Blood from Stone (29 page)

He knew her too well. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad or just…maybe it just was. All the things she’d been wondering about, yeah. Genetics, and inheritance, and what causes Talent, what the “goo” really was, and how it could be manipulated, rechanneled, reinforced.

None of that really mattered, sitting on the floor in her apartment, her demon safe and her partner bringing back bagels, and the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen.

“I never wondered about the science,” she said, smiling at him, feeling tension leave her own body with the truth of it. “Just the reasons. The causes. That’s dif
ferent. The reasons aren’t in those papers. His reasons, his causes…aren’t mine.”

“No,” her demon agreed. “They’re not.”

She left him there on the floor, staring at the pile, and went into the kitchen. As expected, the fridge was barren, with only a half-empty carton of orange juice, two bottles of her Diet Sprite, and half a carton of eggs. The coffee was too old, and after a sniff at it she dumped the pot and started another round, then ran water into the kettle and set it to boil.

A minute later, the coffee began to perk, and the front door opened.

“Hey,” she said, sticking her head out of the kitchenette, even though she knew damn well who it was.

P.B. had definitely gotten the worst of their half of the brawl. Her partner had a bad bruise on his temple—courtesy of the chair?—and his left hand had a soft cast on two of the fingers, but otherwise he looked unharmed, the newspapers tucked under his injured arm, a bag of what smelled like fresh bagels held in his right.

“Do I want to know what the other guys look like?”

“Chang can probably get you access to their mug shots,” he said with satisfaction. “Our boys missed their flight home, I’m sorry to say.” He followed her into the kitchen, dropping the newspapers on the counter, the bagels going next to the toaster. “The Federal government apparently had some questions about the validity of their visas, especially when one of them was discovered breaking and entering a residence apartment in Manhattan for allegedly unlawful purposes.”

“Aww. That’s no way for tourists to behave. They should leave that to the locals.” A pity there was no way
to add unlawful control of a human to the charges. Or was there? That was something to ask Bonnie about, later. That was the sort of thing the PUPIs had been set up to deal with, after all—paranormal crimes, the kind of stuff the NYPD didn’t have a clue on. In the meanwhile, she’d have to trust that Chang would do what she could. By the time it was straightened out, the papers would have disappeared again, this time for good. She found things, and P.B. could make them disappear. Not her problem anymore. Not her responsibility.

That felt good. For once, it felt good to let it go, and not worry.

She let Sergei come up behind her, and leaned back against his broad chest, listening to the healthy thumping of his heart against her ear. If she touched him with current—lightly, so lightly—she could feel the electrical impulses of his entire body working the muscles throughout. That felt good, too.

One deeper touch so, and his heart would stop. But humans could and had damaged hearts without current, and healed them the same way.

They still could do damage to each other. Bad, nasty damage. That was the risk you took, when you loved someone.

But you could also save someone the very same way.

“I love you,” she said, and felt his arms come up around her, his lips pressed to the top of her head.

“Love you, too, Wrenlet.”

Talent was more than genetics, more than goo. She might never know who her father was. It wasn’t okay, it wasn’t nothing, it would probably come back to snipe at her for the rest of her life, but she had lived this long
without knowing, and she could live the rest of her life without knowing.

And in that realization, surrounded by her family, she was almost able to accept that she had to let Neezer go, as well. He had reached out to her in her darkest hour, had offered her the only advice his maddened brain could.
Wrenlet, no.
He had kept her from a reaction-killing, kept her from taking a—not an innocent life, no, but one she had no right to take. He hadn’t forgotten her…and she had not recognized him in her own madness, had turned to others instead, to the bonds she had with Sergei and P.B.

That was as it should be. Mentors, like parents, were there to help you grow, to become self-aware. After that, you had to be on your own.

Neezer knew that, once. But his wizzed brain…she understood now, suddenly. He had never been able to let go, had still thought of her as his mentee, his to protect. That turning away had stung, been something worse. When she had rejected him, moved on without him, without even knowing it, he had been angry. That was why The Alchemist had been scared, caught between Neezer’s anger and love for her, and not knowing which would win, if his old friend would let go…or strike out, and in killing her, kill the last bit of himself, too.

She didn’t know what impulse would have won, either. What impulse
would
win. Max had been right. She needed to stay away from Neezer. Forever. For both their sakes. They were in different places now. Different worlds.

She wasn’t a student anymore. She was on her own.

“Are you okay?” Sergei asked, his arms still wrapped
around her, and she knew what he really meant was “are
we
okay?”

“Sometimes you get answers,” she said in response to both questions. “And sometimes you just have to hope that it’s all going to work out. But…yeah. I think I’m okay.”

She thought about Neezer, and Max, and the little towheaded kid, then rested her head against her partner’s chest, and looked up. “Do you think…maybe next time you go see Doc…I could come, too?”

Sometimes you were on your own. Nothing said you had to do it alone.