Alex sighed. “And there goes my second surprise. You know, sometimes it’s just no damn fun working for you, Shadows. This the guy you meant?”
Sylvie came around to Alex’s side of the desk, dragging the visitor’s chair around with her. It couldn’t be healthy to spin the laptop around and around like a top. Sylvie looked at the image—slightly blurry, but the one she’d spotted. A wiry, dark-haired man with a beaky nose, wearing the American uniform: worn blue jeans, white T-shirt, sneakers. He should have been totally nondescript. Except … Sylvie pushed play.
He was studying the wreckage, trying to be discreet about it. Not gawking like the rest of the onlookers. Scoping it out without drawing attention to himself. He walked out of one video into the next, his damp dark hair collecting a mottled coating of dust and sand, a clear sign of how close he’d managed to get.
“So he was in Chicago,” Alex said. “Playing looky-loo. He was also in Memphis.”
“Memphis,” Sylvie said. “Did we ever find out what happened there?”
“Not a clue, but our guy was there. Maybe he knows,” Alex said. She reached over Sylvie’s shoulders, clicked another set of images onto the screen. Same man, same outfit, same damp, dark hair. Same careful prowling the border of chaos, betraying his interest by trying not to seem interested at all. Memphis. Chicago. Miami.
“So how’d you pick him out?” Alex said.
“Saw him here,” Sylvie said. “Outside the ISI. Moving when no one else could. Immune to the mermaids’ song.”
Alex whimpered, and Sylvie swallowed back further comment, waited for Alex’s eyelashes to stop flickering, her mind rewriting itself to someone else’s commands. Finally, Alex sighed, said, “What were we talking about?”
“Him,” Sylvie said, hoping she hadn’t screwed things up, hoped she hadn’t managed to link their mysterious bystander inextricably with the forbidden parts of Alex’s memory.
Alex wrinkled her nose. “Oh yeah. I’m trying to find him at the other scenes, but it’s harder. Savannah and Dallas didn’t rouse so much excitement, you know? The Savannah site was isolated. And the Dallas site was effectively cordoned off. Hard to be a face in the crowd if there’s no crowd. Even harder to film a face in a noncrowd if there’s no one to man a camera. And my head is killing me. The more I research, the worse I feel.”
Alex let out a breath, drained her coffee like it was booze after a too-long day.
Fighting the conflicting memories. Whoever was doing the changing hadn’t gotten into the ISI files to alter them. So Alex remembered those. But they were erasing the truth outside of the ISI, and Alex was dutifully trying to forget.
“Why don’t you give it a break?” Sylvie said. “Lock the door, pull down the blinds. Take a nap.”
Alex’s eyes swept the couch; she leaned forward in her chair, as if she could simply fall into the couch by wanting it. “What are you going to do?”
“Check in on Lupe,” Sylvie said. “I was supposed to do it this morning, but Demalion was at my apartment, and I got distracted.”
“Distracted, huh?” A brief smile touched Alex’s lips. “I guess I can forgive you for not calling me immediately.”
“Distracted like he brought trouble with him. You remember the ISI assassin who killed Odalys?”
“Not like you ever introduced us,” Alex said. “I know she exists.”
Sylvie found the image of Marah and Demalion whirling to confront the sand wraith, Marah’s hand upraised. She showed it to Alex. “That woman Demalion’s leaning on? Marah Stone. ISI assassin. Big trouble.”
“How big?” Alex asked.
“She’s been in town for a few hours, and she’s already tried to kill Erinya.”
Alex clicked her jaw shut, then said, “I’m too tired to deal with that. Go away. I’m taking a nap. Check on Lupe. She left a message on the machine. She’s found a witch she wants you to vet.”
“She what?”
“She’s impatient, I guess. Can’t really blame her,” Alex said, digging a camp pillow and blanket out of her deepest desk drawer.
“No one listens to me,” Sylvie said. “I gave her the speech. I told her that you had to be careful, I told her —”
“Yeah, yeah, I was there. Go tell her again and let me nap.” Alex dragged herself to the couch, sprawled over the cracked green leather, tugging the blanket over herself.
“See if you can find anything else on our mystery man. He had to have come from somewhere. For that matter, the monsters, too. Even if they were living among us, there should have been signs. Why attack now?”
“I don’t know,” Alex muttered.
“Crap,” Sylvie said, glancing at her watch. “Alex, do me a favor? Pick up Zoe at the airport? I have a feeling Lupe’s going to eat time.”
Alex sighed hugely. “So unfair. Come in, tell me to rest up, then give me things to do. I will look into our mystery man. I will pick up your brat of a sister. But after a nap. Go away, before I throw something else at you.”
Sylvie waved off the threat but headed out, right into the full heat of the day.
THE MOTEL LUPE WAS STAYING AT WASN’T IN THE BEST PART OF town; sirens were a familiar background melody, and the palm trees embedded in the sidewalk cutouts were hardly the type to gladden even an indie director’s location scout, being stunted and soft.
But the motel was reasonably cheap, catering to long-term guests, and the neighborhood wasn’t so bad that Lupe couldn’t take her morning runs. There were even coffee shops and restaurants and a movie theater in the area—so why the hell couldn’t Lupe just occupy herself in some safe way?
Sylvie found herself gritting her teeth as she parked her truck, made herself stop. She stepped out of her truck and found her teeth locking tight again as she heard muffled shouting. That was never a good sign. Even in a crap hotel.
Also not good? The fact that Sylvie could feel the tiny flare of unnatural forces rippling in the air, like a storm about to break. Guess Lupe hadn’t waited for Sylvie to approve of the witch but dived in headfirst.
She booked up the stairs, felt the morning’s bruises protest, and pounded on Lupe’s locked door. “Lupe!”
“Help us!” a woman shouted. “Help!”
It wasn’t Lupe. Lupe’s voice had a thick rasp to it, an animal huskiness when she spoke. Sylvie hadn’t asked if the rasp was original or if it, too, was a change forced upon her.
She tested her balance, her aches, then pivoted and kicked the door, with the expected result. She bounced off it. Even cheap motels tended not to skimp on the doors. Easy road to a lawsuit.
“Lupe,” Sylvie said. “Let me in!”
The shouting on the inside broke off to a series of hushed whimpers and a low, feral growl. “Lupe,” Sylvie said. She leaned on the door, slapped her palm against it repeatedly.
“I called the cops,” a voice said. Sylvie jerked, found the day manager staring at her. Truculent, even in the face of her gun. Then again, he probably had one of his own.
“Great. You got a key?”
He stared at her, dark eyes under a crew cut, tattoos running the breadth of his thick neck. “Don’t sue.” He threw her the passkey and stomped back toward his office to wait for the cops.
Sylvie slapped the door again, said, “Lupe, I’m coming in.”
Another whimper, another growl, a groan that was another voice altogether. What the hell was going on? She swiped the card through the reader, shoved the door open, and fell through the door.
Blood on the bed nearest the door. Bright and wet and freshly shed.
Dammit.
A crying woman in a long skirt huddled near the bathroom alcove. At Sylvie’s entrance, she raised her head, eyes flaring wide with alarm. “Behind the door!”
Sylvie caught Lupe’s wrist as the woman lunged—and it
