Lies & Omens

“LaGuardia. Heading home. You need to come get me when I land.”

“I thought you were in Ischia. Safe with Val.”

“Obviously, I’m not. Come get me, Syl. I don’t wanna wait around. I’ve been traveling all night.”

“Zoe, this is a terrible time for you to come back,” Sylvie said. “Did Val send you? Does Val even know?”

Zoe huffed. “She’s so damn patronizing. I’m not a child or an idiot. And I had to come back. School starts in three weeks. I’ve got back-to-school shopping to do.”

“It’s not a good time,” Sylvie said, watching a god putter about in her kitchen, warping things as she went. Under Erinya’s touch, Sylvie’s coffeemaker turned upscale, spat out espresso; her tiled floor shifted to rough stone. “I’ve got house guests that aren’t witch-friendly.” Gods could burn out witches, leave them husked out and unable to do magic. Erinya, of course, liked to go one step further and kill them dead.

“What, your god-thing friend? Tell her to go away. I’m family. I come first.”

“And you called Val patronizing,” Sylvie said. “Fine. I’ll be there. Give me your flight number.” When she hung up, she found Erinya watching her as eagerly as a dog whose master had rattled the car keys.

“Are we going to the airport?” Erinya said. “I like the airport. Good hunting.”

“You are not coming,” Sylvie said. “I’m picking up my sister. She’s a witch. Your presence will hurt her.”

“Does she deserve it?” Erinya asked. “She’s a witch.”

“She’s not sacrificing babies,” Sylvie said.

“Not yet,” Erinya said. She ate the last of her steak in one giant, mouth-distending bite. “Can’t trust a witch.”

“Go home,” Sylvie said when she could speak again. “Redecorate your heaven and not my living room.”

“It’s my city,” Erinya said. “I think that makes it my living room.”

“It’s not your city,” Sylvie said. “Don’t get possessive. Don’t make me take Dunne’s side.”

Erinya vanished before Sylvie had finished talking, fading out on the first mention of Dunne’s name. Sylvie filed that away, wondering if it would work more than once.

A draft touched her legs, the AC kicking on, making her shiver. Her hair dripped down her back; the thin poplin of Demalion’s borrowed shirt felt clammy.

She sighed, tried to recover some of that all-too-brief happiness she’d had curled against Demalion in her wrecked bathroom.

Her phone rang again, a text coming in on the burner phone.

Alex.

I’m at the office. Meet me. Bring coffee.

* * *

LIGHT GLITTERED FROM INSIDE THE FRONT WINDOW OF SHADOWS Inquiries, hard to see in the sunlit streets of South Miami Beach, noticeable simply because Sylvie hadn’t been expecting Alex to be awake and about anytime that day. Not after her magical concussion.

She really needed to stop underestimating Alex.

When she opened the front door, Alex greeted her and the Starbucks cup with determined cheer that went oddly with the bruising beneath her eyes. “Oh good, you’re here. You need to see this.”

“See what? I thought you were going to rest? Your head was hurting?” Sylvie came at it obliquely, unwilling to trigger another attack.

“’Swhat Tylenol 4’s for. Took a nap, took a pill, feel loads better.”

Sylvie said, “Yeah, that’s why you look like someone socked you in the nose. You should be in bed.”

“Let it go, Syl. You’ll be glad you did. Look at this. Not me. I’ll hit the foundation in a minute or two.” She hauled her laptop across the desk, turned it to face Sylvie, the screen blurring with the vibration.

“I’ve been working on the Chicago site. Lots and lots of video being shot.”

“Of the actual event?” Sylvie said. “The attack?”

“The sand wraith? No. I’ve been looking through the aftermath.” Alex shook her head, answering two questions at once. Had the monster made the news? Had Alex lost memories of that attack, also? Answers: no and no.

“What exactly is a sand wraith?” Sylvie asked.

“Monster out of the Texas, New Mexico, Arizona area. I think it’s a type of djinn that migrated eons ago. Anyway, that’s not the important part. Focus, Syl. I’ve been searching through iReports on CNN. Look. Right there.”

She cued the scene up: nighttime, the rubble illuminated by emergency lights, stone and wiring and metal making crazy, nonsensical shadows, not helped by the shaky-cam hand of the filmer. “What am I—”

Sylvie shut up. She knew what Alex had wanted her to see. Six hours ago, it would have filled her with relief. Now, she watched Demalion and Marah Stone pick their way out of the rubble, dwarfed by the slabs of concrete, limping, braced on each other, and felt her heart tighten up. Christ. One thing to know Demalion had had a close call, to see him bruised but whole in her shower, full of attitude, full of life; another thing to see him like this—his eyes dark holes in his skull, face a mask of concrete dust and blood.

“Syl? This is good. He’s alive—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sylvie said. “Alive and in Miami. He made it here this morning. He’s off hunting down the Riordans. Being a good little agent and reporting in—”

“You didn’t call me? Fuck you, Sylvie. I spent hours scouring the Net and for nothing? When my head feels like it’s about to rupture?”

“Thought you were fine,” Sylvie said.

Alex burst into tears and flung the stapler at her; Sylvie dodged, listened to the metal crack against the front window, winced. Another thing for Emmanuel to fix.

“Hey, hey, I’m sorry, really sorry,” Sylvie said. “I should have called you. I was going to. I thought you were sleeping.”

“You should have left a message. A text. A fucking e-mail. I was so damn worried.” Her words tangled, choked off, left her rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“About Demalion?” Sylvie felt like she was walking across an unexpected minefield. Alex was the calm one. Alex was the sensible one. Alex didn’t throw office supplies, break windows, or curse her out. Alex didn’t usually have her memory scrambled either.

“About you, stupid. You do dumb things when you’re angry. And I’m tired. I can’t keep up with you.” Alex dragged her hands away from her eyes; she looked as tired as she claimed. More, she looked ground-down. Sylvie frowned. She couldn’t be to blame for all of that. Some of that was Alex fighting the memory modification, courting the pain by poking around similar events.

“I’m sorry,” Sylvie said again.

Alex jerked the laptop around, lips tight, not forgiving her that easily. “I compiled and skimmed about two hundred videos. My head’s still spinning.” She stabbed at the keys, brightly colored nails flashing like daggers. She turned the laptop back toward Sylvie, showing her window after window of stored video. A barrage of flickering information all set to a disaster backdrop. All of them with gold flares marking where the sand wraith had been erased from the world’s memory. CNN, Sylvie noticed, was saying that two newspeople—a reporter and her cameraman—had died when the rubble shifted unexpectedly. Sylvie looked at the last images they recorded, caught another glimpse of Marah and Demalion, running fast from … something washed out in a flicker of light … The camera image jerked forward, following the reporter, who was, in turn, following a basic journalistic rule. If you see someone running, find out what they’re running from.

Then the reporter disappeared into a cloud of dust and rubble.

“All of that. For nothing? Because you couldn’t be bothered to call?” Her cheeks were flushed, feverish.

“Alex,” Sylvie said. “I’m sorry. I can’t go back and undo it. Can we move on? Hey—”

Sylvie reached out, jabbed at the keys, trying to get one particular video to stop, and only succeeded in losing that screen altogether. “Dammit. Can you find that again?”

“Is it important?” Alex asked.

“Might be,” Sylvie said. “If I’m not seeing things. There was a bystander who looked familiar—”