Pack of Lies [2]

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Yeah. Oh. No. No no no.” I saw what he was leading to, and I wanted no part of it. “That ended really badly last time, remember?”

  Last time we had gone in to get a full gleaning, and gotten trapped in the backlash of the emotions of a Talent as he died. We’d all been linked together, pooling current, and still the overrush had been so powerful we almost died, too. Stosser and Venec had laid down the law after that: physical gleanings only.

  But Pietr had a point, damn him. The physical detail told us who was there, and what the end result was, but an emotional reading of the attack would tell us more about the why. I hadn’t done it before, in my first gleaning, because it was dangerous—and unneeded. But now, with doubt about the attack itself, if I could glean the girl’s emotions, maybe get a better idea of what she had been feeling…

  Did not want to go there. Did not even think about going there. Losing objectivity was a really bad idea, and I wasn’t sure it would count as a “fact” in Stosser’s eyes. But if it let us nail down the case, then it was good, right? But I wasn’t going to do it linked. I was better than Pietr at gleaning and—

  And if it had been rape—even attempted rape—then I owed it to the girl to keep her feelings on this side of the gender fence. That went back to my feelings about the first gleaning: there was no need for her to be violated like that twice.

  “I go in alone. And if this doesn’t work,” I warned him, “we never ever mention it to anyone, and the Big Dogs never know.”

  “Naturally.”

  Hah. Good to be on the same page with that.

  “You—”

  “I’ve got your back,” he said calmly, and I could hear him settling down on the grass behind me. I could visualize him without even looking: slender and dark, his face still but his gray eyes watchful, probably making a face at how cold the ground was even through his long wool coat, but not saying a word of complaint; resolved and ready. If anyone came along while I was otherwise occupied, or if anything happened, he’d be there to take care of it. That was why we worked in pairs, whenever possible.

  I could let go of the physical now.

  It took me a few minutes longer than usual to slide into a working fugue-state. I was too aware of where I was, of what had happened here, to let myself relax, even with Pietr watching out for me. He was my partner, my friend…but he was also male, and right now that awareness was influencing everything else. No way to avoid it. This was a place where violence had been done; violence and sex wrapped up in each other and fueled by male aggression. Being female, in this place, had been dangerous.

  Face your fear. That had always been J’s mantra. Face it, own it, and then get on with it. I took a deep breath and accepted my unease, and then tried to let it go. Some of it clung, like ice on a window, but enough slid away that I was able to center myself and move down into my core.

  Seen with mage-sight, Pietr was only slightly more visible than he was normally: a calm soothing flow of current, like one of the deep and still lochs J and I saw when we went to Scotland. Nessie might well be under there, and you’d never know until she took half your boat for a snack.

  Pietr and I worked so well together because we were so much alike: the others on the team had jangly, sparky, high-movement cores, especially Nifty, who never seemed to settle enough to be properly grounded. Pietr and I, we were the calm ones.

  That was why Stosser had sent us. He knew that we were going to try this. Damn him. I still wasn’t quick enough to pick up on his reasons until they were shoved in my face.

  When you’re in full fugue-state, though, it’s tough to really worry about anything outside, anything nonmagical. You’re too grounded, too totally focused. That’s the point of grounding; nothing can knock you over, magically or physically, if you’re doing it right.

  I opened my eyes, and looked out at the shrine for the girl.

  Almost every offering carried the faint, barely visible echo of current that inanimate objects acquired when they were held for a long time, or with great emotion, by a Talent. Not unexpected. She had been—was—one of us, and news was spreading fast. Most of the current-traces I saw were the normal blues, greens and golds, pale and dark, coating the objects like refracted light. An occasional burst of red and purple, agitated even after all this time away from the person who had handled them. A faint hint of… I leaned forward, trying to trace the shadow I saw. Something neon and not-neon all at once, sliding away when I tried to connect with it. If I’d been on my own time I might have followed, made contact, but interfering with the evidence was very much not standard operating procedure as hammered into us by one Benjamin Venec, and I really didn’t want him reading me a lecture this week.

  Besides, I’d never even heard of black current before, and I wasn’t going to go poking my fingers into something I didn’t know. I gleaned the memory of what it had looked and felt like into a safe place in my brain, and moved on, diving deeper into the ether, moving beyond the current and into the emotional undertow.

  The offerings all came up muted and mingled; the only thing I could pick up for certain was anger and sadness and a tinge of something I couldn’t quite identify, but thought might have been applied to the black current. Figuring I’d taken as much off that as I could, I moved my awareness back up and beyond…toward the site of the actual assault.

  I don’t know if someone had directed people to put their offerings here, or if it just happened, but neither pile was at the exact spot. It took me a few seconds, in mage-sight, to identify the bushes I’d seen in my gleaning, but the moment I touched it, there was no doubt. I’m not an empath—I’ve never met an actual, functional empath, although there are some who claim they can read strong emotions, even in Nulls. But there are some emotions so strong that they take on an actual solid presence in the current, without having to go into the undertow. Fear. Pain. Anger.

  Really strong emotions, almost strong enough to create an echo of who had been projecting them.

  Almost, but not quite. It was enough, though, to confirm that the strongest of those weren’t the emotions of the participants, but rather the offering-makers. I wasn’t getting fear or lust or even anger, but a sense of greed, worry, anticipation—and a tricky, twisty thread of something I couldn’t quite recognize.

  This was useless. The people who left their offerings might have had the wrong place…but they’d walked all over the actual site, knowingly or not. And they’d been projecting just enough to contaminate anything that had been there, to draw tendrils off, and plant feelers of their own in, until untangling it was well beyond my abilities.

  But what about the girl? Where was she, in all of this? I tried again to find her, searching for older, stronger emotions underneath, but came up empty.

  Normally that would be, well, normal. We’re taught control as our very first lesson in mentorship. Control is what allows us to use current, and not get brain-fried by overrush, when current overpowers the meat. Still, she had to have tried to defend herself, to call for help, and emotion-driven signatures etch themselves deeper. Panic or fear or any kind of heightened excitement—good or bad—should still have resonated in the ether. Instead, I got the magical equivalent of dead air.

  I was good, but not good enough.

  “We need to get Stosser out here,” I said. My voice sounded odd to my ears, as though I was listening from underwater, and Pietr’s acknowledgement was even more distant and watery, but I didn’t pause to consider it. Standing up, I walked across the pathway, absently slowing down to avoid a middle-aged Rollerblader who seemed equally oblivious to me, and went back to the other pile of offerings, the ones Pietr had cleared first. Pietr followed me, keeping a few careful paces between us, to make sure his signature didn’t interfere with whatever I was reading.

  “Holy shit.”

  I can, when the need calls for it, swear like a seasick sailor. But this…it blew everything more explicit out of my mind.

  “Bonnie?”

  *torre
s?* A sudden ping in my head: concern and alarm wrapped in a silver bullet.

  “Hang on,” I said to my partner, patting the air to indicate the need for quiet, and dealt with the surprise visitor.

  *what are you doing?* My ping in response was formed of definite annoyance, like that silver bullet sent back to the source. If he was going to take up lurking in my head again, shadowing me like some damned untrained amateur, we were going to have words, me and Mister Venec were, oh, hell yes.

  *heard yelp* The pingback was still alarmed, although it was muted now that I’d responded. Normally pings just carried the sense of words, but maybe because I’d been so attuned to emotions, or working in deep fugue, I could practically taste his concern, like the bittersweet of fresh blackberries on my tongue.

  Oh, for… *am okay*

  *sure?*

  *go away, venec!*

  He took the brush-off, and any sense of him slipped from my awareness. Left alone, I was able to concentrate on what had shocked me. The tinges of black in the current I’d seen across the way were nothing compared to what was roiling over the other shrine-offerings. Not everywhere—there was a lot of clean blues and an interesting shimmering brown, plus a lot of red, faded around the edges: all colors I’d learned to expect off an emotionally charged item, although nobody really knew why, yet. The black, though…

  My first instinct had been right, I decided. There was no way that black gunk was safe to touch. I didn’t even want to look at it.

  “Pietr. C’mere.” I waggled my fingers, hoping he would understand what I meant. Sure enough, a few seconds later I felt his fugue-state slide up next to mine, like two soap bubbles floating next to each other. A gentle brush and the bubbles touched just enough to connect; still two distinct bubbles but with a shared wall between them. Another new trick we’d been working up; it took a lot of teamwork—and a lot of trust. I was pleased to feel it working without a hitch.

  *see that?*

  The shared spot made our pings turn into actual words, more than merely emotions or impressions, but it took a lot of energy to hold steady, and I could already feel my reserves starting to ebb.

  *what is that?*

  *don’t know. there was some on the other side but not as much. none at the actual attack site*

  Pietr muttered under his breath. *it looks…almost familiar. like I’ve seen it somewhere before*

  I got a sense of him stretching out, trying to touch it, and mentally slapped that idea.

  *don’t*

  *why not?*

  *you’re kidding me*

  A sense of unknown danger, and Venec busting my ass if Pietr got himself killed.

  A sense of amused reluctance flowed into me, then agreement, a suggestion that we were done, and the soap bubble popped.

  I followed suit, rising out of fugue-state and getting back my awareness of the outside world, wobbling a little as I did so. The pile of offerings looked exactly as they had before. I turned and looked back at the site of the actual attack. It looked the same, too. But it felt different now.

  “So?”

  We’d barely gotten into the office and shucked our coats before Stosser pounced, dragging us into the main conference room to make our report. Everyone else was already there, looking pretty beat-down. I was guessing the morning had gone about as well for them as it had for us. At least there was food—I’d been using too damn much current again, and I was starving like that bagel had been two days ago. Nick leaned over and shoved a white cardboard carton in my direction.

  “So, nothing.” I pulled out a chair and grabbed the carton, opening it as I spoke. If I focused on the food, I could ignore Venec sitting across the table from me. I was still freaked over the incident earlier that morning, and pissed that he was bopping into my head like he owned it, and a hundred other things that I didn’t have time or energy to deal with right now. “I couldn’t get a fix on anything dating back to the actual incident. Too damn many Talent tromping all over the site, making it into a damned shrine, contaminating it. Like someone walking through blood splatter with muddy shoes.”

  Mmm, grilled tofu and mushrooms in some dark brown sauce that smelled wonderful. They’d hit the Thai place, yay. I reached for a fork, and caught Sharon giving me a speculative look. I felt the immediate urge to see if my long-sleeved T-shirt had a stain on it, or if I had mud on my face, or something, but refused to give in.

  “I was afraid of that,” Stosser said. “Damn.”

  It took me a minute to realize he was responding to what I’d said.

  “Shrine?” Venec tilted his head in query. “Was that what you were reacting so strongly to?”

  Nifty leaned forward, clearly expecting some new revelation to chew on. I declined to enlighten him. Whatever was happening between me and Venec was going to stay between me and Venec. Or, hopefully, just between me and me. I so did not need or want complications in my life right now, and shit like that was totally a complication.

  Even though I really wanted to know why and how it happened. And my id was screaming for more, please, of that sexy stuff.

  Outwardly, I shook it off. “Sort of. Sorry about that, boss, didn’t know I was projecting.” I meant it to come across as snarky, but Venec refused to take the bait.

  “Don’t take it personally, Torres. I keep tabs on all of you, in case…”

  In case we needed an immediate bailout, was what he wasn’t saying. Did I believe him? No reason not to…I’d known he was keeping tabs, if not how closely, but it felt like he was throwing up smoke, somehow. That was job-related. The connection between us… I was suddenly aware of Nifty still watching me, and I moved the conversation on.

  “Anyway, yeah. Two piles of offerings, one for the girl, one for the dead guy. You were right, people are choosing up he-said/she-said sides. And…” I hadn’t answered Venec directly, but the cause of my yelp needed to be shared, if not the aftermath. “There was something there, on the site,” I said slowly. “I don’t know if it’s connected or not, or if it’s important.”

  I had the boss’s attention now, and everyone else’s, too. Even Nick put down his fork.

  “Everything, Torres,” Stosser ordered.

  Right. “There was… When I looked at the items, there was an undercurrent around some of them, like if you were looking at a stream, nice and clear, and then suddenly you saw an oil slick running along the bottom.”

  “Oil slicks float,” Sharon pointed out.

  “Fine. God, you’re annoying sometimes. Sludge. Sewage. Something thick and nasty.”

  “Could it have been from the ki-rin?” Stosser asked. “We don’t know much about the fatae, if they have their own significant signature…”

  I shook my head. “No. Emphatically no. Not unless every damned thing ever said about ki-rin was totally wrong.”

  “But you’re sure it was current?” Nick asked.

  “I… Yes.” I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly so certain, but I was. It hadn’t looked or felt like any current I’d ever encountered; I’d never hesitated touching current before, in any form, tame or wild, but… “Yes, it was current.”

  Pietr picked up the report. “Bonnie’s right. It was nasty. I only caught a glimpse of it, working backup, but you did not want that anywhere near your core.”

  Hah. That from the man who had wanted to stick his fingers in it, magically speaking.

  “But you don’t think it’s related to the crime itself?”

  I looked at Pietr, who was, as usual, holding up the wall with his backside. He shrugged. I looked back at Stosser. “It might be. The fact that it’s all over the site can’t be overlooked. I’d suggest either you or Ben go take a sample. It’s out of our league.”

  “Hey!”

  Nifty was the one who protested, but Sharon looked ruffled, too. Nick just picked up his fork again and went back to eating,

  “No, she’s right,” Venec said. “I heard her reaction when she saw it. Anything that makes Bonnie jump like that—”


  “Hey,” I protested, which he ignored.

  “—is not something that we want you guys poking around in. I’ll go down tonight and investigate.” There was something in his voice that made me look sharply at him, but he was unreadable. I had the feeling that if I dug a little I could pick up whatever he was hiding but…no. If I wanted him out of my head, I had to stay out of his, too. Fair was fair.

  “So the scene is basically a wash?” Sharon asked, clearly disappointed.

  “Pretty much, yeah,” I told her. “Except the amount of attention it’s getting. That was unnerving. Is that sort of thing normal?”

  “You’re asking about normal in this city?” Venec was amused, I could tell that much without even trying, although his voice was dry, as usual. The Big Dog had a dark sense of humor.

  “You know what I mean—Talent-specific attention. My mentor says that there’s tension growing everywhere—are we looking at a potential flash point?” I was really proud of myself for using that term. I just hoped I’d used it right.

  “I don’t think so,” Stosser said, but he didn’t sound as confident as I expected from him. From the looks on the faces of my coworkers, though, they were all reassured. “There’s something building,” the boss went on, “but the players have pretty much gone to ground on this particular instance, and not letting themselves get co-opted, so… But that doesn’t mean we can slack off. We close the case this week, before anyone gets any bright ideas.”

  Pietr moved the spotlight over to Sharon. “Any luck with the truth spell?”

  Sharon looked uncomfortable, which was damned unusual for her: she had a fabulous poker face. “Not…exactly. Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” Stosser didn’t sound too happy. I guess they hadn’t had a chance to give their report before we came back?

  “It doesn’t exactly go truth-lie…more like…shades of gray,” Sharon explained. Her hands stayed steady on the table, not moving at all. She may not have been confident, but she wasn’t going to apologize or temporize, either.

  “What, a white lie versus a Really Bad Lie?”