The looming presence in her living room grew stronger, took on a crackle of lightning. “Yeah, yeah,” Sylvie said. “Let me get you a fork—”
It wasn’t Erinya making herself at home, propping her booted feet up on Sylvie’s long-suffering couch, staining the pale fabric with indescribable bits of destroyed “sinners.” Or flouncing around in her punk-goth wear—torn plaid skirts, fishnets, and spiky hair—demanding that Sylvie stop what she was doing and pay attention to her.
Instead, a man, midway between six feet and seven stood there, looking mildly disappointed. He had a kind face, but Sylvie’s guts clenched hard; she dropped the cartons, fumbling for her weapon, though she knew there was nothing in hell she could do to stop him if he’d come gunning for her.
He might look human. Until you took a more careful look. Beneath his skin, an entire sky roiled, a landscape of lightning-struck clouds and looming thunderheads. She’d met him before. Worked for him once. Solved his case to his satisfaction.
She still counted him an enemy. Not least because he was her introduction to the messed-up world of godly politics: Kevin Dunne, onetime human, now the Greek god of Justice.
He frowned; her gun transferred itself from her hand to his. “I need to talk to you.”
“Not interested,” Sylvie said. She wanted to slip out into the night, but running was the wrong thing to do. The worst thing she could do.
The god of Justice was like any human cop on earth in that respect. Running equaled guilt.
Sylvie turned her back on him though it made her inner instincts protest, and picked up the dropped cartons. She found the one with the mee grob, grabbed the chopsticks, retreated to her couch, and did her best to pretend he was a particularly stubborn hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation and too much exposure to witchcraft in the past week.
She clicked on the TV, turned the volume to destroy-all-possibility-of-conversation, and he sighed. The tiny sign of displeasure shuddered down her spine, made her first mouthful of spicy-sweet goodness utterly mechanical. An act of will to chew her food and not give him the satisfaction of looking rattled.
He sighed again, and the TV muted itself.
She swallowed, and said, “Godly powers cover remote control of television? Who knew? Maybe your lot is handy after all.”
“Shadows,” he said, and took a seat opposite her on a chair that hadn’t been there a moment ago. She tried not to like him for conjuring up a squashy, comfortable, obviously aged recliner. It’d be easier to keep up her hatred if he had magicked himself a throne.
“A throne?” he asked, reading her mind easily. “What have I ever done to make you have such a low opinion of me?”
“You blackmailed me into working for you. You let your Furies kill my lover when he was helping to save yours.”
“Demalion came back,” Dunne said.
Sylvie felt her heart stop, her breath lock up, as if she’d suffered a sudden blow to her chest. He wasn’t supposed to know that.
“Did you think I wouldn’t know?” he said, and yeah, it hurt to admit, but Sylvie had hoped that the god of Justice would have missed Demalion’s less-than-triumphant return.
“Don’t hurt him,” Sylvie said. It wasn’t pleading. It was a command, came out rough and certain and angry. It felt like a plea. What could she do to stop him?
“Erinya told me not to.”
“Told you not to.” And dammit, he’d drawn her into talking to him. Last she’d heard, Erinya took orders, didn’t give them.
“That’s why I’m here. Do you know what you’ve done?”
“I’ve done a lot of things, most of which you disapprove of,” Sylvie said. “If I recall, you considered me … what was it? A trigger-happy vigilante? You would have let your Furies kill me except that you needed me.”
“You gave Erinya god-power. You released her from my pantheon. She’s running loose, killing people at will, changing the world, and she’s only getting started.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Sylvie said. “Christ, Dunne, she comes here afterward to tell me about it. In detail. Graphic detail. She doesn’t wash up first. It puts me off my food. And I’ve had to have the carpet professionally cleaned. Twice.”
“So you understand it’s a problem—”
“It’s your problem. You know why you’re pissed?” Sylvie was off the couch, in his face, her hands braced on either arm of his recliner, leaning over him in a way that had her common sense yelping in terror. “She’s killing people at her will. Not yours. The only difference between Erinya now and Erinya three months ago? She’s choosing the targets.”
Dunne was gone from the chair, the chair vanished; Sylvie tumbled forward, caught herself, and found him behind her again. “Vigilante justice. I shouldn’t be surprised you approve.”
“I was out of options, Dunne. I had to protect my city, my world. There were only two choices left: me or Erinya. Would you rather I have kept the power for myself? Turned myself into a god?”
It took some effort to startle a god, since mind reading was as natural as breathing for them, but Sylvie had managed it. Dunne sat back again, this time on her couch, as if his concentration had been blown so thoroughly he couldn’t even spare a thought for a familiar chair. He studied her, his brown-eyed, human gaze altering bit by bit until there was only a band of churning grey god-stuff instead of a human face.
No eyes, and yet Sylvie felt as seen as she had ever been.
“I hadn’t been aware that was possible,” he said slowly.
“Surprised the hell out of me,” Sylvie said. “But so much for your godly omniscience.” She was surprised to find that she felt disappointed. She had questions, and though she’d never wanted Dunne here, she’d been hoping to get some answers out of him now that he was. But he just looked blank.
Probably adding up how many people she might kill if she stuck around longer than a mortal’s span of years.
That was the thing about god-power. It was heady stuff. Strong stuff. The kind of stuff that blew a mortal body into pieces. A human couldn’t hold god-power unless they held immortality first. The only way Dunne had made the transition was by his lover, Eros, granting him immortality first. Even then, by Erinya’s accounts, Dunne had nearly gone mad under the weight of godly power.
Sylvie had held the god-power for a horrifying minute, had even used it. She still woke from nightmares about those actions: using that kind of power, containing that kind of power—it had made her want to claw her insides out. Repulsive. Repellent. Wrong.
“The new Lilith,” Dunne said thoughtfully. “You replaced her.”
“Yeah, thanks, I’ve heard that.”
Sylvie waited to see if he’d elaborate on the theme. If he’d let slip what being the new Lilith actually meant.
He merely said, “I see.”
“So I’ve been told. You want to tell me what that means?”
“You don’t know?”
“Would I ask if I knew?” Sylvie let all her irritation and frustration come to the surface. She made it a point of not asking things she could find out on her own.
“You’ll figure it out eventually,” he said.
“I’m impatient, sue me,” Sylvie said. “Spit it out, Dunne.”
He stood, rolled his shoulders; the light in the room shivered as if the storm core of him were passing overhead, dimming the real world. “You’re her replacement. You kill things that shouldn’t be killable.”
Sylvie threw her carton of Thai food at him in sheer, sudden rage. He didn’t dodge; the carton replaced itself on the table, not a single noodle spilled. “Look, asshole—” she said, and somehow that was the mistake. Maybe it was leftover cop, reacting to being disrespected, maybe it was his own burst of impatience—he loomed over her and pinned her to her couch with a look.