Lies & Omens

meant no harm to Val, but she wouldn’t call any of them benign. Even Alex wouldn’t fit that description to a witch’s gaze since she was marked by Eros, the god of Love, and was burdened with an active and malevolent memory curse.

“Sylvie, do you need help?” Alex asked.

Sylvie shook her head. “Go back to the SUV. If I can’t shift the spell right, it could get ugly.”

Alex made a face but did as she was bid.

Sylvie plunged into spellwork with nausea growing in her chest, her heart throbbing. By the time she rose from her knees—the asphalt swallowing the chalk down, preparing to listen to her commands—the feather weighed her wrist down as if it were made of lead. She raised the feather, raised the wards with it, and nearly collapsed under the weight of something intangible but impossibly heavy. The world seemed to sway around her, as if she were peeling back the sky. The wards lifted, and she jerked a shoulder forward. Demalion, watching for her signal, moved the SUV through the ward. The feather vibrated in Sylvie’s hand, and she hung on to it with nothing but a last burst of determination.

The moment the SUV was through, she let the feather drop. It burned as it fell, disappeared into ash, and the wards snapped back around them. A witch might have seen something spectacular in it. Sylvie only felt the wrongness of the world being forced away. She stumbled, fell forward, and Demalion caught her.

“Just a little bit more,” he said.

Once they were through the perfectly mundane alarm on the door, Sylvie headed for the nearest bedroom on autopilot. She’d been up for sixty-plus hours, fought four pitched battles, and dealt with more chaos than even she could handle. Not to mention being shot and healed.

The floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the ocean, and Sylvie gave the spectacular view a cursory glance, making sure no one was lurking. Then she spilled face-first onto the bed. It felt like heaven.

She was vaguely aware of Demalion tugging her one way then another, peeling off clothes and shoes, sliding her under sheets, but mostly she was aware of the yawning darkness in her brain. The dreamworld waiting for her. She had a moment to hope that the Mora’s taint hadn’t left a mark; the last thing she wanted was to find her sleep interrupted by nightmares.

Then she was gone.

* * *

IT WAS TWILIGHT WHEN SHE WOKE, DEMALION A WARM PRESENCE wrapped around her, his arm heavy across her ribs. The waves outside had gone phosphorescent around the edges. Sylvie felt struck stupid and boneless with exhaustion, but the world was making itself known again: Her brain started churning out worry for Zoe, worry about what had been done with Lupe, where Alex was.

What was coming out of the waves.

She struggled out of Demalion’s grip—sleeping, the man folded up like origami and took his partners with him—and stepped soft-footedly toward the windows. She expected it to be a hallucination brought on by tiredness and exertion, but the closer she got, the more real it looked. A man—slim-shouldered, dark-haired—rising out of the sea.

He was too far away to make out any expression, but his impatience seemed to reach out toward her, passing through the air and the glass, beating against her skin. Come out and talk to me. Don’t make me wait.

A coercion charm of some kind. Sylvie felt it fluttering against her nerves, urging her toward movement. She could push it off, but truth was, she had her own eagerness adding to it. She wanted to know what the hell he was. How he was involved.

Sylvie reached for her pants, but they smelled so much of blood and char and sweat that she let them fall, too repulsed to worry about modesty. She picked up her gun and went out to meet the intruder in a tank top and her boyshorts. Hell, she had swimsuits that covered a lot less, and at least both the tank and underwear were black.

She walked down the lawn, the earth warm beneath her feet, the grass cool as it soaked up the evening breezes. Her bare feet were cat-silent as she walked, the faint rustling masked by the sway and rattle of palm fronds. He spotted her coming, raised his head, and scowled, taking in the gun held loosely in her hand.

She stopped a healthy twenty feet from the shore—no way was she approaching him in his own environment—still within the wards. He waited, scowl darkening, his arms crossed over his chest. She shook her head, snapping his hold on her. Not happening. If he wanted to talk, he’d have to come to her.

He slogged up the sandy shore, and when he was within speaking distance, she asked, “How’d you find me?”

“I have your sense in my skin,” he said. “I can track you.”

“Charming,” she said. She remembered that now, the feel of his hand on her skin. His other shape a dolphin … she tried to recall old field trips to Seaquarium, recall old marine biology classes. Dolphins had some type of electrosensing ability, didn’t they?

“On better days, you’d be surprised how charming I can be,” he said. He smiled, his teeth white and sharp beneath the jut of his nose. A predator’s grin. He lingered at the very edge of the ward, as if he could sense it as easily as she could. Probably easier. He wasn’t human; he lived in the currents of magic.

“You got a name?” she asked. “Since you managed to cop a feel, I think I deserve a name.” She supposed she should be asking him what he wanted, but she thought, just once, she’d start with the easy stuff.

He sighed, a strange half-whistled sound, widened his smile. It still looked toothily insincere. “Women. They always want a name.” Something seethed beneath his skin; she thought she recognized it. Anger.

“So you answer to what? Player?”

He squinted up at her; apparently his English didn’t go so far as modern dating references. “You don’t need my name. We’re not going to be friends.”

“Fine by me,” Sylvie said.

“I want to know what the Mora said. If she told you why she was attacking those humans.”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just tell me,” he snapped. “I don’t have time to play games with a trigger-happy human.”

Sylvie crossed her arms over her chest, tapped her gun meaningfully. “Games, no. Basic courtesy? Never a bad thing.”

“Courtesy.” He looked back toward the glistening water, the oily snake ripples of slow waves beneath the moonlight. “This whole visit is a courtesy. I could have compelled you.”

“Could have tried,” Sylvie said. “Look. The Mora didn’t say much. A lot of We were here first, you should remember us, and one small hint that maybe she was sent. She didn’t give me name, rank, and serial number. Too busy trying to kill me by nightmares.”

“Her words?”

Sylvie huffed out exasperation. He raked water from his hair with an impatient hand, spat salt water at her feet. The wards hissed and bubbled. The air smelled of fish.

“I challenged her. Said I knew someone had to be sending them. It’s just not normal behavior for the Magicus Mundi.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not.” Some of the anger drained away. “You’re aware of this?”

“It was the succubus that convinced me,” Sylvie said. “I know them. They drain their victims over the course of several days. Weeks if they’re feeling sentimental. They don’t pick up automatic weapons and start mowing down government agents. They don’t waste their food.”

“And mermaids don’t come this far inland, and sand wraiths don’t like lake cities. It’s anomalous. People are paying attention.”

“No, they’re really not,” Sylvie said. “That’s the other half of the problem.”

“Not your people,” he said, lips twisting. “Mine. Humans. Think you’re the only ones that matter. We were here from the beginning. We’ve been around since before your kind had language. We are the people. You all are…

“What?” she challenged. Both irritated and curious. His attitude was regrettable, but she couldn’t help but find him intriguing. She’d never really sat down and had a conversation with a monster before—a few gods, yeah, but a monster? No. She was friends with a werewolf or two, but they considered themselves human, descendants of Lilith and regular wolves. Human, with extras.