Lyn Benedict - Gods & Monsters

“Take her away,” Riordan said, shaking his head. “It’s late. I’ll deal with her tomorrow.”

“Am I charged with anything?” Sylvie snapped. “Are you sure you can keep me?”

“Bella Alvarez went missing earlier today. I think we can keep you until she shows up. As a person of interest. Actually—” He paused to smile. It was a nice smile, showed just the right number of teeth, made his eyes crinkle with laugh lines. Whatever he was going to say made him happy. “We’re the ISI. We can make you disappear. With no questions asked.”

“Here I thought you were going to study the supernatural for years before you started carting people off. What was the plan? Five years of study, three years of legal tests, and two years of preparing the world? You’re in year four. Jumping the gun a bit, aren’t you?”

“Demalion talked too much,” Riordan said. “We’ve had to accelerate the ten-year plan. Because of you.”

Stone leaned close as the guards moved in. “Should have had that chat with me, Sylvie. I could have given you a heads-up.” Her whisper was a brush of warmth against Sylvie’s cheek.

That whisper lingered even once Sylvie had been dragged back down into the cold, sterile hallways below, a reminder of a political current she didn’t understand. She hadn’t paid enough attention to the ISI, and she was paying for it. The problem was keeping the city from paying the price as well.

THE CELL THEY PUT HER IN WAS CLOSER TO A HOSPITAL WARD’S SECURE room than the steel and concrete cage Sylvie had expected. Four walls, a solid door with a wire-mesh glass panel, a number pad beside the door. Sylvie watched the guards punch in the release code—six digits long, easy to understand, that day’s date—but the knowledge wouldn’t do her any good when she was on the wrong side of the door.

They shoved her in, and she staggered a few steps, stubbing her toes on the bare floor and cursing. When she looked up, she found she had a roommate. Cachita, looking small and huddled in her white scrubs, sitting knees to chest on the lower bunk.

There was one flickering fluorescent light pressed close to the ceiling, a toilet, and a sink. The walls were highgloss white, shiny enough that she could track almost-reflections in it.

“Spartan,” Sylvie said. “But at least it’s new and shiny.”

Cachita’s eyes were red-rimmed; but then, Sylvie was sure hers weren’t much better. Tear gas was wicked stuff. She knuckled an eye in reaction to phantom pain and peered out the window. There were more doors in the hallway, at least three that she could see, but none of them had keypads beside them. Guess she and Cachita were roommates by necessity. The ISI wasn’t prepared for the full-time jail business yet.

She wandered back over to the sink—ten steps at a tight stride—and slurped some water from the faucet. Mineral strong and chlorine rough on her throat, but it felt good going down.

“Well, this sucks,” she said. “You think we’re being monitored? I don’t see anything. No mikes, no cameras, but they’re making them so small these days.”

Cachita let out a strangled sob, and Sylvie turned. Maybe her eyes were red from the tear gas. Or not exclusively. “Hey, you okay there? They hurt you?”

Cachita knotted herself tighter, wrapped her arms around her knees, her hands around her shoulders. Her hair was loose and messy and dark, stringy from the chemical shower they’d been put through. Tears leaked steadily down her cheeks.

Sylvie ducked her head, sat down beside Cachita. The mattress gave, springs squeaking with newness, still smelling of the plastic it had been wrapped in. “Huh. Bet they outfitted this room today. IKEA, you think?”

Cachita dropped her head into the tangled cradle of arms and knees; her shoulders shook. Not with laughter. Even her feet were trying to huddle up into her scrubs. Utter terror and retreat.

“It’s okay,” Sylvie said. “It’s going to be o—”

Cachita raised her head, found a spark enough to express her fear. “I’ve been to Mexico, Sylvie. People disappear there. If the government doesn’t like you. If los narcos don’t like you. It’s not supposed to happen here.”

“We’re not here forever,” Sylvie said. “It’s just gonna feel like it.”

“Sylvie, no one will miss me.”

“Maybe not, but you know? I’m a big pain in the ass. They’ll miss me. Besides,” she said, feeling her mouth stretch in a grim smile, “we’ll get out. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

“Yeah?” Cachita asked. Skeptical. Wanting to be reassured.

“Yeah,” Sylvie said. “You said it yourself. Tepeyollotl’s impatient. Sooner or later, he’ll be checking up on you, and we can get out during the—”

“Slaughter,” Cachita said. She didn’t look reassured.

“Hey, on the bright side, maybe Erinya will come instead?”

“Not funny,” Cachita said, but she relaxed her defensive posture, stretching her legs out before her.

“No, not funny,” Sylvie agreed. She started pacing again, too antsy to be still even when she knew she should be reserving her strength. Too many worries. Azpiazu and the god, of course. But Alex, also. Was her memory right? Had Erinya abducted Alex in the midst of the chaos? Then there was the ISI and their call to arms, which meant, apparently, arresting her.

She wasn’t ready for the ISI to get aggressively involved with the Magicus Mundi . She didn’t think they were ready, kept imagining new recruits like Riordan Jr., stumbling into a firefight like today’s, facing a Fury with technology and expecting it to do the job.

To be fair, Erinya probably could be brought down by bullets. But could she be kept down?

“Sylvie?”

“Yeah,” Sylvie said absently. She shivered; the room was chilly. They were going to have an uncomfortable time of it if they were stuck there. The ISI had bought mattresses, but no sheets, no blankets.

“The woman who interviewed me took the knife.”

“Good,” Sylvie said. “Less temptation for you to summon him.” She peered at the narrow window inset into the door. It was slowly going as white as the walls. She touched it, jerked her finger back.

Cold.

She licked her lip, nervously, sudden images of government “interrogation” techniques coming to her. Environmental discomfort was just the start.

Except—she held her hand toward the air vent. The air coming out of it felt . . . warm in contrast. The cold was centered outside the door. Then at it. Then inside .

Sylvie stepped back, shuddering all over. She knew this type of cold. Something beyond physical. A chill of the spirit. A tiny piece of death moving through the living world.

A ghost walking.

Cachita hissed and pointed toward the glossy white walls. A third shadow had joined theirs, a narrow human-shaped blur, and when it swayed closer to the wall, it grew grey-shaded and sharper; the wall frosted over.

“Marco,” Sylvie said. The shadow ducked its head in a nod.

Cachita shot her a wild-eyed glance. “Who?”

“Wales’s . . . pet.” But what was he doing here? Sylvie jerked her gaze from the wall to the spot in the cell where Marco stood and saw nothing at all. Damn ghosts. Even when they wanted to communicate, it couldn’t be easy.

At least, not for her. Not for a non-necromancer.

Why was Marco here?

Sylvie shook her head abruptly. Stopped asking herself a question she couldn’t answer and asked Marco instead. “Why are you here?”

Only after she asked did she realize it wasn’t an easy question to answer if all they had for communication was a ghost shadow that could nod or shake its head. But it seemed to be what Marco was waiting for.