Hard Magic psi-1

by Laura Anne Gilman

  I’ve never been onstage, but even I know an exit cue when I hear one.

  Eleven

  Thankfully, my coworkers had indeed used their brains instead of their stomachs, and moved the pizzas into the second empty workroom next door.

  Unfortunately, all three boxes were now empty. “Hey!”

  Everyone looked unconvincingly innocent. Nifty averted my wrath by pulling out a paper plate with two slices still on it, and presenting it to me with a flourish. They were even the ones with pepperoni on them, making my stomach rumble in anticipation. I was definitely running on empty. “I risked life and limb to save these for you,” he informed me. “I will expect gratitude at some later date.”

  “You jocks, all the same,” I said, taking the plate and grabbing a chair. My core might have been shaken by the display between Venec and Jack, but my stomach didn’t give a damn about anything except food. It had been a long damn day already, and I’d used up more current than I normally did in a week.

  If the job kept up at this pace, I was going to have to budget more money for groceries.

  Nick came and sat next to me. He had a smear of tomato sauce on his cheek and I handed him a napkin, indicating where to wipe.

  “Oh. Thanks.” He swiped at it, then wadded the napkin and tossed it overhand into the trash can. Perfect shot. I was jealous. “Where’d you go?”

  “Heard shouting. Decided to snoop.”

  “Shouting?”

  Having info that the others didn’t was a definite rush, and I was just petty enough to wait a moment, relishing it. I thought about playing them out a bit longer, then decided that would be cruel—and possibly dangerous. “Client’s son came to pay us a visit, accused Venec of being a fraud.”

  “To his face?”

  “Yup.”

  “Wow.” Nick took that in, and then asked, “Was there much blood, and do we have to clean it up?”

  “And do we have to dispose of a body?” was Sharon’s practical question.

  “Nah. Stosser showed up in time to avert disaster, cooled things down.” I didn’t mention anything about Jack’s hotness—Sharon and Pietr might or might not be interested, but I wasn’t feeling in a sharing mood about that right now. Especially since they only saved me two slices of pizza. Lucky for them, nobody had touched my iced mocha. I had a feeling I was going to need the extra espresso shot I had the pizza guy dump in there.

  “Fair warning,” I said. “Venec’s probably going to come by to see what we’re up to, soon as he gets the steam out of his ears.”

  “Joy.” Sharon sounded significantly unjoyous. “Why can’t Ian be the one to supervise us?”

  “Because Stosser’s good at lecturing but not so good with the hands-on,” Nifty said, folding the pizza boxes in two between his huge hands, and shoving them into the garbage, one at a time. “You haven’t figured that out? Plus, Venec’s not nice enough to forgive anyone’s stupid mistakes.”

  “You think Stosser’s nice?” Pietr finished the last of his soda and added it to the trash bag.

  “Nicer, anyway, yeah.”

  I was with Pietr—I didn’t think Stosser was nice at all. Just more socially adept at being an asshole. But for once, I kept my mouth shut. Peacemaker, me. Right. I could hear J laughing, all the way up in Boston.

  There was still coffee left in the cup, but it was the dregs, thick and gunky, and I decided I didn’t need the sugar or the caffeine that badly. I stood up to put it in the garbage bag before Nifty tied it, and felt my knees quiver.

  “What the hell?” Sharon asked, echoing my thought perfectly, just before whatever it was hit like a goddamn tsunami.

  There was a flash, hard and bright like a sword coming down on my spinal cord, and my knees didn’t just quiver, they buckled and collapsed. I went down, hitting the floor hard and painful with my face. Someone—either Nick or Sharon, from the sound—crashed into the table, and I could hear Pietr swearing but didn’t see him anywhere, no surprise.

  Sparkles danced in front of my eyes, multicolored neon twinkles, and my skin felt tingly, as if I’d spent too much time sucking up current from a thunderstorm. I grabbed for the most solid bit of Manhattan rock my senses could reach, and shoved myself into it, letting the shock flow through and out of me, not letting it find purchase in my physical body.

  Even as I was doing that—and assumed everyone else was doing the same—there was another zinging blast of current. This time it was directed not at us, but away, out of the building, hissing like an angry missile and homing in on someone outside, down the street.

  That second burst of current had a familiar flavor, faint but recognizable; not one but two signatures, twined together. The Guys, slamming back at whatever or whoever had taken a shot at us. And slamming hard, from the feel of it. Wow.

  “What?” Nifty started to ask, his voice thin and reedy, and I could see the shadow of his body move across the floor as he started to get up.

  “Stay down!” Nick shouted, his voice harsh. “Stay low and ground, you idiot!”

  Grounding was all you could do, in a situation like this. Not that I knew firsthand, but it sounded as though Nick did. I scrambled in my brain, trying to remember everything I’d ever been taught. Grounding kept your current from overrushing, or flaring, either of which could be fatal. A Talent learned to ground before learning anything else—if you didn’t have grounding you couldn’t have control, and if you didn’t have control you had nothing except a charred-up, wizzed-out husk.

  Only most Talent never had to ground under anything but the most controlled, chosen conditions. This…wasn’t that.

  I felt sick. Not in a bad way, more the way your stomach feels in the middle of a really wild roller coaster, topsy-turvy and excited all at once. The air was thick and heavy, like soup, and I had trouble drawing a breath.

  *all right?* The ping came across as a general feeling of concern, rather than specific words, as if the sender was too busy to really focus.

  *yeah* I sent, even though I wasn’t entirely sure about that. Probably the others all sent the same back, because what else were you going to say? We were a lot of things, not all of them good, maybe, but wusses wasn’t one of them. And I was betting that nobody, but nobody, wanted to look bad in front of the Guys.

  *what happened?* I started to send back, and was cut off by an impatience-scented command.

  *stay still*

  It felt like an hour, but was probably closer to five minutes before the heaviness in the air eased, and we felt secure enough to sit up and take stock.

  The single window in the room, with the framework which had been painted over years before and resisted being unstuck, was shattered. I didn’t even remember hearing the glass break. Other than that, everything looked the same. Current usually had a physical manifestation—it wasn’t so much a thing as a means of doing a thing, or, in old-fashioned terms, the magic that worked the spell—but I couldn’t see the result of a thing being done, if so. Unless someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble just to break a window.

  “What the hell was that?” Sharon asked, her face sickly pale under her blusher. The part of my mind that didn’t let up noted that it was really the wrong shade on her—she needed something pinker. Stupid details. You focus on the stupid details while your brain tries to process the bigger shit.

  “Current strike,” Nifty said. He wasn’t pale, but his hand was shaking slightly as he picked up a shard of glass and looked at it.

  “You’re sure?” Pietr asked.

  “Pretty damn sure.”

  “What’s a current strike?” Sharon asked, making me glad I wasn’t the only one wondering.

  “Pure current,” Pietr said. “Used as a weapon. Considered more civilized than hexing someone, for some reason.” He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, picking glass out of his thick hair. I didn’t even want to think about what might be in mine. I put my hand up to my scalp, carefully, and was relieved when it came away clean. I wasn’t bleeding, nobo
dy else was bleeding, everything was fine. I just needed to wash my face and take a nap, and everything would be fine.

  “Remember what you said about being shot at?” I asked Nick. He just grunted, wincing as he moved his bandaged arm. God, was that only this morning? It felt like days ago, now.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Sharon said. Nifty managed to get the garbage bag in front of her before she put action to deed. The pizza in my stomach rumbled in sympathy, and the aroma almost made me barf, too, but I forced it down. My current was simmering on high, excited in a bizarre and not-pleasant-to-think-about way by the near hit. It wanted to come out and play.

  Not a good idea. I issued control, and forced it to settle to a reasonable level, listening to my heart beat rather than the crackle of magic inside.

  The door opened, and I could see everyone else tense up. I didn’t. I knew who it was.

  “Everyone in one piece in here?” Venec asked, his voice rough but rock-steady.

  “Yeah,” Nifty said, the bulk of his body shielding Sharon from view until she was finished. “Well, except the window. We’re shaken, but intact.”

  Venec and Stosser came in. They were winded, like they’d chased the guy down the block physically, and Stosser’s skin was flushed. Venec had an evil glint in his eye, and I wondered if they’d caught the guy, and if so, if they had killed him. Not if he would, but if he had. In that moment, with that look, I had no doubt at all that the men I worked for were completely capable of killing someone who attacked them, or theirs.

  And we, god help us, were theirs. I wasn’t sure what that twisting sensation in my chest was all about, but I didn’t think it was connected with the current strike so much as it was…something way more dangerous, right in this room.

  “So much for the guy this morning just being an overeager security guard,” I said nonchalantly, not letting that feeling show in my voice or my face. Venec glared at me, not happy with being contradicted, but then he looked away, about as much an admission of truth as I was going to get. Sure, the two attacks might be unrelated—one a Null-style attack, the other Talented—but this close together, I didn’t think so. And I’d bet good money, neither did Venec. Maybe the gremlins hadn’t been gremlins, either. Something was up, and aimed at us.

  The question was…what?

  “Did you catch the fucker?” Nick asked.

  Stosser shook his head. His ponytail was loose, and the orange-red strands fell over his shoulders, making him look, swear-ta-god, like Jesus Christ crossed with the little girl from all the Wendy’s ads. “Didn’t even get a good look at whoever it was. Did anyone get a chance to tap the current, get a feel for his signature?”

  We all looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. One minute we’re eating pizza and the next we’re flat on the floor, under attack, and he wants to know if anyone sampled the guy’s current?

  “Next time,” Nifty said, maybe a little heavy on the sarcasm. Stosser just nodded, like that was an acceptable answer.

  Either he was too distracted to really hear what Nifty had said, or J was right all along, and Ian Stosser was an out-and-out nutter.

  With my luck, it was both.

  “Everyone go home,” Venec said, his voice still hard.

  “What?” Sharon was indignant. “But we have all the stuff out, and we haven’t gotten the chance to look at anything yet, not in-depth!”

  “Yeah, I wanted to try something with the hairs, see if I could graph an image of the head it came from,” Nick said. “Maybe match it up against the victims, or not.”

  “Everyone go home,” Venec repeated. “I’ll put a lockdown on the room. It will all be there in the morning. Nick, that’s a good idea, but you’ll try it in the morning. People, do not argue with me.”

  Anyone who argued with Benjamin Venec when he used that tone of voice was not me. I picked my sore and aching body off the floor, shook my head carefully to see if any glass shards fell out, and then got myself the hell out of there. The rest of them could do whatever they wanted, but I had a date with a long hot bath, a vodka tonic, and room service.

  I was fine in the elevator, listening for the comforting hum of electricity. I was fine walking across the lobby, smelling the faint aroma of curry.

  Walking out into the street I had a moment of panic; if this wasn’t random, if all the attacks were actually attacks and not coincidence, then weren’t we easy targets, out here in the street? What if the guy, whoever he was, was still around? My heart raced, and my gut surged again, and this time my core surged with it, swirling like a multicolored windstorm looking for something to knock over.

  *go home, torres. it’s all right.*

  The touch was so gentle, so reassuring, for an instant I didn’t recognize it. With Venec’s assurances cradled inside me, control reasserted itself. I walked to the subway station, slid my Metrocard—that still worked, thank god—and leaned against the wall, waiting for a train to come and take me home.

  It was all right. For now, in this instant, it was all right. The Guys had it under control.

  By the time I got to the hotel, and managed to avoid the afternoon doorman’s concerned queries—I guess I looked like the day I’d had—the reassurances and the shock had both worn off, and I was in the full-blown throes of my usual reaction to stress. I wanted to snog someone. I considered calling that boy from the museum; what had his name been? The fact that I didn’t even remember his name decided me against it. I did have standards, even if J despaired of them sometimes, and that a person had to be memorable was up there in the top five. Who else did I know in the city? Only my coworkers, and even if I were willing to ignore J’s very smart advice and go there….

  I suppose I could do the tried-and-true route of hitting the bar scene, but I really didn’t want to have to work at it. Like Venec had said, we’d done enough today.

  Venec. Hmm. Now there was a pleasing thought…

  And proof that I was more shook up than I’d thought. Bad thought. Very, very bad thought. If snogging your coworkers was bad, doing it with the boss was even worse. I could practically hear J having an aneurism right now, just over me thinking it. The list Why Not was long and convincing, even if I had reason to believe that, in other circumstances, we’d be flame and fuel and a whole lot of burn.

  I bet Venec was damn good in bed, or wherever else you got him. Those eyes had seen a lot, I’d bet….

  I shoved that thought down deep, almost afraid that it would develop tendrils of its own and waft uptown to where it shouldn’t be heard. Impossible, but a lot of what I’d spent the day doing some folk would say was impossible so what the hell did I know?

  “All right. Room service. Some food that wasn’t pizza, maybe some really stupid porn or macho action flick on the pay-per-view, a good night of sleep, and you’ll be ready to go in the morning and kick them all on their asses ’cause you are the best damn puppy in the pack.”

  And they’d damn well better believe it, because while I might not want to be Alpha, I’d tasted having the lead, and I’d tasted subordinate, and lead tasted much better.

  The room-service menu was on the side table where the maids always left it. I had pretty much memorized the admittedly small offerings, and would be better served—literally—to go out and get something myself, but eating out alone always depressed me. Room service felt more like luxury than depression, for some reason. Probably because J never let me eat in bed.

  “Eeny meeny miney moe, with which sandwich should I go?”

  A sparkle of current flashed over the chicken club, and I yelped and dropped the menu.

  “Idiot!”

  Current responded to will. That’s all a spell or cantrip really was, a vocal way of directing your will and telling current what to do. You didn’t have to say it out loud—I never did—except I just had. Not meaning to, no, but I’d been using so much current today, way more than anything normal, and I guess I needed to learn how to sound a quitting bell or something because yeeep.<
br />
  Was this going to be normal for me, now?

  I bent to pick up the menu—I guess chicken club it was—and the phone rang. I reached over and snagged the receiver, assuming it was going to be J, because I’d just left my coworkers and who else was going to know to call me here?

  “Ms. Torres?”

  My heart, I swear, stuttered a beat at the sound of that voice. “Mr. aah…” He was a Reybeorne by blood, but I didn’t know if he’d followed Council tradition and taken the “power” name.

  “Jack, please.”

  “Jack.” Well. That was no damn help at all. “To what do I owe the quite unexpected pleasure of this call?” J didn’t raise me in a barn; I knew how to have manners when I needed ’em.

  “I was wondering if it would be too very forward of me to invite you to dinner tonight. It seems the least I can do, after my bad behavior this afternoon in your office.”

  No, the least he could have done would be to invite the Guys out to dinner, purely in a professional capacity. This…was not professional.

  I should say no. I really should say no.

  I wasn’t going to, of course.

  “Pick me up in half an hour,” I said, and hung up the phone. If he had my phone number, then he knew where I was staying, too.

  In any other town I might have worried about what to wear, where we were going, how dressed up I should be. One of the best things about New York was that the only possible response to all that was “don’t sweat it.” I hopped into the shower and scrubbed, and then, wrapped in one of the true luxuries of this hotel, a huge Turkish towel, contemplated the contents of my regrettably limited wardrobe.

  I was heading to the lobby, hair dried, makeup applied, and nerves thrumming, before the half hour was up. When in New York, go black, and you can’t go wrong. Fortunately, most of my wardrobe started and ended with black, so I was already there.

  I caught a glimpse of myself in the elevator lobby: blond puff of dandelion hair for once neatly tamed around my head, eyes and lips demurely outlined, black silk sleeveless blouse showing off just a hint of cleavage over black tuxedo pants and, for the final finishing touch, a pair of black leather half boots with a four-inch stiletto heel. I could dance all night in them, but don’t ask me to run.