Retrievers - Burning Bridges Part 10

Nine.

The night was quiet, the way only a major city can be, after all the clubs and bars had closed down, and the sober and the drunk alike made it to bed, and before the morning workers started their shifts. Into that silence there was a sudden sharp noise that could have been a thunder crack, or a transformer blowing, or a flash of scentless gunpowder.

"You catch that?" a voice piped up from beside Nahir's ear.

The slight, Sikh man in a dark red snowsuit and a traditional turban looked at the sky and frowned. "Could be anything." But he was already increasing his pace, walking in the direction his companion indicated, fast enough that the foot-high piskie had to cling to his ear to keep from falling off her shoulder perch.

For the sins only Allah knew about, the two of them had drawn the sixth corner quadrant for their patrol: not much except run-down concrete housing complexes and a handful of good-intentioned parks gone to h.e.l.l, rounded out by the never-ending noise of the highway running alongside the East River.

At four in the morning on a cold, snow-blown Friday, the only ones who should have been out were drunk twenty-somethings, an occasional stubborn-and frozen-homeless person, and a pair or three of weary, frost-hardened cops. Nahir didn't expect to find any of them at the heart of this disturbance, and he wasn't surprised.

Static was discharging off the blacktop of the old basketball court. Tar not being the most naturally current-producing of surfaces, Twinkletoes was right to point it out. Something was up.

Under the corona of current, five middle-aged men faced off against each other. Three of them were down to slacks and shirtsleeves, showing either a total lack of common sense or an impressive level of macho in the face of the weather. Or, more likely, they were using a significant level of current in order to keep themselves warm. Conspicuous consumption, Cosa -style. The other two had more practical jackets and gloves on, one a Polartec squall jacket over his jeans, the other wearing a long black wool overcoat and a brimmed wool hat, to keep the snow off.

Those two were the ones Nahir approached. Anyone willing to look like a weak-wuss in what was clearly a p.i.s.sing contest was either completely clueless, and thus a danger to themselves and everyone else in the area, or justifiably c.o.c.ky, and a danger, period.

The other three were probably just arrogant a.s.sholes, secure in superior numbers-and might already be at their limits. They could wait.

"Gentlemen." That was probably giving them far too much credit. "Stand down."

Another bolt of current sizzled underground, shaking the blacktop and giving Nahir a bad case of hotfoot. One of the a.s.sholes-#3 on the left-jumped and swore as the bolt struck home, right through his soles. Sneakers, which meant rubber soles, Nahir noted. That was some seriously directed current. Also, must be tough to mult.i.task enough to stay warm, maintain a defense, and plan a counterattack.

"Gentlemen, stand-down, " he warned them again.

"You want I should buzz them?" Twinkletoes asked, sotto voce in his ear. He could hear the antic.i.p.ation hum in her voice, without even turning his head to look at her. Piskies; Allah bless them for the mischief-makers they were. And this one, still a teenager, and so worse than most.

"No, " he said firmly, then, "not yet, anyway."

"Back off, boy, " Overcoat said. "This is a private matter."

"Tolja they should have issued us uniforms, " Twinkletoes said. "A badge, at least. I'd love to flip 'em a...badge."

Nahir choked back a totally inappropriate laugh, and sent a quick ping back to Patrol leader, a mental snapshot of the moment, giving them a face and a voice to work from. That was his skill-strength, and why he had been chosen for Patrol: the combination of memory and strong mind-to-mind contact, the latter being an unusual gift. Contrary to popular wishes, telepathy wasn't in the top ten of uses current could be put to.

It only took a minute for the Patrol captain to relay his information to the brains at Truce Central, for them to check records, and ping back the relay with a name to go with the face.

Unfortunately, that minute had been enough to let the a.s.sholes regroup, and go back on the offensive. Blue current wove through the air, looking like ribbons his daughter tied in her hair on special days. Only these ribbons were three inches wide, and had teeth on either edge, looking for skin to latch onto.

"MisterSt. Meyers. Stand down, you and your friends. In the name of the Cosa and the Quad, I order you to stand down and cease breaking the Truce with unauthorized use of current against fellow members."

"Stupid speech, " the piskie said.

"Shut up." He knew it was stupid, yes. And useless, too, as Overcoat struggled under hungry current, and Polartec sent out a nasty stream of purple-flecked static to cut the ribbons, with mixed success. Defensive stuff, that, totally within the scope of the Truce-but only by very careful interpretation.

"Twinkletoes, now would be a good time to do that flutter by-bye thing...."

She extended her wings, then paused. "You okay on your own?"

"You going to be any particular help if I'm not?"

Piskies were great as distractions in a fight, especially if your opponent wasn't used to being buzzed by Tinkerbell's punk cousin, but there was little they could do against a prepared, current-wielding opponent more than twenty times their body ma.s.s.

"Right. Off to fetch the cavalry. Give 'em h.e.l.l, turban-boy."

She lifted off, and Nahir reached down to grab a chunk of his own current from his core. He wasn't great shakes as Talent went, but he'd meditated and recharged before coming out on patrol, and so he would be able to distract them, at least.

He only needed to do that. The nearest Patrol pair was only a dozen blocks away, and somebody at the HQ had to be half-decent at Translocation, to get troops here quickly if needed. He hoped so, anyway. That hadn't been covered in their briefings.

Before he could decide how to stage his distraction, a.s.shole #2 staggered and fell to his knees, bleeding from the nostrils, the blood shiny black under the flickering street lamps overhead. One core-depleted, and down for the count. But rather than evening the odds and making the a.s.sholes rethink their position, it just seemed to get them more riled up. Any blood in the water, even if it was their own.

"Stand down!" Nahir snapped again, aiming his words at St. Meyers, as the name he knew and the only guy who seemed to have brought brains to the party. "Back off and go home."

"Those a.s.swipes called us out!"

Ego would get you every time. Nahir had tangled with a neighborhood gang, back when he was a teenager, new to this country. He had gotten a gutful of what ego could push you to, then; enough to last him all this life and into the next. None of the players here were teenagers. They had no excuses.

"Back off, or this is just going to escalate. Do you want to go down in history as the schmuck who killed an entire city?"

"f.u.c.k off, " Polartec snarled.

"I can't do that, my friend. I don't want to go down in history as the schmuck who let you go down in history."

Right now, he had the advantage, however slight. Backup was coming. All he had to do was distract them. Keep them from attacking each other, because someone dying was the exact thing that would break apart the Truce, send each faction into a frenzy of finger-pointing and paranoid self-defense, and that was exactly what he was there to prevent.

a.s.shole #1 was about to say something, and Nahir made a judgment call not to wait and see if it was a comeback, abuse, or a spell. He struck.

"I speak for the Truce-Board.

The Truce-Board speaks in me.

Hold, you five For disciplining."

As poetry went, even Nahir knew that it stank on ice. As a cantrip, designed to put oomph into the blow of current he delivered, it was a thing of beauty. He felt the waves of current rise up in him, met by four strains of power washing through him, from outside: the Quad picking up on and working with the spell, exactly the way they'd promised when it was taught to all the Talent taking part in the Patrols. Next thing he knew, he was on his knees, weaker than a runt puppy, and the five troublemakers were laid out on the ground, bound with shackles of current at hands and feet, wads of the stuff shimmering to mage-sight in their mouths, stifling any counterattack they might have tried to speak.

You could direct current without verbalizing, but it was a lot more difficult unless you were top-tier. And top-tier didn't scuffle in common playgrounds.

"Nice work."

From the voice, coming somewhere over his left ear, Twinkletoes was back.

"Thanks, " he managed, watching as shadowy figures moved in from behind him and started carting the idiots off, presumably to be seen to by the Truce Board. Good riddance, and not his headache any longer.

Speaking of which...

"I need coffee. And a Tylenol."

A human hand helped him up off the ground and offered him a flask. Nahir hesitated, then swigged it anyway. He felt a burn start in his throat and down to his gut that was harsher than any diner coffee, and twice as effective as Tylenol.

"Good work, " the district Patrol leader was saying to him. "We'll cover the rest of your shift-you go home. Fairy-juice only lasts so long, and you're going to crash, hard, after that for at least forty-eight hours. Report for debriefing when you wake up."

Fairy juice, huh? "Right, " Nahir said, and-with Twinkletoes giggling in his ear-staggered off for home, and bed.

Truce Headquarters was the grandiose name they had given to the back room of a local Portuguese bakery. The apartment they had met in previously was still being used for meetings, but a bakery could handle a better flow of foot traffic without raising eyebrows, as Patrol leaders reported in, and new Patrols went out. The split locales were useful for another reason: there had been a quick and unanimous consensus not to leave all their players in the same location, just in case they were sold out again. The Cosa could, occasionally, learn from their own disasters.

As with the apartment, the bakery was Cosa -owned: the family was from a long line of Talents who had been in Manhattan since the Dutch were still clearing the land above Ca.n.a.l Street, the youngest of the line a teenage daughter who was studying with Michaela's old mentor. Lines and lines of family. They didn't call it the Cosa only as a joke.

The long worktable had been cleared of flour and was now covered with papers and half-empty take-away coffee cups. Most of the Truce-Board-the Double Quad, plus the Council additions-were at the other building, but Bart, the Council Rep, and a handful of various Talents pressed into reluctant duty had been huddled around the table, hanging over a map of Manhattan; placing, moving and removing markers as updates came in and plans changed.

"Quadrants one, five, and nine are quiet, or at least reasonably not badly behaved. Two, three, seven, and eight had minor scuffles, mostly one-on-ones that were broken up without fuss. Mostly it's cabin fever and the resulting hijinks. If we'd just get a thaw, let people stretch their legs, maybe see some sunshine..."

Despite, or perhaps because of the willpower required for successful long-term current-working, most Talent either lost their sense of humor early on, or channeled it into mischief-making and pranking. Wren had been in the middle of a few of those pranks herself, before one went south and she lost her taste for them. Pranking could be-mostly was-harmless, but when you kept Talents locked down and deprived them of the usual social outlets because of the snow, add in a touch of nerves and paranoia-she was only surprised that the pranks so far hadn't gotten ugly.

The fatae currently reporting wasn't a breed she recognized. Not unusual, but it still surprised her, every time she came face-to-face with a new breed. It-she couldn't tell a gender-looked too frail to be let out alone, but the scarring on one of its gossamer wings and the wary but confident way it stood told a careful observer that it might not break as easily as it seemed.

Wren was sitting in a corner, well out of the general fuss and bustle in the room. The only other person who was still was Colleen, the Council representative-or as Bart had unfairly but not unjustly tagged her, the Council Mouthpiece. A slender young woman with brunette hair perfectly shaped into a 1940s-style chignon, Colleen was reportedly KimAnn Howe's own student. That rumor might or might not have been true-unlike most, Madame Howe kept her mentorships hidden from public view-but the Double-Quad was careful to say nothing within her hearing that was not fit to be heard by the woman in charge of the Council, and Colleen was careful to return the favor.

The Truce might be holding, but it was an uneasy bridge, and not one you wanted to dance on.

That said, Colleen was undeniably capable, competent, and irritatingly smart. Wren didn't like her, particularly, but she'd want the girl at her back for as long as the Truce held, and not one instant longer.

"Yo."

Wren was broken from her thoughts by the entry of a new player to the hum and flow of the reporting room. The man looked familiar. Not a lonejack, not even Cosa . She rummaged through the mental filing cabinets and came up with a reference: the Retrieval in November, between the chaos of the Council facedown and Sergei's cutting ties with his old mentor, Andre, and the psi-bomb attack, and...well, it had been a busy month, but she remembered the face. The movers who had been moving the mark, Melanie Worth-Rosen, out of her apartment. The older one, who had gone to help the j.a.panese fatae-Retriever, Shig, when Sergei had "roughed him up" as part of their planned distraction.

Not Cosa , not Talent, although he was-in her limited experience-a pretty good guy. So, who was he, and why was he here?

"Morgan." Colleen greeted him, almost casually, as she looked up from her notes.

And the Council Mouthpiece knew him. Curiouser and curiouser. He nodded to her in return, but looked to the fatae Quad to report. Innnteresting, yes. Have to remember that not all Council are a.s.sholes, and not all Nulls are bigots....

"We had some trouble over in quadrant six, East Side, " he was saying. Hands loose by his thighs, shoulders straight but not tensed, face tired, yeah, but his gaze was alert and his body language overall spoke of unwired, unstressed, active...activeness?

So not a word. I'm full of not-words, these days. I need about twelve hours of sleep, and a little less coffee.

"Five respectable citizens of the testosterone-fueled sort got into a school yard shoving match. The Patrol in that area took them down, when reasoned discussion proved less than effective." His tone was matter-of-fact, not even a hint of irony or sarcasm.

"Who was the aggressor, Council or lonejack? Were there any fatae involved? Any non- Cosa ?" The questions were thrown at him from every side of the table.

Morgan shrugged, a "don't know, don't give a d.a.m.n" sort of shrug. Wren admired it, with a pained sort of nostalgia. She used to be able to do that. "The Patrol didn't stop to ask, I'm guessing, and you all look alike to me."

Beyl's gnome a.s.sistant giggled at that, and the griffin swatted him gently with a forepaw. Tacky to laugh, even if it was funny. Particularly with the comment coming from a Null.

Wren tagged Bart, the closest Quad member, with a ping-query pointed at the man, Morgan.

Martial arts expert, he sent back. The drakneef -a sense of recognition to the name: the delicate-looking fate reporting earlier-hired him to teach them basic self-defense, when the vigilantes became a real problem.

He was the one who gave that fatae the quiet confidence she'd sensed? Wren was impressed. But why was he here? Who was paying him, now?

He showed up when the Patrols were being organized, volunteered to help. Got voted to quadrant captain a week later, and not just 'cause n.o.body else wanted the job.

The fatae trust him?

Bart snorted, causing the person standing next to him to glance at him curiously. Ask me, he's the only one they do trust. 'Case you missed it, not a lot of lovey-dovey touchy-feely good vibes going around, for all that the Truce is holding.

Trust Bart to get to the meat of the matter. He was the Manhattan representative for a reason, and it wasn't his adorable personality. "No-bulls.h.i.t Bart" was his nickname in the construction business, he'd told her more than once, with real pride.

"So long as n.o.body's getting killed, " she said out loud. "Trust is overrated, anyway."

"Trust will come." Colleen said, moving closer to Wren.

Wren ignored the response to her words. n.o.body asked the Mouthpiece into what had been a private conversation, but there she was, anyway.

"Those on the front lines, the lonejack and the Council, the fatae and human. They are learning to rely on each other, guard each other's blind spots, use the network and support we provide, to keep the city safe." Colleen smiled, a practiced, peaceful, "we're all drinking the same Kool-Aid together" smile that made Wren's scalp itch. "It is a good thing that we are building, out of troubled times."

Bart looked at the Mouthpiece, and Wren could see the same thought in his mind as was rising in hers, even without benefit of tagging. Smooth and pretty words, trying to whitewash over her boss's previous bad behavior, as though to make all the ugliness not have happened because now they were all on-board with the peace, love and friendship? Someone should remind Miss Priss that the Council had wanted as little as possible to do with the fatae, even now.

And even if you left the fatae out of the equation, and pretended that the Mouthpiece was only talking about the humans...it still made Wren deeply uneasy. Not that she had ever been a die-hard adherent of What Had Been, Must Be, but what was the nature of a lonejack-the stubborn, separatist, individualist pain-in-the-a.s.s maverick-once each individual became part of the collective, no matter how quickly gummed together? And, if this went on for very long-would there be any way back? Or would Madame Howe have won through the back door of good intentions where coercion and threats failed?

Wren didn't have a clue. And that was definitely making her twitchy, even when the news seemed good.

Not your problem. You're only here in an advisory position, and when the s.h.i.t hits the fan and fingers start pointing, you're not the face the pointers were going to reach for. She hoped. Her instinct was to run, hide, get while the getting was still good. Well, screwed that but good, didn't ya? You may not be front and center, but you're a long way from the nearest exit, now.

"Maybe so, " was all she said now in response to the Councilwoman's words, "maybe so. And maybe not." She rose from her chair with what she hoped was casual grace. "If you'll excuse me, I have a few things to take care of, elsewhere."

Time to start listening to her instincts again. Let politics and policing occupy others, for a while. Bart and the rest of the Quad were better suited to those sorts of mind games, anyway, and Bart certainly would enjoy it more. She wanted the ground firmly under her feet and a solid result in her hand. And money to pay the rent, yeah. Time to go to work: thanks to Sergei, she had a new Retrieval to plan.

"Valere, we need you here." Bart was cranky as only a foul-tempered New Yorker could get running on coffee fumes and two hours of sleep, and Wren didn't want to deal with it.

"No, you don't."

"Ms. Valere, I really think that-" the Mouthpiece started to stay, and suddenly Wren had. Had. Enough. Enough of the leash they were trying to slip around her neck, enough of the careful wording and the tiptoeing, and the way everyone seemed to think that she would be oh so happy to do this one more thing for them.

She wasn't, and she wouldn't, and there wasn't any way any of them could make her.

A dip into her core, a twist, hardly even thinking about it, and she went no-see-em. Another twist, and even a Talent looking for her couldn't see her. A third twist, like slipping down a familiar waterslide, and the other woman forgot she had even been speaking to her. Bart shook his head, puzzled, then turned away back to the rest of the room.

This was more than no-see-me. She had disappeared from their recent memories, as well.

She shoved her hands into her pocket, and touched the locket, still resting there.

"That's rude, Jenny-Wren."

She was sixteen, sitting very quietly in the back of the cla.s.sroom. He had been working at his desk when she came in, wrapped in layers of no-see-em, holding back the giggles at the thought of sneaking one past her mentor, literally.