Tricks of the Trade (14 page)

Left to my own devices, I placed the film on the floor, touching it with just enough current so that—according to Nick's theory, anyway—anything I visualized would impart itself in electromagnetic images on the film.

It was a good theory, anyway. I hadn't even made it
work in controlled runs. Even Lou was better at this than I was, which was sort of embarrassing.

The powders came out, and I brushed them over every available surface like fingerprint powder, swirling the brush to get an even distribution.

Despite Venec's insistence on us “not putting on a damned show,” as he said, this worked better if you gave the magic a frame to wrap around. It was a stupid cantrip, but it worked, and that was what mattered, right?

“Anything to show me? Anything to know? If found, twirl and glow.”

I worked my way through the kitchen space, repeating the cantrip at regular intervals, and then doubled back, waiting. After a few minutes, there was a whisper of current, and then the air began to whirl and shimmer, as the metal splinters reacted to my spell.

“Oh, baby. Bin-go.”

 

I didn't get a Transloc back, of course. The urgency was getting there, to show The Wren that we respected her time, etc, etc. I could have done it myself but there wasn't any need. The subway slog took me straight uptown, and I made it back to the office just in time to clock out for the night. My luck, I ran into Ian, first off. The office sounded like everyone else had already cleared out, and there was an unpleasant tension in the air that had to be coming from the Big Dog himself. Our fearless leader looked like he could bite the head off a basilisk right then. Thank god Venec said he'd tell Stosser about the warning, because I did not want to be giving him bad news right now.

“Torres.”

“Sir?” I hated when I did that, reverted back to eleven years old and formal-around-adults when I was nervous. Thankfully I was pretty sure nobody in the office knew why I did it, and assumed I was either being cautious, or subtly snarky. Stosser appreciated subtle snark. Usually.

“So you've met The Wren.”

“Yes, sir.” He was standing there, waiting, wearing his demonic candle guise—all black, with his long orange-red hair pulled back in a ponytail—and I just blurted it out. “She doesn't seem very impressive. I mean, even for a Retriever.”

His eyes narrowed, just a little. “Don't ever underestimate her, Torres. She holds back, but when pushed…” He seemed thoughtful, suddenly, in a way that prickled the skin on my arms. “When pushed, I suspect that she can be
very
impressive.”

Then the weirdness was gone, and so was the odd tension and simmering anger, and he was just Stosser again—Big Dog and all-around scary-brained genius. “And I think the two of you would get along, actually. Cultivate that. It would not hurt for one of us to have an in with her—in case we ever were called in to investigate one of her jobs.”

I almost laughed, because the thought was funny: whatever our client up in the Bronx thought, if you got hit by The Wren, you didn't bother having it looked into.

Then I thought again about that apartment, with its incredible vibes of comfort and hominess, and thought maybe I'd follow up on the results, rather than just handing them over to Venec. Not that I would ever befriend
someone just to get an inside line on an apartment, but hey, if Stosser thought she and I should become buddies…

“And, Bonnie…”

Oh. Uh-oh. I tensed, expecting finally the other shoe to drop. Either I'd screwed something up, or he was pissed at me for not telling him myself immediately about the warning or… Venec would ream me out for things, but Stosser was the one who would actually do something permanent.

“Is…everything all right? With, I mean…”

I stared at him, trying to parse Stosser actually inquiring into my well-being, either physical or emotional. The Big Dog hired us, used us, occasionally praised us when we met his exacting standards, and I know he bragged on us to outsiders, but Ian Stosser didn't take much interest in us, specifically and personally like this. The skin on my arms prickled again.

Venec, I thought. He knows about this thing between me and Venec.

I don't know why that freaked me out—all right, I knew exactly why it freaked me out. Of all the people you didn't want in your admittedly already unusual personal life, it was Ian damned Stosser. Especially if you worked for him. Especially if the other end of that personal life was his business partner and best friend, and oh,
hell.

But Ian just stood there, and looked…uncomfortable? Then he shook his head like shooing away a bee, and made a gesture that clearly said “never mind, go away.”

I went away. Not just away from him, but out of the office entirely. I'd given the job enough of me, today.

Paranoia lingered even after I left the building: I looked around carefully, just to make sure there wasn't another fatae waiting to pass another message along, or anything that was rubbing its hands and twirling a moustache, or whatever it was mischief imps did. There were a few fatae, yeah, but they were minding their own business, walking like they had places to go, same as everyone else, same as any other day.

The streets were filled with people, actually, enjoying the soft evening air, and normally I would have gotten a mood-lift just being out and hearing other people talking and laughing. But the push this morning had put me on edge more than I'd thought, adding to the uncertainty with The Roblin-threat, and that exchange with Stosser made my nerves jangle worse. I wanted to chew on the case some more—either case, just to have something to show for my nerves, but my avenue of investigation was at a dead end; that was clear from the fact that I'd been sent off to do the pro bono work, and I didn't have anything worth chewing on, with the break-in.

And I knew that if I went home, alone, I'd reach out to Venec. Not meaning to, not wanting to…but the itch was under my skin, the need to pick up the tingle of reassurance that the Merge would give me, that he was there, that I wasn't alone. And the fact that it wasn't real—that it was all the push of some current-based whateveritwas—made me even more confused and distracted and in need of reassurance.

I hated all three of those things.

What I needed, desperately, was to be able to talk it out with someone who could help me untangle what
was real and what was fear, without being judgmental or too biased. The only problem was, since I graduated college and started working with the team, all my closest friends were coworkers, too. And while I would trust my pack with my life, I wasn't ready to spill the details of this damned Merge I hadn't asked for and didn't want. Nifty's comment at lunch had confirmed my unease about that.

There was only one person who would understand, and that was the one person I really couldn't talk to— Venec himself. Not right now, the way we'd had to avoid each other to keep things functional. The time we'd walked, close enough our fingers touched, and talked openly about what was between us…that seemed years ago now, not months. Years and miles.

I could, I supposed, yelp to J. Once, I would have. We used to talk about any-and everything, even after I ended my traditional mentorship—there had been very little about us that had ever been traditional, anyway, the retired Council member and the daughter of a ne'er-do-well lonejack carpenter. But since I came to New York, took this job…. Dinner Sunday night had proved, once again, that there were fewer things I could tell him, not without screening what I said.

It was natural, J had assured me more than once. But I could hear the sadness in his voice when he said it, and it made me feel like crap. I wasn't his only mentoree, but I'd been the only one who had lived with him. That changed the dynamic. A lot.

But he wasn't my dad, and he really was not the person I'd want to talk to about this. The thought sent a
shuddering laugh through me, drawing a startled glance from a couple walking past me, who sped up, as though to avoid the crazy. Oh, hell, no, I did not want to talk to J about Benjamin Venec, the Merge, or any of it. He'd know a lot, probably, or know who could find things out, things even Venec's mentor, a scholar, didn't know about this ancient and apparently rare current-connection, but the minute he started digging into it, he'd get even more protective, worry even more, and…

I skirted around an impromptu sidewalk café spilling out from a pizza place, and realized I'd walked past my subway station. Apparently I was walking home. Well, it was a nice night, and still light, so fine.

It wasn't a squeamishness about my personal life. J had watched me hit puberty, had taken my curious teenage exploring in stride, had never said a word when I dated a boy, and then a girl, or any combination thereof. So long as I was happy, so long as I didn't get hurt, he was content.

The real problem was that I was pretty sure J would think the Merge was a good thing. He'd be pleased for me, and I wasn't sure I wanted that. I didn't think it was good, or pleasing. And I didn't want to have to justify myself to him, just in order to get useful advice.

Halfway to my apartment, I stopped and changed direction. Hell with getting a good night's sleep; I wasn't going to be able to sleep, anyway, this wound up. There was only one way to deal with this: I was going to go have a drink, flirt with whoever was behind the bar even if I didn't want to take them home, and be a carefree,
single twentysomething in the Big Apple, for one. Damn. Night.

The office, the cases, The Roblin, and Venec could all wait until tomorrow.

 

“Here. Here? Yes, here.”

The sense of unease that shivered across the skin of Talent throughout New York City would have worried people if they'd known how far it spread, as though the source was poking its fingers into every office, every apartment, every subway car, looking for something. Across the city, sirens rose and fell in a higher-than-usual number. All day, the incidents of petty mischief and chaos had seemed to increase geometrically, making people irritable and far more likely to use violence. The most high-res of Talent were restless, while current-sensitive Nulls double-checked the locks on their doors and second-guessed their decisions, certain that something wasn't right, and astrologers and New Age folk double-checked to make sure that Mercury hadn't suddenly, unexpectedly, gone retrograde. Even the dullest of Nulls looked over their shoulders, and double-counted their change.

The Roblin was hunting.

“Here.” A whisper of satisfaction as it found the source of the potential, the whisper of mischief that had summoned it. The scent of a worthy target.

In the locked and quiet offices of the Private, Unaffiliated Paranormal Investigations team, a single light flicked on, casting gray shadows around the otherwise dark and still space of the break room, although the front door had not opened to let anyone in. There was the quiet sound of
soft-soled shoes on carpet, down to the first small office, and then the scrape of wooden file cabinet drawers being opened, the shuffle of papers being riffled, sheets pulled out and then quickly, carelessly reinserted. Information. It needed information, in order to wreak the highest chaos. It had the scent of their magic, but now it needed names….

Occasional muttering filled the air, as though rising from not one throat but several, all at once. The desk was unlocked and more drawers were opened, then that room abandoned and another investigated, the shadows working down the long hallway, checking each room as they passed, heading to the last room in the suite.

A gnarled, crooked hand rose to the door as though to push it open, and let out a deep squeak of shock as current lashed out at the unfamiliar touch, lighting the gray darkness with bursts of hot-orange and neon-green.

“Who are you?”
whispered out of the air, a hot voice to match the current-sparks, and the shadow stopped, cocking its head as though considering the question. It had not expected an alarm, but clearly was not bothered by it, either.

“Who are you?”
The whisper-voice was louder the second time, less of a question and more of a demand. The sparks intensified in color, as though preparing to attack. A hum, like angry bees, filled the hallway.

The shadow paused, as though judging the whisper and deciding that it was, at the moment, outgunned.

“Gone,” The Roblin said. And then it was.

Once upon a time, I'd been a regular at most of the dance clubs in Boston. Since coming back to New York, I'd gotten to know most of the better places, where you could dance and not get hassled or hit on if you weren't in the mood, but the time and energy demands of the job kept me from really doing the rounds. Still, when you have to burn unease out of your system, sweat the uncertainty out of your brain, there's still nothing like a hot, crowded, dark, noisy dance floor.

I didn't stagger home until 3:00 a.m., something I hadn't done since graduation, with the peaceful satisfaction you only get when you've had exactly the right amount of booze and socializing, going home alone be cause you wanted to, not because you had to. On the dot of 6:00 a.m. I opened my eyes, and practically slithered down from the bed and into the shower, and emerged half an hour later feeling every pore in my body glowing with energy, enthusiasm and health.

Bad behavior, in small doses, could be really good for you.

I rubbed a clear space in the steam-coated mirror, and scrunched my face at the damp, tousled fluff that passed for my hair. Dandelion, yeah. Now that I'd let my hair revert to its natural white-blond coloring, Nicky's pet name for me was really apt. After Venec's scolding over the hair dye, the tousled white-blond mop suddenly bothered me as being too flashy, too visible, nowhere near as serious-looking as Sharon's sleek styling or Lou's classic French braid. Maybe if I toned the color down to brunette…no, I hadn't gone dark since a brief pass at sable my sophomore year, and that had been really unfortunate for my skin tone. Black was effective for gothing, but it made me look older and more tired, and that wasn't what I was looking for, right now.

Professional, the boss wanted. Right. There's no way I could do sleek without also going butch, so I spritzed gel into my curls, shaped them into a slightly neater frame, and abandoned the mirror for the closet. After yesterday's clothing wreck, I felt the need to put my best face—or knee—forward. Black trousers and a pale blue silk shirt, with onyx cuff links I'd borrowed from J about ten years ago and never given back, plus a pair of black half boots, and I felt professional and kickass. Perfect.

I grabbed my kit, and my bag, and a pair of sunglasses, and headed off to do my usual battle with the morning commute.

It was a couple of blocks' walk from my apartment to the nearest subway, which when the weather was nice—like today—was enjoyable. Fresh air, a little morning
sunlight, the sidewalks not too crowded yet, this far uptown. Normally I slip into an almost fugue-state, calm and ready, but heading down into the subway station this particular morning, I got a slightly creepy feeling on the back of my neck. Not that that's anything unusual at any given time, with mass transit—when anyone can ride, it stands to reason a percentage will be creepy, if not downright dangerous. You stay alert, you practice safe subway, and most of the time it never touches you. But this was strong enough—creepy enough—to break through my earlier fabulous feeling, and make me take notice.

I studied the feeling the way I would any bit of evidence. It wasn't just the feeling of someone staring, or even leering…it was actual, palpable unease, the sense of a storm about to break, but without the good fizzy feelings a massive weather change brings with it.

It wasn't a kenning: I determined that right off. This wasn't that same sort of
certainty.
Just…unease. Creeping, skittering, unhappy-making dis-ease. Normal situation, I'd pay attention to that. After the images that hit me during my scrying? I was hyperalert.

The train came rattling into the station, and as we all shuffled forward, the feeling of being watched fading back to the normal levels. Whatever it was, it seemed to have stayed on the platform. Good.

I wasn't lucky enough to get a seat, and found myself caught between an older guy who smelled of ink and smoke, and two teenage girls who had never heard of personal space, because they were all up in mine. My earlier sense of enthusiasm and health fled, revealing a deeper layer of cranky bitch underneath. When an elbow
came too close to my face as one of them extolled the annoyances of her morning class, I gave in to temptation and sent just a tiny zip of current into her foot.

Venec had taught us that. It was safest to tag someone there, farthest away from the heart and any potential medical problems that might be lurking. You only zapped someone in the chest if you were willing to risk killing them.

I was cranky, not murderous. The girl yelped a little under her breath, and shifted onto her other foot, swinging her body away from me subconsciously. I moved into the cleared space, claiming it as my own. The girls glared at me, but moved just enough so that they were the problem of the guy on their other side, instead.

I smirked a little, then froze.

The creepy feeling was back, stronger, like whoever it was had gotten on another car and lost me, back at the station, then followed the origin of my current-spark to this car. Great; with my luck and the way things were going, I'd just gotten myself a Talent-stalker.

Humans were split into two groups: Null, and Talent. But in each group there were gradations. Talent were defined as high-res or low-res, depending on how well they could channel current. Nulls…well, they had splits too, from almost-Talent to utterly Talent-blind, someone who couldn't even see the use of current when it was right in front of them, would look right past the most obvious fatae standing in front of them, stuff like that. Sometimes, a high-functioning Null would develop an almost pathological need to be near someone using Talent. If they didn't know about Talent, and most didn't,
they only understood that there was this
need
driving them, to follow some people, stalk them, be as near to them as possible.

Occasionally you got a Talent-stalker who was smart enough to figure it out, who could identify their pathology and how it was triggered. The
Cosa Nostradamus
didn't hide, exactly; we were there for anyone who wanted to see. Once they identified themselves—and most did—it was easy enough to deal with; the local Council stepped in, discreetly, and matched them with a high-res Talent, one of the ones who couldn't even go near major electronics without everything going haywire. Pathology and handicap were both dealt with, making them useful to each other, like symbionts. Most of the cases I'd read about, it worked out surprisingly well.

But sometimes you got mouth-breathers who just knew they had to get up close and personal with the object of their fascination. Those, with no awareness of what they needed or why, could become deeply frustrated, and occasionally dangerous to both the Talent of their affections, and anyone around them.

When we sense a threat, magical or non, a Talent's instinct is to touch the core, to stoke it into readiness, in case you had to do something sudden. In this case, that would also be exactly the wrong move. My self-defense classes in college came back to me: if you're tense, you make a more attractive target, because you're scared and not thinking straight. Relax, show confidence, and the mugger will look for someone they have a better chance of overpowering. Relax…and don't do anything—like gather current—that might drive them to action.

I kept that like a mantra in my head the rest of the trip, until the words merged with the thump-thud beat of the train and got into my pulse. When we hit my stop, I moved with the crowd, walking at exactly the same pace as everyone else, that not rushing yet ground-covering stride New Yorkers excel at.

The sensation followed me off the train, up the steps, and out onto the street. Damn. Despite my best intentions, even as I saw our building down the street, my muscles tensed, and I let myself reach for my core; not quite there, but poised. When someone touched me on the shoulder, I almost screamed, even as I fell into a defensive position, grabbing current and pivoting, turning to—

“Oh.” All the air went out of me, and my muscles went limp again. “Bobo.”

The Mesheadam looked at me, his normally placid Wookie-face expressing the most concern I'd ever seen him show. “You're being stalked by The Roblin, Bonnie. That's not good.”

I stared up at my occasional bodyguard, blinking stupidly. “I'm what?”

 

Bobo hustled me inside the building, ignoring the occasional odd looks we got—New Yorkers are pretty blasé about most things, but I guess seeing what looked like a muscle-bound Wookie that got shrunk in the wash out in daylight forced some folk to actually acknowledge the weird—and into the office, refusing to explain further until he had the Big Dogs' ears, too. Just us four, in Stosser's office.

“The Roblin has its eye on her. This is not good.” Bobo practically radiated worry, and he hadn't taken his paw off me, as though he thought if he did, I'd get swiped out from under his guard.

“The Roblin? The mischief imp?” Stosser looked at me, then Venec. “We should be worried?”

“Yeah. Madame warned me…” I started to say, then stopped.

“Did she now?” I had Venec's undivided attention, now. Uh-oh.

I hadn't meant to tell them, since she hadn't given me anything we didn't already know, and I didn't want to look like I'd been distracted from the case, but that seemed dumb now, and I try not to be dumb. My report went over better than I'd expected, with Stosser only raising one narrow red eyebrow, and Venec just grunting in acknowledgment, then turning the conversation back to Bobo's announcement.

“You saw it?”

Bobo didn't take offense at being questioned. “Nobody ever sees it. We know it is there. It cannot be mistaken for anything else.”

I thought about the feeling I'd had, at the back of my neck, and nodded. Oh, hell, yeah. If that was The Roblin, then I'd know if I felt it again.

“Like…?” Venec was looking at both of us, now, but Bobo answered. “Like the feeling that everything not only will, but must go wrong. As though the stars have aligned against you, and it would be best only to stay in bed and even there, you will not be safe from misfortune.”

I nodded once, then shook my head. “It didn't feel that bad for me, but it could be because I'm human. It seems like the fatae are the ones who are most freaked out by it.”

“We are wiser than humans,” Bobo said, his voice deep in his chest like the roll of thunder, impossible to argue with.

I didn't even try.

“You're certain it's stalking her?”

Bobo's neck wasn't really designed for turning, but he managed it, anyway, this time giving Stosser a Look that translated into “I know you're not stupid so why are you acting like you are?” and despite myself I felt an urge to giggle. I risked looking at Venec, who was holding up the wall in Stosser's office as usual, to see if he was amused, too. If he was, he wasn't letting it leak, not in expression or aura.

Ian and I were the only ones sitting—there's no way Bobo could have fit in any of the chairs, and Ben liked to lean-and-lurk. The office, which could fit the entire team with a little squishing, felt about half its normal size just then. I could feel sweat starting to pool under my arms, and my shoes pinched, suddenly. All psychological. I breathed in through my nose, then breathed out, quietly.

“I know what I know,” the Mesheadam said. “The Roblin has been in town much of a week. Everyone knows this.” Everyone being the fatae, clearly. “You haven't noticed the weirdness it brings?”

“We've been looking, but in this town? How would you notice?”

I suddenly remembered the bird I'd seen, flying back ward, and felt like an idiot. We'd been assuming that something big would hit, some obvious, catastrophic chaos, if The Roblin made a move, but maybe we should have been looking closer at the everyday weird, the small, strange things that make people superstitious? J taught me that very little of what we humans historically considered “supernatural” or “magical” actually was…but he might have been wrong.

“We were warned that The Roblin was in town,” Venec said, jumping back into the conversation. “A fatae came to tell us, specifically.” No more details than that; Big Dog was playing it close to the vest, as usual. “But since there was no further detail given, nor in fact any specifics of what this Roblin might do, we did not see any reason to place it above our open cases in terms of allocating resources.” He glared at me, like Madame's information might have made a difference. I stared back, mentally telling him to back off.

“We know that it's a mischief imp,” he went on, “but all our research was able to turn up was that the name's a polite nomen, what you use when you don't want to risk offending one of the breeds.”

Like “the Good Neighbors” or “Old Scratch.”

“Without those specifics, it didn't seem like something we should—or indeed, could—investigate further.” I could sense anger inside Venec; at himself, for underestimating the problem, for not responding more strongly to a threat. Then, like he was aware I could feel it—and he probably was—the walls thickened and the sense was
gone. “So tell us now, if you would. What the
hell
is going on?”

“The Roblin it is an imp,” Bobo said. “But not just any. It is the grandfather of imps, the grandmother of mischief, the child of chaos and boredom.”

That was about as eloquent—and incoherent—as I'd ever heard Bobo, considering his usual mode was to slip into “you white man, me play dumb” routine when confronted.

“We gathered that much.” Venec had turned on the icy sarcasm. “But why does it worry the Ancients so much? And why is it following one of my people?”

Yeah. I was wondering that last bit, too.

Bobo shrugged his massive, furry shoulders. “I don't know. I saw, and I came to warn. But…” He frowned, which on him was a very odd look. “You investigate paranormal. It causes paranormal. You are opposed to each other, before you even do anything.”