Blood from Stone

four

It took her almost half an hour to get the kid presentable again, including rinsing his T-shirt out and holding it under the air dryer until it was okay to put on again, if still, based on his grimace, a little damp. Wren, with more experience in being Translocated, had managed to miss her clothing when she threw up. She washed her hands and face, rinsed her mouth out and gargled with warm water, and figured that was as good as she was going to get, right then. But oh God, did she want that hot shower and a long nap. Not to mention that drink.

“Ready?”

The kid nodded, but looked less certain than he had since all this began. She didn’t blame him a bit. In fact, it was a damned wonder the kid was still there, and not running for the first noncrazy adult he could find.

It made you wonder what the hell his home life was like.

Despite her concerns, nobody gave Wren or the kid a second glance when they walked out of the bathroom. She still felt horribly exposed and vulnerable, same as she did every time someone else Transloc’d her. The loss of control over your own molecules was disturbing, even without the throwing-up part. If she could do it herself with any kind of accuracy or reliability…

If you could, many things would be different. But since you only manage it under extreme stress and with massive stomach upset, let it go already!

Max had dropped them off in the men’s room of a chain restaurant off Route 95 in Connecticut, just north of New York City. It was more than a hundred fifty miles from the aborted handoff site, far beyond what most Talent could manage. Show-off, Wren thought bitterly as she looked out the plate glass windows at the visible highway signs.

Then the white lettering on that sign really sank in, giving her a start. This was the client’s hometown, where he lived and, more important, where he worked. Which meant that either luck had finally smiled on her, or—and this was the unpleasant thought—that Max had done some digging in her brain while he was hauling them around.

She strongly suspected the latter, and made a nasty promise to return the favor, if she ever got the chance, just on principle. She hated the thought of anyone in her brain. It made her feel…rumpled.

Despite her foul mood and worries, the smell coming from the kitchen of the restaurant made Wren salivate, and the look on the kid’s face suggested he felt the same, even though he was too polite—or scared—to ask. She didn’t want to stay here, though, just in case anyone—Max, or…anyone—decided to come back for them. Instead, she dragged the kid next door to a fast-food restaurant and dug into her sparse cash to get a burger and a kid’s meal. They had little containers of chocolate milk, and she got three, two for him and one for her. It was milk, so that was almost like healthy food, right? She told herself to stop making like a mother; the kid wouldn’t keel over from one junk food meal.

They ate as they walked, heading on instinct into the more crowded downtown area. The client, according to Sergei, was senior partner at a decent-sized law firm. Some questioning of local-looking people on the street finally got her an address. By the time their meals were done and the last of the chocolate milk slurped, Wren found the building.

“You ready?”

The kid looked less than thrilled. “I guess.”

Kid of few words. And he didn’t suck his thumb or throw tantrums or squirm, or anything that made her hate kids. Not bad, as kids went.

“I’m tired.”

“Yeah. It’s almost over now, kid.”

He seemed to be thinking that through, then finally nodded and set his face into very solemn lines. “Okay.”

She tossed the garbage into a nearby trash can, looked the kid over to make sure he looked as unmussed and untraumatized as possible, and then marched him into the lobby of the brick-and-chrome low-rise. There were only four companies listed: two law firms, a CPA firm, and something that didn’t identify what they did but had five names on the masthead.

The directory sent them to the third floor, where the lobby was warm paneled wood and comfortable-looking chairs. If she ever needed a law firm she’d like it to look as upscale-comfortable as this one. Somehow she didn’t think that they handled the kind of work she’d bring them, though; their criminal cases were probably more insider trading and whatnot. She put on an air of confident authority, best she could, and told the surprised receptionist—a large, elegant woman with glorious cornrows down her back—that there was a package for her boss. The kid seemed to know the woman, and more to the point actually like her, so Wren had no hesitation whatsoever in triggering her no-see-me lurk mode the moment he launched himself into the woman’s arms. That was a handoff she felt a hell of a lot better about, yes.

Dad showed up a few minutes and a frantic page later, and while he scanned the lobby with an intent gaze, he didn’t have a chance of spotting her standing in plain sight by the elevator doors. Retrievers were both born and made—you stayed at the top through training and skills, but you started out because you had the natural ability to go unnoticed. She suspected that was true for a lot of Null thieves, as well.

She studied Dad for a few minutes. Expensive suit and well-groomed hair, and he seemed really uncomfortable when the receptionist handed junior over. But the kid—despite his earlier statement—threw chubby little arms around Dad’s neck without a second thought. The man’s expression was one of guilty relief rather than annoyance or fear—or disappointment—and he hugged the boy back immediately, like something precious he hadn’t expected to hold again. Maybe he wasn’t such a shmuck after all. Maybe. Maybe he’d just made a mistake, had trusted the wrong people to do the right thing. It was a risk, but…

Take care of your son, she thought into the man’s skull, making it into a pointed, current-driven command, and then went home.

The MetroNorth train southbound got her into Grand Central just in time to deal with the crush of early-evening commuters. The mass of people heading out of the city on a Thursday evening made it tough walking, but the irritation with crowds was a familiar thing, and she almost welcomed it, after the rest of the day. The subway downtown was packed as well, but she slid into the first train that came along, found a bit of wall to lean against, and was home without any significant delay.

As always when she had been away for even a day, the sensation of coming up out of the subway station and turning onto her street was akin to having someone lift a twenty-pound weight off her shoulders. Home.

The narrow brownstone was quiet—there were five floors, one apartment per floor, and most of her neighbors weren’t the wild party-throwing type ever since the nudists on the third floor moved out and her friend Bonnie moved in…. All right, Bonnie threw parties, but they were clothed and respectable. Mostly.

Wren shook her head and shifted her backpack to the other shoulder as she climbed the stairs. Her thoughts were starting to get scattered, which was normal when a job ended. All that concentration fractured and the only thing she could think about was that strong drink, a hot shower, and going to sleep. Not necessarily in that order, either.

She lived on the top floor; normally that was a blessing in terms of privacy and air flow. Sometimes, though, that last turn of the landing was more than she could handle. She could use current to carry herself—or at least make her weight seem lighter—but the energy drain was too much to even consider. It had been a very, very long day, and that burger and chocolate milk was a long time ago.

Her apartment door was locked with multiple physical locks and a current-lock, primed with elementals, tiny creatures that gathered in electrical streams to feed. They weren’t bright, but they could be trained—mostly—to respond to intrusions and report back. A quick touch indicated that none of the locks had been disturbed since she left that morning. She flipped two of the physical locks—the third was unlocked, and turning it would have secured the door against someone not aware of Wren’s security quirk. The fourth lock was current-based; it only activated if a stranger tried to pass. Right now, it was keyed to five different people: two Talent—herself and Bonnie—and two Nulls—Sergei, and her mother, and one Fatae—the demon P.B., who was sitting on the sofa in her main room, bare feet propped up on the coffee table, reading the salmon-colored pages of the Financial Times.

She was too tired to even be surprised. How he had managed to get in without triggering the locks…He must still be using the fire escape and picking the lock on the kitchen window. Old habits died hard, apparently.

“Hey.” She dropped her bag on the kitchen counter, threw her keys into the bowl, and went back out to hear why her former temporary roommate was back in her space.

“You got mail,” he said, pointing a clawed paw to the pile of letters and catalogs on the coffee table by his claw-tipped toes.

“I often do,” she replied drily. The furniture was new, and she had warned the four-foot-high demon what would happen if he scored claw marks in any of it. She had forgotten to warn him against shedding, but so far he seemed to be keeping his coarse white fur to himself.

“You know,” she said to nobody in particular, “I have problems nobody else in this world does.”

A snort was his only response: he had gone back to reading the paper. He clearly wasn’t impressed with her trauma.

She went back into the kitchen and picked up the phone.

You have reached this number, I assume by intent. Leave a coherent message and I will get back to you.

“Your dossier was missing a rather important bit of information, Didier. But everything’s copacetic, I’m home, I’m done, I’m going to bed. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

She hung up the phone, wishing not for the first or last time that she could use a cell phone without frying the innards seven ways from Sunday. Being able to call him from the road, and not relying on finding a working pay phone…

Might as well wish for another four inches of height, while you’re at it, Valere. Besides, you as a Null? She couldn’t imagine it, not even for a laugh.

Turning around in the galley space, she opened the fridge and considered the half-drunk bottle of wine—Sergei’s contribution to last night’s dinner—and the various beers, and instead grabbed a diet Sprite. Popping the top and slugging half of it, she went into the main room.

“You here for dinner?” she asked her uninvited guest, meaning it as a prelude to kicking him out.

“So long as you’re not cooking.” He snickered when she glared, then relented. “Bonnie came up and offered to cook dinner, if you got home before ten.”

Bonnie, the other Talent who lived in the building, was a fabulous cook. Wren didn’t cultivate a friendship with her for that—the younger woman was fun just to hang around with—but it was a much-appreciated benefit. Suddenly, staying awake a little while longer gained appeal.

*yo* she pinged downstairs.

A faint sense of awareness and busyness, and a tantalizing mental aroma replied.

“She’s already cooking,” she told the demon, sitting on the new brown-and-cream geometric pattern rug on the hardwood floor and gathering the mail onto her lap. As long as she was staying awake, might as well deal with the domestic shit. “Half an hour, we should go down.”

“Gotcha.” The demon didn’t even bother looking up from his newspaper, turning pages with surprisingly delicate, claw-tipped paws.

What to do for dinner settled; Wren went to work organizing the pile. Catalogs were tossed, credit card bills were put to one side for paying, and anything that looked like junk mail was thrown back onto the table. One envelope looked like an invitation, and she slit it open and pulled out the card. A gallery opening. She didn’t recognize the name, but that didn’t mean anything—Sergei was the one in that field, not her. She didn’t know from art, just what she liked. Often as not, it wasn’t the stuff that sold well.

Because of who she was sleeping with—Sergei having reached a certain level of Impressive in the New York gallery world—she got added to the invitation lists at some of the weirdest places—and some of the toitiest, too. From the address, this one was on the upscale mark.

A few years ago she would have panicked, worried about what to wear, and then had a miserable time comparing herself to the inevitable models and high-gloss money-movers. Now…Well, she’d still worry about what to wear. Everything else got less important after you almost died a couple of times.

There was one remaining envelope, looking ominously business-like. She frowned at it, and took another slug out of the soda can. Slitting the envelope open, she removed a single sheet with a very severe-looking letterhead.

Dear Ms. Valere. We are pleased to inform you that we have acquired your building from Machi Management. In the coming year, we plan to make considerable improvements to the building with the goal of selling the units. As a current tenant, you will of course have the first option to purchase your unit….

Wren stopped reading. She refolded the letter very carefully, placing it on the coffee table, and then went back into the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of wine out of the fridge. She didn’t bother with a glass.

“Trouble?” P.B. put down the newspaper and looked at her, a worried expression in his dark red eyes. He didn’t have eyebrows, just a faint ridge under the fur. She had never noticed that before, really.

“No. Not really. Sort of.” She shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again, not quite sure what she felt. Her demon’s expression as he tried to follow her head motions almost made her laugh. “Maybe. My building’s going condo.”

The New Yorker’s nightmare and dream, all in one. P.B. winced, his muzzle drawing back to show sharp white teeth and black gums in an expression you had to know meant sympathy for it to not be menacing. “Ow.”

‘Yeah, ow.” Bonnie had to have gotten one, too. Suddenly, the offer of dinner made more sense. Bonnie was younger, with less money in the bank, and had only just moved in the year before. She was probably freaking more than a little bit over this letter.

“This has been a hell of a day, my friend,” Wren said heavily. “A hell of a day. Let’s go get us some home cooking. And a drink before dinner.”

As expected, that proposed drink before dinner turned into two, and then more with dinner, and a late night overall, ending with human and demon staggering up the stairs trying to sing the chorus of a disreputable sea shanty in Norwegian, a language neither of them spoke—or sang—a word of.

When Wren finally crawled out of the bedroom somewhere between oh God and semihuman the next morning to make coffee, there was a tall, well-built, reasonably good-looking man with a hawkish nose drinking a mug of tea at the kitchen counter.

“When’d you get here?” She knew he hadn’t been here last night; the bed had been cold when she fell into it. Even drunk off her ass, she knew when Sergei was in bed with her. He was an excellent bed-warmer.

“The client was surprised that the handoff wasn’t done as arranged,” her partner said by way of greeting, without bothering to respond to her question. “And by ‘surprised’ I mean more than vaguely upset. You delivered the package to his office?”

Coffee was suddenly too much effort, if she was expected to talk coherently about business while figuring out how many scoops she had already put in. She waved a hand and muttered something vaguely in English at him, promising to return, then went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face. The reflection in the mirror looked worse than she felt, which was saying something. Her shoulder-length brown hair was mussed and tangled, and her eyes were red-rimmed. Her skin, normally a healthy if pale color, was decidedly green.