Laura Anne Gilman - Tales of the Cosa Nostradamus

by Laura Anne Gilman

  When the torrent finally released her, she fell to her side, panic filling her brain.

  "Serg?"

  "Da."

  Utter relief filled her at the sound of his voice, faint and worn-out, somewhere behind her. "I told you I was no good at this," she offered, wiping her face with her filthy sleeve. There was a scrape of flesh against pavement, then a slow stream of curses in Russian.

  "You 'k?"

  She managed to find the energy to roll over, and watched as Sergei fussed with his cell phone. Throwing it down in disgust, he reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his PDA. He glared at it, then her, then threw the equally useless device next to the cell phone.

  "Oops?" she offered.

  He closed his eyes, picked up the gun from where it had fallen when they translocated. It seemed to click and spin in all the right places, and some of the lines on his face eased as well. He replaced it in the holster, then leaned forward and took her hand, pulling her up with him as he stood.

  They leaned against each other for a few moments, listening to the sound of their still-beating hearts. In the near distance, a car hit the breaks too hard, squealed away. Further away, the hum of engines, horns, sirens wailing–all the normal sounds of the city at night.

  ""You got it?"

  She nodded, touching her pocket. "Got it."

  "Then let's get the hell home." He paused. "You have any idea where we are?"

  Wren tried to laugh, couldn't find the energy. "Not a clue"

  "Great," Sergei muttered, moving forward at a slow shuffle. "And what are the odds any self-respecting cabbie will stop for us?"

  They came to the end of the alley, and paused to get their bearings. "Wow. I managed to toss us further than I thought."

  "In the wrong direction."

  "Bitch, bitch, bitch." She paused, her head coming up like a dog catching a scent. "Sergei?"

  A strangled scream answered her, and they whirled: bodies, exhausted or not, tensing for a fight. A figure staggered towards them, its skin crackling with fire like St. Vitus' dance, blue and green sparks popping and dancing along his skin. He jittered like a marionette, hinking first to the left, then right, forward and back, moaning and tearing at himself all the while.

  "Oh god…" Wren went to her knees, her already depleted body unable to withstand the barrage of current coming off the man in front of her. "Oh god, Sergei…”

  The burning figure lurched forward again, and Sergei reacted instinctively. A sudden loud crack cut across the buzzing of the current in Wren's ears. The figure jerked backwards, his eyes meeting Sergei's in an instant before he pitched forward and fell to the ground.

  The lights disappeared, and Wren heard a faint whoosh, as though all the current were suddenly sucked back inside his skin

  Sergei went to the body before she could warn him not to, flipping it onto its back. Long fingers tipped the man's head back, and then Sergei nodded once, grimly, and released him, getting back to his feet and putting the pistol away.

  "What?" Wren looked at what her partner had been looking at; a pale blue tattoo under the dead man’s chin.

  "A mage."

  "That the same thing that killed the other stiff?"

  Wren touched the rapidly-cooling skin just to make sure, but it was a meaningless gesture. "Yeah," she said with certainty.

  "You think this is a Council thing? Was the other guy a mage, too? Maybe some kind of punishment?"

  Wren shook her head, stepping away from the body as though afraid that it was contagious. "No. Never. If they had a problem with a mage, they'd kill him or her, but never like that. That's bad for morale."

  "Right. We're out of here." He put one large palm between her shoulder blades and steered her towards the sounds of traffic, and cabs. Neither of them looked back.

  oOo

  Wren was still nursing her first cup of coffee when Sergei arrived at their usual meeting place the next morning, sliding into the booth across the table from her. The waitress brought over a carafe of hot water, tea bags, and a mug without being asked, and Sergei smiled his thanks at her. Wren watched him as he went through the ritual of testing the water, then stirring in the right amount of milk. She couldn't stand the stuff, herself, but she liked watching him make it.

  Finally, he took a sip, then looked up at her.

  "His name was Raymond Pietro," she told him. "Twelve years with the Council. Specialized in research, which is the Council's way of saying he was an interrogator. Truth-scrying, that sort of thing. Only the past tense isn't just because he's dead. Rumor has it he went over the edge last month."

  Over the edge was a gentler way of saying he had wizzed. That the chaotic surges of current had warped his brain so much that he couldn't hold on to reality any longer. But that didn't explain his death. Wizzing made you crazy, dangerous, but your ability to handle current actually got better, the more you gave yourself over to it. That was why wizzarts were dangerous. That, and the raving psycho loony part.

  "They dumped him?" It might have seemed like a logical explanation to Sergei, but Wren shook her head.

  "I told you, Council takes care of its own. They have a house; really well-warded, totally low-tech, so he wouldn't be distracted by electricity. Not exactly the Savoy, but better conditions than lonejackers get. He disappeared from the house two days ago. Council was freaking–the guy I talked to actually thanked me for bringing news, even though it was bad.

  "They also said Pietro wasn't the first of their wizzarts to go missing. They never found the others."

  Her partner's face, not exactly readable at the best of times, shut down even more. She finished her coffee, putting the mug down firmly on the table in front of her. "People that good, good enough to be mages, don't just 'forget' how to ground. And one might have been an accident, or a particularly crude suicide, but not half a dozen. Someone's killing wizzarts, Serg. Whatever it was that killed them, someone did that to them–Pietro, our stiff, the others. Who knows how many others? It's easy–nobody cares about them. You can't, not really. They're as good as not there anymore. So they're easy victims."

  She was really rather proud of how steady her voice was, until she made the mistake of meeting her partner's eyes. The quiet sympathy she saw there destroyed any idea she might have had of remaining calm.

  Oh, Neezer…

  John Ebeneezer. Two short years her mentor. Five years now, since he started to wiz. Since he walked out of her life rather than risk endangering her with his madness.

  Are you out there, Neezer? Are you still alive?

  "And if he–she, that–are?" His voice matched his face; stone. "From everything you've told me, what I've seen, wizzarts are wild cards, dangerous, to themselves and others. And quality of life isn't exactly an issue."

  Wren bit back on her immediate reply. He wasn't trying to goad her; it was, to his mind, a valid question. And she had to give him the respect of an equally valid answer. "Because that could be me, some day. Wizzarts are powerful. Sergei. Undisciplined, but strong. If someone's found a way to get at them… Council might poke around, but they don't care about lonejackers. If they discover anything, they might not even do anything, so long as they can cut a deal to protect their own." She hated asking him for anything, but they had to take this job. She would do it alone–but their partnership had been founded on the knowledge that their skills complemented each other; she didn't want to handicap herself by working solo if she didn't have to.

  A long moment passed, and her skin began to sweat. Finally, Sergei sighed. "It's not as though the Council will ever admit they owe us anything, least of all payment," he groused, signaling to the waitress for a refill of Wren's coffee. She would have grinned in relief, if her mind weren't already working on the next problem.

  "First things first–is there any way to keep track of wizzarts in the area?"

  "Already ahead of you," she said, her memory search turning up what they needed. "It's not pretty, but once I have them in sight
, I can tag them; monitor their internal current pool. If anything–anyone–tries to mess with them, I'll know.

  Sergei looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth. "How much risk is there to you, in this?"

  "Negligible," she said, lying through her teeth.

  oOo

  Sergei tapped a finger on the space bar, studying the screen in front of him, skimming the descriptions of John Does brought into the local hospitals for unexplained expirations. Of the seven names listed, two of them had cause of death listed as lightning strikes. One more had internal damage consistent with lightning, but the cause of death was liver failure–apparently he had been a long-term alcoholic.

  None of the men matched the description of John Ebenezer. His lips thinned as he entered another search, widening the area to include Connecticut and New Jersey. Genevieve had grown up across the river, and it seemed likely that, if Neezer were still in the area, he would have remained close to his home. Assuming he stuck around. Sergei wouldn't put any of his money on that.

  Behind him, Wren made a sound of disgust, changing the channel with a flick of the remote. They had spent two days driving through the city, walking into homeless shelters and into run-down apartment buildings until she could "see" the wizzarts scattered there, siphoning the faintest trace off their auras until she could weave a leash from them to her. She had found seven, but had only managed to create three leashes before collapsing from exhaustion. Just the memory of her shaking, sweating body made him angry all over again.

  "Drink more of the juice," he told her, not looking over his shoulder to make sure she obeyed him.

  The screen displayed a new list of names. Nothing.

  "Serg?"

  He was at her side before he consciously realized he'd heard her voice. The juice lay splattered on the carpet, the glass rolling off to one side, thankfully unbroken. He determined that there was no physical danger, and cupped her face in his hands all in the space of heartbeats.

  "I'm here, Zhenechka," he told her. The pulse at her neck was thready, and her eyes were glazed, pain lines forming around them. He waited, cursing whatever idiotic impulse had ever led him to agree to this, as she struggled to maintain the connection.

  "Got him! "

  They had lost the first one that morning, the leash snapping before Wren could do more than be aware of the attack. She had cried then, silent tears that left her eyes red-rimmed and her nose runny. She had never been able to cry gracefully. His fingers tightened on her chin. "Easy, Wren. Hold him. Hold him…"

  It was dangerous, touching her. The overrush of current she was going to try and channel could easily jump to him, and he'd have no protection from it, no way to ground himself. But he couldn't abandon her to do it alone. They were partners, damn it.

  Sweat was rising from her skin now, dampening her hair against her face and neck. But she felt cool, almost clammy, tiny jumps of electricity coursing off the dampness, sparking in the air. He spared a thought for his computer, and then forgot about it.

  "Ah – yes, that's it, come on, lean on me….lean on me, dammit!" She was chanting instructions to the wizzart at the other end of her line, trying to reach through their connection into his current-crazed mind. Trust wasn't high on a wizzart's list, though, especially for voices they heard inside their own heads.

  A bolt rumbled through her, almost knocking them to the side. Sergei planted himself more firmly, his grip keeping her upright. She'd have bruises on her face when they were done. He'd have them too, on the inside; lighting burns, internal scarring. Pain ached through his nerve endings. This was insane. For some literal burnouts they'd never have anything to do with…

  For Ebenezer, he reminded himself. For Genevieve.

  The air got heavy, and he could almost smell the singing of hair and flesh, of carpet fibers cracking underneath his knees, the fusing of the wiring in the walls, the phone, his computer. A lightbulb popped, but all he could focus on was her labored breathing, the voice crooning encouragement to someone miles away.

  Her eyes, which had been squinted half-shut, opened wide, and she stared into his eyes endlessly. He felt as though he were falling, tumbling straight into an electric maw with nothing to stop his fall. He was her, was him, was the current flowing between them. He Saw through her eyes the wizzart let go, felt the current being pounded into him, flowing into her, and being grounded. He understood, finally, for that endless second the elegant simplicity of grounding, and reveled in the surge of power filling the matter of his existence.

  The wizzart slumped, fell unconscious in a puddle of his own urine. Get him, Sergei urged into her open mind. Find whoever did this…

  He felt her stretch back into the wizzart's self, backtracking the current that had been pumped into him, striking out like the lightning it rode in. A shudder of anger, hatred, disgust slamming into hard walls, confusion, and time stretched and snapped back, knocking him clear across the room and headfirst into the wall.

  When he came to, the room was dark. He didn't bother to turn on the lights–they'd blown, each and every one of them. Crawling forward, he reached out, finding the top of Wren's head. She was curled into a ball, silently shaking.

  ”Zhenechka?"

  "I screwed up," she said. "I couldn't get them. It was too far away, I couldn't reach the bastards…"

  He sat there, in the dark, and rocked his partner back and forth while she cried.

  oOo

  "It was a good control group," Sergei said around a mouthful of toast. "Small enough population to monitor, and nobody to care if a few bodies went missing. Who knows how long they'd been perfecting this?" He shook his head, less astonished at the ways of mankind than impressed at the planning it had taken. Planning, and resources, and a certain bloody-mindedness.

  "You're a bastard, Sergei." He had dragged her out to have breakfast, but she wasn't eating. Scrambled eggs congealed on the plate in front of her. Sunglasses perched on the edge of her nose even though the diner itself was shaded and cool.

  He put his fork down. "What do you want me to say? It's over, Wren. We got too close...we scared them, at least. They knew someone was trying to reach them, whoever they are. That will make them pull back, be cautious."

  "So they'll just move shop to another town? Sergei, I can't..." She stopped. "I couldn't do anything last night. I didn't have enough juice, wasn't good enough. We can't stop them. We don't even know who "they" are."

  He ran a hand through his hair, wincing a little as he touched the bandage on his forehead. Practical acceptance was an essential in their business. But it wasn't all downside. "We know the how, what they're doing, the kind of people they're looking for. A few well-placed words, a few well-placed comments in the right newsgroup, and people will be looking, and paying attention. They'll be able to protect each other."

  "It's not enough." He could see the tears building again, and watched her force them away. Damn you, John Ebeneezer…

  "It's all we can do." He didn’t have anything more to offer her. Sometimes, all you could do was make sure your own neighborhood was clean. Sometimes, that just had to be enough.

  Wren didn’t look convinced. But she picked up her fork, shoveled a mouthful, and chewed, swallowed.

  That was enough.

  This story first appeared in Powers of Detection, edited by Dana Stabenow (Ace Books, 10/04). A true caper story, it features Wren Valere and her business partner Sergei Didier, as they race to complete two different jobs that get tangled in a complicated sort of double-cross that only magic can undo…

  Palimpsest

  "That had better be coffee."

  "Hazelnut. Double."

  "You'll live." Wren's arm reached out from under the blanket and snagged the cup out of her partner's hand. Without spilling a drop, she raised herself on her elbows and took a sip.

  "God. I may be human after all." She peered out from under a tangle of dark brown hair at the man standing in the dim light of her bedroom. He looked broad-shouldered and s
olid and reassuringly familiar. "What time is it?"

  "Nine. A.M.," he clarified. "Rough night?" Sergei sat down on the edge of her bed, forcing her to scoot over slightly to make room.

  "No more so than usual. The Council came down hard on the piskies who were dragging people under the lake, so there've been some minor temper tantrums in protest, but other than that everything's quiet. Well, quiet for them, anyway."

  There had been the equivalent of a gang war in Central Park earlier that Spring between water and earth sprites. Fed up, the city's independent Talents—lonejacks—and the Mage Council had declared truce long enough to make sure things didn't get out of hand again. Wren, like all lonejacks, distrusted the Council on principle, and the Council and their affiliates thought lonejacks all were troublemaking fools, so it was an uneasy truce to say the least.

  Wren took another sip of the coffee, and decided that there was enough caffeine in her bloodstream to move without breaking apart. She got out of bed, cup still in hand, and staggered to the dresser to pull out a clean t-shirt.

  "You know if the Cosa ever got itself organized…"

  "Perish the thought." She ran one hand through her hair and peered at herself in the mirror. "Oh, I look like hell. Thank god I don't have another stint of babysitting for a couple of days. I could sleep for a week…"

  Suddenly his presence there clicked, and she turned to glare at him, the effect in no way diminished by the fact that she was naked save for a pair of pink panties.

  "Sorry, Zhenechka. We've got a job."

  Wren closed her eyes tightly, seeking balance, then kicked back the rest of the coffee with a grimace, and handed the cup to him. "Shower first. Then details."

  She stopped halfway to the door. "Is it at least going to be fun?"

  "Would I sign you up for anything boring?"