Lyn Benedict - Ghosts & Echoes

“You believe him?” he asked. It was a vague question, able to cover so much of what Wales had said tonight, but Sylvie knew there was only one thing on Demalion’s mind.

“No,” she said. Just that, met his gaze, not too long, not too short. Not trying to convince him. Not trying to convince herself. Demalion was a good guy. He wasn’t going to body-jack Wright.

“Yeah,” he said. He climbed into the truck, settled into the seat with a groan. “Me neither.”

She climbed in on the other side, and the silence lingered. They were both good liars when needed. They both had fears. So many terrible things had been done in the name of survival.

“At least Zoe should be safer, wherever she is,” Sylvie said. “I might actually get a little sleep.”

“Yeah,” he said, again. “That’d be a nice change of pace.”

She started the engine; it growled, and Demalion echoed it, looked at his stomach with some surprise. “Shadows, aren’t you feeding him?”

“Been a little busy,” she said. “And he’s a grown-up. He can feed himself.” The guilt still rose. Wright didn’t complain enough. When he did, she shut him down.

When a McDonald’s lit up the night in the shut-down outskirts of the city, Sylvie pulled into the drive-through, listening to Demalion bitch, “Fast food? Really, Shadows?”

Five miles later, she pulled the truck off the highway, letting it ping and cool on the quiet shoulder. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t drive while the cab of the truck smelled of salt and grease and the bacon on his burger. His contempt for fast food had faded as soon as the bag hit his lap. Now she had to deal with the sight of Demalion eating his meal like it was gourmet. Like he was in love.

He licked his fingers, said, “God, would you believe I’ve been letting Wright do all the eating for us? You’d think—I mean, they’re his taste buds, not mine, and he’s been eating all this time, it shouldn’t taste . . . new. Wonderful. So damn good.” A smear of ketchup smudged his mouth; he rubbed it off with the back of his hand, so fastidious, then licked his skin clean, catlike, small, quick licks. She half expected purring.

Her body still churned out adrenaline from the lich ghost’s attack, and all she wanted to do was crawl across the cab, lick the salt from his fingers until he forgot the meal and dragged her close. Her second chance.

“You know, you haven’t washed your hands since we held the Hands of Glory,” she said instead.

Demalion froze, grimaced, swallowed, then shook his head. “There were wipes. I remember seeing them on the floor. We used them. Besides, they’re Wright’s germs.”

“He gets sick, so do you,” Sylvie said.

He took another bite of his hamburger, chewed, and said, “True, and he’s too thin. I don’t know how he survives Chicago winters. He’s not a vegetarian, do you think? Or what if he has allergies? I should find out if I’m going to be taking my share of the meals.”

“You’re not going to be inside him long enough for it to matter,” Sylvie said. She started the truck up again, worry canceling out that brief surge of desire. “Don’t get cozy.”

“The Ghoul didn’t have any . . . decent suggestions.” Demalion slanted a long, low glance at her. In the dim glow of a distant streetlamp, the one not broken, his eyes looked more like Demalion’s than Wright’s. “You think he’s on the level? He’s far too close to his Marco to make me think he’s as firm in his convictions as he says. He could be our guy.”

Sylvie shook her head, getting a brief smear of traffic light and oncoming headlights for her pain. “He’s not our guy.”

“Really. You just know that.” Demalion crumpled his food wrappers, bagged them neatly, and dropped them in the narrow gap behind the bench seat in lieu of a trash can.

“Nice,” she said. “Odalys is our guy.”

“What?” he said. Sylvie normally would have given herself a point for eliciting that precise tone of exasperation, doubt, and surprise, but she was just tired.

Apparently, fighting for your soul really took it out of you.

“Why would you think—”

“Location, location, location,” Sylvie said, flippant though there was a low, familiar roil of anger in her belly. It might seem sudden to Demalion, but she’d been puzzling at it ever since they’d set foot in the tenement. Was Wales their necromancer and if not, why not, and if he wasn’t, then who? Once Odalys crossed her mind as a possibility, it wouldn’t be dismissed, only expanded upon.

Odalys? Tatya had pinpointed her as a necromancer, and Sylvie had allowed herself to be distracted by the superficial. Odalys had lied to her more than once in the conversation, lies that Sylvie had caught her in. How many lies had she missed? Had she been manipulated?

Her little dark voice pointed out that Odalys had sent Sylvie to Wales, sent her primed to kill him, had called him Ghoul. Odalys scared of Wales? Hell, Sylvie had no magical talent at all, and she wasn’t the slightest bit scared of the man. Wary, but not scared. A witch with real talent? No. Odalys had feigned her fear, turned Sylvie’s visit into a chance for Odalys to remove her necromantic rival. Corporate takeover, small-scale, with a gun.

She said as much to Demalion, and when he looked thoughtful, she added, “Plus, think about this. These are teenagers we’re talking about. Innocents in regard to black magic. They don’t jump headfirst into the deep end. They’re brats, not scholars. Odalys runs a store, on a major street. Wales lives in nowhere land.”

Demalion frowned at the dash. “How much did I miss while Wright was in control?”

“A critical lot,” Sylvie said. “Wales is not our guy. And given a choice between the two known necromancers in the area, given a choice between creepy-ass Wales in an Opa-locka tenement or Odalys . . . If you were a teenage fashionista, who’d be your pick?”

“Just like that?”

“I can tell you, straight up, that if Wales even got within ten feet of Bella’s crowd, they’d be hitting 911 on their cell phones. No, if these kids are getting Hands, they’re getting them from Odalys.”

Demalion sighed. “Maybe Wales cleans up well. Maybe he meets them elsewhere.”

“Much as I approve of playing devil’s advocate,” Sylvie said, “this isn’t the time. It’s personality as much as anything else. Wales is a shut-in freak who has trouble with thinking outside the box. Odalys is a go-getting merchant. Odalys is all about the money.”

“You think she’s the manufacturer as well as the seller? That she knows the Hands are defective?”

“Creation and knowing are the same thing here. If she was just the merchant, if she’d just got some bad stock, she’d send it back and demand a refund from the makers. She’s a businesswoman, maybe the only true thing she told us. She wouldn’t endanger her client base if she could salvage her profit any other way. But if she made them . . .” Sylvie said. “Think about it. You’ve just made really powerful tools. Only you did something wrong. They’re dangerous to the wielder as well as the bystander. You can’t use them without risking your own soul. Destroying them is problematic. So what do you do? You sell them and try again. Sell them to teenagers who are too self-centered to ask why anyone would sell them a tool worth more than the cash they pay.”

Demalion said, “You’re basing your theory on two meetings with two very different people and tangential knowledge of Zoe’s friends. It wouldn’t stand up as evidence.”

“I’m not the ISI. I can make the decision. It’s enough for me to go on,” Sylvie said. “Besides. Wales was genuinely shocked that the Hands had been women’s.”