Hard Magic

by Laura Anne Gilman

  I discovered that I liked that idea, the thought of an ever-expanding space entered into by one simple door. And never mind the rats in a maze thought that followed—sometimes a maze could be protection as well as annoyance.

  What might be coming in the front door that we’d have to escape through the back wasn’t something I wanted to consider, though. Not right now, not tonight. Instead, I dropped my jacket on the rack, and headed to the first of our workrooms. Entering the white-walled space, I closed the door behind me, and drew up a single thread of current, directing it to expand until it covered the walls, floor, and ceiling with an almost impossibly thin layer of protection.

  There was no way in hell I was going to do cleanup, if something went wrong.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  I kept on doing what I was doing, which in this case was adding liquid to a vial. I was pleased to see that my hands didn’t even shake, not a little. “Do you ever sleep?”

  Venec glowered. “I could ask the same of you. What are you doing?”

  I didn’t even bother asking how he got through my protections—he owned the place, or co-owned, which was the same thing anyway, and I’d have to do some serious mojo to keep him out.

  His question made me look up, and I sort of understood why he was glowering. There were splotches of black all over the walls and ceiling, and my hands were covered in a slightly more red stain.

  “Shit. I forgot to protect my clothing. Does blood come out of silk?”

  Victory for me—I made Venec blink. He recovered fast, though.

  “You’re working blood splatter?”

  “Yeah, sort of. I had a thought….”

  It wasn’t really even a thought, and I hadn’t realized I’d had it until I was already in the workroom, but once I started working it seemed to make sense.

  “Sympathetic magic. I know, it’s old-school and not reliable and all that. But the basis is sound, the idea that like effects like. So I was thinking maybe we could use blood to pull blood-trace up, even if we didn’t see it.”

  “Interesting.” His voice had dropped an octave, I swear, almost like a growl. Grrr, Big Dog. “You’re starting to think like a proper forensic magician. Good.”

  I focused on the three puddles of blood in front of me, trying to distract myself. “Is that what we are?”

  “As good a term as any, and better than most. Forensics is the science of examination—the collection, identification, and analysis of physical evidence relating to a crime. A forensic photographer uses a camera, a forensic scientist uses, well, science—a forensic magician…”

  “Uses magic. It’s just retro-hip enough to take off.” I approved. I’m sure that totally made Venec’s night.

  He ignored my approval. “You’ve already heard Ian’s speech about the need for an impartial investigation, probably enough times by now to recite it in your sleep.”

  “Close, yeah. An investigative force without bias, without an agenda. Results that are based only on the evidence, and not conjecture, desire, or malice.” I didn’t try for Stosser’s tone, but the word-for-word was damn near perfect.

  Venec laughed, that deep sound that made every nerve ending in my body shiver, and he put his hand on my shoulder, and I would be damned if I could hear a word he was saying, because all I could think was “oh my god, am I drooling?”

  Probably.

  “Show me what you’ve got so far,” he ordered.

  Work. Right. “Two of those puddles of blood are mine,” I said. “The third one’s from a rat—and please don’t ask how I got it, because I really don’t want to think about it. If you dip a glass rod into one—” and I demonstrated with one of the thin straws I found in the supply closet “—and charge it with current…like this,” and I gently touched a spark to the tip, letting it flare dark blue enough so that Venec could see it. J taught me that making current visible was showing off, and a waste of power, but sometimes it was faster than trying to explain. Venec nodded as though he understood, and I went on.

  “The current fills the blood, like we were doing with the blood splatter. But there, we were trying to do a rewind, draw it back to a previous position. This time, I want it to find something similar. So I tell it, not to go back, but to go…” I tried to think about exactly what I was telling it. “To go sideways, sorta. I visualize a magnet, clicking to its match, and…”

  And as I said it I willed it, and the glass rod dipped and swooped until it hovered over the left-most puddle.

  “That’s my blood.”

  “Dowsing. Interesting.”

  Those two words totally drooped me. “Oh. Right. I guess nothing new or brilliant in it, then.”

  “Torres, every application builds on methods used before. That’s how it works. So no, maybe not groundbreaking, Nobel-prize-winning brilliant. But if it works, then it’s a damn good step.”

  Venec was a lousy negotiator, and a piss-poor front man. But his approval made me glow.

  And then I yawned, a huge, jaw-cracking yawn, and the moment was broken.

  “Torres. Go home. Go to bed. I don’t want to see you here until nine. And for god’s sake, do me a favor and look like crap when you show up, will you? Because I really hate people who can function on less than six hours of sleep.”

  The subway back to the hotel wasn’t quite so entertaining at 2:00 a.m. as it was at 11:00 p.m. The people smelled worse, for one. Then again, I probably wasn’t anyone’s idea of a treat, either. I sniffed at my sleeve, and picked up the scent of sweat, blood, and…hmm. That would be Venec’s scent, whatever it was. “Nice,” I said, and glared at the old guy who looked over at me like I was too young and too female to be out alone. He dropped his gaze first, and I was glad when he got off the train at the next stop. He wasn’t twigging my creep-o-meter, but I really wasn’t in the mood for disapproving glares. I’d get enough of that waiting for me when I got home. I really hated disappointing J, but I wasn’t going to back down.

  My resolve was unbroken by the time I got back to my hotel, and it was also unneeded. The bed was still made, the room empty except for a note written on hotel stationery, in J’s usual perfect handwriting.

  Bonita,

  I am an overprotective ass, and have retreated to my antediluvian cave to ponder the many ways of my overprotective ass-ness. Allow me a father’s worry, and forgive me my excess, and I will try to remember that you are indeed an adult—if not always an adult with the best judgment.

  I snorted at that.

  Call me when you are ready. I promise that I will not yell. Much.

  All my etc,

  J

  I put the sheet back onto the table, shucked my clothing and draped it over the chair, and crawled into bed, the weight of the day finally catching up to me and turning my bones to lead. I didn’t think Venec had to worry about me showing up too early this morning. I wasn’t even going to lay odds on getting there by noon.

  thirteen

  I was off by an hour; thanks to track delays, I didn’t stagger into the office until twelve-thirty. I looked better than Nifty, though.

  “Man, who dragged you face-first through the cement mixer?”

  He looked up from the sofa, where he was stretched out on his back, his size-ginormous feet flat on the floor. “Hah. Very funny. Where the hell were you? You missed Master Benjamin taking us through a mock search-and-destroy mission.”

  “And you got destroyed?” He really did look like hell; there were scrapes on his face and his eyes had a puffiness around them that wasn’t, like mine, from lack of sleep.

  He hauled himself up off the couch and tugged at his pullover, a nice gray shirt that had seen better days. “Laugh now, little girl. Just ’cause you missed it this time, don’t think you’ll get away forever. After that, we’ll see if you still make jokes.”

  “Ms. Torres. So glad you could join us.”

  Benjamin Venec himself, standing in the doorway. It was like the late-night confab never happened; that
bastard looked as though he’d gotten a full eight hours of downtime. I wonder if there was a spell for that. J said not, but he might have just thought I’d abuse it.

  The thought made me grin, reluctantly. All right, I would have, yeah, but in a good cause.

  “Ahem.”

  I wiped the grin off my face, fast. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” If he wasn’t going to make any mention of my work last night, be damned if I was going to bring it up. Sharon and Nifty could fight over who got to be top dog; I just wanted to get in and do my job.

  “Lawrence, you ready to get back to work?”

  “Yessir.”

  There was no way Nifty looked ready for anything other than a stiff drink and a long nap, but I wasn’t going to say word one, not with Venec standing there glowering like a very dapper Thor himself.

  “Then get off your ass and get back in there. You, too, Torres. Evidence doesn’t wait for your schedule.”

  Oh man. It sounded as though the entire team was going to get schooled today.

  We followed him into the office like chastised little ducklings. I was sort of curious about what Venec had put the group through this morning, but not enough to ask questions. Not when the boss clearly had something else in mind.

  Nick and Sharon were seated around the main worktable, at opposite ends, with Stosser leaning against the far wall. There was a thermos of coffee on the table, and a mostly empty box of doughnuts. Someone—probably Nifty, had made sure there was at least one butterscotch-coated crème bomb left, and I glommed it with satisfaction. One of the great joys of being a Talent was that using current burned calories, and while mostly I still had to watch what I ate, a busy day on the job burned like a thousand calories, easy. Today sounded like it was going to be one of those days.

  I heard the sound of a toilet flushing off to the side, and Pietr came back into the room, wiping his hands on his jeans and sliding into the chair farthest from Sharon. Nifty and I took the remaining seats, which put me directly between Sharon and Nick, and a very distinct tang of frustration. Great. Something had soured this morning. I so didn’t want to know, and I even more didn’t want to get caught up in that. Venec closed the door behind us and Stosser took over, as usual.

  “While you were having your morning playdate—” the looks on my teammates’ faces at that confirmed Nifty’s comment that it had been anything but play “—I was setting up the afternoon’s assignments.”

  You could practically feel the tension in the room ratchet up, me included. I’d finally be able to get my fingers into the rest of the trace we brought back, see if there was anything useful there.

  “Shune, Sharon? You two will be working with the current-trace Bonnie brought back.”

  I think my jaw fell open, and only shock kept me from yowling a protest. That was my trace! I found it, I brought it back, I should be able to play with it! Stosser, you bastard!

  “But I thought…” I started to say, and then I saw the look in Nick’s eyes, and my jaw snapped shut. The Guys were savvy enough to know that for whatever reason, Sharon and Nick didn’t want to even look at each other right now, much less work together, and yet they were harnessing them to the same task. Uh-huh. Boss-guys, you bastards. This time, though, the thought had a tinge of admiration. They were going to make Sharon and Nick work through it without ever having to deal with it directly, whatever “it” was. And let everyone else be on alert: personal tiffs would not be allowed to get in the way of the work.

  “Pietr, you’re on records. The cops haven’t been able to find the legal owner of that car. I expect you do to better.”

  Pietr nodded. I didn’t envy him that; sitting and sifting through boxes of legal paperwork would make me nuts.

  “Lawrence, Torres.” Venec handed us each a small blue note card. “Name and address of individuals who were known to have come into conflict with the victims prior to their deaths.”

  “The cops didn’t already clear them?” Nifty asked, not even looking at the card in his hand.

  “They are Talents. The cops might not have known the right questions to ask,” Stosser said, his voice a little tighter than usual, as though he’d been having a bad morning, too.

  Nifty shifted his weight, as if he was getting ready to launch himself at an opposing player. “There’ve been Talented cops before, you know. Even in Chicago.”

  Especially in Chicago, actually. There had even been some fatae in the Blue Line, years ago, from the stories J told. Not so much anymore, though. Medical exams apparently got a little tougher. I didn’t say any of that.

  “There have been. We can’t assume one of them was doing the interviewing, or that he or she was free to ask any particularly pointed questions.” Venec took control so smoothly I wasn’t even sure it was him, at first. “Go, talk to them. Lawrence, be blunt, and watch ’em like a hawk. If they think you’re a dumb jock, they might get cocky. Torres, your contact’s Council. Don’t play the connection. Don’t even mention it. If they’re halfway smart, they’ll smell it on you, and make their own assumptions.”

  The assumption being that the Council had sanctioned the questioning, and therefore they should answer fully and freely.

  “Is that legal?”

  Stosser looked at me as if I’d just suggested they tap-dance nude in Times Square.

  “Right. Never mind.” Apparently, despite the fact that we were supposed to bring truth and justice to the Cosa, we didn’t have to worry too much about the technical details of entrapment or whatever. Was I the only person in this office who didn’t have a beef with cops?

  “All right, people. Load up on your caffeine, and then take a hard hit and get going.”

  A hard hit, in Venec-ese, was recharging current directly off a main source, ideally something large and powerful, but sometimes just the nearest configuration of electricity. Everyone had their favorite. I knew that Nifty liked skyscrapers, and Nick would rather focus in on a power plant, dipping into the maelstrom of current that rests inside each generator, while Pietr preferred to source wild. Sharon kept her preferences to herself.

  For me, it had become the subways, maybe because I was riding them so much now since coming to Manhattan. The rush of energy was like a power plant, but directed, channeled into a forward motion, constantly in use, constantly turning over and regenerating. Plus, it gave me something to do, other than worrying about what I was about to do, on my way downtown. I stopped off at the hotel to change clothing for something a little more interview-worthy, and—keeping in mind my vow of the night before—asked Julie at the concierge desk to find me a couple of those apartment-hunting magazines, for later. I was hoping that her “service is everything” motto would make her dig up a few personal contacts, too. They might like having me there, but there was nothing a professional concierge liked more than a challenge, and finding a reasonably priced apartment in Manhattan, as I knew well now, was certainly that!

  My target worked in the Wall Street area, in a little legal firm in a big building. The Guys had already made an appointment for me, and I arrived exactly on the dot—after walking around the block twice, to kill some time. The waiting area was modern-expensive—cream leather and chrome and glass that made me afraid to sit for fear I’d smudge the furniture. The receptionist didn’t even bother to look at the little paper slip the guard in the lobby had printed out for me, but buzzed me in without hesitation when I presented myself at the front desk.

  “Ms. Torres?”

  The man waiting on the other side of the glass doors was tall, slope-shouldered, with hair the color of a burnished foxtail. Redheads were just showing up all over the place, weren’t they? Made me glad I’d gone back to blonde.

  “I’m William Arcazy.” I knew that already, having actually read my dossier. “We can talk in my office.”

  His office was very nice; not large, but a real desk, and real leather chairs, and actual art on the walls, not framed posters or cheap photos. His suit was expensive but not obviously so, and his h
aircut had probably cost more than my shoes, and I don’t skimp on my footwear.

  “I’ve been hearing talk about your organization for a few weeks now. You’ve got the community in quite a flutter.”

  Community, in this conversation, could mean either the Council, specifically, or the entire Cosa, generally. I went with the former. “The community is not always so good with change.”

  “In other words, we’re hidebound on one side of the aisle and paranoid on the other?”

  Since that was exactly my opinion, I just smiled.

  “I’m always willing to be of assistance, although I’m not sure what I can tell you that might be relevant to your investigation.”

  Truth was, I didn’t know what he could tell me, either. I didn’t even know what to ask, or look for.

  *connections*

  The ping was soft and brief, but I’d felt it before, this week, and years ago, when I was investigating my father’s murder. Not a mentor’s advice, but a commonsense reminder of what I already knew, a reassurance that I was doing the right thing. It was also a tacit acknowledgment that they knew, somehow, that I knew what they had done, back then.

  Venec might be crap at client-handling, but he was a pretty damn good teacher, because the moment he gave me that one word, I knew what to do.

  “You and the Reybeorns had business deals together. Tell me about that.”

  Arcazy leaned forward in his chair, his forearms resting on his desk and his expression open and forthright. He had green eyes to match his red hair, but his complexion was interestingly olive. The impression was less like a fox than a red panda; cute, yeah, but thoughtful rather than clever, careful instead of crafty.

  “I had been introduced to them by a mutual friend.”

  “Ah. A Council friend?”

  He nodded, and I saw it. Just a tiny adjustment in his body language, but it was like a shout to me; Venec was right. He had made the assumption.