3
Monsters
ALEX MADE WAY FOR THEM AND THEIR PARADE OF BOXES, PROPPED herself up on the desk, and watched as the boxes stacked up in the kitchenette. “Is that Tierney Wales?” she asked on one of Sylvie’s trips in that coincided with one of his exits.
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s the Ghoul.”
Alex frowned. “He’s skinny.”
“So feed him a sandwich. Just don’t adopt him,” Sylvie said. She dropped the box she held, listening to the rustling of dried flesh scrabbling at cardboard; she’d picked the damn short straw again. She kicked the box toward the closet, wanting to wash her hands of an imaginary contamination. And Wales carried these things in his pockets.
Alex was still rubbernecking, watching Wales stack boxes outside the door. “He doesn’t look like a necromancer. He looks like a stressed-out grad student.”
She caught Sylvie’s scowl and flushed. “Okay, okay, necromancers don’t wear black robes and chant all the time. I get it. Just . . . he looks . . . scared. I didn’t think necromancers got scared.”
“Yeah, about that,” Sylvie said. “You up for a vacation?”
“What?” Alex narrowed her gaze. “You’re trying to get me out of the way again.”
“Better me than Odalys,” Sylvie said. “Someone tried to flambé me in the office last night.”
“Is that what happened to the bell?” Alex asked. “I saw it had gone all melty.”
“And you just stuck around?”
“I figured whatever happened had happened, and I knew you were all right. So it didn’t seem that important.”
“It’s important,” Sylvie said. “I think it’s Odalys. She sent someone out to slice and dice Wales. There was even some mention of taking out Zoe. Thank god for Val.” She grimaced at the welling of gratitude in her breast. Not her usual sentiment when it came to the witch. But after Val had seen Zoe’s occultly stained hand and forearm, she’d decreed that Zoe needed protecting.
“And you, you’ve been caught in the magical cross fire before, Alex. You need to be more careful.”
Alex waved a dismissive hand. “I am careful. Besides, Odalys doesn’t even know I exist. Sucks about Zoe and Wales, though. What are we going to do to protect them?”
That was Alex all over. An abundance of caution. For other people. Reckless trust in her own safety. It made no sense at all. It wasn’t like Alex had led a charmed life even before she’d become Sylvie’s partner.
“Zoe’s in no trouble right now,” she said. “Not tucked under Val’s wing. The Cassavetes estate is proof against pretty much anything but nuclear magic.”
“If she stays there,” Alex said. She surged off the desk and opened the door for Wales, helped him steady the last few boxes. “Hi. Tierney, right? I’m Alex. Sylvie’s partner and all-around researcher.”
He blinked at her, her bleached-blond hair, her bright makeup, the pink-nailed hand held out toward him the moment the boxes were down, and took a step backward. “Hi?”
Figured, Sylvie thought. Give him death, give him antagonism, give him trouble, and Wales was mouthy and cynical. Face-to-face with a friendly smile, his personality locked up.
“So did Sylvie tell you what was going on? Bears? That’s new. I mean, I get werewolves, I’m used to werewolves at this point, but bears?” Alex chattered easily, pushing Wales toward the kitchenette. “Guess it’s ’cause we don’t have bears around much. You think there are more shape-shifting bears in the West? Were-bears? Like Care Bears, only not?”
Wales looked back at Sylvie, eyes wide and entreating as they hadn’t been even when faced with a knife-wielding assassin. Sylvie smothered her desire to laugh and didn’t step in to bail him out. Wales gnawed his lip, then said, “I don’t know. I’m mostly about necromancy. I don’t . . . Shape-shifters? Shadows, I don’t know anything about shape-shifters. If that’s what you brought me here for, then you’re wasting my time and yours.”
“I do know about shape-shifters,” she said. “I know they don’t play dead well enough to be body-bagged before they wake up and change shape. These women were dead. Cold and dead. You need to pay better attention, Wales. I told you that on the road.”
His response was a petulant huff better suited to a teenager than an adult and was followed by another spew of backchat that made Sylvie wish he was as tongue-tied around her as he was around Alex. “Well, you’ll have to excuse me some since I was still thinking on the man that came to knife me. Normal people need recovery time for that sorta thing.”
Alex’s eyes widened in sympathy, and her urgings that he sit down and have a pastelito and a coffee overrode Sylvie’s reflexive snort of, “You’re holding yourself up as normal now, Ghoul?”
When Alex’s fussing looked like it might drive Wales away, Sylvie said, “Alex.” It was more than a reprimand; Sylvie had Odalys to deal with, and her idea didn’t look any better now than it had earlier, but it was all she had.
“You need something?” Alex said.
“You still got . . . Wright’s contact info?”
In the kitchenette, Wales shot to attention, nearly dropping the paper plate Alex had pressed on him. “Hey, I nearly forgot about your possession case. You got rid of his ghost all right?”
Sylvie snapped, “Mind your own business. Alex, you got it?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, slowly, a drawl that nearly matched Wales’s natural speech and was alien in her mouth, a mark of her uncertainty. “But didn’t you . . . I mean, you’ve got it, too, right?”
“You’re the one who’s going to call, though,” Sylvie said. “Just let him know about Odalys’s bid for power, would you?”
She wanted to call; her fingers itched for the phone. She wanted to hear the cadences of his speech in Adam Wright’s voice. But Demalion had a job to do—two jobs, neither simple. Better to wait until he’d dealt with one or the other. ISI or Wright’s family.
Wales shook his head. “What do you think a Chicago cop can do about a Miami necromancer? You’re grasping at—” His gaze narrowed. “That ghost of his was from the ISI. You gave the body to the ghost?”
“Gave isn’t the word I’d use,” Sylvie said.
“Christ,” Wales said. “And the man inside, the man who owned the body? What’d you do with his soul?” He set the plate back on the counter, the pastry untouched.
“It’s none of your business,” Sylvie said again.
“Death magic is my business, and if I’m going risk myself in the swamps with you, I’d like to know that you’re not going to sell me out for your own—”
“She didn’t.” Alex stopped them both. She slammed herself into her seat, her coffee mug onto the desk. It sloshed but didn’t spill. “It wasn’t her fault. Wasn’t anyone’s fault. Wright died. Demalion got the body, but there was no taking or stealing or anything like that.”
“Were you there?” Wales asked. “Or is that what she told you?”
Sylvie gritted her teeth. “Alex. Call him. See if he can get a word to the ISI gossip chain; see if they can be bothered to take an interest. Maybe we can make her their problem. Wales, I’m going to say this once more. Leave this topic alone.”
“He came to you for help,” Wales pushed.
Sylvie said, “I did what I could.” Her throat felt tight, a little ragged, but the conviction shone through, surprising even her. The guilt she’d been afraid of for days crumbled. It was true. She could grieve for Adam Wright’s death; she could be uncomfortable seeing his body walking around with a new owner; but ultimately Wright had chosen to die as he’d lived: helping people.
If she could summon his spirit back from whatever afterlife he’d found, she thought that Wright’s regrets would be sharp but few. It might be self-serving thinking—Wales clearly believed she was to blame—but Sylvie was going to cling to it. She was tired of grief and guilt.
“So, monsters and dead things that kill cops. You ready, Ghoul?”
Alex said, “Call Suarez first. He wanted
to talk to you. Wouldn’t leave the message with me. You might let him know that I’m in on the big stuff; it makes message taking a lot easier.”
“Hey,” Sylvie said. “Caution’s a nice trait. ’Sides, you ever think that it wasn’t you he was worried about but whoever might have been listening in on his end? Cop who talks about magic like a real thing might get a bad reputation pretty quick.”
She dialed as she spoke, hoping that Suarez’s call meant he was out of the hospital, hoping he’d be more lucid, could give her more to go on. She was willing to go out to the Everglades and play monster-hunter, but she’d prefer all the information she could get.
The phone clicked over. Lourdes answered. Sylvie bit her lip, and said, “Adelio Suarez, please,” hoping if she kept it short, kept it professional, there’d be a chance that the woman wouldn’t recognize her voice. Lourdes sighed but passed the phone over.
“Shadows?” Lio asked. “Are you at the site?”
His voice was sharper than it had been yesterday, less blurred by shock, pain, or drugs. Agitated, though. Sylvie regretted calling; she knew how this was going to go. Cop stuck in bed when there were problems to solve—he wanted to backseat drive.
“Not yet,” Sylvie said. “Did you remember anything else?”
“Make sure you’re not seen. By the cops, or the damn strange suits that showed up. And the press is swarming, so stay out of their way also.”
“Lio—”
“And don’t use my name if you get caught, or call on me for help. Odalys’s lawyer is screaming, and my name’s not what it should—”
“Suarez! I get it. Call me if you have something new to tell me.”
“Tell me what you find.” Suarez got out a final demand just before Sylvie disconnected. Her nerves felt stung and jostled; she loathed being treated like an idiot, like a subordinate. Lio needed to remember he was her client, not her boss.
“Do you need any stuff before we head out?” Sylvie asked Wales. He jerked as if she’d caught him doing something other than eyeing Alex sidelong, then flushed brick red across his pale cheekbones.
“Stuff?” he asked.
Alex grinned, and Sylvie reminded herself to have the talk with Alex. No dating necromancers. She took another, more objective look at Wales. No dating necromancers even if they were halfway to good-looking by daylight.
“Magical tools?” Sylvie said. “To help at the scene?”
“Now, see, let’s chat about that for a bit. What exactly do you want me to do?” He held up a hand, said, “Not that I’m saying I won’t help. I just want to know what you expect of me.”
Sylvie sat on the desktop, swung her feet for a second, thinking. It was a fair question. “To be honest, Wales, that depends on what you can do. At bare minimum, I’d like you to take a look at the scene and see if you can sense and/or identify whether necromancy was used and what its purpose was.”
He frowned, twisted his hands over, stared at his knuckles. “Yeah,” he said. “I can do that.”
“Special equipment?”
“Just me. And Marco.”
“Marco?” Alex asked.
Sylvie said, “You want to show her Marco?”
Wales rose abruptly and went outside, stood squinting up at the sun.
Alex wrinkled her brow, gnawed her lip. “So what’d I say?”
“Marco’s his pet ghost,” Sylvie said. “He carries Marco’s Hand around in his pocket.”
“His . . . Oh,” Alex said. Her lips tightened. She pushed her coffee cup away from her as if the cream and sugar had gone bad.
“Necromancer,” Sylvie said. “Not a clean magic. Something to remember, Alex.” She pushed off the desk, ambled out into the sunlight after Wales, and left Alex with something to think about.
Necromancy left a bad taste in Sylvie’s mouth, more so than any of the other branches of human magics she’d come across. It seemed . . . cannibalistic in a way the other branches didn’t. Witchcraft and sorcery were all about turning the world to suit yourself. Necromancy was about the unhealthy mingling of life and death, going so far as to elevate the dead above the living.
Sylvie climbed into her truck and found Wales waiting for her, Marco’s Hand in his lap. The sight of it—withered and dried flesh drawn up tight over muscle turned to jerky, the fingers curled tight against the palm, the nails rusty gold with the remnant of old flames—made her already tightened jaw clench until her teeth creaked.
“So, new deal with Marco. Anything I need to know about that?”
“Marco and I can interact at will now,” Wales said. “He doesn’t sleep anymore. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“Jesus, Wales. Does that mean he can soul-bite people at will? I can’t let—”
“No, no.” Wales shook his head in extra emphasis. “I still light him up for that. Just . . . he’s around now. That’s all I’m going to tell you.”
Sylvie licked her lips, tasted cool air on her tongue, and wondered with a shudder if the chill was Marco’s influence or her laboring air conditioner. “You must have been crazy lonely when you thought that mod up,” she said, and got a glare in response.
“Look,” she said. “You didn’t approve of Odalys’s modifying the Hands. What am I supposed to think when you start messing around in the same—”
“I’m not her,” Wales said. “I know what I’m doing.” And that was the first taste of sorcerous arrogance he’d ever given off. Pride in his abilities. Interesting.
Sylvie pulled the truck out into traffic, and said, “So you’re more powerful than you like to let on. That’s fair. I understand the urge to fly under the radar. Got a question for you, though. Can you yank a possessing ghost out of a body?”
“Thought you didn’t blame your man—Demalion, was it?”
“Not him,” Sylvie said. “Odalys had one success. There’s a teenage body walking around Coconut Grove with an old murderer in her skin.”
“Double-souled?”
“No, the original’s gone. Devoured.”
“So, you just want to drop her dead in her tracks? But you’ll let your boyfriend keep his new body?”
“He didn’t kill anyone to get it. Look, can you do it or not?”
Wales shrugged. “Depends. A soul that’s crossed death shouldn’t fit all that well in living flesh. But it adapts. Like a new organ, rejection’s a risk, especially in the beginning.”
“Can you eyeball that? Get me an idea of how fragile she is?”
“I ain’t killing her,” Wales said. “I got some sense of self-preservation. I don’t want the cops coming up with my name when they’ve got a body they can’t explain.”
Sylvie said, “Fine.” She could work on changing his mind later. Hell, he’d been angry on Wright’s behalf—how much angrier would he be once he saw Bella? Or the body that had been Bella. Wales was a man and a Texan at that. Young, attractive . . . murdered? She bet Bella would push all his buttons.
“All right. We’re going to give the cops and the press a little bit longer to get out of the Everglades. We’re going to swing by and visit Patrice. If I’m paying you a consulting fee for the day, I’m going to get my money’s worth.”
SYLVIE PULLED UP JUST AS PATRICE WAS LETTING HERSELF OUT OF her house. It was worthy of a photo shoot, the young woman in a sheer sundress on a picturesque front stoop, all smoothed Mexican-tile steps, wrought-iron banister, and flowering bougainvillea.
Patrice saw Sylvie’s truck and hesitated, her hand on the door latch. Then she closed the door behind her, stepped out into the sunlit day, and turned her face up as if to bask in it, a gloat that she was alive to enjoy the day. Silver hoops dangled from her ears, small rubies glinting at the bottoms of the curves.
Sylvie climbed out of the truck; Patrice cocked one hip, leaned up against the banister, and waited for Sylvie to reach her.
“Shadows,” she said, taking the battle directly to Sylvie. “I could have a restraining order taken out against you.”
“
So why don’t you? Afraid your new parents wouldn’t understand? How’s that working out for you . . . Bella? You all still a happy family? Or do they get it, deep down, that you’re not their daughter? You’re the woman who killed her.” Sylvie’s voice was thin and tight, a thread of rage well controlled. Patrice could in fact have a restraining order signed out; the Alvarezes were rich, well connected, played golf with an entire courtroom’s worth of judges and lawyers.
Wales stepped out of the truck, impatient, graceless, drawing Patrice’s attention. Patrice stiffened all over as if she recognized Wales. Or at least the threat he might pose to a newly embodied ghost. She relaxed when Wales lounged back against the side of the truck, squinting at her.
“You know,” Sylvie said, “you’re a cliché, Patrice. An old woman clinging to youth, and really? A dress that short? At your age?”
Patrice growled, a rattle in her throat that sounded like Death given voice and nothing like a teenager.
“Having trouble keeping up the part?” Sylvie asked. “You’re not a good actor. How’s the body fitting? Chafing? Coming loose around the edges?”
“Is that your plan?” Patrice said. “Shake me from my flesh? It is mine. I’ve taken precautions to keep my soul in this flesh. This very lovely flesh. So your pet necromancer can’t do squat. I don’t think I ever enjoyed my body this much before. When I was a teen, it was the thirties. Good girls didn’t get spray tans, hair extensions, bikini waxes. . . . And the cosmetics are to die for.” She pulled a lipstick from her pocket, glossed her lips, and blew a kiss at Sylvie.
She shot a quick glance at Wales, who dropped his chin in a reluctant nod. Patrice was telling the truth. She’d stolen that body, and now she’d strung it tight with antitheft security.
Her temper flared as red-hot as the lipstick. Sylvie snatched it away from Patrice, then found herself possessed by a wicked inspiration. “Trusting to magic to protect you? Let’s see what it can do against this.” She sketched a bloody symbol with the lipstick across the yellow enamel paint of the front door. A rough, enigmatic image, two flat circles, two attached triangles, a line binding them together. Patrice drew back, her breath slipping through clenched teeth as if waiting for an axe to fall.