Dragon Justice (20 page)

Venec might be current’s Merge-picked match for me, but Pietr
and I had been lovers and were friends, and the connection, in some ways, was
stronger.

“Go,” I told the current-spell, releasing all but a single
strand, curled in the center of my palm. It slipped away, draining my core to
the point that I actually noticed it—and noticed something else as well: every
two notches I slipped, half a notch refilled.

Ben.

Not even noticing, just reacting.

I took it, stirred it into my core, and made a mental note to
thank him later. And then I waited for the spell to boomerang back to me.

Breathing. Holding the fugue state. Letting the others move
around me, their voices not-quite-distinguishable as words, merely color-blocks
of noise, their intent not-threatening and therefore ignorable.

I didn’t know what to expect, so I expected nothing. Waiting,
open, trusting Pietr to protect me if anything went wrong, trusting my pack to
have my back, that anything that meant to harm me would have to go through them,
first.

Because they were doing other things did not mean they were not
also watching me.

That was Venec’s gift to us, breaking us to harness, teaching
us how to work independently and together at the same time, without fuss or
resistance until it was as natural as breathing, as—

The spell boomeranged back and slammed me in the gut. I bent
over instinctively, even though the hit was magical, not physical, and felt the
spell break and scatter around me. Two years of experience was barely enough to
let me catch the shards, fitting them together instinctively, quick-panic
movements like handling forge-hot shards of glass. A picture formed, and I
poured more current into it, turning up the depth and brightness until it was
visible to everyone in the room.

“Holy…” Pietr saw it take form first, but I could tell when I
had everyone’s attention. As dramatic pauses went, it was pretty damn fine.

“That’s the murder weapon.”

“Yeah.” Once I was sure I’d secured the image, I rose up from
fugue state and refocused my eyes on the Null world. Usually it seemed drab and
flat after being so hyperaware of current, but my attention was focused—like
everyone else’s—on the image floating a foot above the table.

“I thought you were going to reach the killer himself?” Stosser
didn’t sound disapproving but a little surprised.

“I did.” The gut-punch made me sound oddly breathless, but I
was certain of my result—and why. “The killer was so focused on his cuts, on
making each one perfect, focusing on what he wanted, this is all he saw. Not the
victim. Not himself. Just the knife.”

It wasn’t a scalpel; too large, and too long, for all that it
had a surgical precision to it. Like a filleting knife, if you were deboning a
Jurassic flounder.

“He doesn’t see the people,” Pietr said, as the spell-knife
flashed down and up again, all the more disturbing for the fact that it stayed
clean and shiny. Where was the blood that had to speckle it in real time?
“They’re not important to him.”

“What is important to him? What is he trying to do? Is it their
pain? Their screams?” Stosser was talking to himself; we were just there to
listen along. But I answered anyway, like an idiot.

“He wants something. I don’t know what. I’d have to do a
deeper—”

“No.” Venec, with Sharon a half-second behind him. Not that it
mattered; I wasn’t going to volunteer. The idea of intentionally going into a
serial vivisectionist’s emotions was not high on my to-do list, even without the
PUPI-wide ban on it. If we needed to do it to catch the guy… We’d do it as a
team, and Venec would be lead dog.

That wasn’t my decision but his, solid and unquestionable.

“No,” Stosser agreed, and I could feel everyone exhale in
relief.

“We have the weapon,” Venec said, turning everyone’s attention
back to the display. “And, therefore, by extension, we have the killer.”

He had his teaching-dog voice on.

“But there’s nothing attached to it,” Pietr said. “We
can’t—”

“Look at how the blade is held. What does that tell us?”

“The cuts are precise, but…weird.” Sharon walked around the
table, studying the motions closely. “He’s holding it like a paintbrush, not a
kitchen knife.”

“He’s right-handed,” I said. It figured: a lefty might have
been easier to find. “The angle he’s coming down at, that’s from the right side
of the body, not the left.”

I’d taken self-defense classes as a kid, at J’s insistence, but
that knowledge came from fight class with Nick, who was a surprisingly dirty
fighter—and had trained us all to be the same.

“There’s something about the way he’s moving.” Venec had
stepped closer to the table, almost bending over into the range of the gleaning,
and I pinged him with a faint warning; he stepped back before I could even
finish sending. You didn’t want to tangle in someone else’s spellwork, even as
tuned-in to each other as we were.

“He’s moving around. Like the body is on a table, which would
make sense.”

“The bodies were found in alleys, in every case,” I said. “Near
trash cans, not hidden.”

“A dump site. They are just trash to him, when he’s done.”

“But he has a table to work on, not the floor. That suggests a
specific place, where he has tools. And privacy.” Sharon was sorting through her
thoughts like file cards.

“And soundproofing,” Pietr added

“Current could do that. Or keep the victim from screaming.”

“Would he bother? If he doesn’t see them, literally or
emotionally…”

“He’s pausing,” Venec said. “A cut and a cut and a cut and then
a pause. What is he waiting for?”

“Listening?” That felt right to me somehow.

“Maybe.” But he didn’t sound convinced.

“Watching,” Stosser said. “He’s watching. It’s not the sound
that he’s getting off on. It’s the body language. Maybe the expression. He
probably did silence each victim, because the inability to scream for help—or
express the pain—probably intensified the agony.”

It was seriously creepy how carefully Stosser enunciated each
word, so precise in his assessment, almost like he was enjoying it. He wasn’t,
not exactly, but his brain tended to be more analytical and occasionally forget
that there was a person dying under those blows.

Well, dead already now.

“Boss,” Sharon said. “You’re seriously creepy sometimes.”

I loved my coworkers. A lot.

“So he’s a sadist who thinks he’s an artist, making each strike
just so over and over again—trying to create a masterpiece?”

“Or re-create one, maybe.” Pietr had not quite disappeared, but
he was definitely fading a bit at the edges. What fascinated Stosser was
stressing him.

*okay?*

*no* And a sense of having seen it all before, unvoiced,
unformed but present in his ping. Suddenly, a lot about my coworker/once-lover
clicked into place, and I felt my gorge rise.

*stop*

I stopped. He didn’t want sympathy, he didn’t want
understanding, he just wanted to let it go. So we let it go.

“That would explain why he doesn’t see them,” Sharon said,
oblivious to the undercurrents. “They’re just his clay.”

“The same strokes, over and over again.” The fact that we’d
already identified it as a control group—a scientific experiment—made it worse,
not better; confirming the fact that, unless we stopped it, he’d keep going.

The pattern was seriously bugging me, as I watched the knife
rise and fall. “We need more detail on the actual deaths. That’s what will turn
the lock—understanding what he’s doing, why.”

Venec shook his head. “We don’t have access to the local cops
anymore, and bringing anyone else up to speed would take too long, too many
channels to wade through. Pietr—”

“Already on it. Nick’s going to fire up his scrying machine and
see what he can do.”

I should offer to deep-scry, too. I didn’t want to. I wanted to
not look at this anymore, turn away, forget that anyone could do this not just
once, or twice, but so many times.

PUPI didn’t turn away. We didn’t forget. Not until we had all
the facts.

“All right, then,” Stosser said, “we need to—”

“Someone order a pizza?”

The smell hit my nose the same instant the unfamiliar voice
did. I was pretty sure I didn’t lunge at the poor hotel security guy holding our
dinner, but it was a close thing. Venec moved in front of the table, his build
sort of blocking the guy’s view of the table, should he happen to wonder what
the hell was going on, while Sharon pulled her wallet from her purse slung over
the chair and tried to pay the guy.

“Nah, they put it on your master room charge,” the guy said,
waving her off. “And the tip. Manager’s orders.”

They were probably afraid we’d stiff them or something. Venec
had worked some fast-talking to get us this room but I had no idea what he’d
said. The manager was a Null—most of the staff were, too. No idea if the pizza
guy was, but nobody wanted to risk him asking questions about what he might or
might not see down here.

I took the boxes from the guy and body checked him gently out
the door, making sure he went straight to the elevator before looking around for
a place to put the pies. Even if the display hadn’t been off-putting for dinner,
there were still piles of paper scattered over the surface that would not be
improved by grease stains.

“Over here.” Sharon pulled forward a battered metal stool from
the corner of the room, even as Pietr rescued the plastic bag of sodas from the
top of the pizzas. “I hope they gave us napkins.”

They had. And then there was silence, save for the sound of
soda fizzing and jaws chewing, while five hungry Talent refueled, the scalpel
lifting and cutting in pantomime behind us.

* * *

After pizza, Stosser had pulled rank and told us all to
call it quits for the night. Another one of the Rules: we didn’t pull
all-nighters. We might not sleep, but we needed to rest our brains for a few
hours every twelve, for them to work effectively.

Resting your brains didn’t mean turning them off, though.

Sharon raised one perfectly waxed eyebrow when I showed up at
her door, bags in hand, but let me in, anyway.

“So. You and Venec.”

I sighed, aware I wasn’t going to be able to dodge, this time.
“He and Stosser are having a Big Dog talk. I decided discretion was the better
part of not getting bit.”

“Should I be flattered?”

That I’d decided to crash with her, rather than Pietr, she
meant. I thought that was what she meant, anyway.

“Life…has gotten a little complicated,” I admitted.

“Good.” Sharon sounded disgustingly smug and relieved at the
same time. “You two were going past cute and into annoying, and we were about to
draw lots to see who had to lock the two of you into a room until this got
settled.”

While I tried to decide if I even wanted to respond to that,
Sharon went back to sitting on the edge of her bed, brushing out her hair. She
had utterly gorgeous blond hair, thick and silky, and it was a shame that she
always kept it pulled back, even though I totally understood not wanting to have
to fuss with it during the day: it was the same reason I kept my curls short and
simple.

“So, the museum thing. The one The Wren’s involved in?”

“A side job Venec took on, invited me down to watch and
learn.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Oh, shut up. Lou told me to take a break, and he invited.
That’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

I guess my exasperation showed, because she laughed and put
down her brush, turning to look at me. Sharon was not only a straight shooter,
but she also had the ability to tell when someone was not telling her the truth.
It made her an excellent PUP—and a pain in the ass when you were playing
poker.

“So, the fact that you guys only had the one room—with the one
bed?”

“The first night, we came back to the room after midnight and
fell asleep on top of the covers, fully dressed, surrounded by files. And last
night…we were on a case.”

“Uh-huh.” She watched me; that perfectly sculpted face no
longer a disguise for the equally sculpted brain inside. “And if Valere hadn’t
tried to break in, while you were there?”

I made a face but didn’t dodge. “I don’t know.”

I didn’t. I didn’t think Ben knew, either. We’d tried denial;
we’d tried running parallel. They’d all worked—for a while. But it wasn’t going
away, and neither were we, so… The fact that we’d both given way at the same
time might have been coincidence, or the Merge, but it happened. No point in
poking at it now; time to move on.

“So we’re still at status quo,” Sharon said, standing up to put
her brush back on the dresser.

“Why, your call-date coming up?” I knew that the pack had
started betting on when we’d break—even before they knew about the Merge, they’d
money on it.

“I’m playing the odds,” Sharon said. “Spread my cash around.
Feel free to take your time. I think Nifty’s got next week, though.”

“Gee, thanks.” I layered the sarcasm extra heavy, there.

Sharon had a lovely laugh, and I didn’t hear it anywhere near
enough. She went to use the bathroom, and I lay on the second bed and
contemplated the ceiling. No, I decided, it didn’t bother me that the question
of what we were going to do had been tabled by the job: we’d taken the first
step toward wherever we were going, and we’d get there, eventually. At our own
pace, though, not according to whatever agenda the Merge might have.

The thought of the Merge—some mystical matchmaking force—as a
little old woman scowling at us because we were making her wait made me smile.
And on that note, listening to the sound of water running in the bathroom, I
fell asleep.

Dragons

Not again, part of my mind thought. I’ve already gotten the
message. And then the dream took over, and the giant claw wrapped around my
midsection squeezed out any thoughts other than
I can’t
breathe.