Lies & Omens si-4

by Lyn Benedict

  “Marah,” Demalion objected.

  “You can’t tell me it doesn’t bother you,” Marah told Demalion. “That she’s close with one of the monsters who killed you? That’s she made friends with the Fury?”

  “It bothers me,” Demalion snapped. “Is that what you want me to admit. Fine. It does.”

  “Yeah, Shadows,” Marah said, jumping on the wagon she’d started. “You really should put that monster down. Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  She looked at them both, Marah’s expression calculating, Demalion’s more honestly angry.

  Sylvie felt her own rage surge back—judge her? Over Erinya? She said, “I’m on the only side I can trust. Mine.”

  “Well, then,” Marah said. “Maybe we should find more congenial company. Check in with the locals.”

  “Most of them are dead,” Sylvie said, bluntly. “Riordan’s son survived.”

  “He’s enough to start with,” Marah said. “You coming, Demalion?”

  “Yeah,” Sylvie said. “You going with her, Demalion?”

  “The agency needs us,” he said.

  “I can’t,” Sylvie said. “I’ve got a client in distress and some bastard fucking with people’s memories. Making them forget what they’ve seen. On a citywide scale.”

  “Citywide? I know you were looking into memory alterations, but I didn’t realize the scale of it.”

  “Neither did I,” Sylvie said, grimly. “And it’s getting personal. It hurt Alex.”

  Demalion shook his head. “I know you’re independent, but it’s time to call Yvette in on this.”

  “She survived the sand wraith?”

  “Taking meetings in DC,” Marah said. “Bureaucracy saved her ass.”

  “Guess that proves she’s near the top of the food chain,” Sylvie said. “They’re the only ones who benefit from bureaucracy.”

  “Yvette’s surviving is a good thing,” Demalion said. “Look, you said your plate is full. You’ve got your client. You’ve got us—”

  “Didn’t say I was helping the ISI—”

  “You’ll help me, right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “So, why not let Yvette take point on this memory thing?”

  “Because I don’t trust her,” Sylvie snapped. “I can’t be the only one who’s noticed this memory gap. But I seem to be the only one who cares. So no, no passing this buck.”

  “Don’t argue with her, Demalion,” Marah said. “You’ll never convince her. She’s built to work alone. The new Lilith.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” Demalion said.

  “Yeah,” Sylvie said. “Why don’t you enlighten him, Marah. Since you know so much.” She doubted Marah knew anything of substance. The ISI files, as Demalion had said, were empty speculation.

  Marah grinned, a predatory shine of teeth. “How much is it worth to you? A favor? Maybe two?”

  Then again, Marah was of Cain’s line. Maybe she did know.

  “One more,” Sylvie said. “But I’m not killing anyone for you—my definition of anyone.”

  “Hey, I rescued myself,” Demalion protested. “I’m not a favor.”

  “Deal,” Marah said, waving him off. “One favor owing. It’s simple, really. I told you. God likes his killers. Both sets of them. It’s politics at its finest. You’ve talked to gods, you know the only thing they hold sacred.”

  “Noninterference with gods outside their pantheon. No more godly wars,” Sylvie said.

  “No more overt godly wars,” Marah said. “But a free agent, who refuses to belong to anyone, who wreaks havoc—say a woman who disposes of the last Aztec god, strips his power, and gives it to a Fury. A woman who yanks said Fury out of her own pantheon and creates a new one—

  “You’re God’s stalking horse,” Marah said. “And for all your independence, you’ll never know if you’re working to his plan or not. The eternal killer who does his bidding even while you spit in his face and assert your disallegiance. You’re his plausible deniability. Congratulations, Sylvie, you hit the jackpot. You’re going to live forever. Or until someone else gets in a lucky shot and takes your place.”

  The little dark voice in Sylvie’s blood was roaring in protest, drowning out her own voice, a tight rasp. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Think it’s coincidence that you’re immune to most magics? That you can kill things way above your weight class? You’re a stealth bomber in human form. He doesn’t care who you kill, as long as you keep doing it, keep picking off his rivals. It’s a long game. Maybe the longest game ever.”

  “Get out,” Sylvie choked. “Out.”

  “Truth hurts,” Marah said. She patted Sylvie’s cheek; Sylvie slapped her hand away, and felt a weird numbing echo in her bones as her flesh hit Marah’s. Like to like. Killers. God’s killers. Spreaders of chaos and misfortune.

  “Out,” she whispered.

  Demalion put his own hand out, a steadying touch at her shoulder. She shrugged him off.

  “Fine,” Marah said. “I could use some real food anyway. And I doubt your Fury wants to share.” She headed out, jaunty and pleased with herself. Sylvie wanted to chuck something at her.

  Demalion lingered, silent. When she met his eyes, he dropped his. Answer enough to a question she hadn’t asked. Did he believe Marah? Did he think Sylvie’s entire purpose in existence was to kill things? Yes. He really did.

  Heat stung her eyes. She blinked furiously. “So how’d you hook up with her, anyway? Think you can unhook her? Maybe while dangling her over a cliff?”

  “She saved my life. That’s got to count for something.”

  “Yeah, it counts as another one I owe her.”

  “Hey, ouch,” Demalion said.

  Sylvie shook her head. “Sorry, sorry. You know I didn’t mean it like that. Hell, that’s one debt I’m thrilled to incur.”

  “You know, I did my share of the digging,” Demalion said. “I could make a case for Marah and me being even. Hell, we could probably even make a case for her owing me. I warned her the sand wraith was coming. Psychic perks.”

  Sylvie nodded. “Take it up with her.”

  Demalion, given his cue to leave, hesitated.

  “What?” Sylvie snapped.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Dandy. I’m going to live forever, don’t you know. Which is good because I’m busy. Got things to do. And hey, I’m waiting for Erinya to remember her steak. You want to be here when she is, when she remembers how much she dislikes you?” Her throat felt tight. She didn’t mind being a killer, but she wanted to be more than just that.

  Sylvie’s new cell buzzed where she had dropped it, an angry hornet making itself known. She tore her gaze away. “I should—”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “You go and take Ms. Mercenary—”

  “Yeah.”

  The phone rattled, and Sylvie said, quickly, “Be careful, Demalion. The ISI’s in real trouble.

  Demalion’s tight, irritated expression cracked. “I know.”

  “This might be a good time to quit.”

  “Can’t do that,” Demalion said. “I believe in the mission.”

  “I know. Just had to put it out there.”

  She kissed him too briefly, let him go, and grabbed the phone, expecting Alex. No one else had the number.

  Instead of her assistant, she got her sister in a temper.

  5

  Complications

  SYLVIE MISSED ZOE’S FIRST RANT, CAUGHT UP IN WONDERING HOW in hell Zoe had gotten this number, distracted by Erinya’s reappearing to claim her steak, by the sheer amount of noise in the background wherever Zoe was.

  “I said, come get me!”

  Sylvie pivoted, keeping Erinya in her view. She’d learned the hard way not to leave the Fury unsupervised. Erinya only studied her steak, then shrugged, dragged out a plate, and made a stab at being civilized.

  “No,” Sylvie said. “Where are you?” She knew the answer already, just from the lo
udspeaker in Zoe’s vicinity spitting out distorted messages in English and a dozen other languages—an airport.

  “LaGuardia. Heading home. You need to come get me when I land.”

  “I thought you were in Ischia. Safe with Val.”

  “Obviously, I’m not. Come get me, Syl. I don’t wanna wait around. I’ve been traveling all night.”

  “Zoe, this is a terrible time for you to come back,” Sylvie said. “Did Val send you? Does Val even know?”

  Zoe huffed. “She’s so damn patronizing. I’m not a child or an idiot. And I had to come back. School starts in three weeks. I’ve got back-to-school shopping to do.”

  “It’s not a good time,” Sylvie said, watching a god putter about in her kitchen, warping things as she went. Under Erinya’s touch, Sylvie’s coffeemaker turned upscale, spat out espresso; her tiled floor shifted to rough stone. “I’ve got house guests that aren’t witch-friendly.” Gods could burn out witches, leave them husked out and unable to do magic. Erinya, of course, liked to go one step further and kill them dead.

  “What, your god-thing friend? Tell her to go away. I’m family. I come first.”

  “And you called Val patronizing,” Sylvie said. “Fine. I’ll be there. Give me your flight number.” When she hung up, she found Erinya watching her as eagerly as a dog whose master had rattled the car keys.

  “Are we going to the airport?” Erinya said. “I like the airport. Good hunting.”

  “You are not coming,” Sylvie said. “I’m picking up my sister. She’s a witch. Your presence will hurt her.”

  “Does she deserve it?” Erinya asked. “She’s a witch.”

  “She’s not sacrificing babies,” Sylvie said.

  “Not yet,” Erinya said. She ate the last of her steak in one giant, mouth-distending bite. “Can’t trust a witch.”

  “Go home,” Sylvie said when she could speak again. “Redecorate your heaven and not my living room.”

  “It’s my city,” Erinya said. “I think that makes it my living room.”

  “It’s not your city,” Sylvie said. “Don’t get possessive. Don’t make me take Dunne’s side.”

  Erinya vanished before Sylvie had finished talking, fading out on the first mention of Dunne’s name. Sylvie filed that away, wondering if it would work more than once.

  A draft touched her legs, the AC kicking on, making her shiver. Her hair dripped down her back; the thin poplin of Demalion’s borrowed shirt felt clammy.

  She sighed, tried to recover some of that all-too-brief happiness she’d had curled against Demalion in her wrecked bathroom.

  Her phone rang again, a text coming in on the burner phone.

  Alex.

  I’m at the office. Meet me. Bring coffee.

  * * *

  LIGHT GLITTERED FROM INSIDE THE FRONT WINDOW OF SHADOWS Inquiries, hard to see in the sunlit streets of South Miami Beach, noticeable simply because Sylvie hadn’t been expecting Alex to be awake and about anytime that day. Not after her magical concussion.

  She really needed to stop underestimating Alex.

  When she opened the front door, Alex greeted her and the Starbucks cup with determined cheer that went oddly with the bruising beneath her eyes. “Oh good, you’re here. You need to see this.”

  “See what? I thought you were going to rest? Your head was hurting?” Sylvie came at it obliquely, unwilling to trigger another attack.

  “’Swhat Tylenol 4’s for. Took a nap, took a pill, feel loads better.”

  Sylvie said, “Yeah, that’s why you look like someone socked you in the nose. You should be in bed.”

  “Let it go, Syl. You’ll be glad you did. Look at this. Not me. I’ll hit the foundation in a minute or two.” She hauled her laptop across the desk, turned it to face Sylvie, the screen blurring with the vibration.

  “I’ve been working on the Chicago site. Lots and lots of video being shot.”

  “Of the actual event?” Sylvie said. “The attack?”

  “The sand wraith? No. I’ve been looking through the aftermath.” Alex shook her head, answering two questions at once. Had the monster made the news? Had Alex lost memories of that attack, also? Answers: no and no.

  “What exactly is a sand wraith?” Sylvie asked.

  “Monster out of the Texas, New Mexico, Arizona area. I think it’s a type of djinn that migrated eons ago. Anyway, that’s not the important part. Focus, Syl. I’ve been searching through iReports on CNN. Look. Right there.”

  She cued the scene up: nighttime, the rubble illuminated by emergency lights, stone and wiring and metal making crazy, nonsensical shadows, not helped by the shaky-cam hand of the filmer. “What am I—”

  Sylvie shut up. She knew what Alex had wanted her to see. Six hours ago, it would have filled her with relief. Now, she watched Demalion and Marah Stone pick their way out of the rubble, dwarfed by the slabs of concrete, limping, braced on each other, and felt her heart tighten up. Christ. One thing to know Demalion had had a close call, to see him bruised but whole in her shower, full of attitude, full of life; another thing to see him like this—his eyes dark holes in his skull, face a mask of concrete dust and blood.

  “Syl? This is good. He’s alive—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Sylvie said. “Alive and in Miami. He made it here this morning. He’s off hunting down the Riordans. Being a good little agent and reporting in—”

  “You didn’t call me? Fuck you, Sylvie. I spent hours scouring the Net and for nothing? When my head feels like it’s about to rupture?”

  “Thought you were fine,” Sylvie said.

  Alex burst into tears and flung the stapler at her; Sylvie dodged, listened to the metal crack against the front window, winced. Another thing for Emmanuel to fix.

  “Hey, hey, I’m sorry, really sorry,” Sylvie said. “I should have called you. I was going to. I thought you were sleeping.”

  “You should have left a message. A text. A fucking e-mail. I was so damn worried.” Her words tangled, choked off, left her rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.

  “About Demalion?” Sylvie felt like she was walking across an unexpected minefield. Alex was the calm one. Alex was the sensible one. Alex didn’t throw office supplies, break windows, or curse her out. Alex didn’t usually have her memory scrambled either.

  “About you, stupid. You do dumb things when you’re angry. And I’m tired. I can’t keep up with you.” Alex dragged her hands away from her eyes; she looked as tired as she claimed. More, she looked ground-down. Sylvie frowned. She couldn’t be to blame for all of that. Some of that was Alex fighting the memory modification, courting the pain by poking around similar events.

  “I’m sorry,” Sylvie said again.

  Alex jerked the laptop around, lips tight, not forgiving her that easily. “I compiled and skimmed about two hundred videos. My head’s still spinning.” She stabbed at the keys, brightly colored nails flashing like daggers. She turned the laptop back toward Sylvie, showing her window after window of stored video. A barrage of flickering information all set to a disaster backdrop. All of them with gold flares marking where the sand wraith had been erased from the world’s memory. CNN, Sylvie noticed, was saying that two newspeople—a reporter and her cameraman—had died when the rubble shifted unexpectedly. Sylvie looked at the last images they recorded, caught another glimpse of Marah and Demalion, running fast from … something washed out in a flicker of light … The camera image jerked forward, following the reporter, who was, in turn, following a basic journalistic rule. If you see someone running, find out what they’re running from.

  Then the reporter disappeared into a cloud of dust and rubble.

  “All of that. For nothing? Because you couldn’t be bothered to call?” Her cheeks were flushed, feverish.

  “Alex,” Sylvie said. “I’m sorry. I can’t go back and undo it. Can we move on? Hey—”

  Sylvie reached out, jabbed at the keys, trying to get one particular video to stop, and only succeeded in losing that sc
reen altogether. “Dammit. Can you find that again?”

  “Is it important?” Alex asked.

  “Might be,” Sylvie said. “If I’m not seeing things. There was a bystander who looked familiar—”

  Alex sighed. “And there goes my second surprise. You know, sometimes it’s just no damn fun working for you, Shadows. This the guy you meant?”

  Sylvie came around to Alex’s side of the desk, dragging the visitor’s chair around with her. It couldn’t be healthy to spin the laptop around and around like a top. Sylvie looked at the image—slightly blurry, but the one she’d spotted. A wiry, dark-haired man with a beaky nose, wearing the American uniform: worn blue jeans, white T-shirt, sneakers. He should have been totally nondescript. Except … Sylvie pushed play.

  He was studying the wreckage, trying to be discreet about it. Not gawking like the rest of the onlookers. Scoping it out without drawing attention to himself. He walked out of one video into the next, his damp dark hair collecting a mottled coating of dust and sand, a clear sign of how close he’d managed to get.

  “So he was in Chicago,” Alex said. “Playing looky-loo. He was also in Memphis.”

  “Memphis,” Sylvie said. “Did we ever find out what happened there?”

  “Not a clue, but our guy was there. Maybe he knows,” Alex said. She reached over Sylvie’s shoulders, clicked another set of images onto the screen. Same man, same outfit, same damp, dark hair. Same careful prowling the border of chaos, betraying his interest by trying not to seem interested at all. Memphis. Chicago. Miami.

  “So how’d you pick him out?” Alex said.

  “Saw him here,” Sylvie said. “Outside the ISI. Moving when no one else could. Immune to the mermaids’ song.”

  Alex whimpered, and Sylvie swallowed back further comment, waited for Alex’s eyelashes to stop flickering, her mind rewriting itself to someone else’s commands. Finally, Alex sighed, said, “What were we talking about?”

  “Him,” Sylvie said, hoping she hadn’t screwed things up, hoped she hadn’t managed to link their mysterious bystander inextricably with the forbidden parts of Alex’s memory.

  Alex wrinkled her nose. “Oh yeah. I’m trying to find him at the other scenes, but it’s harder. Savannah and Dallas didn’t rouse so much excitement, you know? The Savannah site was isolated. And the Dallas site was effectively cordoned off. Hard to be a face in the crowd if there’s no crowd. Even harder to film a face in a noncrowd if there’s no one to man a camera. And my head is killing me. The more I research, the worse I feel.”