Staying Dead. Laura Anne Gilman

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СКАЧАТЬ Russian phrases she had picked up from Sergei by the time she finally hit the street.

      With all that, despite the fact that she was only walking a few blocks, it was closer to seven forty-five before she made it to Marianna’s. She paused on the street outside the tiny storefront, clutching the folder in her hand as though she might forget it again somewhere, and checked her appearance in the reflective glass door.

      She thought about the lipstick she had left untouched on her bathroom counter, and made a face at herself. You don’t need to put on a face for Sergei, for God’s sake, she snarled mentally. He’d seen her at three in the morning, drenched in sweat and splattered with both their blood, and not blinked. So long as she didn’t actively embarrass him in a social setting, she could paint herself in blue-and-green stripes and he’d just say something like, “Interesting outfit, Genevieve.”

      And why did it matter, anyway? If there was one thing she knew, without a doubt, it was that Sergei gave a damn about what was inside, not out. So why did that thought, increasingly, make her feel depressed instead of comforted?

      Job, Valere. Job.

      Squaring her shoulders, she pushed open the door. Callie looked up from her seat at the bar, saw it was her, and merely nodded toward the table where Sergei was waiting.

      Wren shook her head in mock disgust, although she wasn’t sure if it was at herself or her partner. Well, of course he was there before she was. Odds were good that he had arrived at exactly seven-twenty-nine, trench coat over one arm, briefcase at his side, taken one look at the restaurant, saw she wasn’t there yet, sighed, and requested a table in the back and a glass of sparkling water, no ice.

      “Been here long?” she asked, slipping into the seat opposite Sergei. He looked up from his notepad, then looked at his watch. “A little over fifteen minutes,” he said, confirming her suspicion.

      In a simple but expensive gray suit and burgundy tie, Sergei could have passed unnoticed in the carpeted halls of any brokerage house. Broad-shouldered, with a close-cropped head of dark hair and a nose that was just a shade too sharp for good looks matched to an astonishingly stubborn square chin, he could just as easily have been a former quarterback-turned-minor-league newscaster, or a successful character actor.

      What he was, in fact, was the owner and operator of a very discreet, wildly overpriced art gallery. It was through the gallery that he made the contacts who often had need of Wren’s services: private citizens, mostly, but also the occasional museum or wholesaler who didn’t want to go through the police or—even worse—the insurance companies to reclaim their stolen artwork.

      And, on occasion, something a little more…unusual. Like this case. Sorry, she amended even though Sergei couldn’t hear her thought, this situation.

      Callie came over, wiping her hands on the front of the white apron tied around her waist, and stood by their table, one bleached-blond eyebrow raised. “Your usual?” she said to Wren.

      “Nah, I think I’ll live dangerously.” She scanned the chalkboard behind the bar with a practiced eye. “Give me the Caesar salad and the filet of sole.”

      “Which is exactly what you’ve had the past three times. Experiment a little, willya?” Callie had the flat-toned voice of someone trying to pretend they weren’t from around here, but unlike almost every other waiter and waitress in town, she wasn’t waiting for the big break to sweep her off to Hollywood.

      “And a glass of Chianti.”

      “Ooo, red instead of white. You are living dangerously.” Not that being a professional waitress made her any more respectful of her clientele. Just the opposite, actually.

      “See why I love this place?” Wren asked her companion.

      “Indeed. A tossed salad and the halibut, please. Nothing else to drink.”

      “You guys have really got to calm your wild lives down,” the waitress said in disgust, stalking off to the kitchen with a practiced flounce.

      “We’re such a disappointment to her.”

      Wren snorted. Callie had been flirting madly with Sergei for two years now, ever since Wren moved into the neighborhood and they started coming here regularly, and he remained serenely unresponsive. Disappointment didn’t even begin to cover it. Wren could understand Callie’s point of view, though. If she wasn’t so sure he’d look at her blankly, or worse yet give her the “we’re partners, nothing more” speech, she might have made a play for him, too. Well, maybe not when they first partnered. But lately…it was weird, how someone so familiar could suddenly one day, totally out of the blue and with a random thought, become…interesting. In that way.

      Damn it, Valere, focus! “Whatcha got for me?”

      Sergei lifted a plain manila envelope out of his briefcase and handed it to her. “The names of all the highly-placed executives, both within the Frants Corporation and at rival organizations, who would have reason to hold a grudge of this magnitude, and the financial wherewithal to hire someone to perform magic of this level. You?”

      “Bunch of folk with the mojo to do the job themselves, almost all carrying a mad-on of one kind or another for our client. Strictly low-budget grievances, though.” She pulled out a legal-size piece of paper from the file and handed it to him in exchange. It was a copy of the original list P.B. had given her, with her own notes added under each name. “Doubt they’d be in any of your databases.”

      “Don’t ever underestimate my resources,” he told her severely. “Many people who think they’re invisible often—”

      “Leave a fluorescent trail. Yeah, yeah, I know.” One of the few “resources” of his that Wren had ever met in person was a former forensic investigator named Edgehill, who was paying off some unnamed but very large favor done in the distant past. He was a slight, frantic-eyed man with wildly-gesturing hands. Listening to him talk was sort of like watching an episode of CSI on fast forward while taking speed. But his shit was almost always on the money.

      “Would the police have anything on file?”

      Wren snorted. “Nobody on this list. Strictly no-see-um talents.”

      “Noseeyum?”

      “Too good to get caught.”

      “Ah.” He grinned at her, the expression softening his face and putting an appealing glint in his dark brown eyes. Behind that hard-assed, hard-pressed agent façade, she thought not for the first time, Mr. Sergei Didier had a real wicked sense of humor that didn’t get nearly enough air time. “Kin of yours?”

      “Hardly.” Without false modesty, Wren knew her worth, and so did Sergei, to the penny. These guys were good, but she was better. Which was why she didn’t appear on other people’s little lists. Even Sergei, with all his surprisingly good contacts and connections, hadn’t known about her way back when until sheer coincidence—and a nasty accident caused by someone trying to kill him—brought them into contact.

      Wren’s mentor, a man named John Ebenezer, had taught her from the very beginning to keep a low personal profile for a great many reasons, all of them having to do with staying alive and under her own governance. There were three kinds of current-mages in the world: Council-mandated, lonejackers and dead. Just because a Talent had no interest in being under the Council’s thumb didn’t mean they might not want her there, now or someday later. Better not to take the chance. СКАЧАТЬ