Lyn Benedict - Sins & Shadows

A third option presented itself to her. Had Dunne weakened? Maybe gods weren’t affected by human limitations of distance or endurance, but that didn’t mean nothing could weaken him. If he was a god—and she chose to let that declaration stand—she could think of only two things that could stop him. A belatedly delivered ransom demand. Or another god. Sylvie shivered. She needed to check in with her client and soon.

Val strode up at that moment, smiling a little, looking like a sleek jet-setter anticipating nothing more taxing than the shopping trip she’d teased Sylvie about. That changed the moment she leaned in to give Sylvie a social hug. The gun at Sylvie’s waist . . . twitched. Sylvie felt the distinctive click of the safety shifting off, a tiny flicker of movement against her skin, a finger tap saying “ready.”

“What the hell is that?” Val said. “What have you done, Sylvie?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“You’re wearing something of stolen power,” Val accused. “Spirit bound to flesh. That’s black work. How did you—”

“It’s fine,” Sylvie said. “Just trust me, okay?”

Val grimaced but let the questioning drop, for which Sylvie was grateful. She needed to parse what Val had said. Flesh and spirit, bound? Her flesh—she knew that; otherwise, the gun wouldn’t feel so comfortable against her skin. Whose spirit? Dunne’s?

Val waved for a cab, her lips still tight in disapproval. “Let’s get this over with, Sylvie.”

“We’re not taking a cab to the subway,” Sylvie said. “That’s just plain stupid. How spoiled are you, anyway?” She waved off the cabbie and headed toward the El connection.

Val huffed but followed her down the sidewalk in silence. Once in the El, Sylvie leaned up against a pole near the doors, touching her cheek to the cool metal, studying the other passengers, mostly airport run-off of flight attendants and travelers. No one looked back at her; the one man in a business suit who did ducked her gaze a second later, leaving her with nothing to do but seethe and listen to the rattle and clank of the El rising above the street.

Three stops later, Sylvie decided Val had sulked long enough, and said, “You look at the spell?”

“Enough to know it’s probably what you’re looking for,” Val said, pausing in her own calming study of the posters within the car. “Not enough to tell you how, who, or why, yet. I’ve made some assumptions, of course, from the sketch, but I’d rather see the actual circle itself before I draw real conclusions.”

“Thanks, Val,” Sylvie said. She relaxed; it looked like Val was going to be helpful.

“Don’t thank me,” Val said. “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t be here. Things are strange right now, and all I want to do is hole up someplace safe.”

“Strange,” Sylvie repeated.

“My coven thinks a god may have come to the mortal realm.”

“So?” Sylvie said. “It’s their earth, too, right?”

Val made a face as if Sylvie had said something unbelievably stupid. “The only good thing about gods is that they prefer their realm to ours.”

The El swayed heavily as they took a long curve, rattling loud enough to make it sound like a roller coaster, and drew to a screeching halt. Val winced. “Not quite a Benz, is it?”

“You’ll survive,” Sylvie said.

Once the engine reached speed again, Sylvie said, “In myths, gods walk the earth all the time.”

“Yes,” Val said, “and mythology is full of monsters and cataclysms. Trust me, they’re linked. Gods change things. It’s their nature. Their very presence.”

“The world bends to their will,” Sylvie said, echoing Dunne. “It’s all about power.”

“It’s always about power,” Val said. “There’s only so much of it to go around. Like anything rare, it’s prized, guarded, hidden, and sought.”

“And stolen,” Sylvie finished on the crest of a minor epiphany. Stolen would explain an awful lot about Dunne’s sudden appearance on the scene. There weren’t that many possibilities if the two facts she had gained were both true. Dunne was a god. Dunne had been a normal human. Between the two states lay power.

“If humans can steal their power, gods can’t be omniscient or omnipotent,” Sylvie said, “not really.”

“Technically true,” Val said, sliding forward on the plastic seat, shifting into lecture mode. “But it’s in the same sense that we’re not all-powerful to, oh, a bird’s egg. We can see it in its entirety, know what’s in it, know what it will become, juggle it, nurture it, alter it at will, break it, spare it, or devour it. The egg is completely vulnerable. The egg doesn’t even understand that it’s in a god’s hand. Except maybe, every now and then, it feels a ripple moving through, something vast shifting on a level it cannot comprehend.

“To steal a god’s power requires more than determination and a blatant disregard for personal safety, it requires an understanding of the world that most humans are simply not capable of. Suffice it to say that anyone who could seriously attempt such a thing would be a person to avoid, would make my ex-husband look like a saint.” Her volume dropped steadily as she spoke until Sylvie had to lean close to make out the soft words. Val crumpled the edges of the fax, the spell rippling with false life. She took a breath, smoothed the paper, and bent her attention to it, tracing lines with a manicured nail.

No real answers there, Sylvie thought. Dunne had been a normal human according to Demalion, and while the ISI was not infallible, its basic information gathering was stellar.

The conductor’s voice called out another station, and Sylvie looked up. Getting close. She nudged Val, and Val tucked the spell into her purse, neatly folded.

Ten minutes later, Sylvie sat at the top of the El’s steps, squeezing herself out of the way of the occasional passerby and watching Val walk the spell circle.

Fish out of water, Sylvie thought, tickled at the expression on Val’s face—such finely tuned distaste. Subways were definitely slumming it for Val, who was accustomed to casual luxury. Still, she bent and knelt beside the circle without hesitation, staining her cream-linen slacks.

“It’s—” Val raised a haughty brow at a commuter who was standing a little too close to her. “Do you mind?”

He stepped back and continued waiting for a train, jingling the tokens in his pocket. “Sylvie!” Val said, gesturing at him in an imperious fashion.

“Shoo. Go away,” Sylvie said. He flipped her off and stayed where he was. Sylvie shrugged, not surprised. He was the suited man who hadn’t met her eyes on the train. The one she thought she’d seen waiting at the airport terminal, passing her a few times too many for coincidence.

Well, lie down with the ISI, get up with ticks.

“I can’t do this,” Val said, rising. “Too many people coming in and out. You were correct, by the way. This spell is still active. It’s also sloppy. I thought so when I got your fax but chalked it up to your poor art skills. I remember your flunking Woodmansee’s class.”

“Hey,” Sylvie said, “This isn’t a high-school reunion, you know.”

Val said, “Hand me my bag, will you?”

As if a thousand-dollar Valextra briefcase could be termed a bag. Sylvie tossed it toward her, and Val sighed as she caught it. “Look, all the tooling they do makes it magically inert. Okay?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Sylvie said.

“Sylvie, even your silences are damn loud,” Val said, flickering a smile. “Make sure no one else is coming, all right?”

“You’re gonna—”

“I’m tired of interruptions. I thought this was a matter of some urgency, but if you’d rather I work around street people?”