Blood from Stone (7 page)

Given her druthers, Wren Valere would prefer to spend her Saturday morning lazing around on the sofa with hot, quality coffee and fresh bagels, a
New York Times,
and absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to go except maybe the gym, if she felt like being good and dutiful.

Wren Valere did
not
want to spend her morning getting dressed up and going across the river to New Jersey. Wren rarely wanted to go to Jersey, except to meet with her mother, who still lived there in the town Wren had grown up in, although not—thanks to Wren’s urgings—in the same crappy place Wren had grown up in. One of the benefits of being reasonably successful was that she had convinced her mother to move to a much nicer condo several years before.

“Over there. That building.” She pointed, and they stepped off the curb in almost perfect physical accord.

Given her druthers, Wren would definitely never have spent her morning getting dressed up and going
anywhere near a Tri-Com meeting, in Jersey or anywhere else for that matter. But Sergei had suggested it, reluctantly bringing up the possibility during the postjob rundown that recent events were something that the Tri-Com should know about. Despite her initial, immediate, rather strong response, he was right. Damn it.

No, she absolutely did not want to be walking across the street, heading toward the second-to-last-people in the world she ever wanted to talk to again. But she would do it. Because she had stuff that needed dealing with, and that’s what the Tri-Com was all about—taking care of loose ends and undealt-with problems.

Despite a long history of not playing well with each other, the humans and Fatae of the
Cosa Nostradamus
in the New York area had finally gotten their act together during the recent Troubles. Out of that had come the Truce Board, a joint program of street guards and organized information-sharing, a way to protect themselves from the Silence-funded human vigilantes who wanted them out of the city—on cold slabs, if possible.

The vigilantes had lost. So had Wren. Lost friends, lost faith, lost her way…and then gotten it all back, if shattered into a pile of bits and pieces. When the dust and blood had been cleared away, all she had wanted was to enjoy life again, work and love and figure out how all the pieces fit back together. She knew everything was stitched together like Frankenstein’s monster, but she didn’t know how well those stitches would hold, if she put too much weight on them. She didn’t want to find out the hard way, either. So, walking delicate and not getting heavy in deed or thought, if she could help it. Not yet.

Meanwhile, the Truce Board had also collapsed in
the messy, finger-pointing aftermath, and the recobbled-together remains dissolved soon after she’d Retrieved the Lost from the Silence’s distinctly unpaternal hold. But when life came back to what passed for normal, some of the lessons they learned in the process sank in, and enough lonejacks remembered the benefits of hanging together to try and keep those lessons alive.

Tri-Com—the Trilateral Communications Group—was the result, created to facilitate the flow of communications between the Fatae breeds, the human Talent and the human Null community. Direct quote. A neat trick, that, considering that most Nulls didn’t know that either the Fatae or Talent existed. But considering the rather high-profile and public—and messy—events during the Troubles, enough people who did know had started to get nervous. “Head small problems off now, and we have fewer nasty problems later,” Bart, one of the leaders of the Truce Board had said, when he told her what they were planning, and he was entirely correct. After Burning Bridge, the entire
Cosa
had nothing but distrust for any and all Nulls, even ones they had known for years, even members of their own flesh-and-blood families. Even Sergei, who had done more for them than most.

That might have become a fatal rift, doing the work of the Silence after the fact—except that during the last of the Troubles, the night now just referred to as Blackout, Nulls had gathered to protect the Talent within their ranks, most notably the firefighters at the Plank Street station. The smoke-eaters there had not only defended their Talent coworker, they had become a rallying point for the counterstrike, giving everything
they had—and it was considerable—to help save the day. Or, in that particular case, the night. Bringing outsiders in had been a risk, but one she approved of—so long as they were careful about who they brought in. So far, brains prevailed, and rather than politicians, the Nulls chosen were taken from the working levels of the city—firefighters, sanitation workers, social workers. People who would actually be on the front lines, if anything happened again.

Wren herself had come out with a particular fondness for New York City’s Bravest, as it was one of their trucks that had gotten Sergei and P.B. to her in time to keep her alive when the Silence and overrush combined to take her down. That fondness didn’t mean she wanted to get involved again, though, no matter how good an idea this new oversight board or whatever was. She had paid her dues, damn it. So when Bart came to her with his new idea earlier that year, Wren had wished them Godspeed, and beat feet out of the room before they could “suggest” that she take part in the new organization.

They had respected her wishes; not once since then had they called, officially. The fact that she hadn’t consulted or even considered any of the major players when she went after the Silence probably had a lot to do with that; some noses were still out of joint at being ignored. Unofficially, Bart sometimes called to see if she wanted to meet for coffee, and Wren had gone, a time or two. They talked about books and movies, bitched about New York City politics and the weather, and never once, not once, talked shop, or about any of the people they had lost in those days.

She would have been very happy to keep it that way. Unfortunately, that little walk in the park yesterday—and the discussion she and Sergei had about the job—now drove her, oh so reluctantly, to make a report. In person, because that was how lonejacks did things. You looked people in the eye, and lied to their faces.

“Stop shaking. They’re not going to rope you into anything.”

That reassurance would have been more reassuring if Sergei had sounded as if he believed it. They both had very clear memories of how they both had gotten roped into things before, by some of the same people. Things that had almost gotten them both killed.

“Go in, give report, get out.” Wren shifted, thankful that at least the Tri-Com didn’t have any kind of dress code. Bad enough she had to get dressed, hell if she had to actually wear a skirt and heels, as you did to get in the front door of the much more formal—and tight-assed—Council. Jeans and a dark brown pullover sweater, and clunky hiking boots that made comfortable, clunky noises on the hardwood floor made her feel slightly better about the whole deal.

What made her feel even better than that was the fact that, despite the clunky boots and her own not inconsiderable notoriety within some circles, people in the building were saying hello to Sergei and ignoring her—almost as though they couldn’t see her standing right there.

Which, in point of magic, they couldn’t. She grinned, feeling the current hum quietly under her skin, making her slide from people’s sight without any conscious effort. After a lifetime of walking in shadows, it had
made her deeply uneasy when suddenly she had been front and center and being noticed during the Troubles. This was better. This was much, much better.

So too was the hand Sergei had slipped into her own as they entered the building, palm to palm, fingers twined together. His hand was firm without being hard, calloused but not rough, dry and warm; the hand of a man who could turn that hand to just about anything he needed to do.

The hand of a man who was there, totally and without hesitation.

They’d been through rough times, the past few years: moving from business partners to lovers, with the added complications of divided loyalties and a war coming between them. But that was in the past. They’d survived, in all the ways that mattered. The only thing they still had to deal with was Sergei’s kink about current-touch during sex.

It was her fault. She knew that, even if he was in denial. She had started grounding in him as an emergency measure, during some jobs that had gotten a little squirrelly and she’d pulled too much current, and neither of them had thought much of it. They had discovered, purely by chance, that it enhanced the sexual experience for him, when she let some of her current ground in him during orgasm, as well. In another Talent, that wouldn’t have been a problem. But Sergei was a Null, which meant that the current was doing damage to his internal organs.

The thing was, it turned out not to be just a kink. It was an addiction for him, that pain-pleasure thing. Thankfully, it seemed to start and stop with her, and
specifically during sex. She didn’t have to worry about him being out alone among other Talent, or being on a job with her. But it was putting a serious damper on the physical side of their relationship, and that meant that the emotional side was hurting, too.

He couldn’t stop asking, and she couldn’t always resist. But not having sex wasn’t a solution either of them was happy about.

Still. He was here. Holding her hand. It was sappy enough to make you sick.

She gave his fingers a squeeze, and then reached out with her other hand to push open the door to the conference room.

The Tri-Com headquarters was actually a surprisingly relaxing place; Sergei was impressed. Unlike his former employers, the late, unlamented Silence, the Tri-Com had no budget at all to speak of, and was renting the first floor of an undistinguished office building across the river in Jersey City on a middling-to-respectable block. The space was filled with basic metal and pressboard office furniture that could have come from any rent-a-desk store. Despite that, the feel of the office itself was homey and welcoming. Once you got past the generic lobby, the walls were painted a golden cream, the lights set to daylight-neutral, and there were huge potted plants in every alcove, leaves swaying gently under the air vents.

The receptionist checked their names against a printed sheet of paper, and sent them on to where, she informed them, “The pooh-bahs were waiting.”

“Pooh-bahs?” Sergei mouthed, looking at his partner, who merely shrugged.

When they reached their destination at the end of the hallway, the expected conference room decor had been replaced by a much more domestic look, complete with sofas instead of a traditional table and chairs, and a small water feature that filled the background with gentle, soothing noises.

Someone had paid attention to the details.

Part of him was immediately alert and suspicious, looking for the hook. The other part felt the incipient stress headache fade away, and was grateful.

This was not an enemy. This was not an interrogation. There was no danger here, except what might—and might not—come out of what Wren had to report, and that danger was not to them. He hoped.

Bart was there to meet them, along with Rorani, a grizzled otter of a Talent named Eddie whom Sergei vaguely remembered meeting at some point, and a tall black woman he didn’t recognize, who was introduced merely as Jane. Rorani turned from the window and smiled at Wren and Sergei both, the smile reflecting in her bark-brown eyes and the movements of her willowy body. It was, he realized, good to see the dryad again, like discovering a favorite aunt would be at a family gathering you were dreading. It might still be bad, but you had someone you could trust to keep calm and listen instead of just reacting.

He had come a long way from the Fataephobic Silence operative he had once been, yes.

“I’m glad you were able to come down,” Bart said, once the greetings were done. Unlike everyone else in
the building until now, the stocky lonejack’s gaze went directly to Wren. Bart was a bastard, but he was a straightforward, straight-talking bastard, and he didn’t waste anyone’s time. Sergei didn’t like the guy—a building contractor when he wasn’t handling
Cosa
matters—but he’d do business with him any day. Bart didn’t deal in bullshit, and he had stood with Wren on the Bridge, coming out of that battle with a shattered leg that would never fully support his weight again, requiring him to wear a metal brace, and use a cane. That hadn’t changed his hard-ass persona a bit, though. “You said you had something important to tell us, and for you to actually call means it actually is important, unlike the rest of these two-bit wusses who want us to wipe the snot out of their noses. So, tell.”

Wren hesitated, visibly steeled herself, and then took the plunge. “Two things, actually. One that’s just an FYI, and one that’s…for you to deal with, I guess. Because I can’t.”

Bart took a seat, and waved them to a spot on the sofa. Wren sat down with her legs curled up underneath her, clunky boots and all. In someone else that might have indicated comfort, but Sergei could read Wren-sign. She wasn’t relaxed, but curled to spring, if needed. He understood: these people had that effect on him, as well. Even Rorani.

“So.” His partner kept speaking, keeping everyone’s attention on her so he was able to observe, unobserved. “First thing first. I ran into The Alchemist yesterday.”

She said it so casually that, even braced for something of import, it took a few seconds for the meaning to hit them. When it did, the reaction was…satisfying.

“You did what?” Rorani leaned forward as though struck by a heavy wind, her face creasing in worry, her branches—her arms, he reminded himself—coming forward in the urge to hug Wren to her in protection.

Bart was more practical. “Is anything in the area still left standing?”

Eddie just let out a pent-up breath in a whoosh of air, as if he’d been sucker punched. Or was deeply impressed.

The black woman was the only one to ask “Who the hell is The Alchemist?” That confirmed to Sergei that she was, like him, a Null. Even he, reasonably plugged into the
Cosa Nostradamus,
would never have heard of The Alchemist if it hadn’t been for Wren’s previous runins with him—one of which he had the misfortune of witnessing.