Free Fall. Laura Anne Gilman

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ slid open without a sound. A black light went on overhead, lighting the steps down. She frowned at it before realizing that the black light was probably so that nobody onstage or in the audience might see a distracting glow when a performance was running. Nice. She was going to have to experiment, when she got home, and see if she could create the equivalent with current. A handy thing, if she could make it work. Handy, yes, and possibly profitable? If she could bottle it somehow, the way some Talent made prepared Translocation spells—they overcharged so much, she only used them when there was no other choice, and they had to be individually set and had a limited lifespan, but a current-powered blacklight…hell, a prepared current-light, period…

      Worry about it later. Just because this is a cakewalk, no reason to get sloppy. Bad things always seem to happen when you get cocky.

      The stairs were surprisingly comfortable to walk down, even keeping her back to the far wall. There was some sort of rubber padding tacked to the steps, which had the advantage of both muffling footsteps and keeping her footing secure when the stairs turned sharply.

      At the bottom, the tunnel was much larger than she had expected; rather than a narrow walkway, it was a broad and arched hall with a track of modern lighting running along the ceiling. The air was cool and dry, not musty or stale, indicating that they had at least a basic air filtering system in place.

      Nice. With a little work, you could probably turn this into the trendy new living space, and make a fortune.

      All right, enough with the money-making plans, Valere. Get the job done.

      She set her back against the wall, feeling the cool stone even through her leather jacket, and tried to orient herself. She had come down here, and she was facing there, so…It might be cheating, triangulating via the pulse of Times Square, but you used what you had. Confident now that she knew where she was going, Wren pulled her lockpick tools out of its tummy sheath, and stepped forward confidently.

      There was no warning. One moment she was moving forward, the next she was pinned against the wall again, only this time there was a heavy forearm against her throat, and the smell of hot breath on her face. A white cloth mask was pulled over his face, showing only narrowed brown eyes above the fabric.

      Wren reacted the way she had been trained: fast and hard, but not lethally. Her mentor, John Ebeneezer, had been a huge fan of not killing people, and even years of Sergei’s “survival at all costs” attitude and P.B.’s casual disregard for bloodshed had not been able to quite eradicate that early influence.

      She didn’t even try to shove back physically—she was in shape, but her strength was not in meat and muscle. A hard pull down on her core, and thick-bodied snakes of sizzling red and gold came to her, coiling up her arm faster than she could visualize them. There was enough power there to jolt any assailant back on his ass and crisp the ends of his short-and-curlies.

      The guy jerked and grunted when she hit him, but didn’t let go. And he absolutely didn’t fly back onto his posterior the way he was supposed to. Instead he slapped her across the face, hard enough that her vision swam and her face burned.

      “Bitch sparked me,” he told someone else over his shoulder.

      “Stupid cunt.”

      He relaxed his grip slightly, but before she could take advantage of it, another set of hands pulled her off the wall, shoving her down to her knees on the floor. From that position, she could see that they were wearing thick-soled work boots, and dark green carpenter’s pants.

      Two of them. Then another set of boots came into view, and she upped the count to three. At least. Damn, and also, damn. Two she might have been able to take in an unfair fight. And they had expected her to use current. They had warded themselves somehow…. Rubber. The soles of their boots, probably fibers in their clothing, at least enough to absorb a nonlethal blow. They weren’t warded, magically; just basic physical forensics and a trip to the Army-Navy store. They knew about Talent. And they didn’t seem to be friendly.

      A shove in the small of her back, and she went facedown on the stone.

      Nope, not friendlies at all. Stay calm, Valere. Stay calm. Damn it, I should have brought the hot-stick.

      A thin, thin filament of current stretched out from deep within her core, imbued with as much of her personal signature as possible. She sent it out, searching for anyone on the street above who would be able to hear her. There were people she could specifically tag, reaching out to their mental signature across the city, but by the time they understood what was going on, it might be too late to be of any use.

      The filament didn’t find anyone other than Nulls on the streets above. No Fatae, no Talent.

      Looks like you’re on your own. Figures. So much for the Patrol still hanging around.

      Who were these assholes, anyway? Random goons who got lucky? The fact that they were prepared shot that idea down. They weren’t Council, and she doubted they were here to protect her target, so that left only one answer.

      Vigilantes. The Silence’s goons. Fuckitall and why did she never get a break?

      “Hurry up,” one of them urged the other two. “Let’s get this done.” She lay very still, trying to distinguish their voices in her mind. The one standing up was a tenor, she thought. He had a faint rasp to his words, like he had a cold. Not a local—she didn’t recognize the way he worked his vowels.

      “Ain’t nobody down here,” the second one said. He was kneeling beside her now, and she repressed a shudder when his hand landed flat on her back, just above her waist. “They’re all upstairs getting made up.”

      Local boy, definitely. Probably Staten Island. His hand slid up her back, and now Wren did shudder. The touch was more than unfriendly; it was unfriendly with Intent. And she didn’t want to think about that intent.

      The last man to touch her with intent was Sergei, their last night together. Ham-handed boy got to take no such liberties.

      The third guy was silent, just standing there, watching. She could hear him breathing, though. He sounded like another big guy, like he had a thick chest, and probably the weight to match.

      “I wonder if what they say about their kind is true? Seems such a waste, dropping this little bird so quick.” Kneeling boy laughed at his own wit, and Wren would have rolled her eyes if she hadn’t been so nervous. Please. Like she had never heard that joke before? Her nickname came off her given name, Genevieve, and because she was hard to see, like the wren in a bush, but people always made the size assumption.

      Her mind came back to the here-and-now with a nasty snap. Two hands now, one on each shoulder, pressing her into the floor, and a weight still on her back. His leg?

      Oh shit. She was starting to get pissed off, the snakes in her core sliding against each other, their scales dry and scratchy, letting off static in a low hiss. I really don’t have time for this….

      “George, don’t.”

      George. Wren grabbed onto that. Local boy’s name was George. That was dumb, using names.

      Then Wren really did shudder. Unless they weren’t dumb, just careless. Because she wasn’t going to be around to tell anyone. Oh shit, she thought again, this time with more emphasis as the pieces came together. “Their kind.” Talent. The insulated boots and clothing. “Little bird.” They were here for her specifically, not just СКАЧАТЬ