Hard Magic (7 page)

“Good morning to you, too,” Nick muttered, sounding offended, and not just because we’d done a three-body pileup in front of the boss.

“Right. Good morning. Sorry.” Stosser’s reportedly famous charm made a brief appearance, and then he turned it off. “You all dressed appropriately, good. Come with me.”

He stood up and walked through the now totally redecorated space that had blown our minds for a moment, clearly expecting us to follow. The half-assed kitchenette of yesterday was now a full beverage station, with a brand-new coffeemaker, a hot-water dispenser, a wet-sink, and an open cabinet filled with plain white mugs and boxes of really nice teas and coffees. There was also a larger refrigerator that, I was guessing, had real cream in it now. The old rental-style waiting room furniture had been replaced with the brown sofa and a matching loveseat over a dark cream carpet where there’d been linoleum before. A bookcase took up the entire length of the wall, next to the door into the inner office, and was filled with what looked like textbooks. The room seemed larger now, somehow, although I knew that it had to be an optical illusion. Right?

Obviously, the office design fairies had been through overnight. J’s concerns about them not having enough money to back up their paycheck promises seemed less likely now. Unless, of course, they were putting all the money into set-dressing…

“Are you four coming, or not?” Stosser asked over his shoulder, and walked through the inner door.

We were.

It was easier to accept the transformation of the inside office, but only because we were all a little numb at this point. Instead of the cheap mock-executive layout, the room was now dominated by a dark wood table, oval shaped, with nine conference chairs placed around it. The walls were covered with more bookcases, filled with more textbooks, and I had a sudden thought that I’d walked right back into college. It wasn’t a good thought. I knew we were going to need training, but I could do without the reading assignments.

There wasn’t anyone else in the room, and Stosser didn’t stop, either, walking across the room and reaching for a sliding door I was embarrassed to realize I hadn’t noticed before.

Or maybe it hadn’t been there before to notice. Current can’t bend time or space, but if you’ve got enough money, enough mojo, or enough people working hard, you can do a lot of internal renovations. Evidence to date was pointing to Stosser and Venec having major mojo and money, both.

A hallway, painted a flat white with a neutral pale green carpet, led to three doors on the left-hand side, and a blank wall on the right. I figured at this point they had put at least two of the offices on this floor under lease, a long enough term lease to allow them to connect doors. No wonder they hadn’t taken space farther downtown; even if the Guys were made of money, this still had to be taking a major crunch out of their funds.

We turned at the first anonymous door and went in.

“About time you got here.”

The room was likewise flat white, with one window, the shade drawn, and more of the green carpet. Sharon was sitting at a small conference table, about large enough to sit five comfortably, and all seven of us if we squeezed. DB—all right, Venec—was there with her, still looking as sleepy-bored as he had yesterday. I guess we were all on board, then. Even dressed down in black slacks and a plain white shirt, Sharon still looked classier than anyone else in the room. Some people had it; some didn’t. She did. At least I could enjoy looking, since I didn’t get any vibes she’d be interested in me, even if I hadn’t gotten the lecture last night from J, over his second beer, about not dating in the workplace.

As if I didn’t know that already. Sometimes he really did forget I wasn’t fourteen anymore.

“I wish we had time to ease you into things, allow for a gradual learning curve. But we don’t. You all have a lot to learn, and fast. We either sink or swim from the word go, and we are determined to swim.” Venec was up and moving this time, while Stosser took one of the empty chairs around the table, and we followed suit. My boots kicked the table with a solid thunk, and I flinched, but nobody else seemed to notice. I made sure my soles were planted firmly on the green carpet, where they couldn’t make any more noise.

“I’m glad that you all decided to join us—not surprised, but pleased. Knowing you as well as we do, I’m sure you all did your due diligence the moment you left yesterday, and have determined that the majority of those who know us are convinced that we’re lunatics. How dangerous a lunatic seems to still be open for debate.”

It was funny, but nobody laughed. Stosser seemed to have gotten all the showboat comic timing of the pair.

“Make no mistake,” Venec went on, fixing that dark gaze on each of us in turn. “We are not lunatics. But we have the potential to be quite dangerous. Not to each other, and not to the
Cosa
as a whole, but to individuals within the community. To those who have had a stake in upholding the status quo, in remaining out of the light, beyond any official notice or censure. And there will be some who do not want that to happen.”

Venec talked like J did, not so much with the big words and flourishes Stosser used, but a quiet deliberation, knowing exactly what each word meant and how best to use it. Stosser was the showboat, the ringmaster. Venec… I didn’t know what Venec was, yet. But I thought, with the part of me that thought like my mentor, that it might be smart to watch Venec’s hands whenever Stosser was talking.

“What he’s trying to say,” Stosser interjected, “is that the
Cosa
as a whole is not on board with what we’re trying to do—particularly the lonejack community. Although getting them all to agree that they disagree with us is…a slow process.”

There were several snorts at that. What made lonejacks lonejacks was an inability to play well with each other. It made sense that they’d resist anyone policing them.

“What they don’t understand is that we’re not here to police them.”

I started guiltily, then decided it was sheer coincidence, not Stosser somehow reading my mind or, god forbid, me using my thinking-out-loud voice.

“We are not here to enforce laws, or interpret them, or pass judgment in any way, shape or form.” Venec picked up the narrative again. “We will investigate, and report our findings to all concerned, evenly and without bias. If you have an agenda, dump it on the table now. If you can’t…get out.”

There was a short silence, and both of the Guys watched us carefully. Convinced that nobody was leaving, Venec went on. “The lonejacks will, as always, make up their minds on an individual basis—”

Nick snorted, and Sharon almost smiled, and I sensed an inside joke I wasn’t privy to. Venec ignored them, and kept talking.

“While not actively opposing us, the Council has formally renounced our organization. This is what we are up against: They will not demand that their members comply with any requests we make, nor will they be held by anything we discover. We have, in fact, been told that the Eastern and South Councils have refused to allow us access to…pretty much anything they can control, up to and including their members. The Midwest Council hasn’t ruled in or out yet, nor has California.”

Midwest—which meant Chicago for all intents and purposes—was the closest to lonejacks Council ever got: they were pretty rough and ready, and seriously cranky about their independence. California? The San Diego Council never said anything before they had to. I bet a lot of them remembered the Madeline case, too.

Stosser’s turn. “We’ve been dubbed CSI wannabes.” His pale skin flushed a little, but his voice remained steady. “It’s a fair, if unkindly meant, assessment—
Cosa
crimes, as committed by
Cosa
members, investigated by
Cosa
members.”

Nick raised his hand then, as though we were back in grade school, and I swear his nose twitched. “Does that include the fatae, too?”

Oh, good question. Nicky was a couple of steps ahead of me, damn it. I should have been on that already. Not that it was a competition…but it felt like it. First day on the job, got to prove you’re the brightest and the bestest.

“For now…we’re focusing on the human component. The fatae have long dealt with their own problems, without asking us for help.”

Stosser’s dry response was an understatement. The East Coast had probably the largest population of
Cosa
-cousins, the nonhuman magicals, but only a few of the more human-shaped breeds spent much time mixing. Manhattan was different in that regard but there was probably still the same “you to yours, we to ours” mentality that the
Cosa
specialized in.

“If the fatae come to us, we will offer our services equally, without prejudice or bias. Again, if you have a problem with that…”

Sharon shifted slightly, and Nick had a vaguely constipated look on his face, but nobody moved.

“Shune. You have a problem?”

Nick shook his head. “No sir.”

Venec narrowed his eyes, and tilted his head just slightly to the left. “You sure about that?”

“I just… I’ve never met a fatae.” Nick sounded like a scolded six-year-old. “That I know, anyway.”

Venec laughed, maybe the first unscripted thing he’d done since we walked into the office yesterday, and my reaction was totally, overwhelmingly visceral. I could resist a hot bod, or a nice smile, or even a good line, but damn, I was a sucker for a real, rich laugh, and Benjamin Venec had one that should have been illegal. Damn.

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll be just as jaded as everyone else in a few weeks.”

Then he was back to hard-ass drill instructor, and I could breathe again.

“Now you know the deal. Expect resistance, not acceptance. People won’t want to talk to you, they’re not going to help you out, and no matter how much the client says they want the truth, nobody’s going to thank you for anything, especially if you tell them something they don’t want to hear.

“But you will be telling them the facts as discerned from the available evidence, nothing more or less, and that is your sole concern.”

He paused, then sat on the last unused stool and set his hands flat on the white tabletop. “And now we will begin to teach you
how
.”

I didn’t know it then, but even as we were getting rolling, so were others.

“Ian Stosser is a sick man.”

A scoffing noise from one of her companions made the speaker shake her head, shoulder-length auburn curls trembling with the movement. “I know what I am talking about, Michael. Brilliant, perhaps, I would not deny that claim, or that he probably, somewhere in his head, means well. But Ian is mentally unstable, and totally incapable of considering the cost of this mad plan of his. The cost to others individually, and the
Cosa
as a whole. He has never shown any regard for the lives of those around him, lives he would risk destroying for his Cause.

“He cannot be allowed to continue. It is not safe to allow him to continue.”

“Oh come on, now,” the scoffer chided her gently. “Don’t you think that’s just a bit…overly dramatic?”

The woman leaned toward him, her entire body conveying a sort of desperate conviction, her gaze including the others so that they too leaned in, making sure not to miss what she had to say.

“Dramatic only to make my point. I would not be here, none of us would, if it wasn’t urgent. You know that. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, all of you? Not just to humor me—but because you know it’s not right.”

There were five people seated around the table, three men and two women somewhere between thirty and fifty; to all outward appearances a group of friends meeting for drinks at a fashionable hot spot after work. The buzz of the crowd around them, sliding up to the bar, or waiting for their table, was the perfect mask for their conversation.

None of them denied her claim. None agreed with it, either, although the other woman nodded her head thoughtfully. They all knew Ian.

The first woman went on, selling her position. “I’ve kept my mouth shut until now. I’ve not interfered with Council decisions even when I thought they were dangerously misguided. But this… Ian’s gone too far now. All indications are that he’s gathering his tools even as we speak, and despite what he may say—despite what he may even believe!—nothing good will come of this. Nothing.”

She might have been desperate, but her words carried a sound conviction to them, the undertone of authority almost impossible to deny.

“What would you have us do?” a second man asked, raising his now empty glass over his shoulder to signal for a waitress to bring a refill.

Her own glass was still half-full: she had been too busy talking to do more than taste the contents. “Help me stop him. However and with whatever it takes. For our safety—and his own.”

“Focus. Stay focused….”

“I
am
focused!” Or I would be if Nifty would stop hovering over me like a huge, dark-winged moth on steroids. “Back off, big guy. You’re supposed to be helping, not pestering.”

Trying to ignore my partner’s looming presence—no easy thing considering the sheer bulk of him—I returned my attention to the pattern on the paper in front of me.

I could do this. I knew I could. It was easy, once you knew the steps, and the steps had been hammered into us for two weeks now. I could do it.

When Stosser had told us, that first day, that we were going to learn, I’m not sure what we were expecting. Handouts, maybe, or lectures, based on how many books there were in the office? What we got was hands-deep in the guts of magic theory. Most of what you learn in mentorship, past the basics, involves memorizing spells handed down, tested and true, that have a distinct result to a specific invocation. What we were doing here, now, was none of that. It was stripped-to-basics logic and intent-to-cause current-use. If anyone had ever thought that magic was a game, that current was a soft skill, they knew better now. This was pure New Ways—current as hard science.

The past two weeks we’d been under a strict no-use rule in the office—no current allowed for
anything.
Instead, the time was filled with lectures, and readings, and theoretical exercises designed to break down what we thought we knew, and rebuild it in the service of whatever Benjamin Venec and Ian Stosser told us to do; reading up about blood splatter and bullet trajectories, fingerprinting and footprint identification as it was done in the Null world—and then talking, endless talking, about how it
might
be done with current—and, more important, how it might be
hidden
by current. Because that was the thing; using current to bring down current. Theoretically. We were, as Nick said more than once, making this up out of hope and whole current. And that meant we had to
understand
it.

I’d never been on the cutting edge of anything before. I wasn’t sure I was enjoying it.

It wasn’t helping that in the past week, anything that could go wrong seemed to be doing so with a gleeful glint in its eye. First the coffeemaker had died in a splutter of sparks that had us all looking accusingly at each other. Then Sharon had gotten stuck in the elevator with Nifty when both of them were coming back from lunch—not together—and I don’t know what they said to each other but body language when we finally got them out said it probably wasn’t polite. And, just yesterday, Stosser had hit the table with his fist, trying to get some point or another into our heads, and the entire table—a solid wood table—collapsed as though termites had taken up residence in the legs.

“Gremlins,” Nick had diagnosed. “We definitely have gremlins.”

“There aren’t any such thing,” Sharon said. “It’s just a myth Nulls made up to explain a series of noncatastrophic events.”

“Uh-huh.”

Normally, I’d side with Sharon on this one. Sometimes crap happening was just crap happening, and we were under enough stress that any mechanical failure in the building could easily be explained by someone’s current getting a little frisky, even without them realizing it. But I couldn’t see the Guys not noticing—especially since they were the ones driving us so hard. And I didn’t know of any current-flare that would take out the legs of a wooden table….

So, gremlins? I didn’t know. But I was looking around carefully whenever I entered a room, and taking the stairs whenever possible, rather than the elevator. Just to be cautious.

Somehow, we managed to survive without anyone getting killed, or saying anything too regrettable, and finally, reluctantly—as much to shut us up as because they thought we were ready—the Guys were letting us try actual physical tests of what we’d been discussing. I was so very tired of theory at this point, being able to actually use current rather than just talking about it was a relief. Except for the part where translating theory into practice was damned difficult.

“You going to stand there and stare at it all day, or what?” Nifty wasn’t quite as annoying as Sharon, but he had the needling thing down to a damn art.

“Shut up.” Dipping a mental finger into my core, I drew out a slender cord of current, waiting while it soothed from a deep blue to dark green, responding to my will. I saw it as a malleable cord, just so long and just so wide, and it became that cord. Behind me, I could feel Nifty grounding himself, creating a pocket of current that would, ideally, support and balance me while also protecting anyone passing by. Ideally.

He was doing his job. I needed to do mine. The trick was to do it delicately, with just the right touch, and not overdo it, not overstress the powder…. You just touch the tip of the current to the paper, and—

The next thing I knew, I was flat on my ass about six feet away, and there was a large lump of ex-football player lying on top of me.

“Normally I don’t mind being on the bottom,” I managed to get out, “but damn it, Nifty, off!”

He stirred, but didn’t get off me, and his elbows were pointy as hell.

“I mean it, Lawrence, you’re crushing my damn ribs. Move!”

“I’m trying,” he muttered, digging his elbows in even more, just as the door crashed open and the workroom was filled with people.

Or three people, anyway. When you’re flat on the floor, even one body’s too much of an audience.

“Everyone all right?” Venec asked.

“Don’t know yet,” I said, still trying to get air back into my lungs.

“Man, Torres, you really blew that one,” a voice said from somewhere to the left of Venec.

I was in no mood for puns, and just turned my head and glared at Nick from under Nifty’s tree-trunk arm. I’d done some hand-to-hand with the guy—that was part of our training, too—but somehow he seemed heavier now.

I was just about to use current to shove him off me when someone beat me to the push. His body lifted smoothly—more smoothly and way more gently than I would have done it—until he was standing on his feet again. Sharon went over to check him out, but he waved her off. They weren’t exactly buddy-buddy with each other, and there was no way he was going to let her see any weakness. “I’m okay. Just gotta get the ringing out of my ears.”

He wasn’t talking about a possible concussion; we had—all right, I had—managed to set off the office’s internal alarms. Again.

“Torres? Are you all right?” Venec asked again.

“Yeah.” Everything felt okay, anyway. I was sore, and pissed off, and probably bruised seven ways from Sunday, but nothing was broken.

Thankfully, the alarm shut off then, and I felt a little better.

“Maybe you should just give up on the delicate jobs,” Sharon suggested, managing to sound both concerned and bitchy in the same tone. I glared at her. Snooty bitch, just because she got it right the first time…

Venec interrupted then. “All right, everyone, back to work. Lawrence, take ten. Outside. Let Mendelssohn fuss at you. It will make her feel better. Torres, let’s do it again. Without the explosions this time, if you please.”

He didn’t offer me a hand—or current—up. I didn’t expect it. The one thing I’d learned over the past few weeks of training was that if you screwed up, you had to get yourself out. The Guys were all about building teamwork—that’s why we worked in pairs or groups, not alone—but they’d hammered into us that you also had to be ready to deal on your own in an emergency, too. There just weren’t enough of us to go around, and not all of us, apparently, worked well with each other. Nifty and I were fair enough, and Sharon and Nick were a charm. Me and Nick complemented each other surprisingly well, but put Pietr and Nifty together and all you got was ugly, et cetera. Pietr and I got along so well they’d stopped pairing us together, which was disappointing. And Nifty and Sharon? Not even Stosser was optimistic enough to pair them together without supervision. Not until they got their respective egos under control, anyway.

Sharon, also, we’d discovered, had paramedic training, and that made her the de facto medic for the group. Venec was right. Being able to boss us around like that always put her in a better mood, especially when she could do it to Nifty.

I really hoped to hell that Venec and Stosser knew what they were doing, pairing us all up and down like this.

“Torres? Today, please.”

I crawled to my feet and limped back to the table. The paper with the gunshot residue was ash now, naturally, but I was pretty sure…yep. Venec slid another sheet onto the table, and stood there, his arms crossed, watching me.

“Again.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Some of the others were…not scared of Venec, exactly, but cautious around him. You got the sense that he had a nasty edge, if pushed, and god knows that he didn’t hesitate in telling you when you hadn’t met his standards. Nifty seemed to soak it up; I guess it was a lot like training camp.

Okay, it
was
training camp. Only without the Gatorade.

Me? I don’t know. I guess I’m just not easily intimidated. Venec was trying to change that. If he could shake me, he’d know where my weakness was, and then he could hammer on that until it wasn’t a weakness anymore. The Guys had been up-front about what they would be doing, and why.

So far, I felt relatively unhammered. By them, anyway: this gunpowder trace was kicking my ass. Literally.

Unlike Nifty, Venec didn’t crowd me, physically or currentwise. He stood nearby, close enough that I could smell whatever cologne it was that he used, something with lime and spice and something stale, like tobacco. It didn’t sound nice, but it made me want to put my nose to his skin and just inhale.

Uh-oh. I pulled my libido in for a scolding. Bad form, that. If you don’t fish off the company pier, you sure as hell don’t cast your line off the corporate yacht, either. The image was amusing enough that the moment of heat faded away. Not gone—once you’re aware that someone’s hot it never quite goes away—but under the surface, where it wouldn’t embarrass me.

Magically, it was easier to relax into him. Reaching out with those other senses, I could feel him next to me, solid and grounded like he was made of flexible concrete, ready to catch whatever needed catching, without breaking.

Reassured that he had that side of things handled, I brought my attention back to the assignment.

Current, check. Pull and extend, steady hand, strong but gentle control, like petting a skittish kitten….

Some Talent used spoken spells, or waved their hands, or some other way to focus their will. We weren’t allowed to do any of that. “Senseless showmanship,” Stosser called it, ignoring the fact that he was the showiest showman I’d ever met. Venec practiced what his partner preached, though; when he showed us something, it was stripped down and sparse. That was what we were supposed to be. Efficient and understated.

“I’ve never been understated in my entire life,” I muttered, even as the slender cord of current touched the residue.

No explosion this time. Current glimmered, then sank into the gunpowder dust, filling it the way water filled a sponge.

Now, the next step. Remembering to breathe slowly, evenly, I called the current back to me.

“Steady,” Venec said, as if I needed the reminder. My ass and back still ached, and I had no desire to take another flyer across the room. Calm, calm. The rumble of disturbed current subsided back into my normal cool swirl; my control held; and the grains of gunpowder, plumped with current, rose off the paper they had been caught against and reassembled in the air. The next step was to draw out from their scattered display something more compact and readable.

Venec’s voice was soft in my ear: there, but not interrupting my concentration. “Let them show you. Don’t force your will on them.”

I nodded, feeling a trickle of sweat drop down the side of my face. Using current burned calories; the more you called down—or the more focused your control—the more you burned. Right now I was dying for a chocolate milkshake, a thick hamburger, and a plate of pommes frites.

Hunger aside, my current behaved itself, drawing the gunpowder off the page and then allowing it, as directed, to retrace its original trajectory, back to the point of explosion.

“There. The shooter was standing at a…forty-degree angle. Approximately.” I studied the hovering display, and tried to translate it into a horizontal display, rather than a vertical one. “To the left. About two feet away?”

“To the right, and closer to three feet,” Venec said, totally ruining my sense of accomplishment. I drooped, and the powder fell back onto the table, scattering in a totally useless pattern.

“Damn.”

“Oh for— Torres.” His hand came down on my shoulder and turned me around to face him. The interesting thing about Venec was that, yeah, he was good-looking, but his dark eyes overpowered the rest of his face, pure damned charisma pulling you hip-deep and close to drowning. Egomaniacs and geniuses had eyes like those. “You just manipulated gunpowder remnant with current. Without blowing anything up. That alone should have you feeling pretty damn cocky. So you didn’t get every detail right—you managed to perform the test properly. That’s all this is about, right now. We don’t expect perfection.” He dropped his hand away from my shoulder as though he’d just realized he had touched me. “Yet.”

“I bet Sharon nailed it,” I muttered, aware I was sulking and not really caring if the boss saw it or not.

Venec’s gaze stayed on me, but it wasn’t quite so piercing, letting me breathe a little. “Sharon is older than you are—” all of five years, yeah “—and you each have different strengths.” I was going to argue, but he overrode me. “What was Ian wearing this morning?”

I had barely seen Stosser before we were sent off to practice, and it took me a minute to remember. “Ah, jeans, blue, acid-washed, so he probably got them in some thrift store somewhere, but they didn’t have any holes so they might have been really expensive jeans made to look like they came from a thrift shop. On top, a red dress shirt, three-quarters buttoned over a blue rib tank. Hiking boots, brown. Don’t know about socks or underwear. Hair was pulled back with a leather clasp. He really can’t work the crunchy granola look, you know.”