The rush of air from the passing train sent her to her feet, heart racing. After all the spells, the sisters, after Dunne, the station had begun to feel like a no-man’s-land. The world reflected his desire, she thought. He wanted us alone, and he hadn’t needed a spell to make it so.

She made her way through the first stragglers on the stairs and headed back into the night. Nearly midnight and nothing to show for her day; time to retreat and think. She touched the crumpled paper in her pocket. Maybe give the local witch a call if she wanted to risk pissing off a spell caster by calling at this hour.

Her mind full of questions, she managed to get nearly fifteen blocks, passing by darkened storefronts and deserted alleys, when it dawned on her that the throbbing at her spine wasn’t merely protest at her long day but the gun reacting to the rapid steps behind her.

She turned, half-expecting it to be an ISI agent whose skill at shadowing had been made clumsy by Dunne-itis, or even Demalion, giving her fair warning of his approach.

Not ISI, she thought, as the binding spell lanced from his outstretched palm and pinned her in place as neatly as if she had been flash-frozen.

Sylvie had just found herself a sorcerer, and judging from the scowl on his thin-boned, dark-browed face, one in no mood for playing civil.

10

Luck and the Ladies

CARELESS, THAT VOICE IN HER MIND CHASTISED, FULL OF SELF-CONTEMPT. Sylvie snarled and wiggled the fingers of her right hand by sheer force of will. She had been reaching for the gun when the spell took; she could feel its warmth yearning toward her hand. An inch, no more. She had been so close.

Careless, the voice said again, this time in a purr. Sylvie agreed; the sorcerer hadn’t followed his binding spell with anything more permanent. He closed the distance between them, moving with an unearned confidence, and stood before her frowning. Like he had any right to frown, she thought. He wasn’t much to look at, either. Skinny, squinty; no great shakes in the fashion department, black T-shirt and dirty-wash Levi’s under an army-surplus jacket.

Was this her Maudit sorcerer? He looked . . . rather more scruffy than she was used to from their kind. But the binding spell was a spell that took finesse. Not one of the common ones. Entrapment never was. Couple that with the oubliette—he had to be Maudits.

Sylvie forced her hand to move, though fighting the spell chafed her skin like steel wool. Her fingertips walked the gun barrel, traveling until she found its butt.

She curled her fingers around it, let the spell lock them back into place, and turned her concentration to her arm muscles. Pull the weapon. Shoot. A simple plan, with a lot of problematic variables. He might catch on, the spell might tighten, she might shoot herself—She met his eyes as if she hadn’t a worry in the world.

“You destroyed my spell,” he said. “Why?”

“I look like a witch to you?” Sylvie said. For a moment, she was glad of the spell’s constriction—it masked the urge to grin as the gun rose in her hand. “No wonder your work’s so sloppy. You don’t take the time to observe.”

His face, young and more revealing than he probably liked, moved between offense and concern. “You were there—” Another thought passed his face, wrinkling that too-young, too-smug brow. A word hovered on his lips, finally made it free. Recognition. “Shadows.”

Maudits, for sure, if he knew of her. Her reputation really hadn’t spread that far.

“You’re not a witch,” he said. “You’re nothing. Just a woman. How did you do it?” And oh, that easy contempt in his voice was textbook. The Maudits were utterly convinced of their superiority. It was one of the things that made it so much fun to fuck them over. The gun warmed her hand; she curled her finger on the trigger.

“Arrogance should be earned,” Sylvie said, pressing the trigger home, and bedamned to a bad angle. The crack of the bullet never came. Instead, the gun made a distressingly hungry sound like a fervent gulping and purr, and the spell holding her disappeared.

Devoured? Not that she had time to wonder about what had happened, not when she still had the Maudit to deal with, not when his eyes were going wide with shock and rage.

The Maudit stepped back, flung up a hand. Light coalesced in his palm, and Sylvie took her own step back, sighting down the gun—catch her twice; shame on her—and firing.

The gun twitched in her hand and spat the binding spell back out. Sylvie smiled as she watched the sorcerer stiffen and grow still. Not exactly as she had intended, but she could work with this.

She circled his body, posed like some war statue, arm raised, all pissy attitude, and found a smile. She could definitely work with this.

Maybe a god-touched gun wasn’t all bad. The second spell steamed like frost vapor in the Maudit’s cupped hand, still active. Careful not to come in contact with it herself, Sylvie forced one reluctant finger to fold after another and snuffed the spell, ignoring his tremors of rage.

“I have some questions for you. I know you can break that spell—it’s yours after all. But I’m faster than you are. I’m meaner than you are, and I’m on deadline. You heard what happened the last time the Maudits went against me when I was against a clock?”

She waited a moment, watching his eyes change, a slow shift from anger to the beginnings of concern. She smiled. “Cat got your tongue? Blink once for yes. . . . You know, I fought your spell faster than you’re managing. Pretty sad. Hard to imagine you created the oubliette. Impossible to imagine you did it just for kicks. I want to know all about it, but let’s start with the big one. Brandon Wolf—how do I get him out?”

“You closed the door,” he grated out.

“Yeah, yeah, mea culpa, sort of,” Sylvie said, impatience sparking. “Can we move on, or should I see what fun games I can devise with you as a stiff? There isn’t much traffic around here. But I bet there’s enough. If I pushed you into the street—you think you could break the spell before you turned into roadkill?”

A passing taxi sailed by, slowing a little at the sorcerer’s upraised arm, but picked up speed when Sylvie waved him on.

“He doesn’t come out,” the sorcerer said. “That’s not the purpose of an oubliette.”

He’s working his way free, Sylvie thought. The sneer was back. No one had ever taught these boys to play poker.

“Then why get so pissy over a closed door—or were you thinking to bargain with hope? I don’t think Dunne’s someone who likes bargains like that. I know I don’t. It’s crap, and everyone knows it. Like promising salvation to a damned man. A lie spread by gods to make us docile.”

Sylvie found her breath coming fast, her anger resurfacing, thinking of Dunne and Suarez. Of hopes destroyed, and bargains struck when choice was only pretend. That black edge crept through her mind and into her voice. “I don’t do docile.”

His eyes widened; he licked his lips. Little nervous tells that told her more than his state of mind, told her the spell was fading fast.

She seized his shirt collar, tangling the fabric in one clenched fist, the gun’s barrel jabbing into the soft flesh of his throat. Shaking with rage, she dragged him away from the street, into the shadows of closed storefronts, and threw him against a wall.

He oofed with the impact, legs giving out until he landed, slumped, on the sidewalk. She followed him, crouched over him, gun in his face. “Just tell me how to get him back and we can get on with our lives. You do want to get on with yours, don’t you?”

Vigilante, Dunne’s voice accused.

“Stop, stop,” he panted, pushing away from the gun, composure shaken.