by Lyn Benedict
“Money,” he slurred. “Prolly set up so Zoe will inherit it. Like Bella. New body. New life. Old money.”
Sylvie shivered. She’d hoped he’d missed that. That Demalion had missed that. “No fun in being resurrected if you can’t take it with you,” she bit out. “I bet Strange doesn’t know she’s broke.”
He swayed, hard, tipped over, put his hand against the grimy stucco wall for support. “Still naked,” he muttered. “And I stepped in glass.”
“Fine,” she said. “Stay here. I’m going to get the truck.”
His gaze was hurt, and she stamped out her guilt. She wasn’t even sure which one of them she was yelling at and was scared to find out. She ran out of the back alley, looped around; hopefully, by the time she got back to the front of the store, Strange would have moved far enough away that she could collect her truck without collecting the ghost’s attention.
Good plan, she thought, only—
Her truck wasn’t there.
SHE TURNED AND TURNED, TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF IT. HER TRUCK hadn’t been involved in the accident—no glass littered the area where she had parked. In fact, the empty space where her truck had been was the only slot that would allow egress onto the street without waiting for the tow trucks to remove the tangle of cars.
Odalys, she thought. In a hurry, needing an escape, and seeing a chance to do Sylvie an injury in the process.
The lich ghost blurred the air like a heat shimmer, a deadly mirage; bystanders stopped to gawk at the ghost as it moved along the sidewalk, and realized their mistake too late. A police officer in a squad car shouted into her radio, shouts about gas and casualties, and only managed to stir panic into the already tense street.
A high whistle rang through the street—the ghost shrieking again about her promised body? Sylvie didn’t want to find out. She turned, headed back toward the alley, toward Wright. Half-naked, disoriented or not, he was going to have to brave the streets.
They had to get out of there.
“Shadows!” a hoarse voice called, followed by another piercing whistle. She jerked about, hand going for her gun, even as her hailer scrambled to her side.
She barely recognized him. In his darkened apartment, Wales had been cadaverous, creepy, a horror-movie host. Sunlight washed his skin, gave him life and a veneer of health, picked out reddish lights in his dark hair, made him less of a scarecrow, more a man. He yanked her toward him by the elbow.
She jerked away, and said, “The fuck, Wales?”
“You didn’t destroy the lich ghost when you shot it,” he said.
“You think?” She threw a hand out to encompass the chaos nearby.
“She was weak, trapped in my apartment. I let her out by accident. Didn’t even realize she’d survived until she blew past me when I headed out for a milk run. I followed her here.”
“Great,” Sylvie said. “Nice to see you. Now get the hell out of my—”
“I did some research,” he said, holding her in place. His sallow face brightened, lips twisting upward. “I know how to get rid of a lich ghost.”
She stopped fighting him, feeling a glimmer of relief, hope, eagerness. “Well, get to work. She’s right over there!”
The lich ghost was bent in half, a muddy blur in the air, crouched above a fallen body. Snacking, Sylvie thought; then the blur whipped around, and another person fell. Strange was a glutton.
Wales slewed around, shaking his head. “Haven’t got the ingredients with me.”
“Useless,” Sylvie said. “Utterly useless.”
He dangled car keys in front of her face. “Useless? Your overburdened and underdressed friend’s already in my car. Want a ride?”
Sylvie turned a last look on the scene, watching people felled, knowing more police would be arriving any moment, feeding themselves into the ghost. And all she had was a gun. She was the useless one here.
“Get us out of here,” she said, and guilt swamped her. For the first time ever, she thought that the ISI—that paranoid and secretive agency—might be onto something with their plans. If they could figure out a way to introduce the Magicus Mundi into the world with laws already in place for controlling it, scenes like this might not happen. Instead of the police, there’d be people like Wales, but better prepared.
The best she could hope for was that Strange would remember Odalys and leave once the area calmed.
His sedan was an ancient Corolla, more parts rust than paint, but it purred when it ran.
Wright lay curled in the backseat, his skin sleek with sweat. He was shivering in fine tremors.
“Soul shock,” Wales diagnosed. “Doubled.”
“They both in there?” she asked.
“As far as I can tell,” he said. “Can’t last, you know.”
“More pressing problems,” she said.
He shook his head, all tangled hair and cheekbones like knife blades. “I don’t even want to know.”
“My goddamn sister—”
The thought, the hope, was as sharp as a blade. Sylvie scrambled for her cell phone, dialed Alex. “Tell me you got Zoe safely into Val’s care.”
“Zoe? You found her? Where?” Alex asked.
Sylvie slapped the phone closed. Christ. She was worse than useless. She’d made bad decision after bad decision this week, not least of which was sending Alex off with Zoe. But she hadn’t thought Zoe would or even could use that oblivion spell, thought it mostly bravado.
“Your sister?” Wales asked.
“My sister’s decided to go hang out with the necromancer who sold her skin to Strange.” Sylvie banged her head against the dash and groaned.
The back of the car echoed her. A hangover groan, followed by a wiry arm flailing into awareness. Wright dragged himself up in the backseat, hung himself over her shoulder, and said, “You’re going to need those brain cells, Shadows. We’ve got to do something about that ghost thing.”
“I’m open to suggestions,” Sylvie said. Self-loathing scalded her throat.
“Follow Odalys,” Wales said. “You said Odalys promised it a body? It’s gonna keep hounding her until she makes good on that promise. Loan sharks are more forgiving than the dead when it comes to debt.”
“And then what?” Sylvie said. “Shoot Strange? Didn’t work so well before.”
“Graveyard dirt mixed with salt,” Wales said. “A handful of that—”
“Yeah, familiar with it,” Sylvie said. “It slowed her. Didn’t stop her. Nearly killed Wright.”
Wales furrowed his brow, hunched tighter over the steering wheel. “Then it’s just as good I didn’t have the stuff on me, or we’d all be lyin’ in the street while she played sippystraw with our souls.”
“Useless,” Sylvie said again.
“Don’t take it to heart,” Demalion said. It had to be Demalion. “Frustration makes her vicious.”
“Good thing I think better that way,” Sylvie said. “Odalys stole my truck.”
Wales shot her a wide-eyed glance. “Why does that sound like good news?”
“It’s distinctive,” Sylvie said. She was dialing Suarez even as she spoke. “Lio? It’s Sylvie. I need to report my truck stolen. Can you get eyes out for it? Also? Zoe’s gone again.”
He growled in her ear. “I am not your sister’s keeper, Shadows. I brought her to you once. Where’d your truck get taken from?”
“Calle Ocho, Invocat. Odalys Hargrove stole it. And she’s . . . dangerous, Lio. The source of our problems. You arrest her, and things get better, fast.”
Demalion raised a sandy brow. “Better?” he said.
Wales shook his head, muttered, “If Odalys gets arrested, that won’t stop Strange. She’ll die in the station.”
“And I won’t care,” Sylvie said, curling her palm over the phone. “Don’t waste your time worrying about the bad guy, huh?”
“Better?” Suarez laughed in her ear. He didn’t sound amused, only bitter. “I could use some better. Those damn kids of yours, Shadows. Surrounded
by stolen goods, and they bailed out.”
“Christ,” Sylvie said. She put her head back on the dash. “Of all the times . . . Don’t suppose you can get people to keep a sneaky eye on them.”
“Their lawyers are savages,” Suarez said. “By the time the kids were back on the street, I needed a shower to wash off all the mud they’d slung. We’re going to wait for their court date to roll around. My chief made that very clear to us. Apparently, he plays tennis with Jasmyn Tsang’s parents.”
“Fuckin’ rich kids,” Sylvie said. On the line, Suarez echoed her. “The truck? Can you get the information out? Call Alex for all the info?”
Suarez said, “You’re supposed to file a report.”
“This counts, doesn’t it?” Sylvie clicked the phone closed. Now what. Now Odalys had one angry ghost on her trail and a body to offer her. Not only that, but she had Jasmyn’s, Matteo’s, and Trey’s Hands of Glory that she reclaimed from Sylvie and Wright, and the kids were out of jail.
“Just a thought,” she said. “If you were teens threatened with jail time, and you knew a witch. Would you give her a call? Ask for her help? Even if you’d been warned off her?”
“They’re out already?” Demalion said. “Damn.” He frowned down at his hands, and she knew he was missing the ISI, missing the way the agency could make people disappear for days if needed.
“Yeah, they’re out, Zoe’s out, and Odalys knows we know all about her. She’s gonna need to tidy up her mess before she can get the hell out of town. That means spoon-feeding the kids to her customers, erasing their souls, and replacing them with murderers.”
“So we find Odalys and stop her,” Demalion said.
“She’s easy to stop. Bullets will do if nothing else will. But the lich ghosts? That’s your department, Wales.”
23
Ghost-Hunting
WALES GAVE HER A SIDELONG GLANCE AS HE STEERED THE COROLLA across three lanes of traffic, making the exit toward Sylvie’s office without needing directions. He’d been researching more than the dead if he knew where she worked.
“I told you what I know,” Wales said. “You’re the problem solver. Problem solve. It’s your sister, your client, and you freed Strange from the Hand’s constraints.”
“Sounds like you’re planning on leaving us,” Sylvie said.
“The very second you’re out of my car.”
“No,” Sylvie said. “We need your help.”
“You’re fucked,” Wales said. His hands kneaded the wheel; the car twitched in the lane. “You kill things to make everything better. Well, these things are dead already. You start spraying bullets, and all you’ll do is make them laugh.”
“Odalys is human,” Sylvie said.
“Yeah, and shooting her won’t slow your ghost,” Wales said. “She’s an independent entity at this point.”
“ISI,” Demalion said from the back. “One phone call, Shadows, and they’d sweep in—”
“Get Zoe killed,” Sylvie said. “Or do you think they won’t take a look at the situation and decide Margaret Strange would be easier to control in Zoe’s skin instead of out? You try to call the ISI, and I’ll see you out of that body before we find you a replacement.”
Demalion sank back, mouth twisted tight. “Always your way,” he said.
“I know my motivations,” she said. “I don’t know the ISI’s.”
He kicked the back of her seat, just like a child in a temper, and she stared at him. “You didn’t.”
“You don’t listen to reason, Shadows. Why should I act reasonably around you? Hell, you might listen to me better if I threw a fuckin’ tantrum.”
Wales tapped the brakes, switched lanes again, and said, “Don’t make me pull this car over.”
“Abandon us here, abandon us at my office—what’s the difference?” Sylvie said. She had bile to go all the way around.
The Ghoul gritted his teeth so audibly that she could hear them grind even over the engine.
“I deal in information,” he said. “I don’t interfere.”
“Convenient,” she said.
“Bully me all you want, Shadows, but you won’t get me involved any more than I already am.”
She drummed her nails on the armrest, controlled her breath, and said, “Could you at least leave us with as much information as you can? You said you knew how to stop the lich ghost.”
“Graveyard dirt—”
“Been there, done that, didn’t work real well,” Sylvie reminded him.
“Her graveyard dirt,” Wales said. “Even a lich ghost can’t deny recognition of its own grave dirt. Dig down. Dig deep. Don’t be content with shallow scrapings. You want parts of the dirt that have seepage.”
“Disgusting,” Sylvie said.
“Necromancy,” Wales said.
Sylvie leaned back in the car seat, settling herself deeper even as she saw the turnoff for South Beach coming up. Wales might intend to drop and go, but she wasn’t leaving until she had answers to all her questions. Maybe another chance to get his help. Without him, it would be her and Wright playing at defensive and dismissive spells, and Sylvie . . . didn’t like magic. She’d prefer to leave it to the experts. Wales was the closest thing she had.
Wales cast her a sidelong glance, calculation mingled with recognition in his expression. “What do you want?”
“A way to identify the remaining ghosts.”
“You still have the Hands?”
“Odalys reclaimed them.”
He sighed hugely. “Then you’re out of luck. Though I don’t know why she’d want them. They’re dangerous to her just the same as to others.”
“The Hands are vehicles for rich old killers to gain new flesh, new lives,” Sylvie said.
“That’s sick,” Wales said, after a moment.
“Just mercantile,” Sylvie said.
He pulled up to the front of the office, put a foot on the brake, but left the gear in drive, his message clear.
Sylvie opened the door to show willing, but said, “Stick around long enough to help us gather the dirt?”
Wales shook his head though his lips tipped into a reluctant smile. “I know that game. I’m out of here. Ghost activity’s very distinctive. Your town’s going to be hopping, whether you win or lose. I can’t hack that kind of attention. Sorry, but you’re on your own.”
He reached across her, leaning into her space, bringing with him a strange, sere scent like burned flesh, and reminded her that maybe she didn’t want him around all that much, that his advice hadn’t been good, his interests inextricably linked to death. He popped the passenger’s-side door open, and said, “Been fun, Shadows.”
She clambered out of the car, found Alex hovering in the open doorway to the office, face creased in a frown. “Your truck got stolen? Lio called.”
Sylvie took Alex by the shoulders, pressed her up against the door, studied her in the slant of early-evening sunlight, looking at her pupils, her color, her alertness, as if a spell leftover was as easy to diagnose as a concussion. Alex’s fingers curled around Sylvie’s wrists, and Sylvie let her go. “You’re all right?”
“I’m fine,” Alex said. “Is Demalion naked?”
Sylvie followed her gaze, and said, “Less than he was.” Demalion let himself out of Wales’s backseat with a worn denim jacket over his shoulders. The people coming down the street, heading for the bar next door, paused to whistle before heading in.
“I’m bleeding, too,” he said, tilting a bare foot up toward her.
Alex’s lips thinned. “Sylvie! Just once, could you bring him back unhurt?”
Sylvie shuddered, but her rebuttal was hard and fast. “Hey, he’s not dead this time. I’d say that’s an improvement.”
Wales gunned his engine and was gone. Demalion limped into the office; Alex slipped Sylvie’s grip, followed the bar patrons into the bar, and came back out a moment later, clutching a sweat suit. She tossed it to Demalion, and said, “You owe Etienne a new set of sweats. Those
were supposed to be a gift for his father.”
“Clothes are not the critical problem here,” Sylvie said. “I need to find Odalys. Like, immediately. You good to work?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Alex asked.
“Zoe spelled you,” Sylvie said.
Alex’s lips went tight and flat. “She what?”
“Later,” Sylvie said. “You’re not hurt, right? Odalys first. Odalys isn’t staying at her own condo, and Invocat’s a no-man’s-land now. Odalys likes money, but she doesn’t like to spend it. She’s got Hands of Glory at her beck and call. She could waltz in and out of any house in the city. But capable of doesn’t mean likely to. She’ll want a nice house. A rich house. And there are at least five homes going to waste. Five homes to match five Hands of Glory, five homes that were owned by rich people. Just her speed. And even if the heirs wanted to sell . . .”
“Housing market’s clinically depressed. No one’s got the cash to buy houses. Especially not multimillion-dollar estates that might need upkeep,” Alex said. She slid into her desk chair, pulled the laptop closer to her. “Strange’s estate is a no-go. The bank foreclosed on it, and they’re aggressive about protecting their property. If Odalys was mucking about there, Hands or no Hands, someone would have noticed.”
“It needs to be someplace she can practice necromancy,” Demalion said, slightly muffled as he pulled the grey sweatshirt over his head. “Without the neighbors noticing.” He ran his hand through his hair; the blond spikes tufted up again, and Sylvie thought he was getting pretty damn familiar with Wright’s body.
She shook the worry off, and said, “So Caudwell—”
“No,” Alex said, fingers moving on the keyboard, “Caudwell’s a condo-dweller.”
Sylvie groaned. “Never easy. We’ve got three Hands left, three rich estates to find somewhere in Miami, and no time at all.” Sickness lodged in her throat. Zoe was going to be ghost food. Zoe was going to be someone else the next time she saw her.
Worse, the little dark voice said, Strange is going to inherit Zoe’s magical talent to go with her already murderous personality.
