Lyn Benedict - Gods & Monsters

Like her, wearing a jacket in the Miami heat was more a matter of practicality than comfort. Sylvie used her collection of Windbreakers to help disguise the gun she carried at the small of her back. Wales used his ratty leather jacket for much the same reason, though in Miami, her gun was less disturbing than what he carried. She eyed the bulge over his heart, and said, “So, why cart Marco’s Hand around? Thought you came to a new agreement. Gave him independence.”

He looked at her for a long moment, a narrow, unwelcome gaze, before he deliberately settled on an answer. “I find his presence comforting,” he said.

She licked her lips, and said, “That’s payback for the sniper comment, isn’t it?”

“You tell me, Shadows. Since you know me so well.”

The boxes slid as she made a turn onto the highway, and she sighed. Time for a little Alex diplomacy maybe. “Sorry. I don’t like Odalys’s threatening people I care about.” She kept it vague, let him wrap himself into one of those people if he chose.

He let the leather seat cradle him more firmly, his spine losing some of its rigidity. Apologies could do that even if they weren’t sincere. It was the veneer of civilization—the hope of rational discourse. It worked more often than Sylvie cared to let Alex know.

Thing was, she did care about Wales more than she wanted him to know. Alex had done more digging in the days between their first interaction and this one, and had pulled up enough on his past to let Sylvie know that Wales was pretty much like her. They’d both been normal once. Both cared about their friends and family, were the designated problem-solvers, the ones who just couldn’t sit by and let trouble happen to other people. Then they’d run into the Magicus Mundi and learned a whole new world of trouble existed.

Their paths had forked at that point. Sylvie had picked up a gun; Wales, like a child, had been formed by what he’d seen—the CIA and Hands of Glory. In other words: necromancy and paranoia.

She could have wished he’d gone a kinder, fluffier route, except the Magicus Mundi didn’t reward gentle tactics, and she knew better than to rue things that couldn’t be changed. If she ever started that, she’d be useless, left mired in hopeless nostalgia for an easier time, when she lived in ignorance. No one should ever strive to live in ignorance.

“Where we going?” Wales asked. “You said you had a job?”

“I’m not sure what I’ve got other than an unholy mess,” Sylvie said. “You follow the news at all?”

Wales shook his head. “News feeds the fear.”

“There’s something new and nasty in the Everglades—”

“And it involves necromancy?”

“It involves dead things waking up and savaging people.”

“Zombies?”

“Bear,” Sylvie said. “Or so I was given to understand.”

Wales patted his pocket again, that nervous tell. Sylvie put her attention back on the road, suddenly quite sure that he’d told her nothing but the truth; that Marco’s severed Hand was a comfort to him.

With Wales’s worldly possessions sliding gently in the back of her pickup, with the reminders of his personality flaws—things she’d glossed over in her memories since she needed him—she decided that stopping at the office was not only desirable but an absolute necessity.

If she dragged Wales straight out to the Everglades, all his stuff still boxed, after her unfortunate comments about shooting him, he’d probably assume she was clearing out one more necromancer from the city. He looked like he expected betrayal at any minute.

When Sylvie pulled the truck to a stop outside her office, Alex was waiting in the doorway, framed nicely by midday sun, and with Sylvie’s thoughts still running on Odalys and on sniper shots, the sight sparked aggravation and concern. Alex had the self-preservation instincts of a lemming.

ALEX MADE WAY FOR THEM AND THEIR PARADE OF BOXES, PROPPED herself up on the desk, and watched as the boxes stacked up in the kitchenette. “Is that Tierney Wales?” she asked on one of Sylvie’s trips in that coincided with one of his exits.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s the Ghoul.”

Alex frowned. “He’s skinny.”

“So feed him a sandwich. Just don’t adopt him,” Sylvie said. She dropped the box she held, listening to the rustling of dried flesh scrabbling at cardboard; she’d picked the damn short straw again. She kicked the box toward the closet, wanting to wash her hands of an imaginary contamination. And Wales carried these things in his pockets.

Alex was still rubbernecking, watching Wales stack boxes outside the door. “He doesn’t look like a necromancer. He looks like a stressed-out grad student.”

She caught Sylvie’s scowl and flushed. “Okay, okay, necromancers don’t wear black robes and chant all the time. I get it. Just . . . he looks . . . scared. I didn’t think necromancers got scared.”

“Yeah, about that,” Sylvie said. “You up for a vacation?”

“What?” Alex narrowed her gaze. “You’re trying to get me out of the way again.”

“Better me than Odalys,” Sylvie said. “Someone tried to flambé me in the office last night.”

“Is that what happened to the bell?” Alex asked. “I saw it had gone all melty.”

“And you just stuck around?”

“I figured whatever happened had happened, and I knew you were all right. So it didn’t seem that important.”

“It’s important,” Sylvie said. “I think it’s Odalys. She sent someone out to slice and dice Wales. There was even some mention of taking out Zoe. Thank god for Val.” She grimaced at the welling of gratitude in her breast. Not her usual sentiment when it came to the witch. But after Val had seen Zoe’s occultly stained hand and forearm, she’d decreed that Zoe needed protecting.

“And you, you’ve been caught in the magical cross fire before, Alex. You need to be more careful.”

Alex waved a dismissive hand. “I am careful. Besides, Odalys doesn’t even know I exist. Sucks about Zoe and Wales, though. What are we going to do to protect them?”

That was Alex all over. An abundance of caution. For other people. Reckless trust in her own safety. It made no sense at all. It wasn’t like Alex had led a charmed life even before she’d become Sylvie’s partner.

“Zoe’s in no trouble right now,” she said. “Not tucked under Val’s wing. The Cassavetes estate is proof against pretty much anything but nuclear magic.”

“If she stays there,” Alex said. She surged off the desk and opened the door for Wales, helped him steady the last few boxes. “Hi. Tierney, right? I’m Alex. Sylvie’s partner and all-around researcher.”

He blinked at her, her bleached-blond hair, her bright makeup, the pink-nailed hand held out toward him the moment the boxes were down, and took a step backward. “Hi?”

Figured, Sylvie thought. Give him death, give him antagonism, give him trouble, and Wales was mouthy and cynical. Face-to-face with a friendly smile, his personality locked up.

“So did Sylvie tell you what was going on? Bears? That’s new. I mean, I get werewolves, I’m used to werewolves at this point, but bears?” Alex chattered easily, pushing Wales toward the kitchenette. “Guess it’s ’cause we don’t have bears around much. You think there are more shape-shifting bears in the West? Were-bears? Like Care Bears, only not?”

Wales looked back at Sylvie, eyes wide and entreating as they hadn’t been even when faced with a knife-wielding assassin. Sylvie smothered her desire to laugh and didn’t step in to bail him out. Wales gnawed his lip, then said, “I don’t know. I’m mostly about necromancy. I don’t . . . Shape-shifters? Shadows, I don’t know anything about shape-shifters. If that’s what you brought me here for, then you’re wasting my time and yours.”