Sins & Shadows si-1

by Lyn Benedict

  “It’s not money they want,” Sylvie said.

  “Then what?” Tish wrapped her arms around herself.

  “To hurt Dunne.”

  Tish sucked in a breath, her eyes widening and darkening with pain. “Then, they don’t really need to—”

  Keep Bran alive. Sylvie finished the thought, but left it silent, letting Tish read it on her face.

  “Oh God,” Tish moaned. “God. Poor Kevin. You’ve got to get Bran back. Kevin won’t be able to stand it. He seems so tough, but he worships Bran, you know. If Bran . . . I don’t know if Kevin can take it—”

  “Show me the studio,” Sylvie said, thinking Tish was more right to fear than she knew. “Show me his paintings.”

  Show me Lily.

  “Upstairs,” Tish said, opening another door, a foldaway set that Sylvie would have taken for nothing more than pantry access. Instead, it revealed a narrow and steep set of stairs.

  “Studio access only,” Tish said. “Bran calls it his servant’s stairs. Says it reminds him that art is his master.” A brief smile touched her lips, stilling the tremor they wanted to stay in. “If Kevin’s around when Bran says it, Kevin teases him, says love is a much better master than art, and he can prove it. Usually, the sisters and I go have an awkward lunch at that point.”

  Sylvie wanted to tell her to stop. Stop talking about Bran and Kevin, stop painting images that let her see glimpses of the two of them in this cozy niche of a kitchen. Stop showing her glimmers of a life that was now in ruins.

  She pushed by Tish and headed up the stairs, feeling the burn as she forced stiff muscles to the task. Fucking Fury, she thought. Remind me to kick her tail feathers if I see her again.

  The studio was dim and reeked of old paint. A narrow window fed in some morning sunlight, and she used it to track down the light switch. She hit it, and said, “Crap,” right after. What had she thought? Tish mentioned a portrait, and Sylvie had expected to sail in, snatch it, and use it—a sort of police sketch for Demalion, a scent trail for Dunne, a reminder to herself. Lily’s image was already fuzzy in her mind. She remembered the voice, the force of will, but the face—

  “What’s wrong?” Tish said.

  “He’s productive,” Sylvie said. It wasn’t a compliment. Paintings were stacked everywhere, faces leaning against the walls or slotted into narrow racks; there were cloth-covered heaps, slightly squared, that held still more paintings under their depths. “A little compulsive maybe?”

  “He doesn’t like paper,” Tish said. “He goes right to canvas. If he doesn’t like it, he drops it.”

  “Expensive habit,” Sylvie said. “I don’t suppose there’s a filing system.”

  Tish laughed. “I told him he needed one.”

  “Fine,” Sylvie said. “You start on that side of the room. Any portrait of a woman that you don’t know put aside for me.” She was counting on the fact that she would recognize that ordinary face when she saw it again.

  Her phone rang and she brought it to her cheek. “Yeah.”

  “Syl?”

  “Yeah,” she said again, turning slightly away from Tish’s inquisitive gaze. She made a go-on gesture at Tish, telling her to get started. Sylvie tucked the phone against her chin and shoulder, and said, “You got my message? Sorry for the late-night call, but I need info on a woman—”

  “Lily Black,” Alex said. “And if that’s her real name, Val’s nose is the original model.”

  Sylvie paused. She wasn’t often off balance, but Alex was always the one to make it happen. “What?”

  “Lily Black, art appraiser, part-time art agent. I back-tracked through Ni Dieux, Ni Maîtres’ ownership deeds, hit art news sites, added Brandon Wolf as a data point. His murals are on the Net—including a little note about upcoming ones at NDNM funded by a Lily Black.”

  “Fast work,” Sylvie said.

  Across the room, Tish’s attention sharpened. Irritably, Sylvie pointed back to the paintings. A name wasn’t enough.

  “Like I could sleep with you out gallivanting ’round Chicago with Furies for backup.” Behind the snark and bravado, Sylvie read an entire other conversation. Despite an unsteady past spent shuttling between foster families, stepparents, and juvie, Alex had never seen anyone die. Traumatic enough, but when that first death had been Suarez, whom she considered a part of her chosen family—well, it was no wonder Alex stayed awake to worry.

  Sylvie’s part in this unspoken conversation was to ignore it. To that end, she said, “Ah, they’re not so tough.” Implying, of course, that she was. “Did you get an address?”

  Sylvie flipped through the nearest stack of paintings. No portraits. Still life, still life, landscape, mythical animals.

  “Embarrassment of riches, really,” Alex said. “She supplements her income with land. I found her name on seven separate sites, one a condemned church in a neighborhood pending rezoning, two galleries, and four apartment complexes around Chicago. Lily’s only got a PO box listed as her own address, but I bet if you check the complexes for unrented apartments—”

  “We might find her,” Sylvie said. “I’m impressed, Alex.”

  “You should be,” Alex said. “If I billed you for that amount of computer time, I’d bankrupt you.”

  “Just tell me you aren’t going to bring computer crimes down on me, and I’ll be content.”

  Tish held up a gold-framed painting. Sylvie shook her head, shifted her mouth away from the receiver. The portrait showed an elegant blonde, clad only in an ornate set of emeralds. “Brunette,” Sylvie said. “Ordinary is the key word here, Tish.”

  “Please,” Alex said. “I cover my tracks. Oh, speaking of—tell me you’re taking wolf clients again?”

  “Why?” Sylvie said, aware of Tish listening in.

  “Present on the store stoop,” Alex said. “Rat skulls, bones, tied up in a bow of snakeskin. The front-desk bell says it’s inert, though. Not some type of spell. Thought it might be an offering.”

  “Yuck,” Sylvie said. “Maybe the sisters left it. They don’t really seem to like me much.”

  “I think there’s a club for people like that,” Alex said. “Membership’s climbing.”

  “Funny girl.”

  Sylvie flipped another painting and forgot the small mystery. Portrait. Not Lily, but Dunne. The last of her doubts as to their uneven relationship died. She couldn’t think Bran feared Dunne, not with this in her hands. Dunne, depicted as an angel: weary, shirtless, scarred; his wings, all hawk dun and beige, were drooping and chafed by a holster and a gun. In the shadow of his wings, Bran leaned against him and was sheltered.

  “Syl?”

  “Yeah, e-mail me the addresses,” Sylvie said.

  “Syl . . .” Alex said, held her to the line. “What if the satanists left the bones?” Her voice went tight and a little small.

  Sylvie flipped another half dozen paintings face front, without looking at them, just getting them into the light. “Be very careful, or just get out of town. If you think it’s them, call the cops. The satanists carried guns instead of power; they’ll shoot first, curse later.”

  “Not comforting,” Alex said.

  “You came back,” Sylvie snapped. Her fingers were white on the phone. Wasn’t this what she had tried to prevent? She took a steadying breath, and said, “I doubt it’s them. We’re one for one, right now. They’ll need to back off and reconnoiter.”

  “One for . . . What did you do, Sylvie? They killed Suarez. Did you kill—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Sylvie said. Tish frowned at her, a weird look of disapproval in her eyes, as if Sylvie were cursing in church.

  “I’ve seen the files,” Alex said, still soft. “The cases where the problem just . . . goes away. Cases where you go it alone. Do you kill people to make the problems go away?”

  Things, not people, she thought, stifling that retort before it reached her lips. “Christ, Alex, are you listening to yourself? No, okay. No.” She glanced over at Tish
and ruthlessly shifted the conversation. “It’s fine, it’ll be fine. Just be smart and call the cops if anything looks weird. Call Val if anything looks weirder. Her home’s loaded with protective spells. I gotta go.” Without waiting for a response, she disconnected.

  Mask’s slipping, the little dark voice said.

  “Find anything?” Sylvie asked.

  Tish shook her head. “I sort of remember the painting. It had a lot of grey. So I was going to pull those—”

  “Great, do it, don’t tell me about it,” Sylvie said. She dragged her attention to her own row of paintings and found her own worries blasted away by the first one in the row.

  So small to pack so much of a punch. It was barely a foot square, but just touching it made her skin crawl. No placid landscape, no pretty portrait. A flayed chest, skin pulled back, revealed a glistening, tattered heart beneath a worn rib cage. Fingers squirmed within the bone cage, hooking into the heart, tugging it farther apart. The whole thing bled at her in tones of rust and sepia.

  Tish’s footsteps headed her way, and Sylvie flipped the painting to face the wall. No need to upset the girl any further. Sylvie stared at the ruddy scrawl on the back of the canvas and shuddered. Devoured Heart, self-portrait.

  Tish spread out three portraits, all rainy-day greys with women.

  Sylvie grabbed the last one and brought it toward her.

  “That it?” Tish said, excited.

  “Oh yeah,” Sylvie said. She recognized the expression in the eyes more than anything else, that confident stare. Bran Wolf, she decided then and there, was one hell of a talent. And, she thought, as she studied it more closely, he should pay more attention to his subconscious. Lily stood on the edge of the lake, hair whipping in the wind like live wires. A drab brown woman on a drab grey background, and yet . . . Sylvie took it over toward the window where the sunlight streamed.

  In the sunlight, the lake waves grew shadows beneath lines of paint scraped into place, and showed animal teeth, showed crosses burned and broken, showed red tinges beneath the grey, like blood in the water. All of it spiraling out from Lily’s shadow over the water.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “We got what we came for.”

  “But the agent outside—”

  “He brought us here, he can take us back,” Sylvie said. She knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as that. Nothing with the ISI ever was, but she had a portrait of Lily in her hand, addresses incoming, and felt that she had a grip on things for the first time since she’d taken this case. One ISI agent seemed a simple obstacle.

  She clattered down the stairs, Tish following, protesting with the fervor of a good girl unused to making waves.

  Sylvie opened the front door and balked. She put her hand back, stopping Tish from joining her. Outside, on the hood of the cab, the little firestarter from the bar sat dribbling sparks from one hand to the next.

  “Come on out, Shadows,” Helen said. “I have a bone to pick with you.”

  14

  Burn, Lady, Burn

  “SHIT,” SYLVIE MUTTERED. “STAY BACK, TISH.”

  Tish, like the innocent she was, took a giant step forward to get a better look. “Did he call his team? What are we—” She trailed off at the sight of Helen, and eeped a little when Helen built a fireball in her bare hands.

  “Hey, Helen,” Sylvie said. “Don’t remember doing anything to upset you. Well, anything worth this kind of effort.”

  Tish squeaked as Helen tossed the fireball at them underhand, a flaming softball that fell short. Sylvie watched it sputter out against the concrete and settled her gun comfortably in her hand before the fire vanished. Armed, ready, she hesitated. Shoot now? Helen had caved quickly enough last night.

  In the cab, the agent just sat gaping at the fireworks, probably taking notes. Typical ISI.

  “Lily told me where to find you.”

  “Yeah?” Sylvie said. “You want to reverse the favor? I’m dying to talk to her.”

  Helen paid no attention, her eyes fixed on Tish. “Where’s your freaky friend? That’s not her,” Helen said. “If I’m going to burn you up, I want to get her, too. Lily told me you burned the bar. Burned JK alive.” With each sentence, fire rose from Helen’s skin, first in smoky yellow flamelets, then in a rushing red halo.

  Sylvie licked sweat from her lips, tasting salt and a trace of fear. Helen hadn’t had that kind of heat last night.

  “What? Nothing to say? No begging? You should,” Helen said, and giggled, high and wild. “ ’Cause I am on today. Just ask your cabbie.”

  Sylvie flicked another glance at the still-staring agent, and realized not all the smoke scent came from Helen, the char of flesh not just a lingering remnant from NDNM.

  “I put a hole right through him, with my own little hand,” Helen said, giggled again. Half-mad with power, and half-frightened of what she’d done. Probably not frightened enough to stop. Sylvie’s hand tightened on the gun. Every moment that passed, Helen was forfeiting the right to be human.

  A wave of flame rolled toward them, a lava tide smoking over the concrete sidewalk, splashing over the curb. Sylvie said, “Run.”

  “Where?” Tish whispered.

  “Away,” Sylvie said. Tish tried to retreat into the house, but Helen let loose a blast worthy of a flame-thrower and Tish screamed, changed angle, and leaped from the stoop. Helen turned to track her with burning eyes; Sylvie dropped the painting, ignored the blistering heat as Dunne’s front door smoldered, and redirected Helen’s attention with a warning shot that embedded itself in the hood of the cab.

  “Leave her out of this.”

  “Like you left JK? Lily said—”

  “Lily’s using you,” Sylvie said. Tish was three houses away and accelerating, running flat out.

  Good sense that, Sylvie thought, and lunged over the railing with far less grace than Tish, rolling, stumbling, as the flames rushed her heels, flashed up her legs and her back.

  Sylvie rolled and beat at sparks. Her skin stung in a dozen places, screaming for attention, but she managed to keep focused. If she could get inside the cab, she’d run the bitch down and be gone, before Helen got up.

  Sylvie dodged Helen’s burning grasp, had almost made it when a sudden change in the air warned her, and she scrambled under the cab. A lash of fire blistered paint and raised dark smoke.

  Fuck, Sylvie thought again, scooting backward, knees and elbows going raw against heated asphalt. Helen knelt, the better to aim, and Sylvie rolled out the other side, gun ready. Human or not, Helen had to be stopped.

  She didn’t want to kill Helen; she might be spoiled, mean, and dangerous, but she was also Lily’s dupe, as well as Sylvie’s best chance yet for finding Lily.

  Sylvie raised her head in time to see another flame rushing her, and cold pragmatism took over—her or me—sighting along the gun and firing, sending Helen flying back under the force of a bullet. Winged only, Sylvie thought, and congratulated herself on avoiding the kill. Helen groaned, traced a fiery fingertip over the gash at her collarbone, and cauterized the wound.

  “Sylvie!”

  She pointed the same finger at Sylvie, and the flames wrapping her body rolled up her arm, as deadly as a line of belt-fed bullets.

  “Sylvie,” the voice cried her name again; an engine throbbed. “Sylvie, get in the damn car!” Demalion yelled, and Sylvie turned. He leaned half-out of the open passenger door, and behind the wheel, Tish. Sylvie lunged for the car, pulled herself in, and Tish took off. Helen darted before them and Tish, eyes wide with terror, didn’t even slow. Helen burned as she bounced away.

  “Are you all right?” Demalion said, voice too close for her comfort.

  She twitched, realized she was sprawled in his lap, and said, “Do I look all right? What the hell did you bring Tish for?” She tried not to squirm, aware of the fit of her body against his.

  “I didn’t have a choice, not this close to Dunne’s,” he said. His hands fisted, one fist bigger than the other. Tish swerved, hit a curb
, and Demalion’s hands flew open. His little crystal ball bounced free and smacked Sylvie’s shin.

  “Ow,” she whimpered. As if the admission was all her body had been waiting for, suddenly “ow” was all she could say. Her arm burned and stung, the flesh furrowed, her knees smarted, and if Erinya hadn’t cracked her ribs last night, Sylvie had when she hit the pavement. She looked down to see the khakis shredded at the knees from flinging herself beneath the cab. “Ow,” she said again, feeling sorry for herself.

  Tish rebounded off another curb, narrowly avoided swerving into oncoming traffic, and Sylvie said, “Slow down. We’re safe now.”

  “Safe?” Tish asked. Her voice was thin and lost, a child’s; she leaked tears.

  “Yeah, it’s all okay, now,” Sylvie said. Tish’s speed slowed, but her hands shook.

  “Safe?” Tish asked, going shrill. “How is this safe? She shot fire at us. With her hands! She tried to kill us.” She gaped at Demalion, maybe only now taking the time to really look at the “us” involved, and the car swerved again.

  Sylvie grabbed the wheel. Demalion cursed and began fumbling in the depths of the car, squishing Sylvie in the process, forcing her hands from the wheel. “Get off me,” she said, crushed beneath him. Tish got the car back under marginal control, but her breath was ragged.

  “I need my crystal,” Demalion said.

  “Right now?”

  He nodded, mouth thinned.

  “Then get off me,” she said, “and let me get it.”

  He leaned back, and she bent to chase it around the seat well.

  “Fire?” he asked.

  “You were there. You saw it. Oh, and Helen killed your guy,” Sylvie said abruptly.

  “Helen?” Demalion turned to look at her, eyes wide. Their usual dark brown seemed peculiarly shiny, but then again, Sylvie’s head throbbed, and her vision was keeping pace.

  Tish braked hard for a red light, the first one she’d stopped for in a mile, and the little crystal ball rolled up against Sylvie’s sneaker. She put her foot on it, reached down, and handed it back to Demalion.

  “The firestarter at the bar,” she said.