Tricks of the Trade (12 page)

“None. None would dare. This island is mine.”

I'd misjudged her. Madame didn't lose her cool. Her voice didn't thunder, and she did not hiss fire. In fact, her voice got damned near frosty, with none of the usual near-lazy sibilants and slurred
n
's I'd thought were indelible speech patterns.

I stood my ground, but clasped my hands respectfully and bowed over them, my gaze hard on the sparkling scales of her left shoulder. “My kennings are often of things yet to come, Madame. But they are always true. Be watchful.”

Her eyes went half-lidded and her delicate chin-whiskers twitched as she considered my words.

If Madame thought I'd come to warn her, so much the better. I had what I'd come here hoping for: the knowledge that there were no other dragons nearby, and none with ill will toward humans. Even if they'd been in another borough—and I suspected, based on things I'd heard, that there was at least one in Queens, albeit not of Madame's status—they were not likely the one I had seen. That meant we had a little time yet, at least.

“Madame?” So long as I was here, and she thought I'd done her a favor… “Have you heard of a fatae called The Roblin?”

That got her attention, in a way I hadn't expected. Her eyelids rose again, and a faint puff of burnt-rose smoke rose from her nostrils. “The Roblin? Here?”

“Yes.” My mouth had gone dry, but I got the words out. “A fatae, the klassvaak, came to the office, to warn us…said it came to do mischief.”

It was difficult to tell with dragons, but I thought, rather nervously, that Madame looked worried.

“Missschief he isssss, missschief he doesss,” she said. The same thing the fatae had said, earlier that day.

“Madame?” I was hoping for something a little more specific—or useful—than that.

“Sssstay far from The Roblin, Bonnnnita,” she said, drawing back and curling her body into a pose I recognized as dismissal. “Sssstay far from it, and hope it ssstays far from you.”

And that was all she would say. I took a single bouquet of the peach roses, the scent of their bruised petals filling my nostrils, and went home.

 

“Attn pssngrs. The gee trn will be making all stops to sebthmurph and then going express. Pls take the mumble train to…splutterstatic…. There will be no service on the…splatterstatic…. Shuttle buses will be available.”

It was a normal enough occurrence in a city the size of New York, with a mass transit system as old and vast as the Electric Apple, even without the added complexity of Talent occasionally shorting things out. Except, when the passengers piled out of the station and looked, there were no buses waiting; the drivers had received orders to assemble two stations down the line. A series of grumbles, groans, and exasperated sighs met this turn of events, which also would have been a normal enough occurrence, except that across Queens, similar areas of confusion broke out as trains were diverted for no reason, buses didn't arrive, and transit workers and passengers alike began to lose their cool, trying to get home.

With digital communication carrying the news across the city via mobile phones and laptops, the mood soured, feeding the feelings of persecution and annoyance until it felt as though a chain of riots would break out, with everyone blaming the transit authority, and the transit workers not knowing what was going on, either.

“Folks, just wait for the bus—”

“There is no bus!”

The cop was outnumbered, and out of energy. “There will be, ma'am, if you'll just wait…”

“Don't you tell me that! I've been waiting for half an hour already. There is no bus!”

A mutter of agreement greeted that, with more than one person checking their cell phone or watch again to prove how long they'd been there.

The cop glared at the commuters, almost daring them to do something. His eyes were odd in the evening light, the blue turning almost to gold, and several of the passengers shuffled away, suddenly awkward or nervous despite their anger.

A black sedan slid along the curb, with two others coming down the crowded street behind, like sharks drawn to a blood-spill. The window of the first car rolled down and the driver, a middle-aged man in a suit, asked “Anyone need car service?”

Two minutes later, he was full up, pocketing cash, and the next livery car was taking his place even as he pulled away. The cop watched, frowning, as the crowd faded, either waiting for more cars, or setting off on foot, their anger pushed aside under the grim determination to not waste any more time, but get home.

Too quickly, what had seemed like surefire chaos became an empty street corner, not even the usual pedestrians normally visible this time of evening left to stir up.

“That wasn't as much fun as I thought,” the cop said, rubbing his chin with one oddly gnarled hand. “What is it with this city, anyway?” He took off his cap and scrubbed at his white hair, then slammed the cap back on as inspiration hit. “More challenge, that's what's needed. These people are all too simple—simple wants, simply fixed. I need something—no, some
one
more complicated.” It cocked its head as though listening to something, its leathery nostrils twitched, scenting something, and then a disturbing grin spread across its face, showing more, and more jagged teeth than a human would have.

“Yes, yes. I remember you. I caught scent of you when I came in…. Not larger, but trickier. Sometimes a small trick is the best. Let's do that then, yes,” it said in satisfaction. “But first, to find out where your prickly, pokey, pullable spots are….” It grabbed at the air in front of it, like opening a cupboard door, and was pulled through a hole that didn't exist, and out of sight.

Left behind, the broken loudspeaker continued to squawk instructions and directions nobody could understand, befuddling the passengers of the next train that pulled in and out of the station exactly on schedule, as though nothing had ever been wrong.

As per the Big Dogs' rules, we were supposed to take off at least one day every six, and if it wasn't a matter of life or death, two days in a row were preferred. It's not a suggestion, either: they know that we're all a little…compulsive, mainly because they trained us to be that way. So when Friday night rolled around, we were kicked out of the office and told not to show our faces again until Monday morning.

Or, as Stosser put it “go pretend to have a life.”

Obediently, I spent the weekend doing things that had nothing to do with the job. Or tried to, anyway. There were just too many questions about too many things unanswered for me to really relax. But I stayed away from the office, didn't pick up my crystals, and if I did some quiet digging into the name “Roblin” and spent most of my Sunday night dinner with my mentor asking him about potential inter-fatae politics involving Bippis, well…what did the Big Dogs expect, really?

“I'm sorry, Bonita,” J said. He had made veal piccata,
deceptively simple and mouthwateringly delicious. “What little I know matches what you have already discovered. I could ask around, see if my contacts know anything, but…”

But his network was at a considerably higher pay grade than the vic's, so they weren't going to be much help with the specifics. Now, if we had some kind of high-end political collision going on….

I made a quick “avert” sign with my fingers, discreetly hidden by a linen napkin. J frowned on my more old-world superstitions, although he'd just sigh and look away, if he caught me doing it.

“I wish I could be of more help. I worry about you—which you know.”

He did. But he also had stood by our agreement, never to poke his nose in unless specifically requested. For a moment—not even a moment—I was tempted to tell him about The Roblin, to see if he could elaborate on Madame's comments. But odds were he wouldn't be able to add anything, and then he would
really
worry.

My mentor wasn't a young man anymore. I couldn't stop doing my job, but I didn't need to tell him every whisper of trouble that floated in.

So I went home—J giving me a Translocation-lift from Boston back to New York—without any useful answers, and first thing Monday morning showed up in the office, filled with well-fed energy, ready for something to break wide open.

Unfortunately, nothing did. In fact, Monday was filled with nothing but a lot of frustration, despite working until nearly ten in the evening trying to tear everything
known apart, and put it back together usefully. Nearly a week after the cases landed on our desk, there wasn't a single peep on the street about who might have ransacked our client's house, or why, and I had utterly failed to reconstruct my diorama, even with Pietr's help. And we were no closer to knowing what The Roblin was or why we were involved. Morale, in a word, sucked.

We gave up on the diorama for the moment, since frustration did not lead to fine-tuned current, and instead spent most of Tuesday morning loading the whiteboard with every detail we had been able to dredge up on the floater, going through the last-time-seen and the river tides to put together a timeline, and not coming up with any plausible leads. The break-in investigation didn't seem to be going anywhere—the client was stalling us on a list of things that were taken, for some reason having to do with his insurance company—and none of the fatae wanted to talk about the dead Bippis, not one bit. Since the only thing the fatae as a rule liked more than themselves was gossip about other beings, we weren't sure if they were scared of something, or nobody had an honest, or dishonest, clue. I'd even tapped Bobo, the Mesheadam my mentor had hired as an off-again on-again bodyguard for me, more for J's peace of mind than my actual safety. Bobo was always willing to help, but he hadn't come up with anything yet, either.

Around noon my stomach rumbled, so I left Pietr staring at the board like it was the Rosetta stone, and booked out to grab some fresh air, and lunch.

Heading down the street, mindfully breathing in the air and letting it clear both my lungs and my brain, I
spotted one of “my” missing boys sitting on the stoop. Weirdly, that made me feel better. I ended up in a little corner deli down the street from the office, getting an extra-loaded ham-and-Swiss grinder to go and contemplating adding a couple of cookies to that, when Nifty walked in, clearly in the same “feed me or die” mood. Chasing leads and current-use both burned calories at an impressive rate, and it wasn't like he was any kind of a delicate flower.

In fact, Nifty's dark-skinned bulk seemed to almost spark in the air as he walked, his core getting past him in ways that would have made any mentor worth their salt send him back to schooling. I didn't say anything. An entire office filled with frustrated Talent? It's a wonder things weren't sparking and failing throughout the entire building: I guess the money the guys had put in for shielding and grounding was paying off. And knowing that The Roblin was out there somewhere was making the fact that nothing had actually hit us even worse: we all knew that the quiet was not going to last. Venec had told us he would look for signs of unrest elsewhere, and we were supposed to focus on the cases, but…well, that was a lot easier to say than do.

My coworker leaned over the counter and gave his order. “Two tuna subs and a large Coke.”

Nifty was a big guy, I was surprised he hadn't just gone down another block and gotten a whole pizza.

“How's the rash?” I asked him, when I saw he had noticed me.

“Rashy.” He watched as I pushed money across the counter, and pocketed my change while the guy behind
the counter wrapped up my order. “I'm more itchy to get the hell out in the field again, cause I can't still be contagious after this long. Hell, I'll wear full-length opera gloves, set a new fashion. You think you can put in a good word with Venec for me?”

I thought about playing dumb, decided it wasn't worth it. Even as my irritation boiled over, everything I'd been worrying about, everything I'd been repressing, escaped in a single unguarded, overtired moment.

“I'm not sleeping with him, and even if I were, what makes you think he'd listen to a damn thing I said if he thought otherwise?” I didn't wait for Nifty to answer, but took my lunch and stalked out of the deli.

I knew it. I
knew
it. Never mind that Nifty hadn't actually implied that he disapproved of whatever he thought was going on, or given me real grief, it changed the dynamic. The fact that they suspected something was going on inevitably made me less one of the pack and more…what? Venec's chew-toy, someone he kept around merely for his own amusement?

No. I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. I was pissed, but not so pissed off I lost track of reality. Nobody who'd ever met Venec would think he took chew-toys. Me, yeah, maybe. But not Venec.

Did they think that Venec was
my
chew-toy? The thought was so delightfully absurd I actually stopped dead on the sidewalk, and then had to apologize when a very irritated older woman nearly bumped into me. She glared at me from under perfectly dyed purple bangs, and moved on past.

Huh.

I grinned, my unusual spurt of temper fading, and decided that I would
not
mention that chew-toy thought to Venec. Not that the topic would ever come up, but if it did I suspected he wouldn't find it as amusing as I did.

For the first time in weeks, I was able to think about the Merge with something other than annoyance. Yeah, okay. Maybe, as long as I was rolling with it, I'd see if I couldn't get myself cut into the betting action in the office, after all.

“You work for Stosser.”

I stopped, a chill hitting my veins. The growling voice came from behind me, slightly to the right, which meant the speaker was on the curb or in the street, and lower down than my shoulder, which meant that they weren't human-adult height. And the question wasn't asked like they were looking for someone to hire.

“I do,” I said. No point in denying it. I reached into my core with a mental hand and gathered a pool of current, letting it slow around imaginary fingers, passive, but ready.

“Tell him to lay off. Nobody wants his nose in this.”

This? This what? The break-in? The dead body? Something else Stosser was looking at without bothering to tell any of us? Some case we hadn't even taken on yet? I hated imprecise threats.

“If you want me to carry a message,” I said, proud of how calm my voice sounded, “you're going to have to give me more detail than that. Stosser puts his pointy nose into a lot of things.”

The voice didn't think that was funny. It growled, and then something hard and sharp hit me just behind the
knees, and I went down onto the pavement, hands flat to keep me from going nose-to-gravel, exactly the way we weren't supposed to fall.

“Humans have no place in fatae business,” it said. “Keep to your own kind.”

I lay there as the sound of heavy footsteps—bare skin, flat feet, I noted mentally—stopped, and the sound of a car door being slammed and a car taking off replaced it.

The floater, then, most likely. All righty.

I waved off the offer of help from a passerby who had carefully not seen anything odd happening, and got back to my feet, checking to make sure my sandwich was unmushed. It was. I wish I could say the same for my pants; there was a tear in the left knee that not even a skilled tailor was going to fix. Damn it, I'd liked these pants, too. They were a dark gray wool that moved like silk, and had cost me a small fortune.

The front door to our office building had been magicked way back when by Venec to recognize our signatures, so I didn't have to worry about trying to get my keys out of my jacket pocket, but merely pushed the handle with my elbow, and slipped inside. Someone came up behind me, and I held the door open with my foot, just out of common courtesy, without looking. If it was my fatae unfriend come back for another round, it was welcome to come up to the office and make its case to Stosser directly.

“That's particularly stupid,” a gravelly male-human-voice said. “What if I'd been a mugger or rapist?”

“Then I'd kick you in the balls and fry your nerve endings with current,” I said, letting Danny move past me.
The P.I. was looking his usual hot self in jeans, leather jacket over a button-down, and scuffed-up cowboy boots, an NYPD cap jammed over his brown curls. The cap was less for weather protection than it was to hide the small nubby horns that peeked out through those curls. Danny was half fatae, half human, and all guy. He'd be a fabulous chew-toy if it weren't for the fact that I'd sussed right away that he was waiting, if unconsciously, for True Love. Poor bastard.

“You're out and about early,” I said. Fauns weren't night owls as a rule, but Danny had told me once that he got most of his real work done between four in the after noon and four in the morning. It was barely 1:00 p.m., which meant that for him to get here, dressed and awake, he had to have gotten up at least an hour ago.

“I had a morning meeting with a client,” he said. “Figured as long as I was in your neighborhood, I'd stop by and steal some coffee.”

“Bullshit. You have something. What do you have?” I started for the stairs, expecting Danny to follow, rather than wait for the elevator. The clomp of his boots on the metal stairs told me he had. Normally, a cutie on my tail like that, I'd put an extra wiggle in my backside just for the heck of it, but this was a business visit. And, anyway, I wasn't feeling it, today.

Danny, being Danny, was checking out my ass, any way. I don't think he could help it. Genetics are a bitch, especially faunish ones.

“Is it about a pending case, or a future one?” I asked on the second landing, when he didn't respond to my earlier
question. He usually didn't hold back, not with me, but this might be more than gossip.

“In the office,” he said when we hit the third landing, his voice not at all winded. I'd expect no less from him, either the discretion or the physical conditioning. When it came to business, Danny was 100% human.

There was someone coming out of the office across the hallway from our door, which surprised the hell out of me—twice in one week, seeing those doors open, was unusual. We'd taken over two of the office suites on the east side of the building; the other two on the west side housed a tiny literary agency and a one-person photography office, both of which got a lot of mail delivered, but very little actual foot traffic. I let the woman—a pretty blonde, but too hard-edged to be my type—pass, and then ushered Danny into our office.

He went straight for the coffee machine, not even bothering to take off his coat or say hello to Nick, who was sitting on the sofa weaving current between his fingers. Some people doodled when they thought; he played with current.

“I don't know how you people do it, but your coffee's the best in the city.”

“Because it's free?” I suggested.

“Well, there's that. Also, the surroundings are pretty.”

Danny and I flirted like other people took in oxygen, but neither of us were really in the mood today. I knew what my reasons were…what was up with him? He lounged against the kitchenette counter and looked at Nick, his gaze flickering back and forth between fingers, watching the threads of blue and green and orange
and red weave in and out like some kind of electric cat's cradle.

Actually, I realized, that's exactly what it was.

“Anyone else here?” Danny asked, while I shucked my coat and put it in the closet, then sat down on the sofa—a careful distance away from Nick and his thought-process—to eat my lunch before I collapsed from hunger. The vague warning-and-shove from my mysterious fatae could wait until after I ate. It wasn't as though Stosser was going to listen to it, anyway. The first rule of the office, even before “don't work at night alone” was “don't let yourself forget to eat.” Most Talent didn't have to worry about being called on for a sudden burst of current, without warning. We weren't most Talent. Also, I had a bad tendency, still, not to top off my core on a regular basis—holdover from being raised, as J said, like a civilian. Being hungry just made the problem worse.