Staying Dead (11 page)

It wasn't until he was out of the building entirely that he felt the muscles in his neck and shoulders relax.

“Christ. I need a drink.” But first, he had to hand off the bad news.

 

“That was fast.”

“They're not exactly the type to invite you to stay for tea.” Sergei draped his coat neatly onto the hanger and hung it in the narrow hall closet. Another month and he'd have to send it into storage for the summer. He made a mental note to remind himself of that in three weeks. He closed the door and turned to see Wren standing in front of him. Hair for once pulled out of her eyes with a barrette, her face was scrunched in the “you've got to be kidding me” look he was far too familiar with. Her arms were crossed, her head tilted back—the better to glare at him—and he was struck with the sudden but not unfamiliar urge to touch the tip of her ever-so-slightly upturned nose with one finger, the way you would an inquisitive house cat. Wanting to keep his hand intact, he again squelched the impulse.

Best to get it over with. “They're clean.”

“Clean?” The word, parroted back to him, carried a wealth of disbelief.

“Not responsible for this particular occurrence,” he said, amending his earlier words. “In short, and if I'm reading the clues correctly, they don't know who stole it either. And they're not happy about it.”

“The theft, or the not knowing?”

“Yes.”

“Damn. Some answers would have been convenient.” She shrugged, and headed back to her office, presumably where she had been when he arrived. The faint strains of Coltrain rose from the speakers. He frowned, recognizing the CD as one that had gone missing from the gallery last month. A twist of his mouth was the only outward sign he gave of that knowledge. If you were going to work with a thief, you had to accept certain…inconveniences. She couldn't help it. He'd already bought another, anyway.

“Reading between very carefully worded lines, the Council didn't authorize any moves against our client,” he told her, aware that she could hear him even over the music. “Apparently, there isn't any profit in undercutting each other's work.” He shook his head, his mouth twisting in appreciation. “Nice noncompetition deal they've got there. Wonder if we can get the Justice Department in to investigate?”

A muffled grunt came back down the hallway that might have been agreement, disagreement, or completely unrelated.

“They did, however, perform the original spell. Or at least they're willing to take the credit for it.”

“Told you so,” she yelled back, and he heard the sound of something heavy and possibly metallic hitting the ground, and her swearing faintly. When a moment passed and there was no further noise, he went into the kitchen and picked up the mug of tea that was steeping, waiting for him and then—having judged enough time had passed for her to recover from whatever minor disaster had occurred, joined his partner in the office. She was sitting on a short stool next to the filing cabinet-table on the other side of the room, fiddling with a large, ungainly lock that looked ancient. He sat down in the only other chair, at her computer desk. A screen saver of parachuting monkeys was activated, indicating that she hadn't used it recently. He turned his back to the monkeys, swiveling around to watch her instead. He should get back to the gallery. Lowell had been borderline snide this morning about his “running off.” There was going to have to be a “me boss, you underling” meeting in the near future, he could tell. Christ, he so didn't have time for that.

“That means that nobody under the Council did the grab,” she said without pausing in her work. “And no member was approached to do the job, either—since the mark was one of their installations, they would have been bound to report it to the Council.” The same as she would, by courtesy, in a similar situation. Probably.

“Would the Council then have told us, now that they officially know you're working the job? And have gone through channels to ask for assistance?” He sipped the tea, chuckling slightly as he saw the logo—it was one of the gallery's mugs, which he bought by the dozen to stock the kitchenette.

“Good question. Probably. They're as susceptible to bad press as anyone. More, actually. So they'd want it back in place too, you'd think, no matter what he and his have done to piss them off since then. It's not like he was the original client, anyway, not unless he's a lot older than his records claim.”

“His grandfather, Frants the First. Is that why they're so tight-mouthed on the original job they performed? Or do they just not like to be thought of as bragging?”

She snorted. “Council. They don't like to share the air with us, much less information. It's the principle of the thing as much as the money. My gut, though, says if it's a mage, he or she's a rogue.”

Sergei had heard her mention rogues before, but only in passing, and never with a lot of detail attached. “Is that common?”

She gave the lock one last try, then put her tools down on the table next to it. “Common enough—maybe one Council mage every decade or so starts believing their own press, thinking they're better than the others, able to sidestep the Council rulings, that sort of thing. When they catch 'em, which they always do, they kick 'em out—like you said, bad form to have members dissing fellow mages. Especially if they're willing to work against other Council members.”

“Yes. That was the impression I was given.” He tapped his fingers in a tattoo on his leg, less nervous than thoughtful, trying to sort the pieces in his brain.

“Once they're freelance,” she told him, “they usually fade out of sight. Nobody will hire them, which makes one unlikely in our case—unless the thief was taking it for his or her own reasons….” Sergei made a mental note to follow up on that possibility. “But the Council, natch, never admits that the mage in question ever even existed.”

“Nobody wants a mage who works on his own?” That surprised him enough to still the finger-tapping. Lonejacks, Talents who refused to fall in with the Council, often worked freelance, like Wren. Although from what she had told him, most didn't work at all, using their skills solely for themselves, or not using them consciously at all.

Wren made an up-down motion with the flat of her hand, palm upraised as though she were weighing something. “Nobody wants a mage who's already proven himself to be disloyal to the code. When you buy a mage, they're supposed to stay bought. Would you want to hire someone your competitor might bribe away tomorrow?”

“An excellent point.” He kept a list, carefully coded, of all their jobs as well. You wanted to avoid crossing your own path, if you could. “So we're back to—”

An ungodly noise interrupted him. Sounding like a cross between a scalded cat and a howler monkey, the screech came in through the window, rising from the street below. He dropped his mug, catching it again half an inch down, swearing as tea stained his pants. “What the hell—!”

Wren went to the window, throwing the sash up and sticking her head out. “Leave it alone, damn it!” Catcalls responded, male voices, teenagers, probably locals from the accent. She shut the window in disgust. “Mornag.”

“Mornwhat?”

“Mornag. I swear to God, Sergei, someday you'll get over that speciesist stick that's stuck up your ass, at least enough to know who's who.”

“Or what's what.”

“Don't be snide. Mornag're about the size of a mutt, and about as smart as one too. There's a pack that lives in the Park; P.B. uses them as messengers sometimes when he can't get to me. Local kids are a bunch of punks, though. Anything on four legs is fair game. Makes me glad I don't have a pet.”

“Or a kid.”

“Oh yeah. Although if any kid of mine started running with the sort around here…did I tell you about the newest joy added to my life? Bunch of Neighborhood Watch types, trying to clean up quote—the inhuman trash—endquote. Started I think with a couple of ranters on a street corner a couple of years back; didn't take them seriously, but they're getting more sophisticated. Masquerading as a pest control outfit now, but they don't want to know about your roach or rat problem. They've been messing with the sub-sentients mainly, mornags, a few piskies. But it sounds like they're escalating.”

Sergei didn't seem too impressed by that. If a fatae couldn't outwit a few kids, or well-meaning vigilantes, he should stay in whatever hole he burrowed into.

Wren considered the window, then shrugged. “Well, if he was coming to see me, he'll find a way in later. Business at hand. Your stuff means we wipe the Council itself off the short list.”

“And you don't think it's a rogue.”

“Nope.” She drew the shade again and leaned against the window, arms crossed over her chest. Her hair needed cutting again, he noted. Strands fell into her eyes and she scraped them back impatiently. “Not unless it was a personal thing, taking on a Council client to throw rogue status back in the Council's face. But the setup doesn't feel right. A rogue wouldn't go for such a low-res deal. They like things a little flashier, something to justify their getting tossed. Very ‘look at me!'”

“Or, if someone hired them, a juicy enough paycheck to justify the lack of flash. Even mages have to pay the bills.”

“I guess. But it would have to be a
major
paycheck. Ego, Sergei. Mages are all about ego. In fact, the only way I see this as a magus deal is if the mage in question had a percentage in taking our client down, and if he or she or they did, they probably wouldn't be letting us poke our little noses uninterrupted into—”

The lights suddenly dimmed throughout the apartment, and Wren uttered a short, nasty word, diving across the room—almost tackling Sergei in the process—to pull the power cord to her computer. She lay on the floor, panting, the power cord in her hand. The screen saver flickered, then restored as the battery pack setup took over.

Wren sighed in relief, letting her hand drop to the floor as the tension visibly released from her shoulders. Letting go of the cord, she got to her feet, then tensed again as the lights flickered once more. Sergei took his cue from her reactions, his body braced for action, although he wasn't sure if it was to fight or flee. When a Talent was anywhere near any kind of power fluctuation, you assumed the worst.

Thunder rumbled despite a clear sky, and all the lights in the apartment went half-power. “Damn,” she said, looking up at the ceiling. “I so didn't need this….”

“Valere. Details?” He hated being half a step behind what was happening.

Wren held up a hand, halting him midinquiry. “Feel that?”

Sergei frowned, shooting his partner an irritated look. “No.”

“Oh. Right.” She at least had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed, he thought, only slightly mollified. She held her hand out to him, and he took it, his much larger fingers engulfing her smaller ones. One thumb smoothed over the back of her wrist without thinking, feeling the goose bumps raised on her skin. The pale hairs along her arm were raised, as though a cold wind had blown in—or as though a surge of electrical energy had run through her.

“Company,” she said, too casual to actually be casual about it.

“Dangerous?” Ten years, and he'd never seen her look like this; half-annoyed, half-apprehensive, half-expectant. He kept his hand on hers, not sure if he was giving comfort or taking it.

“Don't know. Probably not.” They were whispering, without even realizing it. “Timing sucks for coincidences, though, huh?”

“Not reassuring, Zhenechka.”

“Poor baby.” She chuckled, despite the strain evident in her body, and he squeezed her fingers gently in support and approval.

The light overhead made an odd fizzing noise, flared brightly, then shorted out. The lamp on Wren's desk made a smaller snapping noise, and the bulb shattered. A handful of sparks shot out from the wall outlets, sending a strange blue-white light into the darkened room. Wren backed up, pushing Sergei against the desk, putting herself between him and whatever was forming within her office.

“Great. Now I've got to get those damn protective wards recharged. Not that it matters. This thing's either benign, or powerful enough to short out my protections.”

“In which case…?”

“We're screwed.”

The sparks had gathered as they spoke, forming a tight ball hovering around shoulder-high to Wren, perhaps three feet away. It shimmered, then coalesced, becoming almost solid, then stretched like Silly Putty down to the floor, and up another foot or so. A twist in the middle, where the stomach might be, and the shadow of features formed over the frame: pale skin, wild, wispy hair, and fierce green-sparked eyes over a high beaked nose.

Sergei took an involuntary step forward, trying to get Wren behind him, but she shoved him back hard.

“Max.” There was exasperation and not a little fear in her voice as she spoke his name. “You can't just use the damned phone? Carrier pigeons?”

Sergei reached instinctively for the weapon he wasn't carrying, then checked himself. Old habit. Wren hated guns, so much so that he'd long ago weaned himself out of carrying one rather than make her uncomfortable. And even if he'd had it, damn little good a bullet would do to a current-manifestation. Just put a couple of holes in Wren's walls, which she would not thank him for. And that would be best-case scenario.