16

Riddled Through

SYLVIE GRIMACED AS SHE PAID THE CABBIE, FORKING OVER HER LAST twenty and a ten. She should have had Dunne magic her wallet after he’d magicked her gun. Cab fare had wiped her out, but there was no help for it. Sylvie had thought about taking Demalion’s ISI sedan but figured it was either traceable or LoJacked. She had better things to do than wait for him to track her down.

If she couldn’t trust Demalion to help her gain information, it was down to the wild card. Anna D, Val’s local Power. Sylvie was already regretting it. Anna D, witch extraordinaire, didn’t live near anything so plebeian as a bus or train route. In fact, she lived about as far from the city as she could get and still fit within the zip codes.

Away from the historic downtown area, the buildings were more modern, less prone to sneaking in bits of gothic frippery, or art deco details. Anna D’s condominium glittered like an icicle in full sun. All that glass . . . It made Sylvie shiver, imagining what use a witch could have for that many reflective surfaces.

Did she really need Anna D’s help, unknown quality that it was? The plate-glass exterior suggested a scrying witch at the very least, which could pinpoint Lily’s current whereabouts for her if she were lucky.

The ISI would have secured the church by now, and Lily would get another e-mail, warning her to stay away from home. Sylvie had nothing left to learn from that site.

If Sylvie were unlucky, the building was glass because Anna D had a thing for modern architecture; she might be a nothing talent, no matter what Val had said.

Besides, Sylvie could ruin Anna D’s life; after all, Lily was on Sylvie’s tail—or Sylvie on hers, it was hard to tell—and balefire didn’t care where it burned. Even if Lily wasn’t a threat, Dunne was. What if he came seeking Sylvie and burned Anna D out as thoroughly as he had Val? Hell, even the ISI might pose a threat to a witch who aided Sylvie.

Her phone buzzed from her jacket pocket, and she fielded it absently. “Yeah.”

“Stop dithering in my parking lot. Go away. Or, if you must, come see me.” A sharp click marked disconnection, as crisp and as final as the woman’s voice itself.

Fine, Sylvie thought. Make it easy for me. I already don’t like you; guess I won’t cry if I put you in harm’s way. She stalked into the lobby, a ragtag figure in the middle of bland eggshell and marble luxury. The lobby receptionist didn’t bother to look up, obviously forewarned, and Sylvie headed for the elevator. It dinged open as she approached it.

When Sylvie got in, she saw a floor had already been selected. What, too much trouble to just tell me the apartment number? Sylvie groused. Anna D was going to be difficult with a capital D. Sylvie only liked difficult if she was the one being that way. Other people just irritated her. Anna D was the type who played games while people died.

The elevator slid silently upward, releasing Sylvie onto the penthouse floor and a long hallway where the carpet was as gold as the beach at sunset. Sylvie stepped off, heard movement, and saw a woman walking away from her. Sylvie would have to jog to catch up. Games.

She growled and followed at her own speed, studying the stiff elegance of the woman’s walk, the formal suit, the low-heeled shoes. An older woman, with a crisp style to match the voice she’d heard on the phone. Guess Anna D didn’t have a servant, Sylvie thought, just as the woman reached the doorway to the penthouse, opened it, then, without turning, closed it in Sylvie’s face.

Kill it, the dark voice snarled. No, Sylvie thought, taking her hand from the gun. But Anna D had better be a font of useful information.

Sylvie expressed her feelings by ignoring the brass doorbell and pounding on the door.

It opened immediately. Games, Sylvie thought again, bit back the growl, and blamed Erinya’s jacket for bringing out the Fury in her.

The woman blocked the doorway and studied Sylvie, an eyebrow arched, the lips just slightly curled enough to express dismay and contempt. Sylvie stared back just as rudely. Society woman. An aging movie starlet in the gracious style: Hepburn and Garbo rather than Cher. Anna D was old-school elegance personified. Her sleek dark hair, untouched with grey, swept back into a tidy bob. Her eyes were the color of sandstone, her skin firm and deeply olive and oddly, she reminded Sylvie of someone she knew.

She dared another glance at those sunset-colored eyes and felt suspicion prickle. Kill it, her dark voice had said. Anna D wasn’t just a witch. Anna D probably wasn’t even human. The woman’s mouth shifted, and she spoke, clipped, precise, clinical.

I bring joy and pain in equal measure,

yet men dream on me with naught but pleasure.

I make strong men weak, and weak men strong.

I am the heart of every song.

I can ne’er be touched, but only felt.

Once forced to flight by candle melt.

If I am caught, I die if neglected,

but, like hope, may be resurrected.

Who am I?

Sylvie banged her head on the doorjamb, unutterably sick of this. “I knew you were the type to play games. Let me guess. You’re not going to let me in, or answer any of my questions until I answer yours.”

“Worse,” Anna D said, a touch of condescension sliding into that blank voice. “I will neither allow you to enter, nor aid you, until you answer my riddle correctly.”

“You do know people are dying.”

“It’s the human condition.”

“Repeat it,” Sylvie said.

“You don’t listen very well,” Anna D said. “Tell me—what did the sorcerer name you—do you remember? If you repeat his words, I will repeat mine.”

Sylvie blinked. The sorcerer? The Maudit she’d shot? How could Anna know about—

“I grow bored.”

“It was French,” Sylvie said. “I don’t speak French. Enfant. Le Enfant Meurtrier, something like that.”

“Yes,” Anna said. “L’enfant du meurtrier. He recognized you. As I do.”

“Maybe you’ve got the wrong idea,” Sylvie said. “I know who I am. I need to know who Lily—”

“L’enfant du meurtrier,” Anna D said. “The Murderer’s Child.”

After a moment, Sylvie said, “I’ve heard worse,” refusing to show that the name-calling rocked something deep inside her. Not Murderer, but Murderer’s Child. The murderer, like she should know what or who that meant. She realized Anna D, that bitch, had taken advantage of her silent abstraction to recite her riddle again, and she’d nearly missed it.

Anna D’s lips tilted up at the corners, a feline smile of triumph and pleasure. Sylvie watched it grow, become more purely about victory, watched the door begin to close. At the last moment, Sylvie put her hand out, slapped the door back, and solved the riddle. “Love.”

She grinned her own nasty triumph at the witch, and said, “I can play games, too.”

Anna D stalked away from the door, ceding this round; Sylvie had a mental image of a ticked-off cat, lashing its tail, and smiled again.

“At least you recognize it,” Anna D said, dropping into a velveteen-covered chair. “Enough to answer the question, and that’s something.” She sounded as if she were reassuring herself. She stroked the chair arms where the beige velvet tucked itself beneath brass nailheads.

Sylvie wandered around the sunken living room, with the focus not a television or entertainment system, but the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Looked like she was right; Anna D was a scryer.

“It’s like multiple-choice tests, really. When in doubt, choose B. Riddles always end in love or death.” She detoured over to a knickknack table covered in crystal globes of varying size; she picked one up and warmed it in her hand. “So many things do.”