Tricks of the Trade psi-3

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Yeah, three hundred years ago,” Nifty said.

  “Not hardly,” Lou corrected him, a little more snappishly than usual. Venec looked sideways at her, and she bit her lip, but he didn’t say anything and she didn’t apologize. The Roblin, even without doing something, was already doing its thing: everyone was on edge, waiting for something, anything to happen.

  Having a theoretical discussion was one of the better ways to keep occupied, without actually doing anything important. Also, Venec always said that we came up with our better ideas when we argued things off-topic. So...

  “There are still hedgewitches,” I said, trying to keep the peace. “They might not call themselves that, but everything but the name’s the same. Off the grid, low-res and small workings, but savvy enough to know the deal and how to deal with it.” I’d run into more than a few when I was traveling with J, and not always in the places you’d expect. “There was a Talent who had a little storefront in Florence. She sold religious relics and love spells over the same counter.”

  “Were her love spells any good?” Nick asked, his face a mix of real curiosity and mischief.

  “Probably better than the relics. My point is, she did a good business there, and not just from the tourists, but it was small, handmade stuff, like the memory-glass. What Wells is getting his hands on... current-run security system? Hellhound rentals? That takes more skill, more res. A lot more money involved. And probably not so much a one-person gig.”

  “Spell Rentals R Us,” Nifty said. “Nice sideline. You think Stosser would go for it?”

  “No.”

  The opinion on that was pretty much universal.

  We batted around a few more ideas, most of them just arguing for argument’s sake. I tuned out a little, and went down inside, dropping into my core the way you might a hot tub, slowly, with muscle easing as you sank. I’d been eating regularly, and making sure to recharge my core – mostly – but that didn’t explain the incredible feeling of well-being. I let a tendril wander off, not directing it anywhere in particular, and wasn’t at all surprised to feel it make its way, like it was following a ley line, to where Venec sat, sliding into his aura and disappearing... but not disconnecting.

  A sense like a sigh, and a faint touch, and a reassurance, then he pushed me away, not dismissively, but almost playfully.

  And the sense of being watched, of being pricked at with a hair-thin needle, came back.

  My good mood faded a little: we were putting on a show for the imp; that was all.

  *we’re here*

  The ping came from Pietr; I recognized the mental flavor immediately, and also that the ping was directed to me, not broadcast to anyone else in the room. The impression I got was that they’d run into slight but non-violent resistance, but persevered.

  “I don’t think the housekeeper is too fond of any of us right now,” I said into the room. “But they’re in the house.”

  “How come they reported to you, and not Venec?” Nifty looked like he’d been the one insulted. I guess, after fighting so hard for lead pup spot, he would be offended by someone not following the organizational flow chart. Still, it annoyed me that he was annoyed.

  “Pietr and I partner a lot – it’s probably easier for him to reach me.” I didn’t say a damn thing about sleeping with Pietr – if Nifty hadn’t realized that by now, it was none of his damn business, and he’d probably get a bug up his nose because he assumed I was sleeping with Venec, too. They all did, even Stosser; you could tell from the things they weren’t saying, the way they weren’t talking about it even to joke about it anymore, like we were doing something wrong.

  The fact that we’d not done anything more suggestive than hold hands – and that, almost by accident – wasn’t going to fly with anyone. They just assumed... .

  *careful* The thought came low and soft along the connection, and I touched it, took reassurance from it. Reassurance, and clarity: the anger I was feeling wasn’t mine, or Venec’s. It was the imp coming back, trying to push us, manipulate us. Cause mischief among the pack.

  “So that’s how we’re playing it, are we?” I said softly.

  Nifty heard me, and misunderstood. Of course.

  “Playing it? Only one here playing is you, seems... ” He stood up, and then stopped, as though surprised to find himself standing. I looked up, remembering again, suddenly, how damn big Nifty was; not only way taller than my five foot six but twice as wide in the shoulders, with bulk to match. Anyone else, I might have been worried.

  Anyone else, anyone other than a pack mate, and I wouldn’t have seen surprise, and then a slow dawn of understanding cross his face. Nifty was a big guy; he used to hit people as part of his sport. He perfected control even better than most of us, out of necessity, and he knew that the anger, the frustration he suddenly felt wasn’t real, wasn’t his.

  The Roblin was used to manipulating Nulls, and civilian Talent. It had never taken on pups before.

  Before Nifty could retract his words, though, Venec stood up, facing him down. Bulk for bulk it wasn’t a contest, but this wasn’t about bulk but alpha dominance.

  Nifty might want to be top dog, but Venec was a Big Dog. Nifty automatically began to back down, physically, then Venec grabbed him by the shoulder, shaking his head in warning even as the words came out of his mouth.

  “You have something to say, mister? You want to get it off your overinflated chest?”

  Nick gaped, and looked at me. I spared him the briefest smile before looking back to the pseudo-confrontation. Lou looked concerned but not really worried; I wasn’t sure if she understood what was going on. I could only hope that Nifty did.

  *?*

  Pietr’s query came through the swirl, and I hesitated, not sure if I could risk taking my attention away from what was going on.

  “Yeah, I got something to say, all right.” Nifty’s voice was loud, but his expression was almost panicked, like he was trying to remember lines he didn’t know he was supposed to have memorized. “You playing favorites now, boss?”

  “I always liked some of you more than others,” Venec said. His tone was cold, but his body language relaxed just a hint, the hand holding Nifty’s arm not gripping so tightly. You had to look for the signs, though. Like finding a fatae, you had to know what you were looking for – and what it looked like. If you didn’t know the incredible control Venec had, the discipline Nifty embraced as a matter of a lifetime’s training; if you hadn’t seen them training together, before, you might think those two were about to go head-to-head, possibly with violence.

  *?*

  *imp* I tossed back to Pietr, hoping it would be enough to explain.

  Apparently it was, because there were no more pings.

  “Yeah, well, for a guy who was dumb enough to walk onto a live site without any backup, you’re maybe talking a little too loudly... ”

  “He pays our salary,” Lou said. She didn’t get up, and, in fact, she looked almost bored, but her tone was pitched just right to be someone sucking up to the boss. Nick was staring at the three of them, barely daring to breathe, then looked at me for some kind of reality check. I shook my head, just a little. Neither of us were worth a hard shit at dissembling; he’d overplay it, and I’d be an utter flop; when I get angry I get angry, but when I’m not... well, I don’t fake anything well, that’s all.

  “Careful what you say, boy.”

  My eyes went round at that. Just the wrong inflection, and Nifty’s shoulders shook as though he was forcibly restraining himself from attacking Venec. I tensed in reaction, my instinctive reaction to scoop current and shape it into readiness. The sharp poking swirl came back, pricking the skin against my back and up my scalp, like it was trying to find a way in, and I held on to the fear and worry, even as I realized that Nifty’s body language wasn’t rage at the implied insult, but the result of hard-held laughter, trying to escape.

  “Hold it... ” I murmured, a double meaning in the words, and they stood there, tensed an
d fierce, until the prickling sensation ebbed, the imp maybe realizing it was being too obvious, and sliding away again.

  “All right.”

  The letdown in tension was immediate, and I could feel the change in Venec’s core, sliding from a tight, hard knot into a softer coiling. My own, almost frozen, thawed a little. But not entirely. I could still feel that pricking awareness on my skin, and I knew that the imp had only retreated, not gone away for good.

  “Well. That was fun,” Nick said, leaning back and breathing again. “Next time warn me before we go all reality show showdown, okay?”

  Lou hit him, hard, before I could.

  *pietr?* I risked pinging him, just to let him know that the situation was on hold for the moment, and got back a flash of excitement and concern and... something else, I wasn’t quite understanding. It flooded over me, and then was gone, the way pings did. Damn it. Already I was getting spoiled by how much deeper the communication between me and Venec was; the annoyance and fear of being always-connected that I’d been fretting over seemed a long way away, right then.

  I blinked, coming back to the moment, and looked around the room. The others had settled back down after that bit of excitement: Nifty and Venec in a tight little tête- -tête that looked to be some serious dog-to-pup reassurances, while Lou was scribbling something in her notebook, and Nick busied himself pouring coffee out of the carafe in the middle of the table, trying very hard not to eavesdrop on the other two guys.

  I studied Nifty and Venec for a moment, trying to be less obvious than Nick. Funny; Nifty was always so confident, so assured, that you forgot that he spent most of his life following a coach’s direction, one way or another. But Venec never forgot.

  Even now, his attention on one pup, I’d swear I could feel this roving lighthouse spotlight sense coming from him, swooping around the room to touch on each of us in a constant, passive loop. It should have felt awkward, or annoying, but... it wasn’t anything I hadn’t already suspected he did, only now I knew he did it. More, because he was letting me see it.

  No walls. No barriers. The only secrets we were keeping were the ones we let the other keep; a gentleman’s agreement not to look. It was a level of trust I’d never really imagined, even in my most open relationship, and I don’t think Venec ever believed it existed. I was pretty sure he didn’t think it was healthy.

  He might be right. I remembered the feeling of not being able to lie from the ki-rin case, when Sharon had used me as a test case for her truth-spell. It had driven me into a near panic. I don’t think people are meant to share that much, that openly, without the option to say no. It goes against all our self-protective instincts, that loss of choice, and having to trust someone else to keep those private places safe.

  And yet, even with all that, those thoughts going through my head, I couldn’t find any upset at the sense of Ben so close, so... intimate.

  I tried to remind myself not to get used to it, that it wasn’t real any more than The Roblin’s manipulated emotions, just the Merge, and the moment The Roblin was caught – or got bored – we’d be back to walls and distances.

  Assuming we could. The thought caught at me like a fishhook into flesh, and the more I tried to ignore it, the deeper it settled into my brain. Would we be able to rebuild those walls? Just sitting here, not even trying, I could feel his presence like flesh to flesh, sense the gentle patience at war with his frustration – not directed at Nifty, but the world in general, and his bandage specifically. It was chafing him.

  A lot of the world chafed him.

  I didn’t want to know that about him, but I did. Without looking, without trying to look, I also knew that his sweater had an emotional memory attached to it, which was why he wore it so often, and that he was worried about Sharon and Pietr, and that he knew where Stosser was and what he was doing, and was deliberately not thinking about it.

  And that he was as hyperaware of me as I was of him.

  That realization got me up and out of the room, muttering an excuse I forgot the moment it left my mouth, feeling the need to hyperventilate charging against my breastbone.

  And Venec knew that, too. And I felt him letting me go, not because he wasn’t worried but because he knew I needed to deal with whatever was bothering me elsewhere, and he had other things to do, and at that point I had no choice but to put up the frailest, flimsiest wall, just so I could breathe.

  In the hallway, I found myself heading for the smallest conference room, my decision both unconscious and unhesitating. Wrapped up in not thinking about the thing between me and Venec, it took me the length of the hallway to remember that the small conference room was where the scraping we’d taken from the house was locked away.

  I really, really didn’t want to go in there, especially not alone, but what were my options? No matter my feelings, there was work to be done and it wasn’t as though fleeing the office would help. It was either make myself useful here, or hang out in the break room and feel useless and spend, inevitably, too much time thinking about the things I didn’t want to think about. At least if I was doing something proactive, I’d maybe feel less exposed, waiting for The Roblin to come back and take another shot at us? It was as good a theory as any.

  I let myself into the room and reset the warding behind me, then sat at the table. The box – a purely current-based construct – rested in front of me, glinting balefully, dark reds and a particularly ugly neon-yellow, like a filthy fast-food restaurant’s decor.

  I studied the box, not reaching for my own current, not slipping into a working fugue-state, doing nothing that might alert the trace within that it was being watched because, all common sense be damned, I was pretty sure it would know.

  Use more than magic, Venec instructed us, over and over. We’re more than the sum of our skills, and the physical world is just as useful as the magic one – and covers a lot more territory. So: what did my basic senses tell me?

  Once upon a time, that time being a year ago, I went through most of my day without drawing on current. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy using it, I just... didn’t. Most Talent are like that; magic is the something extra, not so much used in the day to day. Now? Now it was an effort to not default to current, not to reach for it instinctively, even if only to make sure I was prepared.

  I wasn’t sure I liked that. Now, though, wasn’t the time to stress about it: whoever I’d become, she was needed.

  I’d already covered sight. My nose didn’t smell anything different. Sometimes even a Null could pick up a whiff of a spell, like burnt ozone after a storm, but not here. My ears... was there a hum, low in the background? No; I was putting it there because I thought there should be. No noise at all, other than the usual old-building, multi-tenant grumbles and thumps that you ignored after the first couple of days.

  Taste... I made a scrunched-up face. There was no way I was so much as licking that thing without a direct order from the boss.

  Touch I already knew: it was slick and smooth and vibrated slightly under my fingertips, what was inside reaching directly to my core of current, making it curl in on itself in unease. No need to touch it again.

  That thought struck me harder than it should have, and I turned my head slightly, instinctively, looking at it again. That last thought hadn’t been mine. I know the feel of my own head, and that wasn’t me. The feeling wasn’t the now-identifiable static swirl of the imp, but heavier, slower.

  Don’t look, it whispered. Go away.

  I so very much dislike being manipulated. It wanted me to stay away? I’d touch it.

  And yeah, I knew that was dumb. I wasn’t going to mock horror-movie heroines anymore.

  There was a faint, familiar touch against my awareness, coming up against the gossamer-thin wall I’d put up and stopping there, asking if everything was all right. Irrationally, that touch made me even more determined to poke the box, as though dealing with the trace inside the lockbox was preferable to dealing with Venec.

  “You’re clas
sic, totally textbook avoidance,” I muttered to myself, even as my hand lifted, and touched the top of the box.

  It was... a box of current. Not motionless – current itself was never motionless by its very nature – but not doing anything, either. Normally you could feel a tracebox working, the steady, staticky not-quite-noise of current set in an ongoing spell. That’s all a tracebox was: current shaped by the controlling influence of more current – a spell – into a solid form. Okay, a mostly solid form.

  Now, I not only didn’t feel the box working, I didn’t feel the trace inside it, although the glow told me that it was still there. I had a sudden panicked thought that, while we were distracted, it had escaped, somehow – that The Roblin had let it out, leaving a decoy behind, and it was roaming the hallways even now, the two of them, plotting some terrible, dire trick.

  “You’re getting paranoid,” I said in disgust. “Half an hour’s exposure to Venec, and you’re totally paranoid.”

  The box sat there on the table, glimmering and glowering with current-light, and I could swear it was taunting me, like there wasn’t anything I could do or think up that would crack the mystery of what was in there, and why I couldn’t feel it, now.

  The only thing I hate more than being manipulated was being told I wasn’t capable of doing something. The combination? Oh, that just pissed me off. Knowing it was dumb, knowing I was being played, I slipped down into fugue-state, and “lifted” the lid of the box.

  It was still there, settled at the bottom of the box like a handful of ashes, lacy and harmless-looking.

  “Who are you?” I asked it. Not what – who. The part of my brain that wasn’t busy being incredibly stupid noted that for later.

  It answered me. A hiss of current slithered back at me, heavy and dark, and filled with echoes a thousand miles deeper than anything I could reach, licked from below by the flames of something that might have been the devil’s laugh.