Blood from Stone

by Laura Anne Gilman

  And since when did you start thinking in terms of “magic”? That was Old Time, old ways, abandoned since the nineteenth century.

  Probably since you started using old ways, too, her brain thought back at her with a touch of snide superiority. Or are you going to pretend none of that ever happened?

  No, she wasn’t. Not when touching on the old ways had—might have, she amended—saved her life. Fatae-magics. Sex-magics, blood-magics, sympathetic magics…She didn’t have to like it, though. Old ways were unpredictable, unreliable, lurking underneath the psyche, within reach of anyone who had enough willpower to touch them but controllable by very few. You never knew what results you might get, with old magic. That’s why Founder Ben started experimenting with his keys and kites in the first place, to find a better way. A more reliable, repeatable way.

  Magic was a science, after all.

  That thought led her back around to her discussion with P.B. about genetics, and inheritance, and goo, and father-creators, and the thoughts almost derailed her whistle.

  Stop that. Don’t you dare get distracted!

  She came to the end of the passage without further stumbling, and started again, patiently. Some things were less about flair or finesse than patience. Most of the job—like standing in the darkness whistling—was boring, and that was good. Boring meant according to plan. Excitement meant excrement. Lots of excitement meant excrement in the air-conditioning.

  After the third rendition of the whistle-touch, something broke the dark waters just off the pier, rising about a foot above the surface. In the pre-dawn blackness, it was difficult to make out any details, but she thought she saw the gleam of eyes looking her way.

  She whistled again, a slightly different tone, letting it rise and decline before it faded away. She wasn’t much of a singer, but she could whistle up a storm.

  She almost laughed at the phrase. She probably could, at that.

  The shadowy shape sank back below the surface, but the ripples indicated that it was still there, and heading toward her. Wren left the security of the shadows, and walked out along the dock to meet it, kneeling down at the edge even as the surface of the water broke and a figure rose three feet straight out of the water.

  “Hello, Cosa-cousin,” she said, thinking hard about her request. The serpent merely blinked at her, the large, pale eyes definitely glimmering in the lamplight coming down from overhead. From the size of the triangular head, and the thickly muscled neck flowing back down into the water, she estimated it to be about thirty feet long, and maybe five feet across. Not quite full grown, which made sense; very few of them hung around the shoreline once they got their full size. Not enough to eat, and too many chances of being spotted by someone with a decent camera.

  *Hunger.*

  Serpents, unlike their airborne cousins the dragons, weren’t much for conversation, but they knew how to make their needs known. The wave of fish-scented hunger that hit her brain made Wren glad that she’d skipped breakfast that morning. Thankfully, forewarned was foregifted.

  “Will this do?” She lifted the shopping bag she had been lugging and let the serpent scent the aromas, or whatever it was serpents did.

  *Pleasure,* came back to her, and she tipped the bag open and dumped the contents onto the dock. That great triangular head dipped almost faster than she could follow, and she took an involuntary step back. Thankfully, the beast had no interest whatsoever in her. The loop of pastrami, however, disappeared almost before it hit the planks. Her informant had been right, bless his pointy little nose. New Yorkers, apparently, were New Yorkers, no matter where they lived. Wren supposed she should be thankful he hadn’t been craving an egg cream or something a little more difficult to carry on the subway.

  “All right. You know what to do?” she asked it as soon as the offering had been consumed.

  A sated sense of satisfaction and agreement answered her, and the serpent slid beneath the waters again, leaving an oily ripple on the water’s surface, and the scent of pastrami-burp in the air.

  They weren’t the smartest of the Cosa, serpents, but they were trustworthy. Most snake breeds were, she’d found. So much for that stereotype…

  Right. She had about ten minutes, she estimated, before minor hell broke loose. Best not to waste any of it.

  The empty bag stirred at her feet, and she looked down at it, half-surprised the serpent hadn’t eaten that, too. She was tempted to leave it there, but a combination of good citizen training and common sense made her stoop to pick it up. Leave nothing behind.

  “Recycle,” she told it, barely even reaching for current, and the paper bag shimmered and dissolved into powdery wood dust. Close enough. She dusted off her hands and walked back off the pier, toward the more active part of the docks.

  Her goal was the batch of most recent ships, the ones still in quarantine. There was a container in one of the ships docked there, she had been told, specifically the Becca Sims. Customs hadn’t had a chance to go through the invoices yet, but they’d gotten wind of something hinky stored in the hold.

  How hinky was still subject to debate. What wasn’t, apparently, was the fact that it would embarrass a number of people, including the United States government, if there had to be any kind of formal investigation or, God forbid, arrest in the matter.

  Wren had no problem with the government taking one or two on the chin, but she’d learned enough about politics in the past few years to know that sometimes you had to cover even for people you didn’t like, to keep things from getting too ugly. And since she didn’t happen to have a horse in this particular race, she’d shut up and do the job, discharging a favor-debt in the process and leaving the slate nice and clean.

  Besides, quiet and sneaky was her stock-in-trade.

  The moment she heard yelling coming from somewhere, drawing the attention of everyone who might otherwise be paying attention, Wren slipped up the gangway of the Becca Sims and, no-see-me firmly in place, ghosted up into the ship, through the bare metal hallways, and down into the cargo hold.

  “Don’t come out, come out, whatever you are,” she called in a quiet singsong voice, ignoring the thudding against the hull that was her bribed buddy making like Nessie on a bad day. She was lucky he—she? How did you tell?—was young and still thought this would be a good prank. An older, wiser serpent would have told her where to get off, probably. Or would have taken this as an excuse to eat a sailor or two.

  Hoorah for intra-Cosa relations. And she didn’t have to play on that “hidden Cousin” thing, either. Notoriety was fine when you wanted it, but inconvenient as hell the rest of the time.

  The container she was looking for was in the very back, of course. Most of the boxes were taller than she was, and several times as broad, but this one was barely up to her shoulder and wide as her arm span. Plastic; she had somehow expected everything to be wooden, but she seemed to be surrounded by a Tupperware farm. Made it tougher on the rats, she supposed.

  “All right. Let’s see what we got here.” She didn’t touch the container; she didn’t need to, not yet. Instead, she let her eyes unfocus, and then looked with her current, instead.

  Nothing. Not even an erg of a come-hither.

  Another heavy thump almost managed to knock her off her feet, and she glared at the steel wall as though the serpent could see her through it. “I said distract, not sink, you stupid eel.”

  She turned her attention back to the container, still not touching it. Because she had never done this before, she took refuge in a familiar cantrip to focus her thoughts.

  “friend or foe

  water carries true;

  tell me now.”

  It didn’t have to be good poetry; it didn’t even have to be poetry. She just happened to like the simplicity of the haiku structure. Plus, poetry was easier to remember. Sometimes, in dicey situations, that mattered.

  The words merged with the current in her core, rising and swirling in a faint blue glow. She could see it, faintly, rising from
her core, up her spine, out along her arms and out through her fingertips, sparking gently as it reached toward the container in question.

  “Holy fu—” The word was stolen from her throat as she felt what was in there. Not animal, mineral or pharmaceutical; not even chemical, the way the unimaginative assumed.

  She pulled her current back into herself, wincing as it snapped unpleasantly into place, like a thick, neon, rubber band. What was in there was alchemical; elements primed and ready for the final touch that would turn them into…whatever it was that it was supposed to be. She didn’t feel any sense of malice or anger to it; not that it couldn’t still be dangerous, but generally speaking things that had the touch of current to them also carried the emotions—the signature—of their user.

  This just felt…greedy. Anonymous greed, but no less disturbing for that. In fact, it was even more disturbing for being faceless, unconnected.

  She felt a shudder run down her spine that had nothing to do with current. Greed wasn’t good. In her experience, greed caused more trouble than anything else, depending on what you were greedy for. Candy, minor. Blood, or souls, or life…

  But nothing had been triggered yet. Everything here was just potential, the parts not yet assembled. She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she did, gut-level.

  Problem was, she had no idea what the trigger was, or who was supposed to assemble it. Someone, anyone might come by and, intentionally or not…

  The not knowing was what killed you. Sometimes literally.

  There was shouting, and the sound of a lot of boots running overhead. Her serpent had shifted his point of assault to the other side of the boat. That boy was having far too much fun.

  Something skittered with her in the hold, against the far wall, and she wondered if modern cargo ships had rats, despite the Tupperware. Probably. Some things never changed.

  Her job assignment had been vague. “Do…whatever it is you do. I don’t want to know. Just, if there’s anything there, get rid of it.”

  Get rid of it. Right. From Retriever to garbage detail. Still, she supposed she was within the realm of her job description—removing something from the premises without the possessor of the item knowing….

  She started to slip into fugue state, and caught herself. No need to give herself cramps for this. Instead, Wren kept her physical eyes on the container, and touched the core of current within her. As always, it felt like a pit of vipers, scales dry-slithering and sparking against each other in neon brights. There was a hint of darker colors, too; a purple-black that alternated between shimmering and matte. The sludge of old magic, waiting for another chance at her. She ignored it, an act of purely human stubbornness and denial, and focused instead on the glimmers of scarlet winding through the mass.

  Her core, her own personal current-store. Modern theory—and stories of old magic—suggested that everyone had it, but most humans lacked the ability to touch and mold it. It wasn’t just the will and the word, apparently. Goo, she thought again. I am filled with goo.

  All right. Back to the box. The bits individually were…not innocent, but not dangerous, not right now. So the trick was to make sure that they couldn’t be joined.

  Destroying something when you weren’t quite sure what it was—stupid. Especially when on a boat, on water, with no easy access away from any major explosion, implosion, or other kind of boom.

  A scarlet snake separated itself from the rest of the pit, rising to her command. It flowed out into the container as distinct threads, splitting off and then splitting off again. Not that Wren could see it, not using her physical eyes, but she knew it was there, doing her will.

  Five threads, each one wrapping itself around a piece of the puzzle. Light, gentle layers, barely noticeable. Her arms rose as though conducting the movement, laying the threads by hand. Focused on the task, she barely felt the thuds that meant her Cosa-cousin was still at the job…or when the thuds stopped.

  Bind, there, thus. A lesson in the back of her mind: John Ebeneezer sitting in the back of his classroom, still wearing the white lab coat he used during class over his jeans and Oxford shirt, teaching her how to thread a needle with current, each eye progressively smaller and smaller as her skills grew. Eye of the needle. Eye of the storm. Bind and close off, enclose, insulate.

  Removing the items would require her to use current directly on them, and where would she send them, anyway? She sucked at Transloc; they’d probably end up in some longshoreman’s breakfast, or a kid’s backpack. And what if that was enough to trigger?

  Thinking too much. Focus.

  “Hey!” A voice, a man’s voice, coming from behind her, echoing in the hold.

  Oh, damnittohell. Too much to hope for, that it wasn’t directed at her…

  She kept a light touch on the current, letting it continue as it had been started, and turned to deal with the intruder.

  Technically, you’re the intruder….

  Oh, shut up.

  “What are you doing down here?” The speaker was a man, about fifty or so and hard-worn with it, from his shaved head to the gut hanging over his belt. But he also had the look of a man who knew how to throw trespassers off his boat—and maybe not worry about them hitting land.

  He squinted to see her better; the Retriever’s no-see-me trick was still working then, he was just used to being suspicious about shadows in his cargo hold. That should have made her feel better. It didn’t.

  Current-snakes slithered and hissed, demanding to be used. She fought her instinctive urge to run, needing to stay and make sure that the job was done.

  “I’m not here,” she said. Current rose again, but this time it stayed within her, humming in her bones, sliding just under her own skin, shimmering greens and blues. She felt tight, wound-up and ready to roll.

  “What the hell?” He took a step closer, and she saw the short metal bar in his hand.

  A body, crushed and beaten, bleeding out in a dark alley, once-white wings crushed and soiled. That was how it had all begun…one of the Angeli brought down low and dead.

  She knew it wasn’t the same. The Silence was broken, the vigilantes driven back underground. The only Silence member they knew was still alive was the researcher Darcy, who had helped them, in the end. Darcy had sent Sergei a postcard from somewhere in the Andes, about three months ago.

  This guy? He was just a union joe doing his job. Wren held on, kept control until she felt the binding take over, the elements within the box rendered if not harmless, then at least useless.

  “You, get out here! Don’t make me hurt you!”

  Wrong words. Oh, so very much the wrong words. The job was done, she could let go, slip past him and be gone, but the emotions would not subside. Don’t make me hurt you!

  Bile rose in the back of her throat, and the hold she had on her current trembled, broke….

  And held, held, if only by the tips of her shaking hands. P.B.: silent and supportive. Simply not trying to block him out allowed him in, not so much intrusive as preexisting. She could feel him in her, that bedrock of strength that could not be moved by mortals, nor broken by even her own current. She wiggled virtual toes, trying to ground herself in that strong comfort, but he was too far away, or she couldn’t reach far enough down. The bile came back up into her mouth, and the bedrock receded and disappeared under the floodgate memory of rage and fear.

  …hurt you…

  No. She tried to quiet it, but the waves surged and swamped her, trying to drag her under and suffocate her in the tarry wash.

  There was a buzzing hum in her ears, surprisingly gentle for the forces she felt assaulting her, a sound like a thousand black-and-red butterfly wings beating inside her head. Shaking with the need to control, to flee, to strike out against a threat, to not kill, she did the only thing she could do.

  She Translocated.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” P.B. said.

  Wren finished dry-heaving, and wiped her mouth with the damp washcloth he h
eld out to her. Her limbs felt like Jell-O, and her skin crawled as if there were bugs on it. Worse, under it.

  Teenagers with less Talent than she had in her palm could Translocate entire rooms with perfect accuracy, and she couldn’t even send a pin into a pincushion without heaving her guts. Life was not fair.

  “Seriously.” P.B. squatted next to her. “What happened?”

  Rage still controlled her brain, and she wanted to snarl at him. She didn’t owe him any explanations. She didn’t answer to anyone.

  Then again, when you appear in someone’s bathroom, puking your guts out into the toilet while they’re taking a shower, they do have a right to know why. That thought was cold water on her, cooling her brain and washing away the bugs.

  “Situation went bad. I had to get away.”

  “And you came here.” He stood up and toweled himself off with a larger towel, his shower-wet fur giving off a pleasant, herb-scented smell. The demon used No More Tears, she knew that from previous visits to his bathroom. He usually had a slightly muskier, greener scent, too. Did demons wear cologne? He sure as hell didn’t use an aftershave….

  She felt herself start to get the giggles, an aftermath to the rage, and clamped down hard.

  “Damn it, Valere…” The demon sighed, and sat down on the edge of the tub, his rounded body wrapped in the towel less for modesty than protection from the wet porcelain. “You only Transloc when you panic. What happened?”

  “Not only when I panic,” she said, sitting back on her heels and noting, absently, that she’d managed to ruin yet another pair of jeans. “Sometimes it’s because I’m screwed, otherwise.” Usually, no matter what the circumstances, her arrival results were less than pinpointed. Except when she panicked. Then she always came here.

  If “always” translated into “twice now.”

  “This have anything to do with you cutting me off, earlier?”