“I prefer to think of them as frustration buttons. Mostly harmless ways for people to vent their ill will. The vast majority of my clients have no ability at all. They might as well be trying to run a car on sugar water.”

“And those with talent?” Sylvie shook her head. “Even Barbies will work for them. For them, intent and information is enough.”

“Still likely to be less than ideal. Broken legs instead of broken necks. Financial dismay instead of utter bankruptcy.”

“And that has no effect on your soul?” Sylvie asked.

Odalys stiffened. “I never claimed I was lily-white. But intent, as you noted, counts for a lot, and my intentions are good. Here—to prove it. See this?” She finessed a stone pendant on a long chain out of a tangle of similar jewelry. It didn’t look like much, a rounded piece of granite with a hole through it. “For your cop with the ghost problem. Or hadn’t you noticed it?”

“I noticed.” That Odalys noticed, too, made Sylvie more determined that the woman was the power Tatya said she was; she’d seen Wright through the window, interacted with him briefly, and yet had diagnosed him successfully. “What’s the pendant for, and what’ll it cost me?”

Odalys said, “You lack grace.”

Sylvie ignored the odd sting that caused her. “I also lack answers.”

Odalys sighed. “It’s a pendant to drive back the dead. He’s overshadowed, not actually that uncommon for a policeman. Too much dealing with victims. It’s harmless to the living.”

“What about a location spell? Can you do them? I need to find my sister. Urgently.”

Odalys stepped away, letting the pendant dangle. “Everything seems urgent with you. Perhaps you could benefit from a tranquility candle. Let you reassess what’s really vital.”

“By the time it gets to me, it’s all vital,” she said. “People don’t come to me for easy fixes. Will you do a location spell for me or not?”

“Not,” Odalys said. “I don’t trust you. Too hungry for things to be done your way. Too . . . dark-natured. If I failed, you’d hold it against me, and I don’t want enemies.”

“You’re sure as hell not making me your friend,” Sylvie said. “So you won’t help me with the Hands—”

“Can’t,” Odalys said. “Not won’t. Won’t help you with the location spell.”

Wright pressed the screen back, stuck his head in. “Shadows, any luck? Only we’re gonna need to feed the meter. . . .”

“Another minute,” Sylvie said.

She turned back to find Odalys putting a few more feet between them, her expression gone flat. “Shadows? Sylvie Lightner of Shadows Inquiries? You’re that investigator?”

“Does that change your mind?”

“Makes me more convinced that I am not the person to help you.”

Sylvie studied the woman; Odalys raised her chin and stared back.

Some people could be bullied with impunity. Some people couldn’t. A witch was one of them, especially when Sylvie didn’t know enough about magic. Odalys could say she’d help, do the spells deliberately wrong, and Sylvie wouldn’t know. At best, the spells would fail. At worst, they might hurt her, Wright, Zoe.

As much as it galled, Sylvie had to cede this round to Odalys. “Can you at least give me an idea of who might have made the Hands? If people aren’t buying the black magic from you, where are they going? You’re all about the good karma—think how good it will be to get a dangerous seller off the street. Wouldn’t hurt your business any, either.”

Odalys’s eyes flashed, bright blue and angry, but then the anger shaded to calculation. “You won’t say who told you?”

“Discount the scarf fifty percent, and I never even heard of you.” Sylvie would pay the woman; the price was worth it to keep the Hands corralled—especially if they were reaching out toward Wright’s dreams—but she didn’t have to let Odalys know that.

“I don’t care about that,” she said. “This isn’t about business. It’s about trouble. I don’t want any. And he’s bad news.”

“He?” Sylvie said. Her interest, fading while Odalys had prattled on about self-interest, spiked again. “Who’s he?”

“Someone newer to town than me,” she said. “New enough your ladies haven’t heard of him yet. Wales, the Ghoul. Washed in out of Texas. Rumor says he carts around cadavers the way drug dealers carry guns, and for similar purposes. Weapons out of human flesh. The Hands of Glory? They’re his specialty.”

15

Trouble, Trouble

“SPECIALTY?” SYLVIE ECHOED. HER VOICE WAS SOFT, MUFFLED BY THE wall shelves of wicker baskets, by the soft rug on the floor, by the fact that even after ten-odd years dealing with the Magicus Mundi, she could still be shocked and repelled.

Black magic was bad enough, but it was familiar to her. She’d seen it in Troilus Cassavetes, who used voodoo to rule his drug running in South Miami. She’d seen it in Gabriel Brand, who’d used false lycanthropy to slaughter his enemies. And she’d seen it far more often than she liked in the Maudit society, the organization of sorcerers that played every type of nasty magical trick possible. But someone who specialized in a single black skill—the Hands of Glory—who profited on murder, who cultured malevolence—it just made her despair.

Odalys shook her head, a clear “I don’t want to talk about it,” and headed back into the main shop.

Sylvie followed, her own distaste for the subject gone in the urge to push Odalys on it. “An address would be nice.”

Wright twitched away from his scrutiny of a shelf full of spice jars, his eyes seeking Sylvie’s, asking a wordless question. Sylvie’s stomach roiled. She hadn’t asked Odalys a single thing about Wright’s problem; the woman had diagnosed it herself, proffered aid without being asked, and Sylvie had done nothing. Asked nothing. Hadn’t even accepted the small help Odalys had offered. Caught up in her worries about Zoe, she was neglecting her client.

Or at least, so she excused it to herself.

You don’t want her help. You want to keep Demalion here, the little dark voice whispered.

“Don’t worry, darling,” Odalys said. “I’ve got help for your little problem.” She held the pendant out; in the bright sunlight, the stone glittered as it spun, age-smoothed stone with shiny flecks and a hole through the center of it. “Consider it your pay for watching the shop.”

He reached out, as cautious as a child approaching a strange dog. At the last, he pulled back. “No,” he said. He put his hands behind his back, his expression closing off into distaste, a little fear. Sylvie frowned. Was it Wright’s fear? Or Demalion’s?

“It’s good for what ails you,” Odalys said. “It’s a fragment of a tombstone from sacred ground.”

“I hope no one’s missing it,” Sylvie said. Her fingers itched to take it away from her, keep it away from Wright.

“It’s old,” Odalys said. “Broke off naturally. I swear.” Her lips curled, a smile that said she didn’t care whether Sylvie believed her or not. “It will help you. Why do you think we mark graves with stones? Our ancestors remembered. To keep the dead from rising. Body or spirit. We dress it up with religion and respect, but gravestones are all about fear. About holding down the dead.”

Wright’s hands fell slack by his side, and Odalys reached forward, folded his long fingers around the stone. “Spill a little blood to initialize it, rub it in, and let it hang over your heart. It’ll drive away any revenant spirit.”

He was looking at it, considering it, turning it over in his hands. Demalion’s second death in a piece of rock. Wright’s wary eyes met hers over Odalys’s shoulder, and Sylvie shook her head slightly. Time, she mouthed. He had promised her time. Time to find a better solution.

Blood magic was always more dangerous than it seemed, fed a tiny piece of yourself into the air, where anything could smell it, taste it, track it down. The safest way to live with the Magicus Mundi was simple: Don’t get its attention.