Laura Gilman - Hard Magic

“You’re free to walk,” Venec said. “But none of you will. The fact that you made it this far, through all of our tests, means that you are perfect for this challenge … and the job is perfect for you.”

He smiled then, an arrogant, challenging smile, and a shiver ran through me that had nothing whatsoever to do with the ghoulishness of what we’d been discussing. He was yummy, yeah, and intense … and offering me what just might be the job of a lifetime.

This was either going to be a clusterfuck of monumental proportions … or a whole lot of fun.

My mentor took the news about as well as I’d expected.

“Absolutely not! Impossible! You need a real job, not this … irresponsible pipe dream! Stosser—bah, Ian Stosser has always been a troublemaker, and this partner of his, this Ben Venec … I’ve never heard of him. Who is he? What are his credentials? Where is their funding coming from?”

J had been ranting for almost an hour now, ever since I Translocated into his Beacon Hill apartment and told him the results of the afternoon’s meeting. Periodically I used a strand of current to check his blood pressure, an intimacy he allowed me only because he was too distracted to slap the tendril away, and then went back to my own thoughts. Eventually he would run down, and we could have a reasonable discussion.

Not that it mattered. I had already made up my mind.

It took another ten minutes, but finally my mentor dropped into his chair and stared gloomily across the room at me. I lifted my head up from the paperwork I’d been flipping through, and met his gaze evenly.

“And you didn’t hear a word I said, did you?” he asked.

“I heard every syllable,” I said in the same measured, reasonable tone he was using now. “I even agreed with some of them.”

“But you disagree with the overall conclusion.”

I scratched the tip of my nose and tossed the folder of papers onto the end table. The salary they were offering was passing-decent, the benefits not worth mentioning, and none of it mattered, really. None of it had since The Guys, as I’d started thinking of them, had given us the pitch.

“Joseph. You know they’re right. About the need for this—for unbiased investigators for the Cosa —and about how very good I’d be at it.”

J knew what I was talking about, and I knew that he really didn’t want to think about that. His expression didn’t change, but he shifted in his chair, just enough to let me know he was uncomfortable.

“That was different,” he said, not meeting my gaze.

“Of course it was,” I agreed. “I was just a kid looking to see what had happened to her dad, after he left me a mysterious letter and then disappeared. All I did was poke around into a few dark holes—” including one that belonged to a loan-sharking cave dragon “—and ask a few questions, and use current to trace down the clue that led to the guy who killed my father … “

I played dirty then. “And then I couldn’t do anything.” I paused, letting that statement drill down a little. “There was no one to go to with what I knew, then. Not even you could do anything. I had no evidence, nothing that could be used in an ordinary court of law, and no way to give Zaki justice. He wasn’t Council, so Council wouldn’t get involved. There was no way to get closure, unless I was willing to do the deed myself.”

Zaki hadn’t been much of a dad, but he’d been a good person. He didn’t deserve to get killed over a woman he hadn’t even touched. And he would have hated me having blood on my hands, especially in his name. That, not legalities, not any sense of civilized behavior, had been all that had stayed me. But J never needed to know that, if he hadn’t twigged already.

“Child, you are a dirty pool player.”

“Equal parts nature and nurture,” I said in reply, and it was true. I might be the child of drifters and grifters, but J hadn’t gotten to where he had in his career by always playing by the strict interpretation of the rules. Always legit, sure, but maybe not always kosher. There was no way I was going to grow up a delicate, idealistic flower, under those conditions.

J had a crease between his eyebrows, meaning that a headache was creeping down from his scalp. I didn’t want to cause the old man any worry—I never wanted him to worry about me ever—but I couldn’t back down. Not about this.

Meanwhile, I had my own forehead-crease forming. There was something niggling at the back of my brain, about this job. Not a bad thing, just a thing I needed to remember, or a connection I needed to make. If I left it alone, it would come crawling out on its own.

“Dirty pool,” J said again, then leaned back in the chair, letting his legs sprawl in front of him. Rupe appeared from wherever he’d been hiding during the rant and settled his shaggy body on the carpet next to J’s chair. “You really think that this … wannabe investigational unit can accomplish anything? Do you think they will make a difference?”

“We won’t know unless we try.” And then I played even dirtier. “Would you have been able to use us, something like this, out in Seattle?”

I didn’t have to say anything more; part of loving someone is knowing what still bothers them. He sighed, and all the argument went out of him, just like that. He reached down to pet Rupe’s head. “I hate to say it, and when I say hate I do mean hatred, but … yes. We could have, and by god, we would have, if I had anything to say about the matter.”

J was a stickler for honesty, even when it hurt.

“You are correct, Bonita. This may be exactly what the Cosa needs … and, more to my regret, it may be exactly what you need.”

It wasn’t a paternal blessing, exactly, but it would do.

The question of my employment settled for the moment, J gathered all the paperwork from me and spent about an hour explaining it all, in excruciating detail. His grudging approval of their having health insurance and a 401(k) set up would have been funny if it wasn’t all so surreal, and I signed in the places he marked without really paying much attention. The paycheck had suddenly—and probably stupidly—become secondary to me. I was never going to make a good mercenary.

The initial argument, followed by what seemed like endless paperwork, took so much out of us that I vetoed his cooking, and we ended up doing take-away Thai and beer instead. J sometimes forgets he isn’t fifty anymore.

We had a few more rounds of “do you think this is a good idea” over the last of the six-pack, and I went back to New York under his current, a little before midnight. All this Translocating back and forth between Boston and New York was starting to make my neck ache. Next time, I thought as I crawled into bed, I was going to take the Chinatown bus. Or, considering I now had a paying job, maybe I’d go crazy and take Greyhound. Or hey, Amtrak! Or maybe, once I got an apartment, I could drag J down here for dinner, for a change. I hadn’t cooked for anyone in a long time ….

That thought consoled me as I put my head on the pillow and was out almost before my eyes were closed. I slept well, no dreams intruding, so the wake-up call at 6:00 a.m. was a rude shock. I rolled over, snagged the receiver, grunted something into the phone. and then dropped it back into the cradle. “Oh god,” I moaned, and then rolled out of bed for what I supposed would be my first day at work.

Supposed, because at the end of the interview yesterday, they’d just handed us the papers, and told us to think it over, and they’d either see us today, or not.

I got out of the shower and stood in front of the closet, hesitating over what to wear. For some reason, a perfectly office-appropriate slim blue skirt and white blouse didn’t feel right. I dithered for a while, then finally opted for a V-neck sweater the same shade of red as my hair, and black pants with subdued buckles and loops over a pair of heeled black half boots. Not quite my stompy boots, but they’d do for confidence. You couldn’t be wimpy, wearing boots.