Blood from Stone

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Her brain formed the thought, but Max’s finished it.

  *Now,* was the only warning they got, and the ground moved under their feet, disappearing into the storm along with sound and sight, smell and taste. They did not exist, except in Max’s overstimulated, current-overrun mind, his will the only thing holding them in reality.

  And then the ground dropped in under their feet, their stomachs dropped in after them, and sensation returned.

  Wren threw up.

  So, she was oddly reassured to note, did the kid.

  “Fool brat. Fool. Deserve to get herself killed.”

  Max was behind them, his clothing filthy, his shoulder-length white hair literally standing on end from the static he was generating.

  “You’re not listening. You never listen, you didn’t listen and then you listen to someone else. You think that gets overlooked? Never diss crazy people, little girl. ’Specially when they crazy for you. You came back?” he spat. “You almost died. Brain’s dead, there is no coming back. Back is the new front and front and center means get the hell back.”

  He was being typically cryptic, and she didn’t have the energy to argue with him. Sprawled on the floor—tile, black-and-white squares, the smell of disinfectant in the air, she determined from the clues that the old bastard had Translocated them into some bathroom somewhere—she didn’t have the energy to do anything more than wipe her mouth and blink the tears from her eyes.

  “You okay, kid?” she asked instead, turning her head to look at the boy.

  He sat in a puddle of his own vomit, and looked at her with eyes that were huge, blue and scared.

  “No.”

  “Smart kid,” Max observed, calming down a little, smoothing his hair down with hands that crackled with current and just made things worse. “Might actually survive to grow some hair, that one. Might. Maybe.”

  “I don’t like him,” the kid told Wren.

  “Nobody does, kid,” she said, hauling herself up to her knees and testing if she felt strong enough to get all the way up yet or not. “But he just saved our asses. Say thank you.”

  The kid looked up at Max and, politely, said, “Thank you.”

  “Didn’t do it for you. Or for you, either,” he added irritably, when Wren started to say something. “Did it for…neveryoumind. Just can’t stand Nulls think they got the right to interfere in our business.”

  Wren shook her head, too tired to respond to that, either. Max had been a bigot when he was sane, too. The first time she had met him, Neezer had warned her…

  Neezer.

  For some reason, the “sense” of her old mentor was stronger than it had been in years. She had begun to forget what he looked and sounded like, over the past few years, but suddenly the memories were all there again, strong and clear. John Ebeneezer had been the one to tell her what she was, train her how to use current safely, had got her through most of high school without failing out or cracking up—and then disappeared when he felt himself start to wizz, rather than risk her safety with his madness.

  She had yet to forgive him for that. Especially now, knowing what she knew.

  She could almost see him, sitting behind his desk in the lab, marking papers, looking up to utter some annoyingly right bit of wisdom she was too much of a teenager to appreciate….

  Wren froze the memory in midprogress, and turned to stare at Max. She sniffed at him once, twice, like a dog scenting a bone. Familiar. Familiar in a way the body never forgot, the mind never let go of.

  The grizzled old wizzart took a step backward. The wrinkles around his bright eyes deepened, and his lips drew back from rotted old teeth.

  “Where. Is. He?”

  The words were growled out, her voice dropping a full octave, making the kid forget his own misery long enough to scoot away from both of the adults, his blue eyes wide.

  She had the pleasure of seeing uncertainty and a smidge of caution flicker in Max’s eyes. “I don’t—”

  “Max. Where. Is. He.” A definite growl now, edged and hungry. She could sense the current-signature all over the old man now that she was looking, the specific flavor of someone else’s magic. Someone not Max, and not her, but familiar all the same. Neezer. Neezer had been near him, had worked current around him. Recently.

  In the bedrock, in those woods. Hidden, wizzed: but alive.

  Neezer was alive.

  “Old man, you tell me…”

  “No.” He could growl better than she could. “Told you to go. Shouldn’t have been there. Shouldn’t have known. Won’t go back, too late now. Gone. Keeps moving. Pissed at you, girl.” Max glared at her, and like a sea change, or clouds moving, there was a spark of sanity in those eyes again, and his words were clear and to the point.

  “He doesn’t want to see you, brat. He doesn’t want you to see him. You grok?”

  Knowledge hit her like a brick to the head. Oh, yes, she understood. Didn’t mean she liked it. Or that she was going to accept it. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” she said softly.

  “Yeah. It does. You escaped. Good for you, maybe. But you did it your way. Us, we are what we are. And we’re dangerous, brat. You had your chance, maybe, and didn’t take it. School’s over. So stop looking for us.”

  “I wasn’t looking for you, you fell over me!” she said, distracted by his comment, the way he had probably intended. Damn Max: crazy or not he knew how to play her.

  “Pish.” The sanity faded, and the wizzart was back. “Men’s room. Pretty thing. You wanna see my dick, you’re sprawled on the floor like that?”

  If he was trying to shock her with being crude, he needed to work up better material than that. But the point was made: she wasn’t going to get anything more out of him on anything useful, and going back to the site wasn’t going to turn up Neezer—Max was right, by now he had moved on, or hidden himself again.

  Besides, there was the kid to worry about. The handover had been blown, but she still had to deliver to get the final part of the payment. Assuming daddy dearest still wanted the kid. Christ, don’t borrow trouble, Valere. The client gets the goods, you’re within letter of the agreement, everything’s peachy. He’s not a puppy you can adopt, damn it.

  “This isn’t over, Max,” she warned him, standing up.

  “Yes,” he whispered, his eyes level with her own, not blinking, not once, until her own eyes hurt. “Oh, yes, it is. All over everything.”

  And with a manic grin and an inrushing of air that smelled like burned ozone, he was gone.

  “Where did he go?” the kid asked, looking around as though expecting to see Max lurking in one of the stalls.

  “Hell, hopefully.” She looked down at the kid, and sighed. “All right, come on, full cleanup this time. Grab some paper towels and get your disgusting self over to the sink….”

  This was so not in the job description.

  four

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

  “Ready?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “You ready?”

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

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

  “I’m tired.”

  “Yeah. It’s almost over now, kid.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  *Yo,* she pinged downstairs.

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