Hard Magic

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Eeny meeny miney moe, with which sandwich should I go?”

  A sparkle of current flashed over the chicken club, and I yelped and dropped the menu.

  “Idiot!”

  Current responded to will. That’s all a spell or cantrip really was, a vocal way of directing your will and telling current what to do. You didn’t have to say it out loud—I never did—except I just had. Not meaning to, no, but I’d been using so much current today, way more than anything normal, and I guess I needed to learn how to sound a quitting bell or something because yeeep.

  Was this going to be normal for me, now?

  I bent to pick up the menu—I guess chicken club it was—and the phone rang. I reached over and snagged the receiver, assuming it was going to be J, because I’d just left my coworkers and who else was going to know to call me here?

  “Ms. Torres?”

  My heart, I swear, stuttered a beat at the sound of that voice. “Mr. aah…” He was a Reybeorne by blood, but I didn’t know if he’d followed Council tradition and taken the “power” name.

  “Jack, please.”

  “Jack.” Well. That was no damn help at all. “To what do I owe the quite unexpected pleasure of this call?” J didn’t raise me in a barn; I knew how to have manners when I needed ’em.

  “I was wondering if it would be too very forward of me to invite you to dinner tonight. It seems the least I can do, after my bad behavior this afternoon in your office.”

  No, the least he could have done would be to invite the Guys out to dinner, purely in a professional capacity. This…was not professional.

  I should say no. I really should say no.

  I wasn’t going to, of course.

  “Pick me up in half an hour,” I said, and hung up the phone. If he had my phone number, then he knew where I was staying, too.

  In any other town I might have worried about what to wear, where we were going, how dressed up I should be. One of the best things about New York was that the only possible response to all that was “don’t sweat it.” I hopped into the shower and scrubbed, and then, wrapped in one of the true luxuries of this hotel, a huge Turkish towel, contemplated the contents of my regrettably limited wardrobe.

  I was heading to the lobby, hair dried, makeup applied, and nerves thrumming, before the half hour was up. When in New York, go black, and you can’t go wrong. Fortunately, most of my wardrobe started and ended with black, so I was already there.

  I caught a glimpse of myself in the elevator lobby: blond puff of dandelion hair for once neatly tamed around my head, eyes and lips demurely outlined, black silk sleeveless blouse showing off just a hint of cleavage over black tuxedo pants and, for the final finishing touch, a pair of black leather half boots with a four-inch stiletto heel. I could dance all night in them, but don’t ask me to run.

  Goth-grubby served me well a lot of the time, but after thirteen years with J, I could do Expensive Arrogant at the drop of a well-blocked hat, too.

  Jack walked into the lobby just as I hit ground. Looked as though I had guessed right—his casual suit of this afternoon had been dressed up with a dark blue silk tie and spiffier shined shoes. We looked like the epitome of Nice Restaurant-Might-Go-to-a-Private-Club-Later Clientele.

  “Bonita. You are well named.”

  Oh god. As if I hadn’t heard that line twice a week since I hit puberty. I actually preferred the “oeee, baybee, you lookin’ fine” howl I got this morning from one of the stoop-sitting boys uptown. But still; when dressed Up, one acted Up.

  “I think we certainly class up this joint, yes,” I agreed in a roundabout way, and accepted the offer of his arm, tucking my hand in the crook of his elbow.

  The doorman—I thought his name was Marco—gave me a wink when he hailed us a cab; I got the feeling he wasn’t expecting to see me home again that night. And I’d been such a good girl while I was here, too! Sheesh.

  Jack gave an address to the cabbie, who lurched away from the curb fast enough to shove me up against Jack’s side. Neither of us seemed to mind that much.

  “Again, I apologize for my behavior this afternoon. I’m normally quite even-tempered, but when it comes to my mother I will admit to being slightly…protective.”

  I settled myself against the back of the seat, leaving a few inches between our bodies. “I’m the same way,” I said. “I totally understand.” I’d faced off against a cave dragon for my dad. Too late to be helpful, but I hadn’t known that at the time.

  Although, really, dragons get a bad rap.

  Traffic wasn’t bad, and we’d barely had time for the usual exchange of first-date pleasantries before the cabbie was turning off Madison Avenue and onto a side street in midtown. Jack paid the guy, and got out, offering a hand to help me exit.

  The restaurant was a steak house, age practically dripping from the low ceilings and Dutch-style landscapes on the walls. The crowd was an interesting mix of young and been-there-since-the-founding, and the waitstaff moved across the crowded floor like matadors. If the food was half as good as the ambiance…

  It was. I like my steak done but not overdone, and the chef understood perfectly. Unfortunately, by the time our slabs of meat arrived, I’d already decided that contrary to my doorman’s opinion, I was going back to the hotel tonight, and I was going alone. Jack was charming, and thoughtful, and smart, and clearly looking for a no-promises last night in the big city. All of that normally would suit my needs to a T, but…

  But he was the son of our client. Our only client, right now. And just a few hours ago he’d been angry enough to maybe take on my boss in a battle of macho current.

  As I said, I have standards. I also have a suspicious mind. And as much fun as I’d probably have tonight, it just wasn’t worth it, long-term. Not unless I knew exactly what it was Jack was angling for.

  J would be so proud of me.

  The fact that I looked into Jack’s eyes and was acutely aware that they weren’t an intense black-brown had nothing to do with my decision at all. Damn it.

  Whatever the logic, it still meant that I ended up, at eleven o’clock, protein craving satisfied, standing alone in front of my hotel, with absolutely no desire to go to bed, alone. And yet, I’d sent away my only possible companion for the evening with a kiss on the cheek and a phone number scrawled on the back of a business card tucked in my pocket.

  “Ah, hell.” I nodded glumly to Marco, and took the lonely elevator up to my lonely room.

  That wasn’t exactly lonely.

  twelve

  “Ah.” The man sitting in my room lowered the newspaper he’d been reading and glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “You’re home earlier than expected.”

  And my hotel room was cleaner than I’d left it. Somehow, I doubted the housekeepers had done a pre-midnight raid.

  “Lovely to see you, too, J.” No reason to ask how he got in—he was still footing the bill; the staff would be more than happy to open the door for him. Damn it, I knew I should have called him earlier. This is what happens when you procrastinate.

  I walked past my mentor and unhooked my shoes, tossing them into the closet. I was tempted to strip down to panties and bra, but it wouldn’t slow him down, much less shock him.

  “You were planning to stay all night and surprise me with breakfast when I dragged myself in at the crack of dawn?” I asked, trying for nonchalant and pretty much failing. J still had the ability to turn me into a nervous nine-year-old, afraid if I did something wrong he’d send me back to my father. He wouldn’t, not ever, and even at nine I knew that, but…

  “If that was what it took,” he replied calmly. Too calmly. Oh shit. I turned around and took inventory.

  My mentor was sitting in the only armchair in the room, paper now folded, his legs crossed at the ankle, his hands resting quietly in his lap. He was angry, I could sense that in his stillness, and the faint crackle of current snapping just under his skin, even if his expression was calm, his eyes lidded like he was about to take a
nap. I couldn’t figure out why the hell he was angry, and that made me cautious. But I was tired, too, and frustrated, and more than a little stressed, and while my current always settled under stress, my temper didn’t.

  “Right. What’s the deal, Joseph? You hie yourself down from Boston in the middle of the night, sit in my room like a disapproving parent, which, much as I love you, you’re not, and even if you were, I am legally, technically and morally an adult, and glower at me as though I was just caught making out with the girl next door you fancied.” I ran out of breath after that, and paused. “So what’s up?”

  J had raised me to be a straight shooter, even though he could be a politic bastard when needed, so he responded in kind and got right to the point.

  “You’re quitting.”

  “What?” I thought that I’d heard him, but it wasn’t registering in my brain.

  “That job. No more.” The anger showed in his face, finally. “Did you really think I wouldn’t hear what’s been going on?”

  I swear, for a moment I honestly couldn’t figure out what thing going on he was referring to; it had been that long and crazy a day. Two days. Whatever.

  “The entire local Council knows that someone tried to take your bosses out this afternoon!” He had obviously taken my hesitation for trying to make some sort of denial.

  Oh. That thing.

  “No,” I said, “I’m not. Quitting, I mean.” There was no point in denying we’d been thwanged, although thankfully right now J was focusing on the Guys being the target, which, maybe yes and maybe no, because that blast had shattered the window of the room we were in.

  And also the room the evidence was in. Hmm.

  A part of my brain sliced that observation out of the conversation and carried it off somewhere else to examine, while the rest of me tried not to argue with my mentor.

  “Bonita. You are not… I will not allow…” J’s face contorted as he tried to get his anger under control. Current escaped and flared in sparks around his ears, a sure sign that he was not only angry, but upset. Upset enough that his usual ability to find exactly the right words had apparently gone pffft.

  “You won’t allow? Allow?” As usual, and contrary to most Talent, the more pissed off I got, the quieter my current got. When I was a teenager someone told me that meant that I’d never be really high-res, never be able to source-up and do madly impressive things. To me, even then it also meant that I didn’t have to worry about losing control. Seemed a fair trade.

  Right now, my current wasn’t the cold core of stillness that worried me, just quiet, as if it was waiting for me to decide what to do. But we were still in the danger zone, between his heat and my cool. When two fronts meet, you got thunderstorms. Every Talent knew that, and god knows we’d had a few nasty storms when I was a teenager. I didn’t want to be that kid anymore, I wasn’t a kid anymore, and it was time J dealt with that.

  “I’m not quitting,” I repeated. I wasn’t shouting, exactly, but I wanted to make sure he heard me. “I’m certainly not going to quit because someone who didn’t have the guts to identify himself tried to psi-bomb our building.” I might have quit over actually being shot at, maybe. Not that I was going to. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell J about that, if he didn’t already know!

  I couldn’t remember the last time I kept something even remotely important from my mentor. It felt weird, like wearing someone else’s shoes.

  “Yes, you are!”

  Oh shit. J was standing up now. And shouting. The little vein in the side of his forehead was pulsing, too. I should back down, placate him, get him into the chair and mellowed out, at least for now. No matter how good a shape you were in, that kind of vein-twitch couldn’t be a good sign.

  Those were my thoughts. What came out of my mouth was a little different.

  “You may have bought me but you don’t own me.”

  Thirteen years ago, Joseph had given my dad a huge cash loan that was never repaid. J hadn’t expected it to be repaid. I wasn’t supposed to know about it, except Zaki mentioned it once, drunk off his ass and feeling love for all mankind. I guess I’d been saving it, all these years.

  I guess there was a part of me that still was that stormy kid. Damn.

  “Bonita! How dare you think—” He gathered himself with visible effort, sensing the thunderclouds forming, too. “That’s neither here nor there, and I won’t let you sidetrack me with a childish taunt. You will tender your resignation in the morning.”

  I’d cut him, but he was still angry. My current knotted itself in my gut, still not cold but cooling rapidly. Why wouldn’t he listen to me? “I’m twenty-one, legally an adult, and by most standards a pretty smart one. I can make my own decisions. Even if you think that they’re stupid.” I tried to gentle my voice a little, because I did know where all this was coming from, even if I thought it was a little pointless, and I’d already said hurtful stuff. “You can’t keep me wrapped up and safe in a bell jar for my entire life!”

  He was still current-sparking mad, but the vein-tick was slowing down. Good, I’d gotten through to him. Eventually, hopefully, his common sense would kick back in. “There’s a difference between being safe and throwing yourself into the line of fire!”

  We could stand here and argue all night. I really didn’t want to, and I wasn’t going to. “This is important to me, Joseph. I can’t tell you why, or what I think it’s going to do, but this—this job—is what I need to do, and it’s where I need to be. And if you can’t deal with that…I’m sorry, but then that’s going to have to be your problem. Not mine.”

  Oh god, it hurt to say that.

  I went to the closet and pulled out a pair of flat shoes, and slipped them on.

  “Feel free to crash here if you’re too pissed to Transloc. I’ll sleep on the sofa when I get back.”

  And tomorrow, I’d do something about getting an apartment, finally. Somewhere only I had access to the keys.

  Before J could react, I’d—gently—closed the hotel-room door behind me, and headed to the elevator. I needed to walk, maybe burn off some of the crap racing in my system.

  The streets of Manhattan late at night in early fall are one of the most wonderful things in the world. The air is cool and charged with more than just current, and the lights seem to shine in a way they don’t in other cities. People were out and about, even at eleven-thirty, walking and laughing and standing outside of bars and restaurants, smoking or talking on their cell phones or just hanging out. I felt almost invulnerable, walking among them, as though it was all one big party. Even the cops cruising the streets in their squad cars added to the feeling of festivity rather than concern. A roommate of mine in college, Debbie, had once said that the safest place to be was where the hookers were, because that’s also where the johns were, and the drug dealers, and therefore all the cops, too.

  Manhattan was like that: all the bad stuff and the good stuff mixed up under neon lights and rushing traffic.

  Boston, even on its best days, couldn’t match it. And J wanted me to give this up?

  No, he didn’t. The sound of my shoes on the pavement was a nice counterpoint to the trudge-trudge-trudge of my thoughts. He wasn’t asking me to leave New York. Just my job.

  The job I’d only had a few months, and wasn’t sure was going to last a few months more. The job we’d only just kicked into gear, that was giving us the chance to prove ourselves. Quitting would be…

  It would be quitting. I’d never quit anything in my entire life. Not even the piano lessons J had signed me up for when I was ten. I was never going to be a musician, but I could play well enough not to embarrass myself, or let anyone in on the fact that I had no interest in music I couldn’t dance to. A PUPI was stubborn? They got that right.

  A subway entrance loomed up in front of me and I descended the steps without thinking, pulling my MetroCard out and sliding it, and me, through the gate.

  In the past thirty-six hours I’d been shot at, psi-bombed, I’d dump
ed an otherwise very hot date, and been yelled at by my mentor. It wasn’t what you’d call a successful day, unless your idea of success was seriously different from mine. The fact that I was humming under my breath and feeling the urge to smile at the couple across the subway car from me made no sense at all.

  Neither did the fact that I got out at the stop down the street from the office.

  It was almost midnight. What the hell was I doing here? It wasn’t as if I had a key to get in or anything, and once I was there what was I going to do?

  Smart would have been to grab a beer at some corner bar, stew for a while, and then either find a cute companion or, more likely, go back to the hotel and have breakfast with J, who would’ve calmed down by now and be willing to listen, if not agree.

  Instead, I walked into the office lobby and, almost without surprise, heard the door buzz me in.

  This time I caught a faint whiff of current, like the smell of burned cinnamon. Venec. He’d been in my head, I could “feel” him now. There was a current-lock on the door, triggered by some sense of us that Venec had placed on the normal door mechanism. And hadn’t bothered to tell us.

  “Because we’re supposed to figure it out. Duh.” This wasn’t college. We didn’t get a syllabus on the first day telling us what was going to be on the final exam.

  The lobby was eerily quiet, and I had a moment of unease…. Was something lurking there, just waiting to take a potshot at me? Okay, stop thinking like that, now, or you’re going to be a gibbering wreck. Shoved off that track, my brain then wondered how many offices there actually were here, and how many were expanded like our own. Okay, much safer, saner tack to take, good brain. If we did well, would the Guys take another lease, and then another, until the entire floor was a warren of workrooms and meeting spaces?