Laura Gilman - Free Fall

“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 vigilante yahoos looking for a Talent to bust, or even unwary legs to spread. They were hunting The Wren, and she’d walked right into them.

Or been sent right into them. The entire job, a setup? Or…it doesn’t matter, Valere! Just get out of there!

“Come on, you musta heard the stories.” He shifted, and Wren could feel him straddling her, sitting on her upper thighs. Then he leaned forward, covering her entire body, and she felt his erection pushing against her ass, even through her jeans. “Like dipping into an electrical socket, I’ve heard. Hottest shit ever.”

Thou shalt not kill, a memory said, oh so quietly in the back of her brain.

“Yeah, and you hear what else they say? They’re not human, man!”

“So?” George clearly wasn’t worried about that. He shifted again, one hand leaving her shoulder to reach around and wrestle with the snap of her jeans. “Come on man, help me. I’ll let you have a taste, after I wear her out, if you’re too scared to get in first.”

The other guy didn’t sound tempted. “The Man hears, you won’t think it worth it. Aw, hell. You remember what happened with the last one we popped? Bitch near tore his head off. You gotta get some, damage her first and you can get in and out before she dies.”

George didn’t stop his movements. “Whaddreyou, sick or something? I’m not doing a corpse! Anyway, I like ’em when they fight. Spicy.” His fingers got under her waistband, and started moving down, shoving aside her underwear.

The last one we popped…echoed in Wren’s brain, rattling around like dried beans. Bastards. They got off on this. They thought they had the right to do whatever they wanted, because someone told them they were superior, that they were better.

The frustration of the past few months, the anger building up for the past year, rolled like the tide against her shores, and she was so very tired of holding it back, of not being able to vent her emotions on the world that kept trying to slap her down.

Control, she told herself. Control. But her core was suspended in black tar, and current raged overhead and underfoot, and blood ran like the river tides. She could not feel anything other than that, oblivious to the outside world, not caring what was being done to her body as she fought for control she wasn’t sure she even wanted, any more.

The third man spoke then, finally, breaking her out of her mental prison. “I’ll kill both of you, you touch that thing.” It didn’t sound like he was bluffing.

“What, you’re trying to protect it?”

There was a snick of a knife, and George’s fingers stopped for an instant.

“Don’t be even more of a moron than you have to be. You’re human. It’s not. Don’t sully yourself.”

“You’d kill him? For that?” The second man, incredulous.

It’s not human. Three on one. They’re armed. Thou shalt not kill. ‘The last one we popped.’

A memory: of bodies facedown and faceup, sprawled in their own blood, pools of black on dirty snow. Entrails, shit, and teargas making her gasp against tears. Ohm’s bane, flickering dark red against the dawn sky, up and down the skyward-arching form of the Brooklyn Bridge. A long black car, driving away. Sergei’s face, stone and sadness.

Inside, Wren felt something give way; a brick wall under assault, an earthen ditch crumbling. She grabbed for the pieces, held it together. But it was slipping under her fingertips.

“Aid!” An involuntary blast of streaky purple current like a signal flare shot into the ether, the agreed-upon signal of the Truce Patrol, whatever was left of it. “Aid and assistance down here! Vigilantes!”

And then she was falling, falling into the tar, falling into the darkness where even current did not shine.

She had asked for help. She wasn’t going to wait around for it.

It was a simple matter—almost instinctive—to reach for the proper fugue state. Once, she would have had to do deep breathing, ground and center, concentrate. During the past year, Wren Valere had used her current more on a daily basis in order to survive, to protect those around her, than she used to call up in a week’s time, even including jobs. She had stretched and grown, almost unknowing; so much so that now she simply let go and fell down into her core.

The first awareness was always the sound. Dry slithering, and hissing. Paper-against-spark, the insentient patience of current, coiling and recoiling in an endless loop.

Next were the colors. She opened her not-eyes and colors consumed her. Dark and scarlet reds and royal-blues, dark greens and iridescent purples, streaks of gold and silver, and underneath it all the dark, dark muscled bodies of a color she had never been able to name.

And then the warmth that seeped into her bones. Stone-warmth, like lava rising from the gut of the earth. It called, seduced, tried to make her give in, relax, come down into the pit and lose her way.

The moment she did that, the current would destroy her. Self-control was everything in the core.

Come to me, she told it. Not a single thread, the way she normally did, or even a braiding, but all of it. It surged up in response to her call, her will easily overpowering them. Sparking and sizzling into her veins, bloating her with power. Not you, she said to the dark, dark current, sticky like tar.

???!!?

Not you, she repeated. She didn’t know why, but something deeper even than her core warned her away from it, denied it access.

Dimly she was aware of her body shoved forward, her pants around her thighs. Hands gripping her wrists, a knee between her shoulder blades. The snap of latex. She almost laughed. They thought it would get that far?

“For God’s sake, I’ll buy you a whore. I’ll buy you two.” The third man, again. “Just kill it already. Once it’s dead, its familiar will be unprotected, and we can finish the job.”