Lies & Omens

9 Regrouping

LUXURY HAD ITS PLACE, SYLVIE THOUGHT AS SHE SETTLED MORE comfortably in the leather seat. The motor hummed quietly, the ride was smooth, and the car was pleasantly dim in the midday heat. Sylvie fumbled out her cell phone, found it cracked through, and said, “Alex. Phone?”

“Calling Val?” Alex asked, passing her phone back.

“Yeah. Her estate isn’t going to be much of a safe haven if it kills us as we try to get in.”

Demalion grunted from the driver’s seat. “We’ve had enough near-death moments today. I’m forbidding any more of them. My nerves can’t take it.”

“Aw, poor baby,” Alex teased.

Demalion’s glance toward her was not amused.

Sylvie ignored the start of their bickering and dialed Val. Usually, Val refused to answer Sylvie’s calls, but Sylvie was betting that with Zoe AWOL, Val would answer, no matter the time. Sylvie turned her watch, thought, actually her timing wasn’t that bad. Ischia was about six hours ahead. Dinnertime.

“Sylvie,” Val said.

She sounded so calm and competent that Sylvie felt strange, choking tears rise in her throat. “God, Val, I need your help.”

The line hummed between them for a long moment, then Val said, “What do you need?”

Ten minutes and copious notes later, Sylvie disconnected from Val, feeling better about their strained relationship than she had in ages. Nothing like knowing that your friend—no matter how justifiably pissed off—wasn’t going to leave you high and dry when your life was on the line.

Sylvie passed one part of the list to Alex, said, “We’re going to need to make a stop for supplies.”

Alex nodded.

Behind Sylvie, Lupe stirred and moaned, and Sylvie peered over the seat back. Lupe’s eyelashes fluttered, her hand flailed weakly. Her nails, Sylvie noted, were deep blue-black, another transformation that had failed to erase itself. Sylvie just hoped that the venom hadn’t made the transition back to human along with the claws. Lupe’s temper was far too dangerous.

“What happened?” Lupe said.

“Too much to explain. But hey,” Sylvie said dryly, “you made a friend.”

“I dreamed about a monster,” Lupe whispered. “Her teeth in my throat.”

“Her heart in your hands,” Sylvie said. “Her name is Erinya. She likes you.”

“It was real?” Lupe asked. “I dreamed I killed a man.” When Sylvie didn’t deny it, she turned her face away, toward the dark leather seat, hiding from reality, and nothing Sylvie said after that could draw her into speech again.

Finally, Sylvie just slumped back in her seat and closed her eyes. Not sleeping. Not yet. But she could rest her eyes.

Demalion kept the SUV running while Alex grabbed items on Val’s list and on hers, tearing through one magic bodega and one gun shop with an efficiency Sylvie envied.

Sylvie wanted to go in with Alex, keep an eye on her, make sure she got everything on the list, but she couldn’t leave Lupe unattended. The woman seemed wrung out, unable to move, much less shift shape and rampage some more, but better not to take the chance.

Alex returned, laden down with bags, and passed Sylvie the Taser. “Here,” she murmured with a sidelong glance at Lupe. “It’s got a charged battery, and the cartridges are loaded.”

Sylvie folded it against her side like the world’s oddest security blanket and let herself drowse. Soon enough, she smelled the sea, heard the city traffic stop echoing off concrete facades, disappearing out over the waves. She opened her eyes, and they were passing the Seaquarium and the Rosenstiel School, opened her eyes again, and Demalion was pulling up to Val’s driveway gate.

He stopped the SUV and she slid-tumbled out the side door; she keyed in the passcode Val had given her, and the gate rumbled into motion, pulling back. She put her hand up—wait—and went back for the bag of magical supplies. Nothing too exotic—a white feather, some salt, a few white pebbles polished to a dull gleam, a handful of red chalk. Seemed hard to believe that was all it was going to take to carve a doorway through Val’s wards.

Val had said that Zoe would be the best to do the spell; that since Zoe had lived there, even briefly, the spellwork would be like turning a key. For anyone else, Val said, it was going to take brute willpower.

Sylvie felt a little low on brute willpower, but there wasn’t another alternative. She knelt on the smooth black asphalt of the drive, in the shadow of the SUV, and took a deep breath. She wasn’t a witch. She’d used spells once or twice. Always paid for it. Magic made her sick. Part of her Lilith bloodline. The same thing that made her resistant to magic punished her for using it. She expected it would only get worse. Lilith, at the end, hadn’t been able to cast even the simplest of spells.

She marked four of the pebbles—one for each of them—with a symbol that Val swore meant benign. Sylvie just hoped the stone couldn’t tell the truth. They were a ragtag crew who meant no harm to Val, but she wouldn’t call any of them benign. Even Alex wouldn’t fit that description to a witch’s gaze since she was marked by Eros, the god of Love, and was burdened with an active and malevolent memory curse.

“Sylvie, do you need help?” Alex asked.

Sylvie shook her head. “Go back to the SUV. If I can’t shift the spell right, it could get ugly.”

Alex made a face but did as she was bid.

Sylvie plunged into spellwork with nausea growing in her chest, her heart throbbing. By the time she rose from her knees—the asphalt swallowing the chalk down, preparing to listen to her commands—the feather weighed her wrist down as if it were made of lead. She raised the feather, raised the wards with it, and nearly collapsed under the weight of something intangible but impossibly heavy. The world seemed to sway around her, as if she were peeling back the sky. The wards lifted, and she jerked a shoulder forward. Demalion, watching for her signal, moved the SUV through the ward. The feather vibrated in Sylvie’s hand, and she hung on to it with nothing but a last burst of determination.

The moment the SUV was through, she let the feather drop. It burned as it fell, disappeared into ash, and the wards snapped back around them. A witch might have seen something spectacular in it. Sylvie only felt the wrongness of the world being forced away. She stumbled, fell forward, and Demalion caught her.

“Just a little bit more,” he said.

Once they were through the perfectly mundane alarm on the door, Sylvie headed for the nearest bedroom on autopilot. She’d been up for sixty-plus hours, fought four pitched battles, and dealt with more chaos than even she could handle. Not to mention being shot and healed.

The floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the ocean, and Sylvie gave the spectacular view a cursory glance, making sure no one was lurking. Then she spilled face-first onto the bed. It felt like heaven.

She was vaguely aware of Demalion tugging her one way then another, peeling off clothes and shoes, sliding her under sheets, but mostly she was aware of the yawning darkness in her brain. The dreamworld waiting for her. She had a moment to hope that the Mora’s taint hadn’t left a mark; the last thing she wanted was to find her sleep interrupted by nightmares.

Then she was gone.

IT WAS TWILIGHT WHEN SHE WOKE, DEMALION A WARM PRESENCE wrapped around her, his arm heavy across her ribs. The waves outside had gone phosphorescent around the edges. Sylvie felt struck stupid and boneless with exhaustion, but the world was making itself known again: Her brain started churning out worry for Zoe, worry about what had been done with Lupe, where Alex was.

What was coming out of the waves.

She struggled out of Demalion’s grip—sleeping, the man folded up like origami and took his partners with him—and stepped soft-footedly toward the windows. She expected it to be a hallucination brought on by tiredness and exertion, but the closer she got, the more real it looked. A man—slim-shouldered, dark-haired—rising out of the sea.

He was too far away to make out any expression, but his impatience seemed to reach out toward her, passing through the air and the glass, beating against her skin. Come out and talk to me. Don’t make me wait.

A coercion charm of some kind. Sylvie felt it fluttering against her nerves, urging her toward movement. She could push it off, but truth was, she had her own eagerness adding to it. She wanted to know what the hell he was. How he was involved.

Sylvie reached for her pants, but they smelled so much of blood and char and sweat that she let them fall, too repulsed to worry about modesty. She picked up her gun and went out to meet the intruder in a tank top and her boyshorts. Hell, she had swimsuits that covered a lot less, and at least both the tank and underwear were black.

She walked down the lawn, the earth warm beneath her feet, the grass cool as it soaked up the evening breezes. Her bare feet were cat-silent as she walked, the faint rustling masked by the sway and rattle of palm fronds. He spotted her coming, raised his head, and scowled, taking in the gun held loosely in her hand.

She stopped a healthy twenty feet from the shore—no way was she approaching him in his own environment—still within the wards. He waited, scowl darkening, his arms crossed over his chest. She shook her head, snapping his hold on her. Not happening. If he wanted to talk, he’d have to come to her.

He slogged up the sandy shore, and when he was within speaking distance, she asked, “How’d you find me?”

“I have your sense in my skin,” he said. “I can track you.”

“Charming,” she said. She remembered that now, the feel of his hand on her skin. His other shape a dolphin … she tried to recall old field trips to Seaquarium, recall old marine biology classes. Dolphins had some type of electrosensing ability, didn’t they?

“On better days, you’d be surprised how charming I can be,” he said. He smiled, his teeth white and sharp beneath the jut of his nose. A predator’s grin. He lingered at the very edge of the ward, as if he could sense it as easily as she could. Probably easier. He wasn’t human; he lived in the currents of magic.

“You got a name?” she asked. “Since you managed to cop a feel, I think I deserve a name.” She supposed she should be asking him what he wanted, but she thought, just once, she’d start with the easy stuff.

He sighed, a strange half-whistled sound, widened his smile. It still looked toothily insincere. “Women. They always want a name.” Something seethed beneath his skin; she thought she recognized it. Anger.

“So you answer to what? Player?”

He squinted up at her; apparently his English didn’t go so far as modern dating references. “You don’t need my name. We’re not going to be friends.”

“Fine by me,” Sylvie said.

“I want to know what the Mora said. If she told you why she was attacking those humans.”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just tell me,” he snapped. “I don’t have time to play games with a trigger-happy human.”

Sylvie crossed her arms over her chest, tapped her gun meaningfully. “Games, no. Basic courtesy? Never a bad thing.”

“Courtesy.” He looked back toward the glistening water, the oily snake ripples of slow waves beneath the moonlight. “This whole visit is a courtesy. I could have compelled you.”

“Could have tried,” Sylvie said. “Look. The Mora didn’t say much. A lot of We were here first, you should remember us, and one small hint that maybe she was sent. She didn’t give me name, rank, and serial number. Too busy trying to kill me by nightmares.”

“Her words?”

Sylvie huffed out exasperation. He raked water from his hair with an impatient hand, spat salt water at her feet. The wards hissed and bubbled. The air smelled of fish.

“I challenged her. Said I knew someone had to be sending them. It’s just not normal behavior for the Magicus Mundi.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not.” Some of the anger drained away. “You’re aware of this?”

“It was the succubus that convinced me,” Sylvie said. “I know them. They drain their victims over the course of several days. Weeks if they’re feeling sentimental. They don’t pick up automatic weapons and start mowing down government agents. They don’t waste their food.”

“And mermaids don’t come this far inland, and sand wraiths don’t like lake cities. It’s anomalous. People are paying attention.”

“No, they’re really not,” Sylvie said. “That’s the other half of the problem.”

“Not your people,” he said, lips twisting. “Mine. Humans. Think you’re the only ones that matter. We were here from the beginning. We’ve been around since before your kind had language. We are the people. You all are…

“What?” she challenged. Both irritated and curious. His attitude was regrettable, but she couldn’t help but find him intriguing. She’d never really sat down and had a conversation with a monster before—a few gods, yeah, but a monster? No. She was friends with a werewolf or two, but they considered themselves human, descendants of Lilith and regular wolves. Human, with extras.

His gaze was flat, black, and unfriendly. “Interlopers. Scavengers. Prey.”

“Nice,” she said.

“Are your words for us any better? Monsters? Nightmares? Creatures? Things?” He shook his head—another gesture that was subtly off. His neck didn’t seem to have the flexibility of a human’s. “It doesn’t matter. That’s not why I’m here. You didn’t learn anything from the Mora. You just killed her. So from now on? Stay out of my business.”

She felt him pressing his will on her, trying to urge her to do just that. But she was made of sterner stuff, and there was a ward between them as well. She shook it off.

“What were you going to do? Talk to her while she killed you? One thing I do know about your people … you turn on each other just as easily as you turn on us.”

He turned, disinterested. A patch of darkness on his neck showed, and Sylvie leaned forward. Was that a hole?

“Hey,” she said, pushing curiosity aside again. “I have a question.”

“I don’t care,” he said.

“Don’t make me shoot you in the leg,” Sylvie said. “We’ve been getting along so well. Come on. One question.”

He paused; his skin twitched and rippled like an animal pestered by an insect. Then he huffed. Water vapor burst out of his neck.

Hole, she thought. Blowhole. Went with the dolphin shape-shifting. She knew what he was.

“What?” he said. “Ask me your question.”

“You think something’s coercing or confusing the monsters who are attacking the ISI.”

“That’s not a question.”

“There’s someone modifying human memories also, more confusion and coercion. That your doing?” She couldn’t believe it was Yvette, much as she’d like to. The thing was, the thing Riordan hadn’t mentioned, maybe didn’t know—the memory attacks had been going on for far longer than the ISI attacks. Why would an ISI witch cover up Maudit misbehavior, some of which wasn’t even in the USA? Why would an ISI witch gunning for promotion use a power that was injuring or killing the people she was supposed to protect? It just seemed messy and disorganized. Yvette, by Demalion’s accounts, was neither of those things.

She was looking for someone else. Maybe the creature in front of her. Even as she asked, she didn’t believe it. His power was small; his field of influence narrow. He’d stood outside the wards and called, and the only one who woke was Sylvie. Because he’d touched her. The memory plague was affecting people citywide simultaneously. She let the accusation stand, though. To see what he would say. The more she kept him talking, the more chance she could figure out his angle.

“Why would I—”

“It seems to me that you’ve been sent to stop these attacks. That they’re drawing heat down on your heads. You’re not doing a good job at the main source. Not stopping the monsters. Are you cleaning up after them? You said you’re charming. You’re sure as hell working the compulsion magic. You’re Encantado.”

Like the fairy-tale creature he was, he shivered all over when she named him. As if she’d diminished him.

“Your name for my people. Not ours,” he said. “But yes, I am Encantado.”

“So, are you brainwashing my people, making them forget what your people are doing? I thought it was witchcraft, but I’m willing to adjust my theory.”

He jerked his head, teeth flashing and clicking.

Sylvie took a prudent step away. Didn’t look friendly. He pressed back up at the edge of the ward, leaned close. She could smell him—something salty and pungent and something faintly animal beneath the human skin. Legends said that the Encantado seduced women who wandered too close to the riverbanks. Right now, she couldn’t imagine any woman touching him.

She closed her hand tighter around her gun, thought of Alex and Demalion sleeping back at the house. They seemed very far away at the moment.

The ward sizzled and sang, clicks and pops that almost sound like dolphin chatter.

“It’s not our way to hide ourselves,” he said. “That’s yours. Sneaking and prying and stealing away in the dark. Aggressive, greedy, cowardly monkey-things. Someone’s taking your memories? I don’t care. Someone’s taking our lives and using them as weapons.”

His face closed off, his mouth snapped shut, his eyes shuttered. She expected him to leave, but instead he let out another huffing breath, and said, “Perhaps we can make a deal.”

“A deal?” Sylvie said. “Sure you trust a greedy monkey?”

He parted his teeth at her again; his tongue was white in the darkness.

“My people are being used. I think by the very people they attack.”

“The ISI?” Sylvie said. There was another vote for internal strife turning into a massacre.

“Yes. The better to make themselves a needed force in the world. I can’t be in two places at once,” he said. “I’ve been focusing on stopping the attacks.”

“Really,” Sylvie said. “Bang-up job. You’re what? Always an hour too late?”

“It’s my only option,” he said. “Someone’s leashing my people with magic. Leading them around like dogs. That person has to be close by. I’m hunting them. I don’t know who I’m looking for. The ISI would know. You can get inside the ISI and get out again. You can get me that name. I expect it’s one of their own. A secret branch within a secret branch. Your government would love to harness us.”

“Like a dolphin with a bomb strapped to it.”

He shot her an ugly glance. “Exactly like that. Except we don’t need any weapon but ourselves.”

“All right,” Sylvie said. “What do I get if I pass any information on to you?”

“Stopping the attacks isn’t enough?”

Sylvie shook off her ingrained urge to bargain, but before she could apologize, he said, “How about an answer to your problem. The Good Sisters.”

“The what?”

“Your memory witches. The Society of the Good Sisters. They’re the ones wiping out your memories. Or so the rumors say. More than that, I don’t know. Is that enough for our deal?”

Sylvie eyed him in the dimness, the sleek inhuman smoothness of him, and tried to figure out his angle. He had one, that was for sure. He had no love for humans, but he might be telling the truth. She had to go after Graves anyway, and if the Encantado was being truthful, if the Good Sisters existed, the ISI would have files on them.

“Yeah,” she said, but he was already moving away as smoothly as he’d come, heading for the ocean. He strode into the slow roll of the surf, smoothed into dolphin shape, and was gone.

Sylvie turned back toward the house and got light-dazzled for her pains as room after room suddenly illuminated. She headed toward the house at a careful trot, and met Alex rushing out.

“Sylvie,” Alex called, her voice reaching ahead of her. She stumbled as she came, too impatient to wait for her eyes to adapt from the interior light to the darkness outside. Impatient. Or afraid. Sylvie felt her spine go cold. She guessed Alex’s words even as she gasped them out.

“Someone’s trying to get through the wards,” Alex said, stopping before she tumbled head over heels. “How do we stop them from getting through? I know computers. Not magic.”

“We can’t,” Sylvie said. “The wards aren’t walls, Alex. They’re spellwork, nothing more.”

“But you did all sorts of magicky stuff to open—”

“Only because I didn’t want to spend our entire time here fighting the urge to get out, get out. That’s all the wards do. Give you the creeping terrors. Make you miserably ill. Encourage you to leave, posthaste. The magical equivalent of a pack of growling pit bulls. Otherwise, Val’s house would be surrounded with the bodies of solicitors and neighborhood kids who climbed the fence. It’s a pretty strong spell, though. I’ve never seen anyone defeat it. Did you see who it was?”

“No,” Alex said. “I was watching Lupe when I suddenly got the urge to get up and check the security system—that was the wards alerting me, right? The camera shows a car at the gate, but there’s no one in it. They climbed the fence?”

“It’s what I would have done. Especially if I knew the house was empty of an actual witch.”

Alex looked miserable, and Sylvie said, “Hey. Val’s place is still safer than anywhere else I was thinking of. You did good. We have a defensible place with a good warning system. And hell, if they actually try to breach the house, we’ll be swarmed with cops. Val believes in tech as well as magic.”

They’d reached the house, Sylvie ushering Alex in ahead of her. Sylvie reactivated the alarm on the door she’d come through and sent Alex to the security monitors. “See if you can get eyes on our intruder. Odds are, they’re probably either headed back toward the gate—chased out by the ward—or they’re fighting to move forward.”

“But if they got past the ward—”

“Val’s wards are nasty. You go through one, and it sticks to you. They’ll be fighting it until they’re released from it or flee. So, at the very least, our intruder’s not at their best.”

The question was, who was after them now? Lupe’s injured witch, coming back for revenge? The Maudits, belatedly realizing one of their own was dead?

“There’s nothing on the monitors!” Alex called out. While Sylvie had paused to think, Alex had hit the security room just off the main hallway. Her voice was shrill, pitched to carry, and it brought Demalion and Lupe out of their rooms. Demalion looked wary, bare-chested, gun in his hand. Lupe just looked tired. And toxic. Her crossed arms were swirled with color, bleeding up from within. Sylvie grimaced. Lupe might be too far gone to go back to human.

Sylvie headed toward the front door, waving at them to stay back, jerked her head toward Demalion, toward Lupe, and saw Demalion move to cover her.

A sudden thump thump thump sounded at the front door, muffled by the thickness of the material—steel core beneath a wood veneer.

“Alex, get eyes on the front door?”

Sylvie was surprised the intruder had made it that far. Val’s aversion spells didn’t mess around. She crept to the door, peered out through the peephole. The spyhole wasn’t a regular kind. Some sort of magic was laid on it. The figure leaning on the door was traced with layers of different-color lights. Some type of magical diagnostic Sylvie couldn’t interpret, no doubt designed to let Val know exactly who or what she was letting in.

Sylvie didn’t need the diagnostic. She recognized their inopportune caller.

“Little pig, little pig,” Marah said, her voice reedy through the door. “Let me in. Or I’ll huff, and I’ll puff…

“It’s a woman. I don’t know her,” Alex said, poking her head into the hall.

“She’s that ISI assassin I told you about. We had pictures of her, remember?”

“Sorry. Been a long few days.”

Sylvie swallowed. A long few days and some evil spellwork.

“Marah Stone,” Demalion said. “She’s okay. Let her in.”

“She’s okay?” Sylvie said. “Verdict’s not unanimous on that.”

“Sylvie, don’t be difficult,” he said.

“She works for the goddamn ISI. She’s part of the people who took my sister. You’ve seen the error of your ways. I doubt that she has.”

Demalion’s lips went white and tight, irritated. “Can’t you just, for once, trust me? Marah and I spent fourteen hours trapped under the rubble of the ISI. She’s loyal to them the same way I am. To the cause. Not the division heads.”

“She kills people.”

“So do you.”

A low blow, and that he had said it only showed her how determined he was. Demalion put his hand on the door handle. “Turn off the alarm.”

Sylvie thought of all the hell they’d been through that day, thought about Demalion’s giving himself to Erinya so she could be healed, thought about the likelihood of more violence and trouble in the near future, and decided she wasn’t going to fight him. Not on this.

She punched in the code, and Demalion opened the door. Marah all but fell into his arms. She didn’t look so hot, her skin greased with fear sweat and effort, her body shaking. The only part of her that wasn’t trembling was the Cain-marked hand, and it was rock steady as it held her gun.

She raised her head from Demalion’s bare shoulder, patted his bare chest absently, then more mindfully. Looked around. Sylvie in her underwear. Lupe in expensive loungewear borrowed from Val’s closet, Demalion’s low-slung suit pants. Only Alex was still in her street clothes, and, since those were cutoff shorts, flip-flops, and a halter top, there was a lot of skin on display.

Marah forced a grin. “Slumber party? Or orgy? Can I play?”

“What do you want?” Sylvie said.

“Right now? You to lift the fright night from my bones. C’mon, Shadows. Panicky assassin with a gun? Can’t be good.”

“Fine,” Sylvie said.

“Hey, that was easy. I thought I’d have to bribe you to—”

“Why did you come here? Riordan decide we need a babysitter?”

Demalion said, “Sylvie. Interrogate her after the spell is lifted?”

“Nah, it’s okay. I get it,” Marah said. She shivered all over, her face going grey, her eyes rolling back in her head. “Jesus, this Val is a real bitch. That was a bad one. Feels like my guts just rolled around. Feels like there are rats chewing me up from the inside; oh God, what if there are—”

“You could have hit the intercom,” Sylvie said. “Asked to be let in. Demalion, bring her.”

“No, wait, what?” Marah protested. “Back outside? I don’t want to—”

“Shut up,” Sylvie said. “We put you out; the spell drops off. Then I invite you in. Easier than trying to remove the spell while it’s active.”

Marah spasmed again, her hand clenching tight on Demalion’s shoulder. He winced; her nails raked his skin. Sylvie took advantage of the moment to take Marah’s gun from her. Or at least, that had been the plan.

For a woman fighting off a magically induced panic attack, she was damn fast. Sylvie found her outstretched hand grabbed, wrenched behind her, and her body shoved into face-first into the wall, Marah a trembling line against her back. “Don’t make me shoot you, Sylvie. You owe me favors. I intend to collect. But instincts are hard to fight.”

“Tell me about it,” Lupe said, entering the conversation for the first time. “At least you don’t turn into an animal. Sylvie, what the hell is going on? Alex only told me that we were all in danger.”

“I am, Demalion is. Alex is by proximity,” Sylvie said, easing herself out from Marah’s grip. Marah let her go, but stepped back, wary. “You’re…

“Collateral damage. Again. Brought to someone’s attention because of you. Fuck you,” Lupe said, and stormed off toward the back of the house.

“Great, glad to know why we’re all here,” Marah said. “Spell. Off. Now.”

Sylvie flung the door open, stalked down the moonlit driveway, wincing as her bare feet hit crushed rock, listening to Demalion telling Marah that it’d be all right, just a little bit longer. Platitudes. To reassure an assassin. Sometimes, she really wondered about him.

“So how’d you find us?” Sylvie said.

“Studied you, remember? I’ve got as many files on you as Demalion does, I bet. I know about Val. This was a logical place to regroup before going after Graves.”

The wrought-iron gates, looming before Sylvie, still held a tiny residual warmth from the long-set sun. She keyed it open, shoved Marah out.

The woman whooped for air, dropped her hands to her knees, and just breathed. “Holy crap, I feel better.”

“Great,” Sylvie said, and closed the gate. “Why did you come?”

“You’re going after Graves,” Marah said. “I want in. C’mon, Syl, it’s a win-win. You help me kill an asshole, and I help you get your sister, my itty-bitty baby cousin, back home safe.”

“Do you know where Riordan’s keeping her?” Sylvie opened the gate again, extended a hand to Marah. “Come in.” Her heart thumped hard in her chest; Marah’s hand in hers was cold with lingering shock, but her grip was firm.

“No. His boy’s hiding and hiding good. I tried to find him. I figured you’d be sure to let me play if I brought Zoe with me. But no dice. C’mon. I want to help. I know Graves.”

“Riordan said you liked the man.”

“He said that?”

“No,” Demalion said. “He said your instincts couldn’t be relied upon when it came to Graves.”

Marah grinned. “Now that just depends on whether or not the instincts go against orders. Right now, they’re in sync. I want to scoop his eyeballs out with my fingernails and feed them to him. Riordan wants him dead.”

“So he says,” Sylvie said.

She felt like she was surrounded by power plays. It seemed quite possible to her that Riordan would send Sylvie off with marching orders to kill Graves, secure in the knowledge that she wouldn’t, not without proof that might be hard to find. That would explain why he didn’t send Marah. Riordan’s games were hard to figure.

Marah stepped forward gingerly, burdened by the memory of fear and sickness. Demalion scanned the surrounding area, keeping an eye out for anything that might take advantage of the open gate, ready to usher them back to the fragile safety of Val’s house.

“So? What’s the plan?” Marah said.

“Haven’t gotten that far yet,” Sylvie said.

“Jesus,” Marah snapped. “It’s been ten hours since Riordan gave you orders. What the hell have you been doing?”

“Mostly? Sleeping,” Sylvie said.

“Look, we need to move fast. Graves has ears everywhere. Even in Riordan’s crew, and he’s notoriously cautious about who he talks to. I think that’s why Riordan recruited his son. Just to have a single ally he could trust. I killed Powell.”

Powell. It took Sylvie a moment to recall the agent. Last she’d seen him, he was holed up in the elevator taking potshots at everyone who passed. “You did.”

“Graves’s man. I’m pretty sure.”

Demalion groaned. “You’re pretty sure?”

“Well, he tried to shoot me.”

Demalion and Sylvie traded glances.

Marah headed up the path to the house, said over her shoulder, “Graves is a bastard, but he’s a clever one. He’s got a serious yen for using and disposing of the magical freaks. And he loves spies. I used to spy on Riordan for him. Hell, he tried to have me killed the moment I stopped saying Yes, sir and wanted to work under Yvette, and I register pure human. He’ll know we’re coming, and he’ll have access to all our weaknesses. It’s gonna be an ugly fight. Can we get your Fury in on it? Wait, no. Never mind. I want to kill him myself, and she looks like she’d be selfish.”

Sylvie and Demalion trailed after her, listening to her eager and bloody plans for Graves.

BACK IN THE HOUSE, SYLVIE EXCUSED HERSELF TO RAID VAL’S closet; she left Marah and Demalion bending their heads together, making quiet plans. She tugged Alex aside, and said, “Keep an eye on her.”

“Who is she?” Alex narrowed her gaze as Marah ran a hand through her short, dark hair and stepped closer to Demalion. “Is she hitting on him? In front of you—”

Sylvie sucked in a breath. Alex knew who Marah was. She’d been told twice, once just minutes ago. Alex’s memory was getting worse. But she was within Val’s wards—the spells should no longer reach her. Unless she was forcing the memories by digging at the cases, which seemed entirely likely, knowing Alex.

“Just watch her. She’s not a homewrecker. She’s an assassin. She’s dangerous.”

Alex crossed her arms over her chest, nervously. “What am I supposed to do if—”

“Yell,” Sylvie said. “Loudly.”

She padded down the hallway, the tiles smooth beneath her feet. The room she’d crashed in with Demalion was a guest room. Alex looked to be camped out in the living room. Her laptop hummed industriously on the huge modular sofa, a woodcut image of a mermaid on the screen; a blanket was crumpled at one end of the couch, next to a bottle of aspirin and a clutter of small plates, as if Alex had gotten up for more than one snack while working. Sylvie’s stomach growled. Food. Soon.

She heard Lupe swearing, detoured toward it. Found Lupe and her destination all at the same time. Lupe, apparently, was bunking down in the master bedroom.

Lupe jerked away from the mirror when Sylvie came in. “What do you want?”

“Clothes, mostly. How are you doing?”

“You’re really going to ask that?” Lupe threw out her hand toward the mirror; her talons, longer than she’d accounted for, scored four lines through the mirror glass. “Am I going to turn into that thing that attacked me?”

“Absolutely not,” Sylvie said.

Lupe tilted her head in a gesture more predatory than confused. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“That thing,” Sylvie said, “is a god. A slightly mixed-up, violent-tempered, but ultimately lonely god. She likes you.”

“Can she fix me?”

“Maybe. She’s being a little bit difficult about it, though. Be patient.” Sylvie opened Val’s closet. Blinked at the size. There were walk-in closets; and then there were closets that were as large as bedrooms. This closet had a window, endless drawers, hung clothing, and a shoe rack that took up more room than some library bookshelves. There was even a department-store-worthy mirror stand and two chairs. Everything was cream or white or beige or grey, linen or silk or heavy, smooth cottons that felt like satin to her fingers.

Sylvie looked at the sheer quantity and thought she’d always mocked Zoe for being a clotheshorse.

Zoe.

Sylvie pushed the fear back. They’d deal with Graves and Riordan, and Zoe’d be home safe by the next day at the latest.

“Your friend’s pretty big on island fashion, huh,” Lupe said, poking her head into the closet. She sidled around the three-sided mirror and looked out the dark window. “Ocean view, too. What is she, the witch to the rich and famous?”

“Hey, don’t snark,” Sylvie said, though her lips twitched. “If we can’t convince Erinya to think you make a better human than a shape-shifter, we’re going to be dependent on Val’s goodwill.”

“Guess I shouldn’t have broken her mirror.” Lupe didn’t sound like she cared. She slunk through the closet with an animal grace that reminded Sylvie of Erinya’s human form. No wonder Erinya was interested. Here was someone who reminded her of her sisters, who could give her the fight but came without the bossiness.

“Did Alex show you Val’s panic room?”

“You think I’m going to go monster again.”

“Try not to,” Sylvie said. “Demalion’s already taken a shot at you, and our new guest would take killing you as a personal challenge. She’s ISI. If I didn’t need her info, I wouldn’t have let her in.” She pulled open drawer after drawer and finally found khaki jeans that she didn’t think cost the earth. Sylvie dragged them on, wincing as she fastened them. Val had always been just that bit slimmer. They’d stretch.

She dragged a shirt over her black tank, sighed; Val’s wardrobe didn’t lend itself to black underclothing. It would do. She buttoned the shirt, realized Lupe hadn’t said much in the past minute or two, and turned. Lupe was huddled up on one of the chairs, being careful of her talons on the fabric.

Sylvie replayed the conversation and grimaced. “Sorry. They’re not trigger-happy or anything. You’re perfectly safe. You feel the changes coming on, right? So we just get you in the panic room at that point. No harm, no foul. No shooting.”

“Can’t really blame ’em,” Lupe said. “I’m a monster.” She blinked slitted eyes at Sylvie, showed fang teeth in a wry grimace. “You know the most bizarre thing? I think I could deal with the shape-shifting. With never knowing what I might become or when it might happen.

“What I can’t stand? Is not going back to human. I don’t know whether it’s vanity or what, but I look in the mirrors, and all I see is this… thing. When I’ve shape-shifted, I don’t care.”

Sylvie bit back her knee-jerk analysis: that Lupe didn’t care because the animal instincts were too strong, too centered on killing things. After the attacks on her girlfriend, her nephew, the witch, and Toro, Sylvie had no doubts that any shape Lupe took would be instantly predatory. Dangerous.

“Maybe we can work with that,” she said, instead. “At least, as a stopgap thing. Remove the side effects, make things more livable, let you be able to go out and about on the street. Worry about the actual curse-shifting as a separate thing.” It was far from ideal. Far from solving Lupe’s problem, and from the slump of Lupe’s shoulders, she knew it.

“Might be the best I can get is that what you’re saying?”

“Well, it gives us a more reachable goal,” Sylvie said.

“If you have time for it,” Lupe said. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed, Sylvie. Something big is going on, and you’re in trouble.”

“We’re all in trouble, all the time. The moment the Magicus Mundi notices you, your life is trouble. But you’re not wrong. The ISI grabbed my sister. I have to get her back.”

Lupe picked at the fabric on the chair; seams popped with each idle flick of her talon, shedding fluff and creamy threads. “The ISI. The same ones who’d put me in a cage or just shoot me?”

“I think you’re off their list for now,” Sylvie said. “They’re under attack from within.”

“And they took your sister? Why? Leverage against you?” Said in the weary tones of a cynical rich kid. The Fernandezes, Sylvie recalled, had spent nearly two years in Mexico City, where kidnappings were common.

“I don’t pretend to know how they think, if they even do. But I have to—”

“I get it,” Lupe said. “She’s your sister. She’s more important than me. I’m just a—”

“Lupe, lock it down,” Sylvie interrupted. The thread-picking had given way to gouging, and the skin along her shoulders was … sliding around like oil on water. “Or go sit in the panic room.”

Lupe sucked in her breath, let it out on a growl that she seemed surprised to hear. “All right.” She bolted for the panic room, Sylvie hot on her heels, and she got the door closed, just as Lupe went to her knees.

“Lock yourself in!” Sylvie said. Hoped Lupe would listen. Hoped her animal shape couldn’t learn how to deal with locks. She waited until she heard the hiss and thunk of heavy bolts sliding into place, then went to find the rest of her ragtag crew, with worry a bitter taste in her mouth.

Alex dithered in the hall as she approached. “You’re back? I can stop watching?”

“Yeah,” Sylvie said.

“Good.” Alex darted for the nearest bathroom. “Four cups of coffee!”

“Bring me some!” Sylvie yelled after her, then went in to talk to the rogue ISI.

Demalion looked up as she entered, grinned. “Nice pants.”

“Shut up,” she said. “They’ll stretch. Tell me about Graves.”

An unearthly howl resonated through the house, and Marah jerked for her gun. “What the hell is that?”

“Client,” Sylvie said. “Sit down. Graves, remember?”

“Can’t forget that bastard,” Marah said. “He’s mine to kill, you get it? Don’t make this a fight.”

“Saves me the trouble,” Sylvie said, “and the jail time. Go for it.”

Demalion shook his head but didn’t even make a pro forma protest. Guess turning traitor was what it took to get the okay from Demalion on planning murder.

“He was working out of Dallas,” Demalion said, “but they were the first hit.”

“So we hear,” Sylvie said. “Do we know that it’s true? If Graves is behind the killing, what better way to start by preemptively giving his people an alibi. Do we actually know they’re dead?”

Alex wandered back into the room, passed a steaming mug to Sylvie, who slurped at it, first for need, then for real appreciation. Rich friends. Excellent coffee.

“I’ve been looking into it. There are definitely bodies that hit the Dallas morgue,” Alex said. “Gas leak was the story put out. Death by asphyxiation. Or is it suffocation in that case? Whatever. There are a lot of creature stories about things that steal breath. So something happened.”

“Maybe it was a test sample,” Marah asked. “Graves is capable of that.”

Sylvie looked to Demalion. He said, “I can’t confirm that. I have serious doubts that anyone psychotic enough to kill his own men in an experiment would be recruited in the first place, much less rise through the ranks.”

Marah’s jaw ticced. Rage flashed through her eyes. Her fist clenched; the Cain mark seemed to undulate over her flesh. Then she reached out and patted Demalion’s cheek. “So sweetly naïve.”

“Hey,” Sylvie protested. “Watch your tone.”

Marah shrugged. “Look, I know Graves. I worked for him. And yeah, he knows how to play the game. Knows how to keep himself looking clean. But he’s not. He’s the monster-catcher. He kills them. Experiments on them. Sylvie. You and I know killing. It gets easier each time. And we’re not zealots.”

“Fair enough,” Sylvie said.

Demalion looked like he might protest, and she dropped a hand on his thigh. A quiet not now. She had things she wanted to discuss, but Marah was exuding a hectic, violent cheer that made Sylvie think of ticking bombs. In the back of the house, Lupe howled and whined, quieter now.

Alex said, “You need plane tickets?”

“For the morning,” Sylvie said.

“Now,” Marah said.

“No,” Sylvie said. “You’ve invited yourself along. I can’t say I’m sorry, but that doesn’t put you in charge, Marah. We are not rushing this. The one thing we all agree on is that Graves is dangerous. If he’s behind the attacks, he’s a thinker, also. The kind of man who has contingency plans. We go in the morning. Well rested and researched.”

“I like that idea,” Alex said. “C’mon, Marah, is it? I’ll find you a room.”

Marah twitched like it was a physical pain to not go for Graves right away.

“Sheets are six-hundred-thread count,” Sylvie said. “Soft as silk. Hell, some of them even are silk. There’s no complaining about Val’s hospitality.”

Marah groaned. “Not fair, using sheets against me. I suppose she’s got scads of hot water also.”

“Tankless system.”

“I’m licked. Lead me to it. Revenge in the morning.”

Demalion reached across her and pushed the papers that Marah had been holding. “She brought blueprints of the Dallas ISI.”

“Do we really think Graves is still there? If he’s this rogue ISI terrorist?”

“You obviously don’t,” Demalion said.

“I don’t know,” Sylvie said. She slumped down next to him, butted her shoulder up tight against his side. He draped an arm over her shoulder and pulled her closer. “I’ve been saying that an awful lot of late. I don’t like it. I just feel like there’s more going on here. Riordan’s not impartial. He was slinging a lot of mud.”

“If it helps, I really doubt Yvette’s behind the memory spells,” Demalion said. “They’ve been going on for some time, right?”

“Society of the Good Sisters,” Sylvie murmured. “Sounds like a quilting group. That sound familiar to you?”

“Should it?”

“Dolphin boy thinks they’re our memory culprits.”

“When did he say that?”

She waved it off and went back to Graves. “The thing that’s bugging me. The thing I can’t get over. How is Graves doing it? If he is doing it? He’s human. Not even magically talented from everything I hear. How’s he controlling the mundi monsters?”

“Fear?”

Sylvie flicked his cheek. “They’re the monsters, Demalion. We fear them. Not the other way around. They’re committed to these actions. I talked to the Mora, saw the footage of the succubus attack. You survived the sand wraith. Did it seem frightened to you?”

“It seemed angry,” he said. “I don’t know what to tell you, Sylvie. I know that Yvette distrusts Graves. I know that Riordan, who’s pretty damned sensible, thinks Graves is our guy. I’m willing to go on a little faith.”

“Faith,” Sylvie said. “Yeah. I’m not much for that. Requires too much working blind.”

“Hey,” Demalion said, pulling her to her feet. “Think about it this way. You’re working to get Zoe back. And I can guarantee you that Graves is no innocent.”

“It’ll have to do,” Sylvie said. She stretched, felt her back pop and crack, and thought about another few hours of sleep.

Demalion rubbed at the back of her neck, long fingers soothing as they carded through the tangles of her hair. “So. Dolphin boy was here? You let me sleep through it? Saw him alone?”

“Oh God, in the morning,” Sylvie said. “I’m too tired to argue.”

She tugged away from him, headed back for the bedroom. She stopped to move Alex’s blanket over the young woman; Alex was facedown on the couch, a few inches from her laptop. Sylvie closed it, slid it beneath the couch for safekeeping, then just stood there.

“She’s forgetting more things,” she said.

“She asked me how things were going in Chicago,” Demalion said.

Sylvie grimaced. “What did you say?”

“Not much. I started to, and she sort of went blank while I was watching her. Sylvie. Whoever these witches are. Good Sisters? They’re getting stronger. I don’t think we can count on Alex’s research skills now. Researching is making her worse.”

“Agreed. God, if Riordan weren’t kidnapping family members, I’d send Alex home. Get her out of this mess. I just hope she remembers that Lupe is dangerous.”