Sins and Shadows

Lyn Benedict

For Kim and Nannette,

for reasons that should be evident

Acknowledgments

As always, there are many people who should be thanked for helping bring this book to completion. Thanks to the KU CSSF novel workshop for starting me off right. Thanks to GS Dastur for saving me from Babel Fish French. Thanks to my noble critiquers, Luisa Prieto and Larry Taylor, for keeping me on the straight path! And thanks to Caitlin Blasdell and Anne Sowards for their tireless efforts on my behalf.

1

Closing Up Shop: The Real World

SYLVIE LIGHTNER STUDIED HER COFFEEMAKER WITH A WEARY AND contemplative eye, trying to decide if she should dump the carafe and pack the machine now, or keep the caffeine until the very last moment. Maybe she could just leave it behind, along with everything else: her obligations, her pride, her pain. Just walk away from it and pretend it wouldn’t follow.

A shadow crossed over her floor, fed in through the rippled glass of the front door, blocking the Florida sunlight and the gilded letters that reflected her sign on the floor: SHADOWS INQUIRIES. Sylvie automatically turned her eyes toward a marble bowl containing a walnut-sized bell on the recently cleared main desk. The warning bell stayed silent, meaning it wasn’t a boogeyman at the door, but when Sylvie heard the jangling of keys, she almost wished for the monster. She’d hoped to be gone before Alex got back.

Alex swore as the keyhole refused to surrender the key, and finally yanked it away. “Syl, we have got to get that fix—” She gaped at the front office filled with cardboard boxes, her usual complaint derailed.

“What’s going on?” she asked. The circles under her eyes darkened. Such anxiety used to look out of place amidst the pierced brow, the blond-and-black spiky hair, but of late, it had become all too common. Sylvie noticed with a pang that Alex wasn’t even wearing her tricolor eye shadow anymore. This was all for the best.

“And you call yourself a detective,” Sylvie said, keeping her tone brisk. “I’m closing up shop. As of this moment, Shadows Inquiries is out of business.”

“What?” Alex said. Her voice cracked. “Just like that? You can’t, Sylvie. I’m a part of this business, too.”

“Yes,” Sylvie said. She continued taping a half-full box shut with a ruthless hand, sealing away files that could probably be left behind, as most of them were merely constructs of code and falsehood. Still, better safe than sorry was Sylvie’s new motto. “The employee part. Whereas I am the boss.”

“Don’t I get a say?” Alex said. Anger lit Alex’s face, chasing away some of the ground-in grief. She snatched the tape gun from Sylvie’s hand, forcing her attention.

“No,” Sylvie said. “See above, me boss, you employee. And, Alex—you’re fired. I’ll send your last check in the mail.” Sylvie refused to wince at the hurt in her friend’s open face. Alex was too loyal for her own good, that was the trouble. If Sylvie just laid it out, that she expected to be embroiled in a losing battle, Alex would refuse to leave her side. She had to be driven away. Better to lose a friend to temper and hurt than to another bullet.

“Bullshit, you can’t just fire me,” Alex said. “I’ve been with you from the beginning. You need me, Sylvie.”

Agree or disagree, Sylvie ignored the comment as irrelevant. “I’m closing the shop,” Sylvie repeated. “I’ll need your key back.”

Alex dropped onto the cracked leather couch; a box slid to the floor with a thump and the chime of breaking glass. “You’re serious?”

“Yes,” Sylvie said.

“You’re trying to protect me,” Alex said. “That’s not your job. You can’t protect everyone.”

“Get your stuff and get out,” Sylvie said, finding real temper for the first time. Can’t protect everyone? Didn’t need to tell her that. Not now. Her gun hand twitched; the little dark voice that lived inside her head roused, and laced her tone with fury. “Get out.” She throttled back the rage.

Alex, despite Sylvie’s current pretense, was her friend. The dark voice had no friends at all, and why should it? It existed only to survive, had woken during Sylvie’s first brush with the Magicus Mundi. Sylvie wasn’t sure what it was; a microsplit in her personality, the echo of ancient genetics, or something else entirely. Her witch friend, Val, when consulted, argued for option A or B, said it was too bitchy not to be pure Sylvie. But hers or not, she couldn’t argue with its priority: to keep her alive.

Alex licked her lips, nervous. It wasn’t a tone Sylvie usually turned on her. “Syl—”

“You don’t feel like packing up? Fine, I’ll mail anything you leave. Now, key and out.” Sylvie held out her hand, met Alex’s eyes without flinching.

Alex dug in her pocket and dropped the key into Sylvie’s palm. Sylvie chucked it into an open box and turned her back, though the prickling at the back of her neck let her know that Alex still watched her.

“You forget what the door looks like?”

Footsteps edged away, then the door opened, bringing in the sound of the crowded South Beach streets, the sounds of foreign tourists talking, the cars honking as people jaywalked before them. The office filled with the warm scent of salt and sun.

The noise faded, but Sylvie knew that Alex wasn’t gone; she refused to turn around.

“This is because of Suarez,” Alex said, her voice low. “He died, and you think—”

“Be accurate,” Sylvie snapped. “He was murdered. In front of us.”

Alex scrubbed at her eyes, and Sylvie said, “It’s not just Suarez. It’s all the shit we deal with, the creepy crawlies and nightmare fodder most sane people refuse to acknowledge. And that’s not even including the government agents who think we’re worth watching day and night. I’ve had enough.” All true. All utterly misleading. But how did she say, “I’m quitting before I have to start killing people as well as monsters,” when Alex had no idea she killed anything at all?

She chucked a handful of pencils at a box just as two patrolmen pushed into the room, shoving Alex out of the way.

“What now?” Sylvie asked. The little silver bell chimed faintly in its marble bowl, too quietly for Sylvie to tell if it had been jarred to movement by the cops’ sudden entrance or by something else.

Sylvie didn’t care for the police at the best of times. Not that they had much reason to like her either, an unlicensed PI who’d ended up standing over one too many bodies.

“I’ve quit, guys, so take your shit elsewhere,” Sylvie said, but the police ignored her. One of them climbed the stairwell to her private office and kicked the door open. It banged against the wall hard enough to scar plaster.

The other cop, a fortyish black male, headed toward Sylvie. Something was wrong with his eyes. He had junkie eyes, strung out, hurting eyes, looking for some intangible fix. Sylvie wasn’t sure he saw her at all.

He circled the small kitchenette, opening the storage closet and peering inside.

It was their silence that worried her the most. It was too loaded and too separate. The officers seemed as unaware of each other as they were of her. She traded a look with Alex, still pressed back against the wall, and tilted her head slightly toward the door. Go on, she thought. Get out.

Alex shook her head. Stubborn as always. Loyal to a fault. Exactly the reason she had to go.

The cop came down from the office above and focused in on Sylvie for the first time. She glared back, unflinching. Young, Hispanic, and a little too pudgy for his uniform, he still made her blood run cold. Like the other cop’s, his eyes were empty.