Zoe’s hand found freedom, just that bit too late, and flailed at the ghost, tore at her gag. “Sylvie!”
Odalys kicked her way out of her own salt ring, and Sylvie wished very badly for her gun. But wishes were meaningless—the gun stayed wet and waterlogged, lost in the pool.
Odalys said, “I propose a deal.” It wasn’t what Sylvie had expected, and she shot Odalys an incredulous look, turned to help her sister.
She didn’t get far; a muttered word from Odalys, a splash of her own blood, and in the pool, Matteo twitched and started rising. “Zombies are inelegant,” Odalys said. “But often useful. Let’s make a deal, Shadows. I walk away, you get to save your sister from Strange. You don’t hunt me, and I don’t slow you down, just enough—”
There was a wail in the air, a banshee shriek that Sylvie thought was Strange, then the peacocks, then realized—police sirens, headed their way. Odalys’s gaze flicked toward the door, toward escape, and Sylvie felt relief and dread in equal measure.
Backup and a threat of their own. What would the cops think when they came through the house and found the corpses sprawled in chairs, on the stones, on the table—
Demalion groaned, and it was a sweet, sweet sound.
Zoe and Strange still battled, and Matteo rose out of the water, not slow at all.
“Muscle memory,” Odalys said. “The easiest zombies of all. All instinct. Finishing up what they started. He wanted to kill you. Make the deal, Shadows. Save your sister.”
Sylvie dodged Matteo’s lunge, his hand ripping at her jacket, her hair—it stung but was harmless. He kept himself between her and Zoe, between her and Strange. . . .
“Odalys,” Sylvie said.
The woman hesitated, half in shadow, the amulet in her hand glowing softly, a small telltale glimmer.
“No deal.” Sylvie burst into motion; Matteo was between her and her sister? Fine. She could get rid of him by taking out the necromancer who controlled him. Odalys, necromancer, businesswoman, civilized killer—she squeaked in shock and surprise when Sylvie closed on her, turned, and ran.
She didn’t get far, her high heels useless off the stone. Sylvie tackled her long and low, sent her sprawling against the raised roots of a strangler fig, and snatched the amulet from her hand, snapped it in half—it was old bone and brittle.
Odalys twisted and clawed, waking to the animal side of what was happening, but it was too late. Sylvie punched her hard between the eyes, knuckles first, twisting her wrist for that extra snap.
Odalys went satisfactorily limp, dazed and passive. Sylvie dragged her back out to the pool, ignoring the sirens coming ever closer. Odalys shrieked as the saw grass and mulch tore at her skin.
“You think that hurts?” Sylvie said. “You should try getting your soul munched on. Oh, wait. You will.” She frisked her quickly, efficiently, ripped off anything that might be a protective amulet, and dragged her back toward the pool, back toward Zoe and Strange.
“I bet Strange will like you even better,” Sylvie said.
“No, please,” Odalys said. “Please!”
“You’ve got the perfect package after all. Looks, not too old. Even a healthy bank account.”
In the light, she could see Zoe still struggling, still fending off Strange, with a determination that didn’t surprise Sylvie at all.
Lilith’s daughter. Awake. An unyielding will.
She hadn’t wanted Zoe to know about the Magicus Mundi, but at least her introduction to it had woken that strange part of Lilith’s bloodline that was determined to survive and win at all costs. It was saving Zoe’s life right now.
“Please!” Odalys shrieked, and Sylvie threw her down.
“Oh, shut up,” Sylvie said. “I’m not feeding you to Strange. I want her dead and gone even more than you.”
She shoved Odalys against the table, picked up one of those iron chairs again, and staggered forward. This time, she’d crush Strange’s skull. This time, she’d do so much damage that even a ghost would give up and die. . . .
Strange’s ghost screamed.
All of them froze. Police sirens had nothing on the sound of something dead and in agony. The sound rattled Sylvie’s bones, made her eyes sting and water, her nose bleed.
Strange flailed; her nails grew long, deformed, and gouged at Zoe’s face.
“Fuck you,” Zoe whispered, past the constricting tongue about her throat, plunged through her skin. Blood streaked her jaw, her cheekbones in thin rivulets. “You’re nothing but hunger. Nothing but slime and memory.”
It didn’t sound like her sister’s voice at all, sounded like Sylvie’s own internal predator, that little black voice. Implacable. Refusing to be beat. Lilith’s legacy awake in her sister’s blood.
Zoe gritted her teeth, her jaw a knot of effort, and she drove her free hand into the ghost’s chest, shattering brittle, ghostly ribs, and closed her fist around a ghostly heart. In that frozen moment, Strange cried out once more, a sound entirely inhuman. It spiraled up and up, so sharp Sylvie expected it to pierce the clouds, completely unconstrained by the human need for breath. A sound of purest pain.
Strange’s back arched and split, ripped apart from the inside as Zoe squeezed hard, squeezed tight, and pulped the ghost’s faded heart. Something like blood rolled down Zoe’s arm, dark, smoky, clinging. Strange’s expression of fixed hunger went blank and shocked, the face of mortality on something long dead. Her body—ectoplasm, bone, memories of organs and muscles—burst over Zoe’s skin, sinking in as if it were no more than a splash of water.
Zoe sighed, her eyes wild and bright. “A girl could die of waiting,” she said hoarsely.
“What—” Sylvie couldn’t take her gaze from her sister. From her sister’s flexing hand, stained red to the elbow from a ghost’s blood.
“Winner. Loser. I decided which one I was going to be when I was thirteen years old. Cut me loose.”
Sylvie rocked back on her heels. “No.”
“What?”
Odalys had staggered to her feet and was nearly to the dark shelter of the bushes. Sylvie waved a dismissive hand at Zoe, and said, “Odalys.”
Odalys flinched, her gaze jumping from Zoe to Sylvie and back. “What did she . . . What are you? What is she?”
“Lilith’s human brood,” Sylvie said. “It has its perks. Now, sit down.”
The woman stopped in her tracks, collapsed where she stood.
Soft, the little dark voice scoffed. Odalys’s hair was full of dirt, bits of glittering salt. Her white shirt was shredded at the shoulders, and she was limping.
“Stay there,” Sylvie said. “I’ve got some things to do.” Maybe there was still time.
The police sirens cut off; flashing lights seeped toward them.
Never time enough.
She surveyed the scene with increasing dread. Three dead teenagers, one unconscious Chicago cop, one pissed-off teen, and Sylvie’s gun in the pool. Odalys would try to spin this, make herself the victim; her expression was already shifting from fear to calculation.
So Sylvie’s priority had to be—
She freed Demalion, pulled him up into a sitting position, tapped his face. “Demalion. Come on, come on.”
“Ow,” he murmured. “Not one of our better dates.” Despite the wry humor, there was nothing of amusement in the lines of his face. His closed eyes were deep shadows; his lashes tangled cobwebs.
“Never mind that,” she said. There were footsteps in the drive, approaching the house. Zoe fidgeted, working her way up to a real temper tantrum. “Pick a body,” Sylvie said. “Matteo or Jasmyn. Hurry it up. Younger than you might want, but hey, you could be a girl this time around. Not Trey. He’s defective. You don’t want to jump in and die again.”
Her voice shook. They really didn’t have time for this. But she could help Wright, help themselves at least a little. One less body lying around if Demalion left Wright now.