Lyn Benedict - Sins & Shadows

“Where’s a hot-wiring Fury when you need her,” Sylvie said, and sighed again, worry shifting. Erinya had been sullen and silent after Lilith’s attack, slinking away as Sylvie approached Tish’s, which, in retrospect, made little sense. Erinya knew Tish, and if Tish were willing to take in a perfect stranger, surely she would have accepted the Fury.

Sylvie wondered if maybe Erinya wasn’t hurt more deeply than she’d let on. After all, Lilith had shown up soon after Sylvie had shot Erinya. Bullets followed up with balefire; even a Fury might hurt, and like an animal, might head for solitude to lick her wounds.

Pray, Dunne had said, and she would reach him. She wondered if transportation issues and a vague concern for one of his creatures was enough to rouse him from his troubles.

Approaching footsteps rounded the edge of the walk and faltered, probably at the sight of her. A dirty beggar at the gates of heaven. A conspicuous have-not at the doors of plenty. She’d be lucky if they didn’t call the cops Of course, then she’d have a ride out of here. If the cops responded at all. If they weren’t still absorbed in hunting Bran Wolf.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

She raised her head, startled. “Demalion.” He didn’t sound angry, and Anna D’s words were echoing in her ear. Apparently, he liked her. She licked her lips. “ Are you selling information to Lil—”

“No,” he said. “I’m not sure who is. It’s different addresses every time. Like someone who doesn’t belong is accessing any computer they can.” He settled beside her on the stairs, giving the cement a quick glance to make sure his pristine suit would stay that way.

“Don’t you all have passwords? Private terminals? Locked doors?”

“Temps, cleaning people, rookie agents, random politicians,” Demalion said. “You didn’t answer, though. What are you doing here?” he repeated.

“Suffering for all my sins,” she said.

“Those sins include thinking I’d sell government information to a psychopath?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Forgiven,” he said. “Go in peace, my child.” He sketched a cross over her head, and she found herself smiling.

“You like to make the priests cry, don’t you?” she said. “You were a bad altar boy. Drank the sacramental wine. Nibbled on the host when you got munchy.”

“What, and bring shame on my mother? She’s not much for religion but a big believer in manners. She lives here, you know,” he said. It was a quiet explanation for his presence and a polite demand for hers.

“I know,” she said. She watched his eyes darken. “She’s a right bitch.”

“After all you said about your family—you dragged mine into this?” He surged to his feet again, frustrated rage, and collapsed back against the stair railing. His mouth worked over things he couldn’t get out.

“Huh,” Sylvie said. “And rumor has it you don’t hate me half so much as I thought.”

“What did—”

“Give me a break. She was a source, Demalion, not a means for petty vengeance. I didn’t know who she was until she told me.”

“Hardly a source ,” he said. “She scries a little. A talent that she indulges just so she can decorate with shiny crystals. Who gave you her name?”

“Val Cassavetes. Anna D, she said. A local power. Capital P. It’s way past time for someone to have a heart-to-heart with his mother.” She grabbed his pant leg and pulled him back down beside her.

“Cassavetes,” he said, tonelessly. He tugged the little crystal out of his pocket, rolling it, then stilled and stared down at it.

He knew Val, of course, knew her reputation, and right now, Sylvie thought, he was reassessing his own family history.

“Your family’s occult,” she said. “Deal with it.”

“Easy for you to say.” The crystal began its nervous migration over his fingers again.

“I just found out who my primogenitors are, and I’m not a happy camper, so don’t expect sympathy.” She stilled his hands with her own, enjoying the human warmth of them, nothing unearthly here, just human flesh and bone, no matter what his mother was. The crystals he carried, though, hinted otherwise. Maybe he had inherited some of Anna D’s talents. Or maybe he just found crystals comforting, having grown up surrounded by them. She didn’t have enough clues to guess. “What did Dunne do to you?”

“I thought you’d have figured it out by now,” he said.

“God, the attitude runs in the family,” she said. Then, as it crossed her mind, “Were you born with a tail?”

“What?”

“Ah, never mind,” she said. “Keep your secrets.”

“Dunne blinded me,” Demalion said. The crystal shifted, dropped to the cement with a tiny crack as he turned his hands to clasp hers.

“You see me,” she said. “You drove here.” Even while she contradicted him, she was tabulating. He had talked about a third team spying on Dunne, spies who would never watch them again, a team of two field agents and a clairvoyant.

“As long as I’m not within five miles of Dunne, Wolf, or the things he considers his, I’m fine. The minute I overstep—” He swallowed hard. “It takes longer each time to come back,” he said.

“Lovely,” she said. “Perfect fate for a spy.”

“I’m glad you admire his sense of irony. It makes it all so much easier to take.” He detached his hands from hers and stood.

“Hey, Demalion,” she said. “Where’re you going?”

“Didn’t you say I should have a talk with my mother?”

“Jesus, not today ,” Sylvie said. “She’d slaughter me for sure.”

Demalion frowned but hesitated.

“So . . . I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier.” If she’d thought she could manage it, she would have tried for a winsome smile. But tiredness made it an impossible effort.

“What do you want?” he asked. Noncommittal, still looking toward the condominium, still ruffled by her amusement at Dunne’s justice.

“A ride,” she said. “Suburbia’s not my thing.”

“Where to?”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“Your hotel?”

“Cash-flow problems. Stayed with Tish last night. Not an option tonight.”

“Fine,” he said, held out his hand. She let him pull her up, wincing as her ribs shifted.

“Doctor?” he asked.

“Some strapping might be nice,” she said. He slid an arm around her waist, and she let him, leaned her aching head on his shoulder. She wondered if his mother was watching from above, clawing at the walls. She tried not to smirk.

“You need to be more careful,” he said, as they made their way across the lot to his car.

“I’m always careful.”

“Yeah, in a way that would make a drunk stuntman blanch.”

She pulled away from him, climbed into the car. “Just shut up and drive,” she said, sinking into the passenger seat and sulking.

“It’s a good thing I like you,” he said.

“A very good thing,” she agreed. After all, she was in no shape for another fight. She closed her eyes for a minute, then said, “You want to upgrade that detente of ours to a truce?”

“Depends. You going to run out on me again?”

“No,” she said.

“Then very much,” he said. “Not only for our sakes. I think this mess may take both of us. I think I’ve followed your path. Brandon Wolf was kidnapped to get to Dunne’s power and immortality. And immortality’s a powerful lure.”

“Not for her,” Sylvie said. “She’s already immortal. Lilith, not Lily. The Lilith.” My blood kin . . . That part she left unsaid; truce or no, there were some things she just wouldn’t share with the ISI.

“Just the power, then,” he said.