Lies & Omens: A Shadows Inquiries Novel Read Free Page A

lines on newspaper accounts and her case files: another half dozen. It seemed like anytime the
Magicus Mundi
made itself felt with a significant death toll, something or someone swept it under the proverbial rug.
    Sylvie, who believed in honesty, even if she didn’t always practice it, found it insupportable. She couldn’t stop people from pretending the
Magicus Mundi
didn’t exist. But deliberately blinding them? The world was dangerous enough when you knew the predators existed, even subconsciously. If you weren’t allowed to know? It was like being shoved into a room to take a test without even knowing what the subject was, and if you failed, you died.
    She and her business partner, Alexandra Figueroa-Smith, would have to do some research. Find out who was behind it. Find out why they were doing it. And find out what it would take to stop them.

1

    Fall Apart
    SYLVIE HAD A WHOLE LIST OF THINGS SHE DISLIKED—MISOGYNIST sorcerers, incompetent drivers, government agents who raided her office illegally, trashed her security, and absconded with her files, lovers who were too busy to call, and cops who weren’t—too many things to really enumerate or rank, but frantic phone calls from her clients were close to the top.
    She liked frantic calls even less when things were theoretically under control. Her client, Lupe Fernandez, was supposed to be tucked up safe and sound at her parents’ home.
    Lupe’s call had been brief, mostly unintelligible. It had been three minutes of sobbing, shouting, a vibration of mortal terror. When the call had disconnected, mid panicked babble, Sylvie knew something had gone wrong. Knew she hadn’t done her job right.
    That was the kind of thought that ruined her morning, sent her scrabbling out of her bed, grabbing at clothes, her gun, her keys, and heading for her truck at a dead run. Not the way she preferred to begin her days. Ideally, they’d start with waking before the alarm went off, having time for a leisurely cup of coffee, a morning jog, or swim if theday was too hot, then a late breakfast at her office, while Alex caught her up on potential clients.
    If it were a really good day, when she woke, Demalion would be beside her, lashes dark on his face, the glint of blond stubble in slanting sunlight, sleeping as determinedly as a cat. If it were a good day, she’d get to lean over and nudge him awake, watch his pupils flare and fade as he blinked into morning light.
    It hadn’t been a good day for months.
    Sylvie laid on the horn, cursed rush-hour traffic, and stomped on the gas, jerking her truck around a multitasking driver who had one hand full of coffee cup, the other full of cell phone, and was failing to steer with his knees.
    Her throat was tight, worried about Lupe. The woman had been through so much already. Kidnapped by Azpiazu the soul devourer, used as a magical conduit, finally freed through Sylvie’s actions… only to find she wasn’t as free as everyone thought.
    Azpiazu had slapped a shape-shifting spell on his victims as part of his attempt to control his own unmanageable shifting. When Sylvie had killed him and broken the spell that linked him to his victims, she’d thought it was over. Had seen the women home with the sense of a job well-done.
    Then Lupe had called her the first full moon after, in total hysterics; the moon rose, and Lupe shifted into a werewolf in her screened-in patio. Reason enough for hysterics, but it had been far worse than that. Lupe hadn’t been alone. Her girlfriend, Jenny, had been curled next to her on the patio swing. Jenny had needed 134 stitches in her face, chest, shoulder, and arm, lost three fingers on her right hand, and gained a cracked skull. She’d nearly bled out before Lupe woke the next morning and called 911.
    Unsurprisingly, the two broke up. Jenny didn’t really remember what had happened; the concussion and blood loss saw to that, but at the same time, Lupe said, Jenny was afraid of her.
    Lupe was afraid of