Lyn Benedict: Sins & Shadows

“No,” he said. “Put her elsewhere.” His eyes were tired, and he rubbed at them with the heels of both hands, the face of a man with a dilemma. “Is this going to work? I need you to think—you’re almost as bad as the sisters.”

“Fuck you,” Sylvie snapped. “I’m smarter than your minions.” She was shaking, cold all the way to her bones at what she had tried to do. She didn’t kill people. Even if they were flowers. She clung to that thought, but she had always responded to fear with rage. Fear paralyzed you. Rage kept you moving.

“How many others could you identify clearly from your memories? The girl passed close to you—you saw her hair, heard her laugh, saw her move, smelled her perfume and sweat. The others? If you destroyed her, their identification becomes harder.”

“Your sisters could follow her scent back, right?” Sylvie said.

“Oh, they could have followed it anywhere. On anyone she’d been near. Like her classmates, her teachers, the people in her dormitory, and those she stood next to on slow elevators. How many throats would you see the sisters hunt?” His eyes were steady on hers.

Sudden sickness welled in Sylvie’s throat; she turned from his gaze.

“This way, you have a choice. We can still ask her questions. Identify the others the simplest way.”

“Kinda hard to ask a flower questions,” Sylvie said, trying not to let him see how shaken she was. “All that language of flowers crap aside.”

“Don’t be difficult,” he said. “I’ll change her back first, of course.”

“Of course,” she said. No big deal. Transformation. Real transformation of matter. Most transformations were only a matter of rearranging mass. Werewolves were big because men were bigger than wolves. Turning a person into a toad would only result in a toad the size of a man. To turn a woman into a single, delicate orchid—to change her back at will—that required destruction and creation of mass. Destruction was a human skill, possible for a juiced-up sorcerer. Creation—wasn’t.

He took her arm again, and she yanked away. “No. We are not traveling that way again.”

Dunne’s face darkened. “We don’t have a lot of time—”

“Enough for you to lecture me on ethics. Enough for you to prove your skills. I think we have enough time to take a car wherever we go next.” She met his eyes, refused to back down. He could force the issue, she supposed. But he was weak, too. He was desperate, and he needed Sylvie.

“Fine,” he said. He gestured in a manner that looked a lot less like a spell trigger than a man throwing his hands up in exasperation. With the sudden rearrangement Sylvie was beginning to get used to, her truck appeared in the parking lot nearby, its battered and clawed red hood a familiar beacon.

“Great,” she said, her poise restored with its appearance. The clawed hood reminded her she’d survived a lot more intrinsically malevolent creatures than Dunne was turning out to be. “But tell me this. Where are we going?”

“To look for him,” Dunne said. Bewildered panic entered his eyes again.

Sylvie found a bench and sat on it, noticing campus security showing up more and more in her line of sight, blooming like fungus after a rain. Watching Dunne. Not approaching him. Just watching.

“Everyone’s looking for him. Sit down, Dunne, and let’s do this right. You accused me of not thinking, so let’s think. Where was he the last time you saw him? When exactly was that?”

“I’ve told the cops that,” Dunne said.

“Look, what do you suggest I do?” Sylvie said. “Wave a wand? I’m no witch. I am what you see, what my reputation declares me: an inquisitive bitch with a gun. I suppose I could wander the streets like your mindless cops, calling his name like he was a lost cat. . . .”

The police reports appeared in her lap. He slumped forward, head in his hands. “That’s efficient,” she said.

She flipped through the first report. Not local, these boys. Chicago. She frowned. She hated Chicago—all that concrete, those looming high-rise buildings, and the poor man’s ocean. Couldn’t hold a candle to the tropics. She found the Polaroid again of Brandon moving away from the camera’s eye.

“That’s the most recent one,” Dunne said, his voice rough. “It was taken the night he was abducted. Two weeks ago.”

Sylvie noted the cream-and-green sweater, the nice watch, the glittering gems in his ears. “Is he wealthy?”

“Yes,” Dunne said. “But it’s not a kidnapping.”

Yes, Sylvie thought. Of course he’d be wealthy. If you’re the play toy of a god, why not be rich. “Any vengeful exes?”

“I checked them out,” he said, raising his head to meet her eyes. “Thoroughly.”

“They still alive?” she asked.

“Of course,” Dunne said, offended. “I’m not a killer.”

“No, but your pets are,” Sylvie said. “No tricky technicalities here. You didn’t kill them. Did the sisters?”

“No,” he growled, for one moment sounding uncannily like the creatures he commanded.

Sylvie shut up, self-preservation kicking in. She flipped the picture facedown, turned it faceup, trying to restore her first impression of Brandon Wolf.

Delectable.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think about opportunists, killing for money or sex, feeding some dark fetish she’d never even imagined.

Dunne said, in echo of her thoughts, “The FBI thinks there are approximately twenty known serial killers working, and assumes there may be up to three hundred working the country unnoticed. There are more than that, but the odds are still against one of them having taken Bran, especially when you consider that Bran is more aware than most of the evils of this world. Besides, I told you. He’s not dead.” He snagged the photograph from her, looked down at it.

“You’d—feel it?” Sylvie asked, unable to keep the skepticism from her voice. “Like something out of a romance novel? Kindred souls and all that rot? You were a cop, Dunne, you know how full of shit that is. People die, and it’s an ugly surprise to their loved ones, each and every time.”

“I’d know,” he repeated. “I’m not human. I am a god.”

“Who once worked as a cop,” Sylvie said, forcing gentleness into her tone, turning the acid to humor. “Were things slow on the god front—had to moonlight?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes. “Bran—” he whispered.

Without fanfare, the skies clouded over and began to rain, a sudden Miami downpour that turned the air silver and thick with water. Sylvie grabbed the police report and bolted to her truck.

He appeared in the seat next to her, the passenger door still locked, and she said, “All right. All right.”

He seemed very close to shattering, and, god or not, he had power. She didn’t want to be at ground zero if he blew. She leaned back against her seat, let rainwater trickle down her face, and thought. Two weeks missing, no ransom, no clues. Conventional wisdom argued that Brandon Wolf was dead.

But then, Sylvie thought, stealing another glimpse at Kevin Dunne, this was not a conventional situation. There was another alternative; Brandon Wolf might have fled. Her searching could jeopardize some exotic occult protection the young man had found—but she wasn’t sure she believed it.

Dunne, despite his power, despite his minions, despite everything , kept defaulting back in her mind to Nice Guy. It made her uneasy.

She started her truck, tucking the rain-spattered police reports in the door pocket, and headed for Miami International. Chicago, huh. At least it would take her out of the satanists’ immediate reach.

“Hey, Dunne, don’t suppose you can magic me up a passport and a credit card?”