by Lyn Benedict
“Bonebreak spell.” Sylvie took in her sister’s appearance in full light and did some appalled gaping of her own. “Oh, Zoe…
Zoe tossed her head; the brutal burn across her neck and jaw glistened in the white lights of the clinic, shiny with salve. Her hair on that side was a charred, frizzled mass. “It’s okay,” she said. “Nothing a chic haircut and a small illusion won’t fix. It’s not that bad.”
Sylvie bit her lip hard, sat on the low, padded table beside her. Her knees felt soft, fluid. When she had control of her tongue, she said, “I’m sorry.”
“I knew what I was getting into,” Zoe said. Her eyes were hard and bright; she squeezed onto the table also, a line of warmth along Sylvie’s side. “I opened up the earth below the witch who did it. Feel worse for her. She’s down amidst the magma.”
Marah grinned from her place by the door. “I like your sister, Sylvie.”
“Yeah, I meant to say—what the hell, Zoe? Earthquakes in a fault zone? That was a fucking huge risk, don’t you think? We were all underground!”
“It was not,” Zoe argued right back. “Jeez, Sylvie, use your brain. That stronghold had stood for over a century. It survived the 1906 earthquake. You know what that means?”
“They were lucky?”
Demalion rolled his eyes. The nurse in the room didn’t even look up as they argued over magic and earthquakes. Sylvie wondered if she was even listening at all. She seemed utterly practiced in ignoring anything but the wounds she was dealing with. She finished the last stitch, leaned forward to reach for a roll of gauze, and revealed a handgun strapped at her spine.
Sylvie had the strong suspicion they were in an ISI chop shop. Safe enough, she supposed. There was no one left to lead the ISI. Graves. Riordan. Yvette. All dead. No one to take their places. No one to come after her for the time being.
“You don’t get it, Sylvie. Those witches worked enough magic to make the ground completely stable. There are anti-earthquake charms all over the area. Hell, the rest of the world will fall into the sea before that place feels so much as a tremor.”
“Yeah, that might explain why it’s still standing after Sylvie got through with it,” Demalion said. “I thought that was too good to be true.”
“We were damned lucky. I kept expecting Yvette to sic one of her leashed monsters on us. I guess she was tapped out.”
“Or thought she’d get caught in the cross fire,” Demalion said. “Those monsters were pretty much the raze-it-to-the-ground type.”
“I would have done my best to make sure she did,” Sylvie said with a shrug.
Lupe slunk into the room; a toilet flushed behind her. She was changed, wearing white scrubs, and she looked very small as she curled up on another examining table. She sat silently, watching her hands open and close. Her nails shone short and soft and human. Pink and white, the traces of an old French manicure brought back from the past. She had two black eyes forming—probably a broken nose—red-yellow bruises rising on her arms, but other than that, she looked just like the girl Sylvie had seen months ago—the clean-cut college student.
Until Sylvie looked into her eyes. Lupe was never going to be that girl again, no matter that she’d gotten a reset on her humanity.
Demalion shifted in his seat, reached out, and distracted Zoe when the nurse applied one last sheen of salve to Zoe’s burned face and neck.
Too little, too late, Sylvie thought, but Zoe seemed to find some measure of relief in the application. She closed her eyes, sighed into it, tilted her head so the nurse could get her cheek.
Sylvie swallowed guilt—her beautiful baby sister—and dread. Her parents were not going to be happy. The nurse nodded impartially at all of them and left.
Zoe touched her arm. “Hey. Sylvie. It really is okay. I know a lot of healing spells. And with this? Val can’t object to me practicing them. She might even teach me some offensive spells. Mostly, she’s just showed me defensive ones. I had to make it up as I went along.”
Sylvie shuddered. “Thank you for not telling me that before we took on the Society. I would have died of worry.” Demalion reached over, twined his fingers with her good ones, squeezed.
“Hey, I’m badass even on defense. Shielding and magical pitfalls and illusions and mind reading. You can do a whole hell of a lot with those.”
Marah interrupted them. “You shouldn’t play defense, Zoe. Not with Cain’s mark on your hand. You’re a killer. It’s a waste of your talents.”
Zoe shrugged. “Whatever.”
Sylvie had never been so glad to hear that annoying word out of her sister’s mouth.
Before she could tell Marah off for trying to—what? Recruit her sister?—Demalion said. “Airport next, Marah?”
“Yeah. I think it’s safe enough. So, four tickets to Miami?”
“Four?” Sylvie said. “Where are you going?”
“So eternally untrusting,” Marah said. “If you must know, DC. There’s a job opening at the head of the ISI. It’s got my name all over it.” She smiled. Smug. More than that. Happy. Accomplished.
“That’s what you want? That’s your plan? To take over the ISI?”
Marah let her smile widen. “Oh yeah. It’s been a long time coming.”
“You’re a lunatic,” Sylvie said.
“Related to you,” Marah said. “Seriously, why wouldn’t I? Power, prestige, loads of excitement, and things to kill. I’m an ideal candidate. Magic resistance and everything. There’s going to be more money than ever being shunted our way once people really sit down and come to grips with their shiny new memories of monsters and magic.”
“You, too?” Demalion asked.
Zoe and Lupe traded left-out, puzzled glances.
“Three out of five,” Sylvie said. “Odds don’t look good for the rest of the world.”
“Positive thinking, Sylvie. Positive thinking.”
“See, I like that,” Marah said. “You coming to DC with me, Demalion? There’s definitely a place for you in my ISI if you want it.”
Sylvie stiffened, but Demalion’s answer was quick and certain. “No.”
“Not even if I offer you a top position?”
“You’re quick to assume no one will object to your taking over,” Sylvie said.
Marah smiled. “I’ve got it locked. Don’t you worry about that. I have persuasive and powerful friends. I even have you to back me as director of the ISI. That’ll be something to show them. That I have Shadows on my side.”
“You do?”
“Absolutely,” Marah said. “After all I’ve done for you, do you really feel you can say no?”
Sylvie sighed. There might be worse things, she thought, than having Marah in charge of the ISI.
Not much, her little dark voice said. An assassin in charge of a secret government organization.
Probably not going to be secret that much longer, not if the Magicus Mundi wasn’t secret. People were going to want to know that there was a plan—Sylvie studied Marah’s smile and felt suspicion. Somehow, this was all working to Marah’s benefit. Every step of it. The attacks that killed the ISI heads, the unmasking of the Society, Marah’s easy capture by Yvette’s people, even Sylvie’s owing her debts. But she hadn’t known about the Society. Until Sylvie told her. Right?
Just a clever mercenary. Seizing the moment.
Seizing it right now.
“So, you never answered me, Demalion? If I made you a division head? Rejoin the ISI? Excitement. Molding the world. Saving people?”
Zoe stiffened at Sylvie’s side, all youthful indignation. Sylvie, older, wiser, thought he might say yes. He could do a lot of good as a division head. He had always believed in the ISI goals.
“No,” Demalion said again. “I’m sticking with Sylvie this time. I think I’ll get enough excitement and saving people working with her. And hey, we unmasked the Mundi. She’s going to need another partner.”
“Can we just go home?” Lupe interrupted. Tears slicked her face, looking painful
as they squeezed past her swollen eyes. “I don’t care who goes to DC as long as I get to go home.”
“Seconded,” Zoe said. Her shoulders sagged; her hands shook. Her bravery and adrenaline were wearing off. Sylvie wanted the inevitable crash to be somewhere other than an ISI clinic. She wanted them to think of her as strong, not to be messed with. Not the teenager she actually was. A tear smudged Zoe’s face, trickled crookedly through the burn salve.
Sylvie herself wanted to get someplace familiar. Safe. There was a certain sensation in the air, a feeling that all the bad luck they’d dodged was just out there, waiting. Biding its time.
The world, Sylvie thought, was holding its breath. Waiting to see who flinched first. The human world or the Magicus Mundi.
* * *
MARAH PUT THEM IN FIRST-CLASS SEATING, WHICH LEFT SYLVIE feeling irritably grateful since there were fewer people to gape at them in the curtained-off area. She curled up next to Zoe, Demalion reaching across the aisle to brush his hand against hers every time she jerked awake. Lupe traveled in complete silence, not sleeping. Not talking. Sylvie didn’t think it was just because she was caught between Demalion—who she didn’t know at all—and the window. Sylvie thought about changing seats, thought about trying to piece together whatever made Lupe look like she was dying inside, but the painkillers swept her back under, and she didn’t wake until they landed.
She staggered out, leaning heavily on Demalion’s shoulder, bumping into him when he hesitated.
The security at the airport seemed … tense. Sylvie found herself wondering how many of the guards were reeling beneath returned memories that pointed out that there were far more exotic dangers than terrorists. Three out of five, she thought. Again, she found herself grateful to Marah for getting them back home with such speed. She had a feeling flights were about to get complicated.
“Let’s get out of here,” she murmured to Demalion. “We’re not unnoticeable. And they’re jumpy.”
As they moved through the concourse, she heard whispers, watched heads turn toward the news stations playing every few hundred feet. Same two words on every lips. Key Biscayne. The news stations showed the Rickenbacker Causeway blocked off with police vehicles.
Shit.
Erinya was still throwing her weight around. Now there was no memory sink to hide it.
She quickened her pace though it made her hand ache, made Demalion hiss as the change pulled his stitches. Zoe adjusted her stride smoothly, kept her head down, her burned hair and cheek hidden in the shadow of Sylvie’s body.
They lost Lupe; Sylvie turned and found her staring at the raised television screen, watching the flashing police lights, the line of text running beneath: INEXPLICABLE ECOLOGICAL CHANGES ON KEY BISCAYNE.
“Take me there,” Lupe said, when Sylvie touched her shoulder. She twitched away from the touch.
“It’s crawling with cops.”
Lupe shot her a scornful glance. “You expect me to believe you’re afraid of the cops? After what I’ve seen? No.” She shook her head. Determination flared in her voice, brought life and fire to it. “Take me there.”
Sylvie breathed out. “You’re the client.”
* * *
DEMALION GOT THEM ONTO THE CAUSEWAY AND PAST THE FIRST OF the police barricades by rolling down the window and fishing out his federal credentials. Sylvie had to smile, though it felt tight on her lips. All of the shit he’d gone through in the past week, and he still had his ID to hand? The man was born to be a Fed.
He turned Marah down, she reminded herself. His choice. She hadn’t asked him to. She just appreciated it. Enormously. The blue water beyond the ocean causeway glittered in the sunlight. Lupe fidgeted in the backseat.
“How’s it look up ahead?” Demalion asked the uniformed officer.
The man shrugged uneasily, cast a glance over his shoulder. “Hell if I know. They tell me that the whole island’s gone weird. Strange plants sprouting overnight. Stranger animals. Waterfalls. We’ve had to chase tons of gawkers away.”
“I see,” Demalion said. He took back his ID, and the man leaned in, rested his arm on the open window.
“So, do you know what’s going on, Agent Wright?”
“Yes,” Demalion said, and, in a move worthy of all federal assholes, rolled up the window, making the man jerk back or lose fingers. He glanced over at Sylvie before he touched the gas pedal again. “We’re sure about this? Erinya owns my soul. I don’t want her to decide to collect on it because she’s in a bad mood.”
“I’m sure,” Lupe said, leaning forward between the seat backs. “Drive.”
The island loomed ahead, and Sylvie shook her head. “Erinya. No sense of discretion.” Even from the far end of the causeway, the changes were blatant and undeniable. Vegetation curled above the island like greenish smoke. A sharp-edged hill rose high and bare out of the massed tree tangle. White-stone walls meandered along the top of it like an open mouth showing teeth. A pair of distinctive gates blocked the narrow, stony path toward the rearranged dwelling. Sylvie wasn’t even sure there were ceilings.
“That’s what’s left of Val’s house?” Zoe said. She slumped back, and said, “You get to tell her. Not me.”
“Maybe she won’t ask,” Sylvie said.
Demalion pulled up at the second roadblock, this one designed to keep anyone on the Key from leaving. Sylvie wondered how many people were stuck with Erinya. Whether Erinya was leaving them alone, or whether they were all her stunned acolytes by now.
The officer who waved them to a halt was less impressionable than the first. He looked at the ID, and said, “What’s your purpose here, Wright?”
“Same as yours, I’d imagine,” Demalion said, nodding at the line of uniformed officers preparing to take the final few steps onto the Key. “Send a man in for recon.”
“Didn’t get enough information from the flyover? The Feds buzzed Key Biscayne all night. Made our choppers stand down.”
Lupe growled, slid out of the car before Demalion could argue further with the policeman. “I’m going in.”
“Wait,” Sylvie said. She dragged Lupe around to the far side of the car, trying to keep their conversation away from prying ears. A vain attempt. The police pivoted to keep them in focus, hands on their weapons. Sylvie said, “Gentlemen. Don’t get trigger-happy. You won’t like the result.”
They hesitated just enough that she felt comfortable putting her back to them. “Are you sure about this, Lupe? Erinya’s trapped, and not in the best of moods. A drawback to being a god? Their tantrums can last eons.”
“She won’t hurt me,” Lupe said. “She likes me.”
“She liked you as a monster,” Sylvie said.
“I’m still a monster. It’s just … inside now.”
“Lupe—”
“I killed people, Sylvie. I ripped them apart and ran my claws through their guts. I’ve done a lot of things in my life. None of it has ever been as satisfying as killing. Erinya understands that. Erinya likes me. And you know. I think I like her.”
Sylvie let her go. If the world was going to change, if people were going to see the truth of things, she needed to let them act on what they knew. She couldn’t play gatekeeper for the entire world. She had to trust people to make their own decisions.
Lupe nodded, walked past the armed men, walked right to the seething vines. Their chaos continued unabated, lashing and twining, but as she reached out, they parted, swallowed her down.
The cops swore and took steps back. Sylvie watched the greenery close up again and wondered if she’d done the right thing. It seemed to be a constant refrain in the back of her mind, as if she were vibrating to the uncertainty of the world.
She shook it off. She’d pulled the wool from the world’s eyes. She couldn’t regret it. Whatever came. Whatever happened.
Better to build a world with truth than one full of lies.
19
And After
TWO WEEKS LATER, SYLVIE WAS PUTTING TINY PINS IN A VERY L
ARGE map as Demalion called out city names, state names, country names, listing places that were waking up. In the states, Florida had been the first to admit that there were magic and monsters and everything people had dreamed of and feared.
Of course, they had Erinya’s Key Biscayne makeover to help them along. The cops had gone in an hour or two after Lupe—shamed into it—and, surprisingly, Erinya had let them come back out, unscathed. Their report, which Alex had helped herself to, had said two women were living there, and they both could turn into monsters at will.
Then the army had invaded.
They’d been gone for four days, stumbling out with depleted weapons, shiny new PTSDs, and the word from on high: Erinya might be trapped there, but she demanded respect. Word got out. A god had taken over Key Biscayne.
The Christian fundamentalists claimed it was a devil and were holding prayer vigils for God to smite Erinya out of existence. So far, there was no response.
A temporary prison, Sylvie thought. She’d forgotten that temporary meant a different thing to immortals. It might be centuries before the other gods came to a consensus on whether Dunne’s trap constituted an act of war or not.
Another pin marked one final ISI attack in Seattle. While Sylvie and Demalion had been busy fighting Yvette, a sea monster had slipped out of the dense fogs and taken out the ISI building, two piers, and a homeless shelter. The sheer number of witnesses made Seattle the second city to acknowledge the truth, that humankind had neighbors they knew next to nothing about.
Sylvie didn’t like that pin. Not only did it mark civilian casualties, it marked her failure to track down all the Good Sisters. There was at least one out there, and a dangerous one at that. One like Merrow, who could turn monsters into weapons. Alex was struggling to crack Graves’s computer encryption. Maybe once Alex succeeded, Sylvie would have a better idea of how many more of the Good Sisters were running loose.
Demalion said, “Earth to Sylvie? UCLA just started a new scientific study on ESP.”
