”
“Alive?”
“Yes,” he said. “But gone one-track.”
“Can you contact him?”
“If I said no, would you listen?”
She sucked in a breath. “If you promise to answer without your knee-jerk no. Be honest.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I’m down to all but human at the moment, and I’m not even healed all the way.”
“Shit,” she muttered, and took a closer look. Still too pale, eyes too distant, too bruised. His body shivered in random bursts, spurred by pain, cold, or shock. “You going to be all right? You healed the big things first, right? Didn’t leave your liver for last or something?”
He shook his head, shivering too hard to speak.
They had to get out of there; that wasn’t in question. She hated to do it, but didn’t see any other option. She huddled over her cell phone and dialed Demalion.
24
Shelter from the Storm
TWENTY INTERMINABLE MINUTES LATER, DEMALION ARRIVED. WITH company. She shouldn’t have expected anything else. She’d run from him twice; now he was going to ensure she couldn’t. It still hurt, still felt like betrayal. The ISI van forded its way through the water, its side door opening, discharging Demalion as well as another agent. A third agent, the driver, stared coldly at her and left the engine running, a low, angry sputter under the constant roar of approaching thunder.
Demalion dropped out of the van, splashing ankle deep, gun in one hand, a crystal glowing in the other.
Blind, she remembered. He couldn’t have come here alone.
Wishful thinking, her more cynical self whispered. The truce is over.
Bran moaned at the sight of him approaching, and Sylvie felt like echoing it. Demalion raised his gun hand; all Sylvie could manage to do was slide herself in front of Bran.
“Dammit, Sylvie—take it already. I’ve got my hands full, and I can’t see for shit.” He reversed his grip, flipped it so the butt was to her, and proffered it again.
She found a hopeless grin stretching her mouth. “You brought me your gun?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Just in case.” He dropped it into her eager grasp, then pulled another crystal globe out of his rain slicker, this one strung on a thong about his wrist. He cradled it and smiled. “Better. Seeing in stereoscopic again.”
Sylvie turned the gun over in her hands. Just metal and engineering, and it worked like a shot of endorphins on her exhaustion and guilt, pushed her toward giddy relief. “Does this mean we’re engaged?”
Bran shuddered against her and pushed away from Sylvie. Betrayal glossed his eyes. Demalion, she remembered, was no friend of Bran’s. “I can’t trust you—”
“I got you out of the oubli—”
“I got us out,” Bran muttered. “You tried to kill me.” He forced himself to his feet and nearly fell. He yanked away from Sylvie’s lunge, from Demalion’s blind grasping, and stumbled into another pair of arms.
“It’s all right,” the second agent said, propping Bran upright, then kneeling before him. He looked up at him like an adult would a scared child, calming. “You know I won’t hurt you. We just want to get you someplace safe. Get you back to Dunne.”
Some of her good feelings faded fast. Sylvie might be willing to work with Demalion, but the whole stinking ISI? Not a snowball’s chance.
And this agent in particular was no friend to her. She still had bruises from his grip as he marched her toward the elevator. She curled her fingers around Demalion’s loaned gun and wondered how she was set for bullets.
Gingerly, Bran rested his hand in the man’s hair, like a man petting a dog he thought might bite.
“Rodrigo, he’s all yours,” Demalion said. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” Sylvie demanded.
Demalion said, “You’ve done your job, Sylvie. You could go home, get out of this mess, be with Alex—”
“Alex is why I need to finish this. Dunne’s going to pay me for some unexpected expenses. . . .” She wiped rain out of her eyes, shook her head. “I’m a burr, I’m a tick, I’m glue. Get used to it. Now, where’re we taking my client?”
Bran settled into silence, and Sylvie was warmed to think he hadn’t wanted to be left alone with the ISI. She didn’t delude herself that meant he liked her whole bunches either, but it was something to be one up on them.
“ISI,” Demalion said, and raised a hand, forestalling her mutiny. “Any port in a storm, Sylvie.” His shoulders tensed, visible even through the weight of the rain slicker. His jaw clenched. He was ready to argue her down on this.
“Fine,” she said. Right now, the ISI seemed the only choice. Bran was done in, she was off her turf and at
the end of her endurance.
“What?” Water beaded over Demalion’s arms, spouting over the crystals dangling in his grip.
“I said, fine,” she said. “Fine. We’ll go to your big ISI safe house, secret base, justice league hall of doom, whatever you call it.” The surprise on his face and the wariness on Rodrigo’s made her capitulation almost worth it. At least she was unpredictable.
Rodrigo scowled at her, and she marked it. Best not to turn her back on him. Rodrigo really didn’t like her. Demalion got the scowl in turn, and Sylvie rephrased: Rodrigo really didn’t like anyone.
“If you’re both done jawing,” he snapped. “Bran needs rest. Warmth.” He jerked off his rain slicker, draping it around Bran’s bare shoulders.
Team one, Sylvie remembered. Bespelled to worship and protect. Demalion’s choice of ally suddenly made more sense.
“After you,” she said.
“Finally,” Rodrigo said. He swung round, shaking water from his back like a dog, and picked Bran up. Bran moaned, and Rodrigo nearly dropped him, bespelled not to harm.
Sylvie snapped, “Don’t you dare—”
Rodrigo’s grip firmed; Bran clenched Rodrigo’s slicker with two fists, holding tight.
“Jesus,” Sylvie muttered. “I don’t care what kind of spell Bran put on your brain. Use some fucking common sense. A little hurt now is better than a world of hurt later.” She strode away from the door, reached back, and tugged at Demalion’s sleeve. “Stop gawking. Start walking. You were the one in a hurry.”
Bran moaned again as Rodrigo stumbled into movement, heading through the soggy, smoldering wreckage of their living room. This time the whimper had more of laughter in it than pain. “I thought it was just me,” Bran said. “You treat everyone like that. Even your lover.”
Sylvie opened her mouth to protest, and a slap of salty rain whirled around and drenched her as if guided. She sputtered; her face stung under the impact. She shook her head, her ears ringing like a rock-concert attendee.
Demalion slid close to her, crystals held before him, glowing like avid eyes. They shone with the same ghostly light as the occult fires around them. Demalion was feeding on the god-power, she thought.
“Bran bespelled Rodrigo?”
“Bran, Dunne, same thing,” Sylvie muttered, and clambered into the van. Careless, she chastened herself. Demalion wasn’t stupid. The ISI would cream itself if it thought it could harness a god’s power.
As if Bran had the same concerns about walking into the lion’s den, he said, “Kevin knows where we’re going. He’s going to meet us there.”
Sylvie winced. That might work as a threat, but it was sure to spark questions. A god knowing where his lover was, was one thing. The human lover able to account for the god’s whereabouts was a little sketchier.
“You seem to know an awful lot about this,” Demalion said.
Bran flushed and fidgeted. Rodrigo ushered Bran into the van, actually growling at Demalion.
“Dunne’s not the only power here,” Demalion said, joining Sylvie with only a minimum of fumbling with his crystal “eyes” and the van’s door frame. “What’s Bran’s deal? He put the whammy on Rodrigo, not Dunne? Tell me, Sylvie. I need to know.”
She put her arm around his waist, guided him whisper close, and gave up that last secret. It wouldn’t take long for Dunne to add it up; this way she at least got cooperation credit for the info. “I’ve sung this song to you before. Bran’s not just an artist, not just a pretty boy, not even just a human. He’s a human that was and is a god.”
25
Looking for a Way Home
BURKE, THE DRIVER, WAS THE HARD-EYED MAN SYLVIE HAD LAST seen leaping off a subway platform, but he took one look as they spilled onto the van’s floor—wet, bedraggled, shivering—and cranked the heater to full.
“HQ?” Burke said.
Demalion nodded. “Full speed,” he said.
Burke pulled the van into motion. Kneeling up, Sylvie saw the shell of Dunne’s home vanishing behind them, her last glimpse of it the pale blue of St. Elmo’s fires devouring its bones. The van turned onto higher ground, taking them into the heart of the city. It was a strange new world in this storm light. Chicago’s tall buildings glimmered and developed uncanny life under the influence of the battling gods. Ornamental art deco fripperies swayed like anemones, took on luminous edges that gleamed through the darkness. In their phosphorescent glow, gargoyles left their moorings and skittered across facades of buildings, talons chinking into plate-glass windows and leaving little starburst fractures behind.
The city felt drowned in power. Two buildings, leaning close, tangled their carved eaves in some slow undersea waltz.
The sky was livid, bruised black and green; lightning seared a white-hot line across Sylvie’s retinas, and she jerked back, slamming into the van’s layers of hard plastic and metal. Surveillance equipment, all useless now, unable to show what was truly happening. The LED colors blinked idly, red, green, amber, taking the pulse of the city, recording bits and pieces of mysteries that might never be solved.
Right now, tired as she was, she’d have traded them all for a single bench seat. Scuffling noises drew her attention through the dimness. Rodrigo was rummaging through a duffel.
Demalion leaned close, stroking his hand up her arm, finding her shoulder, putting his mouth close to her ear. She didn’t think it was going to be for sweet nothings, and his first words proved her right. “Which god?”
She sighed. Always something more with him.
“Sylvie,” he murmured, and the heat of his breath against her chilled skin made her shudder. “It’s dangerous not to know. I want to follow your lead, but you have to share. Prove yourself worthy of trust.”
“Eros,” she whispered back into the curve of his neck. The name seemed to have thundering weight in the world. The rain, drumming on the roof, faltered for a bare second, as if the sky were listening also. She put her hand up to stop him from blindly repeating it. “Don’t.”
Across the van, Bran watched her, unblinking, until Rodrigo pushed a black sweater over his head. “Arms,” Rodrigo said, and Sylvie grimaced at the god of Love being fussed over like a toddler. Bran pushed the too-long sleeves up afterward, looking insanely frail.
Playing to his audience, she thought. Ensuring Rodrigo would stay protective. Good enough. The more helpless the ISI thought him, the less likely they were to keep him. More eyes on her, and she found that Burke kept shooting looks back over his shoulder as he steered.
Sylvie followed his line of sight, and said, “Oh for God’s sake. So the shirt’s transparent. Get over it and drive before I push you out of the car.”
Demalion broke into a laugh, muffled it in her shoulder, then drew back, studying her, unsmiling. “What are you looking at, blind man?”
He reached out and traced a pattern on the sopping back of her shirt, centering between her shoulder blades. “Tattoo,” he said. “Cedo Nulli. The same phrase Lilith used for her password. Coincidence?”
Aware of Rodrigo’s gaze sharpening, of Bran’s recoil, Sylvie said abruptly, “Consanguinity.”
He stiffened, and she said, “Don’t give me that. At least I didn’t inherit a tail.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“You’re clever. Figure it out.”
“Old Cat,” Bran said.
“Hey,” Sylvie objected. “He can figure it out. If you want to ‘help’ so much, how ’bout you unblind him. Cryst-o-vision might be nifty, but he can’t hold a gun.”
“I didn’t say that,” Demalion said.
“You gave me your gun,” she said. “You didn’t need to say anything.” It warmed her heart, it really did. He trusted her to kill for him. “C’mon, Bran, even you have to see that having your point man blind isn’t a good thing.”
“I can’t—” Bran said, and stopped. She wasn’t surprised: She’d felt her expression change. Harden. Darken.
He licked his lips, drop
ped his gaze, and started again. “It’s Kevin’s will that did it.”
“With your power threaded through his,” Sylvie said. “Doesn’t that give you an in? The oubliette, which was keyed to you, opened for him.” She kept her voice conversational though she could feel Demalion bird-dog tense beside her, eager to be healed. She wanted to know if she could talk Bran into something rather than bully him into it.
Bran sighed. “I can try.”
“That’s better than can’t,” she said. “But how ’bout you just do?”
The van lurched, wheels slipping on wet asphalt, and Bran let himself fall forward into Demalion’s lap.
From her vantage point, Sylvie twitched. Bran looked up into Demalion’s blind face in an assessing way that made her want to yank him right off Demalion’s lap and slap him. The worst part was she wasn’t sure if it was jealousy driving it or sheer unabashed possessiveness. Demalion was hers, dammit. Or would be. If he proved himself trustworthy. If he didn’t feed both her and Bran into the ISI mills.
She bit back the growl in her throat, kept it unvoiced. Demalion didn’t need the ego stroke. Bran, though, he heard it, again showing the uncanny awareness of things relating to love. He smirked and stroked Demalion’s arms beneath his wet sleeves. Demalion’s breath hitched.
The van rocked again, and water splashed up alongside with such force that it sloshed over the high windows. Sylvie took the opportunity to escape Bran’s game and crawled forward through the jolting van, collecting a bruise on her shoulder when she failed to adjust to a sudden swerve and clipped a computer console.
She crouched beside the driver’s seat. “Bad roads?”
“Rain,” he said. His hands were white on the steering wheel. “This is definitely not natural.”
“The fact that it’s coming down hard enough to flake asphalt didn’t clue you in earlier?” Sylvie sniped. The road was degrading, turning to a crumbling, jagged mess that threatened their tires. She took another look, realized exactly how dense the rain was ahead of them, and winced. “It’s been doing this all night? It is night, right?” It was hard to tell. She’d lost time in the oubliette, and the skies were apocalypse dark. She took a look at the speedometer and sighed. They were creeping along the roads, at a bare ten miles per hour, and as much as she mocked the ISI, she couldn’t even blame him for it. Not in this weather. Not when strange shadows swept the night to either side of them. When behind all the dark windows, people’s fears might be taking on a new life—all it took was a little talent and spillover from Dunne or Zeus. She wasn’t going to tell him any of that, though.
