Tricks of the Trade (28 page)

For all they knew, it had.

“We bring you a question, oh eldest of the cousins,” Ian repeated, softening each word so that it blurred as it left his mouth, inviting visitation, even as he kept a hard control over his core; if the Old One tried anything, he would be ready and able to defend himself, even though it would inevitably be futile.

All they could do was hope that the binding within the markings and the spell itself restrained it, and that Pietr would be able to escape, unscathed.

YES.

The voice filled the space, although none of them would swear that the word had actually been spoken out loud or been whispered inside their heads. It was neither male nor female, high or low, but pervasive, and slightly metallic.

Ian touched his core, bringing up the glamour that
made him such a persuasive speaker, at the same time careful to let the Old One know what he was doing, offering no secrets, no attempts to beguile, and in doing so, flattering the Old One—or amusing it—into doing what he wanted.

Ideally.

“We would speak to you of the human named Wells, and the objects that your minions took from his dwelling place….”

 

Crickets were loud, in the middle of the night, but surprisingly soothing.

Although I'd been annoyed at what sounded like a crap assignment, it was better than sitting in the office worrying about what was going on wherever Stosser and Pietr had gone off to, or trying to convince Venec to go away and rest, the way the doctor had told him to. And it wasn't too bad, actually. We were sitting on the front porch of the little country house Wells was using as a base of business operations while the workers were repairing the damage to the place in the city; it was a large cottage, really, but the amenities, while rustic, were still first-class. And apparently, despite the Big Dog's interrogation, he had no idea we were on to him yet, because he accepted Venec's story that we were there as added protection, and didn't seem to suspect we were actually his jailers.

I suppose that kind of arrogance had to go with the personality that thought nothing of locking away his wife and son like damned keepsakes, and then calling us in to find them when they were stolen.

After a period of polite chitchat to the backdrop of the
crickets, he stood up, all boardroom grace and manners. “You'll excuse me? I have a conference call to Japan that I need to make.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Nick said. The porch was far enough away from the office on the second floor that even if we had to pull up a sudden surge of current, it probably wouldn't disrupt his call. Probably. And I really doubted we'd have to do anything magical at all: The cottage was set back from the road, with a clear view in either direction thanks to the sloping lawn, and the back of the house was set against a stone hill that went straight up about forty feet. If anyone came our way, we'd grab Wells and run like hell, Translocating only if needful. Wells already knew too damn much about Talent for a guy without any visible moral grounding, and he was the sort to lust after the ability to Translocate in a really unhealthy way.

I listened to the sound of his feet going up the carpeted stair—a not-terribly-expensive Berber weave that was just the right tone of wealthy-casual for a cottage—and then turned back to my partner. “You think we should be listening in on him?”

Nick leaned back in his chair, his feet up on the foot-stool. “Already bugged the place, while you were checking the perimeter.”

I nodded, satisfied. When he said bugged he meant literally—a lovely bit of set-magic that cost a small fortune, but were difficult even for Talent to find, if they weren't looking specifically for it. If they heard a significant phrase or series of words, they'd let Nick know. I thought they were creepy as hell, myself, but you made do with what you had. Someday I'd come up with a more
elegant solution. Someday. I was starting to get a really long “someday” list.

“So.” Nick looked down at his coffee mug and then back at me. When I'd first met him, his short build and placid brown eyes had almost fooled me into not taking him seriously, the same way I'd pegged Nifty for a muscle-bound goon. I knew better, the moment they opened their mouths, and now not even trained dissembling could hide the sharp brain behind those eyes. “You and Venec.”

My instinctive reaction was “what me and Venec?” But it was a little—a lot—too late for that now.

There was the instinctive—and annoying—reach for Venec; the walls were there, but thin, and then they dropped suddenly on his part, and I recoiled a little from the unexpectedness of it, like thinking the shower was warm when the water was actually ice-cold. What the hell?

No time to worry what the Big Dog was up to; Nick was looking at me, waiting for an answer.

“Yeah.” I'd known this was coming since we got sent off together, the first chance Nick's had to corner me, and he wasn't the type to waste opportunity.

We'd been friends from the first day, but we'd never been more than friends and coworkers, never would be, even though he'd flirted like crazy at first. He wasn't a confidant, the way Pietr was, but he might be my best friend in the office, and I'd been treating him like shit the past few months, while Venec and I danced around all this, figuring our deal out…. And now he was going to ask what was up, and I had no idea what to tell him.

Nick had obviously taken lessons from Sharon, because he went in with a scalpel. “You sleeping with him?”

“No.”

“You going to?”

That was the tough question, wasn't it? Me, who never had to take long to decide one way or the other… “I don't know. It's…complicated.”

“Sleeping with the boss is kinda tacky.”

“Yeah. Only it's not just that. There's stuff we need to deal with.”

“Cause of that Merge thing.”

“Yeah.” Understatement of the year. We'd told them a little, not everything, but my pack mates would have done their own research, and pooled notes.

Nick scrunched his face at me, and for a minute I saw the terrible ten-year-old he must have been. “You…don't want it?”

I widened my eyes back at his expression, channeling my own not-so-inner ten-year-old for a moment. “Would you?”

“I…” Nick played the dumb bunny sometimes, but he wasn't, not by a long shot. He stopped to think about his answer. “No. Not really. Talk about awkward. Does it work between two guys? I mean, straight guys?”

I laughed, the way he'd probably meant me to. “I don't know. No reason why it would. Or wouldn't. It's about magic…” My voice trailed off. It was about magic, and passing that magic along, maybe. That was Venec's theory, from what his mentor told him. Current looking to ground along the bloodlines. Genetics. There was still a big hullaballoo over if Talent was genetic or not; it ran
in families, but not always, and could go dormant for generations, or appear out of nowhere, and nobody'd ever found a gene that identified current-use, although there'd been a lot of quietly funded studies done, according to J. Even before they knew what genes were, there were always people who wanted to know the origins of power.

If people found out, beyond the pack…there would be a line of folk wanting to pick us apart. And even more who would want to make me into a broodmare.

I loved kids. I just hadn't been planning on even thinking about having any for…a long time, yet.

Nick, though, had moved on to another question. “How long have you known about this?”

That question was a hell of a lot easier to answer. “Since the ki-rin case.”

Nick leaned back and whistled between his teeth, softly. That had been more than a few months. I wondered if he was putting pieces together, or wondering why he'd not noticed. “And before that?”

“Before that I thought he was hot but annoying. No, wait, I
still
think that he's hot and annoying.”

And this time it was Nick who laughed, the way I'd meant him to.

“So, you want to sleep with him, but you can't sleep with him 'cause the job thing…awwwkward. And it's not like you've been the poster child for self-control on that front, but I'm guessing this thing also makes you not want to go wandering, no matter how pretty the trail?”

He was damned close to the truth on that. I wasn't sure I could work up enough interest in anyone else to wander, and the one thing I'd always demanded, even
when I'd been juggling two or three lovers, was a real, emotional attraction. And honesty. “Hi, you're hot, but I have this weird bond thing with someone else that's always going to come first….” Probably not going to go over well.

“And he, I presume, thinks you're hot, too, cause he's breathing and hetero male, and he practically sizzles when he's yelling at you, which is Venec's way of emotional communication,” Nick finished.

“Nicely delineated, Shune. And your conclusions, having evaluated the available evidence?” I kept my tone light, but his words had burned me a little, left me feeling more raw than I was comfortable with. It mattered what he thought; it mattered what he concluded.

It mattered a lot.

There was a silence. It wasn't a comfortable silence, but I didn't find myself twitching, either. To fill the time while I waited, I let myself listen to the hum of electricity within the house, letting it touch me gently, following the traces out along the wires, and deep into the ground. Wild current and man-made… I much preferred the refined, clarified man-made that ran alongside electricity, but knowing that it was there in the raw form, too, was comforting. If we needed it… I really, really hoped that we wouldn't.

When Nick finally did speak, his voice was as serious as I'd ever heard, this man who joked to keep the boogey monsters at bay. “I was worried, at first. We all were. I mean, it took us months to figure out who went where, y'know?”

I remembered. Pack politics had been dicey, during
training, and even after. It wasn't until the organ-leggers job that we really started to feel properly shaken down. And that was when it had really hit me, this Merge thing, and what it was doing to me. I hadn't thought, at the time, what it might also be doing to the rest of the team.

“We all knew you had the hots for him. Teasing you…didn't make dealing with this easier, did it? If we'd known how serious it was. Or that he… Christ, he does feel the same way, doesn't he?”

And in that instant, Nick went from the coolly calculating pup to aggressively protective little brother, ready to beat up on the boy who didn't appreciate his sister.

“What, annoyed, irritated, frustrated, and really pissed off about the entire thing? Yeah, that sums it up pretty well.” I let go of the tendrils of current, letting them slip away like sunbeams at dusk, and spread my fingers palm-up on my lap, as though I could still see traces of it against my skin. “He's better at repressing it, though.”

I wasn't used to repressing anything. At all. I dealt with it, I explored it, I figured it out, and then I moved on.

“I'm sorry.” For mocking you, for not realizing, for what you're going through, for not being helpful, all in those two words. “It's tougher on you than it is on us, isn't it? I mean, you're juggling all this shit, and worrying about how we're going to react to it, and we're only worrying about how it's going to affect us, if Venec's going to start playing favorites, or acting weird, or we're going to walk in on mad monkey-sex in the conference room.” He looked really pained at that. “Could you maybe warn us if you're going to do that? A sock on the doorknob or something?”

“I really don't think that's going to be an issue, Nicky. But yeah, I promise.” I frowned, distracted. “Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

I held up a hand, not to silence him, but to show the current-traces still resting against my skin; to a Talent it looked like 3-D veins, pulsing greenly against my skin.

“I was testing the wild current around here,” I said, almost whispering, although there was no need. Probably. “And then I felt it…can you pick it up?”

I felt him slide into fugue-state next to me, and followed. Stalking current was like trying to move through a room thick-hung with wind chimes; if you brushed one too closely, it would set off a musical chain reaction, scaring away whatever was on the other side of the room.

Or, worse thought,
not
scaring it away.

Years ago, I'd gone snorkeling in Hawaii, and swum into the huge school of gorgeously colored fish. The front of my brain had been going all ooh and aah, but at the back of my brain the thought had come: what if something was diving into the school from the other side? What if that something had teeth—and wouldn't mind eating something larger than finger-length fishlings?

That was how I felt right then, even before it grabbed me.

The shark image was all wrong. This was like being nailed by an octopus, an eight-armed thing with tentacles that dug into you and held on like a thousand tiny grappling hooks that stung like antiseptic on an open wound. I could feel Nick's current-signature flowing over me, surging into where the hooks met magic-skin and melt
ing them away as fast as they were placed, but he was barely keeping up.

Hold.

The thought came, cold and dark and deeper than anything human could manage. Nick ignored it, flowing onto the next series of hooks.

Hold
it said again, and the hooks started to untangle themselves. I let out a tiny sigh of relief, resisting the urge to rub my physical—and untouched—arms in reaction.

You are the dogs of the Flame?

The what of the who?

An image came, of current strung out long and bright, the orange-red color a dead giveaway, the magical interpretation of Stosser's unmistakable ponytail. My first image of him, dressed all in black, his hair loose, had been of a satanic candle, too.