Lyn Benedict - Sins & Shadows

“Fine,” Val said. “It’ll be late, though. And I’ll only owe you two after this.” The phone went dead in Sylvie’s ear, not with the normal flat tone but a shrieking laugh. She winced away. Witches.

Well, at least her argument with Val had done one thing; it had put her in the mood to go rattle the ISI.

SYLVIE SHOVED THE PHONE INTO HER POCKET AND HEADED DOWN the street at a quick clip. She’d seen a CopyKwik Shop on her way into the neighborhood, and she could fax the spell to Val there.

Plus, as a twofer sort of thing, she could hit one of her favorite research tools: the all-purpose phone book. ISI wasn’t going to be listed under SNOOPS—BLOODY-MINDED, she knew, but they would be listed. It had taken Alex a while to translate their cover stories, but now Sylvie and she could find them pretty much anywhere. Usually they only did it to keep out of their way.

The ISI had a presence in every major US city; two hours later, Sylvie had learned that in Chicago it was in a onetime bank, hidden behind a lobby of gilt and marble.

Sylvie strode in through the metal detectors and glanced at the man behind the lobby desk. Tall, hefty, didn’t look too bright. She flipped her hand at him and kept moving, heading for the hallway and the elevators.

“Ma’am, this isn’t a public building.”

“Oh, I know,” Sylvie said, turning, continuing to walk backward. “I’m just here to search your lost and found; it’s amazing what your men pick up on the streets, sometimes. Like some old lady, snatching up cats who were only out for a walk.”

“Stop!” he said. His hand slid behind the desk; she wondered which he was going for: silent alarm or gun.

Maybe both, she thought, considering how long it was taking to get his hands back where she could see them. Or maybe he was just slow to decide.

The elevators were twenty steps closer when he rushed forward, hands empty. He loomed just before her, trying to intimidate her by sheer bulk. “You have to stop.”

“Do I?” Sylvie said. Sweat beaded along his hairline. There wasn’t anyone coming to his aid. Maybe Chicago’s ISI was skeleton-staffed. Maybe the budget cuts had finally reached the ISI—and didn’t they deserve it—or maybe he cried wolf all the livelong day. Whichever it was, he was on his own, and he knew it.

Still, he was a lot larger than she was; it couldn’t hurt to try friendly again. “I could stop—all I want to know is if the ISI snatched—”

His eyes flared wide, and she broke off. “What, you thought I was in the wrong place?”

His jaw settled. “Look, bitch, if you know that much, you know how much trouble you’re in. I could have you locked up, and no one would ever know what happened to you. I could even have you killed.”

“What, with the guards who came to your first call?”

Behind them, the elevator dinged, and an all-too-familiar voice rang out. “Back off, Agent.”

“But, sir—”

That her heart jumped a tiny bit when she recognized his voice was something she’d deny to her last breath.

“Christ Almighty, Stockton, take a look at the big picture here before you commit yourself to a world of trouble.”

“Demalion,” Sylvie said, releasing her grip on the butt of the gun. “Super. Just the man I wanted to see.” She kept her tone flat just in case he might try to read that as a compliment.

He brushed past her, still talking. His cologne drifted across her senses, spicy, earthy, and too appealing for her comfort.

“You should have recognized her. Her name is in the files. Her face is in the files. She’s posted as trouble on all the boards, all over the country, and hell, even if you didn’t, you should have put the pieces together. How many pretty women carry a big gun and an even bigger mouth?”

Sylvie turned her back when it began to get embarrassing. Huh, from this side of it, Demalion almost sounded pleased with her presence: He must really dislike Stockton.

Then he was at her side, his hand sliding out to take her elbow. She shrugged him and his tasty scent off automatically. His lips thinned. “Let’s talk, Ms. Shadows.”

“Don’t call me that,” she said. He always did, and it made her wild; he knew her name, knew her family, had made a point of studying her life and habits, and yet, deliberately called her Shadows.

“You know, the one bright spot in this entire day was that I got whisked out of Miami, out of your jurisdiction. Then I got here, and damn, if you didn’t just creep out of the woodwork.”

“I transferred. Got family here,” he said, ushering her toward the elevator, sliding the keycard into the lock on it. “You didn’t think I followed you, did you? Sorry, Shadows, I was here first.”

There was a faint gleam in his gold-flecked eyes that could have been amusement or malice. He put a hand at the small of her back as the elevator doors slid open, not out of friendliness, Sylvie thought, but to confirm she was armed. Beneath his hand, the gun twitched. They both flinched.

He jabbed the button for the third floor, and said, “Interesting new weapon you’ve got. Am I going to get a look at it?”

“Are you going to answer some questions?”

“I always talk to you. It’s in self-defense,” he said, his lips curving up, mocking her again. The elevator doors slid closed, sealing her in with him. They hadn’t been so close together since that night in Key West, and she wasn’t thinking about that at all.

She leaned up against the far wall and studied him, the sleek dark hair, the Byzantine eyes, the Egyptian cast to his face. He always reminded her of pharaohs, somehow exotic and ancient. When she’d first met him on the blind date Alex had set up, she’d had the creeping sensation that he might not be human, even while he chatted her up, oh so interested in her and her life. Then, of course, she learned about the ISI and knew he was all too human, and a bastard suit at that.

“No cane today?” she said. “An interesting look on you, I thought.”

“Is that what this is about?” he said, the skin around his eyes tightening, as if up to this moment, he’d been enjoying himself. “I should have known.”

“I didn’t know an ISI agent could have a sense of humor,” she said, still staring at him. “A spy masquerading as a blind man, though, that’s pretty funny.”

“Glad to amuse,” he said. The door dinged open, and he took her arm again. “My office.”

Sylvie opened her mouth to protest but hesitated. He seemed oddly on edge. As if the ISI world, that orderly snow globe, had been shaken.

He keycarded his office and let them both in. She looked around with reluctant interest, the first time she’d ever been behind the scenes at the ISI. Earlier visits in the Miami facility had been in the equivalent of interrogation rooms. ISI offices were apparently small but elegantly laid out, dominated by a cherrywood desk covered with high-tech toys and a stack of paper beneath a pyramid paper-weight. There was even a framed photograph on the desk, propped up alongside a palm-sized crystal ball. A real home away from home.

Sylvie reached for the photo, feeling it was only fair; after all, they knew whose pictures she kept on her desk, on her walls, in her albums. Demalion beat her to it, tucking it inside the drawer, catching the crystal when the motion started it rolling.

“So ’kay—” she said. “Don’t want to look at that one, how about these?” She dropped the Polaroid of Brandon Wolf on the desk, followed it with one of Demalion in blind-man guise. “Do you have him in your lockup? And please, keep in mind, I’m not in the mood for plausible denial or any other government bullshit—he’s the only thing between me and my retirement.”