Sins & Shadows

14 Burn, Lady, Burn

“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.

A wave of flame rolled toward them, a lava tide smoking over the concrete sidewalk, splashing over the curb. Sylvie said, “Run.”

“Where?” Tish whispered.

“Away,” Sylvie said. Tish tried to retreat into the house, but Helen let loose a blast worthy of a flame-thrower and Tish screamed, changed angle, and leaped from the stoop. Helen turned to track her with burning eyes; Sylvie dropped the painting, ignored the blistering heat as Dunne’s front door smoldered, and redirected Helen’s attention with a warning shot that embedded itself in the hood of the cab.

“Leave her out of this.”

“Like you left JK? Lily said—”

“Lily’s using you,” Sylvie said. Tish was three houses away and accelerating, running flat out.

Good sense that, Sylvie thought, and lunged over the railing with far less grace than Tish, rolling, stumbling, as the flames rushed her heels, flashed up her legs and her back.

Sylvie rolled and beat at sparks. Her skin stung in a dozen places, screaming for attention, but she managed to keep focused. If she could get inside the cab, she’d run the bitch down and be gone, before Helen got up.

Sylvie dodged Helen’s burning grasp, had almost made it when a sudden change in the air warned her, and she scrambled under the cab. A lash of fire blistered paint and raised dark smoke.

Fuck, Sylvie thought again, scooting backward, knees and elbows going raw against heated asphalt. Helen knelt, the better to aim, and Sylvie rolled out the other side, gun ready. Human or not, Helen had to be stopped.

She didn’t want to kill Helen; she might be spoiled, mean, and dangerous, but she was also Lily’s dupe, as well as Sylvie’s best chance yet for finding Lily.

Sylvie raised her head in time to see another flame rushing her, and cold pragmatism took over—her or me—sighting along the gun and firing, sending Helen flying back under the force of a bullet. Winged only, Sylvie thought, and congratulated herself on avoiding the kill. Helen groaned, traced a fiery fingertip over the gash at her collarbone, and cauterized the wound.

“Sylvie!”

She pointed the same finger at Sylvie, and the flames wrapping her body rolled up her arm, as deadly as a line of belt-fed bullets.

“Sylvie,” the voice cried her name again; an engine throbbed. “Sylvie, get in the damn car!” Demalion yelled, and Sylvie turned. He leaned half-out of the open passenger door, and behind the wheel, Tish. Sylvie lunged for the car, pulled herself in, and Tish took off. Helen darted before them and Tish, eyes wide with terror, didn’t even slow. Helen burned as she bounced away.

“Are you all right?” Demalion said, voice too close for her comfort.

She twitched, realized she was sprawled in his lap, and said, “Do I look all right? What the hell did you bring Tish for?” She tried not to squirm, aware of the fit of her body against his.

“I didn’t have a choice, not this close to Dunne’s,” he said. His hands fisted, one fist bigger than the other. Tish swerved, hit a curb, and Demalion’s hands flew open. His little crystal ball bounced free and smacked Sylvie’s shin.

“Ow,” she whimpered. As if the admission was all her body had been waiting for, suddenly “ow” was all she could say. Her arm burned and stung, the flesh furrowed, her knees smarted, and if Erinya hadn’t cracked her ribs last night, Sylvie had when she hit the pavement. She looked down to see the khakis shredded at the knees from flinging herself beneath the cab. “Ow,” she said again, feeling sorry for herself.

Tish rebounded off another curb, narrowly avoided swerving into oncoming traffic, and Sylvie said, “Slow down. We’re safe now.”

“Safe?” Tish asked. Her voice was thin and lost, a child’s; she leaked tears.

“Yeah, it’s all okay, now,” Sylvie said. Tish’s speed slowed, but her hands shook.

“Safe?” Tish asked, going shrill. “How is this safe? She shot fire at us. With her hands! She tried to kill us.” She gaped at Demalion, maybe only now taking the time to really look at the “us” involved, and the car swerved again.

Sylvie grabbed the wheel. Demalion cursed and began fumbling in the depths of the car, squishing Sylvie in the process, forcing her hands from the wheel. “Get off me,” she said, crushed beneath him. Tish got the car back under marginal control, but her breath was ragged.

“I need my crystal,” Demalion said.

“Right now?”

He nodded, mouth thinned.

“Then get off me,” she said, “and let me get it.”

He leaned back, and she bent to chase it around the seat well.

“Fire?” he asked.

“You were there. You saw it. Oh, and Helen killed your guy,” Sylvie said abruptly.

“Helen?” Demalion turned to look at her, eyes wide. Their usual dark brown seemed peculiarly shiny, but then again, Sylvie’s head throbbed, and her vision was keeping pace.

Tish braked hard for a red light, the first one she’d stopped for in a mile, and the little crystal ball rolled up against Sylvie’s sneaker. She put her foot on it, reached down, and handed it back to Demalion.

“The firestarter at the bar,” she said.

“Lily,” Demalion said. “Got some info on her for you. I was coming to meet you.”

“Not Lily,” Sylvie said. “Though Lily sicced her on me. Helen wasn’t anything much last night, sparks and flint. But today, she was rolling out the fire like a dragon.”

“What the hell is going on?” Tish cried, ignoring the car honking behind her. “What’s all this got to do with Bran?”

“Nothing,” Sylvie said. “It’s all about Dunne.”

The driver behind them got out of his car and tapped on the driver’s side window. Tish shrieked and stepped on the gas. Sylvie rocked back into Demalion and winced. “Ow,” she whispered.

He touched her forearm, the blistering burn. “This was close.”

“It’s been closer,” she said, and hated that it was true. She was going to quit, find herself a spot in the sand, lie out like a lizard, and snarf drinks under a tropical sun. There would be no witches, sorcerers, succubi, monsters, gods, or girls who blew fire.

Tish ran a red light; cars honked, and Sylvie said in unison with Demalion, “Pull over!”

“I’ll drive,” Demalion said, beating Sylvie to it. She smothered her usual knee-jerk contrariness to anything Demalion said and nodded.

“How can a blind man drive a car?” Tish said. “You were at the intersection, in the car, alone. How’d you get there?”

“Drove,” Demalion said. He prodded Sylvie’s sore arm. “Who’s Helen?” Demalion said.

“Bastard,” she muttered, willing to ignore Tish for the moment. “Helen was at the bar last night; she left before the big finale. She got up this morning supercharged and superpissed. . . . Oh, hell,” Sylvie said. “It’s the damn gods!”

Tish pulled the car to a halt, and as soon as the way was clear, swung the driver’s door open and scrambled out. A passing truck buffeted them, but Tish was clear of it, pacing on the shoulder. They watched her shaking, arms clasped around herself. When Sylvie was sure Tish wasn’t going to fall into traffic, she turned back to Demalion. He tucked his crystal into his pocket and slid behind the wheel. “How does Helen fit—”

“Lily manipulated her,” Sylvie said. “We’ve got bigger problems. Dunne’s shedding pure power. Helen’s a scavenger. I saw a little of that last night; when Helen touched Erinya’s jacket, it flared. But at Dunne’s, where he’s been living, breathing, shedding—it’s like throwing chum in the water. Only this chum turns shrimp into sharks. And anyone with a hint of talent can feed on it. . . .”

Helen’s flaming hands, the insanity in her eyes, the death and damage she had done crossed Sylvie’s mind again, but this time she imagined it happening in a hundred different homes as people woke up and smelled the possibilities. Dunne had been everywhere looking for Bran. Even Miami. At its best, South Miami was a city of predators. With blood in the water—Sylvie thinned her lips, biting at the lower one until a nerve spasmed in protest.

“Not good,” Demalion said. “Let’s get Tish and get back. The ISI needs to know about this.” He leaned out of the car, calling to the dancer.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Tish said. Her face was pale, a small welt rising on her brow, and her eyes were shocky and dark-ringed. “Something’s really wrong, and it’s your fault!”

“No, it’s not,” Demalion said. “Don’t confuse the cure with the symptoms. We’re trying to make things right—”

“By sneaking and prying? I don’t trust you. I don’t like you, and Bran was scared to death of you. I only helped ’cause I had to. Go to hell.” Her eyes flickered over Sylvie’s for a second; her face crumpled into tears. “Both of you.” She raised her hand, dashed tears from her eyes, and waved frantically at oncoming traffic.

Demalion cursed under his breath and got out to corral her. Sylvie shook her head. Both of them idiots. Nothing good could ever come from a grown man chasing a screaming young woman around a major highway. Sylvie hit the horn and stuck her head out. “Demalion, get back here. Call her a damn cab if you’re worried.”

He got back into the car and dialed a number. “It’s Demalion. I need a cab pickup. . . .”

Sylvie snatched the phone from his grasp. “A real cab. Not the ISI!”

“She needs to tell us what she saw,” Demalion said.

“She needs to go stick her head in the sand and pretend nothing happened.”

“You think that’s okay?”

It was what Dunne wanted, Sylvie thought. She didn’t want him angry at her. “Leave her alone, Demalion.”

Lips tight, he recovered his phone, and dialed Airport Cabs, holding the phone out so that Sylvie could hear the dispatcher.

Then he put the car into gear and pulled them back into traffic. “Well, you saw what happened better anyway. Saw and understood . . .”

“I’m not going to talk to the ISI, either,” she said. “I should be hunting Bran. Hell, I should be at home,” she said, still mulling over that increase of ability that Helen had shown. “Dunne was in Miami. Talents will be ramping up there, too.”

“Best to find Wolf and be done with this. What could you do in Miami, anyway?”

“Whatever I had to, to protect it,” she said. “But maybe that concept’s alien to a government drone who thinks every problem can be handled with the appropriate paperwork.”

“Maybe your track record’s not the best at protection,” he snapped back. “Or was Suarez one of your success stories?”

She punched him, lost in rage, ignoring the common-sense rule that hitting the driver was a bad idea. Close quarters, but he managed to hunch a shoulder up to take the blow and keep the car from swerving. Much. A horn blared beside them.

“You’re reckless,” he said, his own temper burned out. “You’re dangerous. You used to think, Sylvie. What changed? Keep going the way you’re going, and you’ll be no different than the people you fight against.”

“Fuck you,” she muttered. She slumped against the passenger door, as far from him as she could manage. “Just drive.”

Traffic slowed and snarled as they approached orange cones on the street. Sylvie thought road work with minimal interest, more caught up in wondering what Dunne would do if she did pick up and run home. He’d send the Furies to retrieve me, she thought. But I could kill them if I laid a trap, made plans. They’re monsters. Fair game.

But she didn’t want to kill them, not Erinya with her quick tempers and childish ways, not elegant Alekta, or Magdala, who proved even deadly creatures could be dull. She was sick of killing things.

“We need to do something, or Wolf will die,” Demalion said, in uncanny echo of her thoughts. “You don’t want the ISI, then what?”

“Consensus is he’s already dead. Dunne’s the only holdout,” Sylvie said. She gritted her teeth as the car came to a dead stop. Becalmed in the asphalt sea, she thought. She hated this city.

“He’s a god,” Demalion said. “You don’t think he might know something you don’t?”

“You sure jumped on the bandwagon easily,” Sylvie said, “and you haven’t even seen him in action.” She blinked. That wasn’t right. The cab/agent had said something. I know what Dunne did to Demalion.

“Seen more ’n enough,” Demalion said. She met his steady gaze, and he reached out slowly, touched her chin, turned her head toward the street before them.

“Oh,” Sylvie said. No wonder the traffic had stopped. The worn lane markings on the roadway were peeling away, winding upward like airborne ribbons and spilling backward, touching down and gluing cars into place, creating a spiderweb that slowly sucked vehicles into the asphalt. A busload of tourists had gotten out and were snapping pics as drivers crawled out of windows of trapped cars.

“It’s been happening all day,” he said. “Not this. But things. You say Dunne’s shedding? I say, tell me something I couldn’t have guessed.”

“All day?” she said, staring at the webbing with more creeping terror than fascination.

“Transformations have happened all over town,” Demalion said. “People have died. But you don’t want the ISI to help. You want to go it alone.

“We really could help, Sylvie. You want to go home, worried about what? Your family, your friends? I could have the ISI pick them up—”

Wrong thing to say, Sylvie thought. So terribly wrong. She went cold all the way through. “If you do, I’ll dig around, Demalion, find your family—you said they’re local—drag them into this,” Sylvie said. “Do they know what kind of job you have?”

“Point made,” Demalion said. His jaw tightened. “I don’t like threats, Shadows.”

“You started it.”

“It wasn’t meant as a threat.”

Sylvie stopped further explanation by drawing out the meat gun, setting it in her lap. “Stay away from my people. Or you’ll find out how dangerous I really am.” Even she was unnerved at the quiet fury in her tone.

Demalion raised an eyebrow like an aristocrat being abused by a peasant. But, and Sylvie had to admit it, Demalion had always had common sense as well as smarts. He merely nodded.

Sylvie continued in the same quiet tone, “We’ve come to a truce, you and I, am I right? Let’s not jeopardize it.”

“I’d call it a detente, myself, and one-sided at that,” Demalion said.

“I gave you Lily’s name. I gave you Dunne’s identity.”

“You didn’t,” he said. “You didn’t say which god.”

“Does it matter?” Sylvie felt the exasperation seep in and, even as she bridled with annoyance, admired the technique. Demalion backed her away from the killing edge, transforming shouting to bickering.

“I’d just like to know what pantheon I should convert to,” Demalion said.

“Not funny,” she said. “He’s the Greek god of Justice, and it’s a new position, so don’t give me grief about there being no such god.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “You’d be surprised at how little I want to make you unhappy.”

“This is trying to make me happy?” She slipped the gun back into the holster. “You’re right, as much as I hate to admit it. I find Wolf, I get Dunne to clean up his mess. Without Wolf, it only gets worse.”

She reluctantly added, “Alex sent me some addresses. Stop by an Internet cafe, I’ll print the list. They’re places she thought Lily might be living in. We . . .” The word felt strange on her lips. Good, in a way she didn’t want to think about. “We could check them out.”

He took his eyes from the road for a long moment, looking at her. Then he nodded once, and said, “Lead the way.”