Gods & Monsters (30 page)

“You said he was filtering it.”

“And he is. To control his shape, I thought, and to fuel his spells so he can keep controlling it. A sort of magical loop that I don’t even know how he got started. He would have needed some kind of boost. . . .” He trailed off, then his mouth twisted. “I can’t think of any good ways.”

“Soul-devouring,” Sylvie said. “Any boost from that?”

“And that,” Wales said. “That’s another layer. Another ritual. It has nothing to do with deflecting Tepeyollotl. I don’t know why he’s doing it. Humans don’t need souls.”

“You use them to sneak into hotels,” Sylvie said.

Wales shifted. “Not the same thing. Ghosts aren’t souls. Ghosts are the dead, personality warts and all. Souls are . . . They’re pure. Distilled.”

“Powerful?”

Wales shrugged. “Not to us. A soul doesn’t
want
. Can’t bribe them or make them afraid. They don’t care about the living.”

“But he devours them—”

“Devour. It’s only a word. He’s doing
something
to them; I just don’t know what. Souls are god business, not human.”

Sylvie said, “Maybe it’s just an act of contempt. You know, he’s taking Tepeyollotl’s would-be people, using them to counteract the curse, then destroying souls that would have been the god’s? Azpiazu’s bastard enough for that type of spitefulness.”

“I don’t know,” Wales said. “I don’t. But we have to stop him, Sylvie. Before he takes someone else. Before he finishes.”

“You’re my best hope for that,” she said. “You figure out what his goals are. How necromancy and alchemy and god-avoiding works out to something good for him. So we can turn it bad. Work fast, Tex. I think we’ve got a deadline, and I’m not sure if it’s Azpiazu’s or the god’s.”

“Sure,” he said. “No pressure. That’s my hotel you’re passing.”

She slewed the truck over two lanes, did a U-ie, and brought him to the front doors. He popped the latch; she put a hand on his arm, curling her fingers around the thin sinew of it. “Tex, we did good tonight. Mostly.” She shook herself and started again. “We saved Maria. You saved Maria. I know I can count on you.”

“Lose the pep talk,” he said. “Doesn’t suit you. We’re screwed. But I’ll work on ways that might make us less so. See if I can figure out what the layers are for. See if I can figure the best way to unpick them. What about you?”

“Azpiazu’s shopping for a new girl now. That reporter, Cachita, had some ideas.”

“It’s . . .” He turned his attention to her dash, to the dimly glowing clock. “It’s nearly 3:00 a.m. I don’t think Cachita’s gonna give you anything but grief you go waking her up now.”

“You and Alex, all about working hours. Too much can happen while you’re sleeping.”

“Sylvie, you’re mean enough without sleep dep. Go home. Get some hours in.”

“Who’s the boss, here?” Sylvie said.

Wales yawned in her face, showing her all his teeth. “You’re paying me for my advice. Might as well take it.”

THE NEXT MORNING, SYLVIE WOKE WITH A SCALDING HEADACHE, A body that protested, and a strange metallic taste in her mouth. She smacked her lips before opening her eyes and thought about lead poisoning.

A shift of displaced air, the scent of coffee, heavily laced with cream, and a scuff of slippers had her rolling over in time to accept the cup Alex handed her. She cracked an eye, stared blearily up at Alex, and envied Alex the seven-year difference between them. Alex was as short of sleep as Sylvie was, and it only showed because she was quieter than usual. Sylvie knew she’d have bags beneath her eyes like tarnished silver dollars.

Alex moved back to the kitchen, her act of mercy complete, and Sylvie heard the clicking of keys. Regular people got up, went outside, got the newspaper. Alex got up, turned on the computer, and started scanning news files.

A
thump-flap
of a stressed dog door birthed Guerro, and Sylvie rolled off the couch before the shepherd could investigate the person who’d taken his preferred sleeping spot. She fended his nose off, covered the top of her coffee cup as he shook, setting loose hairs into the world, then sipped her drink once he’d bounded off after Alex.

Sometimes, Sylvie looked at her empty apartment and thought she could get a dog. Something to greet her at the end of a crap day, to be a quiet companion. Then she visited Alex and saw the truth. A dog owned you as surely as a cat did, or a baby, requiring care, and time, and routine that Sylvie didn’t have.

Plus—she fished dog hair out of her mouth—there was the mess.

She set down the coffee cup, staggered into the kitchen, and stole Alex’s bagel, spoke through a mouthful of lox and cream cheese and fresh bread. “So, I’m going to see Cachita—”

“She’s a total liar,” Alex said.

And that answered the question she’d been about to voice. Alex had managed the time to look into Caridad Valdes-Pedraza. Look enough that she was visibly indignant and unhappy.

Sylvie leaned back against the counter space, fed chunks of bagel to Guerro, and said, “Hit me.” It felt like waiting for a blow. She’d rather liked Cachita.

A total liar.

“First off? Elena Valdes? Not her cousin. Not by genetics, not even by proximity. I looked both of them up. Cachita’s not a local girl. She just moved here, grew up in Louisiana, stayed there for college. Elena Valdes? Her parents emigrated here, left all their family in Havana, and Elena never left Miami. No way they intersected.”

Sylvie snorted. “But it made it easy for her. Get my sympathy. Explain her interest in the Everglades women as personal not ghoulish. So, a reporter who lies. I’m surprised that I’m surprised.”

“Not a reporter,” Alex said. “Or at least she never took a single journalism class in her entire college career.”

Sylvie blinked. “Okay. Wait. Now I am surprised.”

“Told you. Total liar.” Alex bit her lip, tried not to look smug, but
I told you so
was seeping out all over.

“So who is she?” Sylvie said.

Alex’s smug deflated. “I don’t know. I mean, I know who she is, where she was born. But she got out of school—anthropology, by the way—two years ago and hasn’t had a job since. Not even the usual postgrad jobs like waitressing, bartending, call centers, et cetera.”

That might explain the near-empty house. Cachita was squatting more than living in it. Living hand to mouth and still going after Azpiazu?

“I could ask her,” Sylvie said. “Go straight to the source.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “Just be careful. I don’t know what her game is.”

“Here’s hoping she’s on the side of the angels.” Sylvie put down the rest of the bagel, wiped her hands on a Hello-Kitty dish towel, and said, “At least her information on Azpiazu was true.” She paused, thought about it. “What about Azpiazu himself motivating her? If she’s not a reporter, and she’s not related to any of the victims, then it’s got to be about Azpiazu.”

Alex said, “Why don’t you go ask her?” Crankier than usual, but Sylvie had rousted her out of bed late to crash on her couch, stolen some spare clothing, and now stolen her breakfast.

AS HOT AS SHE WAS TO FIND CACHITA, SHAKE SOME ANSWERS FROM the woman, Sylvie had to make a stop first. She was out of ammo. Not that it had done any good with Azpiazu, but it was the principle of the thing. An empty gun was a broken tool.

The office safe yielded the bullets she wanted. She sat at her desk, slotting the clip in, listening to her little dark voice purring in contentment, when the sound of glass cracking reached her.

The downstairs window?

Not loud enough.

The front door.

Which meant it wasn’t a car-spun rock making an unlucky impact.

Sylvie looked at her upper windows and thought, not for the first time, that she really needed a back exit.

Instead, she eased herself onto the narrow landing, keeping to the shadows, peered downstairs. Movement, a long, supple shape slipping out of her visual range, leaving a drifting voice behind. “Don’t be like that, Shadows. Come on down! Patrice wants to talk to you.”

The goth boy-witch, Aron.

Sylvie felt a peculiar triumph twisting her mouth. Patrice had actually done her a favor. Broken doorway, trespassing, and threatening her—Sylvie could shoot and claim self-defense.

She slipped down the stairs, bracing herself against the rail, hunching low, gun in hand. Aron launched himself at her, a surprisingly physical attack for a witch, and they tumbled over each other, Sylvie kicking away, firing blind.

The window spider-cracked, her bullet dimpling the center of it. Aron laughed in her face, said, “Are we having fun yet?” and leaped away. “Patrice is waiting.”

He darted through the broken door, and Sylvie wiped the blood from her split lip, hesitating only briefly before bolting after him.

Foolish,
her little dark voice hissed. Aron wasn’t a normal witch, all talk and sneakiness. Aron, Sylvie thought, was crazy.

Ahead of her, Aron paused to wave—encouragement, a taunt, god only knew—and detoured from the main drag toward the oceanfront. Sylvie moved steadily after him, dodging joggers, vendors setting up, tourists looking shocked awake, and her mind noted that this wasn’t right. A man running down the street, chased by a woman with a gun? No one was noticing them at all.

Witch, she reminded herself. Their invisibility some type of elaborate spell, triggered when they touched.

Witch?
her dark voice echoed. It didn’t sound certain. She slowed her steps. They’d tangled in the nightclub, and she’d felt the burn of magic against her skin, strong and sharp, an electrical current dancing through her bones.

His laughter drifted back, edgy and close to manic, deep-toned like the roar of the surf.

Seeking a confrontation.

Trap,
her little voice said.

No duh, she thought. She slowed her chase, trying to figure this out. It felt . . . strange. Her brain said trap. Her instincts said it wasn’t that clear-cut.

They’d tumbled against each other in her office, and that magical burn still lingered, sensitizing her nerves. Either every piece of tacky goth jewelry he wore was laced with spells, or there was something more here.

A gaggle of tourists wandered down the shady path toward the sea, putting themselves between Sylvie and her target, unaware of either of them. Aron, a black streak against the sun-dazzled sea, beckoned Sylvie on.

Sylvie let her gun hand slacken, slowed her pace to a bare crawl, giving the tourists the chance to get out of the way. But instead of moving on, the tourists, two men, two women, an assortment of bickering teens, swayed in her wake like driftwood on the tide and ended up following her toward Aron.

“Why don’t you stretch yourself?” she said. “Use some of that spellwork to clear us some space.” She needed to get the tourists gone.

He grinned back, a slow smile. “Nah. I like ’em. Keeps you on your best behavior.”

Kept her gun useless. With this much magic in the air, Sylvie was loath to just start shooting. She’d have to have the barrel snugged up against Aron before she fired it, and she doubted he’d allow it.

“So Patrice let you off your leash? I thought you were only her bodyguard. Not her attack dog.”

“I’m no one’s dog,” he said, his grin fading.

That hot temper, that fierce rebuttal, they dredged something like memory out of her, woke a vague sense of déjà vu. “Patrice sent you after me. You do as you’re told.”

He shook his head. “Only sometimes. Only when it’s right.”

“Enough talk, Aron,” Patrice said. She stepped out of tree shadow, petulant and puffy-eyed. A week in Bella’s body, and she was using it harder than Bella ever had. It looked like she’d aged five years. A corrupt spirit corrupting what it had claimed.

“Patrice,” Sylvie said. “Looking tired. Life not as easy as you thought?”

“Aron, kill her already,” Patrice said.

Aron’s feverish gaze ran across Sylvie’s skin, shoulders to toes and back up again. “You sure?”

Sylvie, clenched in readiness to fight back, to flee a spell or another attack, to crack the morning open with bullet fire, felt her body jerk in shock.

Patrice twitched also, a bizarre body echo. “Of
course
I’m sure! I paid you to—”

Aron’s chest shifted, moving fast with his quickening breath. “I know. I just thought. Sometimes, there are things you want to do yourself. For the satisfaction of it. No matter who you’ve hired.”

Patrice’s expression was pure distaste and Sylvie found herself laughing, hard-edged and furious. “You killed for that body, and now you won’t even fight to defend it? Afraid of scratching the finish? Or are you afraid you don’t have what it takes?”

Her voice was shrieking warning; this was not how any confrontation with a bad-magic witch was supposed to go.

“Kill her now, Aron.”