Staying Dead (24 page)

She knew what he was thinking, exactly what he was remembering. “I knew what I was getting into then. I
chose
it.” She wheeled on her heel and stared at him. “Can't you trust me now the way you trusted me then?”

Time for truth now. Look into it, and admit it. “It was easier then.”

“To trust me?”

Sergei suddenly felt older, so much more tired. “To risk you.”

 

Wren hadn't ever known how quickly anger could turn into fear, and fear into pain. And she'd never known that affection could feel like heartburn, heavy and sour in the gut, like an elevator going down without warning. “Ah, hell, Sergei…”

She reached out, touched the side of his face with two fingers. The touch she'd been needing, not allowing herself. His skin always felt scratchy, no matter how closely he shaved, and the familiar warmth made her want, stupidly, to cry all over again.

This is Sergei, you idiot. Sergei. How could you ever think, for even a moment…
And she hadn't, really. It was all screwed up, everything; her, them…She had always trusted him, even when she was so angry she could have shorted out every electrical appliance for a city block. When she didn't trust herself, for whatever reason, she still trusted Sergei. It was humbling, in a way, to realize just how much.

How much she loved him.

Valere, you have the world's worst timing for being honest with yourself, you know that?

Love, love. Not just hots-for-his-bod love. Or even hots-for-his-mind love, which—honestly—had always been there, from the very first. Had been the thing that made her listen when he talked about a world she'd never imagined…

He might have leaned into her touch, or not. The next moment the contact was broken, and they were watching each other, surrounded by the question.

“Tell me about the Silence, Sergei.”

He sighed, collapsing into his chair like someone had pulled the bones out of his body. “Short version?”

“If you'd be so kind.” Her words fell into the air between them. She had meant it to be sarcastic, but they just sounded…tired. God but she was tired.

“The Silence was founded in the 1900s by a bunch of white men with guilty consciences.” His voice was the same casual, slightly singsong voice he used to brief her on jobs. “The name's pretentious but obvious—they are silent workers, responding to those who cannot otherwise call for help. Quote endquote. The agency—society, call it whatever you want—has expanded over the years—I'm not sure how large it is now but there are offices in at least seven countries that I know of. Probably more. Primary mission—to right wrongs. Secondary mission—to keep wrongs from being committed.”

She snorted. “And who defined what was wrong and how it should be righted?”

He shook his head. “You're going to lecture someone else on comparative morality? Genevieve—”

“Right. Nose duly slapped. Go on.”

“None of the founding members had any Talent at all, but they like to recruit those who do. Only they don't call it that—they say ‘magic,' and don't sneer at the term. A number of the wrongs they right have to do with misused powers, to the point where it's become a bit of a specialized sideline.”

“Ah. And you…?” She sat down on the sofa opposite him, leaning forward to rest her chin in the cup of her hands, elbows resting on her knees.

“Me.” He sighed. “There are layers to the Silence. You don't get to see the inner workings, ever. I was being groomed as a Handler, the liaison between home office and an agent in the field.” He paused, then let the other shoe drop. “Specializing in Talented agents. Minor ones, all they could get, although at the time they didn't know why, didn't know about the Council.”

“At the time.” She absorbed the dual blows, bit back the obvious comeback. “And then…?”

He sighed, met her gaze squarely. “And then I woke up one morning and didn't give a damn anymore. I wanted out. And then I got into a car crash, met an astonishingly Talented young thief in the making who helped me complete that one last mission, and I walked. No regrets.”

His eyes were clear, his gaze steady. Wren knew there was more to it…but then, she'd always known there was more to Sergei than what he showed.
Not many gallery owners carry a handgun, or know how to drop a tail in city traffic.
Her own fault if she'd never wanted to probe too deeply, right?

He reached across the coffee table, took her hands in his own. She hadn't realized how cold her fingers were until his much warmer ones enfolded them. “You don't have to make any decisions this instant, Zhenechka. Think about it. Sleep on it. They've been waiting for years. No matter how urgent they claim this particular case is, they'll wait a little while longer.”

“And you?”

Their gazes met, and the tears she'd been resisting were echoed by the ones glittering unshed in his eyes. “I'll be here,” he said. “Whatever you decide.”

T
he woman holding court had been beautiful in the fresh-faced, athletic way when she was younger. Now her face held a kind of regal authority that was more rare and more impressive than beauty. She disdained a desk, making herself comfortable in a brocade armchair. On one side a laptop rested on a mahogany tray-arm that swung away and back at her slightest touch.

The rest of the room was likewise decorated, a rich mahogany server taking up most of one wall, heavy bookcases the second, and a sofa and love seat placed under the large glass windows that showed the skyline of Chicago.

Oliver Frants sat on the cream-on-cream brocade sofa across the room from her, equally at ease. His well-manicured hands held a coffee cup with practiced delicacy, and his suit looked as pressed and sharp as if he had just shrugged himself into it, rather than surviving a ninety-minute plane ride after a long, difficult day in the office. Denise Macauley sat beside him. She had not been offered coffee, and her hands rested limply by her side. Her face was placid, pleasant-looking, as though listening to gentle music. But were someone to look into her eyes, their dark depths would be screaming.

“I thought that you said you had everything under control?” their hostess said finally, breaking the polite silence that had fallen after casual chitchat. As frustrating as Frants found it, he could not rush the issue. Not here, where he was very much not in control. He had scorned the Council years ago, using a go-between to get around their prohibition on doing business with Frants Industries, and paid the price for that deception. Was, in fact, still paying that price. The fact that Madame Howe was willing to meet with him at all now was due only to his rather blatant bribe.

Galling though it was, in this situation he needed her aid. Rather desperately.

“We did,” he replied. “But the stone was returned to us in damaged condition. The spell has been…dislodged.”

She snorted, a surprisingly ladylike sound. “Dislodged? Say what you mean, Ollie. It's been broken. That will teach you to try to work with amateurs. Hiring a lonejack, what were you thinking?”

They both knew what he had been thinking. A Council mage had installed the spell, and been dispatched by Council order immediately after they discovered the nature of the spell. No mage had worked for Frants Industries since, until his ill-fated attempt twelve years ago to use current to take his father out of his way. It had been stupid, to use magic to do something more ordinary means could have accomplished. But he had wanted to make a point, that no man—or woman—could say no to him.

And the mage hadn't. More fool her.

He had thought he would never have to worry about the Council's anger so long as he stayed within the building. The ban held: no Council mage would touch that building, for good or ill. They could no sooner go against their order than they could take back the original spell which had caused it. But they could, he hoped, give him help in other ways. It was, after all, their work. They should have some pride in it.

“The spell no longer works, even with the cornerstone returned. It needs to be repaired.”

“I'm not sure you can blame the lonejack for that,” Kim-Ann said, placing her coffee down with a gentle clink of china against wood. “But either way, the fact is that you're screwed.” Even the obscenity sounded polite in her mouth. “Really, the theft and resultant breakage is hardly surprising. What did you expect? You left anger, pain in your wake with that spell. Only the weight of the building kept it in check for this long.”

“Not me, my grandfather,” Frants objected. “He was the one who commissioned it.”

“You believe that that makes any difference to magic?” She was elegantly scornful. “You reap the benefits, directly, so too do you reap the costs.”

“That spell bought protection against ill will.” Ill will, in that particular case, to cover everything from envious competitors to disgruntled union organizers, and any other conflict his grandfather, no innocent when it came to the underbelly of big business, could name.

“You cannot use the spell against the spell itself,” she said in return. “And money, even a great deal of money, cannot outrun death's hatred. Your grandfather knew the risks when he purchased our work.” “Our,” although the Council still denied any involvements. Which was why she alone met with him here in Chicago, rather than a full quintet on their own turf, as was usual. This meeting was not happening on any level. “You should have paid more attention to the details when you set all this in motion.”

Frants wasn't sure if she was referring to himself or his grandfather. The old woman was old enough to have known the bastard personally, but her mind seemed clear enough to tell the difference. He repressed a shiver. Mages. They were all damned spooky, and only a fool trusted one.

“And, to make matters more complicated, there has already been some inquiry from outsiders as to our part in this matter.” She made a moue of disgust. “I'm not very happy about that, Ollie,” she continued. “Part of our agreement at the time—the reason we allowed the spell to remain intact—was that we be kept out of this entire sordid mess.”

The reason they had left the spell was because they had kept the money the mage had been paid for it. “And you have been. For over fifty years—”

“It's not enough,” she told him. “There is a risk now, and that is unacceptable. Clean it up, Oliver. Or we will be forced to clean up all of it.” The emphasis in her words left little question but that she included him in that mess.

He narrowed his eyes, as though gauging her strength, one jungle predator to another, then relaxed. The illusion was that he had made the decision not to challenge her, but it was only an illusion.

“It's being handled,” he assured her.

“Good. Then we have nothing more to say to one another. Once you have the materials back in place, someone will be assigned to correct the breach and reapply the protection spell. We—however reluctantly in this instance—will honor our warranties.”

Frants stood to leave, holding one hand out to Denise. A heartbeat, and she took it, sluggishly, as though uncertain how to make her body move any longer.

“And Ollie,” the older woman added. “Don't bring your toys here again. I don't want that kind of filth in my presence.”

Frants merely smiled, and inclined his head to her as they left.

 

Seven candles lit the edges of the room, their flames oddly still, giving off narrow shafts of pale yellow light. Five of the wax pillars were white, two dark red. On the black marble slab in the center of the room, seven more candles, these black, with a harsher white light, illuminated a female: naked, painted with sigils and signs on every part of her body. A rope was loosely bound around her ankles, and a long, sharp blade was pointed edge-first into the valley between her breasts.

The blade cut into the woman's skin, but she did not react. A harder push, and blood began to flow from the cut.

A pause. Another, longer pause. The candle flames didn't so much as flicker, much less change color as they were supposed to do once the wards were in place.

“Damn it.”

The black-robed figure dropped his arms and strode to the wall, slapping angrily at the light switch with the hand that did not hold the athane. His bare feet peeked out from under the hem of the robe, and the neatly-trimmed, buffed toenails only added to the surrealism of the scene.

Frants put the knife down on the slab and shed his robe, tossing it aside without a thought to the cost of the material. Beneath, he was naked, his body graying and worn but still in reasonably good shape.

Despite the overhead light now flooding the room, the body on the slab of black marble still did not move. Only a shallow movement of her rune-dabbed chest, and the warm blood trickling over her rib cage, indicated that she was still alive. Her eyes were open, staring without focus up at the black-painted ceiling, and every great once in a while the lids would blink.

“Another worthless spell. Another
damned
worthless spell!”

He'd paid good money for this one, this and all the others he'd tried. Traditional magic, the way most people thought of it, the Voodoo and witchcraft and magics dark and light. Their methods might be sneered at by the mages and their oh-so-scientific “current,” but it
worked.
Magic was magic, it didn't care what your philosophy was. And, more to the point, those traditional methods could be worked by someone other than a Talent. All you needed was to
believe.

“I believe,” he said to whatever might be listening, watching. “I believe!”

He had to. It wasn't as though anyone else was going to protect him, not with his so-highly-recommended lonejack hire screwing up the retrieval, and this evening the Council giving him ultimatums. Him! And already, the scavenger fish were nibbling at his heels. Small deals only, for now. But he could sense the tide turning. Soon everyone would know. And then they'd turn on him.

He left Denise where she lay, opening the camouflaged door in his interior room and closing it carefully behind him. The air in the rest of his living area was much cooler, and he shivered a little in the sudden temperature drop, but didn't go into the closet to put something on. Instead, his attention caught by the view outside his windows, he moved to take a closer look.

Dark clouds swirled in the sky to the west, contrasting starkly with the morning sunlight glinting off buildings on the other side of the city. A front was coming in.

A spring storm, moving fast. Probably filled with thunder, lightning…electricity.
Current.

“Whore mages and their bastard current.” He spat the words, raising a fist to slam against the shatterproof glass. “Damned elitist mages…but I'll best them. I'll show them they don't treat me that way.”