Lyn Benedict - Ghosts & Echoes

“Protective magic,” she said. “A lot of things don’t like salt. Gunpowder works, too, but it’s an expensive habit and tends to go bang at bad moments.”

She wound the leather case with three ugly rows of duct tape, thinking legend was apparently less than complete if the Hands could affect locks on their lonesome. First her door, now the briefcase.

“So we’re taking them to the witch, right? ’Cause I’m beginning to get ideas of them crawling across the floor all on their own. And my dreams were crappy.”

Sylvie paused. “Specifically crappy? Like Bella’s dream about the dead kid?”

“Just”—he waved his hands, trying to catch the impossible words he needed to describe it—“nasty. Busy. Like I could hear people talking about really horrible things next door.”

“Tell me sooner next time,” Sylvie said. “These are dangerous artifacts, and you’ll be more susceptible to their corruption than me. Not judgment. Just fact. You died once. You have a . . . passenger. You’ve got a gap in your defenses.”

He shrugged, though it was tight. “So what? Your boyfriend Demalion’s like . . . a common cold? Weakening my immune system? You think the witch can help with that?”

“I’m hoping she can help with a lot of things,” Sylvie said. “Not least, getting rid of these Hands.”

ODALYS’S SHOP, ADDRESS BETTER DEFINED BY ALEX’S GOOGLEFU, turned out to be nothing like Sylvie had expected. She thought of magic shops, and she thought dark, dim, and claustrophobic—a showman’s tent, a bloody basement ritual, an abandoned house. At best, she had thought the shop would be new-age incense and candles, plastic bead curtains, and velvet draping—all the trappings of bell, book, and candle.

Invocat looked like a high-end cosmetics store: glass counters and shelves shining in sunlight, mirrors adding colorful blazes to dark corners, shoji doors with inked cherry blossoms marking out dressing rooms, the back of the store. It was sparsely peopled. One boy, college age, browsed along the rainbow of candles, picking one up, putting one down, reversing himself, and starting again. A girl tourist in a Miami Dolphins tee shook her head at the jewelry and made her way out as Sylvie came in.

Sylvie stepped through the glass doors; the air was cool and scented, and there were delicate wind chimes above the door.

Wright, outside, propped his feet on her dash and pushed his sunglasses up higher. He’d been quiet all morning. Probably still thinking about Demalion, about her tie to him, still wondering if she could be trusted.

She hoped he didn’t run off while her back was turned. He hadn’t wanted to wait in the truck, but until she had Odalys’s measure, she hadn’t wanted to expose Wright—or Demalion—to her. It was true: There were more people who’d hinder than help, and that was without counting those things that might home in on a doubled soul. Humans were tasty to a lot of creatures; Wright would be the equivalent of a deep-fried Snickers bar. Deeply wrong and unnatural, but irresistible.

“May I help you?” the woman behind a glass counter said. Her gaze swept Sylvie head to feet, a quick assessment, and a displeased one. She wasn’t the usual shopper, she supposed, and a duct-taped briefcase shedding fine flakes of salt was not a fashionable accessory.

But then, the woman behind the counter was as unusual as the shop—not a neohippie with long, trailing skirts, wearing a jumble of assorted charm bracelets, necklaces, and cheap, dangling earrings; not a princess of darkness either, no tats, no piercings, no black. Instead, the woman was ten years past college age and dressed like a successful corporate lawyer, smoothly and expensively professional.

“Are you Odalys?”

“I am,” she said. Her voice was as sleek as her red-gold chignon, as bright as the chic gold edge to her glasses. Her slate blue blouse was crisp, her grey skirt pristine. “And you are?”

“Sylvie,” she said. “I have a few questions for you.”

“If they’re within my purview, I’ll be glad to help.” She stepped around the counter, gestured gracefully to a seat near a glass bookshelf. Sylvie took the seat, noting as she did so that there wasn’t a smudge to be seen on the glass. Such perfection argued either an obsessive personality, strongly controlled, or extreme boredom.

“I have a problem on my hands,” Sylvie said. “A couple of black-magic artifacts that need disposal—”

Odalys laughed, out loud and brightly, then covered her mouth with a hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. I just didn’t expect that type of question from you. You look like such a sensible woman.”

She smoothed her skirt, the grey wool barely reaching her knees, and took the next armchair. She leaned forward, cast a quick glance about her, and said, “Let me tell you something. I run a magic shop. That doesn’t mean I practice magic. Or even believe in it.”

Sylvie might have bought it—the earnest furrow between carefully plucked brows, the exasperation lacing her voice—except for two things. One, she was selling it a little too hard. It was bad business to disavow belief where customers could hear. By the candles, the boy looked perturbed, and that was a sale getting away, or Sylvie didn’t know human nature. And two?

“You’re new to Miami,” Sylvie said.

“I’ve been here over a year,” Odalys said. She sounded affronted; no one liked to be labeled a newbie, and Sylvie’s implication was obvious: Odalys was missing something. Odalys didn’t like that at all, a controlling personality, without a doubt. She controlled her environment, and she wanted to control the conversation.

“Relatively new,” Sylvie amended, a sop to the woman’s pride. “Let me tell you a story about two women who live outside of town. They keep a very close eye on who goes in and out of their territory. They’re also a bit greedy. They consider all of Miami their territory.”

“ ‘ Territory,’ ” Odalys echoed. She leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest. “Is this a welcome from the local Mafia? I’m not intimidated.”

“They smell magic,” Sylvie said. She leaned in, closing the distance that Odalys had opened. “And they’re wicked accurate. They sent me here. To you.” That was the second reason she knew Odalys’s denial was crap. Tatya and Marisol might be paranoid about their safety, and delusional about whose city this really was, but they knew power.

Odalys’s manicured nails drummed a quick tattoo across the glass shelf. “Come into the back.” She looked at the boy, still deliberating near the candles, and said, “Three red, one yellow. Red for action. Yellow for learning. You won’t get the girl if you don’t learn to be decisive—$49.95. I take Visa, Amex, and Discover. Cash, of course, if you’re the sort who likes to flash it.”

Obediently, the young man trotted over, pulling a credit card from his backpack.

Not such a poor saleswoman after all.

Odalys moved over to the counter, and if her clothes were sedate, the way she moved wasn’t, all hip sway and sidle. Her heels were stilettos and stone grey, a modern color for a modern woman.

The boy left, starstruck and hopeful, and Odalys turned the charm off. “Call your cop inside. He’s bad for business, lurking out front like that.” She turned, brushed past the rice-paper doors, and headed into the back.

Sylvie waved Wright inside, waited for him to translate her increasingly impatient gestures. Finally, he unfolded himself from the truck. “So?” he said, over the brief carillon of the door chimes. “She going to help?”

“Maybe,” Sylvie said. “If she does, I’ll bet it costs.”