Laura Gilman - Blood from Stone

When Wren finally crawled out of the bedroom somewhere between oh God and semihuman the next morning to make coffee, there was a tall, well-built, reasonably good-looking man with a hawkish nose drinking a mug of tea at the kitchen counter.

“When’d you get here?” She knew he hadn’t been here last night; the bed had been cold when she fell into it. Even drunk off her ass, she knew when Sergei was in bed with her. He was an excellent bed-warmer.

“The client was surprised that the handoff wasn’t done as arranged,” her partner said by way of greeting, without bothering to respond to her question. “And by ‘surprised’ I mean more than vaguely upset. You delivered the package to his office?”

Coffee was suddenly too much effort, if she was expected to talk coherently about business while figuring out how many scoops she had already put in. She waved a hand and muttered something vaguely in English at him, promising to return, then went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face. The reflection in the mirror looked worse than she felt, which was saying something. Her shoulder-length brown hair was mussed and tangled, and her eyes were red-rimmed. Her skin, normally a healthy if pale color, was decidedly green.

Bonnie Torres could out-drink a demon, much less one slightly built Retriever. Someday, both demon and Retriever would remember that. Ideally, before the evil bitch pulled out the “after dinner, one last drink” brandy to toast the encroaching condo-ization of their building.

God. Condo. Don’t even think about it right now, Valere. Her partner was waiting. He wouldn’t thank her for skimping on her shower, though. Not if he needed her brains this morning.

The bathroom was old-fashioned, with a simple pedestal sink and pipes that clugged and clunked when you were waiting for hot water, but the heater did work and the pressure was fabulous, and a quick shower turned her into something closer to human.

“Client can bite me,” she said, walking into the kitchen wrapped in a towel, in search of coffee. Her partner was dressed in his usual suit and tie; the suit a beautifully cut dark gray pinstripe, the tie a nonregulation purple tie-dye. Friday morning, the gallery was closed; he must have a meeting with a new agent, or maybe a private client. Money, definitely. She took a good long look at him, just for the pleasure of it. His hair had more gray in it than even a year ago, but it was still full and swept back from a hawk’s face; sharp brown eyes and an even sharper nose. She thought the nose was one of his better features. He didn’t agree. “The guy who showed up had bought the kid.”

That stopped the tea mug halfway to his mouth and raised a dark eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

She repeated herself, speaking slowly and precisely. “The guy who showed up had bought the kid. Cash on the barrel. I picked it up from him, clear and true. I don’t know how much he paid, but it was a lot.”

“From the father.” His mouth tightened into a thin line and his entire body tensed. She reached up and patted him on one shoulder, and then shoved him gently out of the way so that she could get to the coffee maker, annoyed that he hadn’t started it for her already.

If she moved, she could find a place that had a larger kitchen, with room for an actual table where people could sit down and eat meals together, maybe. That was something to think about. She could trade in the three tiny rooms at the end and maybe have a single bedroom large enough to turn around in. And a real closet? There were a lot of upsides to moving.

Maybe she could “forget” to give anyone her new address.

“Don’t know,” she said in response to his comment, going up on her toes to try to snag a mug out of the cabinet. “Could be the mother—she’s the one who did the initial grab, after all. Guy had contact with them both, I got that much from reading him. And Dad didn’t…he didn’t seem like the type. He was really glad the kid was back and safe.” She had gotten details wrong before. Not often, though. Not at that level.

Sergei looked carefully at his partner’s closed-off expression, then grabbed the mug for her and handed it down, not making a fuss out of his much greater height. “You picked that all up from one contact?”

“Yeah.” Her voice said do-not-ask-how. He didn’t. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know. He had been there for the results, when she’d been the recipient of a “battery” of current during the events of last summer, and he knew that it had changed her, changed her ability. That, combined with the pressures and stresses they were under, on a daily basis…

Admit it, to yourself if nobody else. She wizzed. She wizzed, and she came back, and she hasn’t figured out what it all means yet. And neither have you.

The one thing he knew for sure was that her ability to channel current was stronger than it had been, which meant that she had to keep a tighter rein on it as well, or risk overflowing into whatever was nearby—electronics, storm fronts, receptive humans….

Wren grabbed the sugar tin and a spoon, and placed them next to the mug, ready and waiting for when the coffee finished percolating, and turned to face him. He knew that annoyed, sweetly inquisitive look, and braced himself for what was about to land.

“So. How was your session?”

As expected, and speaking of pressure and stress. She knew that he was seeing Doherty; she had in fact been the one to suggest, without much delicacy at all, that the therapist—as a Talent himself—would be the only person who might be able to understand Sergei’s particular problem. She didn’t know more than that, except that he was still going, and that was the way he wanted to keep it.

He was willing to do this, for her, but he didn’t want to talk about it.

“It was fine.” He gave back the do-not-ask tone and saw her bite the inside of her cheek, making her look like a chipmunk with a hangover, but she didn’t press. For all of about a minute and forty seconds. Then her hand reached up into her hair, and curled a strand around her finger, sure sign she was about to say something she wasn’t sure he was going to like.

Sergei felt a sigh building, and repressed it firmly. Once upon a time, he had been the senior partner, the guy with the answers, the one who had final say. After due consideration and a weighing of the pros and cons, he decided that he didn’t miss those days at all.

All right, maybe a little. Sometimes. But if he never saw her finger-curl her hair ever again, it would be too soon.

“So why did you give the kid back?” he asked, not put off by her attempted change of topic, and not giving her a chance to dig further into the state of his mental or emotional health. “Isn’t the guy going to sell the kid again?”

“Maybe.” She didn’t seem too disturbed by the fact.

“Genevieve!” He only used her given name when he was really annoyed. Or scared witless, but annoyed pretty much did the job right now. “Do you know what happens to kids who—” He stopped himself. Of course she did. More, she knew what happened to Talented kids who ended up in the wrong hands. No matter her personal opinion of kids, which was usually that they were best served braised on a bed of spinach—she would not keep from protecting the boy if she thought there was a need.

He fixed her with a Look, brows lowered, eyes narrowed, lips downturned, trying to channel his father’s best “come clean now” expression. “Genevieve, what did you do?”

His father’s look had worked much better on a preteen Sergei. His partner merely showed him an evil little smile and poured herself some of the coffee, yelping when a drop of it hit her rather than the pot. She shook her hand to cool it off, but her expression remained smugly satisfied. “Nothing he didn’t deserve.”