Lyn Benedict: Lies & Omens

Or, of course, he still had his psychic abilities, and knew what she was going to ask, knew it wouldn’t tax his relationship with the ISI.

She waited, let the space stretch between them. But Demalion was too cagey to be caught out that easily. “Should I be worried that you’re taking a long time to ask? Trying to think of the perfect way to phrase it?”

“You seen your mother recently?”

“Why do you ask?” The hesitation in his voice was enough to tell her that psychic or not, he hadn’t foreseen that question.

“It’s just a question. One with an easy answer, I thought.” She spun her desk chair ’round. Now he had her doing it, overthinking every word.

Downstairs, the front door opened and closed, Alex heading out on a food run. Lupe’s footsteps were soft on the terrazzo, but Sylvie, listening to Demalion’s breath in her ear, could hear when Lupe’s pacing faltered, when she sank onto the couch with creak of leather and the soft gasps of someone fighting tears.

“Sylvie—”

Sylvie lost interest in the game. “I was hoping she could find me a reliable witch. One with a healthy slug of power and a good attitude. One who will make house calls. I’ve got a client with one hell of a nasty curse.”

“I’ll give her a call, but don’t count on anything. She’s—”

“Still holding a grudge against me?” It was fair enough. Sylvie had gotten Demalion killed, bad enough for any mother. When that mother was the Sphinx and had spent a thousand years gestating the only child she’d have? Sylvie counted herself lucky Anna Demalion hadn’t slaughtered her.

“And me,” Demalion said. “I asked her to do something she didn’t want to do. She’s been ignoring my calls ever since. I don’t think a human in trouble is going to get her to break her silence.”

“Well, fuck,” Sylvie said. “What about the ISI? You keep records, right? Of known witches in the country?”

“Mostly the ones who leave a trail of dead behind them,” Demalion reminded her. “I could bring Yvette in on it if it’s urgent. She’s pretty damn skilled at what she does.”

Sylvie choked back her gut reaction, a profane and profound negative. She thought about it, turned the idea around from different angles, and decided her gut instinct was absolutely right. “No. Absolutely not.”

“She can probably help—”

“Michael, no. It’s not a matter of ability,” Sylvie said. “I think you’d see that. For one thing, my client can’t afford ISI scrutiny right now. They’d lock her up and worry about the cure later.”

“She’s dangerous, then?” Demalion asked. “Sylvie. You take on some crap clients.”

“Regardless,” she said. “No on Yvette. Besides which, if you don’t want her to associate your new life as Adam Wright with Demalion? Don’t point out that we’re on good enough terms to help each other. Good way to blow your new and secret identity right out of the water.”

“She might know—”

“And you want to confirm it? You trust her that much?” Sylvie heard the ugly edge in her voice and winced. It wasn’t about jealousy. It was about the basics. Yvette Collier had two strikes against her. She was a government agent, and she was a witch. Both of those made her someone to distrust.

“Syl, the ISI is not your enemy.”

“Did you forget they tear-gassed me and tried to make me vanish?”

Demalion said, “If they wanted you gone, they’d have done a better job.”

“Not your best rebuttal ever, just so you know,” she said. “They’ve been keeping a careful distance, I’ll admit it, but it’s not because they want to make nice. They’re scared of me. Every time they get close to me, their agents end up dead or damaged. That caution won’t hold forever. “

“You’re paranoid.”

“You’re drinking the Kool-Aid. You want to believe they’re the good guys, and I admit, their goals sound good. Study, research, integration of the Magicus Mundi with the human world … but what government group ever sticks that close to its charter?”

“At least they have one,” Demalion said. “Your charter is all over the place. You’ve got the luxury of taking things on a case-by-case basis. We’re the government. We don’t.”

“Fine,” Sylvie said. Her cell phone creaked in her hand, plastic protesting her grip. “Just do me a favor. I bet they’ve got files on me—”

“You know we do. The new Lilith. Of course, we do. Not that they say much. We don’t know what the new Lilith is.…

“Don’t look to me for answers,” Sylvie said, irritated at his fishing. “But I bet the ISI recommendations aren’t to wait until they figure me out. ISI’s not much for live and let live. You want to believe in them, fine. Just realize that, sooner or later, you’re going to have to pick a side. Them or me.”

She disconnected with an angry stab of the END button, hit it so decisively that the phone not only truncated the call but shut itself down. Sylvie let out her breath in a shaky gust.

The new Lilith.

She’d been letting it slide, letting the words be nothing but another soubriquet people slapped on her. Loud-mouthed bitch. Shadows. L’enfant de meurtrier. The new Lilith.

Hiding from reality doesn’t change it, her little dark voice purred.

All right then, she thought. One goal, two reasons. Find a witch who was either trustworthy or clued in enough to the currents of the Mundi to make the risk worthwhile. Use the witch to cure or calm Lupe’s problem. Then use the witch to find out if being the new Lilith meant anything beyond the general resistance to magic and a potentially increased life span. Do all of it without letting the ISI spy on her business.

She grimaced and tossed her cell phone onto her desk, where it landed with a clatter. Finding a witch was going to take time.

We have time, the voice in her head suggested.

She might have time. More time than Sylvie could imagine if her fears were accurate.

Immortality loomed before her like a void, endless, pointless, terrifying. She closed her mind to it. She might have time.

Lupe didn’t.

IT WAS PAST MIDNIGHT AND STARTING TO STORM BY THE TIME SYLVIE made it back to her apartment. The flash and crash of the night suited her mood well enough. Three days spent hunting witches for Lupe, and she’d managed to chase down a single reference to a brujo who specialized in shape-shifting curses and cures. It had been a long shot for a lot of reasons, most especially because he was supposed to live in Orlando. Sylvie knew it was unfair, but she couldn’t take a Mouse-City witch seriously.

He’d been the real deal, though. He’d also been long gone when she got there, chased out of the city by the Green Swamp werewolf pack, who didn’t like a witch encroaching near their territory. It had been a long drive for nothing. He hadn’t left a forwarding address.

She shrugged off her jacket, removed her holster, looked at the empty shelves of her fridge, and called for Thai. If only all her problems could be solved that easily.

Sometimes, there were things that just couldn’t be fixed. She wasn’t ready to consign Lupe to that file, not when her curse was Sylvie’s fault, but all the signs were there.

A god’s curse on a mortal was a nightmare of pantheon politics and power. Usually, the only way those curses were removed was by the god forgiving the mortal. Tepeyollotl, even if he wanted to, no longer had the ability to take back his curse; he’d lost that power to Azpiazu, then to Erinya.

Even if Erinya had his power, it wasn’t her curse to remove. Gods didn’t interfere with other gods’ punishments, not unless they were willing to war over it. From what Sylvie understood, all the pantheons were carefully circling each other in a wary cease-fire.