Kitabı oku: «Curse the Dark»

Praise for the Retrievers novels of
laura anne gilman

Staying Dead

“An entertaining, fast-paced thriller set in a world where cell phones and computers exist uneasily with magic and a couple of engaging and highly talented rogues solve crimes while trying not to commit too many of their own.”

—Locus

“An exciting…unpredictable story that never lets up until the very end…I highly recommend this book to fans of urban fantasy, especially [the works of] Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison or Laurell K. Hamilton.”

—SF Site

Curse the Dark

“Gilman has managed the nearly impossible here: a cleverly written and well-balanced fantasy with a strong romantic element that doesn’t overpower the main plot.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews [4 1/2 stars]

“With an atmosphere reminiscent of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose by way of Sam Spade, Gilman’s second Wren Valere adventure…features fast-paced action, wisecracking dialog and a pair of strong, appealing heroes.”

—Library Journal

Bring It On

“Fans of Charlaine Harris, Kelley Armstrong and Kim Harrison will find Bring It On a very special treat. The author is an expert worldbuilder and creates characters that are easy to care about.”

—Affaire de Coeur [5 stars]

“Gilman has outdone herself…The revelations are moving, the action is fantastic and the ending is something that makes you wonder what will happen next.”

—In the Library Reviews

Burning Bridges

“Wren’s can-do magic is highly appealing.”

—Publishers Weekly

“This fourth book in Gilman’s engaging series delivers…Wren and Sergei’s relationship, as usual, is wonderfully written. As their relationship moves in an unexpected direction, it makes perfect sense—and leaves the reader on the edge of her seat for the next book.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews [4 stars]

“I’ve been saying it all along, and I’ll say it again, this is an excellent series, well worth picking up, and I haven’t been let down yet.”

—Green Man Review

“Valere is a tough, resourceful heroine, a would-be loner who cares too much to truly walk alone. A strong addition to urban fantasy collections.”

—Library Journal

Free Fall

“An intelligent and utterly gripping fantasy thriller, by far the best of the Retrievers series to date.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Compulsively readable, fast-paced and deadly serious…Wren continues to be an engaging and likable protagonist, one the reader can root for with all her heart.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

Curse The Dark
Laura Anne Gilman

Dear Reader,

Welcome, or welcome back, to the world of the Cosa Nostradamus, where the person walking next to you on the sidewalk may not be…entirely human, and magic not only didn’t fade away in the modern age, it got stronger.

In Curse the Dark, a lot changes for Wren and Sergei as they take on a job for the mysterious—but well-paying—Silence. Decisions are made, surprises are sprung and consequences are dealt out, both tragic and joyful. Life isn’t always easy, it’s rarely ever fair. But when Wren’s around, you know it’s always going to be an adventure!

And don’t miss Wren’s other adventures in Staying Dead, Bring It On, Burning Bridges and Free Fall, available now, and Blood from Stone, coming in May 2009.

Enjoy!

Laura Anne Gilman

For Amy and Sue.

Even if they did want to trade me in for a puppy.

Acknowledgments

The past year was probably the toughest ever in my life, and a number of people were much-needed, much-appreciated lifelines.

Keith R. A. DeCandido

Jenn Saint-John

James A. Hartley

Lesley McBain

Lisa Sullivan

Jennifer Jackson

Susan Shwartz

Peter Liverakos

Howard Shaw

And in the memory of Kath Lawrence, who reminded me to take those lifelines and hold on tight.

Curse The Dark

Secure yourself to heaven.

Hold on tight, the night has come.

Fasten up your earthly burdens,

You have just begun.

—Indigo Girls, “Secure Yourself”

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Chapter One

“Next time,” Sergei muttered out of the corner of his mouth, not taking his eyes off the security guard leaning against a wall several paces ahead of them, “we’re taking a boat.”

“Sorry, okay?” Wren said, doing her best not to snap at him. “I’m trying. I really am.” And she was. It just wasn’t helping.

Her partner’s deep sigh was the only response she got. They’d had variations of this conversation ever since she threw her bag into the cab outside her apartment that morning, and things had only slid downhill since getting to the airport. If they could have gotten through all this quickly, and not given her so much time to think about it…But, well, that wasn’t going to happen. And the weird feeling of being stared at, even though there wasn’t anyone paying any attention to her, was just making things worse.

The line shuffled in place, people shifting bags and checking watches. Sergei took a small case out of his suit coat pocket, opened it and removed a slender brown cigarette, then put the case away. He rolled the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, then started rotating it end to end, as though practicing for a coin trick he already knew how to do.

Another person made it through the metal detector and escaped into the depths of the airport. There was only one line feeding along roped-off lanes into seven different metal detectors, three of which were currently out of service, with technicians standing around them looking puzzled and not a little annoyed. One of the techs did something to a touch pad, and shrugged helplessly.

I hate airports, Wren thought. As though overhearing her thought, Sergei flicked a glance sideways at her, one dark brown eyebrow raised in inquiry over paler brown eyes. After ten years of working together, he didn’t have to say anything; the message came through loud and clear. Get it done.

“Right.” It wasn’t that he wasn’t sympathetic. He was. She knew that. But it was her problem and she was the one who had to deal with it. And sympathy didn’t actually help. Adjusting her sweaty grip on her brand-new carry-on (finest you could buy on sale on two days’ notice), Wren closed her eyes and refocused her attention inward, to where the tendrils of current coiled and flickered within her like snakes in a pit.

She wasn’t a good flyer even under the best of circumstances. No, call a spade a spade and admit that she was a terrible flyer. She avoided traveling by air whenever possible. Sometimes, though, it wasn’t possible. Sometimes, you just had to suck up the phobia and get on with it.

Unfortunately, the only thing worse than a phobic Talent under stress was a phobic Talent under stress near a lot of electronics. Such as, oh, the one found when going through departure security at a major airport just outside of New York City.

We shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t have taken this job. Don’t think about it, Valere. Focus. Stay calm. Or everything’s going to get ugly.

“The usual mess,” a man behind her grumbled to his companion. “And what do you want to bet once we get on the plane we’ll be stuck on the tarmac for another hour anyway?”

Oh, God. So much for calm and serenity. Just the thought of that was enough to make her nerves—and the current inside her—roil. The “snakes” hissed sparks of current, seething in her own agitation. Damn, damn and—

There was another snap-ping! noise, and the lights on one of the still-working metal detectors went out, then came back on. The security guard swore under his breath and said something into his walkie-talkie. The seven people in front of Wren and Sergei on the security check line groaned. Wren felt a twinge of helpless guilt, opening her eyes and looking at the chaos she was, however unwillingly, creating. Admittedly, one of the machines had been out of commission by the time they got on line. She was pretty sure she wasn’t to blame for that one. But the other two had died in a rather spectacular array of sparks not thirty seconds after they arrived. That was in addition to the meter of the cab that dropped them off, the check-in desk computer that decided to crash in the middle of confirming their seats, and the cell phone of the guy next to them on the escalator.

All those old stories about magic being wiped out by technology so had it wrong. Magic didn’t hate tech. It loved it. So much so that a Talent instinctively wanted to reach out and drag all the lovely bits of power floating through the wires and tubes and chips of modern society into his or herself. Especially if she was, even subconsciously, preparing for a worst-case scenario in which she might need all the power she could grab.

Sergei had suggested a sedative when she started to hyperventilate in traffic this morning, but Wren was terrified of what she might do if she were too relaxed when the inevitable panic hit.

“Last time I got stuck in security I missed my connection and had to wait three hours for another flight,” Wren heard the woman ahead of them say to her companion, more resigned than annoyed.

Oh, God. A muffled whimper escaped her, and sparks danced on the backs of her hands until she shoved them into the pocket of her pale blue linen jacket, bought new for this trip and already stained under the arms with sweat. “I hate airports,” Wren muttered. “They’re full of planes.” She could hear the panic in her voice and hated herself for it.

“Hang in there.” Sergei shoved the cigarette back into its case and shuffled in line, moving bags and his laptop case until he stood just behind her, a little closer than the crush of people demanded. At six-two he was almost a foot taller than she, and broad-shouldered into the bargain, creating a comfortable barrier at her back. The defense might have been mostly psychological, but it worked. She welcomed the closeness, breathing deeply of the scent of warm spice and musk that was so perfectly and only her partner. She could almost ground herself into it the way she would into rock or soil; emotionally, anyway, if not magically. Not that she thought she was going to do anything stupid, but…

Well, they called them phobias because they were irrational, after all.

“I’m here, Zhenchenka,” he said. “I’m here, and everything’s okay. Just focus. Keep it under control…” It was equal amounts order and a gentle reminder. Sergei might have finally given up that “senior partner” thing he’d been carrying for the past decade, but old habits died hard.

Fortunately, this was one directive she was willing to follow.

She took a deep breath, released it, nodded, and then closed her eyes again, shutting out everything around her: the white noise of the busy airport, the palpable irritation of the people around her, the smell of her own nervous sweat. Last to go was her physical awareness of Sergei, standing guard over her. Narrowing down further, shutting the mental chute until all that existed was her awareness of her own awareness, and the enticing, invigorating current. Black silk covered with static electricity, jumbled fireworks of a thousand colors. It was beautiful, and tempting, and only with a severe force of will did she keep herself from falling into those fireworks, narrowing even further until all that existed was the current within herself, the natural core that was inside every human Talent.

She had described it to Sergei once as being dropped into a tank of virtual snakes, sinuous electric beasts, bright blue and red and orange and green and silver, like some cyberpunk wet dream. The core of what she was, what she could do. You couldn’t ever show fear as they curled around you, hissing in a reflection of her own unreasonable panic about flying, because if you ever lost control current would destroy you.

Dangerous. At the same time, they were beautiful. And hers. She moved closer, soothing the snakes, gathering them in. There was no fear, no loss of control. They were part of her, and would do as she willed them, damn it—

“Miss?”

Wren started as someone touched her shoulder. She could sense Sergei swinging into action even as she gasped, putting his well-tailored bulk between her and the intruder.

Wren wasn’t used to being noticed—she normally cultivated her slight, innocuous appearance into invisibility. She must be screaming tension in her body language. Not good. The last thing she needed was attention from security making her even more nervous.

“Yes?” she said, moving around her overprotective partner and shoving the current-snakes down even more firmly. Everyone stay cool, she thought, not sure if it was directed at herself, the current, or Sergei. Or all of the above.

The guard took a hard look at her, glanced at the passport held out to him and then reached out one hand, palm up and fingers flat, as though calming a nervous horse. His hand was covered with fine lines, a webbing of creases run amok, and there was a callus on the pad of his index finger. Wren thought that someone who read palms could have a blast with him. “Are you all right, Ms. Valere?”

Sergei started to answer him, but Wren shook her head at him in warning. Let me handle this. “Yes, thank you.”

She shifted her carry-on, and took Sergei’s hand in her own. The cool, firm skin of his hand was like a lifeline, and she squeezed it once, gently, feeling him return the pressure. It’s okay, that squeeze said.

Rather than restraining the current any further, Wren focused it instead, turning her full attention to the guard. Seeing the suspiciously twitchy passenger relax under his gaze, the guard—a baby-faced blonde in his mid-twenties, if that, probably just out of training on how to use the gun in his holster—began to relax. His watery blue eyes were kind, at odds with the weary boredom on his face. You’re feeling sorry for me, she thought, her brain taking on an intensely dreamy but sharp-edged feel of a working fugue stage. You think I look terrified of flying—true—and it’s a shame I have to be put through all of this.

The “Push” was one of her strongest gifts. It was also the one she hated to use the most, for purely embarrassingly moral reasons—more than any other skill, it had the potential to be abused. The problem was, it was so damn useful. Coupled with her ordinary looks and slight frame, it was enough to get her into the most closely guarded places without being seen. But sometimes you wanted to draw someone’s attention to you, not away…and once you had it, you could move it to other places…other thoughts. And they would never know, if you were careful, how they had been coerced. Get me through this…get me past these machines so I don’t have a screaming fit and set off every single security measure you have….

“Bad flyer, huh?” the guard asked conversationally.

“Bad doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Wren admitted, squelching her self-disgust into a tight box and locking the lid. Her mother would have a fit if she knew how badly her only daughter was messing with some poor guy’s mind. But when needs must, as her own mother forever said—if about other, way more ordinary things—you did what you had to do….

Sergei Didier watched his partner wind the security guard around her little finger, and stifled a smile of relief. With luck, having something to focus on other than her fear of flying would keep anything…dramatic from happening. He’d been intentionally not thinking of all the ways a panicked Talent could create chaos in an airport, especially one as tightly wound as Newark, as though that blankness in his mind would prevent anything from happening. Talismanic magic, the ancient kind Wren scoffed at.

His feeling was, don’t knock anything that might work.

He glanced at the decadently expensive and self-indulgent wind-up gold watch on his wrist and made a bet with himself that it would take her less than three minutes to “push” the guard into hand-walking them through security. There was much less risk in her being wanded off to the side than walking through one of their damned machines, in the state she was in. If she managed that, it would be the first thing that had gone right since they’d taken this damned job.

No, scratch that. The first thing to go right since May. Since that damned Frants case, since that damned Council—since everything had changed.

He rested his gaze on his Wren, currently being ushered out of the line by the solicitous guard, and smiled again. Not that everything that had happened in May was so bad.

She looked back, making sure that he was okay with her being taken out, alone, and he made a small go-ahead gesture. It wasn’t as though they were joined at the hip. She’d catch up with him on the other side of the security gate. Once she was out of the way, things were bound to go more smoothly.

Picking up his bag, Sergei shuffled forward with the rest of the line to fill the space Wren had left. Yes, things would go more smoothly without her there. But he missed her presence already.

Since May…although he wondered again how much had actually changed, and how much was just finally being dragged out into the light of day.

Two days earlier…

“Why the hell don’t you get an air conditioner?”

Wren looked at her partner as though that was the stupidest thing she had ever heard. He flushed slightly, the color rising over his damnably fine cheekbones, although that might have been the heat. It was seven o’clock in the evening, and the temperature was still hovering in the low nineties. Summer in Manhattan. God, how Wren hated it.

They were sitting on the hardwood floor of the largest room in her apartment, not that large meant much in the city. The space was empty save for the stereo system against one wall and an overstuffed armchair at the perfect midway point between speakers. All the windows in the apartment were open, on the off-chance of catching a breeze to supplement the low-tech floor fans that were pretty much just redistributing the warm air. But at least they were low-risk, compared to running an air conditioner. She wasn’t going to be the Talent who shorted out the entire city because she couldn’t stand a little heat.

She could, she supposed, have drawn the oppressive heat off her body magically. But even thinking about it made her exhausted. Actually doing something was beyond her ability right now.

Sergei, who didn’t have that option, looked as exhausted as she felt. Still dressed in the grey summer-weight wool slacks and long-sleeved cotton shirt he had worn during the day, he was sprawled on his back, a clear plastic cup on the floor near his hand, the dregs of a squeezed lemon and the last drops of iced tea at the bottom of the cup. His collar was undone, and his sleeves had been unbuttoned and then left, as though it were too much effort to roll up the cuffs. He wouldn’t be caught dead in anything more casual, not when he needed to be “Sergei Didier, owner and proprietor of Didier Gallery, home of overpriced artwork,” anyway. Sergei, her partner in we-don’t-call-it-crime, it’s-Retrieval-thank-you-muchly, could dress down as needed. Although she could probably count on two hands the number of times she’d seen him in jeans. Pity, that. For thirty-nine-ish, her partner’s ass was worthy of well-fitting jeans. Not that slacks weren’t a good look on him, too….

She shook her mind away from those thoughts with an effort, aware he was waiting for a response.

“You could have gone back to your own place, you know,” she said. He had central air. And tile flooring, which was much nicer to lie on when it was really hot outside. Not that she’d done that…more than once or twice. Two weeks of ninety-degree-plus temperatures. It wasn’t fair.

“God.” He shuddered like a tired horse as though he’d been following along with her thoughts. “The idea of getting on the subway tonight…” His voice was a low growl, unlike his usual precise newscaster enunciation. “Too many sweaty people, all unhappy. If we all weren’t so tired the murder rate would be skyrocketing. Besides, we need to talk, and you’ve been avoiding me.”

“Have not.” She had been, of course. And lying to her partner was supposed to be reserved for times of real need, not just because she was a candy-coated wuss.

She’d been avoiding everything, lately. Not good. Trust him to call her on it.

“Genevieve…” Another growl. God, as much as she hated her given name, she loved the sound of him saying it. It made her feel like her spine was melting. Even when he was scolding her, the way he was now.

“No calls, huh?” Stupid question. If there had been, he would have told her.

“None,” he confirmed anyway. “And it’s starting to show.”

She knew that. It just all added to the avoidance factor. Bad enough to be in this miserable heat wave. Adding a dry spell to it was the proverbial insult to injury. She hadn’t gotten a single job since June. Three months, and Sergei hadn’t fielded a single solitary badly-paying inquiry.

She might be the best Retriever in the business, but being the best didn’t mean anything if you weren’t getting the jobs.

“Everyone scrams from the city in August,” she offered, fanning herself halfheartedly with a paper fan made out of a folded take-out menu. Someone told her once that the action used more energy than it cooled her down, but Wren didn’t care. It felt good.

“Wren.” He sighed, rolling over on his side to look at her. “Face it. You know what’s going on.”

Unable to meet his steady brown gaze any longer, Wren stared instead at the can of Diet Sprite waiting by her feet. The polish on her big toe was starting to flake off, and she rubbed at it idly with her free hand, thinking that she was long overdue for a pedicure. Knowing didn’t mean wanting to admit. Because admitting would mean also admitting that maybe she’d really messed things up.

And worse, that she’d messed up by doing the right thing. A simple job—Retrieve a stolen chunk of concrete, spell intact, and return it to the rightful owner—that turned out to have politics and underhanded dealings and paybacks written all over it. And a ghost with trouble staying dead. And murder. Never forget the murder part of it.

A fifty-year-old murder she had tried to avenge. She might even have succeeded, although it probably would be a few more decades before she’d know for sure.

Along the way, she had also managed to piss off the Mage Council, the self-proclaimed hall monitors of the Talent world, by letting it be known the part they had played in that murder. Not that they had anything against snuffing out a life or two, especially if the victim was a Null, a nonmagic user. But they hadn’t exactly played by their own rules, and that was supposed to be a no-no.

That disclosure had led them to the dilemma under discussion. At least partially—mostly—because of that job, the Mage Council had put Wren on their Most Annoying list.

Well, big whoop, she had thought at the time. The Council and lonejacks, the unaffiliated Talents, had been sparring for generations. As a lonejack, Wren always figured she came under the general Council evaluation of “shiftless, undisciplined, and not worthy to polish our expensive shoes.” Apparently not. Instead, they were looking closely at her. Way too closely. And plotting…something. Wren didn’t see what it was about her specifically that made the Council so particularly nervous. But whatever it was, it did. And a nervous Council was a nasty Council.

“They’ve started a whisper campaign,” she said finally, reluctantly. “Tree-taller—Lee—told me when he and Miriam stopped by for drinks last week.” The lonejack artist and his wife had made a point since all this started of dropping in regularly, as much a “bite me” to the Council as anything else. Although the fact that Miriam, like Sergei, was a Null, a non-Talent, and maybe—Wren bit that thought back before it could go anywhere. Now was not the time to be worrying at what anyone else thought of her romantic relationship (or present lack thereof) with her partner. Another thing she was avoiding.

“The Council, that is. Whisper something in one ear, whisper something else in another. Nothing obvious, nothing anyone can pinpoint, but—”

“And you’re just now getting around to telling me this?” Sergei was pissed. You could tell by the way his face went totally stone, except that little twitch at the corner of his left eye.

Well, yes. Because, as he pointed out, she had been avoiding him. For any number of really uncomfortable reasons. “I was hoping…I don’t know. That maybe Lee was overstating the case? That it wouldn’t work? That the weather would break and we could have this discussion without it disintegrating into a snit-fight?”

“I don’t take snits.”

Sergei sounded wounded, and even under these conditions she had to grin. “Partner, you are the King of Snits. And it’s too damn hot to deal with that, okay?”

Ten years of working together allowed her to interpret the heavy sigh that came out of him this time. He was letting it go. “You still should have told me.”

“I’m telling you now. And it’s not like you could have done anything, anyway. My rep’s too good for them to actually say I’m incompetent, or anything. Whatever they say, it’s harmless until you actually try to counter it.” She hoped. “But if you do protest, then people start to wonder if there’s something to make you deny it…. Only I guess they’re saying more than that, if the jobs are drying up that fast.” She hadn’t honestly expected it to get this bad this quick. Which was why she wasn’t supposed to be handling the business end of things. Sergei was.

“Probably not saying much at all, actually. Just enough to make people wonder if maybe hiring this particular lonejack is such a good idea after all,” he said now. “Especially if they’re not anxious to get any scent of publicity about their situation.” Which was pretty much the point of hiring a Retriever rather than one of the more traditional and legal forms of getting back missing property. A thief who used magic to get the job done was a thief much less likely to come under official attention, at least in the Null world, and was the only type of thief you’d want to consider if the situation had even a whiff of magic about it. The fact that Wren, rather than depending solely on her Talent, combined it and general more everyday illegal Talents to perform her jobs, made her able to move effectively against any kind of surveillance or countermeasures, and made her very popular for “normal” world jobs as well.

She was good, she was smart, and she had been very, very lucky. Until now.

“Yeah. I’m guessing that’s the plan.” She frowned at the thought, and twirled the end of her shoulder-length braid between two fingers as she thought. “Most of the Cosa—” the Cosa Nostradamus, the magical community made up of human Talents and the nonhuman fatae “—knows it’s bullshit. At least from what Lee says. But they’re going to lay low anyway, until whatever’s going on is gone.”

“The Cosa are not the ones who usually hire us,” her partner said. He was the one who handled the offers, so he knew that for a fact. A lot of their commissions came from Nulls, those who had no ability to work current, the stuff of modern magic. Most, in fact, knew nothing about how the Retriever known as The Wren did her work, only that she was the best available for the job. Whatever the job might be. Hell, most of them thought that Sergei was The Wren. Which was how both Wren and Sergei liked it.

But the Council had its hooks set in flesh outside the Cosa as well, and was proving they had no hesitation about using that influence. And they knew damn well who she was.

Wren put down the fan and finished off what was left of her now warm, now flat soda. “At least they’re not trying to kill me anymore,” she said, trying for cheerful.

Sergei only grunted, shaking the plastic glass as though more iced tea would suddenly appear in it. “I’d almost rather they were.”

Wren slanted a dirty look at him, but didn’t ask him to elaborate on that comment.

“No,” he went on, oblivious, “you were right. Any overt move by the Council would only set the lonejacks even more in opposition, and maybe even force a direct revolt against perceived Council interference. They don’t want that.

“But they don’t want you in any position to be a focal point of unrest, either. Shutting you down reduces your influence, and sends a message to the rest of the lonejack community as well. Time-honored tactics.”

“Jesus wept. The Council being subtle. Now that’s scary.” She scraped up the few tendrils of coca-brown hair that were plastered against her neck and tried without much hope of success to shove them back into her braid. “They don’t need to shut me down! I don’t want to be a focal point! Why does everyone think I want to be any kind of leader?” The whole point of being unaffiliated, a lonejack, was to not have to worry about anyone but yourself. And your partner, yeah.

Sergei shifted with another grunt, the back of his shirt plastered to him with sweat. “It’s not what you want that matters to them, Wren. It’s the perception. You’ve told them to take a leap before.”

Wren winced at the reminder of a more youthful and astonishingly stupid incident in her life. That was the problem with working with someone for so long, especially if they had a good memory.

Her partner, he of the most excellent memory, was relentless in ticking off more reasons. “You hang out with lonejacks and Nulls and fatae equally, which we already knew made them nervous. Especially the fatae.” Nonhumans, the fantasticals. “And then, adding injury to insult, you—we—faced them down over the Frants deal this spring. And won. People know that. Gossip spreads. And that’s what they’re afraid of.”

Wren looked at him through narrowed eyes. He could be such a plainspoken bastard sometimes, for all that he made his living making nice in order to close the deal. Although his suit jacket had been dropped on the back of a kitchen chair with no regard for how much it had cost, and the well-polished oxblood loafers had been kicked off the moment he got inside the apartment, he still looked far too trendy-normal to be lying on the floor of an East Village apartment trying to figure the politics of a world most of humanity had no clue existed.

You could see him easily in the center of his art gallery. Or going nose-to-nose with the Council in a war of words, like he did during the Frants job. Not so easy to recognize the guy who pulled a gun to get her out of a job gone bad, last winter. But they were both in there. Plus the guy who held her when she was too sore and scared to move, while she slept, but refused to do her laundry.

Wren gave up on trying to catch any sort of breeze sitting up and lay facedown on the floor, spreading her body so as to get the maximum amount of coolness from the hardwood. She turned her face so that she could look at her partner but still feel the wood under her cheek, and whimpered pitifully, her feelings about the heat, the Council, and her current lack of available funds all rolled into one convenient sound.

He smiled at that, his narrow, expressive lips begging for her hand to reach up and touch them. Even now, she was always astonished that the skin there was so soft.

“Things’re bad, huh?” she said instead, curling her fingers in against her palm to keep them still.

He sighed again. “Not so bad, but not good, either. You have cash in the retirement fund, of course—” she actually had an IRA, plus a separate savings account from which to buy the apartment when and if it went coop, being a practical bird “—but in the short term it’s probably going to get a little tight, unless you’ve been saving even more than you’ve told me.”

“Not much more, no. Rent to pay. Groceries to buy. P.B. to feed.”

“You should make that little fur-covered mutant get a job.” But despite Sergei’s long-standing xenophobia, it was said without heat. The two of them, demon and human, had come to some sort of…she hesitated to call it an agreement, but a cease-fire, since she was injured by a sniper’s bullet during the Frants situation. Through his own choice or Sergei’s suggestion, the demon had become Wren’s semiconstant companion, not leaving her side until he judged her able to defend herself physically again. Sweet. And totally unexpected. She had spotted him more than once since then, out of the corner of her eye, lurking within running-to-help distance. It was tough to miss a four-foot-tall white-furred, white-fanged, red-eyed demon, after all. Despite the fact that three quarters of the city managed it on a regular basis.

The fatae, the nonhumans, the magical ones, are always with us, she could hear her mentor saying, years now in the past. But it takes looking with an open mind as well as open eyes. Most people don’t bother.

“Their loss,” she said quietly. “Their loss.”

“What?”

She looked at her partner and gave in to the impulse, running one finger along his lower lip until he nipped at the offending fingertip, then propped himself up on one elbow and heaved himself to his feet, surprisingly agile for a man his size.

“You hungry?” he asked, his body language pretty clearly moving them on from that moment of physical contact like metal shutters coming down. “I could go for some Thai tonight.”

Story of our lives, she thought as she reached up one arm and let him help her up off the floor. Give us business, give us danger and mayhem, and we’re good to go. Personal stuff…not so good. Hence, avoidance.

It had been four months since the combination of a seriously crazy ghost, a Council sniper, and the opening of Sergei’s Deep Dark Secrets Closet had forced them to admit that there was more to their partnership than, well, partnership. And here they were, still at the hand-holding and awkward kissing stages. Not that Wren particularly wanted to go leaping into bed…well, okay, there were days when that was all she wanted. But this geeky awkwardness was so…embarrassing. They could talk about everything and anything else. Why was this so different?

“Y’know,” she said, suddenly unable to face another night of pretending everything was okay, that they were intentionally taking things slow and casual. “I’m really not hungry. You go on. I think I’m just going to make it an early night.”

She pretended not to see the disappointed expression on his face, reaching up to give him a quick kiss at the door. But her hands found themselves threading into his hair almost without meaning to, and the quick kiss turned into something a little longer than that. God, his lips were soft. And warm. And the way he nipped at her mouth, just like that…

But just when she was starting to reconsider the whole “sending him away” thing, Sergei dropped his hands from her shoulder and was out the door before she could react.

“Damn,” she said, leaning her back against the closed and locked door. “And, well, damn.” And she really didn’t understand why she was crying. Maybe it was the heat finally getting to her.

“I need to get away,” she said to herself. “Away from the city. Away from Sergei. Away from this damned heat, and my own damned brain.”

In short, she needed a job.

Chapter Two

Wren wasn’t sure how long she had been leaning against the door staring blankly down her apartment’s short hallway like the answer to her problems was going to appear in front of her. Might have been five minutes, might have been fifteen. So when she heard the heavy footsteps coming up the stairwell outside, she thought that maybe Sergei had changed his mind, turned around outside and come back. But that mixed hope/fear died quickly. That wasn’t her partner’s tread. And the usual weird but familiar desire to brew a mug of tea that always preceded his arrival was missing, although it might have gotten confused, since he had just been there.

The footsteps stopped on her tiny landing, which made sense since the next-floor apartment was currently vacant, the nudist with the craving for curry having moved out last month. Whoever this was hadn’t had to ring to be let in, which could mean it was a fellow tenant from the lower floors—unlikely, as most of them would have leaned out the window and yelled up in their usual way of communicating—or someone had once again left the front door ajar for a delivery person.

“So glad we paid all that money to have the new security intercom put in,” Wren muttered to herself just as the rarely used door buzzer sounded.

“Oh, now you’ll ring, huh?” Still, it was hotter than hell out there, and someone had climbed five stories to ring her doorbell. If it was a burglar or wannabe rapist, the heat alone would take care of him.

“Ms. Valere? Are you there?”

Wren closed her eyes and leaned more heavily against the hollow metal security door; excellent for keeping fires out, not so good with the soundproofing. She would rather have dealt with a burglar.

The bell rang again.

Avoidance. Not a good thing. Even when it seemed like a really good thing. Besides, if she knew anything about her visitor, it was that he wasn’t going to just go away. He’d stand out there all night if he had to. Politely. Apologetically. But he’d be there.

“Right.” She swung around and started undoing the locks she had just done up in Sergei’s wake.

“Andre. So not a pleasure to see you again.”

Andre Felhim. Serpent in an Armani suit. Handler—middle management spymaster, according to Sergei—for the Silence, an organization that was prime offender in her partner’s Deep Dark Secrets Closet. Fanatic dogooders with boatloads of money and very specific ideas of who defined what was good and who got helped. The organization that had grudgingly offered salvation when the Council tried to take her down in various lethal ways—but only after Sergei negotiated out some of the nastier bits of their contract.

The organization whose monthly retainer fee was all that presently stood between her and total unemployment. Right. Damn. The fiscally responsible part of her brain kicked in and opened her mouth for a second take.

“Andre. Such a pleasure. Why don’t you come in?”

His grin at the second greeting, said in the same tone as the first, was appreciatively sardonic, and for a moment Wren could believe that this dapper, oh-so-controlled figure was the man who had allegedly trained her partner in all ways sneaky and manipulative.

Not that Sergei ever tried to manipulate her. Much. Consciously. Anymore.

Andre walked across the doorway, and Wren, channeling her mother for a terrifying moment, panicked. The thing about her apartment was that there was nowhere to invite someone in to sit for polite conversation. She just didn’t have that kind of a life.

Kitchen, she decided, escorting her guest into the small room. There were seats here, and a table she could lean on, to put between them. At least he hadn’t brought his junior associate, whatsisname, Jorgunsomethingorother, along this time. So they could skip the physical threats portion of the discussion. Probably.

“You just missed Sergei.” She barely paused before going on, “I’m thinking that’s intentional?”

Andre settled himself into one of her battered kitchen chairs, not reacting at all to her comment, as far as she could tell. Instead, he put his best avuncular expression on and said “It’s time for you to earn that retainer we pay you.”

He might have preferred subtle and sneaky and all those other serpent words, but he’d learned that polite chitchat wasn’t her thing when they had met during her last job. Which also happened to be when everything in her life started to go to hell. Coincidence? She thought probably not.

“We have an assignment that suits your skills,” he went on, “and—”

Or maybe he hadn’t quite learned. Once a serpent…“And nothing.” Wren really didn’t feel up to playing games. It was too damn hot, and she was too frustrated. Professionally and sexually, thank you very much.

“You know the deal. Sergei handles the arrangements, I do the job. Talk to him about the details. You’re no different than any other client.”

“We’re rather different,” Andre corrected her. “And at the moment, you have no other clients, if I’m not mistaken.”

Smarmy bastard. But he was right, no matter how he’d gotten the information; they couldn’t afford to piss the Silence off. Not yet, anyway. Sergei could loan her cash, sure, but it wasn’t like his art gallery did more than pay for the lifestyle he had to maintain in order to keep the gallery making money. And be damned if she was going to dip into her retirement fund. That was for then. She had to worry about the now, now.

Damn it, she hated not having options. A good lonejack always had options. Always had an escape route. Never had to take a job that smelled of brimstone, either literally or figuratively, if they didn’t want to.

Damn it, Sergei, where are you?

“All right. Talk. But whatever you say is going directly to Sergei and he’ll get back in touch with you with our terms. You got both of us in this deal, remember?”

That was a directed dig. They had really only wanted her; whatever relationship they’d had with him ten years ago, now Sergei was merely the means to an end, the former troublesome employee who led them to the new employee. Yeah, well. Not even the Silence got exactly what they wanted all the time.

Whatever else the Didier-Valere relationship might or might not be morphing into, they were partners, first, last and always.

“We have a situation that needs…a particular touch.”

God, she so hated dealing with negotiations. Sergei, damn it, why’d you have to go and run off just ’cause I told you to? “Something’s gone missing, you need it retrieved. I get that. What’s the deal?”

Andre looked nonplused for about a millisecond, then buried it down under the veneer of smooth he always wore. “A manuscript. Circa tenth century. Italian. Handwritten, one sheet of vellum, quite valuable. It has disappeared, and we require it returned. A simple enough job.”

Wren snorted. Old manuscripts. Riiiight. Give me a fricking break. Anything that old, handwritten, and gone missing equated Big Trouble. Especially if they had to hire a Talent to retrieve it. What, they thought she was stupid? Probably.

She turned her back on Andre, filling the teakettle and putting it on the stovetop, then reaching into the cabinet for a pair of mugs, the nice matched set her mother had bought her at Crate & Barrel last summer, in despair at the mismatched assortment of mugs that Wren normally used.

“And?” she asked, turning back to him, arms crossed in front of her.

“And?” Andre parroted, one eyebrow raised politely.

“Stop yanking my chain, it’s getting old. And what’s the story? Who stole it, why, what’s the time frame…. Come on, pal. I may be Talented but I’m not godlike. I need information to work on. Who, where, why, and how fast, to start.” She smiled at him, making sure to show all her small, even, very white, teeth.

Sergei Didier prided himself on his business acumen. His negotiation skills. An ability to read the client. And the physical conditioning that allowed his six-foot-plus frame to jog up five flights in a dimly lit stairwell in truly disgusting heat without passing out.

He had intended to go home. To his nice, cool, air-conditioned-without-fear-of-magically-shorting-out-because-Wren-got-careless apartment. Where he fully intended to make himself a brutal martini and take a cold shower. Probably, although not necessarily, in that order.

That was before the hairs on the back of his neck prickled in a way that had nothing to do with the sweat running under his collar and everything to do with intuition and a finely honed sense of danger nearby, two skills he’d tried his best for ten years to ignore, to bury under the facade of a desk-bound businessman of mostly legal endeavors.

It wasn’t anything magical—he wasn’t a Talent—just animal instinct. But he trusted it as much as he did his partner’s ability to channel current, the magic that was her genetic inheritance. And it led him unerringly back to Wren’s door.

Which was closed, but unlocked.

Don’t assume. She was upset, probably—definitely—and maybe she just forgot to lock the door after you left.

That thought was discarded as soon as it formed. He clearly remembered hearing the bolt slide home as he stood on the other side, trying to get a grip on himself. The overriding desire to wrap her around him, skin and sweat and the sweet-salty mint chocolate of her mouth, was driving him moderately insane. And he didn’t trust that in himself, not at all, and especially not with Wren.

Not if exploring those tantalizing lures she kept casting and then pulling back risked damaging the relationship they already had. The partnership—the friendship—that was all that kept him afloat, some days. He knew his weaknesses, too well. He hadn’t wanted her to become another one. But you can’t always get what you want, as Jagger once said.

If everything was okay, she’d yell at him for fussing. And he’d take it, gratefully. Only let everything be okay….

He pushed open the door gently, wishing feverishly that he had his gun with him. It had once been as much a part of his wardrobe as his shoes or tie, back when he worked full-time for the Silence. Wren hated it; she had just enough psychometry to be able to tell there was blood on it, and just having it around disturbed her. So for the past ten years he had carried it only when he knew—or strongly suspected—there would be trouble. But recent events were making him think that there was always going to be trouble.

Trouble that historically came in the pocket of the man whose voice was currently coming from Wren’s kitchen.

Sergei ran a hand through his hair, shoving the thick strands back off his face. He settled his breathing, then walked the four steps into the apartment, down the hallway, and into the long alcove his partner insisted was an eat-in kitchen.

Wren turned away from the counter and looked at him, then looked down at the mug of tea in her hand as though surprised to see it there. Her eyes narrowed, finely curved eyebrows communicating dismay, amusement, and a little bit of disgust before she shook her head, and those lips he spent far too much time thinking about curved in a smile. She handed him his tea, and turned back to the counter to pick up the other mug still steeping.

“Andre was just telling me all about our new assignment.”

Was Andre, indeed? Sergei didn’t like the tone in her voice. It was light, cheerful, almost perky, and boded not well for anyone who pushed her even one inch farther.

The temptation to let Andre hang himself was great, but odds were he’d regret it. Not right away, but eventually.

“A situation?” he asked, turning to face his former boss. Andre was seated on one of the chairs at the narrow kitchen table, his suit as impeccably tailored as always. Andre Felhim. A dapper black man somewhere in his well-kept sixties, clearly out of place in the homey disaster of Wren’s apartment, but seemingly unaware of the fact. And if he was dismayed to see Sergei appear when Andre had obviously hoped to avoid him, none of that showed on the older man’s face.

Then Sergei looked closer, and took a sip of his tea, suddenly thoughtful. No, Andre wasn’t unaware. There was a look in those hawk’s eyes that wasn’t as in control as he wanted to portray. Interesting. Worrisome. When Andre got worried, it was time for his agents to get very worried.

All his instincts were telling him to shove Andre out the door, possibly without bothering to open it first. But he couldn’t, for the same reason that had probably led Wren to let him into the apartment in the first place. The retainer he, Sergei, had negotiated for her. The retainer that allowed the Silence to call on them for occasional jobs. Jobs, he knew from experience, that the Silence could and would pay handsomely for. And Wren needed that money. Damn it.

Andre had them by the short hairs, and everyone in the room knew it. All Sergei could control now, even a little bit, was how they played it.

“The deal was you’d work through me,” he said, just to make sure all the protocols were followed, then leaned against the counter next to Wren, their elbows almost but not quite touching. “So talk to me.”

Wren wasn’t sure if she was annoyed that Sergei had come barging in when she’d finally gotten control of the situation, pleased to see him, or disgusted at the wave of relief she’d felt when she heard him come through the door. And there was absolute disgust at the fact that she’d made two mugs of tea without clicking onto what it meant. She was slipping, totally slipping.

“It’s a simple enough Retrieval,” Andre was telling her partner. “A monastery outside of Siena, in Italy, has requested our help in reclaiming a parchment that was taken from them last month.”

“Taken, as in…?” Sergei really had the most wonderful poker face, Wren thought, watching him watching Andre. The lightly sun-reddened skin stretched nicely over cheekbones that were just enough to envy but not enough to make him look male model-ish, and his chin could get so damnably stubborn…like right there, the way he shoved it forward just a hint. Uh-oh.

“Walked off on its own, from what Andre’s been able to not tell me,” she said, heading off a potential testosterone fit.

“We—and the monks—are unsure of what happened to it,” Andre admitted. “It is possible that someone stole it. Or…” He shrugged, a subtle gesture meant to imply that anything under God’s hand was possible.

“Or?”

“Or there may have been an unknown magical element involved, considering the nature of the manuscript.”

Oh-ho. Wren really wished she could do the one-eyebrow-raised thing. That was new in the telling. She knew, damn it, she knew old manuscripts always meant trouble. And if it was that old, and maybe magic, she’d lay heavy odds with any bookie in town that it was old-style magic, too. The kind that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore but everyone except the most obsessive, tech-happy Mage knew did. Same power, different channels. Unpredictable channels. If you did A with current, you got B. Consistent, quantifiable. Mostly. Wish up folk-style magics—hedgewitchery, voudon, faith-healing—and you never knew what might come out.

Bad stuff, sometimes. The older the magics, the less human-friendly they were. She’d never dealt with any of that herself. There were stories, though. Even the Cosa had bogeymen.

“So, what’s this unknown, maybe-magical bit of paper do?” she asked, focusing herself on the problem at hand. Don’t worry about the long-term stuff, Valere. You’re not in this to save the world. You’re not even in this to save the innocents and uninformed, the way the Silence claimed to be. You’re in it for the paycheck, and the smug satisfaction of a job decently done.

“It’s a parchment. And we don’t know,” Andre said, finally looking back at her. Guy didn’t look like he wanted to give them that particular bit of information, either, but she wasn’t sure if it was because he was worried about Silence secrecy, or he just didn’t want to tell them anything on principle. Probably both. Sergei had warned her, and warned her, and then warned her again that the Silence liked to play things close.

“It’s a difficult situation, as all we know is that a number of people have disappeared after coming in contact with it. With no other available information, save that the monks were most insistent that it be returned to them, we have to assume there’s danger.”

“So you’re acting as agent for them, not taking this on your own?” Sergei, wheelin’ the deal.

“In this instance, yes. Although we would have taken steps of our own, had they not contacted us.”

“If you’d heard about it,” Wren said, her tone intentionally doubting.

“We would have.”

Andre was solid, confident. Wren had her doubts, but it wasn’t really important here and now.

Sergei exhaled, a sharp, loud breath of air that recaptured Andre’s attention, his head turning as though he were watching a slow-motion tennis game. “You said that people disappeared after coming in contact with the manuscript? As in, they put it down and walked away, or…?”

The older man hedged uncomfortably, and Wren took malicious and unashamed pleasure in it, after that little omission of information, earlier.

“We’re not sure,” he said, finally.

“Where did it go?” Sergei asked with marked patience.

“We don’t know.”

“Okay, so what’s written on this parchment?”

“We don’t know. Everyone who has read it has disappeared.”

Sergei exchanged a glance with Wren, who made a “what do you want from me?” gesture back at him. He was the guy who got the details, she was the one who acted on them.

Sergei’s mouth set in a really tight line. “So, basically, you’re sending us in after an unknown factor in an unknown location with an unknown threat vector.”

“Yes.”

She couldn’t help it; she’d swear it on a stack of bibles, the words just came out. “And you people wonder why you can’t keep help….”

She might as well not have said anything, the way the two of them were still staring at each other, cobra to mongoose.

“We have arranged for you to take a flight out from Newark airport tomorrow evening. When you arrive in Milan—”

“Monday.”

That stopped Andre, who was clearly not expecting to be interrupted at this point, and certainly not by her. “Beg pardon?”

“Monday,” Wren repeated firmly. “No way I can just up and leave the country in twenty-four hours. Nuh-uh. Forget about it. I need two days, at least.” Leave the country? That meant flying. She didn’t want to fly. Anywhere. “A week would be better. I don’t even know where my passport is—hell, I don’t even know if it’s still valid!”

“We can and will take care of that,” Andre said, trying to be reassuring.

Wren was already running off a checklist in her mind. “Yeah, today’s what, Wednesday? Saturday, earliest. I have to let my mom know, and—how long do you think I’ll be gone? I need…luggage. Sergei, can I steal a suitcase? Borrow. I meant borrow. You must have something I can use. And I’ll need to stop my mail. And pay bills. And—”

“Wren. Be still.” Sergei didn’t use that tone of voice very often. Not in years, she thought. But the ice-sharp tones worked. She stopped cold, the panic that was threatening to take over her brain subsiding to somewhat more manageable levels. Negotiations. Let him handle it. Right.

“Two tickets. For Friday,” Sergei said to Andre in that same tone of voice. It didn’t work quite so well on his former boss.

“Ah. Actually.” Andre tapped his fingers on the kitchen table, and the sound immediately pulled Wren out of her own internal nosedive and put her on alert. That was the tap-tap-tap of doom. She shot a sideways glance at Sergei, and was not reassured by what she saw. His shoulders were broad to begin with, but now the way his head had lifted, and he was looking at Andre, she swore he’d gained another couple of inches across, all of it annoyed.

Andre didn’t seem to notice the storm brewing. “We had hoped that, while Ms. Valere was otherwise occupied with this situation, you would be available to work on another project back—”

“Two tickets.” The faint rose flush over his cheekbones was subsiding, but the jaw and neck muscles were still corded. “Two, or none.”

There was a brief testosterone-fueled staring match that broke when Andre looked away. Wren suddenly remembered to breathe again. Score one for the home team. But the thought was a little shaky.

“Wren doesn’t speak Italian,” Sergei said. It was almost as though, Wren thought, he were apologizing for winning.

Maybe he was. She still so didn’t get their relationship, her partner and Andre. Yes, she knew they’d been coworkers, back in Sergei’s We Don’t Discuss It days with the Silence. And that Andre had been the one to train him. But other than that, a big blank nothingness of information. A mistake, letting that go on. She counted on her partner to get her the necessary details so she could do her job, damn it. And if the two of them were going to have Dramatic and Meaningful pauses in the conversation, she needed to know why.

She hated being out of the loop in her own life. And she already hated this job.

“I do hope you’re not going to insist on business class,” Andre said, finally, dryly.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sergei said in return. She was relieved to see that he’d dropped the menacing body language, not that he wasn’t a tall bastard to begin with, at least by her standards. Kitchen wasn’t large enough for all the egos in here.

“Fine, fine, details settled. One last really important question Sergei seems to have forgotten to ask.” When the two men looked at her she put on her very best, guaranteed-annoying chipper and chirpy inquisitive face, this time smiling without showing teeth. “How much—in addition to the stipend—are we getting paid for this?”