Laura Gilman - Blood from Stone

Besides, there was the kid to worry about. The handover had been blown, but she still had to deliver to get the final part of the payment. Assuming daddy dearest still wanted the kid. Christ, don’t borrow trouble, Valere. The client gets the goods, you’re within letter of the agreement, everything’s peachy. He’s not a puppy you can adopt, damn it.

“This isn’t over, Max,” she warned him, standing up.

“Yes,” he whispered, his eyes level with her own, not blinking, not once, until her own eyes hurt. “Oh yes, it is. All over everything.”

And with a manic grin and an inrushing of air that smelled like burned ozone, he was gone.

“Where he go?” the kid asked, looking around as though expecting to see Max lurking in one of the stalls.

“Hell, hopefully.” She looked down at the kid, and sighed. “All right, come on, full cleanup this time. Grab some paper towels and get your disgusting self over to the sink….”

This was so not in the job description.

It took her almost half an hour to get the kid presentable again, including rinsing his T-shirt out and holding it under the air dryer until it was okay to put on again, if still, based on his grimace, a little damp. Wren, with more experience in being Translocated, had managed to miss her clothing when she threw up. She washed her hands and face, rinsed her mouth out and gargled with warm water, and figured that was as good as she was going to get, right then. But oh God, did she want that hot shower and a long nap. Not to mention that drink.

“Ready?”

The kid nodded, but looked less certain than he had since all this began. She didn’t blame him a bit. In fact, it was a damned wonder the kid was still there, and not running for the first noncrazy adult he could find.

It made you wonder what the hell his home life was like.

Despite her concerns, nobody gave Wren or the kid a second glance when they walked out of the bathroom. She still felt horribly exposed and vulnerable, same as she did every time someone else Transloc’d her. The loss of control over your own molecules was disturbing, even without the throwing-up part. If she could do it herself with any kind of accuracy or reliability…

If you could, many things would be different. But since you only manage it under extreme stress and with massive stomach upset, let it go already!

Max had dropped them off in the men’s room of a chain restaurant off Route 95 in Connecticut, just north of New York City. It was more than a hundred fifty miles from the aborted handoff site, far beyond what most Talent could manage. Show-off, Wren thought bitterly as she looked out the plate glass windows at the visible highway signs.

Then the white lettering on that sign really sank in, giving her a start. This was the client’s hometown, where he lived and, more important, where he worked. Which meant that either luck had finally smiled on her, or—and this was the unpleasant thought—that Max had done some digging in her brain while he was hauling them around.

She strongly suspected the latter, and made a nasty promise to return the favor, if she ever got the chance, just on principle. She hated the thought of anyone in her brain. It made her feel…rumpled.

Despite her foul mood and worries, the smell coming from the kitchen of the restaurant made Wren salivate, and the look on the kid’s face suggested he felt the same, even though he was too polite—or scared—to ask. She didn’t want to stay here, though, just in case anyone—Max, or…anyone—decided to come back for them. Instead, she dragged the kid next door to a fast-food restaurant and dug into her sparse cash to get a burger and a kid’s meal. They had little containers of chocolate milk, and she got three, two for him and one for her. It was milk, so that was almost like healthy food, right? She told herself to stop making like a mother; the kid wouldn’t keel over from one junk food meal.

They ate as they walked, heading on instinct into the more crowded downtown area. The client, according to Sergei, was senior partner at a decent-sized law firm. Some questioning of local-looking people on the street finally got her an address. By the time their meals were done and the last of the chocolate milk slurped, Wren found the building.

“You ready?”

The kid looked less than thrilled. “I guess.”

Kid of few words. And he didn’t suck his thumb or throw tantrums or squirm, or anything that made her hate kids. Not bad, as kids went.

“I’m tired.”

“Yeah. It’s almost over now, kid.”

He seemed to be thinking that through, then finally nodded and set his face into very solemn lines. “Okay.”

She tossed the garbage into a nearby trash can, looked the kid over to make sure he looked as unmussed and untraumatized as possible, and then marched him into the lobby of the brick-and-chrome low-rise. There were only four companies listed: two law firms, a CPA firm, and something that didn’t identify what they did but had five names on the masthead.

The directory sent them to the third floor, where the lobby was warm paneled wood and comfortable-looking chairs. If she ever needed a law firm she’d like it to look as upscale-comfortable as this one. Somehow she didn’t think that they handled the kind of work she’d bring them, though; their criminal cases were probably more insider trading and whatnot. She put on an air of confident authority, best she could, and told the surprised receptionist—a large, elegant woman with glorious cornrows down her back—that there was a package for her boss. The kid seemed to know the woman, and more to the point actually like her, so Wren had no hesitation whatsoever in triggering her no-see-me lurk mode the moment he launched himself into the woman’s arms. That was a handoff she felt a hell of a lot better about, yes.

Dad showed up a few minutes and a frantic page later, and while he scanned the lobby with an intent gaze, he didn’t have a chance of spotting her standing in plain sight by the elevator doors. Retrievers were both born and made—you stayed at the top through training and skills, but you started out because you had the natural ability to go unnoticed. She suspected that was true for a lot of Null thieves, as well.

She studied Dad for a few minutes. Expensive suit and well-groomed hair, and he seemed really uncomfortable when the receptionist handed junior over. But the kid—despite his earlier statement—threw chubby little arms around Dad’s neck without a second thought. The man’s expression was one of guilty relief rather than annoyance or fear—or disappointment—and he hugged the boy back immediately, like something precious he hadn’t expected to hold again. Maybe he wasn’t such a shmuck after all. Maybe. Maybe he’d just made a mistake, had trusted the wrong people to do the right thing. It was a risk, but…

Take care of your son, she thought into the man’s skull, making it into a pointed, current-driven command, and then went home.

The MetroNorth train southbound got her into Grand Central just in time to deal with the crush of early-evening commuters. The mass of people heading out of the city on a Thursday evening made it tough walking, but the irritation with crowds was a familiar thing, and she almost welcomed it, after the rest of the day. The subway downtown was packed as well, but she slid into the first train that came along, found a bit of wall to lean against, and was home without any significant delay.

As always when she had been away for even a day, the sensation of coming up out of the subway station and turning onto her street was akin to having someone lift a twenty-pound weight off her shoulders. Home.

The narrow brownstone was quiet—there were five floors, one apartment per floor, and most of her neighbors weren’t the wild party-throwing type ever since the nudists on the third floor moved out and her friend Bonnie moved in…. All right, Bonnie threw parties, but they were clothed and respectable. Mostly.