Rather than be drawn into an ugly argument in a public place, Sylvie put her back to him, headed for her truck, and let him catch up when he would. A quick sidelong glance as he settled into her passenger’s seat let her know the argument was off the table for now. Demalion was gone; Wright was back.

THE SOUTH BEACH OFFICE WAS QUIET WHEN THEY REACHED IT, Alex’s head bent over the laptop she’d dragged over to the couch, and she was frowning furiously. Quiet wasn’t good. A happy Alex was a chatty Alex. It meant that even with the heads-up phone call, Alex hadn’t had any luck locating Tierney Wales.

“I can’t believe this guy!” Alex erupted into speech, without ever looking up. “He just vanished from the system in the past two years. No bank, no credit cards, no address, no DMV. Nothing. I mean, I got a few random Google hits, old mentions of a Web site that’s gone down. Other than that, he’s a ghost.” She licked her lips, and said, “Um, Syl? Promise you won’t be mad?”

“What’d you do?” Sylvie asked. “Are the cops going to break down the door, and did it work?”

“No cops. I hacked the ISI database with Demalion’s old codes.”

“Jesus,” Sylvie said. “That’s the last thing we need, them having a reason to dig back into my life.”

“I thought they were the good guys,” Wright said.

“The ISI and I don’t agree on which of us is the good guy. They staked out my office for years, gave up recently. I don’t want them back,” Sylvie said. She grinned mirthlessly. “Waste of taxpayers’ money.” Her temper itched at her. Sitting still made her crazy. Dead ends made her angry.

Sylvie leaned against the desk, and Alex looked up, belatedly puzzled. “The bell’s not going off.”

“Locked the briefcase in the truck box,” Sylvie said. “I’m sick of it. Sick of the whole damn thing, and those Hands aren’t healthy to keep close. Next you know, we’ll all be having bad dreams. Find Wales and let me shove those things down his throat.”

“I’m trying,” Alex said.

“Try harder. We don’t have the time to stake out the Grove in the vain hope of catching him selling bones to tourists.”

“What about the girl?” Wright asked. “Bella. Why don’t you ask her?”

Sylvie blinked a moment, then said, “I should have thought of that.” She should have. Normally, she would have—only thinking about Bella made her think about Zoe, and that made her dizzy with horrible possibilities.

Sylvie really missed the early days, when it was find the monster, kill the monster, and the biggest problem was getting rid of the body.

It will come to that, her little dark voice assured her, nearly purring. It always does.

“I’ll give Bella a call.”

She left Wright and Alex eyeing each other warily and went upstairs for the phone and some privacy. At her office door, she closed her eyes and leaned against the peeling green doorjamb. She had to be better than this, think faster than this, distance herself from all of this. It was no different from any other case. If she couldn’t stop thinking that it was Demalion’s soul on the line, or her sister’s life, she wouldn’t be doing her best work.

Sylvie picked up the phone, hesitated, then pulled Zoe’s cell out of the drawer. Given the miracle of caller ID, Bella’d be more likely to pick up if she thought it was Zoe.

The phone rang through to voice mail, three times running.

Unease rose. For a teenage girl, answering the cell phone was an avocation and not a chore.

She dialed the house number, and, when Eleanor answered, said, “I need to talk to Bella. It’s important.”

Eleanor’s response slipped in and out of English. Sylvie followed just enough of it to get cold to the bone. Alex greeted her return with, “Bella give you an answer?”

“Bella’s in the hospital. She’s not expected to make it.” Sylvie collapsed on the couch. “Total systemic failure. Like rapid-onset AIDS. Her entire body’s shutting down.” She stared at the ceiling, watching the sunlight shift along the plaster. “She wanted to bond with the Hand. She kept it beneath her pillow, slept with it, carted it about with her. Decorated it. She invited it into her soul.”

Wright shivered, a spasm of movement there and gone, unnoticeable except this was Miami, and even the air-conditioned office ran closer to sultry than shiver.

“Yeah,” she said. “You stay the hell away from those things. Don’t touch them; don’t look at them.”

“Not a problem,” he said. “You’re the one carries them sightseeing.”

Alex said, “What are you going to do? Can you save Bella?”

“I don’t know how the Hands work. I don’t know what kind of connection they have to Bella, to Zoe. Bella was trying to bond with it, and now she’s sick. . . . Finding a way to sever that connection has to be the first priority. Hopefully, destroying them will do it. Wales is our best bet.”

“He’s the seller!” Wright said.

“Then he’ll have the manual,” Sylvie said.

“We still have to find him,” Alex pointed out. “Just saying.”

“If he’s selling things on the street, the beat cops will know him,” Wright said. He rocked back on his heels, slid his hands into his jeans pockets, read their faces, and said, “What? It’s a good idea.”

“We don’t call the cops,” Alex said.

“Not our MO,” Sylvie said. “Alex, call the Grove merchants’ association. They’ll know who he is.”

16

Necromancy for Beginners

THE SKY BLED PINK AND GOLD AND RED, USHERED IN A SINKING LINE of darkest indigo, and, though it was lovely, all Sylvie saw in it was another example of bad timing. She was off her game. First, she’d dragged Wright out to visit Tatya and Marisol on a full-moon night; now they were headed into one of Florida’s most crime-ridden cities hunting for a necromancer. The Grove merchants had paid off; one underpaid clerk had coughed up an address. It might be a blind, but Sylvie doubted anyone would list an address in Opa-locka for the prestige.

The gun nestled against her spine was fragile reassurance.

Wright sat silently in the passenger’s seat, head tilted back against the headrest, eyes closed, and reflected sun scald washing over his skin, warming the exhausted pallor from his cheeks.

“You should have stayed with Alex,” she said.

“No,” he said, without even opening his eyes though they moved behind his closed lids. His lashes tipped gold in the sunset, sparse in places, evidence of stressful rubbing. Sylvie jerked her gaze back to the slowly darkening highway before her. Demalion’s lashes had been plush, ridiculously long, and as black as a bad-luck cat. She’d kissed them once, felt them flutter against her lips, a fragile shield for Demalion’s clairvoyant gaze.

“You’re tense,” he said. He rolled his head to look at her; she took another quick glance in his direction and felt her spine screw up even tighter.

“I’m driving into Opa-locka after dark with severed hands in my truck and a ghost-possessed refugee cop at my side. My sister’s AWOL, maybe of her own volition, maybe not. There’s something you should know about the Magicus Mundi: Time is never on your side.”

“You couldn’t have told me that when I was holding the rock?” Wright said.

Rock? Sylvie frowned, then got it. The tombstone pendant.

“I don’t want to end up with a permanent roommate,” Wright added. “Just saying. I don’t care how good a guy he is. I play nice. I share a lot of things with a lot of people. I’ll even give you the shirt off my back. But not my skin.”

He leaned back, closed his eyes, and said, “Not an accusation, Shadows. Just sayin’.”

They made the rest of the trip in aching silence. Sylvie opened her mouth every mile, a question burning on her tongue that she couldn’t voice. She didn’t know if Wright had picked up the stone or left it in the gutter, or if Demalion had: If they were keeping secrets from her or each other.