“We think the perp or perps came in through here.” Sharon held her finger over the far side of the diorama, indicating the back patio. “There was a set of French doors that led directly to the main room, where most of the damage was done. The doors were damaged from the inside, so we’d assumed it happened during the search, but the fact that we didn’t see any damage to the locks on the external side doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.”
Maybe not. We’d all learned how to recognize the signs of old-fashioned lock-picking, but it was still tough, especially when something with claws had been at it.
“Anyway, from there it was a straight shot down the hall to the office, where the objects were taken. For them to do that much damage in that period of time, they had to have grabbed those items pretty fast, probably before they started the wreckage.”
“They knew what they were looking for,” Nick said. “It wasn’t random.” The client was right about that, at least.
“Or they were just there to cause damage, and those two items caught their eye for no reason we can fathom,” Sharon said, shooting him an ice-blue glare before I could tell him he was making a sloppy assumption. “Or, they couldn’t find what they were looking for.”
“I like my idea better. If they wanted those items we just have to figure out why and we’ll know who. Your theory, we have no way of figuring out who did it.”
Nicky-boy had a point.
“All right.” Sharon relented, a little. “If they did come in looking for those two objects... why? What is it about them? We know they’re not Artifacts – ” Artifacts were known magic-shaped objects, with a history if not provenance. They were supposed to be registered, so everyone knew them and what they could do. It was a slow process, though, since most Artifacts were family heirlooms with a dark history, and not every Talent wanted to fess up – or admit to having access to them, if they even knew what they were. “And the watch is, by the client’s claim, just a watch. But could there be something more to the dagger than memories?”
“Guy who allegedly built it doesn’t have the skill set to do anything more,” Lou said, standing in the doorway.
Damn, she was starting to move as quietly as Pietr!
“So he claims,” I retorted, more annoyed at being startled than by the comment, and Sharon nodded, but looked hesitant.
“You’re thinking something. What?” I tried to mimic the tone Stosser used when he was in high-glamour coaxing mode. It must have worked, because the words spilled out of her, like she wasn’t stopping to consider them first; not normal for her.
“The client is moderate-Null. He can charge the dagger – ” That was how memory-glass worked; it charged off its owner, the low-level hum of current all but the most Null of humans has naturally. “That would be why he kept it close at hand, to make sure it stayed charged. But wouldn’t that make the watch stop?”
A windup pocket watch would survive being near cur rent longer than a digital, but it, too, eventually, would be affected.
“Maybe he wound it every day,” Lou said.
“Still.” Sharon frowned. “Why keep them both together?”
“He didn’t know any better? Whatever he knew about the Cosa, it was probably secondhand information, and most of it wrong,” Nick said. “There wasn’t a damn thing else in that house that had even a come-hither of magic, I’d swear to it.”
“Not even his magical deterrent system?” I asked.
Nick and Sharon both snorted at that. “Worth about as much as a wet paper towel,” Nick said. “Seriously, Sharon’s right, if there was anything current-based in that house, we should have felt it, even after it was gone, especially if it had been there for a long time. There wasn’t anything, not even the trace you’d feel if someone was trying to cover it up. Not even the dagger. Like someone high-res wiped the slate clear.”
“So that means... what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But it bothers me, and anything that bothers me – ”
“Has to be investigated.” We made it a three-way chorus, hitting Venec’s inflection perfectly.
“Well, even if you didn’t get anything from the client, Venec will,” Lou said. I winced. It was true, yeah, but showed a level of tactlessness that made even me flinch. And I still wasn’t happy he’d gone off alone, not that I’d said anything when he signed out. I was neither stupid, nor crazy.
Besides, odds were he’d picked up my mood, anyway, even through tight walls.
“If he doesn’t get himself kicked out, first,” Sharon said, echoing my own thoughts. “He’s going to go in like a bull in a china shop, probably, and piss the client off.”
“Bulls aren’t actually... ” Nick started to say, then saw the look on everyone’s faces, and shut up.
“Let’s do a two-pronged approach, then,” Lou said, coming into the room and sitting down. J would approve of her posture: she sat with her butt all the way back in the chair, shoulders up, legs crossed neatly at the ankle. It made me want to instinctively sit up straight and put both feet flat on the floor.
I stayed exactly the way I was, one leg curled underneath me, my ankle-length skirt hiked up enough that it didn’t catch under the chair’s wheels.
“Two-pronged? Us and Venec?”
“Two possible causations,” Lou said. “One way, this was random violence. Hooligans or someone looking for drug money, or just someone with an urge to screw with rich people for kicks, and sheer bad luck something magical got nicked, bringing us into the equation. Second, that they came in looking for something specific, either the objects taken or something else, and the damage was to cover it up, maybe distract from the owner realizing anything was missing.”
“Except he’d know, immediately,” Sharon said. “Believe me, this is not a guy who lost track of anything. If our perps knew that these objects were important, they’d know enough to know that, too.”
“So... maybe the objects missing were taken because they knew the owner valued them personally, and that was the distraction, even more than the destruction?”
“But it – ” I forgot what I was going to say, as my entire body convulsed, my throat closing up in terror, cutting off air to my lungs. My legs twitched wildly, then my entire body spasmed, knocking me off my chair. I could feel my body thrashing, but all I could focus on was the wave of panic, coming from the fact that I couldn’t breathe, a metal band snapped around my chest, compressing at an alarming rate. My pack mates’ voices were hollow-sounding, like I was at the bottom of a pool of water, listening to them. They were around me, surrounding me, and I had the hazy sensation that they were touching me, but everything hurt so much I overloaded, unable to distinguish what was real and what was in my brain. I wanted to scream, warn them off, but my throat was locked, my voice silenced, and my body out of control, struggling to breathe, to think clearly, to regain control over myself. I was Talent, damn it. I did not lose control.
For that brief flash, the pain cleared enough to hear the voice almost hidden under the pain, wrapped around the pain, driving it toward me, into me.
Pain. Teeth. Can’t breathe... .
And I knew it wasn’t me, the pain wasn’t mine, but Venec’s, and the knowledge was like a solid blow to the gut, clearing my throat enough that I could draw a deep, harsh breath, bringing oxygen back into my lungs, and my brain.
“She’s having a seizure!” Sharon’s voice, cool and in control. “Lou, hold her head steady. Nick, get my medical kit, now!”
“Mmmmokay,” I managed to get out, but since my body was still flailing, and my voice was slurred even to my ears, they ignored me. Sharon tried to stick her fingers in my mouth, I guess to make sure I didn’t swallow my tongue, and I bit her.
“Ow!” She glared down at me, indignant through her worry.
“M’okay,” I managed again. “It’s not me. S’Venec.”
She shook her head, not understanding. “Venec!” I managed again, and some control came back as though I was asserting owners
hip of my body, despite the waves of pain and fear that were still battering my core. Damn it, what was going on?
I ignored Sharon for a moment, now that she had her fingers out of my mouth, and dived down into my core.
Instead of my normally calm, settled mass of current, I landed in the middle of a molten disaster. Swells of electric-bright orange and neon-green made like a roiling vortex; jagged sparking waves and indigo thunder cracking overhead. It was mine, but it terrified me, and for an eternity of an instant I struggled to maintain control.
*venec!*
The call went unanswered, and the panic swamped me. Impossible. I hadn’t realized how much I depended on that immediate response, hadn’t understood how much – despite my resisting it – the Merge had, well, merged us. I knew, instinctively, that he should be here, within my core, if I only reached out... .
I let down my walls, all my walls, shattering them into crackling dust.
*benjamin!*
*... .here... *
Faint, weak, hurting, but clear. The relief I felt was run through with the pain he was in, the awareness that he needed help, and he needed it now.
Then, through his ears, I heard sirens, and the sound of human voices snapping orders, similar to the ones Sharon was calling over me, and the fear retreated enough for me to get control back.
*hang on* I sent him, hoping he was able to hear me, and came back up out of my core, stilling my limbs and regulating my breathing even as I did so, trying to ignore the pain that was still racking my brain and core, if not my actual body.
“Enough,” I said. “It’s not me.” I hesitated, knowing the next words out of my mouth were going to open a major can of worms, and not really caring, at this point. “It’s Venec. He’s been hurt. He’s being taken to Saint Joe’s.” The information came to me even as I said it, the connection still holding, even though the pain had tamped down to bearable levels. Oh, god, he was in so much pain, why couldn’t they do something for his pain?
And then, blessedly, they did, and my body was mine again.
“How do you... ” Sharon caught herself. “Never mind. Where’s Stosser? Does he know?”
I shook my head. Great, I was going to have to explain this to the boss, too. “Don’t know where he is.” And then, suddenly, I did.
*boss*
The ping came back from Stosser, sharp and worried. We didn’t ping him, usually, he called us, or had Venec do it.
*ben. hospital* Less words or emotions than impressions, filtered through me, straight from Ben. I had no idea how we were doing it – I didn’t think Ben knew, either. It was enough that we could do it.
The connection cut off, but not before I got a sense of understanding, of being en route already, and...
Gratitude.
Someone cut all the strings holding me together, and I collapsed backward, into Nick’s arms, this time with relief. It was being taken care of. Ben was hurt, but he would be okay. Stosser was on the case.
I shuddered, then looked up at the others, steadfastly ignoring the need to go follow, to be there when they brought Ben in. Those weren’t our marching orders; we would only be in the way. Colder still: if I was going to refuse the Merge, I had no right to be there. “Boss’s on it. We’re supposed to get back to work.”
“But... ” Lou looked like she wanted to argue, probably try to send me to bed with a book and a bowl of her sopa verde, which sounded oh my god so tempting, but wasn’t possible. Not right now.
“I’m fine.” I wasn’t, and they all knew that, but they allowed me the fiction, even as I was forcing myself to sit up, unaided. “I’m all right. It was... ”
“It was that thing. Between you and Venec.”
“What?”
I stared at Nick, blinking stupidly.
“Come on, Bonnie, we’re not dumb. That little display a couple of days ago was the most overt, but you two spark at each other every time you’re in the same room, and it’s not just sexual shit, because I’ve seen you when you’re interested in someone and that’s not it. And you’re off your game, have been for months.”
Ow.
“So what’s going on?”
They were all staring at me, expecting an answer. Oh, crap.
I stopped trying to get up off the floor, and just sat up more comfortably, checking each inch of the way that I wasn’t wobbling. I’d underestimated them. How, after more than a year, had I managed to do that?
“We’re not sure what’s going on.” Slight prevarication there: we were sure; we just didn’t know what it meant, or how much longer we could keep it at bay. Venec thought forever... I hadn’t been so sure, and I was even less sure now. Based on what just happened, it was probably already too late to try. “It’s called The Merge. It’s... complicated.” Probably impossible to explain to anyone who wasn’t a pup, who hadn’t already gone through the training to work together, that we had.
“Oh, hell. Our current matches. Like puzzle pieces. And the more we’re in proximity, the more it wants to, well, merge.”
That was the bare bones working version, anyway.
“So you were able to hear him, when we couldn’t.” Sharon sounded, inevitably, annoyed. She hated being left out of anything, or one-upped on current-skills. I was too tired to try and correct her.
“No.” Interestingly, it was Lou who got it, first. “It means he couldn’t stop himself from reaching her. And she couldn’t shut him out. Like overrush, but coming from someone else.”
I wasn’t wobbling anymore, but every inch of my body hurt, inside and out. “Yeah. Like that.”
When Nicky looked like he wanted to ask more questions, I glared him off, which wasn’t easy, sitting on the floor like I was. Time enough to avoid questions about what it all actually meant, later. Much, much later.
* * *
nine
“No... ”
“Sir, relax. Everything will be fine.”
“No... ” They were rattling him down out of the ambulance, two young men and an older woman, their faces intent but calm. Normally Venec would have found their competence reassuring. He was fond of competence. But he could feel the thumping of his heart and the hissing of his core, and the taste of the current simmering in the place they were rolling him toward was too dangerous to let him anywhere near it.
“No!” He managed to make his hand reach up and grab the woman’s wrist. “No!”
“Sir, we have to... ” She tried to, gently, pry his hand off her, but desperation gave him additional strength.
“You can’t. Not in there.”
They didn’t understand, wouldn’t listen, trying to place a clear plastic oxygen mask over his face. He could feel the tendrils of his core reaching out, his control almost gone, the blood loss and drain from fighting off the hell-hound making him desperately crave the recharge that current offered... .
“You can’t take me in there!” he told them, his voice muffled, already resigned to what would happen.
“What’s going on?” Another man in white, no, he was wearing pale blue scrubs. A doctor? Ben tried to focus on the man’s face, willing him to understand.
“Dog savaging victim,” one of the paramedics reported. “He’s hallucinating, possibly. Disorderly.”
The hand holding the oxygen mask hesitated, torn between training and the doctor’s interference, and Ben used the distraction to make one more plea. “Don’t let me in there. Too dangerous.” Talent in emergency rooms were bad in the best of times, their pain and panic causing things to go haywire. As shocky and drained as he was... If his core went down too far, he would pull from the nearest source to protect himself. It would be instinctive, unstoppable except by his death, and without meaning to he could pull so much off that their entire system could fail. People could die.
“Hold up,” the doctor said, putting a hand down on the gurney to stop their progress. “Sir?”
Ben tried to focus, again, on his face.
“Sir, are you Talent?”
<
br /> He almost cried in relief, managing to give a quick, sharp nod of agreement.
The doctor turned to the paramedic trying to affix the oxygen mask and snapped off an order. “Bring him into the overflow room.”
“But – ”
The other male EMT, either quicker on the uptake or more experienced in the whims of doctors, slapped his companion on the arm, hard, and nodded in agreement to the doctor. Ben felt the gurney shift slightly, rolling in a different direction, the pace picking up as they went down another hallway, not into the main emergency room but a smaller, quieter space. The same off-white walls, the same smell of disinfectant and urine and sweat filling the air, the same undertone of concerned voices speaking too softly, and then a cry or a shout breaking the tension and causing a flurry of activity... .
But the seductive, dangerous hum of high-powered machinery was less, as though the room was wrapped in a protective bubble.
You didn’t take a panicked, injured Talent into an emergency room filled with expensive, high-maintenance, highly calibrated electrical life-giving equipment. Not without precautions. Not when other people’s lives depended on those machines.
The doctor leaned in closer, his voice now pitched only for Venec to hear. “Do you need a sedative?” In other words, was he still a danger to anyone in the hospital?
Ben managed to shake his head. The urge, the panic, was fading, removed from the direct lure. Whatever they’d done to block out the current in this space, it was effective.
He might not need the sedative, but he wanted it, badly. The lacerations in his throat and arms were agony, and although the drip in his arm was dulling the pain, it didn’t do anything for the memory of the beast coming for him, the hot stench of its breath on his face, the acrid burn of its drool... .
It hadn’t been a full-on purebred hellhound. If it had been, he would be dead. A crossbreed, or maybe even a quarter-breed, something with mastiff or –
His mind went over the details, trying to determine what the beast was, so that he could find out where the client had gotten hold of one – and why – and then go find the breeder and issue a smack-down for letting a Null have a goddamned hellhound, even one that watered down. It was pointless obsessive work, but it kept his mind occupied and away from what they were doing around him, shifting him onto another surface, drawing white curtains around him, switching out the drip in his arm for another and the doctor was there again, his face covered but his eyes dark gray and focused the way a real professional got when they were in the groove, and Ben was able to let go of the last bit of conscious thought and let them do what needed to be done.
Laura Anne Gilman - PUPI 03 - Tricks of the Trade Page 17
