Retrievers - Burning Bridges Part 4

good.

So why did she have the feeling that neither of them actually felt so good?

Time for me to log off. Take care, downtown.

you too.

Wren stared at the screen for a few minutes after the other account signed off.

It's not growing. But people are paying attention. Whatever we do, people are going to notice. We're setting precedent. And if we lose...

Her stomach ache suddenly got worse, and the Oreo cookies weren't so appealing any more.

"I need coffee."

Three hours later Wren blew on her fingers, trying to keep them warm enough to stay nimble, even as her a.s.s threatened to turn into paired ice cubes through the heavy denim and silk underwear. The small storefront she was studying across the street was dark and closed, the iron grating pulled down over the windows. She could feel the electrical shimmer of the alarm system running through the store. Door and windows, plus a motion detector.

As p.a.w.nshops went it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but there was an object there she intended to Retrieve before the night was over. Nothing special: a gold locket that had been p.a.w.ned a week before. A small locket with nothing but emotional significance. Nothing inside except one faded picture of a man long-gone.

"Why couldn't we stay inside, where it was warm?"

"You could have stayed there."

The demon huffed in response. His mistake, showing up at dawn looking for breakfast and companionship. He had been twiddling his claws as even more snow fell for the umpteenth storm of the winter, and he had known, somehow, that Wren would be awake. And she was right, he could have stayed in with Sergei, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper, or gone home to stare at the TV, instead. He had, in fact, just decided to do the latter when Wren announced that she wanted to "take a walk." Wren never just took a walk.

He and the sleepy-eyed human male had exchanged glances, doing a quick mental paper-rock-scissors. P.B. still wasn't sure if he'd won or lost.

"Stay here. Hold this."

She handed him a plastic stopwatch, and took the small black bag he was holding from him, closing it up. When he would have asked another question, she stood up, stretching her legs out as she did so. The snow coating the sidewalk was soft and slippery, and her boots made a faint crunching noise as she strode forward.

"Valere..."

"Stay there. Run the clock."

He stayed, looking more like his nick-namesake, the polar bear, than he ever had before, surrounded by snowdrifts taller than he was.

"Piece of cake, " she muttered, stepping through the slush of the street and up onto the curb on the other side. She was the best Retriever in the area, probably the best Retriever on the entire d.a.m.ned continent. This was easy. This was almost too easy.

The electrical current of the burglar alarm was thicker than an ordinary alarm; the strands were woven with magical current, as well. The owner was a member of the Cosa Nostradamus, the magical community, just as she and P.B. were. He knew all the ways that a fellow Talent could break in, and protected against them.

She was the best. She could do this in her sleep.

Closing her eyes, Wren let the cold night air seep into her skin, feeling the contrast between the cold and the warmth of current inside her. A deep well, where neon-flashed snakes slithered and coiled around each other, sparking in antic.i.p.ation as she slid into a light fugue state.

"Easy. Easy..."

She wasn't sure who she was talking to: the live current within her, the alarm in front of her, or herself. Maybe all three. They all listened; her breathing slowed, her hand steadied, the current inside her slipped along the pattern she created, and the two types of current touched, her own magic slipping into the shopkeeper's system and convincing it that she was an extension of the system, an accepted guest, not an intruder.

It was simple, but it sure as h.e.l.l wasn't easy. Even in the cold air, Wren felt sweat drip under the wool cap, down the side of her face. Using current burned a huge amount of calories.

In contrast, the door really was easy: a turn and a b.u.mp, and the lock gave way.

Inside the store, the air was thick and dark. A few faint red lights indicated emergency exits, while a white glow illuminated the gla.s.s cases behind the wooden counter. The locket was in one of those cases.

Wren was a Retriever; she was hired to take items belonging to her client, and nothing more. Even on a training run like this, you kept discipline. But there were so many pretties sparkling there, abandoned by their owners, just waiting to find new homes....

Watch it, she thought sternly. That's how people end up with Bad Things following them home.

Selecting one thin thread of current, she shaped it with a picture of the locket, and released it like a b.u.t.terfly into the store.

The current was blue and yellow, like a b.u.t.terfly itself, and the strength of her visual made it move like one as well, flittering from one gla.s.s case to another before finally alighting on one in the far corner.

"Gotcha" she whispered. The b.u.t.terfly broke into tiny sparkles, fading into the air as Wren approached the case. Keeping her tool bag balanced on her leg-you never, ever put your kit down on the floor, for fear of leaving a trace-she withdrew the thin pick P.B. had been looking at earlier and made short work of the sliding lock.

She picked the locket up off the small acrylic stand without touching anything else, and slipped it into her pocket.

And that was that.

"Seven minutes thirty-two seconds, " P.B. said, checking the stopwatch as she came back across the street, having carefully closed the door behind her, and allowed the alarm system to reconnect without a tremor.

Wren shook her head in disgust. "That's just...sad."

"You get distracted in there?"

"No. Okay, a little. But not more than ten seconds' worth. Simple job, no problems, I should have been in and out in six minutes, tops. d.a.m.n."

"Yeah, obviously you're getting old and sloppy, and the hot new Talent's gonna come up behind you and take all your jobs." He handed her the stopwatch and dusted snow off his backside. "Watching you train is about as exciting as watching snow fall. I expected at least something blowing up. Can we grab breakfast, now?"

Wren looked up at the sky, as though expecting to see the sun-or an answer of sorts-appear from behind the clouds.

"Valere?" He looked up, as well, then up at her face.

"Something's building. And we're not even close to being ready."

The demon shrugged. "One thing I've learned? n.o.body's ever ready, cause what happens is either worse or better than what we were expecting, and never exactly what we planned for."

She reached into her pocket and touched the locket again. The cool metal filled her with a sense of calm, but no voice came out of her memory to advise her. "So what do you do?"

P.B. scratched his muzzle, and shrugged again. "Burn that bridge when you get to it?"

Wren laughed, the way he meant her to. She let the locket fall back into the depths of her pocket, and she pulled her gloves back on. "Right. Let's go make Sergei make us pancakes."

Five.

The minor adrenaline rush of her training run had worn off completely by the time lunch came around, and Wren was struggling with the desire to chew her leg off, if it would give her a way to escape.

She had once joked with Sergei about the terrifying prospect of an organized Cosa . Sitting in the now overly familiar meeting room, she had proof to back up her own incredulous laughter at the joke; a week of discussions and negotiations and yelling at each other, and maybe an hour's worth of progress had been made. If that.

She looked around now, taking in the room the way she might a Retrieval site, half out of boredom, half just to keep in the habit. The remains of a platter of sandwiches and flaccid pickles, the notepads and pens, paper coffee cups and soda cans littering the table. The scene could have been any conference room anywhere, in any office. Or maybe, she thought, the better a.n.a.logy was a teacher's staff room. Less tech, more opinions.

And a considerably wider range of species than in your average boardroom or school.

The Truce Board-a boring but practical name someone had come up with-now officially met in an empty apartment of a building belonging to one of the Council members. Wren had scoped the place out when she came in, the never-ending habit of a renter in Manhattan, and decided that-even with the upgraded facilities and parquet flooring, she'd rather keep her own place. But the apartment had a large main room that, when filled with a long table and a bunch of faux leather padded folding chairs, could hold everyone who was required to be there. And the kitchen had not one but two coffee machines running. She approved.

Turning her head slightly to the left, she let her gaze touch on the players: the four lonejack representatives, Jordan and another Council member she didn't know, and four fatae: Beyl the griffin, a piskie named Einnie, a solid, square-faced trauco with the unlikely name of Reynaldi, and a strange, frail, lovely young woman dressed in veils, whose back was hollow like a dead tree. She wasn't introduced, and n.o.body seemed to pay much heed to her, which made Wren pay careful attention to everything she did.

Between the delegates and the advisors each of them had brought along, like reluctant seconds to a mob-scene duel, it was controlled chaos. The voices were loud, but involved, not angry, and there were more arms waving in emphasis than she'd thought could be attached to the number of bodies in the room. Everyone had an opinion about how to implement the Patrols, and enforce the Truce, and n.o.body wanted to hear anyone else's points or reb.u.t.tals, and at least once the trauco threatened one of the older Council gentlemen with bodily harm for the crime of being-direct quote-a dweeb.

Bored. Yes. She was very, very bored. And there wasn't anything worth stealing here, even for the practice value. The owner had made d.a.m.n sure of that before offering it up.

Wren leaned back in her chair, feeling it creak dangerously as she balanced on two legs. "Looks like everything's under control, here."

The gnome sitting next to her-Beyl's a.s.sistant-snorted, sounding enough like P.B. that Wren did a double take at it. Demon were a created breed: was it possible that there were gnome bloodlines involved? The height was close...

And when she started contemplating the genetic makeup of the fatae breeds, it was time and past for her to get the h.e.l.l out of there. Three hours of waiting around for someone to say something she could contribute to, and all she'd gotten was a bad case of numb-b.u.t.t. Her time was worth more than this.

Wren put the chair back on all fours and got up, moving through the bodies until she got to the one she needed to speak to.

"And if you think that we're going to allow-"

"Bart."

"I'm busy here, Valere." The NYC representative was brusque even when he was in a good mood, which he decidedly was not, right now.

"Yeah, I can see that. I can also see you guys have got everything under control, and I hate fiddling my thumbs. When you need me, call."

"Or you'll wipe yourself out of my line of sight anyway?" he asked.

Ooops. Nailed.

"Go, " he said in dismissal, and went back into his argument without missing a beat. He hadn't even turned his head to look at her.

Wren slipped out of the room without anyone noting her pa.s.s by, without having to actively invoke her no-see-me. Boredom apparently brought it forward naturally. That explained why she'd never gotten caught when she cut English cla.s.s, back in junior high. Odd, that she'd never made the connection before. Then again, she wasn't often bored, either. She-and Sergei-spent much of their waking time ensuring that.

The kitchen was busy-someone was refilling one coffee machine, so there was a line at the other. Wren didn't even bother to queue up, but grabbed her coat and hat from the indecently large hall closet, and went down the elevator and out of the building into the cold morning air.

She found a working pay phone on the corner, and-after asking someone pa.s.sing on the street what time it was-placed a quick call.

You've reached my cell. Try to speak clearly and repeat your number twice.

"Me. It's a little before two, and I'm fleeing the scene of the crime for some window shopping. If you can get away, I'll meet you at Rock Center, at the rink."

She hung up the phone, and checked how much cash she had in her wallet.

"'Tis the season to overindulge and splurge, " she said with satisfaction, and stepped off the curb to catch a cab discharging a fare.

Forty minutes and two stores later, she found her partner leaning against the window of one of the high-end stores that flanked the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Sergei was watching the crowds of warmly dressed tourists milling about, splitting their attention between the garishly lit tree and the skaters frolicking on the rink directly below.

She tucked the small shopping bag into her shoulder bag, and came up alongside him.

"Hey. Been here long?"

He turned to smile down at her. "Not much, no. I picked up your message and escaped as quickly as I could. Gallery's been a madhouse this morning. Everyone's doing their usual 'oh dear G.o.d it's the holiday I must buy something that shows I spent a lot' dash."

"You are a bad and cynical man."

"I am not. I'm observant. The people who love art, the ones who are buying for someone who loves art, they did their shopping months ago, most of them. It's already been bought and paid for, and is waiting on delivery. These people..." He shook his head.

She flushed, guiltily, at her own last-minute purchase. "Are they at least buying?"

"Enough to pay to stay open, " he said. "And it's good training for Lowell. It makes him happy to help them load up their credit cards with debt. So why did you want to meet here? I thought you hated crowds. No, I know you hate crowds."

She brushed away his comments with an air wave of her hand. "This is different. It's the Tree! Plus, it's too cold to stay out here for long. Just enough to soak it in, and then we can go get hot chocolate."

Sergei didn't understand the appeal of standing in the cold and staring up at a garishly lit, oversized tree that definitely had looked better standing in its original field, covered with bird s.h.i.t and squirrel nests, but then, he didn't have much holiday spirit at the best of times. Or so he'd been told. Christmas was midnight ma.s.s, and presents exchanged in the morning, and then you went back to work. But Wren's childhood, as far as he'd been able to determine, had been about scrimping and saving and making festive with whatever they had. He'd rather get frostbite than cut into her enjoyment of the season, as much as she let herself indulge in. Especially this year.

"I wonder how many volts it takes to run those lights, " she said now, her eyes dangerously dreamy. "Do you think Christmas lights have a different flavor than regular lights?"

"What, you never shorted out your own Christmas tree, as a teenager?"

"My mother would have killed me, " she said. "Anyway, we usually had one of those tabletop dealies. Night-lights used more voltage than those."

She stared up at the tree, and he could almost see the moment she went away from him, sliding into what she called the fugue state, where she could draw most easily on the core of current within her. As best he could understand, it was a little like meditation, and a little like o.r.g.a.s.m, and the smile on her face made him more than a little nervous.

"Wren, I really don't want to be trapped inside a crowd of thousands of p.i.s.sed-off tourists a week before Christmas, when you put the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree out of commission."

"Spoilsport." But she shook the fugue off, and came back to him. "Come on. Buy me a ma.s.sive hot chocolate. No, a peppermint mocha. Two shots. With extra whipped cream, and one of those cookie straws."

"Because a sugar high combined with a caffeine rush is just so what you need right now, " he grumbled, but slid his arm into hers, and escorted her away from the crowd, down the stairs into the lower level of Rock Center.

It was a maze down there, filled with hallways and stores and subway entrances, but they both knew where they were headed: there was a food court off to one side, with a Starbucks. The line was as long as expected, so Wren went to find them a table while Sergei stood to place their order. One tall tea, one grande peppermint mocha with extra whipped cream. They weren't serving those crunchy cookie-straws here, so he grabbed her a chocolate-dipped biscotti instead. It wasn't the same, but it was the thought that counted. Plus the chocolate-dipped part.

"Ooo, Santa, " she joked when he sat down at the little table next to her, and handed her the drink and the biscuit. "I guess I've been very, very good this year, huh?"

He merely smiled, thinking of the gift already wrapped and hidden in her apartment-she might search his place, but never think to look in her own s.p.a.ce. He hoped. They'd agreed, early-on in their partnership, that one gift each for Christmas was a reasonable limit. But this year he'd gone on a little splurge, as she would say. This year was special: being partners as well as partners required something...more. Difficult as it was to buy presents for a woman who didn't wear much jewelry, couldn't use personal electronics, and had a deep-set habit of stealing whatever she liked, he thought he'd done well.

"I take it that the meeting this morning did not require your taking minutes?"

"Hah." She sipped at the mocha, making a happy little contented noise as it hit her taste buds. "They're going along gangbusters, yowling and screaming and waving arms and generally accomplishing absolutely nothing."

Sergei's experience with meetings was more along the lines of small groups being told what to do; he almost wished that he had been able to sit in on this one, simply to see how the Cosa did it. Then again, considering the Cosa members he already knew, he suspected that her description was, if anything, underplaying the chaos.