Read Online Lies & Omens: A Shadows Inquiries Novel by Lyn Benedict - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Lyn Benedict
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pattern, an older pattern, a memory trail that was laid in before she was born. A memory, given voice.
Demalion wasn’t dead yet. And he’d survived worse. This, whatever it was, hadn’t been aimed specifically at him. He’d survived when the Furies had torn his flesh apart and sent his soul fleeing to the first sanctuary it found: Adam Wright’s body.
She had better things to do with her time than mourn him prematurely.
NEXT MORNING FOUND HER SITTING IN ALEX’S JEEP OUTSIDE THE hotel that housed the ISI while dawn pushed back the skyline, spreading reflected pinks and pale blues in the dark, slow, canal waters alongside the street. Her anxiety haddulled to a background simmer in her brain, an occasional skip to her breath when she thought of where Demalion might be, why he hadn’t called. Boredom had always been a good cure for terror.
Sylvie yawned into her hand, thought about moving the Jeep again to keep ahead of the ticket-happy police who patrolled the hotel district. It was tricky, though. She wasn’t the only watcher. She’d seen more than one agency SUV with suspicious shadows behind tinted glass. Keeping an eye on their perimeter.
She rolled down the window, sucked in a breath of Miami at morning when it was clean and green. The ISI surveillance made watching their HQ that much more difficult; she had to evade their eyes as well as the traffic cops while staying in close proximity. Really, she should have just slumped low, let the tickets accrete on the windshield, and let them assume the car was abandoned.
Alex would have bitched, though, and with the ISI on alert, odds were the Jeep would have been towed at first ticketing.
Sylvie squirmed; Alex’s fabric seat covers wrinkled beneath her, creating uncomfortable ridges. She missed her truck and its leather seats and her stock of canned drinks and snacks. But Alex’s Jeep wasn’t bright red with a werewolf-clawed hood. Sylvie loved her truck, but it was the very opposite of subtle.
A gull wheeled out of the dark, white feathers reflecting the sun, heading for the docks and the fishermen chopping chum for a day on the water. Sylvie thought of those men, weathered by sun, stubble-faced, shirtless, wielding cleavers with one hand and slurping coffee with the other, and decided the ISI could fend for itself long enough for her to grab breakfast and a bathroom break.
SYLVIE WANTED REAL FOOD BUT COMPROMISED ON A STARBUCKS and took a seat outside, slanting her gaze down the street, where she could keep an eye on the art-deco front of the ISIhotel. The streets trickled to life; first, men and women heading to work, clogging the roads, bleary-eyed and cranky, their radios blaring NPR, Spanish talk radio, the shock jocks. When that rush passed, the early tourists began emerging from the hotels, equally bleary-eyed, but smiling or fussing and juggling maps and children.
Sylvie finished her first coffee, went back for a refill, and found the second seat at her outside table occupied when she returned. Erinya’s boot scuffed at the sandy concrete; the other leg was tucked up beneath her. Her collarbone and cheekbones stood out like ridges under her skin, as if being a god was whittling her away.
She looked up as Sylvie approached, her eyes as black and starved as a starless night, and said, “I want coffee, too. And a croissant.”
Sylvie turned on her heel and went back inside, resisting the urge to point out that Erinya could
create
any breakfast she wanted. It was better for everyone involved if she kept her godly powers unexplored. Gods shed enough as it was, warping the world by their very presence, unless they were very big on self-control.
Through the window, Sylvie watched Erinya testing her fingernails against the tabletop. Wood peeled back as easily as torn paper. Erinya used the slivers to pick at the mortar in the window seam, then dropped those stony chips into Sylvie’s coffee, smirking.
Yeah.
Erinya was a lot of things.
Demalion wasn’t dead yet. And he’d survived worse. This, whatever it was, hadn’t been aimed specifically at him. He’d survived when the Furies had torn his flesh apart and sent his soul fleeing to the first sanctuary it found: Adam Wright’s body.
She had better things to do with her time than mourn him prematurely.
NEXT MORNING FOUND HER SITTING IN ALEX’S JEEP OUTSIDE THE hotel that housed the ISI while dawn pushed back the skyline, spreading reflected pinks and pale blues in the dark, slow, canal waters alongside the street. Her anxiety haddulled to a background simmer in her brain, an occasional skip to her breath when she thought of where Demalion might be, why he hadn’t called. Boredom had always been a good cure for terror.
Sylvie yawned into her hand, thought about moving the Jeep again to keep ahead of the ticket-happy police who patrolled the hotel district. It was tricky, though. She wasn’t the only watcher. She’d seen more than one agency SUV with suspicious shadows behind tinted glass. Keeping an eye on their perimeter.
She rolled down the window, sucked in a breath of Miami at morning when it was clean and green. The ISI surveillance made watching their HQ that much more difficult; she had to evade their eyes as well as the traffic cops while staying in close proximity. Really, she should have just slumped low, let the tickets accrete on the windshield, and let them assume the car was abandoned.
Alex would have bitched, though, and with the ISI on alert, odds were the Jeep would have been towed at first ticketing.
Sylvie squirmed; Alex’s fabric seat covers wrinkled beneath her, creating uncomfortable ridges. She missed her truck and its leather seats and her stock of canned drinks and snacks. But Alex’s Jeep wasn’t bright red with a werewolf-clawed hood. Sylvie loved her truck, but it was the very opposite of subtle.
A gull wheeled out of the dark, white feathers reflecting the sun, heading for the docks and the fishermen chopping chum for a day on the water. Sylvie thought of those men, weathered by sun, stubble-faced, shirtless, wielding cleavers with one hand and slurping coffee with the other, and decided the ISI could fend for itself long enough for her to grab breakfast and a bathroom break.
SYLVIE WANTED REAL FOOD BUT COMPROMISED ON A STARBUCKS and took a seat outside, slanting her gaze down the street, where she could keep an eye on the art-deco front of the ISIhotel. The streets trickled to life; first, men and women heading to work, clogging the roads, bleary-eyed and cranky, their radios blaring NPR, Spanish talk radio, the shock jocks. When that rush passed, the early tourists began emerging from the hotels, equally bleary-eyed, but smiling or fussing and juggling maps and children.
Sylvie finished her first coffee, went back for a refill, and found the second seat at her outside table occupied when she returned. Erinya’s boot scuffed at the sandy concrete; the other leg was tucked up beneath her. Her collarbone and cheekbones stood out like ridges under her skin, as if being a god was whittling her away.
She looked up as Sylvie approached, her eyes as black and starved as a starless night, and said, “I want coffee, too. And a croissant.”
Sylvie turned on her heel and went back inside, resisting the urge to point out that Erinya could
create
any breakfast she wanted. It was better for everyone involved if she kept her godly powers unexplored. Gods shed enough as it was, warping the world by their very presence, unless they were very big on self-control.
Through the window, Sylvie watched Erinya testing her fingernails against the tabletop. Wood peeled back as easily as torn paper. Erinya used the slivers to pick at the mortar in the window seam, then dropped those stony chips into Sylvie’s coffee, smirking.
Yeah.
Erinya was a lot of things.
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