Hard Magic

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Nick patted the air at her, telling her to back off. Usually they got along fine, because Nick was mellow enough to get along with anyone, but even he had a limit. “Sure, I want a case, want to be able to prove myself, do something with all this. But I also want to not make a total idiot out of myself. Let’s face it, so far we’ve got a handful of useful tricks, but we’re a bunch of twenty-somethings with a handful of tricks, that’s all. None of us has any kind of background to be doing this, not and get listened to, not even Stosser and Ben, really. I joked about making it all up as we went along but we’re not even doing that—we’re hoping that we’re making it up. The truth is all the spells and the skills might be completely useless, because we have no idea what spells or skills are going to be needed!”

  You ever driven really fast, in a car, or on a bike, and then hit a brick wall? Me neither, but I knew what it felt like, now. Nick was right, damn him. From the looks on everyone else’s faces, they were having the same come-to-Jesus moment.

  Okay, yeah, we’d all wondered it, when the Guys first proposed the job, and maybe since then, deep down and quiet. But facing the question out loud like that, after all the work we’d been doing, that was a whole ’nother thing. Out loud, we asked when, not what if it doesn’t work?

  Nick wasn’t done with us. “And even if we do manage to figure out the whodunit of whatever whatdunit we get, who are we going to tell, anyway? It’s not like we’ve got a police force to back us up or anything. So who enforces what we discover? Did any of you stop to think about that, while we were blowing up blood splatter and highlighting broken locks?”

  That, I could answer. My words to J back at the beginning came back to me in a rush of renewed conviction. “Anyone,” I said. “We tell anyone who will listen, and people who won’t, and we don’t hold back what we know, once we’re sure. We let the truth be known.”

  “And that will do…what, exactly, Bonnie?” Nick didn’t sound angry or scared, just tired. “I haven’t let myself think that far, just going day to day and hoping it all makes sense, but what then?”

  What, he thought I had all the damn answers? “Then we let someone else take over. Our job’s just to get the truth out. To not let people get away with crimes, just because they’re magical ones. We’re investigators, not cops or prosecutors. We point ’em out, not lock ’em up.”

  “So who does?” Pietr asked. “Not Null cops or courts, that’s been proven time and again, usually to our cost. Witch hysteria’s been the least of it.”

  “No, not Nulls,” I agreed. “Council has means to deal with people, once they have proof, and lonejacks…you guys probably have the same, only it’s not formal or organized, but it’s there. It has to be.” Didn’t it? The Guys had to have thought of all this—why hadn’t anyone asked them?

  “And if it’s not?” Sharon was being devil’s advocate, and didn’t seem to care what the outcome was. Her previous job as a paralegal coming to the fore, I guessed. “We shout our proof into the wind, and nothing changes.”

  “Knowing the truth changes everything.”

  Unlike Pietr’s stealth-walk, we heard Venec push open the door and come in. I still jumped when he spoke up, though—don’t ask me why. Maybe I just figured he was going to lurk and listen until we ran ourselves into the ground, and then bail us out, as usual.

  Unlike Stosser, he hadn’t changed clothing, still in shirt and jeans, and wasn’t projecting anything other than his usual intensity. He took one of the other chairs, and leaned his elbows on the table.

  He looked tired. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed it before. Those eyes got me, every time, and distracted from the lines of exhaustion on his face, I guess. I wondered if he counted on that, used it…

  “If you had doubts about our process, why didn’t you ask us?”

  I looked to see if anyone else was stupid enough to respond to that. Nick looked at Venec with a wide-eyed little boy expression, like he’d never doubted Santa Claus ever. Pietr, I swear to god, faded into the paint like a chameleon. Venec’s gaze passed over me, and I just shook my head a little, and smiled. Not me, Boss. Go chew on someone else, this time.

  “Do you really have a process for that, or are you just going to play the dice however they roll?”

  And there was Sharon, striding in where even fools might tiptoe. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cheer her on, or hide under the table until the fireworks were over.

  To my surprise, the fireworks fizzled. “I see that you’ve already figured out our visitor may change things around here a bit,” he said instead, not so much sidestepping her question as ignoring it with a completely straight face. “Maybe more change than you think.”

  Venec let us hang on to that thought just long enough to Translocate a soda out of the fridge in the break room, open it, and take a sip. It was so casual, you didn’t quite realize how much current it had to take to make it look that casual. One-upmanship, the demonstration of why he was the boss and not to be questioned, or just unconscious arrogance? With Stosser, the answer would be both A and B. With Venec, who knew? Not me. Not yet, anyway.

  “Ms. Reybeorn was recommended to us through a friend of a friend who had heard we might be able to help her,” he went on. “Torres is correct. That’s what we are here for, what we’re meant to do. Not to put criminals in jail, but to determine if there is in fact a criminal act. To help people find the truth, pleasant or not.”

  “Mostly not,” Sharon said. “I’m betting.” She didn’t push on the unanswered question—maybe she didn’t really want to know, either.

  “Speaking of betting, and being practical, does this Ms. Reybeorn have money to pay?” Pietr asked.

  “Oh yeah,” I said without thinking, still looking at that soda can. “She’s Council. And I mean Council Council.” The name had finally kicked something loose in my brain, once I stopped poking at it. “Or if not her, her family.” Being a seated member didn’t earn you a paycheck, but it did bring you connections, and those connections almost always came with business benefits.

  “Yeah?” That had Venec’s attention, fast. Ooo, I knew something the Guys didn’t! Or one Guy, anyway. I didn’t have time to treasure the moment, though, because Venec and the others were looking at me like a particularly tasty slab of informational meat. It was unnerving, a little, having your own curiosity turned on you….

  “Council? Yeah…not here, though. Chicago.”

  “Ah.” Venec leaned back and looked almost smug. I was going to take a wild guess that he and Stosser had a bet going, where the first client would come from, and he’d just won. Wasn’t just Sharon and Nifty who played tug-of-war over lead position I guessed.

  “Midwest Council hadn’t told us where to get off, had they?” Sharon recalled.

  “No. They were still fence-sitting as to whether we might be more useful than disruptive,” Venec said, and the others started to discuss what that fence-sitting might mean, if anything, if a Council member—maybe even a sitting member—had hired us.

  I let the conversation wash over me, still focusing on the soda can in Venec’s hand as if it was a scrying crystal. My memory had always been good, but there was so much stuffed into it now I was having trouble doing a straight recall. If I could only remember why I knew the name… It had to be something J had said; that was the only connection I had to the Midwest, but what?

  That thought in turn reminded me that I needed to reschedule dinner with J, soon. He wouldn’t pry about a job—all right, he would, but not before working himself into a lather about it. Better to call him. As soon as I had time.

  Damn it, what the hell had I heard about the Reybeorn family? It was in there, I could feel it, but every time I went digging for it, the thought disappeared. Damned frustrating. I never forgot stuff!

  Before I could puzzle it out, a faint chime sounded in the air, the shimmer that accompanied it marking it as current-noise, not electronic. A summons, unmistakably, not so much urgent in the feel as quietly demanding our
obedience. Since we were all here—except Nifty, and I didn’t think Nifty would generate that kind of noise even if he was ballsy enough to try summoning anyone that way—there was only one place and one person it could have come from.

  “Children, grab your kit bags and brush out your hair,” Venec said, standing up and confirming my guess. “We’ve got a client.”

  eight

  I hadn’t been keeping track of time, so I don’t know how long that meeting actually took—not very long, certainly. There was still light outside the window, but in the summer that meant nothing in terms of time-telling. Ms. Reybeorn was nowhere in sight by the time we trooped into the chat room. Nifty joined up with us along the way, wiping still-damp hands on his trousers and looking inquiringly at us. Wherever he’d been—and I could take a guess—he’d missed the recent events.

  “We may be in business,” Nick told him as we walked, and Nifty’s entire face brightened, like a kid being told Santa had managed to shove a pony into his sled. Did little boys dream of having a pony the way little girls did?

  Just as well that Ms. Reybeorn had already left the premises; this was our smallest room, and the five chairs and a narrow table pretty much filled the space before everyone was inside. Why Stosser didn’t come to us, rather than bringing us down here… From someone else—Sharon or Nifty, for example—I’d have guessed a power play. But he was already the boss; why would he need to do that?

  Whatever the reason, it was seriously cramped with all seven of us jammed in there, and I only hoped that the air-conditioning was up to the job, and nobody blew the fuses again.

  The chime faded away, and like a magical case of musical chairs, everyone tried to find a place to park their butts.

  Sharon took the seat next to Stosser, resting her elbows on the arms of the chair so that she took up as much space as possible, as though mimicking Nifty’s much-larger bulk. He had taken the chair at the other end of the table, so rather than being at Stosser’s left hand, he anchored the table for him. Pietr slid in between Nifty and Venec, taking the last chair pulled up to the table. His clear gray gaze met mine, and he dropped me a wicked wink.

  Joy. More maneuvering, and because I wasn’t fast enough, now wherever I sat would be seen as choosing sides.

  Nick and I ended up avoiding the table entirely and perching along the windowsill, close enough to contribute, but without the pesky placement implications. That was my plan, anyway. I suspect Nick just wanted an excuse to cozy up. There was enough room on the ledge for his skinny ass, but I had to sit half on, half off. Nick shifted, pulling at my arm to bring me closer. We fidgeted a bit until achieving a compromise, our hips bumping against each other.

  Nick was a skinny geek, but he had manners. And he smelled good. I really did like folk who smelled good; it was even more of a turn-on than looking good. I hadn’t dated anyone seriously since months before graduation—my last steady had decided to take a job in California, and I’m not about long-distance relationships, so we’d cooled it off mutually, and without too much trauma. It was clearly past time to find a new playmate—especially if daily exposure to Venec didn’t lessen the hormonal impact he had on me, which didn’t seem likely at this point.

  Keeping coworkers off-limits raised the question of where and when I was going to find that new playmate, though. Or even finding someone long-term. I wasn’t averse to long-term, just ’cause I’d never been able to manage it just yet. I—

  “Are you with us, Torres?”

  I blinked, hoping to hell I hadn’t just said anything out loud. No, just caught not paying attention. Damn. “Yessir.” The curse of a true blonde—when I blush, I blush hard. By the time everyone looked back to Ian, I probably matched my old hair dye, and wanted to sink through the floor. I tilted my head a little, letting my hair fall forward to hide me while I recovered, and caught Venec watching me. He saw me watching him watching me, and I swear to god, that gaze of his intensified until I felt like the only person in the room.

  Which I wasn’t. I looked away before the blush went farther than my face, and tried to pay attention to what was going on outside of my libido.

  “All right,” Stosser said briskly. “If you haven’t figured out the what of things by now, you’re fired. Here’s the who.

  “Two months ago, Charles and Patty Reybeorn, ages seventy-five and seventy-two, respectively, were found dead in the front seat of a brand-new Benz sedan, parked in their garage in a rather exclusive and well-to-do suburb of Chicago. The exhaust had been backed up, and the initial cause of death was listed as vehicular suicide.”

  “Nice car,” Nifty said. I had to take his word for it—I could recognize basic logos, and knew the difference between a coupe and a sedan, but that was about it.

  “Initial? There was cause to doubt it?” Sharon had pulled in a notepad from somewhere and was jotting down notes. Boss’s pet, I thought uncharitably, annoyed that I hadn’t thought to carry one with me, too.

  “No, not initially. Both the local police and the Midwest Council, to which the deceased both belonged, were satisfied with the conclusion. However, there were a few details that raised eyebrows.”

  “Such as?” Sharon paused with her pencil over the pad.

  “First, there was no known or probable reason for the couple to commit suicide. They were both in decent health, financially secure, and on good terms with each other, which might rule out a murder-suicide scenario.”

  “People off themselves for reasons that seem perfectly valid to themselves, but nobody else even noticed,” I said. “Not having a clear motive doesn’t seem like enough to reverse the ruling.”

  “True. And the local police did not. Over the daughter’s objections, the case was closed.”

  “And the daughter is our client?” Nifty had missed seeing her come in, and had to be caught up on that detail, Nick listing the vitals, including the fact that I’d spotted her gem-stones and known the name.

  “I remember her now.” That got everyone looking at me again, this time with various levels of startlement and anticipation. “No, I never met her, never saw her before today. But my mentor has friends out in the Midwest region, they’re major players there. Or were, anyway, I guess. Oh man, the daughter, Rose Reybeorn. Damn. She doesn’t just have money. She’s got strings on people, and she doesn’t mind pulling them.”

  “So our new client wants to use us to yank chains?” Sharon didn’t sound really pleased about that. I wasn’t, either, honestly. Made it all seem…petty. I wondered, idly, if there was insurance involved, since it was so important it not be suicide. Except the last thing the Reybeorns needed was money….

  Okay, I was going on gossip, and gossip about money was almost always wrong. But even so, I didn’t see a Reybeorn needing a death settlement to make ends meet. Even if her ex-husband had sucked up in the settlement, she’d done well for herself since then.

  No, there was something else about the deaths, something that had made it so gossipworthy….

  “There was one other thing that bothered our client,” Stosser went on. “The police can’t explain it, either. The Benz, the car they allegedly committed suicide in…didn’t belong to either one of them. It wasn’t a recent purchase, a rental, or a friend’s loaner, so far as the police have been able to determine. In fact, nobody seemed to know who it belonged to.”

  Yeah. That was it, the detail I was trying to remember. The unclaimed death-car.

  Pietr exhaled with a sharp whooshing noise. “That could raise an eyebrow, yeah. And the cops pooh-poohed a possible murder weapon of unknown ownership? Nice. Not.”

  “I can see why they called it a suicide,” Nifty said, taking up the mantle of devil’s advocate the way Sharon had, only with less ’tude and more calculation. Sharon was contrary by nature. Nifty, I was starting to understand, used it as a tool, or maybe a weapon. “No matter who the car belonged to, it was in their garage, and I’m guessing there wasn’t any forced entry, no signs of a fight….”

&nbs
p; “Yes, without any signs of foul play, which I’m assuming there weren’t—” Sharon started to say, when Venec cut in.

  “Never assume anything unless you have evidence in front of you.” He let the rebuke sting, and then added, “However in this case, you are both correct—the medical examiner found no signs of violence committed on the bodies other than those attributable to the means of death.”

  They hadn’t found any unexplainable marks or wounds on Madeline’s body, either.

  “So, what do we do? I mean, the cops have been all over the case, and probably half a dozen private investigators, before she had no choice but to turn to us.” Nifty raised his hands in a “don’t shoot the messenger” pose when Stosser looked at him. “Hey, man, it’s the truth. We’re not going to be second-string, much less first. So what does she expect us to do that nobody else could?”

  And we were back to the original question, like Nifty and Stosser had planned it. I didn’t think they had, of course…but Stosser took the on-a-silver-platter lead-in like a pro.

  “To use magic to discover who killed her parents, and why.”

  Oh. Right. “Uh-huh.” Sharon, of course, put all our thoughts into words. “That easy?”

  Venec took ownership of the conversation then, his smile showing way more teeth than it had to for social comfort. “If it were easy, none of you would have jobs.”

  Game and match, Venec.

  The first trick, everyone agreed, was to get our hands on the death-car itself. Exactly how we were going to do that was a mystery to us, since we were in New York, without any official standing, and the car was, presumably, still in Chicago, but the Guys seemed to have an idea. While they hammered it out, we were sent off like tardy schoolchildren to read a case study Stosser had put together on identifying the different species of midsize winged fatae based on flying patterns and wingspread, as seen from the ground.

  “But…” Sharon had started to protest. Stosser didn’t even hear her, already working on the next thing and dismissing us from his awareness in that way he had, so it was Venec who laid down the law.