Sylvie refused to engage it. Mostly because, as usual, it was telling the truth.
More silvery wisps rose from the pentagram, and Sylvie bent down and smashed the corner of the star with her gun butt. The metal inlay dented. She pried at it, yanked a brittle segment of old brass out of the floor, and turned to the next curtain. She used the metal to pry back an edge of the curtain. Without human touch, it behaved like normal fabric and gave her a glimpse of three open doorways down a dark hall. It reminded her of monastery cells and gave her yet another glimpse of the fanaticism that drove the Society.
She peeled back the next curtain, found another four cell doors, closed this time, and, more to the point, three witches guarding the cells. They looked up as Sylvie slithered through the curtain gap. The room, like all the others she’d been through, was dimly lit, but she found two men and one women waiting. The leader of this small crew snarled her name, “Shadows.”
She knew him. Dennis Kent. That slate grey hair and roman nose were memorable. She’d last seen him laid out by one of Tierney Wales’s soul-biting ghosts. Had thought him a typical ISI agent. She should have let Wales’s ghost eat his fill.
Before she could take a shot at him, he held up the amulet around his neck, and said, “I wouldn’t. We’re all wearing talismans. And the only vulnerable people around are your friends. You try to shoot us, your bullets will probably hit them instead.”
“Didn’t help the bitch at the front door,” Sylvie said, had the satisfaction of seeing shock cross his face.
“What?” she added. “Did you think she just let me pass? Or that I patted her on the head and sent her home? We’re past that. We’ve been past that since your lot started deciding what the rest of the world was allowed to know or remember. It’s you or me.”
“You,” he said. The first two cell doors opened and birthed snarling wolves. Werewolves by their size. Sylvie took a steadying breath, looked past the wolves’ bristling fur, into the room behind them. She didn’t even need the Lilith voice’s assessment.
She laughed and lowered her gun, and when the wolves charged her, whining and snarling, claws scratching the stone floor, she let them brush into her, through her, and disappear. “My baby sister casts better illusions than that, Kent.” Two pissed-off, slavering werewolves and the room behind them was neat as a pin?
While he gaped, and the witches behind him held a hasty spell consultation, Sylvie ran forward. The floor here was the same malachite-shaded marble. And it let her drop and slide into him as solidly as she had ever managed while playing high-school baseball. She seized the talisman around his throat and yanked. Wouldn’t hurt him, but it jerked him around, let her use him as her own shield. She kicked out at the other two witches, disrupting their spell casting, tangling her legs in theirs.
Dangerous, her voice shouted, ringing in her ears.
Dogpiled with three witches who were wearing invulnerability talismans and wanted to kill her? Yeah, thanks, she knew. If her voice didn’t have useful suggestions, it could shut the hell up.
She tangled them all closer; the spells warred and sparked. The remaining locked door shuddered in its frame, and Sylvie turned her head to bite down hard on Kent’s throat. Couldn’t hurt him, but people had atavistic reactions hardwired. He flinched, ducked his head, trying to get her off his throat, pulled away. Perfect setup. She yanked the talisman’s cord over his head, got her gun up, and shot him in the soft underside of his jaw.
She deafened herself, stunned herself with the concussion of it, but managed to cling tight to both the talisman and her gun. Another distant crack sounded; she rolled to her feet, staggering, preparing for illusion or magic or—
Marah Stone, furious, diving directly for the witch nearest her. She got her Cain-marked hand around the woman’s throat and squeezed. The marks on her hand seemed to pulse with the woman’s labored breaths.
Invulnerability talisman or not, the woman choked.
Marah was another of God’s killers, Sylvie thought, swaying. Blood scent burned thickly in her nose, rested heavy on her hair and skin.
The remaining witch dithered between Sylvie and helping his partner, and Sylvie made the decision for him. She shoved him hard, pushed him off balance, pushed him right into Demalion’s waiting arms.
Demalion skinned his hand down the man’s neck, yanked up, and pulled out another talisman, the twin to the one Sylvie had removed from Kent. “Always had to ape Kent. See what it gets you, O’Neal?” Before the man could mouth a single spell, Demalion broke his neck.
Sylvie had a sudden and unwelcome flashback. The last time Demalion had broken a man’s neck for her, he’d died half a second later.
This time, he merely let the body drop. “Sylvie.”
“Good timing,” she said. She couldn’t stop her gaze from lasering up and down his body, looking for injury.
“Saw you playing Twister with Kent’s crew and thought you’d appreciate a hand.”
“Another point for precognitive skills,” she said. “Remind me to send your mother a thank-you note. Not to sound ungrateful, because I’m thrilled, relieved, blissfully happy, all those things, but why the hell aren’t you dead?”
Demalion flashed a smug grin. “Well. Marah told Yvette she’d join her if the price was right, so they locked her up until they had time to haggle.”
Marah said, “She can’t afford me, but I was curious.”
“As for me…
“Yvette thinks if she kills him, he’ll just change bodies, again,” Marah put in. She was searching the witch’s clothes, stripping her of anything that might be useful. Small charms, a knife, a .22 that Marah sneered at but pocketed anyway.
“I freak Yvette out,” Demalion said. “She’s scared that if I get killed, I’ll take over one of her men, and she won’t know which one.”
“Wonder how she got that impression,” Marah said. Her grin wasn’t nice at all.
“Paranoia working for us,” Sylvie said. “Doesn’t happen nearly enough.”
“Is it paranoia?” Marah asked. “I bet he could do it.”
Demalion said, “I’d rather not test the theory.”
“Yeah, let’s not,” Sylvie said. “I’ve just gotten used to you as a blond.”
A muffled concussion vibrated through the stone. Hard to tell directionality when it was beneath her feet, but Sylvie knew.
“Zoe—Oh hell, I left them fighting witches. They’re outnumbered.”
“In the antechamber?” Marah said. She pulled the witch’s talisman off the body, held it up before her, spinning at the end of its cord. The talisman, an etched, wooden scapular, looked burned. Marah’s handprint discolored the lines of spellcraft on it. Marah closed her fingers, and the wood crumbled. “Give me Kent’s, Sylvie. You don’t need it. Your sister might.”
Sylvie passed it over without hesitation, blood-spotted and sticky as it was.
“For Lupe, then,” Demalion said, handing Marah O’Neal’s talisman. “Did you see Yvette, Syl?”
“Every other witch in the world, seems like. But not her.”
“Two covens’ worth,” Demalion said. “There was one maintained here, when we were brought in. And Yvette brought her own. Well, most of her own. You killed five at Dallas.”
“Killed Merrow, too,” Sylvie said. “Shit. We’re missing at least four. And however many monsters they can control.”
“So what,” Marah said. “You shoot them. They die.” She tucked both talismans into her jacket pocket.
“You make it sound easy,” Sylvie rasped. Her throat was dry. She wanted a glass of water. Fighting was thirsty work. “Some things are immune to bullets. Yvette’s not likely to let me get close enough to yank off her talisman, and you can’t tell me she’s not wearing one.”
Marah lunged forward, shoved Sylvie against the doorjamb, and said, “You still don’t get it, do you? It’s not your bullets that do the job. It’s you, pulling the trigger. You kill things that can’t be killed by regular means. And you do it with a gun. Because you like guns. You kill things. That’s who you are. The gun is irrelevant. You’re the weapon.”