Ghosts & Echoes by Lyn Benedict Read Free Book Online Page B

growled. She needed a better look. The slim lines of their bodies argued teenagers, argued that her client had been right; Sylvie had no doubts that teenagers would happily burglarize stores—they were walking hormones, paeans to the id—but the how still eluded her. Most teens didn’t just luck into useful magic. Most teens didn’t know magic existed outside of Harry Potter.
    One of the teens shifted, gave her a glimpse of a small yellow flame spurting into existence with a familiar flick, flick, spark. A lighter, and this was nothing more than a cigarette break after all. The tiny flamelet moved, guided toward an outstretched hand.

    SYLVIE WOKE, BENT IN HALF, THE BINOCULARS PRESSING PAINFULLY into her abdomen, and a deadweight on her back. Her head ached, and as she forced herself up, hands sweating and white-knuckled on her thighs, sliding Wright off her back, something in her body protested. It tasted like the leftover backwash of faded adrenaline, hot and sour, left her trembling. She felt as if she’d been cored, hollowed out, gutted like a fish, and thrown back.
    She wiped sweat from her face, her hands barely under her control. Wright’s face was slack, his mouth loose; his skin seemed grey. Marks of exhaustion made his closed eyes look like the black pits of a skull in the low light. Sylvie put a hand to his parted lips, felt his breath warm her palm, and slumped back, her momentary panic over.
    But what the hell had happened?
    The mall, she remembered. The burglars. Her job.
    She glanced toward the mall, a serene pool of light in the darkness, glanced at her watch. Forty minutes had gone by while she . . . what? Slept?
    She pushed that aside for the moment—forty minutes. If they’d gone in, they might still be there. From Alex’s reports, it didn’t seem like they were quick-grab artists, snatching at whatever small valuables came to hand. Not when they had taken paintings that measured six feet by eight and pool tables on their previous outings.
    She checked Wright’s pulse, wondering if she could leave him safely, or if she should be dragging him to the ER. She had recovered. She still felt shivery and sick, but her brain was ticking over. The thin skin of his wrist throbbed reassuringly under her fingers, then twitched as Wright fumbled his way into wakefulness.
    “Shadows—” he murmured. “Are we dreaming?” His hand curled around hers, completing a circuit. His pulse beat against hers, warmed her flesh, slick with fear sweat.
    She hesitated. Were they? The world felt disconnected, pulled away, oddly unreal. Like a dream. Her hand cramped, nerves firing to life where it had been bent at an unhealthy angle. Pain.
    “We’re not dreaming,” she said.
    “Not dreaming,” he echoed. His words were slurred, slow. He pulled away from her, ran a hand along the dash. “Where—” He tried to peer out the window, banged his head on the glass. “Ow.”
    “Yeah,” she said, her word drawled out as long as his, but far more certain. Even in her dreams, she knew how to be decisive. And hadn’t she decided? This was no dream, though it might be some type of nightmare. There’d been magic used on them. Inimical stuff. Clinging to her mind and body. “You’re staying in the truck.”
    He looked at her, frowning. “But—”
    “No. It’s not safe. You sit tight. I’m going to see what’s happened. It has to have been some kind of sleep spell that hit us. No one got close enough for it to be gas.”
    “So paranoid,” he said, but he slumped back against the seat gratefully. His face was drawn tight with shadow and fatigue. The spell had hit him harder.
    Sylvie was briefly, annoyingly grateful for her family lineage. Lilith might have been a dangerous, power-mad anarchist with aspirations toward godhood, but she gave good genes. Sylvie was resistant to a lot of magic.
    “Just stay here, okay?” She slid out of the truck on his complaining mutter and let the door slip closed, careful not to