Burning Bridges

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “You would not,” Bonnie said, shaking herself free of Aloise’s spell. “You like ’em blond and busty.”

  “Come on, sit down,” Wren said, laughing. “Although you’re last to arrive, so you get the non-slouching chairs….”

  “Hah. You, girl, need to come furniture shopping. There’s stuff at ABC that’s absolutely calling your name.” She turned to Nick and put one fist on her hip. “Bring up the moose, willya?”

  Nick rolled his eyes, but sketched a bow at her command, then looked at Wren. “Where do you want it?”

  “Anywhere you think it will fit,” Wren said.

  Nick nodded, and closed his eyes, his lips moving in a silent cantrip. He opened his surprisingly dark green eyes, and focused on a spot across the room from the easy chair. An instant later, the tingle of current heralded the arrival from Bonnie’s apartment downstairs of the moose—a huge, scarred brown leather ottoman that could easily seat two moderate-sized people.

  “So why shop?” Wren said to Bonnie. “I’ll just borrow your stuff the three times a year I have people over!”

  Sergei came back with the opened bottle, and placed it on the table next to the already-opened one, and the bottles of soda.

  “You’re both puppies?” P.B. asked, reaching across Wren’s legs to grab another éclair. “How many of you are there, now?”

  “Depends,” Nick said, sitting cross-legged next to the demon with depressing ease. Bonnie claimed the moose, while Wren sank less easily down onto the blanket again. “Actual working field agents? About…eleven?” He looked at Bonnie, who nodded. “Another seven people in the office, such as it is, and maybe a dozen who’re in training. Probably only half of those’ll make it.”

  “How much work are you getting from Council members?” Wren asked, grabbing another cookie for herself. “We were just talking about the missing lonejacks…have any Council folk disappeared, that you’re tracing?”

  The two humans looked at each other, as though trying to decide what to say, and then Bonnie took the lead. “Not many, no. But we’ve had a couple of calls…y’know, there’s a whole population pool that’s totally unaffiliated? I mean, even more than we are? They’re from Council or lonejack families, but they’ve sort of walked away from the whole thing, don’t identify with any particular culture. Even more gypsy than the gypsies. They don’t even really consider themselves part of the Cosa. Not really.”

  “And some of them have gone missing?” Sergei leaned forward, his wineglass cupped between his hands as though he were going to warm the wine by his own body heat.

  “Yeah. Some. The first instance we know about was before anything started with the Council, by almost a year. But the most recent one was just last week. Her folks came to us, when she didn’t come home for the weekend like she’d planned.”

  Wren looked at Sergei, who had an expression on his face that she really, really didn’t like. But when he didn’t follow up on the question, she let the conversation roll on to the more pressing gossip about the brand-new Truce, and what everyone thought about it. That, of course, was why she’d invited everyone over in the first place. Letting the conversation move on, Wren let herself fade just enough that nobody would remember that she reported directly back to the Quad. Not that she thought these individuals would care, overmuch—and there wasn’t anything she could do about Sergei’s presence—but being in the background allowed her to watch the body language, which often told more than words ever would.

  The first two bottles of wine were consumed, and another one opened, before the last crumbs of cookies were devoured and the last, somewhat tipsy celebrant was kicked out the door—Wren refused to let P.B. use the fire escape as usual, citing the ice on the rungs as cause.

  “Oh God. No wonder I never have people over. It’s damned exhausting.” Wren collapsed into the chair. Flicking a tiny strand of current, she turned the stereo on, and the soothing sounds of something with an alto sax came out of the speakers. The receiver had scorch marks and scratches marring the silver-tone surface, and the plastic dial had warped from current years before, but for some reason it still worked, even when she abused it like that. She’d often wondered if they had a testing lab filled with cranky Talent, putting their equipment through the wringer before letting it into the market. There had been rumors, a friend of Neezer’s had told her once, that Detroit did that with their cars, back in the 1960s.

  “But at least we know something useful. No, two things. One, that there are more Talent missing than we thought, and two, that no fatae are missing—they’re either present and accounted for, or known dead, by known means.” She sighed. “The fatae take better care of each other than we do.”

  “Or they have no concept whatsoever of privacy.”

  Knowing P.B., Wren was forced to acknowledge the probability of that. No fatae had ever, as far as she knew, displayed any concept of personal space. Not even the ones who didn’t have a herd or pack system in place.

  “But what does it all mean? That’s the real question. We have all this information now. I feel like I’m collecting sticks, but don’t know how to build a fire.”

  “I think the fire’s going to light itself,” Sergei said. He pulled the ottoman over so that he could sit down near her.

  She waited. Either he would tell her what he was thinking, or he wasn’t ready to yet. Either way, asking wouldn’t do a damn bit of good.

  “Those Talent who’ve gone missing, the ones the PUPs are investigating? I think they might have been working for the Silence.”

  Wren closed her eyes, and counted to ten. Then: “Tell me about them.”

  She could see him, even with her eyes closed; the nose just a shade too sharp, the jawline maybe a bit too square, the hair beginning—all right, well on its way to—silvering at the temples and sides. And his eyes, that odd, inviting pale brown shade that made her not notice the lines and shadows that crept in, long night after long night. His voice painted the picture of who he was; if he were current, he would be a solid steady silver coil, ropey with power but quiet in it, too.

  “There’s not much I can tell you. You know about the FocAs, the Talents the Silence hired.”

  “You told me a little…that they were low-res, mostly. The Silence used them for the jobs that involved out-of-the-ordinary stuff, probably of fatae or old magic origins?”

  “Yes, although the Silence didn’t know any of that, just the results.” They didn’t know—until he told them. Part of his deal, to win his freedom, to keep Wren free of their grip. That worked real well, didn’t it?

  He shook that thought off, went on. “Mostly they were kids, same as you were when we met. Bored with their lives, wanting something bigger, more important to do.” Like he had been, when Andre recruited him. The Silence specialized in that.

  “One of the things Andre let slip, during one of our conversations a while ago, was that some of their operatives have gone missing, too. Talented operatives.”

  Wren started to say something, then held her words, indicating that he should continue.

  “It started almost…no, more than a year ago, now. They just disappeared, didn’t report to work. At first, they—Andre—thought that they were caught up in what was going down between the Council and lonejacks, or that they had just gotten bored and backed off, or some normal…

  “But it’s too much of a coincidence. I dislike coincidences.”

  “It’s slim,” she said, opening her eyes and looking, not at him, but at the candles still flickering on Lee’s candelabra. She focused, and one by one each tiny flame went out, a thin trail of smoke rising from each wick. “Slim, but you’re right, the timing is ugly. You’ll find out more?”

  “How much am I allowed to give them, in return?”

  She did look at him then. “Nothing.”

  He sighed, but wasn’t surprised. “I’ll do what I can.”

  And with that, she stood up, reached down to take his hand in her own, and tugged him to his feet, dow
n the hallway, and into bed. A minute later, he went back down the hall to pick up the coverlet from the floor, shake pastry crumbs off it, and return to the bedroom.

  When he came in, she was already naked, pulling something from the dresser drawer. A small something, tied with tasteful silver-and-white wrapping paper, and a single strand of silver ribbon around it.

  “Merry Christmas,” she said, holding it out to him.

  He raised an eyebrow in the way he knew she loved, and took it from her. It was surprisingly heavy, for a box barely the size of his open palm. Sitting on the side of the bed he merely said, “Look under the bed.”

  She blinked, and then swung headfirst over the bed, like a five-year-old looking for a friendly bed-monster. All right, a rather grown-up, naked, highly appealing-in-that position…and she didn’t look five years old at all, no.

  Chuckling, he carefully undid the wrapping on his present.

  “Oh. Wrenlet.”

  She swung back upright onto the bed, her cheeks flushed with the effort of hanging upside down, her hair mussed and her eyes bright. “You like?”

  He held up the figurine, admiring the way the light washed over the harsh cuts and soft curves. “I like. Very much.” It was an owl in flight, carved out of reddish-brown pipestone, the wings so well formed that you could almost make out each feather, the head so finely crafted that you could swear that at any moment it would turn sideways to blink those eyes at you.

  “There’s a gallery in midtown, they were having a display of Native American carvings, and I thought you’d like one. I know you like owls.”

  “They’re called fetishes,” he said, closing his fingers around the owl. “And yes, I like this very much.”

  He placed the figure down gently on the nightstand, and looked at his partner. “And now, yours.”

  She grinned, and reached over the side of the bed to pull out her gift. “I can’t believe…how long has this been here? Did you…okay, I don’t want to think about what that says about my housekeeping skills.”

  Her gift was considerably larger, and much lighter. Laying the rectangular box across her lap, Wren unwrapped the paper almost as neatly as he had—they were both like that, which pleased him. No anxious tearing into gifts, but instead a slow enjoyment of the process.

  “Serg. Da-yum. You went on a splurge, partner.”

  She ran her fingers over the fabric almost as though she was afraid she might damage it.

  “I suspect we both did. Go on, take a look.”

  She lifted the fabric from the box as gently as she might have handled one of her Retrievals. The hand-painted silk fluttered like butterfly kisses as it rose and then settled in the air rising from the radiator. Shades of purple, red, blue, silver, green, and gold danced and merged, then separated out again.

  “All the colors of current,” she said softly. “All my current.” She had described it to him, over and over again; cyber-snakes and whiplash lighting; trust him to find a way to translate it into silk and shimmer. Into art.

  “I think I need to make love to you until neither one of us can breathe, now.”

  He had no objection to that, at all.

  In the last minutes before she did fall asleep, sweat slick on her skin and a pleasant if slightly uh-oh ache in her thighs, Wren listened to Sergei snoring lightly beside her, stared at the faint flickering of the streetlight reflected off snow and onto her ceiling, and counted down the days.

  Seven days between Christmas and New Year’s. Seven days until the Truce was supposed to take effect. Seven days before they could possibly get the Patrols formed up and running.

  Seven days. Seven days for everything to totally fall apart.

  Think positive, she told herself, finally closing her eyes and giving in to sleep. It’s entirely possible everything will fall apart on January second, too.

  seven

  “Dude! Get over here!”

  Sergei swam through the crowd, moving to where the arm was waving wildly at him. He was accustomed to gliding smoothly through crowds, to the point where a long-ago female companion had once accused him of being coated with Teflon, but tonight, he found himself stopped at every turn, to shake hands or clink glasses or receive an exuberant kiss on one or both cheeks, or in one memorable case, square on the lips.

  “He likes you,” his partner said, her eyes sparkling.

  “He’s not my type,” he said, resisting the urge to scrub at his lips.

  “Happy New Year!” Their latest accoster had clearly started celebrating early, from the flush on her cheeks. Rosie hugged Wren, then lifted her glass and toasted Sergei, who raised his own glass in return. It wasn’t actually New Year’s yet, there being three hours yet to go, but the holiday cheer was in full bloom. He wasn’t sure if everyone in the room was a Talent, except for him—surely some of them had to be dates, significant others, spouses, or random wander-ins—but the jukebox had been turned off and the neon lights over the bar were on half power, so clearly the owners were expecting a significant percentage to be shit-faced before the clock struck midnight.

  Sergei had seen firsthand what could happen when Talents got drunk, in Italy over the summer, and that had been two half-trained teenagers. What a bunch of adult, trained Talents, all on edge from the past few weeks—hell, months—and sheets to the wind, might do? He didn’t want to be around for that, no.

  But Wren had promised him that, alcohol and nerves or no, the Manhattan lonejack community had things under control. They might get soused, but there would still be Control. So no rowdy Talent-drunks here tonight. Hopefully.

  And hopefully no last-minute hiccups in the Truce that was set to take effect on the stroke of twelve. Wren had spent the past week wandering from one coffee shop to the next, hitting every single greasy spoon in the city, trying to catch what was being said, and feeding it back to the double-Quad.

  He looked around the room one more time, automatically noting the nearest emergency exits, just in case, and then let his gaze rest on his partner, animatedly talking to the other Talents at the bar. Wren looked lovely tonight, even more than she had on Christmas Eve. She so rarely had cause to dress up, it was a surprise every time, and he couldn’t understand why someone else, someone Talented, hadn’t stolen her years ago. Rhinestones glittered along the neckline of her scoop-neck sweater, brilliant against the black wool, and her skirt—short, flirty and gold lamé—should have been eye-catchingly bright, but on her just looked fabulous. If she were a painting, he would have placed her by the door, so that people saw her just as they were leaving, and would stop and stay a while longer.

  He didn’t think she would take that quite as the compliment he meant it to be, so kept the thought to himself.

  They were down in the East Village, in a noisy, garish local bar that had surprisingly decent beer on tap, mediocre booze at top-shelf prices, and bartenders who knew their shit. Sergei approved. Not a place he would ever go to on his own—his taste ran more to good wine and quiet chatter—but tonight, for this one night, it was kind of…Fun.

  Rosie grabbed one of the bartenders and gestured in some obscure sign language that all three of them needed refills. Beer for Wren, bourbon for him, some strange blue fizzing—yes, it was fizzing—drink for Rosie.

  “Hell of a year, huh?” she said, after downing half the fizzy stuff in one long swallow.

  “You could say that,” Wren allowed.

  “Dude. I just did.”

  Sergei laughed, helpless in the face of the Talent’s drunken indignant response. Rosie wasn’t much of a powerhouse in terms of current, but she was one of Wren’s best sources of gossip, and entertaining as hell, drunk or sober.

  “So, heard you were seen coffee-cozying with some Tall, Black and Dapper type last week.”

  Sergei was suddenly, totally Unamused with Rosie.

  Wren, on the other hand, sprouted several new ears. “Really?” She drawled out the word, ending on a rising note of fascinated inquiry.

  “That�
��s the talk,” Rosie said, gulping down half her fizzing blue thing. “That, and the fact that a certain member of the Troika went missing couple-two months ago, and nobody’s talking, and nobody’s missing her all that much, either.” Rosie blinked up at Wren, fascination in her gaze. “Did you really splatter her guts all over a diner?”

  Stephanie, the Representative for Connecticut lonejacks. Stephanie, who had been selling them out to KimAnn’s Council.

  “It was a joint action. I was only acting in an advisory capacity.” Although in this instance, by “advisory” she meant that it had been her hand guiding the joined current of everyone at the table, taking down the rogue lonejack—and wasn’t that a redundancy—with perhaps a bit more force than was absolutely necessary. But they had all been in accord on the need to act.

  “Well, it’s gotten some folk all sorts of interested….”

  “And upset?” The use of force had been sudden and unsanctioned, mainly because the lonejacks had never thought about the need to have a sanctioning process before.

  Rosie considered the question. “Not so much, no. It needed to be done, clearly, if she was acting against us. I mean, that’s the point, right? We’re protecting ourselves? If someone inside’s hurting us, we stop them, same as someone outside. And overkill? Beats not getting the job done the first time.”

  Sergei was of the same mind. But he knew that Wren didn’t believe it.

  Rosie finished off her drink, and patted Wren on the shoulder. “Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about it. Chatter’s positive, people like the thought of the Patrols, although nobody thinks this so-called winter truce is going to last worth a damn. And no, your name’s not getting mentioned as such, just a vague sort of optimism having to do with the guy brokering all this, which, to folk as can remember, means you. So enjoy the night, and stop looking so frownie around the eyes. Give you wrinkles, and make you look old.”

  With those words of wisdom, she left her glass on the bartop, and slipped off into the crowd.