Lyn Benedict - Ghosts & Echoes

Sylvie leaned up against the doorjamb and waited her out. She knew Zoe had been back to her house, had found the money gone, had found Sylvie’s note. Otherwise, Zoe wouldn’t have trashed Sylvie’s apartment. She didn’t have to wait long. Zoe’s eyes darkened, narrowed, her jaw clenched. “Where’s my money? You had no right!”

“Do you really want to talk about rights?” Sylvie asked. “ ’Cause there’s a lot of things we can talk about, including the right of the dead to be treated with respect.”

Zoe made a face, a fierce grimace, and trotted out a lie. “I know, it’s gross. But it’s part of a biology class, like that exhibit on musculature—”

“Black magic on the curriculum now? Christ, Zo, how the hell could you bring that into the house? Sleep with it in the walls? How could you do that?” She stormed across the room, slapped the desk hard; her hands stung, her breath rasped in her throat.

Zoe looked older, suddenly, than her years. Harder. She stiffened on the other side of the desk. “You’ve no idea what I can or cannot do. And you never will.” She closed her eyes, raised her hands, palm up, began murmuring, rubbing her fingers along the edges of a gemstone ring.

Sylvie slapped her sister this time instead of the desk, her gun leveled even before she recognized the spell: Pearls for sorrow in her ring, and what bigger sorrow was it than to forget the past and be doomed to repeat it?

Zoe took a step back, her cheek reddening, her words stopped. Still an amateur to be distracted so easily.

Sylvie lowered the gun immediately. Almost immediately.

“I can’t believe you,” Zoe said. “You pointed a gun at me. Mom and Dad are going to be piss—”

“Shut up,” Sylvie snapped.

“Who are you to tell me what to do? I’m sixteen, nearly—”

“I’m the one who cleans up the messes made by humans fucking around in the Magicus Mundi .” Her hand was tense on the gun; Zoe’s ring hand was behind her back. “I wouldn’t try that again. You’ll find I’m immune to most magic.”

Zoe paled. For one moment, Sylvie thought that was it. Either her older-sister glamour was back, or Zoe really hadn’t expected such fierce and informed disapproval and was feeling chastened.

Then Zoe let out a shriek, more air than sound, as angry as a spitting cat, shrill as a siren. “You knew ! All this! This . . . world, this power, and you knew! And you kept it from me!”

The gulf between them was deeper than she had ever imagined. Zoe’s introduction to the Magicus Mundi hadn’t been like Sylvie’s, a long haul of fear and chaos and loss. Zoe’s introduction had been about pleasure and power and profit.

“I hate you,” Zoe spat. “Hate you.”

“That’s too bad, because I’m the one who’s going to get you out of this mess.”

Zoe stamped her foot. “Where’s my money?”

“Who sold you the Hand?”

“Who made it your business?”

“You’re in trouble, Zoe. Real trouble. Your friends are in trouble,” Sylvie said. Exasperation and fear made uncomfortable inroads in her belly. Bella . . . Suarez hadn’t told Zoe. That much was obvious.

“Hardly my friends,” Zoe said.

Sylvie dropped onto the couch and stared at her sister. “You’ve spent every waking hour with them for the past two years.”

“C’mon, Syl, you really think the rich kids play nice with me out of the goodness of their hearts? I bought my way in.” Zoe slouched back into the desk chair, brought her knees up, crossed her wrists over them. She looked ready for a photo shoot, down to the soft pout and the hard eyes. She looked like a stranger.

Sylvie swallowed, her fingers tensing on the arms of her chair. “You weren’t holding those pills for Bella.” She made it a flat statement though her voice quivered with rage. How could Zoe have fallen so far? So unnoticed? “You were refilling them.”

“I make a good go-between,” Zoe said. “Keeps Bella and Jasmyn and their boys from having to talk to the dealers. Keeps their parents in the dark. In return, as long as I can keep up with them, they let me play.” She rubbed the pearl ring thoughtfully.

“ ‘ Keep up with them’?” Sylvie kept her gaze on that ring, on her sister’s words. A large part of her was paying the kind of attention she’d spend on an enemy, waiting for them to strike. But Zoe’s words were more hurtful than any attack; she’d had no idea her sister felt like this. Left out, bitter, alone, valueless.

“With their style? The clothes? The parties? Eating out? It all costs money. God, Syl, people pay you to find out things? You’re slow.” Zoe shifted in her chair, crossed her arms across her chest, dropped her gaze. Sylvie wondered coldly if it was shame that made her refuse to meet Sylvie’s eyes or anger so great it choked her.

“Why? Why bother with them if they’re that shallow?” Sylvie asked. Her throat felt stretched around all the words she wanted to say.

Zoe raised her head, pushed back the dark mane of her hair, streaked salon-tipped nails through it, her eyes old and cynical. “Because they’re the power brokers. Their futures are mapped out, and people go out of their way to help them along the path. All I was trying to do was get a push here and there. Half their parents are benefactors at major schools. Hang out like I’m one of theirs, and who knows the letters they’d write, recommending me. Grades aren’t enough anymore.”

“So you’re prostituting yourself to make them happy?”

“Not since I learned that I can make things happen. All on my own. I don’t need them anymore.” She smiled, and it was such a happy thing that Sylvie almost didn’t say it.

But facts were facts.

“Magic turns on its user,” Sylvie said. “It’s not the answer, Zo.”

“Maybe not for some people. Maybe for them, it’s dangerous. But I’m good at it.” Zoe licked her lips. “It’s like, all my life, I’ve been waiting for a talent. For something that interests me more than school. For something that feels right. This is it.”

“Who told you that?” Sylvie said. “That you’re good. Your what—do you have a mentor? Or are you basing it on the fact that you’re not dead yet? ’Cause it’s early days.”

Zoe jerked as if Sylvie had struck her. “You’re just jealous.” She was losing momentum, though, in the face of Sylvie’s convictions.

“You’re in danger, Zoe. Your friends are in danger.”

“I don’t care about them, remember?” Zoe scowled.

“Bella’s dead. You’d better care. ”

Zoe went white.

Sylvie found a brief spurt of relief in her sister’s reaction. The girl had some fellow feeling after all. Sylvie, who’d dealt with her share of sociopaths, thought that simple selfcenteredness and alienation were far easier to stomach. Zoe might grow out of both.

“You’re lying,” Zoe whispered. “She’s sick, yeah, but—”

“Truth,” Sylvie said. “If you hadn’t kept your Hand of Glory in milk, you’d be dead, too. Not that I’m not thrilled to pieces you’re not dead, but why did you do that?”

“Bad dreams,” Zoe said, malleable with shock. “When I complained, she said to put it in milk. Said warm milk made for sounder sleep.” Her voice lost its brittle edge, became her sweet little sister again, whom she had read to, babysat, entertained, and taught. It soothed Sylvie’s temper as nothing else had.

“Oh, Odalys,” Sylvie said. “Selling platitudes along with spells.”

Zoe gaped, her poise utterly gone under the twin blows. Bella’s death. Sylvie’s knowledge. Something satisfied purred in Sylvie’s chest. Always so good to have her suspicions confirmed.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out? What I want to know, Zoe, is what she told you. What she said to make you think this was a good idea, dabbling in magic. Did she say you were special, were her friend? She’s not your friend, not your savior from the unfairness of life. She’s your dealer, and she’s pushing death.”