LITMIR.BIZ

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me, but are you sure that this is going to be worth it?”

      “You’re suggesting that I shouldn’t hire you?” Rosen seemed less surprised than amused, like her pet dog had done something cutely annoying.

      Wren shrugged. She found it hard to care, one way or another, what this girl did. Fake that sincerity, Wrenlet, she could hear Sergei say in the back of her mind. Clients love to believe you’re giving two hundred percent.

      “I hate buyer regrets. Especially when I’m the one getting regretted.”

      Whatever Rosen was going to say in response was drowned in the blast that reached the building just as she opened her mouth.

      What the hell?

      Wren grabbed the girl by the shoulders and had them both flat on the hardwood floor by the time the shock wave hit them completely.

      “What the hell?” Rosen echoed Wren’s first thought.

      “Shut up.” Every sinew in Wren’s body was trembling, far in excess of what the noise should have caused. She willed herself to stop shaking, but couldn’t do anything about the cold sweat on the back of her neck. Current sizzled inside her, and she wanted, very badly, to throw up from the pain expanding inside her head.

      “Something…” The girl was clearly puzzled by the strength of Wren’s reaction, proving that she was, in fact, completely Null. “Something hit us. The building. Was that an earthquake?”

      “Not an earthquake,” Wren said, not sure how she knew but knowing, without hesitation. “Not even close.”

      That was current. A lot of it. And all of it sent with nasty intent.

      2

      Nothing in the apartment seemed to be broken, although a stool in the kitchen had fallen over, and Wren didn’t want to think about what her research library, a bedroom in the back of the apartment, toward the front of the building, might look like. Some of those books were old, and expensive, and damned rare, and a lot of them were only on loan from people who would kill her if anything happened to them.

      “Stay here.”

      “But…” The client looked around, clearly remembering the shock of the explosion, and decided that obedience was the smarter move right now, no matter how unfamiliar the sensation might be. Walking cautiously down the hallway, as though an additional attack might come at any second, Wren did a once-over of the rest of the apartment.

      Amazingly not only were all the books still on the shelves in the first bedroom, but nothing had even slid off the desk in the second room, which served as her office—and when she booted up her computer, holding her breath and mentally reciting prayers to whatever saints she could recall, it came up without a hitch.

      “Oh thank you, God.” If that blast hadn’t been current-shaped, she’d hand in her lonejack ID. Somehow, though, it hadn’t done what current typically did, which was fry every bit of electronics in the vicinity.

      Wren didn’t know why she had been spared; she was just thankful.

      There was no dial tone on the phone when she first picked it up, but as she held it, thinking that maybe she had given thanks too soon, the tone came back.

      “Well, that’s a switch,” she said in mild surprise. Typically things broke when she held them, not the other way around and getting fixed. Putting the receiver down before it changed its mechanical mind, Wren reached over to shut down the computer. Other people might have the luxury of leaving their system up and running all the time, but not Talents. Not even in this seemingly super-insulated building, bless its pre-War, plaster-coated walls.

      Giving the room another quick once-over to make sure that nothing had moved since she came in, Wren went into the third and smallest room, the one she used as a bedroom. Her wind-up alarm clock had stopped ten minutes ago, and the water glass on her nightstand had cracked, but thankfully she had downed the last of the water in it that morning.

      This room seemed to be less protected. And yet, there was nothing different about it from the first two rooms in terms of construction. In fact, there was nothing at all that should have attracted current—no electronics, no magical implements, no tools of the trade. Not where she slept, where unconsciousness might allow current to slip in or out unguarded.

      “Um, excuse me? Hello?”

      The client, her voice wavering down the hallway. Damn it. Wren needed to get the girl out of there. She needed to think, to find out what had happened, and there was no way she could do that with Miss Old Money pacing the main room. A Null who knew she was a Null was still a Null. Sergei was the only non-Talent she trusted with lonejack business, and even then it was with regret, because he just wouldn’t stay out of it.

      “Hello?”

      “Yeah, it’s okay. You can get up now.”

      If it hadn’t been okay, they’d both be dead by now, anyway.

      When she went back into the main room, Rosen had picked herself up and was dusting nonexistent debris off her slightly mussed outfit with an expression of distaste on her face. Guess the client didn’t like being tossed to the ground, no matter what the cause. Some people were just so picky.

      “Is your building often bombed?”

      “Yeah. All the time.” She was channeling pure P.B. now, and Wren made a conscious effort to choke that back. One was not snarky to the client, no matter how much their tone pissed you off. About them, yes. But not to their faces.

      Thankfully Rosen’s livery driver had been waiting around the block reading a newspaper when the shock wave hit her building. Wren waited while the client paged him, then helped her down the stairs, carefully not answering the girl’s questions beyond a vague “This sort of thing, Manhattan, you know. It happens.”

      No New Yorker worth her Metrocard—even ones with hired cars—could deny it. Things happened in Manhattan.

      Wren waited while the livery car—a clichéd black Town car with smoked windows, so ordinary and commonplace it always raised curious eyebrows—slid down the narrow street and stopped in front of them. Packing the girl into the back seat, Wren started to close the door, but Rosen pushed a hand against the frame to stop her.

      “You’re taking the job, then?”

      Wren stared at the girl’s pretty green eyes, and thought about it for a second or three. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll take it.” She wasn’t so far out of the financial hole the bastards on the Council had dug for her this summer to turn down work, especially something as basic as this sounded.

      “I can write you a check—” Rosen started to say, but Wren waved her off. She didn’t want to be bothered by actually dealing with the nitpicky business details now. Not when she was this jumpy, and the client had already verbally agreed to whatever price Wren set. Bad business, but right now she had other things on her mind. Like getting this Null child the hell out of range of…whatever it was that had just happened.

      “Make a deposit to this account, in this amount.” And she jotted down the numbers for the blind account she and Sergei used to accept funds, plus her usual retainer fee to get things started. “I’ll be in touch with the rest of the details as soon as I have a better feel for the job.”

      Not satisfied, but realizing that she wasn’t going to get any more out of her new hire right now, Rosen tucked herself all the way into the car and allowed Wren to close the door.

      Wren stared down the street, watching but not really seeing the brake lights of the Town car, itching to find out what the hell had happened upstairs. She was beginning to run through places to start asking questions, when someone came up behind her on the street. She heard the footsteps, aware that there was no threat-aura to them, and dismissed them from her awareness with a skill that was more classic New Yorker than Talent. The tap on her shoulder, therefore, startled her so violently that she almost let loose with a spray of current: full fight or flight reflexes

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