LITMIR.BIZ

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took out the newspaper and checked to make sure that the business section was intact, then put it away and pulled a burgundy folder from his bag and extracted a sheaf of typewritten pages from it.

      “See? All the information we need, hand-delivered by Andre’s little messenger boy this morning, including names, dates, places, and driving directions. Why don’t you try to sleep, okay? It’s a long flight, and we’re going to have to hit the ground running when we get there.”

      She rested her head against his shoulder, feeling the comforting familiarity of him. None of the awkwardness or uncomfortableness of recent months, just…Sergei. The thought almost made her cry. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…only it’s not gone. Still here. Still Sergei. He was right. P.B. was a big—well, okay, full-grown demon, he could take care of himself. And if he did run into trouble, Tree-taller was around, had promised to keep an eye out. The other Talent had no beef with the fatae, the nonhuman members of the Cosa Nostradamus, and would listen if P.B. came to him. And anything Andre hadn’t told them in that packet, they’d figure out on their own. Wasn’t like they needed the Silence, the Silence needed them.

      “Wren?”

      They’d probably only be gone a couple-five days, anyway. A week, tops.

      “Yeah. Sleep. Right. Okay. I’ll try.”

      Twenty minutes later, the plane pulled away from the gate. Sergei looked up from the papers he was reading as the safety instructions tape began to play, then down at his companion. She was still leaning against his shoulder, strands of chestnut hair falling into her eyes, and he could hear the faintest completely unladylike snore coming from her half-open mouth.

      “Rest well, Wrenlet,” he whispered. “Tough job ahead.”

      Chapter Four

      “Oh God, there’s fur on my teeth.”

      Sergei winced. “That’s a lovely image, thank you so much for sharing.”

      “You’re oh-so-welcome. Bleah.” Wren twisted her mouth up in disgust. “I need my toothbrush. Or some sandpaper.”

      “Wait until we’re through customs, okay?”

      “If I breathe on a customs inspector they’re not going to let us into the country.”

      “Wren, I’ve smelled your morning breath. It’s not that bad. It’s not good, but it’s not that bad.”

      “This is worse. This is overnight-in-an-airplane morning breath.”

      They were walking through the Malpensa airport, having just picked up their bags from the luggage carousel. It was seven o’clock Saturday morning local time, but her body was claiming it was one o’clock in the morning, and since she had only managed to sleep the first hour of the flight, every cell in her body was clamoring for a shower, a nap, and a king-size candy bar. In exactly that order.

      “Where is everyone, anyway?” A stark contrast to the chaos of Newark airport, there seemed to be only a dozen or so people walking with them toward customs, and only one very bored-looking security guard leaning against the wall farther down near the doors. The wheels on her luggage stuck and she stopped, swearing slightly, to get them straightened out. She really wanted to take her jacket off, but that would be one more thing to somehow carry, and it just wasn’t worth it. Besides, her T-shirt was probably a mess of wrinkles. And not the fashionably acceptable kind, either. Her partner, on the other hand, looked as pressed and proper as he had when he got on the damn plane the night before. It ought to be illegal. It was probably some as-of-yet-unknown skill set of Talent, and he’d been holding out on her all these years.

      Sergei shrugged, pausing to let her catch up. “Not a very busy airport, I guess. Mostly businesspeople. Tourists all fly into Rome, probably.”

      “Why couldn’t we have flown into Rome?” Not that Wren cared much, one way or the other—all flights were hellish, no matter where you ended up.

      “I didn’t make the flight arrangements, Genevieve.”

      His voice sounded brittle, suddenly, and Wren backed off. He hadn’t slept much either, and Sergei without sleep was a total bear. She ran her tongue over her teeth again and grimaced. She felt so disgusting, it was barely human. She knew there was a travel bottle of mouth-wash in her kit, if she could just convince him to stop for a minute so she could duck into the bathroom…

      Not that there were any bathrooms to be seen. Stifling a sigh, she picked up her carry-on and yanked the handle of her wheeled case, following after her partner. The moment they were through customs, she was rinsing her entire body out.

      “Signore? Signorina? Vieni con me, per favore.” They had reached the end of the hallway, and the guard—a middle-aged woman who looked bored behind belief—was pointing them toward a group of people standing patiently in several different queues.

      Sergei tugged Wren’s arm gently, and led her into one of the lines. She blinked at him, then grinned, her pique forgotten. “They’re speaking Italian!”

      “Welcome to Italy.” He took her passport out of her hand, checked over the documents, and then put them with his. She barely even noticed.

      “No, I know, but…it’s so neat!” All right, so yes she had understood they were going to a foreign country. And that they spoke a different language. She grew up just outside of Manhattan, so people speaking foreign languages were no big deal. But an entire country that wasn’t the same….

      She had a sudden thought, and reached out gently with the inner sense that made her a Talent to tap at the wiring running through the place. Gently, carefully, just in case.

      “Huh.”

      Sergei looked at her sharply, and she realized she must have said that out loud. “What?”

      “Nothing. I just thought…I guess I thought the current would feel different. But it doesn’t.” She shrugged, suddenly annoyed at herself. “I mean, it does, yeah; different voltages, different flow, like a stream versus a creek versus a…whatever. But I thought…”

      “It would have an accent?”

      She looked up at him accusingly. Sure enough, he was smiling at her in that annoyingly amused way.

      “Yeah. Okay? I thought it would have an accent.”

      He did laugh then, and she thought briefly about kicking him. “Too much effort to beat you the way you deserve,” she grumbled.

      “I’m sorry. Honestly. I am.” But he kept chuckling.

      Wren didn’t mind, really. Smiling Sergei was always better than grumpy Sergei, especially when they were being gestured at by pissed-off looking guys in uniforms.

      “Signore?”

      “I think we’re being summoned,” she said, poking her partner in the ribs and jerking her chin in the direction of the customs counter.

      “Right.” He grabbed his bags and moved forward, Wren close on his heels. “Buon giorno.”

      “Buon giorno. I passaporti?”

      Sergei handed over their passports and entry paperwork, and the official gave them a cursory once-over. “Vieni in Italia per affari commerciale o come turista?”

      “Affari.”

      Wren’s attention wandered. Having touched the current in this place, she was now overly aware of it. And of the fact that dipping into it would be almost as good as a shower.

      Then she caught a glimpse of an armed guard standing just beyond the security gate, clearly ready and able for trouble, and her exhausted-into-quiet nerves pinged again.

      Maybe not. Somewhere not quite so…stressed. This airport didn’t have the same tension as back home, but it was still an airport, and screwing up in airports was still very much not a good idea. Especially since she didn’t know

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