Lyn Benedict - Lies & Omens

If they had—

Sylvie pulled the car to a graceless halt streetside; the engine cooled and pinged, way overdue for an oil change. Or a new engine. Zoe had stolen a lemon.

But it had brought them here.

The San Francisco ISI building, unlike many of their other branches, was isolated, an entity in itself. That was a plus. It meant the only people she had to worry about were her own. No close bystanders. There were shops on the other side of the road, closed at this hour. A few houses, owned by people rich enough to afford sizable plots of land in California.

An iron gate barricaded the oyster-shell drive, which led to a dimly lit building backed up against the jagged coastline. The sea was a constant growl, unseen but threatening. Helpful, too. The crash it made as it hit the rocky shore would mask their approach.

Zoe said, “The gate’s not spelled.”

“Wouldn’t be,” Sylvie said, giving it a good shove. “Not if this hosts real ISI agents as well. With non-Talents coming in and out.” The metal screeched, salt air eating away at the hinges.

Lupe slipped through the gap, darted toward the building, pulled up short, wincing. Oyster-shell drive, Sylvie thought. Sharp-edged, uncomfortable to walk on even in her boots. Lupe’s bare footpads were going to slow her down.

This branch occupied a turn-of-the-century bed-and-breakfast, and it still looked more like a hotel than a government facility: The stone facade was ivy covered, the grounds were manicured and landscaped with flowering bushes that perfumed the night. The only thing that gave them away was the dull shine of replacement windows—bulletproof. Dark, angular blotches studded the roofline, and Sylvie thought they were security cameras. Inactive ones: no movement, no light.

The Good Sisters wanted privacy.

Worked for her.

“One entrance,” Zoe said. “You think there’s a back door?”

“Depends on whether the ISI has to abide by fire codes,” Sylvie said. “But I was thinking more about hitting them head-on.”

Unlike Demalion, who would have been muttering about stealth and discretion, Zoe and Lupe merely nodded, trusting her.

Sylvie checked the solid weight of her weapon, reassured herself that the spare ammo was still in her pockets, and moved up the drive, sticking to the shadows. They were nearly on the house when the tiny stone shed leaning up against the side of the building cracked open, sprouting a door where none had been.

Three people walked out into the predawn light, talking quietly among themselves. Lupe snarled in animal surprise, and the agents looked up and out and spotted them. The lead agent— witch —gestured at the gravel pathway, shouted out a harsh-edged word. The ground before him roiled, rolled up into the world’s largest mole trail, then erupted. A monster shook dirt and sharp shells from its back and blocked their path.

Sylvie shot once at it, wondering what exactly it was that this witch had had leashed and following him beneath the ground’s surface, and where the hell its weak point was. First glance argued that there weren’t any: It was all scale and scute and armored legs. Her bullet spanged off it with a sound like breaking pottery.

She wasn’t even sure it had eyes. She lined up another shot, but Lupe beat her to it, lunging into her line of fire and engaging the monster directly.

Eager, but reckless.

The monster, something even Sylvie’s Lilith voice struggled to name, moved like a centipede, hundreds of jointed, armored legs, and evil pincers at the head. A long, stinging tail curved above its back. It raised all the hairs on her neck, made her stomach squirm in ingrained squeamishness. She really wasn’t wild about insects. Especially when this one might as well have been designed out of an insectophobe’s nightmare.

Though it seemed blind, or, at least, eyeless, it moved confidently enough to get Lupe on the defensive and keep her there. Lupe whimpered after one stinger strike; her side ran blood. She fell back.

Sylvie jerked the trigger, put another two bullets into the creature, trying to maim its front pair of legs and failing, trying to keep an eye on the witches as well. Be stupid to be killed by them while focusing on a monster.

The monster ignored Sylvie, oiling back on itself to make another attack on Lupe.

Take out the witch that controls it; free the monster, the Lilith voice suggested, guided her gun hand ’round to the man who had summoned the monster out of the earth. His mouth was a black slash in his neat beard, urging the monster on.

Free the monster, and who’s to say it’ll run? It might want to finish what it started, Sylvie thought, but shooting a witch was well within her plans. The witch, sensing his danger, pressed back toward the shed and shelter.

Zoe stepped between the monster and Lupe just as it charged again and slapped it hard right in its blind face. Zoe’s entire body was within the cutting grasp of the pincers.

Sylvie unloaded bullets into the monster’s tail end, trying to get it to turn, to forget her suicidal sister. But the monster was dissolving, starting from Zoe’s slap mark and crumbling back into gravel and dust.

“Illusion,” Zoe said. “Good one, though. Lupe. Stop believing you’re hurt.”

“Cassavetes’s protégé,” the illusion master said. His tone was dismissive. “You’re an acolyte. Nothing more. Your creature illusion is unconvincing. No chimera looks like that.”

“I’m a lot more than an acolyte, and Lupe’s not an illusion,” Zoe said. She raised her marked hand, started chanting. Dunne’s stolen powers shone silver, highlighting the mark.

Sylvie, exasperated, desperate—they had to be attracting attention they didn’t want yet—took advantage of the witch’s arrogance. He’d stepped out of his shelter, all his focus on Zoe.

Sylvie’s bullet made a hole through his throat; the witch managed to clutch at the wound, but nothing more, before he crumpled and died.

Zoe snarled, balked of an audience, and Sylvie thought Get the door! in her direction. The two witches remaining were doing their best to seal it. Lupe staggered to her feet and pounced on one of them, proving that she was no illusion. The witch, a woman whose hair was nearly as scarlet as her life’s blood, managed to look betrayed as she died.

Zoe and the remaining witch played magical tug-of-war over the door until Sylvie unloaded one more bullet, this one into the last witch’s head. The bullet shivered, pushing through a magical shield, before it penetrated. Sylvie wiped sweat off her face with her gun hand, smelled hot metal, thanked their lucky stars that these witches weren’t carrying invulnerability talismans. Just the lesser, rudimentary spell shields. If they’d been wearing talismans, she’d have had to tackle them physically first, get the talismans off, get up close and personal with her kills.

Sylvie leaned forward, breathing hard. There was killing witches; and then there was killing people in front of her baby sister. It didn’t make it better that Zoe seemed completely okay with it, was even now pushing past to grab hold of the closing door.

“ C’mon , Sylvie. This damned door isn’t happy. It knows I’m not one of them, and it’s trying to close.”

Sylvie looked across at the main building, looked past the shed door, and had a feeling that they could raid the main ISI building for days and find nothing but patsies. The Good Sisters had leeched on and hidden themselves, parasites who made the host forget they were there.

Lupe pressed up against Sylvie’s side, her flanks wet with blood, but no wounds. Either she believed Zoe enough to erase the injury if not the signs of it, or Erinya had souped her up before the battle with some quick-healing genes. Good, Sylvie thought. She needed her team whole.