Bring It On

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Picking up her small soft-sided case—not so coincidentally made of the same light-absorbent fabric as her slicks—Wren adjusted the strap over her shoulder, and walked past the doorman who had handed her out of the cab on her previous visit to the building, pausing at the narrow alley where the trash cans were tucked discretely out of view.

  In a newer, or more trendy building like Sergei’s, she might have had trouble. But the apartment buildings in this part of town clung to their original looks with a determination matched only by Hollywood starlets, and the rough-edged brick building still had old-fashioned fire escape ladders. In far better shape than the one P.B. used on her own building, true, but the mechanisms were still the same. Reach up, swing the bar down, and climb up.

  Only a tyro, a total clueless newbie, would use the fire escape. Wren bypassed the obvious—and inevitably alarmed—entry and instead braced herself against the building on the other side of the alley. A hard shove of her feet against the ground, and the current she had siphoned off reverted to the original purpose of the electricity it had traveled with, treating her body like a subway car to be moved along the tracks.

  So long as she was able to concentrate on “laying” tracks up the wall, the current should continue to move her. If she lost concentration, or ran out of “tracks….”

  Don’t, she told herself. Make like John Henry and lay dem tracks…

  Pushing an inch at a time, feeling when the external wall changed from brick to cement, scratching through the too-thin fabric of her slicks, Wren made her way up the wall. She could have had the current reform into a softer gel-like texture, smooth the flow, but she didn’t want to risk her focus.

  Don’t look down. Whatever you do, Valere, don’t look down. She wasn’t afraid of heights, as such. It just didn’t seem like a good idea, as she passed the eleventh floor window and neared her goal.

  Dark blue curtains were drawn against the view; the rooms on the other side, she remembered, had cream-colored drapes that were open to let sunlight come in.

  “End of the line. This station stop, target achieved,” she told herself. “Time to disembark.”

  Easier said than done. Not that she couldn’t do it; she just didn’t want to do it.

  You’re not going to fall. Her brain believed her. Her body wasn’t so sure.

  Flexing her fingers against the wall, she twisted current into the whorls of her fingerprints, dark purple sparks twisting and turning into a sort of paraphysical Velcro, or suction cups.

  If you think about it, you’re going to be here until the city goes down in flames around you, and hey, no payment, then.

  That was the ultimate incentive. Cosa and Council could go mano a mano and take everyone down with them, but her landlord would still want rent, her credit cards would still want payments, her student loans would still demand their pound-plus of flesh. Just because you were Talented didn’t mean you got a “Get out of real life free” card.

  Taking a deep breath, she crouched, as best she could while still pushing against the wall, and forced her body to jump from one wall to the next.

  There was just enough time for her to think ohmygodsweetjesus before she was clinging to the other wall like a sticky-toed tropical frog.

  “Well,” she whispered in amazement. “That actually worked.”

  The window she chose was, according to the blueprints, the guest bathroom. She preferred coming in through bathroom windows, when she could: even if she did happen to startle someone, they were bound to be somewhat incapacitated, giving her the essential extra seconds advantage. And a guest bathroom, especially with the target at odds with the client, was likely to be unused.

  Wren hoped. In the end, too much of the job always relied on best guesses and hope.

  The window gave under her touch, the faintest bit of current sliding under the wiring of the security system and making it believe that it was still connected. It wasn’t a difficult maneuver, any more than picking a lock was all that difficult, but it took a certain level of delicacy and concentration. Adding the difficulty of doing it while stuck to the side of the building…well, that was one of the reasons why she charged more for her services than the average burglar. Or even the above-average Retriever.

  Sliding the frame up as slowly as possible, she let her senses extend gently into the room. Normally she would be more aggressive, but knowing that target was a Talent changed everything. Current took the flavor of its user, and the longer you held it in your core, the more it “smelled” like you. That was why she had siphoned off current just before the job began rather than drawing it from inside: if the target did sense her, it would be as an unidentified Talent, rather than “someone who seems familiar.” Or, worse yet, identifiable by name.

  Bathroom. Check. Damn, that was a nice bathroom. Silvery-gray marble, subtle pattern in the cream-on-cream tile, dark-colored towels that—she gave into impulse and stroked one of them—yes, that felt as thick and soft as they looked. Nicer than her L.L. Bean sale specials. And this is what they had in the guest bath? Wren hated being impressed by massive amounts of money, but sometimes it was just there to be impressed by.

  Focus, damn it!

  Once inside, some of the tension she’d been carrying around slid off her shoulders and dissipated, as she’d known it would. When she was working, everything fell into place. Whatever happened outside these walls? Whatever she had done, hadn’t done, was going to do? None of it mattered. Only the plan, the execution of the plan, the finishing of the job: that was all that mattered, here. That tight focus gave Wren a serenity she’d been lacking in herself for too long, now.

  There were ten rooms in the apartment. The difference between her neighborhood and this one was more than doubling the number of rooms, though; it was also about square footage. That was more than doubled, here. The house Wren had grown up in had been smaller than this apartment.

  Guest bathroom. Guest bedroom, off to the left. Down the hall, the maid’s room, plus a much smaller bathroom. Wren would guess it probably had marble, too, if not quite so much. Maid was off today, one of the reasons Wren had picked today for her attempt.

  To the right, the living room/dining room combo where she’d been received, before, which led through French doors to the entry foyer. That was all she’d seen of the place, previously. Luxe, in that understated way old money had. A library. The deceased husband’s office. The kitchen was in the center as well, toward the back of the apartment—the side she was on now. Avoid the kitchen—if there was any activity this early in the morning, it would be the target, fixing an early breakfast for herself.

  On the other side of the entry foyer, the master bedroom suite. Bedroom, sitting room, dressing room—what sort of person needed a room to sit in and a room to dress in?—and another bathroom. Wren was guessing that one would be entirely marble. The target didn’t seem to be the sort to stint herself in the slightest.

  The urge to nick a few pretties for herself, as long as she was here, was almost overwhelming. Normally Wren did the in-and-out without hesitation. But normally she was in places with less personally appealing temptation—museums, offices, that sort of thing.

  Bad idea. Bad urge. She was a Retriever, not a thief.

  You really think there’s any difference? You really think the rest of the world gives a damn?

  Sergei does.

  For the moment, that put the question to rest. But it was a sign of the stress she was under that the thought had even come up. She needed to do something nice for herself, and soon. Or she was going to do something stupid.

  While she was thinking, she was moving. Slowly, sliding rather than stepping, her feet making no sound at all on the cool tiled floor, staying off the narrow Oriental runners so that there would be no imprint left behind, however faint. Slicks didn’t shed bits of itself, even when torn: that’s why they were so damn expensive.

  All right. If you were a small bit of jewelry, not very expensive but potentially very important, where
would you be? It wasn’t really a question; or rather, it was one that she had already answered.

  Not in the library—darling stepdaughter would know all the hiding places already. Ditto the office, if father and daughter were really all that close. Bedroom, though…bedroom was probably off-limits to a grown daughter of a different marriage.

  Besides, people liked to keep things like that close, to reassure themselves it was safe.

  Ironically it was that very instinct that made such things so easy to steal.

  A touch of current, stretched farther out, confirmed what she had suspected: other than the external wiring of the alarm, the house was mercifully free of traditional modern security measures. Fine for an office, perhaps, or public space, but no adult Talent wanted to have to be so careful of current overflow in their own home, for fear of shorting something out and having the cops arrive minutes later.

  So that left current-traps. Tricky, in that most ways of protecting oneself from them—using current at more powerful level than the creator used in building them—were also what set them off. Fortunately Wren had an answer to that, one that was as obvious as it was effective.

  When the traps are set “up,” go down.

  Wrapping the current more tightly around her sense of self, Wren “brushed” at it, softening and blurring the edges of her perceived outline even more. The spell, set earlier, was a passive one, the sort that a resident might set to enhance sleep, or make sure paint dried evenly, or any of a hundred boring uses. Small. Passive. Noninvasive. Unlikely to set off anything sniffing for disruption, even before the don’t-see-me aspect of the spell was taken into consideration.

  If anyone ever figured out what to actually do, in order to discern or repel a Retriever, Wren would have to rethink her career. But for now, people continued to be trickier than they needed to be. And that was fine by her.

  Taking a deep, silent breath, she slid through a partially opened door and crossed from the empty side of the apartment into the occupied part.

  This was where her “other” training kicked in. The noncurrent work she’d done with retired sneak thieves and pickpockets, hanging out with old locksmiths and retired cat burglars.

  Resolutely not looking at the antique silver tea set, or the small, impressively expensive knickknacks scattered on tables and sideboards, Wren ghosted across, not touching anything. Her body was a shadow, soft-moving, like a dancer on ice. Her slicks picked up the shadows, rather than the light, and her hair, braided and darkened with specially tinted talc, did likewise. To human eyes and minds, and most fatae, she was invisible.

  The double doorway off the foyer led into the public rooms. Wren bypassed that, and went directly on to the smaller, less eye-catching but still gorgeous cherrywood door. It opened onto a short hallway with another door at the far end, which should lead to the sitting room.

  None of the doors were locked, which wasn’t a surprise—who locked internal doorways? If they had been, she had a kit in her bag which would have made short work of them.

  She moved carefully through the doors, alert to anything that stirred the currents or smelled of elementals. If she used them as telltales, there was nothing to say other people couldn’t, as well.

  But the target clearly wasn’t as paranoid as she was; not surprising, few lonejacks were, and even fewer Council members, protected as they were by Mage Council proscriptions against poaching on fellow members, etc. etc., ad nauseum. Being a Council member was all about being proscribed, one way or another. And that was what they wanted to enforce on lonejacks. No, thanks.

  Mind on the job, Valere.

  The sitting room was dark and shadowed, with darker spaces indicating furniture. Three doors led off of it: one, ajar, led to the bathroom. The other two should be to the dressing room, and the bedroom.

  The rise and fall of snoring through one door told her that the target—assuming the target hadn’t invited a friend to an impromptu sleepover—was still in bed. Short of having the target locked in the bathroom with some dire digestive disorder and a Saks Fifth Avenue catalog, that was best-case scenario.

  Reaching into the small case she carried with her, Wren pulled out a small globe about the size of a tennis ball. Hand-blown glass, it looked almost unbearably fragile, but was actually remarkably sturdy. Inside, sparks of current flickered and danced wherever her fingers made contact with the sphere’s surface. Cheap electronic rip-offs of the idea could be found in every cheap mall gimmick store, but the real thing was considerably more expensive. There was an entire string of scientific babble to explain it, involving the breakdown of current and related electricity and bands of somethingorother that kept the prepared spell-work inside from escaping, but all Wren cared about was that it worked.

  She could have just done one up herself, she supposed, but the workmanship of glass was what you paid for, and it was worth it just to make sure nothing broke too soon.

  Placing the globe on the floor in the center of the sitting room, Wren pushed the two closed doors open just enough to allow a sliver of light to pass through. Returning to the center of the room, she raised her foot and, whispering a hushed prayer, brought the heel of her boot down gently on the globe.

  It shattered silently, with a gratifyingly gentle spray of glass that dissolved almost immediately on losing its shape. That was another thing you paid through the nose for: minimum debris left behind for someone like Bonnie to trace.

  The current that was contained within the globe now released, it unrolled into tendrils, flickering pale silver.

  Anyone could premake a spell, but very few people did. Beyond the tedium and expense of finding something that could contain them without contamination, the fact was that current was lazy—it wanted to follow the path of easiest transport. That was why it traveled with electricity—and why, unless you were totally in control, and directed your current specifically, it would revert to its original form, and become inert, useless in an emergency.

  A lot like most lonejacks, actually.

  “Now released—

  Remember your goal.

  Retrieve it.”

  The tendrils wavered, then, reinforced by her own determination and the picture of the object she held in her memory, formed into three distinct arms, one for each open door. Slipping through the open space, they went in search of the object to be Retrieved.

  It would be better if, someday, she could direct this kind of search from off-site, but if there was anyone who had that much control, she hadn’t met them yet. And she thought that maybe she was thankful for that small blessing.

  Control plus current meant power. Wren had yet to meet anyone with that much power who didn’t also have an agenda. There were enough agendas floating around the city already, without adding more to the mix. Thank God it wasn’t an election year, too. If she had to listen to any ads—

  Focus!

  Her mentor’s voice, cutting through the fog that threatened to clog her brain.

  Damn it, Jenny-Wren, pay attention!

  She shook her head, a small movement, but violent enough to clear out her brain somewhat. Her eyes refocused, and she had a momentary flash of coherence, enough to make her aware of how far she had managed to drift.

  Closing her case and draping it over her shoulder again, Wren let herself float with the fog a moment, trying to get the flavor of it. Threat? Or just something otherwise harmless piped into the ether, some kind of Talent-specific sleeping aid?

  No. There was a definite focus at the base of it. Something’s screwing with me…Without letting go of the current-tendrils, Wren sent a gentle probe out to see what was up.

  *ssssszzzztttttt*

  Wren yelped, the sound echoing loudly in the room. The hours of training Neezer had put her through during her mentorship, enhanced and maintained in the years since then, was all that kept her connected to the searching current-tendrils.

  Fuck, that hurt!

  The elementals around her settled back down, having warne
d her off their territory, and determining that she was no threat to them. Meanwhile, the shock of touching them, ungrounded and unprepared, was fading slightly from her system. Wren took a few seconds to resteady herself, finding her center and focus again.

  This time, alerted, she was aware of the elementals, able to discern the comforting drone they were emitting that had fogged her brain to begin with. Another sharp shake of her head was able to shake some of it off, and being aware of the influence helped…but not enough. Damned current-happy elementals. They were useful on occasion, but like the current they lived on and in, they tended to lapse into lionlike indolence unless specifically directed.

  Unless they had been directed to send out those mind-fogging vibes, as part of a passive defense program. Unless someone was meaner and sneakier and lazier than she was…Oh, shit. Wren didn’t like that thought, not at all.

  Find it! She sent a quick, barely psi-audible order to her tendrils, reinforcing the urgency over caution. One of them responded in the affirmative, the silver flashing through their connection to a vibrant ruby-red.

  Not the bedroom, which surprised her. The dressing room. Private, maybe even more private in some ways than the bedroom. A safe, maybe?

  Not waiting to see if anything defense-wise had been woken by the elementals’ sting-back, she slipped into the dressing room and looked for the telltale red glow.

  In the closet. A small wooden box, up on a shelf. Not where you put something of great personal value, generally—but a good place to stash something until you figure out what to do with it.

  The target had been lying through her collagen-enhanced lips when she said she wasn’t keeping this little memento of Mommy from her stepdaughter. Not that Wren cared particularly—she wasn’t being hired to care. Just to get it back.

  The shelf was too high for her to reach, and it was too far back on the shelf to stretch-and-grab. A quick glance around showed no handy stool or other climbable furniture. There was no help for it but to go on the offensive.