Dragon Justice, page 11
Except that excuse hadn’t been valid for a while now. The rest of the pack knew. Venec had never once slipped in favoritism, and nobody seemed to expect that he would. So the only thing holding us back was, well, us.
Venec wasn’t in the city, he wasn’t working, and I had time off, and he was doing something not PUPI-related and…
And I didn’t know what any of it meant, or if this was incredibly stupid or finally smart, but there was a little giddy feeling at the base of my spine that I hadn’t felt in too damn long, and I knew better than to poke at it like it was trace. It wasn’t trace. It wasn’t job-related. This wasn’t the Merge—or, okay, it was always the Merge between us. But it was us, too. Making our own decisions, without the usual urgency or stress of the job to complicate our reactions.
I could have said no. The Bonnie of—Hell, half an hour ago, I would have said no. Caught up in that perfect storm of self-pity and frustration and helplessness, my practical, pragmatic side didn’t stand a chance.
I threw a change of clothes, my toiletry kit, and my notebook into my overnight bag before I could change my mind, and headed for Penn Station.
An hour later I was on a train down to Philly, grabbing a window seat so I could watch the Jersey landscape go by, alternating stretches of greenery and Metroparks. The car I was in was only three-quarters full, and I was able to keep the seat next to me clear—no risking some unsuspecting businessman’s laptop or cell phone, or having to deflect unwanted conversation. The feel of electricity humming through the train soothed, letting my brain generate the mental equivalent of white noise: not thinking, not learning or doing, just being.
I was almost asleep when the first tremor of kenning shivered down my spine, invading my brain.
A dragon, circling overhead, tarnished pewter against a purple-black sky. Fire, raining down like meteors, falling past a metal structure ringed with St. Elmo’s fire….
That was past. I let the memory-image go, my heartbeat not changing, my thoughts undisturbed. The dragon had been on our side, nominally, and we’d all survived the Battle of Burning Bridge, cooled the flames that threatened to destroy the city last year. It was all good.
The kenning wasn’t done with me, yet.
Dragons, three of them now, circling in a pattern that I should recognize against a sky the bruised purple of a tornado warning. The pattern left faint traces against the sky, etching itself and then fading before I could grasp it. I had no idea what it was, no sense of familiarity and yet I knew I should know it.
Then my awareness slipped, a dizzying dive into fire, burning deep and low this time, a forge that could smelt the earth’s heart. A splattering of red…blood? Blood everywhere, thick and heavy, coating the flames, dripping down slowly, drying in impossible shapes, pulsing like a heart…
Somewhere in the depths of my mind I was disturbed by the surreal intensity of the visuals, but most of me was still caught in the fuguelike calm, unable to do more than watch, observe, let the kenning wash through me however it would.
*too late* A whisper like dry leaves and rattling shells, the scraping of talons gently across a chalkboard, a threat-or a regret—implicit in the words. Awareness shifted again, a dragon’s wings coming down with a gust of fetid air, enfolding, releasing. The flash of something moving out of the corner of my eye, unseen, the rattle of bones, and a wisp of fog like congealing unease.
And then it was gone.
I hadn’t realized my eyes closed until they opened again, looking out at the sidings of whatever station we were pulling out of. Princeton Junction flashed by on an old-fashioned wooden sign. Across the aisle, a man with a square, open-looking face had turned to look at me, his expression caught between worry and hesitation, like he thought I needed help, but wasn’t sure he wanted to get involved.
I looked away, not sure what to tell him.
An hour left until Philadelphia, the conductor announced, while I wiped a crust of sweat off the ridge of my nose and reached for the bottle of water on the pull-down tray in front of me. My throat tasted like ash and sour lemon, and my eyes itched, like I’d been staring into smoke.
I didn’t like this. I didn’t like it at all. Kenning was so damn vague, but I knew better than to dismiss it. Something was coming. But the signals were so cloudy and confused, shaped by my past fears. Was the warning aimed at me specifically, or was I only one of many affected? Should I be warning others? Were the dragons real or a metaphor?
Without my scrying crystals—packed in their box at home—or any way to focus myself that wouldn’t draw way too much attention in public, I couldn’t do anything except accept the warning and keep on keeping on. Carefully.
Out of habit, I reached for my notebook and started writing as much as I could remember. It wasn’t much, a few paragraphs of images and feelings, but when I looked at it, done, I got the same sense of quavery unease I’d felt at the start of the kenning. Something was coming. Something dangerous, probably bad—because the kenning never bothered to bring me good news, damn it—and soon. Near me. Involving me.
If I hadn’t been on the train, I might have gone into fugue state and reached for more, but if I were responsible for the third rail splurting out, even if none of my fellow passengers knew, I’d feel guilty all week. Plus, god knows how long it would take them to fix things.
I stared at my notebook, then slapped it shut. So much for relaxing. The rest of the trip I sat, my muscles tense, staring out the window at the darkening landscape but not really seeing anything. When the train finally arrived at 30th Street Station, I grabbed my bag and got off the train, moving with the flow of humanity, be-suited business folk and knapsack-slung teenagers, and me somewhere in-between.
And then Ben was there, leaning against a wall, waiting for me, and it was utter instinct that made me drop my bag and wrap my arms around him, feeling his arms pull me in closer, hearing his heart thumping inside his chest, feeling his sense of welcome and comfort enfold me, the Merge humming in satisfaction, and I couldn’t even bring myself to be annoyed because it felt so right.
I knew why we’d fought it. I knew why we’d fight it again, eventually. But right now…I needed this. So I took it.
“Do we need to talk about whatever it was?” His voice was a low growl, felt as much as heard, and I shook my head, knowing he would pick up on my reluctance even if he didn’t feel the gesture.
“Not yet.”
It was coming. It involved me, if not us. But, selfishly, right then, I wanted to be off-duty. I didn’t want to be Venec and Torres, just Bonnie and Ben.
Venec would have pushed. Ben let it be.
* * *
The last time I’d been in Philadelphia I’d been fourteen: J and I meeting one of his old friends for dinner. I suppose I should have been playing tourist, gawking out the window of the cab we’d gotten outside the station, but Ben had his arm around my shoulders and I turned my head into his chest and listened to his heartbeat until we got to the hotel. It was nice—not fancy, just a basic chain hotel, but clean and well decorated. Ben took my bag—a leather carry-all I’d had since I was in high school—and handed it over to a bellhop with instructions to take it up to his room. Huh.
Well, yeah.
“You need to eat something.”
It wasn’t a question, and—testing the shakiness of my knees—he wasn’t wrong. After this morning’s adventure I felt like a wrung-out rag. I’d forgotten to eat. Again.
He took my arm and headed toward the little restaurant off to the side of the lobby, where Ben ordered a pot of coffee and the sandwich special from a waitress who looked like she was killing time before Hollywood called. I stared at him across the table, resisting the urge to fiddle with the napkins or count the cubes of sugar in the little bowl next to a small vase of real flowers, something with tiny pink-and-white petals.
I’d come down here not really thinking about why I was coming, telling myself that I was getting away from the city so I didn’t spend my time off sulking in my apartment or prowling areas that would only remind me that I wasn’t working, but the realization that there was only one hotel room brought it all back in a rush. Benjamin Venec. My boss. The other side of the Merge. Guy who could set my entire body to thrumming at the worst moment, and whether it was the Merge or just natural hormones really didn’t matter anymore, because it was going to happen no matter what.
The guy who had invited me down here, for reasons of his own.
And all I kept wondering was “If we have sex, and satisfy the Merge, will it stop?”
I wasn’t sure what I wanted the answer to be.
“So. Why are you down here?” I was sort of embarrassed I hadn’t asked him that in the first place, or when I got off the train, but in my defense the kenning had distracted me, and then the feel of his arm around my shoulders had distracted me further. But now he was on the opposite side of the table, and I was suddenly curious as hell.
His body language was calm and collected, but the buzz I was picking up told me he was about half an inch from playing with the napkins, too. Good. I’d hate to think I was the only one nervous here.
“A side job. I’m working with a local museum, training their people how to detect and avoid a current-based heist.”
“Oh. Cool.” If he did his job right, that would be one less eventual case that PUPI would get, but I couldn’t really see anything wrong with that. It wasn’t like there wasn’t enough crap that we did get called in on.
The waitress delivered our sandwiches, and I stared at the plate, not sure if I was actually hungry or not. I decided I was and took a bite. A second later, I was ravenous, and all other thoughts were pushed to the side while I cleaned my plate.
Ben ate about half his sandwich but kept talking. “The guy I’m working for, he’s smart, one of the best security experts I know. He worked for an insurance company for years. That’s where I met him. They just got funding to upgrade, and he wants to do it right. A museum with an aging security system is one that doesn’t get offered topnotch collections on loan.”
The fact that Ben was actually letting me in on his life outside the office…working on the stuff he’d done before… Yeah, I wasn’t going to say anything that might screw that up or shut him down. “You do a lot of work like that?”
He shrugged, a casual gesture that said nothing. “Used to. Safer than tracking down bail-jumpers and runaways, and pays better. Museums are pretty savvy about this sort of thing. Most of them have been hit more than once by thieves working with current. They may not know what it is, exactly, but their boards want it dealt with, and so someone, somewhere, knows enough to call a specialist.”
“And that would be you.”
“Among a few others, yeah.” He looked at me then, and the crooked grin I’d come to know too well appeared, and the awkwardness disappeared. “And you. Wanna learn the trade?”
Oh, hell, yeah.
* * *
Not too far away, a black sedan car slid to the curb on a street off Logan Square. As a woman emerged from the backseat, the sky changed, the quality of light darkening slightly as though a shadow had passed overhead, although the sky remained clear. She looked up, her dark eyes squinting as she tried to decipher some invisible shape, sense the form of the thing shadowing her as the sun set.
The man who had gotten out with her stopped, waiting. “Is something wrong?”
She shook her head, not bothering to look at her companion. If she could not sense anything, he would be unlikely to do so. Aden Stosser was not one to suffer from apprehension or second thoughts, but it did occur to her that the shadow overhead could simply be hesitation over what she was about to do.
“This is your fault, Ian,” she said quietly. “If you hadn’t gotten in so deep, if you’d listened to me, instead of insisting that the world dance to your tune, I wouldn’t be here now.”
“Ms. Aden.” Her companion waited, patient. “If you are having second thoughts, now would be the time to act on them. Once we enter the building, the—”
“The die is cast, the Rubicon crossed. Yes, I know.” Sorcerers awaited her. Even the thought made her gut clench. The name they chose might be pretentious, but their power was not. She would not be taking on an ally of equal or lesser power, but making supplication to a stronger force—one that might ask much of her in return.
Yet, sorcerers policed themselves, allowing none outside their group to have a say in their doings. Surely such Talent would be sympathetic to her cause, be willing to put some small amount of their power at her disposal?
She had tried to talk Ian out of this madness and failed. She had tried to stop them and failed. More than half the Councils had given their approval, and even overseas, they were beginning to rumble with talk of a similar organization.
Already, the fabric of their society was shredding. If these sorcerers agreed to cage Ian, take away his glamour, his persuasive abilities…she could talk sense back into the Council and stem the tide.
She firmed her jaw and smoothed back her dark red hair. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 8
Several hours later, that cheesesteak sandwich sitting heavy in my stomach, my nerves nicely awake, I was standing in the brightly lit hallway of the Ravenwood Museum. The museum was closed, so we had the paintings and sculptures in the dozen or so small galleries to ourselves. The Met, it wasn’t, but the stuff was quality; I’d spent enough years living with J to recognize art, even if it wasn’t a familiar brushstroke.
“They specialize in American painters,” Ben told me when we came in. “Private funding. The Board is highly paranoid and slightly panicky about security. Smaller museums tend to be more attractive targets, since they have less funding, and often their works are easier to fence.”
It made sense: disposing of a Degas or Picasso—or an O’Keefe or Cassatt—took some doing. A Reid or Gilbert, grabbing names off two of the pieces we’d passed, probably less work, even if less money.
The what, I thought, was less interesting to me than the how. I had a blueprint in one hand, my other hand flat on the wall nearest me, and Ben was lecturing me on how to sense the electrical wires and to tell the difference between the lines, identifying and “plucking” at the ones that connected to the alarm system. This was more to my taste than babysitting newbies or facing down sullen teenagers.
“The trick is to sensitize them without actually setting them off. That way, when someone else touches them with current, trying to overload them, a warning is set off.”
A warning that was tied to a batch of elementals lurking in the walls, tiny semisentient creatures drawn by the excess of electricity the building provided. I’d encountered them once before, on a site, but using them this way, as part of a system rather than merely relying on their reaction to an intrusion, was new to me.
It sounded simple, and it was…but simple didn’t mean easy. Ben had let me try, just a single unconnected strand, and I’d broken it with my lightest, most delicate touch.
“How long did it take you to learn how to do this?”
Another shrug, but this one was too casual.
“Dammit, you invented this, didn’t you?” I was torn between irritation and admiration, and just a hint of…
Wow. I almost stopped, shocked once I identified the emotion. Pride. For him, in him. Not the sort of attaboy feeling I got when one of my fellow pups did something smart, either. It was…
“Bonnie. You still with me?”
“Yeah, right, sorry.” I tucked that soft, warm thing away carefully and focused on my hand on the wall. “So you make, like, a really fine thread and needle?” I asked, envisioning a thread of current so fine I could barely see it, only sense it.
“Yeah, I guess.” I suspected any attempt Ben made at sewing had involved surgical thread, not embroidery floss, but you picked the image that worked for you. I let the thread spin out, snaking from my palm down into the wall, reaching…
Something hard and sharp slammed into me, like a dozen icy-cold needles. “Holy mother of fu—What the hell was that?”
Ben was already moving, grabbing at one of the security guards who had been watching us without trying to be obvious. “There’s a breach. Call the security desk now!”
Holy shit. So now I knew what it felt like when the alarm was triggered. I swallowed, still feeling the sharp sting that had jagged its way through my flesh, and then started running after Ben, damning the vanity that had made me wear my pretty, utterly impractical-for-running boots. They made a nice clattering noise on the floor, though, as I followed the constant tug that told me where Ben was, his annoyance and glee clear to my oversensitive awareness. Glee because he had proof the system worked. Annoyance…
I could feel my ears burn, clear sign that I was blushing. Annoyance because his rather carefully detailed plans for tonight involving a bottle of wine, a very nice meal, and maybe some skin-to-skin had been disrupted.
