Lyn Benedict - Sins & Shadows

Sylvie turned her back on the streets, and rejoined the monsters waiting below.

IN THE COOL DIMNESS OF THE STATION, THE SCENE HADN’T changed. Dunne stared at the destroyed oubliette, the greasy reminders of paint and malign intent, his expression as blank as a dropped doll’s.

Sylvie thought about that perfect, inhuman stillness and shuddered. People had thoughts; the thoughts reflected themselves on their skins. But Dunne, at the moment, seemed empty. Waiting for something, anything to wake him to movement and purpose.

Before him, Alekta and Magdala walked the oubliette, eyes closed, tracking something intangible to mortal senses.

Erinya winked into sight on the stairs, a punk mirage turning real, startling a shamed yelp out of Sylvie. It echoed the sound she’d heard earlier, the scared man who’d fled down the street.

Alekta raised her head to look at Sylvie, eyes reflecting silver-blue in the sputtering fluorescent light. She lunged forward like a Doberman, all the power in her shoulders, and vanished before she landed.

Erinya brushed past Sylvie and leaned into Dunne’s side.

Dunne blinked at her touch, but made no further movement, never moving his gaze from the stairs, as if he could draw Bran out by sheer attentiveness.

Maybe he could have, Sylvie thought, catching a glimmer of something behind the set stone of his jaw. Some tinge of guilt, self-condemnation. Maybe, if the spell had stayed active, he could have worked his way through whatever it was that shielded Bran from him. If Bran were—

“He’s not dead,” Dunne said.

“What?” Sylvie said.

“The witch thinks he’s dead. He’s not. Don’t let her plant doubts.”

“What, you’re a mind reader, now?” Sylvie said. She felt flicked on the raw. She’d cautioned herself before about assuming it was too late.

He turned his head and looked at her. Blank eyes. Inhuman eyes. Eyes that saw her as nothing more than a faulty collection of molecule and meat. A god’s eyes.

“Shit,” Sylvie said, under her breath. Mind reader, check. Probably went with the whole omniscient thing. Well, might as well hang for a sheep—“You sure ’bout that not-dead thing? Really sure?”

“If he were dead,” Dunne said, each word precise and cold. “If he were dead, the results would be unmistakable. If he were dead, I’d have a name and a face to blame.” His voice rose to a ragged shout; his jaw clenched until Sylvie imagined tooth enamel cracking. Beside him, Erinya whimpered and dug her head into his ribs, pushing hard enough to hurt.

Sylvie licked dry lips, twitching when Magdala vanished as Alekta had.

“Don’t doubt me, Sylvie.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sylvie said.

Dunne’s hand rose, ruffled through Erinya’s spiky crest of dark hair. “Wrong trails,” she whispered.

“Is that what they’re doing?” Sylvie asked. “Trying to find the sorcerer who laid the spell?”

“As you said,” Dunne said. “I destroyed your lead. The sisters are trying to salvage it, but this is a busy station, and the feel of souls fades.” He tightened his mouth.

Hunting souls? Sylvie said nothing, not wanting to think about the damage that could lead to.

“I’m sorry,” Erinya whispered. “I can’t track as well as the others.”

He tangled his fingers back into her hair. “Not your fault,” he murmured. “I know you’re trying.”

Trying means you go down fighting, that’s all. Trying doesn’t mean you win. Sylvie paced a circle of her own, tired of waiting, sick of that voice in her mind, preaching bile and pragmatism in equal measure.

“We’re running short on time, Sylvie. In my search, I’ve played fast and loose with the rules, and it’s been noticed. They won’t let it stand much longer.”

“They? Other gods?” Sylvie said. Just what this whole mess needed. More powerful looky-loos.

Dunne nodded. “Zeus. Ostensibly, he commands me.”

“I know how that goes,” Sylvie said. “It’s amazing how underrated free will is.”

Erinya stutter-growled deep in her throat, an oddly warm sound. Was she laughing? It almost sounded like it. Erinya eeled out of Dunne’s grip. “I’m going hunting.” She smiled at Sylvie and disappeared.

Sylvie didn’t even recoil when Alekta reappeared at a jog, ducked her head over the circle, and vanished again.

Instead, she said, “What about time? You reversed it this morning. Why not just unwind the moment when he vanished? Or when you blew up our only lead a moment ago?”

“I should have done it when Bran vanished,” Dunne said. “But each hour that passed made it less of an option. Time is heavy and fragile. Rewriting that moment in your office was nothing, a heartbeat of time disrupted. Even so, more changed than you know. You never fired the bullet. It was the simplest way to convince you I meant business. But others had their moments rewound, their lives changed, too. There was a cop on Alligator Alley, pulling a car over for speeding. He was shot for his pains. I rewound your moment, and he went to the car with his gun in his hand. He shot first. His career is over.”

“His life isn’t,” Sylvie said. “Sounds like a win. Where’s the problem?”

“The driver wasn’t mine,” Dunne said. “Don’t know that he was anybody’s, but if he was, I’ve committed an act of contempt toward a fellow deity. In a millisecond of time, I made an enemy. To change two weeks’ worth of seconds—it would make the world unrecognizable, pit god against god, change everything. Even twenty minutes reversed would create a tidal wave of change, and for what? To show us the spell again with no guarantee of learning from it?”

Sylvie sat down on the concrete. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. “Never is,” she muttered, and then said, “Couldn’t you just—choose a future?”

“I’d have to be able to see the future first,” Dunne said.

“You can’t? What, there’s a limit? Mind reading or precognition? No combos allowed?”

Magdala and Erinya arrived back at the same time and began to confer quietly. Magdala, Sylvie noticed, had a spatter of blood on her khakis. It couldn’t have been the sorcerer, or she’d have dragged him back to Dunne. No, some other fool had crossed paths with the Fury and come out the worse for wear.

“It’s very rare, even among gods.” A smile curved Dunne’s mouth, something small, rueful, and rather sweet, giving Sylvie a glimpse of the man who was Tish Carmichael’s friend, Brandon’s lover. “Bran calls it checks and balances on a vast scale. Says otherwise all we’d ever do is jockey for position. A few monotheist systems have foresight to some extent, your Christian god, for example, and some gods have pieces of it. I don’t.”

A tiny spark drifted through the air, leftover, Sylvie assumed, from the destruction of the oubliette. She followed its will-o’-the-wisp path for a few moments, finding it as soothing as drifting soap bubbles.

“Kronos and the Fates,” Sylvie said. “That’s two, or whatever, in your own pantheon. You really can’t see the future?”

“I really can’t,” Dunne said. “As for Kronos, they ate him after they deposed him,” Dunne said. The pale spark brushed against his shoulder and disappeared. Dunne brushed his hand over his shoulder as if it had stung. “Kronos’s power, split into so many pieces, lessened. We can use it to grant immortality. That’s about it.”

A second spark, blue-white, drifted toward him.

“Immortality,” Sylvie said. Shock touched her. “That’s why you know he’s not dead. You gave Bran immortality.”

Dunne twitched again, touched a hand to his forearm as the spark made contact, clasping it. He closed his eyes, and a wave of heat moved through the station. In its wake, more sparks appeared.