by Lyn Benedict
Manipulations
THEY ERUPTED OUT ONTO THE STREET, THREE OF THEM COUGHING IN the smoke that billowed out after them, Merrow a silent deadweight at the end of Sylvie’s arms. Her shoulders protested, even with Zoe taking his ankles. Suarez had refused to arrest him, saying, “I can’t hold him securely. I won’t put my colleagues at risk. We’re in enough trouble.”
“I wasn’t going to give him to you anyway,” Sylvie said. “He’s got info I want.”
For once, something was going their way. Streets that were normally busy and crowded with pedestrians were all but empty. The only witness to their exodus was a gull that shrieked and flapped toward the sea.
Sylvie said, “Where is everyone?”
“Staying home. Trying not to catch the plague,” Suarez said. “Didn’t you notice that traffic was lighter than usual?”
“I just thought I caught a break,” Sylvie said. She shook herself. “Yeah. I should have noticed.”
“You two get out of here. Talk to him. Find out how to stop the plagues.”
“You’re not coming?”
“I discharged my weapon. I shot and killed federal agents. If I want to keep my job, I need to stay here and call it in.”
“All right,” Sylvie said. Zoe whined about Merrow being heavy and to hurry it up. “Be careful, Lio.”
“Y tú. Cuidate.”
Sylvie rubbed blood off her cheek, and said, “Yeah.”
Merrow twitched and mumbled; Zoe dropped his feet, grabbed the stun gun and zapped him again. His eyes rolled up in his head as the newest jolt left him partially conscious but in no shape to be casting spells. Good enough.
“Zoe. Leave him some brain cells,” Sylvie said.
“Whatever. Where are we taking him?”
“Val’s is home base.”
“You asked her first, right?”
“Of course I did. Couldn’t have gotten everyone past the wards without her permission.” Sylvie winced. Those wards were toast. Had been ever since Lupe ushered Erinya in. Magical wards had been replaced with a jungle that seethed and hungered. They were on the road, driving the ISI car along a pleasantly deserted highway, almost to their destination when Sylvie did a little mental head slap. She was bringing two witches to a god. While she didn’t care if Erinya burned every last drop of witchcraft back out of Merrow, Zoe was another story.
“Zo, you absolutely cannot do any magic while you’re at Val’s,” Sylvie said. Her voice cracked, the first thing said in long miles. Zoe was huddled up on one seat, her hand clenching tight on the stun gun, her gaze never leaving Merrow.
At least, Sylvie thought, she’d given her contrary sister an escape hatch from obsessively reviewing the wrongs Merrow had done her. Zoe erupted into instant protest.
“What? No! Why?”
“Because Erinya’s there. The moment you fire up your magic, you burn out.”
Zoe made a face. “So not fair. Gods are such bullies.”
“And try to be polite. To everyone. We’re all on edge.”
Merrow coughed laughter in the backseat, rattled his cuffed hands behind him. “Polite. Your little witch is a stone bitch. I wanted to rip out her tongue after twenty minutes in her company. I give your bad-tempered, impulsive god less than two minutes before Zoe’s a smear on a wall.”
“Don’t make me send her back there with the stun gun again,” Sylvie snapped.
“Won’t change the truth.”
“Did you ever consider that I might be nicer to someone who didn’t kidnap me and keep me tied up in a basement, then a car trunk?”
“Let me go,” Merrow said. Compulsion underscored his words, striking out like a lash.
Sylvie and Zoe laughed at the same moment, and Merrow subsided into a dark scowl.
“Sorry,” Sylvie said. “You’ve lost your edge. Where’d you pick that talent up anyway? It doesn’t really seem witchy. It’s not a spell you cast. It’s just you.”
Zoe said, “He’s half-blood monster. I think Merrow’s not just his name. It’s genealogy. A half-blood. Val says that a lot of the water monsters have a way with compulsion enchantments. Like the mermaids’ song, like the kelpie who makes you want to ride even if you know better.”
“Like the Encantado,” Sylvie said.
“Yeah. That’s the big gun,” Zoe said. “The strongest of the water magics.”
“Really?” Sylvie said. The creature she’d met had been pissy, tired, and losing ground on a battlefield he hadn’t chosen. He hadn’t struck her as particularly powerful. But she’d been behind wards when she talked to him at length. If he was that strong … damn, she wished she had a way to contact him. Add one more monster to her mundi allies.
“So Val says.” Zoe looked over her shoulder at Merrow.
Merrow said, “That woman’s not worthy of the title witch. All she does is hole herself away from any conflict and waste her talent on academics. She deserved to get her talent burned out.”
“It’s coming back,” Zoe said. “Better not be rude to her, or she’ll make all you Society witches cry.”
“Watch out!” Merrow shouted.
Sylvie almost reflexively stomped on the brakes, bound both by basic driver instinct and by the sudden wave of compulsion. Almost.
“Don’t!” Zoe snapped at the same moment.
Sylvie pressed down harder on the accelerator, taking them off of Virginia Key and onto the short expanse of Rickenbacker Causeway which connected to Key Biscayne. Merrow lunged for the side door, determined to get out, whispering spells to override the door locks, and Zoe flailed at him with the stun gun.
Merrow screamed and went limp.
The SUV bumped gently onto the key.
“I didn’t even hit him with it,” Zoe said.
“He got hit with something bigger. Take a look.”
Key Biscayne had gone jungle. Erinya’s will exploding outward, corrupting and changing everything in its path. There was little left of Crandon Park from what Sylvie saw. All the buildings drowned in an impossible vegetation and red flowers that snapped and bit. Shadows, spotted like jaguars, ghosted through the greenery, and brought to mind the dapple of sunlight over leaves. Zoe sucked in a breath and slid toward the middle of the SUV as if its steel walls could protect her.
Merrow had been spell casting when they crossed, head down, focusing all his energy into a spell, and found himself abruptly at the mercy of a magical tide he couldn’t bear. Scoured out from within. No wonder he’d shouted.
Sylvie kept the SUV to the center of the road; the jungle encroached fast on either side. At least, Merrow wouldn’t be a threat now. At least, they’d be able to question him without worrying about him spitting out spells instead of answers.
* * *
BY THE TIME SYLVIE STOPPED AT VAL’S ESTATE, SHE WAS DRIVING purely by GPS guidance. Nothing looked familiar. Or rather, it looked all-too-familiar—all of the world coated with Erinya’s heaven reaching down to her. Chaotic jungles and lurking predators. Once you were out of the city proper, Miami’s evening air always smelled sweet and salty—night-blooming flowers and the ever-present bite of the sea—but when Sylvie opened her door to get out and open the gate, the air was wet and heavy and rank with crushed vegetation and animal musk.
When she reached for the gate, the iron scrollwork writhed and hissed and drew back after flickering dark, forked tongues over her sweating skin. Sylvie tried not to wince. This was Erinya’s world, her psyche. Like her, it would reward fear with predation.
“Erinya,” Sylvie said. “We’re coming in.”
No response, but a tangle of dark flowers bent slowly toward the distant house. It seemed far more distant than was possible, a tiny glimmer on the horizon instead of a mansion three hundred feet off the road. Sylvie returned to the SUV gratefully. The night felt full of predators.
“Zo, you come up front and hang on to me.” She didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings. Bringing a witch into Erinya’s realm … She wished she had another
recourse.
Zoe clambered up, dug her fingers into Sylvie’s arm without protest. Behind them, Merrow lolled in the middle seat he had dropped into, half-conscious, panting with either fear or effort.
“What about him?” Zoe said.
Sylvie wanted him alive, wanted to question him, but if he vanished from the car, if he got sucked out and devoured, she wouldn’t cry.
She wanted answers, but more than that, she wanted Merrow to pay for kidnapping Zoe. Zoe was running on pissed, but whenever she stopped being cranky, Sylvie saw her hands shake, her shoulders tense, her lips bow down in that close-to-tears pout Zoe had had ever since she was a toddler. When this was over, Zoe was going to fall apart, and Sylvie wanted to be able to say, Merrow can never hurt you again because I made him into shark chum.
The driveway warped on them as the SUV hit concrete and brickwork. One heartbeat took them someplace that was bitterly cold with thin, gritty air and a sudden cliff to their left. Erinya’s realm, Sylvie thought, and tried not to jerk the wheel in panicked reaction, and the next heartbeat saw her slamming on the brakes just before they impacted with Val’s front door.
Sylvie felt Zoe’s tourniquet grip on her arm, patted her fingers in relief, and turned to see if Merrow had made it. He had, though his eyes showed white all around the irises.
She couldn’t blame him. There was basic god leakage, and then there was this. A remodeling that rearranged space and time. Erinya wasn’t even trying to restrain herself. Couldn’t be.
Erinya’s presence in Miami was no doubt making the Good Sisters work overtime on the memory spell. Might be why it seemed to be the hardest-hit city.
Lupe opened the side door of the SUV, and Zoe bit back comment though her eyes widened, and her grip on Sylvie’s arm tightened at the sight of Lupe. Sylvie felt her own breath catch. Lupe was stuck, seemingly midchange. Her skin was rippled with brightly patterned scales; her legs were … gone. She moved forward on a thick, snake tail, and the hand that held open the SUV door had talons that were leaving gouges in the metal.
“Coming out?” she said.
“Yeah,” Sylvie said.
“Fuck no,” Merrow said. He clung to the seat. “You kill me now, Shadows, and leave me out of this freak show of yours—”
A second later, he was torn from the SUV, dragged inside the house, and—by the time Sylvie scrambled to follow—gutted across the foyer, his blood wet and scarlet and dripping over Val’s pale Italian marble. Erinya, in fury-god form, pawed at the remains. Lupe, hot-eyed, stared at the mess and tucked her coiled tail tighter to avoid the blood.
Zoe, on the doorstep, shrieked, turned to run, remembered the world-warp outside, and pressed up against Sylvie instead. Sylvie put an arm over her shoulders, and said, “Bring him back, Erinya. We need to question him. We need him to find Yvette.”
“He was rude,” Erinya said. “He came into my house, and he was rude to my chosen. I won’t. Find another way.”
“What, like sticking a pin in a map? Here be witches?”
Erinya lashed her tail, turned, and disappeared into the recesses of Val’s house. Erinya’s house, now; it bore little to no resemblance to Val’s art deco mansion.
The marble floor, now drinking in Merrow’s blood and bone, was the only thing left of Val’s once-open foyer. The ceiling was close and stony, like the mouth of a cave. It led toward darker areas behind it, one swallowing Erinya’s angry form. Sylvie stared after her, kicked at an encroaching vine. It snapped at her, and she shivered.
Lupe grimaced. “Sorry, Sylvie. I’ll see if I can talk her ’round.”
“Hey,” Sylvie said, grabbing Lupe’s arm. “Are you all right?”
“Fine, why?”
Sylvie gestured up and down, meaning You’re half snake, a little reluctant to just come out and say it if Erinya was feeling that touchy.
“Oh. We’re trying out monster shapes,” Lupe said. “I keep changing. Eri says she can at least make it into a monster I like. At least in this shape, I keep control of my mind, if not my body. That’s something, isn’t it?”
Sylvie nodded. “That’s a lot. How’s Alex?”
“Sleeping, last I checked. I’ll go tell her you’re back.” She moved off, surprisingly graceful as she swayed and slithered through the cavernous hallways.
“Jeez,” Zoe said. She hadn’t moved from the doorway, her arms wrapped tight around herself.
“You doing all right?” Sylvie said.
Zoe stared at her shoes, at the splatter pattern Merrow’s blood had made. “These were brand-new. And expensive. An entire month’s allowance worth. And look what she’s done to Val’s house! She could at least clean up after herself. Val’s going to be peeved.”
Zoe was fine. Displacing her anxiety every which way, but coping.
“Syl,” Zoe said, catching her as Sylvie started after Erinya and Lupe. “Wait.”
“We’re kind of on a deadline,” Sylvie said. “Yvette has Demalion. I’d like to get him back before he goes all Stockholm Syndrome and remembers he used to date her. Or hell, until she makes him forget they’re on different sides.”
“She’ll be too busy keeping the Corrective running smoothly to do much with him.”
“With the what?”
Zoe shrugged, took a step farther into the house. “You seem to forget I’ve spent the last two months in witch central. I get to study spells, not do them. Val’s idea of teaching is setting the kid down with the Encyclopedia Britannica. So take that, and then stuff me in with a bastard like Merrow who likes to hear himself talk.” She shuddered, and her gaze went opaque, distant.
“Your point,” Sylvie prodded.
Zoe jerked back to the now with a sigh of relief. “So I know what spell Yvette and the Society’s using—”
“The Corrective? Sounds like white-out.”
“Same effect. It’s a seriously complicated spell. First done in the late 1800s. The Society pioneered it. I couldn’t believe it when Merrow started bragging about it—saying he could keep me for a pet, that you’d never remember that I was missing. Crazy complicated spell with really exotic ingredients.”
“How exotic? Can we track them through the ingredients?”
Zoe shook her head. “Not the kind of ingredients you can buy. I still can’t believe they resurrected it … it’s such a tricky spell. It requires so much manpower to really be effective.”
Sylvie leaned against the wall—damp, rough-cut stone instead of white wallpaper—and considered her sister. “All right. I want to hear all about this spell. First, though. You know how to break it?”
Zoe raised her palm, made a maybe–maybe not seesaw, and noticed a smear of blood on her skin. “I want a wash. You think the bathrooms are still in existence?”
“Zo!”
“I don’t know! I mean, my books were all about how to make it work, not how to take it apart. Seriously, Syl. I’ve got blood all over me, and it’s getting gummy. I really really really want a bath. If you don’t let me go, I think I might cry. Or scream. Or have the breakdown I deserve. Tell me the bathrooms are still here. And not all … jungly.”
“Lupe wouldn’t let Erinya remove all the modern conveniences. Hopefully.”
“Lupe. That’s the… Zoe checked herself, shot nervous glances around the foyer. “She’s the person who answered the door?”
“Yup. Under a curse,” Sylvie said.
“Your client?”
“Go shower, Zoe. And be quick about it. Miami’s falling apart around our ears.”
“It’ll be a little bit more stable now that Merrow’s dead,” Zoe said. “He was the dispersal focus for the memory spell. People in Miami won’t remember what they’ve forgotten, but they won’t forget any more. Not until she gets another disperser here.”
“He was part of the spell?”
“Why do you think he kept me in Miami? He wanted to take me to Yvette, one more witch for her spellwork, but he couldn’t leave.”
“Definitely need to ta
lk,” Sylvie said.
“Definitely need to bathe!”
Lupe came back into the foyer, wrinkled her nose at the mess. Sylvie wished she thought it was distaste distorting her features, but it looked more like a cat scenting something interesting.
Sylvie shuddered, wondering if she’d roll in it.
“Alex is awake,” Lupe said.
“How is she?” Sylvie hesitated. This past week had been nothing but one horror after another. Still, nothing compared to sitting beside a frantic and crying Alex, unable to help her. She wasn’t eager to revisit that sensation.
“Awake. Calm. Confused. Erinya’s going to see what she can do.”
“Don’t do anything!” Zoe said, jerking to a halt.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t think Furies are good at delicate wetwork. She could probably yank out the spell, but then what? The memories go with it,” Zoe said. “Because if you break the memory spell—which is what you’re planning to do, right?—You want Alex’s memories to come back. You have the Fury fuck around in her head, try to fix things, then the restore won’t work as well. Because it won’t be a spell releasing things back to normal. It’ll be a spell beneath another spell. Her memories might not come back. If you wait, if you break the spell, you win them all back.”
“Lupe, tell Eri to hold off. Zoe, with me.”
“But … but … bath!”
“It can wait. I need spell info. Now.”
Zoe started to protest, and Sylvie grabbed her arm and dragged her toward what had been Val’s kitchen. It was still a kitchen. Sort of. In some vague Erinya concept of a kitchen. There was a fire pit, nestled close to Val’s slickly modern fridge. Vines carpeted the floor, as treacherous underfoot as slick cables, but sweet-smelling. There was a waterfall sliding down one wall, clear and cold and disappearing at both ends. A misty rainbow shimmered beneath the fluorescent lighting.
Zoe and Sylvie stared at the room, and said, “Freaky,” at the same moment.
Sylvie poked at the table and chairs—rough-cut wood, carved with flowers. They seemed real and sturdy and most importantly, not inclined to kill them. She pushed Zoe into the closest seat, leaned back against the table, and said, “Talk.”
