“What the hell are you even doing here?” Sylvie wanted to be in her bedroom with Demalion.
Marah drew a finger across Erinya’s steak, licked the juice from her skin. “Lilith’s side. So bad-tempered. No wonder you like that damned monster-god. Our side’s a little more sensible.”
“My side, your side. Whatever. You keep playing coy with that info. I don’t think it really exists.” She wasn’t going to ask outright, no matter that she wanted, maybe even needed the answers. Marah was mercenary; Sylvie owed her one already for Demalion. She knew if she asked, Marah would add that to the tab.
“God, you’re difficult.” Marah leaned back against the counter, shifted her weight to one hip, crossed her ankles. “Go on, tell me who my daddy is. I’ll give you a clue if you like. He brained his brother with a rock.”
Sylvie hung her head. Oh yeah. Like Lilith’s side of her genetic line wasn’t enough to deal with. She tended to forget who helped father it. “Cain. You’re Cain’s line. I’m the progeny of Lilith and Cain, and you’re the progeny of Cain and whoever.”
“Got it in one,” Marah said. “This?” She held up her red-stained hand, made jazz fingers at Sylvie. “This is the infamous mark of Cain.”
Sylvie swallowed, thinking of Zoe marked in that way. Her witchy mentor—Val Cassavetes—had to have known. Had to have kept that secret from Sylvie.
“Your first kill, and it blooms if you’ve got the right blood in your veins,” Marah said. “Comes with perks, too. Like a magic shield of sorts. God does seem to like us killers. I mean, you’ve got magical resistance, too, right? The new Lilith and all.”
Sylvie didn’t say anything, didn’t trust anything Marah was saying either. No assassin was going to blithely show off their ace as simply as that. It was false sharing, designed only to make Sylvie feel obligated to respond in kind. She knew better than to fall for it.
Demalion, returning, dressed in clothing he’d scrounged from the oddments he’d left behind the last time he was in Miami, did fall for it. “So why doesn’t Sylvie have the mark? She’s half-Cain, and she’s killed people.”
He fiddled with the sleeves where they pulled a little tight across his arms. He’d added muscle to Wright’s body since the last time he’d worn those clothes. Right now, Sylvie felt like he’d added some muscle to his head.
“Hey, she’s in the room,” Sylvie said. “And she’s killed monsters.”
Demalion shrugged a bare apology. “It’s not like you know the answer, right? Aren’t you curious?” Sylvie groaned. The worst of dating an agent. It wasn’t enough for Demalion to know her; he wanted to know what had made her the person she was. Hell, he probably kept his own set of files on her, separate from the ISI’s.
“Lilith’s stronger,” Sylvie said. “See, there’s your answer.”
“But Zoe’s marked—”
“Hey,” Sylvie snapped. Bad enough they were discussing her. Zoe was off-limits.
Marah’s dark eyes were inquisitive, bright with calculation, but she was polite enough to back off the topic of Zoe. Not polite enough to drop the conversation.
Sylvie, heart beating oddly fast in her chest, wasn’t sure whether she wanted the conversation to continue or not. Marah might have answers. Marah might be full of shit. Sylvie figured it was a fifty-fifty shot.
Don’t trust her, her little dark voice whispered.
Not a problem, Sylvie thought.
Instead, Marah pushed herself off the counter, circled Sylvie, making her very aware that, of the three people in the apartment, she was the only one underdressed. “Lilith is stronger,” Marah agreed. “But harder to wake. You had to have been exposed to her influence, somehow. An inoculation to wake the body to the virus’s presence.
“You could have run into Lilith herself,” Marah continued when Sylvie stayed stubbornly silent. “But from the files, you were already nipping at her metaphysical heels when you killed her. So not the progenitrix. Lilith’s progeny? You play chew toy with a vampire? A succubus? A werewolf?”
“Does it matter?” Sylvie said. “I don’t know how it happened. It just did.”
“Details always matter,” Marah said. “Especially when I’m trying to figure out which side you’re on. You hang out with werewolves. And you’re claiming friendship with a god who’s violent and insane.”
“Marah,” Demalion objected.
“You can’t tell me it doesn’t bother you,” Marah told Demalion. “That she’s close with one of the monsters who killed you? That’s she made friends with the Fury?”
“It bothers me,” Demalion snapped. “Is that what you want me to admit. Fine. It does.”
“Yeah, Shadows,” Marah said, jumping on the wagon she’d started. “You really should put that monster down. Whose side are you on, anyway?”
She looked at them both, Marah’s expression calculating, Demalion’s more honestly angry.
Sylvie felt her own rage surge back—judge her? Over Erinya? She said, “I’m on the only side I can trust. Mine.”
“Well, then,” Marah said. “Maybe we should find more congenial company. Check in with the locals.”
“Most of them are dead,” Sylvie said, bluntly. “Riordan’s son survived.”
“He’s enough to start with,” Marah said. “You coming, Demalion?”
“Yeah,” Sylvie said. “You going with her, Demalion?”
“The agency needs us,” he said.
“I can’t,” Sylvie said. “I’ve got a client in distress and some bastard fucking with people’s memories. Making them forget what they’ve seen. On a citywide scale.”
“Citywide? I know you were looking into memory alterations, but I didn’t realize the scale of it.”
“Neither did I,” Sylvie said, grimly. “And it’s getting personal. It hurt Alex.”
Demalion shook his head. “I know you’re independent, but it’s time to call Yvette in on this.”
“She survived the sand wraith?”
“Taking meetings in DC,” Marah said. “Bureaucracy saved her ass.”
“Guess that proves she’s near the top of the food chain,” Sylvie said. “They’re the only ones who benefit from bureaucracy.”
“Yvette’s surviving is a good thing,” Demalion said. “Look, you said your plate is full. You’ve got your client. You’ve got us—”
“Didn’t say I was helping the ISI—”
“You’ll help me, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“So, why not let Yvette take point on this memory thing?”
“Because I don’t trust her,” Sylvie snapped. “I can’t be the only one who’s noticed this memory gap. But I seem to be the only one who cares. So no, no passing this buck.”
“Don’t argue with her, Demalion,” Marah said. “You’ll never convince her. She’s built to work alone. The new Lilith.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Demalion said.
“Yeah,” Sylvie said. “Why don’t you enlighten him, Marah. Since you know so much.” She doubted Marah knew anything of substance. The ISI files, as Demalion had said, were empty speculation.
Marah grinned, a predatory shine of teeth. “How much is it worth to you? A favor? Maybe two?”
Then again, Marah was of Cain’s line. Maybe she did know.
“One more,” Sylvie said. “But I’m not killing anyone for you—my definition of anyone.”
“Hey, I rescued myself,” Demalion protested. “I’m not a favor.”
“Deal,” Marah said, waving him off. “One favor owing. It’s simple, really. I told you. God likes his killers. Both sets of them. It’s politics at its finest. You’ve talked to gods, you know the only thing they hold sacred.”
“Noninterference with gods outside their pantheon. No more godly wars,” Sylvie said.
“No more overt godly wars,” Marah said. “But a free agent, who refuses to belong to anyone, who wreaks havoc—say a woman who disposes of the last Aztec god, strips his power, and gives it to a Fury. A woman who yanks said Fury out of her own pantheon and creates a new one—
“You’re God’s stalking horse,” Marah said. “And for all your independence, you’ll never know if you’re working to his plan or not. The eternal killer who does his bidding even while you spit in his face and assert your disallegiance. You’re his plausible deniability. Congratulations, Sylvie, you hit the jackpot. You’re going to live forever. Or until someone else gets in a lucky shot and takes your place.”