17

The Hard Lesson

“NOW THAT YOU SEE, NOW THAT YOU KNOW . . . TELL ME, SHADOWS. Do I look like the kind of man who would perpetuate slavery and soul shock? Do I look like I’d pass Hands out to teenagers?”

Sylvie studied Wales, the grubby little room filled with dead men’s Hands, the way the ghost, Marco, slunk back beside him, the hellish light the Hand gave off, the tightly drawn fear on Wright’s face—Demalion’s mind—and let loose. “You just fed your . . . pet a soul snack. Hell yes, you look the type.”

Wales actually had the audacity to look bewildered, flustered. He sputtered, “No, no. That was just for illustration! So you’d see . . . and he’s no good anyway, a real bad guy—”

Sylvie shrugged that off—she and Demalion were too jaded to be able to argue that point effectively—and said, “Well, we’re not. Soul shock and slavery, and you thought it was a good idea to take us down instead of just answering your door. Thought it was great idea to expose us a second time?”

Demalion’s breath seemed loud and rasping, as if he’d caught the rhythm of her stuttering heart. The room felt tight and close, dusty with the scent of mummified flesh. She felt choked on it, on her rage. Zoe had gone to someone like this. Walked into a room stinking of black magic and taken home a souvenir. Put her soul at risk for the promise of cold hard cash.

Wales stiffened; his lanky shape grew more angular. “You came to my door, gun drawn. I was justified. I do what I have to, to survive. You’re no different. Neither’s your dead friend there. I might feed Marco on occasion, but I don’t body snatch for him. I’ve got the moral high ground here, Shadows.”

She hissed in a breath, and Demalion said, “Sylvie,” again. Not a plea this time, but a flat-out command not to pick a fight, not to be herself.

“Prove it,” she said, instead. Her voice was rough, hostile, but it wasn’t a shout. “If you’ve got the moral high ground, offer me your help.” Her fingers tightened on the wrist stump of the Hand she held, nails digging into the flesh. Disgusting and gruesome, but the only outlet she could allow herself.

She didn’t trust him, but like Val, he seemed more than willing to talk about magic, feed her information she needed. While she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting it, he could have hurt them; hell, just leaving them passed out in this part of the city would have been a form of passive murder. Instead, he’d brought them in, bound them gently, wakened them with a potion whose contents he willingly listed.

Those actions were discouraging, created doubt in her breast. Wales might be telling her the simple truth. He wasn’t the one passing Hands out to kids. And if that were so, if he were the guardian he claimed to be . . .

“We need your help.”

That shocked Wales rigid in a way all her previous bluster and rage hadn’t. He sidled away from her, all nerves now, no poise. “I don’t get involved with other people’s problems. Not anymore.”

“Sometimes you don’t get a choice,” she said. When his pale face went as ashy as Marco’s ghostly one, she gestured with the Hand she held. “What? You thought you’d show me a little dark magic, and I’d be ready to flee? You’re going to help us. You say you’re not the problem here? Not the necromancer I’m hunting? Fine. Then you’re the help I need.”

Demalion said, “Shadows is a black-and-white woman. You’re either part of the problem or part of the solution. I’ve been on both sides with her. It was better on the solution side.”

That made her heart hurt. The solution side had gotten him killed. But he met her eyes squarely and nodded once. A knot that had tied itself around her heart eased: Like her, Demalion would have done nothing different. Relief made her sound friendlier than she felt when she said, “Helping us out would go a long, long way to making me forget that you just sicced your ghost on your neighbor. As an illustration.”

He sighed. “What d’y’all want, then?” Wales asked. He hunched a shoulder, turned his head away from Marco’s whispers.

“First? Put your buddy Marco back in the box or wherever he goes when he’s not looming over you. I’m getting a cramp holding on to Thing here.” She had about reached her limit for grossness, was one step from her fingers betraying her and dropping the loathsome thing.

Marco scowled, but Wales only nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He carried Marco’s Hand past them, Sylvie and Demalion pivoting to keep watch. Wales puttered about the open kitchen—really not the nesting sort, Sylvie thought; his kitchen consisted of a cardboard box that looked suspiciously full of cereal cartons, a battered cooler, and a spray bottle beside the sink.

The spray bottle yielded a fine, stinking mist that sizzled and spat as it made contact with the Hand of Glory. The hellish flames sank back to a sullen glow, then went out.

Marco disappeared like a screen projection shut off. Wales set the bottle down, the Hand, and refilled the bottle with a carton of milk from the cooler. Farm Stores brand, she noted absently. That fitted. Somehow she had a hard time imagining Wales walking down brightly lit Winn-Dixie aisles, all twitchy-eyed, with a Hand in his wallet pocket.

“Milk douses the flame,” he said.

“So you’ve said. Nature versus unnature.”

“Birth and death,” Demalion contributed, tag-teaming.

“You’re stalling,” Sylvie concluded.

He blotted Marco’s Hand against his shirt, pocketed it again. Sylvie felt her lip curl, her fingers uncurl, letting the Hand she’d held drop to the floor.

“If you let go while it’s active,” she said, “what happens?”

“Marco knocks me out and eats my soul. Not a nibble, the whole damn thing. Like any slave, he’ll turn on his owner if given the chance.” Wales cocked his head in thought, then added, “Well, maybe Marco wouldn’t. We’ve been through a lot together.”

Sylvie scrubbed her fingers down her jeans repeatedly. Demalion was doing the same.

“Soap?” she asked.

“No running water,” Wales said. “There are Handi Wipes under the sink if you’re squeamish. They’re pretty inert, bacteria-wise, you know.”

“No, I don’t.” Sylvie shifted farther away from the dangling Hands. “That’s why we came to you.”

Wales hesitated. “I’m confused. I assumed you wanted me to find your ghost friend a body of his own.”

“Can you?” Demalion asked.

“No!” Wales said.

Sylvie didn’t like Demalion’s eagerness, said, “Yeah, like even if that was our plan”—and hey, it was the first thought that ended with both Wright and Demalion alive—“we could trust you. We came to do a show-and-tell with Hands of Glory.” She sought out the promised wipes and scoured her fingers; fake floral-scented alcohol had never smelled so good. She tossed the container to Demalion, and he did likewise.

“I’ve shown, I’ve told. You’re still here.” He shifted his hands, crossed his arms above his chest, uncrossed them, hooked fingers into his pockets, shifted again, visibly restraining himself from seeking out Marco’s Hand in some bizarre comfort.

“Not your Hands, our Hands . . . My briefcase. Where’s my briefcase?” It had slipped her mind entirely; surrounded by Hands of Glory, she hadn’t missed the two she’d brought to this party.

“In the hall,” he said. “I didn’t want to mess with it. It looked iffy.”

“Iffy,” she muttered. She took three giant steps—all it took to cross the small living room—griping the whole time. “I’ll tell you what’s iffy. Your future if it’s gone.”

“Sylvie,” Demalion said. “Take a breath.”

“What, you’re on his side? He thinks you’re a squatter looking to move in permanently.”

“How about we all play on the same side?” Demalion asked, but without a lot of hope. He seemed tired, still resting in the chair where he had been bound as if his bones were too heavy to let him rise. Sylvie took another glance, thought he looked grey in Wright’s skin, and shut up. She wondered how long Demalion could hold on to the body—this was the longest she’d seen him manage—wondered if Wright was fighting to recover it.