Lyn Benedict - Sins & Shadows

“Spell circle,” Sylvie said, her own voice uneven, thinking of Val’s conviction that Bran was dead, of the sisters waiting to see this scene play out.

Dunne reached the intersection of spell edge and stair and paused. “This it?”

“Yeah,” Sylvie said. He stepped into the curve of spell, and it went wild.

The swirling greens and blues rose as if they were the water they resembled, winding around him like a whirlpool. Cold winds blew through the station; Sylvie’s ears popped and ached under the pressure.

Over the roar of the not-water, she could hear the Furies shouting. Through wind-stung eyes, she saw Dunne at the heart of a cyclone, and had time for a frantic thought that she was going to lose her client, and was that good or bad, when the spell collapsed in a rush of heat and a sound like tearing metal.

In the lingering silence, Val’s whimpers became gasping breaths. The spell circle gleamed and cracked, its paint flaking and drifting upward into brightly hued mist and dispersing, leaving only faint hints of its presence behind.

Dead spell, Sylvie thought. Very dead. If the Maudits intended to trap Dunne with it, they’d failed. But if they hadn’t—why had it opened at his feet?

“Oh God,” Val gasped, and surged to her feet. “Oh— God —” Her eyes wide with shock and horror, she darted for the entrance.

It took two steps before the Furies were on her, slamming her up against the stained concrete walls. “Witch, why do you run?”

“Stop it!” Sylvie yelled. She grabbed the nearest sister, trying hard not to think about what she was doing, just reached out and grabbed, getting a handful of warmed leather, and yanking her away. Alekta hissed, tongue narrow, black, and pointed, her teeth going sharp.

“Get away from her,” Sylvie said, putting herself between Val and Alekta.

The preppie sister growled, and Sylvie’s gun was out before she had thought about it, out and unwavering in Magdala’s face, Sylvie’s arm braced on Val’s trembling shoulder. Sylvie got a wild-eyed view of the punk sister leaning back against the wall—laughing?

“Dunne, call them off.”

“A trap,” Dunne said, and now Sylvie had no problems seeing him as inhuman. There was an utter blankness to his eyes, warning that no humanity was at home.

“ Val didn’t do it,” Sylvie said, talking fast, hoping to break past that alien barrier to the man beneath. “Val’s my research witch. You know, like an informant? She identified the spell. Hell, she was going to tell me more about it, maybe how to undo it, except someone had to lose his almighty temper and blow up the only piece of evidence we had. Guess being a god doesn’t rule out being an idiot.”

Something touched the barrel of her gun, and Sylvie’s gaze flickered back to Magdala, who was, eww , licking her gun, with an avidity out of place with her prim and proper wardrobe.

“Won’t kill me,” she said.

“Maybe not, but I bet there’d be splatter. Get your button-down all splotchy,” Sylvie warned. “Dunne?”

“Magdala,” he said, “Alekta. Erinya. Stop.” The words seemed to be dragged out of his throat, as if it were an effort to remember how to talk. An effort to act human.

Sylvie shivered, remembering him saying that it was hard to be less than he was.

Val ducked beneath Sylvie’s arm the minute Magdala relaxed, and headed for the street, yanking herself to a walk after a first rapid step that brought the sisters’ attention right back to her. Running was definitely a no-no around those three.

“Excuse me for a moment,” Sylvie said, holstering her gun and setting out after Val. She collected Val’s bag on the way.

She caught up with Val halfway down the block, her pale clothes a beacon in the evening light. “Val—”

Val swung round on her, and Sylvie ducked, waiting for the glimmer of spell casting, that telltale flicker between Val’s fingers. Instead, Val dropped her hand to her side.

“We’re through,” Val said, voice quivering. “I owe you nothing after this. A fucking god , Sylvie. You exposed me to a god.” She snatched her bag from Sylvie’s fingers, hurled it into the street, watched one car swerve around it, and a second drive over it with a soft thud-crunch .

Still the drama queen.

“You done? ’Cause I still have some questions, including why the hell that oubliette tried to eat Dunne. I thought you said it was keyed to Bran?” Sylvie asked. She didn’t have time for Val’s histrionics. Her only lead was gone, and Dunne—she rather thought he was on the ragged edge. Val’s dramatic fits could find a better time to come out and play. Luckily, they were usually short in duration.

Val’s breath rasped in her throat. “Get another witch.”

Usually. Sylvie wondered if this time Val was covering fear with temper. She softened her tone.

“Val, I know you’re scared, but I need you, need your talents,” Sylvie said. “Please.”

Val closed her eyes, her face a pallid, shocky oval in the dark. Her lips trembled. “You don’t have a clue. Do you know what happens to a witch when a god goes off? It’s like being hurled headfirst into a nuclear reactor. I’m burned, Sylvie. Burned to bits. Find another witch. I’m not one anymore.” She wrapped her arms tightly about herself, shuddering.

Sylvie let the shock of it wash over her, felt the rising sickness of guilt trying to claw into her belly. Maybe this wasn’t just another of Val’s melodramatic starts, a sneaky way to get out of a task she didn’t want to do. “Val—”

“What?” Val said. She saw a cab up the street and gestured. Sylvie saw her moment dwindling, while behind her Dunne and the sisters waited. She imagined Alekta’s heels tapping impatiently in the subway and the world suffering tiny seizures at each impact.

“You could still help,” Sylvie said. “You can’t use the magic, but you can still help me—”

“Like I’d want to,” Val snapped, and it sparked Sylvie’s quick temper in response.

“Fine. Don’t help. Then give me the name of a witch who will.”

“You’re cold,” Val whispered.

“No, I’m on the edge of disaster,” Sylvie said. “My only real lead just went up in colored smoke, and while it was pretty, it doesn’t make me happy. You’re hurt, you’re scared, you’re going to split, fine. I can’t blame you. If I could, I’d join you. I can’t. You said it yourself. Dunne’s gone nuclear, and there’s only me between him and a really big flash.”

Val’s face was streaked and blotched with tears, all her cool poise stripped bare. A memory jolt fed Sylvie, the image of Val on a sixth-grade playground, sobbing, while Sylvie fisted her hands and rounded on the class bully who had made her cry.

“I’m sorry, Val. I wouldn’t have called you if I’d known.”

“Yes, you would have,” Val said. The cab drew to the curb, and Val nodded at the driver, darted into the street to retrieve her misshapen briefcase, and climbed inside.

Sylvie put her hand on the cabbie’s door, a wait-a-minute. “Val—” she said. “Your abilities are really truly gone? Don’t abilities grow back, sometimes?”

“You think I’m making it up?”

“You did a lot of lying, in school.”

“This is a little different than avoiding essays. Fuck off, Sylvie.” Val scrawled a phone number on the spell fax and thrust it out the window at Sylvie. “Here’s your new witch. Anna D. A local power. Arrogant as hell. You deserve each other.”

The cab merged into traffic and disappeared, becoming one of many. Behind her, a faint shriek rose, as someone attempted to go down the station’s stairs and ran right into a nightmare, emerged again, shaking and breathless. Sylvie’s paralysis broke as the man ran by. She would apologize later. At the moment, there was simply too much at stake to worry about the damage already done.