“You’re the clairvoyant,” Sylvie said. She sank back down beside him, into his warmth.
He rubbed her back, kissed the nape of her neck.
“You really don’t hear anything?”
To his credit, he paused, head cocked, listening. “No,” he said. “Not a thing. How long have you been awake now?”
“I slept,” she said. Curled next to Tish, smelling of charred flesh, and drowning in dreams of flame.
“But not well,” he said. He stroked a tendril of hair back from her face.
“Comes with the territory,” she said. She closed her eyes, felt the exhaustion lurking, that snake-flash of movement again, and a sudden, silent blue sky. She twitched awake.
He sat up and watched her, professional wariness on his face.
Sylvie stepped into the dark living room, shied as something cool, muscular, and slick slithered past her ankle. She slapped on the light, and there was nothing there. Didn’t keep her heart from racing. Maybe Demalion was right, she thought. Maybe she was sleep-deprived, hallucinating, delusional.
She looked back; he patted the sheets, and they looked warm, inviting, safe.
Faint hissing, the scent of must and mice—Sylvie backed toward the couch, collected her gun with one hand, and tucked herself into the cushions, sweeping the room with her gaze.
“Sylvie?” Demalion padded into the room, bare all over, and she tore her eyes away.
“I’ll take first watch,” she said. She spotted her sneakers, set down the gun long enough to drag them onto her feet, and curled up against the couch’s arm again, gun in hand. “It’s just midnight. I’ll wake you in—”
“The door’s locked. The alarm’s on. The apartment’s secure. Come back to bed, Sylvie.”
“There are things out there that scoff at locks,” Sylvie said. “You know it. I’ve seen it. Never let your guard down.”
“You need sleep,” he said.
“Sleep when you’re dead,” Sylvie said. She stared hard at the crack beneath the apartment door, at the pale line of light seeping through from the hallway beyond. Anything that crept through there would be seen. She needed to worry about the less overt entry points.
“What will it help anyone if you’re too tired to think straight?” He shook his head and closed the bedroom door behind him.
It was the ISI, she thought, that weakened him, made him rely on external safety precautions, like alarms, like backup and calls for help being answered. A bureaucrat’s world. He didn’t understand the dangers here, not down deep in the bone the way she did.
Sleep? No, she couldn’t risk it. Not when her nerves felt as shaken as a rattlesnake’s tail. But she didn’t need all of herself to keep watch. Only her senses, the gun in her hand, like an animal lying in wait. Her world degenerated into fragments. Sit still, shift in the darkness, aim the gun, assess. Relax. Repeat.
The shadows gave way all at once to daylight, a blue sky washing her dreamscape, and she jerked awake. Even she had limits. Three in the morning, and she couldn’t stay awake another minute. She ghosted toward the bedroom; Demalion slept through the faint creak of the door opening, through her path to the bed. He roused when she touched his shoulder, coming awake with an alacrity that pleased her.
“Your turn,” she said, gesturing to the living room.
“What am I guarding against?” he asked. His voice was delicious with sleep, a low rumble in his chest. She wanted to shuck off the clothes, drop the gun, crawl into his arms, and listen to his voice from up close. She didn’t.
“Anything,” she said.
“Something,” he corrected. “You’re afraid of something specific.”
“Snakes,” she said. “I see them, hear them. They’re not there. Not yet. Maybe it’s some warning.”
She waited for him to give her grief, to play the paranoia card, the exhaustion, the hallucinations; instead, he touched her cheek and slid out of bed.
“Put the gun on the nightstand, huh?” he said. “Not beneath the pillow. Be stupid to shoot yourself by accident.”
He stood over her until she laid it down, the soft
The bed beckoned; she slid into his warm spot and nearly moaned at how good it felt, the smooth cotton, the lazy heat lingering, and his scent, sandalwood and lime, steeped in it. Sleep dragged her down like a sinkhole opening beneath her.
“It’s about time,” a woman said. “Stubborn creature.”
Blue skies arched above Sylvie, a blue so pure and deep that the heavens looked hot to the touch, and shot through with veins of gold fire. Lapis lazuli, she thought, but freed from cold stone; lapis lazuli, alive.
Her eyes watered; she blinked but couldn’t check the tears. She raised her arms before her to block it out and nearly fell from her seat when it proved to be backless.
“Too much, hmm?”
The world shifted. The sky fell in and darkened, turned teak netted with fishermen’s floats in worn and pitted glass. Sylvie’s stone cup of a chair turned to leather and grew a back and arms. The walls shifted from white marble to plaster, and Sylvie smiled. She knew this place, the Mucky Duck, a vacation restaurant she used to go with her family, when she was still young enough to giggle over the waiter’s bottles of string ketchup that they pretended to squirt on customers.
“A dream. This is all a dream. But
“Quick,” the woman said, making her appearance. A tiny woman wearing something out of Sylvie’s onetime art-history book approached. A toga, Sylvie thought, the woman’s arms bared from fingertip to shoulder bone, showing multiple semicircular scars. No, chiton. But as soon as she identified it, the fabric changed, adjusting itself to the setting. The woman, now sundressed and sandaled, sank onto a stool next to her. “I’m Mnemosyne. Kevin Dunne sent me.”
19
All Gone to Hell
SYLVIE SAID, “DOESN’T HE GET AROUND,” BUT HER ATTENTION WAS gone. Outside the plate-glass windows, beyond the scrubby parking lot, two girls played on the narrow shell-strewn beach, one all gawky legs and windblown hair, racing into her teens, the other a toddler, chasing after her sister so fast that she fell. The older girl turned, dusted the child off, and comforted her with a hug and a smile.
“Things change,” Mnemosyne said, and waved her hand irritably. The window closed over, turned into another netted wall. “You cannot go back. That is the nature of history, that it is in the past. All that can be done is study it, to see the seeds that were planted and anticipate the growth coming.”
“Shut up,” Sylvie said. “I’ve had a long day, and this might be a dream, but I bet it’s not helping my sleep deficit.”
Ignoring her, Mnemosyne continued, “I do not usually involve myself in these matters, but I owe Dunne a great debt.”
“Yeah?” Sylvie said. “Save your life did he? Like a god’s life is worth it. You’ve all lived your share and more.” Sylvie bit her lip and made a note to herself: Dreamworld equaled no rein on her mouth.
“He did,” Mnemosyne said, still placid, which, perversely, Sylvie found more irritating than a relief. “Do you know how we are created, what we are?”
“Power, flesh shell, broken or unmade, big puff of stealable stuff, got the gist.” Sylvie squinted into the dark corners of the empty restaurant and sighed. She was hungry. She was in a restaurant. Didn’t seem right. A waiter loomed out of nowhere, green duck on his white shirt, and asked for her order.
Mnemosyne squeaked and made the moment sweeter. Guess she hadn’t expected the dream to be more Sylvie’s than hers. But just because she set the stage didn’t mean Sylvie couldn’t control it.
The waiter turned around, her food instantly ready; Sylvie sank her teeth gratefully into the French dip, but it tasted nothing of food and everything of memory. Of sandy days, of salty air, of skin gone sticky with seawater, and the ever-present scent of coconut oil and rubber flip-flops. It exploded in her mind like a little bomb, and she set the sandwich down, near tears. Innocence tasted strange on her palate now. Inedible.
“I apologize,” Mnemosyne said. “History lives around me. It is my task to keep it, to record it, to watch it. I am the Muse of history, and I see all.” The bare skin of her arms rippled, and what Sylvie had taken for dozens of tiny scars blinked open into eyes. In each of them, in the heart of the pupils, Sylvie saw bits of her past.
“Stop it,” Sylvie said. Mnemosyne turned her palms up, showing two moments that Sylvie could only identify as Before and After, Then and Now. In Mnemosyne’s right palm, Sylvie saw herself striding across campus, determined, head held high, and anger in her eyes. Portrait of Girl with a Cause.
In the left palm, Sylvie saw a woman with a gun, eyes blacked by shadows and rage, but a curling smile on her mouth. The face of a murderer.
“Stop it,” Sylvie repeated, and Mnemosyne closed her hands. Sylvie felt heat in her own palms and realized she’d brought the gun into her dreams, had it pointed at the Muse. “Dunne sent you. Let’s leave the psych tests and parlor tricks behind and get down to business. I’ve found out who’s behind this. Lilith,
“Dunne’s busy,” Mnemosyne said.
“I’ve reached a dead end,” Sylvie said. “I need his help. If you’re all about history, you know I don’t say that often or easily.” Her hand tightened on the table edge; a crack ran from side to side, widening. Sylvie tucked her hands in her lap, like a chastened child. Her dream. Her temper.
“Dunne is trusting you to do what he cannot, while he defends your world and himself. Dunne is not a loved god.”
“No one loves a cop,” Sylvie said. Some of her temper faded. History, huh. Mnemosyne might be able to give her some of the answers that eluded her, questions about Dunne.
“Especially not petty-minded greater gods,” Mnemosyne said. “Whose wives were turned inside out and drained to fuel Dunne. Zeus hates him, and he has never been the most rational of gods. When Dunne first came to power, Zeus had to be coaxed into accepting him, and he laid in a caveat: As it was love that allowed Dunne’s ascension, it was love that kept him there. Should love ever leave Dunne, then he was fair game to be destroyed, the power reclaimed, Hera restored.”
“And now his love’s left him, not by choice, but gone all the same,” Sylvie said. “I don’t suppose Zeus had a hand in arranging that with Lilith.”
“No,” Mnemosyne said. “Zeus would rather concentrate on their rivalry than admit any threat could be poised by a human. It’s shortsighted. If Lilith gains power because Dunne is weakened fighting Zeus, the results will be wars across the multiple heavens.”
“Better than on earth,” Sylvie said. “Look, I’m doing my job. Don’t expect me to care or cry for gods. I like Dunne—sort of—but it’s the man he was, the glimpse I get of that, that I like. Not his