Lyn Benedict - Gods & Monsters

“If you bring Tepeyollotl down, and Azpiazu’s as close as I think he is to godhood . . . It’ll be all-out war. They might not be as powerful as the ones in Chicago, but they won’t have any intention of playing nice. If god presence can create a hurricane on a landlocked lake, you want to see what warring gods can do in Florida?”

Cachita wrung her hands, knotted them in her hair. “I don’t know what to do, Sylvie.”

“Listen to me. Trust me.”

“You let Azpiazu escape you.”

“But we saved Maria Ruben.”

“She doesn’t matter!”

“She matters to her family,” Sylvie said. “Just because you’re dealing with gods doesn’t mean you can give up being human. Trust me. I can stop him. I can kill him.”

Pure bravado. She didn’t have a clue. Wales would have to come up with something. She’d hurt Azpiazu before. Minor injuries. But it was only a matter of getting the right degree to make them major ones. Mortal ones.

We kill the unkillable, her voice murmured.

Cachita’s voice left all trace of frightened vibrato behind. “All right. You’re in charge. But I’m sticking close. If I think you’re wrong, you’ll have to shoot me.”

The answer quivering on Sylvie’s lips, burning like salt in a wound, gave way to startled cursing when her phone rang shrilly in her pocket. She yanked it out. “What!”

“Sylvie,” Alex said. If Cachita had found her nerve, her iron core, Alex had lost hers. Tears drenched her voice. “Sylvie. You gotta come now. Back to the office. Please.”

“Alex,” Sylvie said. “Are you hurt? Are you—”

The phone disconnected on a whimper.

Naked terror.

Not the ISI, then. Not the police.

Sylvie thought of Maria Ruben, safe and sound in the hospital. Out of Azpiazu’s reach. But Alex . . .

“Time to move,” she told Cachita. “I think Azpiazu’s come calling.”

Cachita dithered unexpectedly, gesturing at her PJs, at her bare feet, her face blanching at the sudden call to arms.

Sylvie said, “My office. As soon as you can.”

“Shadows, wait!”

She didn’t. In the Magicus Mundi , patience was rarely a virtue.

THE TRAFFIC BETWEEN CACHITA’S QUIET SUBURB AND THE SOUTH Beach strip was dense enough that Sylvie honestly regretted not buying a motorcycle instead of a truck. Her hands danced on the wheel; her stomach soured.

She should have made sure Alex didn’t go to work until the office was magically secured again.

She jerked the truck through a gap, changed lanes in a flurry of horns, and put the pedal down. The first sight of her office made her heart jump; she’d forgotten about the bullet she’d put into the window. For a single moment, Sylvie thought maybe that was what had Alex so upset. The cracked window, the signs of violence. That happy image couldn’t hold.

If Alex had been concerned about the violence, she would have asked about Sylvie’s well-being. Not begged her to come home.

Sylvie stopped the truck, left it skewed in front of the office, heedless of traffic. The blinds had been drawn down; sunlight reflected off the front door, turning it mirror opaque when she needed it to be clear. To give her even that tiny warning as to what she might find.

She put one hand on the holster, another on the latch. Pushed. The door wasn’t locked.

Alex looked up, face pale to her very lips. Her bright makeup looked garish on her bones. “Sylvie—”

Her attention was already drawn elsewhere, to the unexpected presence in the room. Not Azpiazu after all. Erinya. The Fury stood with her back against the wall, her claws leaving deep gouges in the plaster. Curls of paint and plaster dust made bright confetti on her dark boots.

“I didn’t mean to,” Alex blurted. “I’m so sorry. She surprised me, and I was on the phone with him. I said his name.”

Sylvie closed her eyes. Demalion.

Erinya bared all her teeth. “He ghost-jacked a body. Just like Patrice. Trying to escape the inevitable. Where is he, Sylvie?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“I’ll find him myself.”

“Then why are you still here?”

Erinya’s eyes burned bloody and bright; Alex ducked her head and whimpered.

“Yeah,” Sylvie said. “That’s right. You aren’t as good at scenting humans as your sister. And his scent’s changed.”

“Tell me.”

“No,” Sylvie said.

“I won’t tell you either, so you can just . . . just . . . go away!” Alex’s defiance—brave, but stupid—started out strong, went shrill when dark feathers spiked along Erinya’s spine, when her head lowered and went bestial.

“Oh god, please!” Alex yelped, and before Sylvie could move to step between them, Erinya backed down. Shook the Fury aspect off, looked . . . chastened.

“I’ll get it out of Sylvie, then,” Erinya said.

“You know you won’t,” Sylvie said.

Erinya threw a chair at the wall; it slammed into the plaster and stuck for a moment, dangling by a leg thrown with enough force to become a spear. When the chair landed, Erinya crashed onto it, shredding the heavy wood and leather to matchsticks.

“You all right?” Sylvie asked Alex. Let Erinya destroy the furniture, keep her occupied. “Not hurt?”

Alex shook her head.

It was an unlooked-for boon. Sylvie had seen Erinya yank information from a woman’s mind, leaving trauma and coma behind. But she hadn’t hurt Alex.

Sylvie doubted it was out of respect for her. “Go home, then. Lock the doors. Be careful, Alex. I thought Azpiazu had come to get you. He still might. He still needs another element to his spell.”

“Atheists,” Alex said, “right? Unclaimed soul. I’m safe, then.”

Erinya snarled, a vibrating hum in her throat something like a growl, something like a swallowed howl. Pure frustration.

Was that why?

Alex believed so deeply that the Fury couldn’t interfere with another god’s worshipper? Sylvie couldn’t believe it. Alex had never been religious, gently mocked those who were.

“She’s marked ,” Erinya said.

That said it all. Alex hadn’t chosen to believe; she’d been chosen. And it had happened under Sylvie’s nose.

“Marked?” Sylvie asked. “How. When. Who.” It came out rapid-fire. Furious. Gods were too damned greedy.

“None of your business,” Alex said. Her chin came up. Her color slowly returned.

“Eros,” Erinya said. Slapping back at Alex the only way she could. Spilling her secrets. “He touches something, then he wants to keep it. Greedy boy. When he saved her life, he claimed it for his own.”

“Can I break the mark?”

“I don’t want you to!” Alex snapped. “Okay, Syl? It doesn’t hurt me. It doesn’t hurt anything. It doesn’t do anything. It’s just there. And hey, it’s apparently protecting me.”

“You want to be someone’s possession?”

“We all are, one way or another,” Alex said. Erinya skulked around behind her, trying to get access to the laptop. Abruptly Sylvie realized why Alex hadn’t run from the Fury in the first place. Not just because it was a fool’s instinct to run from a creature who chased. But to stay and protect the data. Demalion’s contact info.

Alex slid the laptop under the desk, shielding it as if Erinya’s setting eyes on it would be enough to give her the information she sought.

All of Sylvie’s borderline rage at Alex fled. Scared nearly witless and still thinking. Still trying to do the right thing. “The mark doesn’t hurt?”

Alex bit her lip, rubbed off some of the foundation at her cheek. A blushy bruise, like the press of a fingertip, lay at the crest of her cheekbone. “Where he kissed me to heal me.”