Lyn Benedict - Sins & Shadows

She’d allowed his company as far as Dunne’s apartment, Sylvie driving the last mile when proximity keyed the return of Demalion’s blindness. They had changed places in a tension-ridden silence, and Demalion sank into the passenger seat, cradling his crystal “eye.” Once there, Sylvie had taken ruthless advantage of his blindness, of the effort it took him to see through the crystal; she collected what she had come for in a rush, too fast for him to make any sense of it, and hightailed it out of the brownstone.

Her actions had blown the hell out of their truce and set the ISI back on her tail, but it was the only thing she could do. The curse on her had rebounded onto Alex, who had been—mostly—safely out of the way. At her side, Demalion was nothing more than a walking target.

Another wary glance at the storm-churned sky, and Sylvie thought, Better hurry. Chicago was a shadow of itself, a town lit by tempest light, its borders girdled by towering dark clouds, and its people hunkered down in growing panic.

Lightning flickered and licked the clouds, coming not from within them, but from elsewhere. Dunne was on the run, hiding his own storm-cloud core of power somewhere within the sky tumult, and Zeus—Sylvie winced as another sheet of lightning crackled across the face of the cloud, red-violet, bruising the sky—Zeus was hunting. A bird splatted into the concrete near her, a twisted thing half scale, half feather, all writhing movement, before a passing cab smeared it into the asphalt. The cabbie slowed, backed up alongside her. “Car trouble? Lady, you need a ride?”

Sylvie shook her head. “El,” she said.

“It’s not running. Power outage at the main line.”

“Best news I’ve heard all day,” she said.

He drove on, not bothering to waste more words on an obvious idiot. Sylvie had been serious, though. Doing what she planned to do was already in the impossible category; doing it with an audience? Might as well ask her to save the world. Her intentions were much smaller. One girl, one boy. Alex. Bran. The world would have to fend for itself.

She hefted the artist’s satchel out of the backseat; she’d stolen it from Bran’s attic studio, filled it while Demalion hovered sightlessly, if not quietly, at her side. She bit her lip. If he’d just stay out of this . . .

If you wanted him safe, the dark voice said, you shouldn’t have let him in.

She shivered and forced those thoughts away. Keep him safe, she thought. It was a lie, or rather, a partial truth at best. She didn’t want Demalion at her side. Demalion was her weakness because he offered her his strength, a shoulder to lean on, arms to shelter in. Right now, Sylvie needed to stand alone and tall, needed aggression and vitriol more than understanding. She needed to keep her rage, and she fueled it by knowing she was alone against the world. Demalion had no place in that.

She slung the satchel over her shoulder and headed for the El, ignoring the crackling, fulminating sky above her head.

The entryway to the El gaped, dark under cloud cover, without electric lights. Sylvie stumbled down the stairs in the dimness, let her eyes adjust. In the uncanny storm light that trickled through, the oubliette spell’s greasy residue gleamed. Sylvie smiled at it and dropped the satchel.

“You can’t do it, Sylvie,” Val had said, when called for advice. Sylvie, still thinking of Val’s sending Alex away, had no problems in riding roughshod over Val’s objections and demanding answers. Rebuild the oubliette? Why not? No magic? When she was immersed in a city drowning in a god’s despair? When she had a Fury’s blood beneath her nails? And the will to refuse failure when so much depended on it.

Sylvie crouched and drew out the tubes of paint snagged from Bran’s studio. Vermilion, cobalt, titanium white, cadmium yellow, malachite green, mars black. Val had warned it took special ingredients to build a spell circle, that ordinary paint was fit for nothing but decoration. Sylvie, having recently seen the way a god’s sphere of influence could affect things, figured that these oil paints, stored and used in a god’s house, were soaked in special.

She unfolded the sketch she’d made of the oubliette and stuck it to the cement with a glob of white paint. She wished she’d brought a flashlight.

The moment on her, she hesitated.

“It’s not paint by numbers,” Val said. “It’s magic. It’s bending reality. It’s more than will. It’s know-how. Even if you can muster the tools, get any kind of result at all, it won’t open the same door.”

It had to. Sylvie closed her eyes, breathed steadily. If she had Bran in her custody, Dunne would have to deal with her. Dunne would save Alex.

“You are resourceful, aren’t you?” the woman said, and Sylvie spun around. She had thought she was alone. At first she didn’t recognize her, felt an instinctive liking and camaraderie for this woman, slouched lazily on the stairs, dressed in clothing that looked every bit as “found” as Sylvie’s. Worn black denim, loose at the hips, bagging over cracking cowboy boots. A T-shirt that declared the wearer wanted Dead or Alive, a tangle of dark hair, and a bronze sheriff’s star on a thong around her neck, like an old-Western gunslinger doing CSI. Her eyes seemed sheened with silver, and in this city, that made Sylvie wary.

“Sylvie Lightner, aka Shadows,” she said. “I’ve been doing my homework. You have had a barrel of misfortune of late, haven’t you—”

“Lilith,” Sylvie said. Recognition swept over her all at once. The Old Cat was right: Lilith was able to blend in as well as stand out.

Lilith sat sideways on the stairs, fading in and out of shadow more deeply than her clothing could account for. She leaned back against the wall, stuck long, denim-clad legs along the riser, and inspected the dusty toes of her boots. “You’re really going to give it a go, aren’t you? The old college try. Well, more power to you,” Lilith said. “I knew you were interesting when I first laid eyes on you, a girl with a Fury on a leash, but—”

Sylvie raised the gun to bear, and Lilith sighed. “But now, you’re being dull. Go ahead. Fire. You want to, and I can tell there’s no talking to you until it’s out of your system. Just don’t expect much. I’m immortal, not—”

Sylvie pulled the trigger. One shot, aimed directly at the star-shaped metal at Lilith’s breast. The second shot was between Lilith’s iridescent, unblinking gaze, the thunder crack of the first shot still reverberating in the cement confines. When the second roll of noise stopped, Lilith was unharmed.

“—stupid,” Lilith finished. She fumbled in her jeans pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “You a smoker?”

Sylvie stepped closer, closer, and Lilith lit her cigarette, sucking it to red-tipped life.

Trembling—Sylvie couldn’t miss from this range, no matter what—Sylvie put the barrel of the gun to Lilith’s temple.

Lilith cast a sidelong glance up at Sylvie, eyes silvery-glossy under dark lashes, and said, “Go ahead. I admire perseverance. But remember— I’m not stupid. Immortal’s not the same as invulnerable unless one takes steps to make it so. So try it again if you want, but I’ll tell you true, I don’t know where the bullets go. They don’t stop in my flesh, but that’s not to say they don’t find flesh. After all, isn’t that a bullet’s raison d’être ; to pierce and kill?”

Lilith took a long breath, let out the smoke, and said, “I know your bloodline. I know you’re a killer—I watched you kill my petit sorcier . What a temper you have. But are you an indiscriminate killer? You’ve already sent two bullets into the world without a target. Will you send others?”