Lyn Benedict - Sins & Shadows

“We might find her,” Sylvie said. “I’m impressed, Alex.”

“You should be,” Alex said. “If I billed you for that amount of computer time, I’d bankrupt you.”

“Just tell me you aren’t going to bring computer crimes down on me, and I’ll be content.”

Tish held up a gold-framed painting. Sylvie shook her head, shifted her mouth away from the receiver. The portrait showed an elegant blonde, clad only in an ornate set of emeralds. “Brunette,” Sylvie said. “Ordinary is the key word here, Tish.”

“Please,” Alex said. “I cover my tracks. Oh, speaking of—tell me you’re taking wolf clients again?”

“Why?” Sylvie said, aware of Tish listening in.

“Present on the store stoop,” Alex said. “Rat skulls, bones, tied up in a bow of snakeskin. The front-desk bell says it’s inert, though. Not some type of spell. Thought it might be an offering.”

“Yuck,” Sylvie said. “Maybe the sisters left it. They don’t really seem to like me much.”

“I think there’s a club for people like that,” Alex said. “Membership’s climbing.”

“Funny girl.”

Sylvie flipped another painting and forgot the small mystery. Portrait. Not Lily, but Dunne. The last of her doubts as to their uneven relationship died. She couldn’t think Bran feared Dunne, not with this in her hands. Dunne, depicted as an angel: weary, shirtless, scarred; his wings, all hawk dun and beige, were drooping and chafed by a holster and a gun. In the shadow of his wings, Bran leaned against him and was sheltered.

“Syl?”

“Yeah, e-mail me the addresses,” Sylvie said.

“Syl . . .” Alex said, held her to the line. “What if the satanists left the bones?” Her voice went tight and a little small.

Sylvie flipped another half dozen paintings face front, without looking at them, just getting them into the light. “Be very careful, or just get out of town. If you think it’s them, call the cops. The satanists carried guns instead of power; they’ll shoot first, curse later.”

“Not comforting,” Alex said.

“You came back,” Sylvie snapped. Her fingers were white on the phone. Wasn’t this what she had tried to prevent? She took a steadying breath, and said, “I doubt it’s them. We’re one for one, right now. They’ll need to back off and reconnoiter.”

“One for . . . What did you do, Sylvie? They killed Suarez. Did you kill—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sylvie said. Tish frowned at her, a weird look of disapproval in her eyes, as if Sylvie were cursing in church.

“I’ve seen the files,” Alex said, still soft. “The cases where the problem just . . . goes away. Cases where you go it alone. Do you kill people to make the problems go away?”

Things, not people, she thought, stifling that retort before it reached her lips. “Christ, Alex, are you listening to yourself? No, okay. No.” She glanced over at Tish and ruthlessly shifted the conversation. “It’s fine, it’ll be fine. Just be smart and call the cops if anything looks weird. Call Val if anything looks weirder. Her home’s loaded with protective spells. I gotta go.” Without waiting for a response, she disconnected.

Mask’s slipping, the little dark voice said.

“Find anything?” Sylvie asked.

Tish shook her head. “I sort of remember the painting. It had a lot of grey. So I was going to pull those—”

“Great, do it, don’t tell me about it,” Sylvie said. She dragged her attention to her own row of paintings and found her own worries blasted away by the first one in the row.

So small to pack so much of a punch. It was barely a foot square, but just touching it made her skin crawl. No placid landscape, no pretty portrait. A flayed chest, skin pulled back, revealed a glistening, tattered heart beneath a worn rib cage. Fingers squirmed within the bone cage, hooking into the heart, tugging it farther apart. The whole thing bled at her in tones of rust and sepia.

Tish’s footsteps headed her way, and Sylvie flipped the painting to face the wall. No need to upset the girl any further. Sylvie stared at the ruddy scrawl on the back of the canvas and shuddered. Devoured Heart , self-portrait.

Tish spread out three portraits, all rainy-day greys with women.

Sylvie grabbed the last one and brought it toward her.

“That it?” Tish said, excited.

“Oh yeah,” Sylvie said. She recognized the expression in the eyes more than anything else, that confident stare. Bran Wolf, she decided then and there, was one hell of a talent. And, she thought, as she studied it more closely, he should pay more attention to his subconscious. Lily stood on the edge of the lake, hair whipping in the wind like live wires. A drab brown woman on a drab grey background, and yet . . . Sylvie took it over toward the window where the sunlight streamed.

In the sunlight, the lake waves grew shadows beneath lines of paint scraped into place, and showed animal teeth, showed crosses burned and broken, showed red tinges beneath the grey, like blood in the water. All of it spiraling out from Lily’s shadow over the water.

“Let’s go,” she said. “We got what we came for.”

“But the agent outside—”

“He brought us here, he can take us back,” Sylvie said. She knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as that. Nothing with the ISI ever was, but she had a portrait of Lily in her hand, addresses incoming, and felt that she had a grip on things for the first time since she’d taken this case. One ISI agent seemed a simple obstacle.

She clattered down the stairs, Tish following, protesting with the fervor of a good girl unused to making waves.

Sylvie opened the front door and balked. She put her hand back, stopping Tish from joining her. Outside, on the hood of the cab, the little firestarter from the bar sat dribbling sparks from one hand to the next.

“Come on out, Shadows,” Helen said. “I have a bone to pick with you.”

“SHIT,” SYLVIE MUTTERED. “STAY BACK, TISH.”

Tish, like the innocent she was, took a giant step forward to get a better look. “Did he call his team? What are we—” She trailed off at the sight of Helen, and eeped a little when Helen built a fireball in her bare hands.

“Hey, Helen,” Sylvie said. “Don’t remember doing anything to upset you. Well, anything worth this kind of effort.”

Tish squeaked as Helen tossed the fireball at them underhand, a flaming softball that fell short. Sylvie watched it sputter out against the concrete and settled her gun comfortably in her hand before the fire vanished. Armed, ready, she hesitated. Shoot now? Helen had caved quickly enough last night.

In the cab, the agent just sat gaping at the fireworks, probably taking notes. Typical ISI.

“Lily told me where to find you.”

“Yeah?” Sylvie said. “You want to reverse the favor? I’m dying to talk to her.”

Helen paid no attention, her eyes fixed on Tish. “Where’s your freaky friend? That’s not her,” Helen said. “If I’m going to burn you up, I want to get her, too. Lily told me you burned the bar. Burned JK alive.” With each sentence, fire rose from Helen’s skin, first in smoky yellow flamelets, then in a rushing red halo.

Sylvie licked sweat from her lips, tasting salt and a trace of fear. Helen hadn’t had that kind of heat last night.

“What? Nothing to say? No begging? You should,” Helen said, and giggled, high and wild. “ ’Cause I am on today. Just ask your cabbie.”

Sylvie flicked another glance at the still-staring agent, and realized not all the smoke scent came from Helen, the char of flesh not just a lingering remnant from NDNM.

“I put a hole right through him, with my own little hand,” Helen said, giggled again. Half-mad with power, and half-frightened of what she’d done. Probably not frightened enough to stop. Sylvie’s hand tightened on the gun. Every moment that passed, Helen was forfeiting the right to be human.