Staying Dead (21 page)

Lee looked at her, unhappiness plain in his expression. “It's not you, Wren. It's just…Council's been squirrelier than usual, last month or so. They've come down hard on their own people—they shut whats his name, Blackie, over in Staten Island down entirely—mage-locked him in his house for an entire week!—and I think everyone just expects them to come down hard on us, too.” Us being lonejacks. “And, well…odds are you're going to be the first they come down hard on. As an example.”

Wren sighed. “Great. Round up the usual suspects. Why me?”

Lee took the question seriously. “Because you're good. The best, not to feed that ego of yours too much. And because you hang with everyone. Lonejack, fatae, wizzarts…you've even got friends who are mages.”

“One,” Wren corrected. “And I'm never really sure if we're on speaking terms from day to day.”

“She spoke for you back during the Fleet Week debacle.”

“I seem to remember a few other people at this table being involved with that.” Not their finest hour. A prank gone out of hand, and people got hurt. They'd both sworn off pranking after that, otherwise Lee would have been the first suspect in that tag attempt earlier in the week.

“Point is, they remember you. And now you go and get involved in something the Council's watching—yeah, I've heard about Frants. He hired a lonejack 'cause he's already too far in debt to the Council, rumor says.”

Wren nodded. She'd heard the same thing, doing her prelim research. She had run across a lot of rumors. Half of them contradicting the other half and the half that remained usually weren't true anyway.

“So suddenly nobody wants to talk to me, 'cause they're scared the Council's going to think they're linked to me and treat 'em to the same heavy fist?” Could that have been what the tag was about, someone looking to take out a potential problem? But why? And who?

Lee shrugged. “Lonejacks,” he said. “We're a selfish, self-centered bunch.” He patted her hand. “If it makes any difference, everyone, well, mostly everyone respects you. We just don't want to be thought of as…in the same league of trouble as you.”

“So everyone will send flowers, but nobody will come to my funeral, huh? And you're not afraid of being overheard telling me all this?” Her stomach did a slow roil, the acid from the coffee churning into full-blown indigestion.

He shrugged, taking his hand back. “I'm an artist. All my current goes into my work.” His sculptures had been described as “electrifying” by one critic. Since he actually molded the steel with current, that review had given them all the giggles for an hour. “And my connection to the fatae is limited, since I don't use them in my work.” Null-tempered steel responded better to current than one that had already been molded or shaped by a Talented worker. “Short version, the Council doesn't care about me or mine. Suddenly crossing the street when you show up would raise suspicions, not stopping to have a coffee and a chat.

“Hey, if it's any consolation, this too shall pass. Like you said, the Council's always getting squirrely somehow or another. Just hang tight, stay low, and we'll all be right as rain.”

“Yeah. I'd love to do that. I really would.”
But there's still a job to be finished. One that's already got Council fingerprints all over it, even if they do claim to be quits with it. Maybe after that I can talk Sergei into a vacation somewhere that's not here.

“Thanks, Lee.” She stood, picking up her bag from the floor at her feet. “Really. For everything.”

He nodded. “Stay low,” he repeated. “And I'll see you around.”

Wren forced a smile, and walked out the door. “Idiot! Idiot, idiot masquerading as a target!” But by the time she'd walked the three blocks back to her apartment, she was almost resigned to the entire situation.

Maybe the Council does have their fingers in the Frants job, despite what Sergei said. It's also entirely possible that this Council brew-up has nothing whatsoever to do with the case. The Eastern branch has been on our backs for decades; hell, long before I was born.

By the time she had climbed the five flights, the endless loops her thoughts were taking her in had turned her resignation into amusement. “Wren Valere, scourge of New York City,” she said out loud. “The woman strong Talents fear to gossip with.”

Talk to Sergei,
she decided. He probably wouldn't have a clue what to do about it, either, but then again, maybe he would. He'd gone nose to nose with the Council, after all, twice now. Maybe he had some insight a lonejack would be too close to see.

And maybe he'll know a nice city somewhere we can relocate to, when—if—the storm actually breaks
. She left her bag on the kitchen counter, checked to see if there were any messages—there weren't—and went into the music room to put on some careful thinking music.

“Hey. Hey!”

Wren had just been starting to bliss out to the sounds of Rick Braun's “Night Walk” when she heard the banging on the window. One eye had opened, then closed again, but the noise didn't stop. Heaving a sigh, she picked herself up off the floor and went into the kitchen.

“I'm going to get you your own key,” she grumbled, letting P.B. in through the window. The pleasure she felt in his casual manner—so different from the humans of the
Cosa
today—made her tone less irritable than usual.

“Really?”

“Not a chance in hell.”

P.B. sniffed the air. “Oh yum. Any leftovers?”

She gestured to the fridge. “
Mi casa es su casa,
apparently. Claws off the orange beef, that's breakfast tomorrow.”

“That's disgusting.”

“Excuse me? You eat carrion by nature, P.B. Or have you forgotten that little detail?”

“Hey, nobody asked me when they designed my ancestors.”

Literally. Demons were the only members of the
Cosa
to have documented origins. Sometime back in the eleventh century, according to the journals of one H. Buchanon, sick but Talented bastard. Wren had wondered once what sort of creatures he had used as the base stock for his creations. The probable answers so disturbed her she swore never to think in that direction ever again.

“Did you have a reason for showing up, or were you just looking for someone's day to ruin?”

He stopped with his paw inside the carton of pork fried rice. “Whoa, someone got up on the wrong side of the smiley face this morning.”

Wren sighed. “Right, sorry. It's been a long week, a long damned day, and I had a headache to begin with.”

“Oh, sorry.” He shuffled back a step or two, and she smiled at him. That small a distance didn't really make much of a difference to the vibes his kind put out, but it was sweet of him to try.

“And yeah, had a reason. Was at the Firehouse last night, got some good gossip. If you're not too cranky to indulge…”

After the brush-offs she had been getting from her human counterparts, Wren almost pounced on this indication of normalcy. “Sit. Spill.”

He chuffed laughter, and Wren had a vaguely unsettling view of his teeth before the black-lined lips closed again. “You may not be so happy to hear what I've got to say when it's said.”

“That would sort of fit with the rest of the day, that I finally get gossip and it comes with a warning label. Never mind, go on, tell me anyway.”

“There's talk about maybe this vigilante group is being funded by the Council.”

Wren boosted herself up onto the kitchen counter and stared at the demon. “Use a fork,” she suggested absently. “Otherwise you'll get spices under your claws and that's going to burn. Why would they do that? Okay, so the Council isn't exactly fatae-friendly, but they've always been
Cosa. Always.
”

“Except when they're trying to shut us down, put their rules on us. Hell, you're a lonejack, you know what it's like.”

Wren snorted at the timeliness of that comment. Everyone had a mad-on for the Council this week. Not that this was anything new. The Mage Council had been founded to keep a check on human magic-users. The first lonejacks had told them where they could stuff those checks. It had been pretty much subdued oneupmanship ever since then, seven generations of sibling rivalry, with the Council always but always having the upper hand.

“They've always claimed dominance over us, yeah.” None of P.B.'s business what was going on within the lonejack community, if he hadn't sniffed it out already. “But I don't get the logic of this. Even if they wanted to—okay, assume they want to, even if they thought they
could
somehow control all of the fatae, why would they fund a bunch of bigoted head-knockers as part of their plan?” She shook her head. “I don't buy it. Maybe a mage or two—hell, maybe even a lonejack or two, we're not all comfortable with the more, hrmm, outré of the fatae, but not as a Council-condoned movement, no.”

“They're human. We're not. You really think that doesn't matter to the Council?”

She rolled her eyes at him, as theatrically as she could manage. “Sheesh, and people say we're a bunch of bigots!”

“What, you thought that was only
human
nature?” He shook his head, sharp-pointed ears twitching, something she didn't remember ever seeing before.
He must really be nervous.
“Face it, Valere, there's going to come the day when the Council goes too far. When they show their colors, put off the mask, whatever cliché you want to use. Where are the lonejacks going to stand then, huh?”

Oh God, I'm being felt out for a rebellion!
The thought came and went in an instant, as did the quick
Do they know the lonejack gossip, that I'm going to be the Council's whipping boy? Girl? Whatever?

“You're assuming a group consensus. Unlikely, with us. Even if you're talking about just the East Coasters.” She was
not
going to get caught up in this. Not with her own problems already breathing fire.

“I'm serious.” Beady black eyes stared into her own and she was reminded in their red-flecked depths that P.B.—cute fur and button nose aside—was called a demon for a reason. “What's it going to be? Human to human? Or the side you know is right?”

Time to shut this discussion down. Hard. “When the time comes, I'll choose. Why are you in such a rush to have that moment arrive? Do you
want
to see the
Cosa
broken?”

“I'm not rushing anything. Just telling you what I see.”

“I got eyes, too, P.B.”

“Right.” He looked down, seemingly astonished to see that he had eaten his way to the bottom of the container. “You got eyes, but they're human ones. Guess it makes a difference.” He put the container in the trash, gently, and turned to look at her. “See ya around, Wren.”

“Damn it, P.B….”

“No, I mean it. I'll see you around. You're okay. For a human.” He shrugged. “Everything else…we'll see, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, watching him climb out onto the fire escape and slip down the ladder. “Yeah, we will.”
Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first set among factions.
“I need more aspirin.”

 

The sky was splashed with pinpoints of stars, untouched by moonlight. The softness of warm air, and the sigh of leaves bent by the night breeze. A house behind him, lit from inside by bright white lights. Nothing felt real, or right. This wasn't where he had been. This wasn't right. He was…who was he? What was he doing here?

A tremor of panic wrapped around his brain, and he forced it away, forced himself to think clearly. He stood in the middle of the wide, sloping lawn, his back to the house, and stared into the night, oblivious to the pack of hellhounds circling him several feet away, uncertain whether to strike or not.

Where was he? What had happened? He looked at his hands, fingers open, palms facing upward, then brought his left hand slowly up to touch his mouth, his jaw. They made contact, then flinched away in discovery.

He had been a handsome man, before. It was a justifiable vanity which had made him take such care when getting dressed in the morning. Now, his cheekbone felt soft, giving way under his touch, and his pale blond hair was matted and caked with gore on one side, and dusted with cement dust all over. His worsted wool trousers were badly rumpled, and a rip in the knee distracted him for a moment, for he certainly would have recalled tearing his clothes! His hat was gone, his favorite hat, which he knew he'd had with him when he left…this morning? was gone, and he felt a moment's worry about that—his head uncovered, like some young boy at play! His waistcoat was covered with that same gray dust as his hair, and there was another tear in the left sleeve of his shirt. That arm was clearly broken, hanging at a horribly awkward angle. But he felt no pain, wasn't even aware there was anything wrong until touch and sight informed him of it.