Miles to Go

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Wren was telling me about how she learned about being a Retriever. About how her no-see-me was part of her, and since she couldn’t turn it off, she had to learn to use it.”

  That story, at least, had been obvious. She might be new to this, and kind of clueless about magic, but she wasn’t dumb. Being a storm-seer was part of who she was, and she couldn’t shut it off, either. So she had to live with it, or…

  “And then… I felt weird. Like I had too much to drink, or like the building was moving under me, moving and spinning. And thunder cracked, right overhead, even though it hadn’t been raining, and I heard Wren swear, and then everything went black, like it does when a movie’s about to start, and I saw…” she remembered what Bonnie had told her that first time, about stepping back from what she saw. “I saw a figure, a man, stepping forward. Ordinary clothes, jeans and a T-shirt, a red T-shirt. And soaking wet. The way you get when you’re caught in a storm, and your umbrella gets trashed by the wind. Tired. He looked tired, and worried, and there was a streak of something on his face, something… blood.”

  She hadn’t remembered that before, but now it was clear as that first vision, a streak of muddy brown from ear to chin. Not a scratch, more like he’d tried to wipe his face and smeared it off his hands.

  “And horns. I remember the horns. Your hair was matted, and they showed through, and I said something to you about it and you were annoyed and then the others appeared.”

  She hadn’t remembered that at first, either. Had it happened in her original vision, that sense of being there, of knowing him, or speaking to him? Or was it coming up now because she knew him, had spoken to him? She didn’t know.

  Too much she didn’t know, and only one thing she did for sure.

  “Three teenagers. Two girls and a boy. All wet, and tired, and…. I don’t know. I can’t see them as clearly, they’re already fading. There’s something about them, something strange. It’s like something’s taking bites out of them? Something hungry, nibbling.” Her voice faded for a moment, then came back, stronger. “Mouths of steel biting at them, a bite at a time. But that might be a metaphor. I still don’t know how this works, exactly. At all. But they’re angry, not scared. Really angry.”

  “Who are they angry at?”

  Ellen shivered. “I don’t know.”

  She tried to hold onto the vision, try to wring something more out of it, prove she could be good at this, but it was fading, the split-second of clarity gone.

  “That’s all. I had the vision, and then the rain came down like crazy, and it was gone.”

  Lightning triggered it. Not lightning itself, but the energy within the lightning, the current – magic – that ran through every bit of electricity in the world, her brain reacting to it somehow. That was what they told her. That’s why they called her a storm-seer.

  “I didn’t sense the storm coming,” she said to herself. “I wasn’t ready. I need to learn how to be ready.”

  She felt her hands covered by something warmer, and opened her eyes to see his hands on hers, the skin several shades lighter, but the flesh so much warmer. She was cold all over, all the way down to her bones.

  “It takes time,” he said. “You did great. Thank you.”

  Then, as though he’d just realized he was touching her, his hands were gone, his arms crossed over his chest, and he was looking away, calling the waitress over for more coffee that she didn’t want, but took anyway, because that made the mug warm enough to hold, warm enough to rewarm her.

  “I don’t know where, or when, though,” she said. “Or who. Last time…”

  Last time, she had seen her mentor, whom she knew now, but not then. And the man who had died, Bonnie’s boss, whom she had never met, but they had known, the minute she described him. She’d told them he was going to die, and then he did.

  “You’ve known about what you are for, what, a year? Less? And this is your second storm vision?” He sounded like he was making notes, even though he didn’t write anything down.

  “My third.” The second one had been induced, her mentor calling down lightning – the most terrifying experience she’d ever had, including visions, had been standing on the rooftop watching that happen – and she’d seen half a dozen people, but none of them had called out to her. None of them had forced her to find someone, and tell what she had seen.

  Genevieve had said that maybe those were natural deaths, or older deaths that had already happened, or a dozen things that were supposed to make her feel better, that maybe not every vision she’d have would involve terrible things.

  But those people were still dead, or going to die. And she couldn’t do anything about it.

  “Third. And you’re handling them – upright, sane, and still verbal. I’d say you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

  When Sergei, Genevieve‘s partner, said things like that, she knew he was trying to make her feel better. When her mentor said it, she was trying to build up her confidence, make her willing to try another test, learn another thing, listen to another story. And both those things were…nice. No, more than nice. After a lifetime of people -her own family- thinking she was lying, or crazy, the reassurances were a lifeline, and Ellen was smart enough to grab on with both hands.

  But this man… he said it casually, almost off-handedly. Like of course she was managing it. Ellen wasn’t sure how to deal with that.

  “They’re still dead,” she said. “I was only able to save one of them.”

  That got his attention. He looked at her – straight at her, those hazel eyes looking more green than brown, and sharp as flint – and smiled. It wasn’t a particularly happy smile, though.

  “That’s why you came to me.”

  2

  I’d given her my best shot, reassured her of my competence, and not quoted her a fee – this one was going to be on the house, and Bonnie had known that when she sent Valere’s pet Seer to me. I’d expected the girl to gasp out some thanks, grab her bag, and flee.

  Instead, she sat there, staring at me like she expected me to get up and dance, or turn into a goat, or something.

  I resisted the urge to check my hair, to make sure my horns weren’t showing, and waited.

  “I need to see this through,” she said, her voice small and uncertain. Then her jaw moved again, like she was chewing something over, and she said it again, this time stronger. “I need to see this through.”

  Oh. Ah, hell. I worked alone. All right, sometimes I worked with the PUPs, when they called me, or if our cases collided, the way they’d done once or twice, but on my own, my own time, I wasn’t a team player. My duty sergeant had made that point clear, several times during my tenure with the NYPD. My partner had been a patient man, but when he retired… yeah. Not a team player.

  It wasn’t just about having to hide what I was, either. Since leaving the force I’d been more or less out – not that I’d been all that “in” back then, either. I liked my space, mental and physical.

  I could probably say Boo! and she’d run. She had that edge-of-skin look to her, like she was terrified but holding on through sheer grit.

  Damn it. I respected grit. I thought it was dumber’n hell, but I respected it.

  And if she was seeing that scene play out behind her eyes…

  I knew something about that, too.

  “You need me,” she said, her voice desperate and a little too fast. “I know what they look like. I know…”

  “It’s all right, girl,” I said, not even pretending to be happy about it. “You don’t have to convince me. If I say no you’re just going to get into mischief on your own, probably, and then I’m going to have The Wren breathing down my neck, and no thank you.”

  Bonnie I could sweet talk and explain. Wren Valere…

  Valere scared me, just a little. I had no shame in admitting that. Valere was a little crazy herself, where it mattered.

  “I won’t be any trouble,” she promised. I gave that the once-over it deserved, and she b
lushed, her cheeks darkening like she knew it was a promise she was bound to break.

  “I need you to agree to three things, though.” I pulled my cop voice out from the box I’d shoved it in, fixing her with the “don’t make me tell your parents” look that my old partner had perfected after two decades on the street. “One, that no matter what I say, no matter how it sounds, if I tell you to do something, you do it.”

  A single wisecrack or hesitation, and I’d hog tie her and deliver her to Wren’s front door, if I had to.

  She nodded.

  “Two, if I decide, for any reason, that I’m doing something alone, you accept that, without back talk.”

  She nodded again, although with a faint hesitation. I wasn’t sure I’d have believed her, if she’d agreed without hesitation. I love women, individually and as a gender, but there wasn’t a one of them that accepted anything without argument. Most days, I counted that a plus, but not on the job.

  “Three. You don’t use current unless you clear it with me. I know you Talent, you do it like breathing, but the people we’re talking to, they’re not always comfortable with it, and I can’t have you spooking them, or pissing them off.”

  I didn’t expect her laugh, and didn’t expect it to sound so…sweet.

  “That, I can promise,” she said.

  Right. She was new to all this. Current probably still freaked her out worse than it did a half-headblind Null.

  “Good,” I said, dropping the bad cop routine. “Let’s go.”

  I threw enough cash on the table to cover the coffee, and stood up. She took longer to unfold herself – she was taller than me, if only by an inch or so, but it was mostly leg, like watching a giraffe find its balance, except that made her sound ungainly and she wasn’t. Just… unsure.

  Useless in a fight, I decided. Hopefully, it wasn’t going to come to that. She’d seen me dead, not herself.

  Me, and three teenagers.

  If Bonnie were here, she’d point out, logically, that I might not be in danger at all if I walked away. Yeah. It wasn’t a choice: I’d do whatever it took to find out who those kids were, where they were, and how to get them out of whatever danger they were in.

  Bonnie knew that. Anyone who knew me, knew that.

  Outside the coffee shop, I held up a hand, and then pointed with two fingers. “Go stand over there.”

  She looked puzzled, but did as I said, just like she’d promised. Once she was a safe distance away, I pulled out my cell phone, and turned it on. Hanging around Talent as often as I did, you learned to power down your electronics when you weren’t using them, just in case. Current might run with electricity, but they didn’t like sharing the same track, and current usually won

  I hit number three on my contact list, and waited until the other man picked up.

  “Didier. It’s Hendrickson.” Not that Sergei Didier answered his phone without knowing full well who was on the other side, but my momma had drilled manners into me. “Just wanted to let you and your bird know that I’ve got possession of your fledgling.”

  “Good.” Didier was his usual urbane self, but I’d known the human long enough to be able to detect relief in that smooth voice. “I assume she has told you what is bothering her?”

  “Oh yes. I’ve decided to take the case.”

  “I thought that you might.” There was a pause, almost imperceptible. “And I should tell Genevieve that her student will be available for lessons, or is she otherwise engaged?”

  That got a laugh out of me. “She’s determined to play hooky.” I slid a glance at her. She was still waiting, patient the way people who’ve spent a lot of their life waiting get. Her hands were at her sides, not fiddling with anything, her eyes were soft and her face almost relaxed. She looked almost passive, but I could feel the tension in her body. It was just coiled down deep, and under an almost scary level of control. Whatever I might have to worry about her current, leak wasn’t going to be part of it.

  “Danny.” And there was Wren on the other end of the line: even if I hadn’t known, the static filling the spaces between words a dead giveaway. A Talent, agitated, near electronics. I hoped Didier had a spare phone handy.

  “Valere.”

  “She shouldn’t be out and about.”

  If half of what I’d heard and suspected was true, Valere was right about that. “She’s invested in this. I send her back with a pat on her head, tell her not to worry about it…. How well would you have taken to that?”

  There was a long, dire silence; even the static went dead. Then: “You take care of her, Danny. Keep her safe.”

  I closed my eyes, feeling an impossible weariness wrap itself around me, all the way down to my bones. It was a too-familiar feeling, these days. I didn’t need a shrink to tell me I was on the edge of burnout. For every kid I found and brought home, five more went missing. I was starting to wonder if any one person could really make a difference. But making a difference was the only sanity I had.

  “Understood, Valere.”

  I ended the call, turned off the phone, and put it back in my pocket. I turned and studied my new temporary companion. She looked back at me, still waiting. Tall, yeah, and not lean, and not graceful exactly, but there was power coiled under there, like the lacrosse players I’d see out in the Green, sometimes, or the field hockey girls. Potential, that was the word I’d been looking for.

  “What do you see?” she asked, finally. Her voice carried without stress across the sidewalk, despite the usual ceaseless noise of traffic and sirens and the construction they were still doing up on 53rd.

  “Trouble,” I said honestly.

  For some reason, that seemed to please her.

  oOo

  Ellen knew it was rude to stare – and in this world she’d fallen into probably dangerous – but she couldn’t stop herself from looking at him, even if she had to turn away every time he looked back, like some dumb, giggling teenager. His words – she shouldn’t feel flattered by them. She’d worked so hard, all her life, not to be trouble, to stay out of trouble, not give anyone – her parents, her teachers, the few friends she could keep – cause to turn away, that his words should have hurt.

  But he wasn’t like her parents, or her teachers. He wasn’t even like the other Talent, not the woman who had lured her away with promises of being “special” and then abandoned her, not even like Bonnie and Genevieve and the others, the ones who were showing her how to use current, teaching her how to control it. And he wasn’t normal, wasn’t…what did Genevieve call them? Wasn’t a Null, thinking that she was crazy because she saw things, felt things, they didn’t.

  He wasn’t human. Like the…the other things, the things she saw out of the corner of her eye, the ones Wren said were called fatae. They were real, she wasn’t crazy. But most of them were…. Too weird. He looked human, if you didn’t see the horns, or look too closely at his face, the way his ears weren’t quite rounded, and his cheekbones were too high.

  But his eyes were kind, and his voice was soft, even when he was obviously annoyed, and there was something about him that made her feel like for once, she didn’t have to be careful, that she wasn’t going to break something, ruin everything.

  That he wouldn’t turn away, no matter how badly she fucked up.

  Ellen didn’t trust that feeling. But when he called her trouble, it felt like…like something that didn’t hurt.

  And maybe, she didn’t quite dare to think, if she could help him, if her vision saved those lives, saved his life….

  She couldn’t think that far, what that might mean

  oOo

  The home base of Sylvan Investigations wasn’t all that, but it was in a good enough part of Manhattan to reassure clients, and a boring enough part of town that I could afford the rent without dipping into my pitiful excuse for a pension. Mostly.

  My shadow looked around the front room without a comment. I tried to see it through her eyes: windowless, painted an allegedly-soothing shade of cream that w
asn’t aging well, two broad-leafed plants in the corner that needed repotting already. There was a wooden secretary’s desk dead center, three-quarters of the way back, with a scattering of papers and a hand-sized intercom system set-up, even though I’d never hired a secretary in my entire career. The look, overall, was bare bones, but that was okay: the people who hired me weren’t looking for pretty. They wanted competence.

  Shadow finished sizing the place up, and if she had an opinion, she didn’t show it. “What now?” she asked.

  “Now, we go to work. Or rather, I do. You’re going to be useless right now.” I meant it jokingly, but the expression on her face reminded me that this wasn’t Bonnie I was talking to –I had to watch myself, watch my words.

  “You know about current, and electricity?”

  She bit her lip, and was obviously thinking carefully about what to say. Good. Caution wasn’t a bad trick. “Current and electricity run together, come from the same sources, have a lot of the same properties. We - Talent - can channel both of them, they won’t harm us, but current’s the one we can shape and use. It’s the stuff they used to call magic in the old days.”

  “Yeah. Which means that you people are pretty much shit out of luck when it comes to things like computers, because that ability to channel also means you’re walking talking lightning rods. But I find them, computers, damned useful in my job.”

  “So what do I do?”

  I nodded at the secretary’s desk. “There’s a pad of paper, and pencils, maybe even a pen with ink. Sit down and write out everything, and I mean everything you can remember from your visions. Visuals, feelings, hell, even what you were tasting in your mouth at the time.”

  “You think that’s important?”

  “I don’t know that it’s not.”

  She considered that, letting it settle in her brain before nodding. I was starting to like the girl, she had a solid brain between her ears. With Valere’s mentoring and Bonnie’s guidance, she just might make it.