Lyn Benedict - Ghosts & Echoes

The spray bottle yielded a fine, stinking mist that sizzled and spat as it made contact with the Hand of Glory. The hellish flames sank back to a sullen glow, then went out.

Marco disappeared like a screen projection shut off. Wales set the bottle down, the Hand, and refilled the bottle with a carton of milk from the cooler. Farm Stores brand, she noted absently. That fitted. Somehow she had a hard time imagining Wales walking down brightly lit Winn-Dixie aisles, all twitchy-eyed, with a Hand in his wallet pocket.

“Milk douses the flame,” he said.

“So you’ve said. Nature versus unnature.”

“Birth and death,” Demalion contributed, tag-teaming.

“You’re stalling,” Sylvie concluded.

He blotted Marco’s Hand against his shirt, pocketed it again. Sylvie felt her lip curl, her fingers uncurl, letting the Hand she’d held drop to the floor.

“If you let go while it’s active,” she said, “what happens?”

“Marco knocks me out and eats my soul. Not a nibble, the whole damn thing. Like any slave, he’ll turn on his owner if given the chance.” Wales cocked his head in thought, then added, “Well, maybe Marco wouldn’t. We’ve been through a lot together.”

Sylvie scrubbed her fingers down her jeans repeatedly. Demalion was doing the same.

“Soap?” she asked.

“No running water,” Wales said. “There are Handi Wipes under the sink if you’re squeamish. They’re pretty inert, bacteria-wise, you know.”

“No, I don’t.” Sylvie shifted farther away from the dangling Hands. “That’s why we came to you.”

Wales hesitated. “I’m confused. I assumed you wanted me to find your ghost friend a body of his own.”

“Can you?” Demalion asked.

“No!” Wales said.

Sylvie didn’t like Demalion’s eagerness, said, “Yeah, like even if that was our plan”—and hey, it was the first thought that ended with both Wright and Demalion alive—“we could trust you. We came to do a show-and-tell with Hands of Glory.” She sought out the promised wipes and scoured her fingers; fake floral-scented alcohol had never smelled so good. She tossed the container to Demalion, and he did likewise.

“I’ve shown, I’ve told. You’re still here.” He shifted his hands, crossed his arms above his chest, uncrossed them, hooked fingers into his pockets, shifted again, visibly restraining himself from seeking out Marco’s Hand in some bizarre comfort.

“Not your Hands, our Hands . . . My briefcase. Where’s my briefcase?” It had slipped her mind entirely; surrounded by Hands of Glory, she hadn’t missed the two she’d brought to this party.

“In the hall,” he said. “I didn’t want to mess with it. It looked iffy.”

“Iffy,” she muttered. She took three giant steps—all it took to cross the small living room—griping the whole time. “I’ll tell you what’s iffy. Your future if it’s gone.”

“Sylvie,” Demalion said. “Take a breath.”

“What, you’re on his side? He thinks you’re a squatter looking to move in permanently.”

“How about we all play on the same side?” Demalion asked, but without a lot of hope. He seemed tired, still resting in the chair where he had been bound as if his bones were too heavy to let him rise. Sylvie took another glance, thought he looked grey in Wright’s skin, and shut up. She wondered how long Demalion could hold on to the body—this was the longest she’d seen him manage—wondered if Wright was fighting to recover it.

The front door was crusted with locks—three dead bolts, two chains, all no doubt illegally installed, all sticky with salt-milk brushed over them. The walls, up close, shimmered with a salt wash. She supposed it was hard to lock up properly when you had a roomful of tools designed to open locks.

The last chain slithered free, and she jerked the door open, annoyed when it came at her so fast she nearly clocked herself. All those locks and the door was cheap-ass hollow-core. Made her edgy, especially with 2C still lying sprawled in the hallway. Wales was courting disaster. Magic wasn’t proof against bullets.

The briefcase was still there in the gloom—battered duct tape, the scarf stuffed in between silvery tape, the lumpy crust of salt seeping free, the smell, rotten milk—Sylvie paused in collecting it, her thoughts veering. Zoe’s Hand had been soaked in milk. Zoe wasn’t as clueless as Bella. Hell, Zoe wasn’t as clueless as Sylvie had been. Sylvie wasn’t sure whether this was good or bad. Good, because it meant Zoe was less likely to be affected than Bella. Not soul sick. Bad, because Zoe’s messing with magic made Sylvie’s teeth hurt.

She dragged the briefcase into the room, breaking the staring contest Wales and Demalion were having, and slapped it down on the counter. “Someone is selling Hands of Glory, and there are a group of teenagers using them to play burglar. If it’s not you, then who?”

“Probably no one,” Wales said. “There aren’t a lot of necromancers in Miami. Think it’s the heat. Bodies rot too fast to be used for anything but a splash-and-dash kinda spell.” At Sylvie’s frown, he said, “Uh, splash and dash is a blood harvesting and summoning; happens fast and—”

“I know what it is,” Sylvie snapped. “You’re telling me you think the kids just developed the ability spontaneously? I don’t think so.”

Demalion frowned, started to say something, but shivered instead, fell back into silence.

“Look,” Wales said. “They’re teenagers. They don’t have any access to the real thing, and a lot of little bodegas sell knockoffs, guaranteed gross, but harmless. I think they’re dog paws, partially defleshed.”

“You’re not listening,” Sylvie said. “Their Hands are real enough to let them walk through burglar alarms and locked doors, to put down anyone in the vicinity for hours. Knockoffs? I don’t think so.” She flipped the latches on the briefcase, yanked the duct tape back, spilling salt, and popped the lid. Demalion took a step back, then wobbled. Sylvie half turned; she knew what was happening, even as it happened. Wright shivered convulsively, his eyes flat and black, but his jaw was set. Taking his body back. Possession trumping his fear of the unknown and the malign.

He made a series of quick, darting glances about the room. Sylvie figured he was trying to play catch-up on events. Wright seemed confused, but less wary than Demalion had been. Then again, Wright had missed the whole “prisoners of the Ghoul” thing, had missed Wales being all judgmental about ghosts and human bodies, had missed Wales feeding his pet Hand. For all Wright knew, Sylvie, Demalion, and Wales had been sitting around making friends and drinking tea.

She merely nodded welcome, not wanting to draw Wales’s attention to the changeover. But Wales’s focus was all for the Hands in the briefcase, tangled in their jumbled embrace, fingers linking.

“Interesting,” he said, expression intent. “One of them is . . . fake? The other . . . not?” He pulled his fingers back without ever touching either Hand, not Bella’s, all spangled silver and fake tattoos, not Zoe’s, faintly crusted with milk from its long immersion.

“You don’t sound certain,” Sylvie said. She wanted certain. A tiny sprig of hope bloomed in her. Maybe Zoe’s Hand wasn’t real, a knockoff like her faux designer clothing.

Hope hurts, her little dark voice warned. Hurts being born and hurts dying.

Wales said, “I can check.” He picked up Bella’s Hand of Glory, made a face at the decorations, and then flipped his lighter out of his pocket.

Sylvie snapped, “Hey!” just as Bella’s Hand dipped into the flame and failed to light. The silver nail polish blackened and stank.