Hard Magic. Laura Anne Gilman

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СКАЧАТЬ was a sobering thing to wake up to, though. Last night I was tired and well fed and probably more than a little inebriated—we had knocked off that bottle of wine, and then another during dinner—and the real hit hadn’t settled into my brain. This morning, it was all cold hard facts. I was going into an unknown situation that was clearly run—or at least guarded by—someone with way more mojo than I had. Someone alert to, and unhappy about, anyone scrying what they had planned. Suddenly, J’s concerns weren’t quite so dismissible.

      I was still going—pit-bull stubborn, that’s me—but with caution, damn it. And, I decided suddenly, without pretending to be anyone I wasn’t. Screw that—it hadn’t gotten me anywhere so far, and whoever this was, they were the ones who came calling, not the other way around. Let them get what I got.

      Out went the demure, if very nice, navy blue interview suit, and the sleeked-down, styled hair. My own, comfortable clothing, and my own comfortable look, thank you much. When I got out of the shower I applied my makeup and then ran my fingers through my hair and ruffled it madly. The image that stared at me from the full-length mirror was a hell of a lot more familiar now: my hair, still dark red but the short strands now fluffed around my face like a bloody dandelion puff, my eyes lined with a discreet amount of black kohl and mascara, and three basic gold studs in my left ear, while my right ear displayed a single sapphire stud, a fourteenth-birthday present from J.

      I’d been tempted to finish it off with buckled cargo pants and a mesh T-shirt, all in black, but common sense won out. I was going for me-hireable, not Goth club-kid. So a bright red silk shirt; sleeveless, like a fitted vest, went over my favorite skirt, a long black linen circle with enough pockets and loops to carry everything you might need in a daily routine, up to and including a carpenter’s hammer. J might be hoity-toity lawyer-man, but Zaki’d been a craftsman, and I learned early on about always having room for your tools.

      I didn’t like the way using the pockets interfered with the swing of the skirt, though, so everything—date book, newspaper, wallet, sunglasses—got tossed into my carryall. It was a graduation present from J—soft black leather, and probably the most expensive thing I owned—so I didn’t think I’d lose presentation points for using it instead of a briefcase.

      There was a moment’s hesitation at the shoes, but I squashed J’s voice in my head and went for my stompy boots instead of the more interview-acceptable, sensible heels. Shoving my feet into them felt like coming home, and when I stood up again, I felt ready to take on the whole damn world.

      Never underestimate the power of a pair of good, stompy engineer boots.

      Leaving the hotel, the daytime doorman—an older Asian guy named Walter—wished me good luck, making him third after the two chambermaids in the hallway on my floor. I thanked him, too, not sure if I should feel good that they bothered, or depressed that everyone in the hotel seemed to know I was job-hunting. Still, the entire staff had been really nice to me, and it wasn’t like I was in a position to turn down good wishes.

      The smart thing probably would have been to take a cab once I got cross-town, but the racket-clack of the subway was like a siren’s lure. They’re noisy, and usually overcrowded, but I could get a pretty current-buzz off the third rail without trying, and you see way more interesting people on mass transit. I’m all about the people-watching. Unfortunately, Tuesday at 1:30 p.m., heading uptown, seemed to be the dead time on the 1 train, and it was just me and an old guy reading a day-old newspaper, and two teenage girls in Catholic-school uniforms, whispering and giggling to themselves.

      It took about twenty minutes to get uptown, with me obsessively checking the subway route map on the wall behind my seat at every station. Damn, I was going to be late …. I got off at what I hoped was the right stop, and left the guy to his paper, and the girls to their giggles. Places to go, people to impress!

      The office—or whatever it was—didn’t exactly inspire confidence. The address was a mostly kept-up building off Amsterdam Avenue, seven stories high and nine windows across. Brick and gray stone: that looked like the norm in this neighborhood. We weren’t running with a high-income crowd, here. Still, I had seen and smelled worse, and the neighborhood looked pretty friendly—lots of bodegas and coffee shops, and the kids hanging around looked as if they’d stopped there to hang on the way home from school, not been there all day waiting for their parole officer to roll by.

      And only one of them, a short kid with Day-Glo green hair, shouted out a comment to me, and yeah it was rude, but it wasn’t insulting, so I gave him a grin and told him to call me as soon as he could grow some facial hair, too. His friends hooted and shoved him hard enough to knock him off the stoop. Normal stuff.

      I could work around here, yeah. Assuming this wasn’t just some recruiter’s office, or … Nerves surfaced again, and got shoved down. Come on, I chided myself, hoisting my bag more firmly over my shoulder, you faced off against a cave dragon when you were nineteen … how much more difficult could this be?

      I wasn’t sure I wanted an answer to that, actually.

      Pushing the appropriate intercom button in the foyer got me buzzed in through the lobby doors. There was no camera lens visible, so either they were really trusting, or they were using current to watch the door. I couldn’t sense anything, but that could just mean that it was subtle—meaning well-done. The office was on the top floor, just to the right as I came out of the elevator. From the hallway, it looked as though there were two office suites on each side. I went to the correct door, marked by a brass 7-C, and turned the handle.

      Walking into the office itself was reassuring; the space was clean, well lit, and surprisingly large. It was also filled with people.

      All right, four other people. Three guys and another woman, seated on what looked like almost-comfortable upholstered chairs. None of the usual waiting-room coffee tables filled with out-of-date magazines, thank god. In fact, no coffee table at all, although there was a coffee machine and a bunch of mugs on a counter against the far wall, along with what looked like a working sink and a mini fridge. Nobody else was drinking coffee, although one of the guys had an oversize travel mug with him.

      I let a flutter of current rise, and it got one, two, three, four equally polite touches back in response. Everyone here was a Talent, nobody was masking, and nobody was going to make a fuss about it. The fact that there were other people there was both worrying—competition for the job—and comforting—it probably wasn’t a setup or sideways attack on J after all. But that left the question: what the hell was it? I had no idea what the percentage of Talent was to the entire human population, but even in New York it had to be single digits. This was either deliberate selection, or a massive coincidence.

      Based on the backlash last night, I wasn’t counting on coincidence.

      I lifted my hand in greeting. “Hi.”

      “Hello.” The woman responded first, giving me a once-over that reminded me eerily of my old junior-high math teacher. Not that this woman was old or stern or anything, just … assessing, that was the word. Tall, blond, and cool, with curves that could probably stop a truck. I let my eyes linger, I admit it. “I’m Sharon. That’s Nick.” She pointed to the one with the travel mug, a dark-skinned moose of a guy who barely fit into his armchair. He nodded, his expression not changing from one of resigned boredom. If he hadn’t played football at some point, maybe even college level, I’d tear up my people-watching skills and eat them without sauce. So, was he muscle, or was there something in the brainpan, too?

      “That’s Pietr.” She pointed that finger at the second guy in line, a slender guy in khakis and pale blue button-down shirt matched to a screamingly expensive tie, and with a profile that would make a classical sculpture cry in envy. He was almost pretty, with skin as pale as mine, but something СКАЧАТЬ