A wizzart sure as hell would have. And it would have been a nasty spelling, too.
Beside, she didn’t need to know what was inside for what she needed to do.
Sliding into fugue state, she dunked herself into her current, gracelessly surrounding herself with crackling, slithering thick-bodied coils of current. They rubbed up against her with dry static and set the virtual hair on her virtual arms pleasantly on end. The idea of the book appeared in her hands, and she concentrated for a moment to make sure that her memory supplied all the relevant details. Heft and weight and texture and color and smell…if she thought it would help she would have licked it, to get the taste. as well.
Deep inside her body, the pain kicked her in the gut. With sheer force of will, she ignored it.
“see it be
and make it be so:
book, appear.”
Not here, not in her hands; she already had the real thing. Cantrips didn’t need to be exact, so long as the caster knew exactly what they wanted, and focused all their control on it.
Will and the Way, they used to call it in the old days. Magical Visualization, if you were all New Agey. Focus, if you were a Talent. It all came down to the same thing: making shit happen the way you wanted, not the way current would naturally flow in the easiest channel.
That was where old magic went wrong, most of the time. Just because you could chant and wave didn’t mean you were directing the power. Current, like electricity, like people, was lazy. It wanted to go where it always went, not where you wanted it to go. Not unless you were trained specifically in directing it. You had to be tougher than it was, every single time.
Focus. Control. Training.
Wren Valere had been very well-trained, long before she ever became a Retriever. Her mentor had made damned sure of that.
Wren looked inside and out through her current, and Saw the room she had taken the materials from. The guard was still flat out on the floor, but he was groaning and reaching around with one hand for his walkie-talkie. She didn’t have much time at all.
“see it be
and make it so:
book, appear.”
The emphasis worked this time, and the book in her fugue-sight disappeared, reappearing with a satisfyingly solid thunk on the desk where she had found it. The guard should, if he bothered to look, think that everything was undisturbed, as would anyone who came in later, at least until they tried to pick the book up, and discovered the pages were blank.
Quickly, before she could give in to the pain trying to gnaw out her innards, Wren shifted her focus from the book to the guard. She had to keep him from following her, had to put him out of the game—without killing him. She knew how to do it, now. But she hesitated, something making her concentration waver.
It was wrong. What she was planning to do was very, very wrong, and she could almost hear Neezer muttering in her ear how wrong it was.
“Shut up, old man,” she said. “You abandoned me, you dumped me, you gave my responsibilities to someone else, you miserable bastard, and I am angry at you. So you don’t get to tell me how to live my life—or how to protect it.”
A dark crimson lightning bolt of current shot up through her arm, making it jerk under the impact into a disturbingly salutelike gesture, the finger pointing back down toward the room—toward the guard. Wren saw the bolt leave her finger, thicker and darker than she had expected, zapping into the air and disappearing.
“wash him clean
absent all mem’ry
of today.”
She’d love to have lifted only the memory of finding someone in the room, but the time for that sort of precision didn’t exist, even if she had that kind of fine-tuned control. If she was lucky, her intent and her control was good enough that the poor bastard only lost everything since he woke up that morning, and blamed it all on the bad spill he took when entering the room. If nothing was overtly out of place, he would go for medical attention, and not report an intruder or trigger any alarm.
If she’d screwed up, hit him too hard…then God have mercy on the poor schmuck, whose only mistake had been getting ahead of his schedule.
She dropped out of fugue state, and her body wreaked its own revenge for overusing that dark current, dropping her to the ground as hard as she had dropped the guard. Hard, hot spines of pain slammed into her abdomen, ricocheting around to see how much damage they could do.
“Oh, fuck,” she managed, before the pain made her black out.
The book dropped to the floor beside her, the noise echoing in the otherwise-silent room.
In the room down the hall, the guard twitched once, then again. A spangle of current darker and thicker than Wren’s blast lifted off his skin, as though disturbed by her spell. It hovered bare seconds, then settled back down onto his flesh, sinking into the dermis. The guard twitched again, moaned, and then his eyes opened as though forced to do so by an external source.
*Valere!*
Confusion, annoyance, a sense of being kicked in the gut, and a splitting headache pulled Wren back into consciousness. She blinked, groggy, her arm automatically reaching out to grab where the book had landed even before she was fully alert to where she was.
“Shit.” This was bad. This was very, very bad. How much time had she lost? No way to tell, now. Find a clock. No, first, listen for pursuit, sounds, anything to indicate the guard had remembered enough to set off an alarm. Her body ached as though she had been worked over by a sadist, but the pain made it easier, somehow, for her to listen. Probably because her ears weren’t trying to move. If she’d had ears like P.B.’s, that flicked back and forth when he was concentrating…
Voices. Not near, but coming closer. Dress shoes, heels on linoleum. Conversational tones, not alarmed ones. Early workers, too early, damn it, for anyone to be coming to work. Not many, but any was too many. She had to move. Oh, God, she had to move.
Once she convinced her torso to uncurl and her legs to straighten, the pain wasn’t quite as bad as expected. Bad, but nothing she couldn’t shove through. Time had passed, then. Enough time for her body to recover, enough for her to command her muscles to respond, and not have them give her a virtual finger in response. With the book cradled to her side, staggering bent-over and leaning against the wall, she moved down the hallway, looking for an unoccupied space to crawl into.
Hide. Stay undetected. Don’t get caught.
But there was nowhere to hide, no empty closet or spare office. With her normal defenses battered and down, every room she touched the door of repelled her, filled to the brim with waves of anger, resentment, discontent, or sheer loneliness. The weight of those emotions bruised her, and only sheer stubborn annoyance of her own kept her moving.
It wasn’t until she came to the third door that her brain caught up with her instincts, and she realized what was happening. Not people. Artifacts. Not magical, not particularly dangerous, but in her hyperaware, hyperexposed state, everything in the museum had an aura around it, everything was projecting.
That thought stirred something else in her brain. Something about P.B.? A voice, or a note, or something…. She couldn’t remember, and didn’t have the energy to spare to worry at it right then, anyway.
Up or down? She hesitated in the stairwell, panting like an overheated dog, confused and aching. Down…down there were no people. She could hide down there, have time to recover, complete the job. But one step on the stairs, and a tsunami of projections staggered her backward.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispered, not sure who she was apologizing to, or why. Whatever was down there was lonely. Was angry. Everyone had gone and left them alone.
If she went down there, the way she was right now, open to every currentical influence, she would…
It would be bad. Whatever happened, it would be bad. She couldn’t go back down there. Not alone. Not now. Not the way she was. Turning, she went up the stairs, instead, into the museum itself.
The halls were wider here
, the ceilings higher, and her steps, even in her work gear, echoed in a way that should have been reassuring but wasn’t. The oppression she could feel practically oozing off the walls, from every glass-enclosed exhibit and display, reminded her, oddly, of the Dark Space in the House of Holding, the current-null space in the hills of Tuscany. Which was worse? Given a vote, Wren would have said they were both scary-ass, and let her out now, thanks and bye-bye.
There was still a job to be done, though. Do it, get out, go home. Never come back here again, not ever. The litany went through her head until it filled the echoes a little. The footsteps still echoed too much, though.
Slipping off her shoes and socks, she went barefoot. The coolness of the tile against her skin was a shock, and helped bring her back to herself. The malice she felt was from things long dead and gone, their rage coming from the fact that they were trapped and helpless. And they were…less angry than downstairs. Less abandoned, less ignored. That helped her to breathe a little more easily, when a shadow fell over her brain, and a heavy step sounded behind her.
“Give it to me.”
Wren blinked, and turned to stare at the guard. There was blood on the edge of his forehead where she had conked him, and his uniform jacket was off, revealing a white shirt that wasn’t as bleach-clean as it should have been stretched over a paunch the size of a small keg, the sleeves rolled up to show beefy forearms.
“What you took. Give it to me.”
The guard’s voice was flat now, the accent odd, as though he were deaf and speaking for the first time. He wiped the blood off his face where it was running into his eyes, not seeming to care about it otherwise, and stared at her. He wasn’t menacing, or angry. In fact, his body language was as flat as his voice. It was unnerving as hell, and Wren took an involuntary step backward. She had faced angry ghosts out for revenge, evil, soul-eating manuscripts, bigoted humans with guns, and an animated stuffed horse that predicted misfortune, and none of them had made her feel quite as heebie-jeebied as this guy did. Something had changed. Something…bad. Something worse than what was downstairs.
Because he wasn’t there. Something else was working his brain.
Oh, merciful God. The nasty sensation she’d felt, when she hit him. Old magic. Bad magic. Worst magic. The old world mages, the ones after P.B., they hadn’t sent in another thief. They had stolen one already on-site. They’d controlled him enough to get him off-rounds, sent him after the book, the rest of the exhibit, and when she had interrupted things…They had gone deeper. They’d eaten him. Oh, sweet Jesus, I know I’ve been bad but I promise to be good, I will, I will, I will….
Wren swallowed hard, turned, and ran like hell down the hallway, the mage-ridden guard, with his much longer legs, barely three yards behind and gaining fast.
nineteen
There was a coffee cart setting up shop on the corner, a middle-aged man and his teenage son, dreadlocked and sullen, working with smooth, practiced moves inside the close confines of the traditional metal box. There was one on every corner, farther downtown, where they multiplied in accordance with the number of office buildings, but in this neighborhood, filled with high-end apartments and higher-end doctor’s offices, the cart was a welcome oasis on a cold morning. Sergei bought a cup of lousy coffee and a surprisingly good muffin, and sat on the bench on the corner, sipping and grimacing. A squirrel came to rest on the back of the bench, chittering at him. Sergei looked over his shoulder, expecting to see a piskie, as well, but the beast was alone.
Squirrels and piskies all looked alike to him, anyway. Except for the fur. And wings. And the intelligence in the face of the squirrel. He gave the animal a bit of the muffin, anyway.
An early-morning jogger went by, the woman giving Sergei and the squirrel a curious glance, and he raised his coffee cup to her in salute. He supposed he looked like a surprisingly well-dressed homeless man, in his wool coat and dress shoes, sitting in the predawn light sharing his breakfast with a tree-rat. He should have picked up a newspaper on his way over, to pass the time. He didn’t handle waiting well, not under these circumstances.
There was a reason he preferred to work behind the scenes and before the game actually started. And it wasn’t, despite what Wren claimed, because he was afraid to muss one of his suits getting down and dirty. He was, at heart, a thinker and a worrier. And when a thinker started to worry, there was no end to the number of gone-bad scenarios he could produce during the length of time it took to, oh, drink a cup of coffee.
Sergei put the coffee down and took his cell phone out of his coat’s pocket, hitting a newly updated #3 on the speed dial.
The phone rang, and rang. Nobody answered, not even an answering machine.
“Damn it.” He closed the phone, cutting it off midring, and put it back in his pocket. Three times he had called P.B. this morning, and three times the phone had merely rung. He was supposed to be staying put, Wren had said, playing possum to draw off at least one of their hounds.
So where the hell was the demon? Why wasn’t he answering the phone? Why did he even care? It wasn’t as though the demon couldn’t take care of himself. Had, in fact, been doing exactly that for at least fifty years—and probably closer to a hundred—before he, Sergei, was even born.
That was then. This was now. Now, the demon had obligations beyond his own furry self. If something happened to the demon…
Sergei checked his watch again. Still an hour before they expected the second thief, if Wren was correct in her assumptions. She might be wrong. She might have run into trouble inside, already.
If, if, if. If she had, there was nothing he could do, not out here. He was no thief to sneak in, no acrobat to get in through a high window, no Talent to Translocate inside thick walls. Until the doors opened and he could walk through, unless someone raised a fuss outside those walls, there was nothing he could do save sit and wait. And worry.
And drink crap coffee.
He hated coffee. He’d give anything for a decent cup of tea, but these carts used crap water that always tasted of coffee anyway.
He reached for the phone again, and stopped.
If the demon could have answered, he would have.
Something was wrong.
He cast a worried look over his shoulder at the museum. Five stories tall, from the street the facade of the building still looked like the two original townhouses it had once been, back in the days when it was an exclusive address rather than merely being oh, dear God, expensive.
The building was still and quiet, no light showing in any of the windows save the red emergency lights that glowed 24-7. There was no sign of anything, good or ill, happening inside.
P.B. was essential to Wren’s continued well-being. More…Sergei was fond of the furry little freak. And, thick-skulled musculature or no, there were things even a demon couldn’t deflect. Like a high-powered rifle. Or a kidnapping attempt.
Decision half made, he was already shoving the remains of the muffin into his other pocket and rising up off the bench, making the squirrel jump off the back of the bench and flee into the landscaping of the building behind him. Sergei brushed the remaining crumbs off his coat front, striding down the street toward the corner. At this hour of the morning, a cab would be faster than waiting for a subway train to come.
Forgive me, Zhenchenka. But he took care of you when I couldn’t. He watched over you when I wasn’t there. I owe him. I owe him this.
A turn and a skid down the overpolished stairs, grabbing for the handrail even as the soles of her feet slipped on a step, only her excellent reflexes keeping her from slamming down on her ass. She had lost track of what floor she was on, the twists and turns of the building confusing her, the unquiet stares of the exhibits, even those without eyes, making it even worse. The weight might be reduced here, maybe because so many people trooped past every week, but it wasn’t gone entirely. She was wobbly in the brain, unsure of what was real and what was delusion, and what was a true illusion.
No wonder
nobody in the Cosa robs this place. Nobody could stay sane long enough to do the job.
The guard—or whatever was riding him—seemed unaware of the pressure she felt, running at a steady lope she hadn’t expected from his overweight form. A Null, then, although she had pretty well figured that out from the whole possession thing.
How the hell are they doing that? Old magic, has to be, there’s nothing…vodoun? It was the only thing that made sense, as much as anything made sense, but even in a global economy the thought of Dutch mages using African magic…
Duh. Afrikaaners. She had looked up the Boer War, since she was doing research anyway. Late nineteenth century, English versus Dutch over land and mines in South Africa. Nasty stuff, but the important thing was that P.B.’s creator had been there for a couple more years by then, before he reportedly died there during the war.
Plenty of chances to learn the local traditions—even the ones white men weren’t supposed to poke around in.
Old Zee had been the type to be up to his elbows in all sorts of old magics, most of them bad, why would it surprise her that his would-be heirs were cut from the same cloth?
Idiots. There were reasons Talent moved away from the old magics. Blood and sex-magics ate more of you than current, and if you were stupid enough to invoke the oldest ones to help, you had to pay them. And they usually weren’t the type to take AmEx….
Sergei was right. These guys were so ego-ridden, they didn’t think past their own wants.
She was moving now through a series of small rooms filled with pottery shards. Useful bits, shattered and useless now. Regret and hopelessness, but all things built to be used are built to be abandoned, as well. The pressure was less here, knowing that, and she took a deep breath before plunging through the next display.
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