Staying Dead (4 page)

 

An expensively upholstered chair crashed against an equally expensively-paneled wall, rattling the oversized photograph of the desert at dawn which hung there.

“Idiots! Incompetents!”

The topmost floor but two of the Frants building was split into nine offices around a center lobby. Eight of those offices were large, lush spaces with a commanding view of the city, with a slightly smaller office directly off and to the inside where each inhabitant's administrative assistant sat. The ninth office was twice again as large, and three assistants guarded access like Cerebrus at the gates of the underworld.

At that moment, two of the assistants were cowering in the bathroom, while the third tried to pretend nothing at all unusual was going on in her boss's sanctum.

“Sir, we merely feel that it would be wisest—”

“Don't!” Oliver Frants held one finger up in the younger man's direction, his florid, freshly-shaven face turning an ill-omened shade of pink. “Do. Not. Tell. Me. What. To. Do.” Each word was bitten off with precision, as though his perfectly capped teeth were holding back longer, uglier words.

The three executives glanced at each other, uncertain what to say next. They were all in their mid- to late forties; healthy, well-groomed, impeccably dressed. The kind of people you would normally see at the head of a boardroom table, having highly placed people report to them.

But in here, they cowered.

“I will not abandon this building. I will not abandon any of my scheduled meetings. And I will. Not. Hide.”

He looked at them each in turn, until they dropped their gaze like chastened children.

“Sir?” The woman, Denise Macauley, had dredged up enough courage to speak. Frants smiled. She had been a particular protégé of his, years ago, and her sharp wits had never failed him.

“Yes, Denise?”

“If I may suggest, sir, that we add to the building's defenses?”

“And just how do you suggest we do that,” he asked, “since the mages have made it quite clear that they will not allow their members to work for us any longer? Are you suggesting I hire another freelancer?” When the Council had, after looking things over, refused to help, despite it being their people who had set the spell in the first place, the only alternative had been to look for someone among the so-called lonejack community. The Council's spin would have you believe that they were nowhere near as talented as their own members, but reports had said that one seemed particularly suited for the job, and so Frants had authorized it. But retrieval was one thing. His security—especially his long-term security—was another. “Or do you think that we should perhaps hire a wizzart?”

“No sir,” she said, properly dismissing that idea as unthinkable. You couldn't hire a wizzart; they were the flakes of the magic-using world, just as likely to forget what they were doing, and for whom. Or to bring your solution to your enemies, just for kicks. They were too unpredictable for a well-ordered business plan. He could see her mind working at a breakneck speed, choosing and discarding alternatives until she came up with one she thought he could accept. “There has been some talk about a freelance mage down in New Mexico; very powerful, but a little too…creative in his ways for the rest of his kind. Solid reputation—has never once sold out or otherwise failed a client. Council-trained, but no longer under their strictures. He's opened his doors to bidders—I think that we would be able to come to an agreement with him that would be mutually beneficial.”

A well-trained, thinking associate was a blessing to their manager. “Excellent. Marco, see that it's done.”

One of the men nodded his head, and turned to leave the room. His pace was perhaps a shade too swift for propriety, but Frants didn't call him on it. A little fear, leavened by generous bonuses, made for excellent working conditions.

Denise had stiffened when he gave her idea to someone else, but she didn't allow any resentment or anger to show on her face. Good girl. He would have to reward her when all this was done.

“Randolph?”

The remaining man came to attention, his shoulders going back in an automatic response. You could take the boy out of the Corps, but…

“Could you please speak to Allison in Human Resources, have her write up a press release stating that we had an unfortunate attempt on our security, but that we have every faith in the systems we use, and do not feel that there is any need for alarm, etc. If this bastard
did
take the stone to try and undermine Frants Industries, he will have to work harder than that. Much, much harder.”

Randolph nodded and performed a sharp about-face, covering the plush carpeting between him and the door with a steady, measured stride.

“Sir?” Denise said, when he sat down behind his heavy mahogany desk, to all appearances having forgotten she was still there.

“Ah yes, Denise.” He looked at her, his pale blue eyes cold, dispassionately calculating. “It may be that this is not the act of a business competitor, but someone perhaps a bit more…directly connected with the particular object which was taken. If that is—an extreme possibility, I agree—but if that is so, then I think that we may need to take further steps than even the ones you had suggested. If you would give me your arm, please?”

Denise had worked for Oliver Frants most of her adult life. She knew what he was asking. And, to her credit, she didn't flinch as he reached into his desk drawer, and pulled out a small, intricately woven straw box with an oddly liquid design, like an hourglass but not, on the lid. He slid the box across the table toward her, and something inside it
shhhhhssssssshhhed
like old grass in the wind.

 

The assistant still sitting at her desk heard a noise in the main office. A sibilant, sharp noise, like metal on metal. A wet slap, like flesh on flesh, and a muffled moan of agony. And then silence.

She placed her hands palm down on her desk, stared at the well-manicured fingers that cost fifty dollars every single week to keep in ideal condition, and swallowed hard.

 

Wren spent the rest of the afternoon reading up on the newest generation of motion detectors—not her idea of light reading, but essential to keeping up to date in her particular line of work. Sometimes, for whatever reason, you couldn't use current. Wren refused to be caught with her pants down if and when that happened to her.

Sprawled on the carpet in the third bedroom, which was otherwise filled with her considerable research library, engrossed despite herself by journals with ten-point type and convoluted electrical diagrams, time got away from her.

“Ah, hell,” she muttered when she actually glanced down at her watch. She shuffled the journals into a messy pile and left them there, closing the bedroom door firmly behind her. One finger pressed against the knob and a narrow thread of current flowed from her to wrap around the metal mechanism, locking the tumblers in place. Not that it would keep out anyone determined to get in, but the spell was tied to her just enough to let her know if the attempt was made. She could have coaxed some elementals into baby-sitting for her, to act like a siren if the thread was broken, but the reality was that when
she
saw elementals clustered, that drew her attention to the lock rather than away. And why put up a sign saying “important things behind this door” if you were trying to keep people
out?

She grabbed her keys from the bowl in the kitchen, shoving her feet into a pair of low-heeled boots as she headed out the door, locking it carefully behind her with the more commonplace and nonmagical dead bolts every New Yorker installed as a matter of course.

Three-quarters of the way down the narrow apartment stairs, she realized that she had left the folder P.B. had given her on the kitchen table.

“Grrrr…urrrggghh.” She reversed herself midstep and dashed back up, knocking open the four dead bolts and grabbing the bright orange folder. Locking up took more precious time, and she was swearing under her breath in some colorful Russian phrases she had picked up from Sergei by the time she finally hit the street.

With all that, despite the fact that she was only walking a few blocks, it was closer to seven forty-five before she made it to Marianna's. She paused on the street outside the tiny storefront, clutching the folder in her hand as though she might forget it again somewhere, and checked her appearance in the reflective glass door.

She thought about the lipstick she had left untouched on her bathroom counter, and made a face at herself. You don't need to put on a face for Sergei, for God's sake, she snarled mentally. He'd seen her at three in the morning, drenched in sweat and splattered with both their blood, and not blinked. So long as she didn't actively embarrass him in a social setting, she could paint herself in blue-and-green stripes and he'd just say something like, “Interesting outfit, Genevieve.”

And why did it matter, anyway? If there was one thing she knew, without a doubt, it was that Sergei gave a damn about what was inside, not out. So why did that thought, increasingly, make her feel depressed instead of comforted?

Job, Valere. Job.

Squaring her shoulders, she pushed open the door. Callie looked up from her seat at the bar, saw it was her, and merely nodded toward the table where Sergei was waiting.

Wren shook her head in mock disgust, although she wasn't sure if it was at herself or her partner. Well, of course he was there before she was. Odds were good that he had arrived at exactly seven-twenty-nine, trench coat over one arm, briefcase at his side, taken one look at the restaurant, saw she wasn't there yet, sighed, and requested a table in the back and a glass of sparkling water, no ice.

“Been here long?” she asked, slipping into the seat opposite Sergei. He looked up from his notepad, then looked at his watch. “A little over fifteen minutes,” he said, confirming her suspicion.

In a simple but expensive gray suit and burgundy tie, Sergei could have passed unnoticed in the carpeted halls of any brokerage house. Broad-shouldered, with a close-cropped head of dark hair and a nose that was just a shade too sharp for good looks matched to an astonishingly stubborn square chin, he could just as easily have been a former quarterback-turned-minor-league newscaster, or a successful character actor.

What he was, in fact, was the owner and operator of a very discreet, wildly overpriced art gallery. It was through the gallery that he made the contacts who often had need of Wren's services: private citizens, mostly, but also the occasional museum or wholesaler who didn't want to go through the police or—even worse—the insurance companies to reclaim their stolen artwork.

And, on occasion, something a little more…unusual. Like this case.
Sorry,
she amended even though Sergei couldn't hear her thought,
this situation.

Callie came over, wiping her hands on the front of the white apron tied around her waist, and stood by their table, one bleached-blond eyebrow raised. “Your usual?” she said to Wren.

“Nah, I think I'll live dangerously.” She scanned the chalkboard behind the bar with a practiced eye. “Give me the Caesar salad and the filet of sole.”

“Which is exactly what you've had the past three times. Experiment a little, willya?” Callie had the flat-toned voice of someone trying to pretend they weren't from around here, but unlike almost every other waiter and waitress in town, she wasn't waiting for the big break to sweep her off to Hollywood.

“And a glass of Chianti.”

“Ooo, red instead of white. You are living dangerously.” Not that being a professional waitress made her any more respectful of her clientele. Just the opposite, actually.

“See why I love this place?” Wren asked her companion.

“Indeed. A tossed salad and the halibut, please. Nothing else to drink.”

“You guys have really got to calm your wild lives down,” the waitress said in disgust, stalking off to the kitchen with a practiced flounce.

“We're such a disappointment to her.”

Wren snorted. Callie had been flirting madly with Sergei for two years now, ever since Wren moved into the neighborhood and they started coming here regularly, and he remained serenely unresponsive. Disappointment didn't even begin to cover it. Wren could understand Callie's point of view, though. If she wasn't so sure he'd look at her blankly, or worse yet give her the “we're partners, nothing more” speech, she might have made a play for him, too. Well, maybe not when they first partnered. But lately…it was weird, how someone so familiar could suddenly one day, totally out of the blue and with a random thought, become…interesting. In that way.

Damn it, Valere, focus!
“Whatcha got for me?”

Sergei lifted a plain manila envelope out of his briefcase and handed it to her. “The names of all the highly-placed executives, both within the Frants Corporation and at rival organizations, who would have reason to hold a grudge of this magnitude, and the financial wherewithal to hire someone to perform magic of this level. You?”