Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [109]
Might be Silence, still. They’d been the ones giving her the creeps, according to Sergei. Might even have been behind the tag attempt, if they had Talent on the payroll, although she still liked the Council for that. Besides, Sergei had said most of the Talent they recruited was low-level. And anyway, if it was them, why would they be lurking so obviously now, when they were all out in the open and reasonably aboveboard?
“Yeah, he’s too good to be an amateur—but not Cosa, not the way he’s fidgeting. Flatfoot, would be my guess.”
“A cop? Oh hell.” Wren threw her hands up in the air in a perfect mimicry of Sergei at his most indignant. “What have I done to piss off the cops lately?” That would be all she needed, for the city’s Finest to finally start putting two and two together and coming up with 3.5. Unless it was whatsisname, Doblosky…no, he’d let her know if he had some reason to be lurking. Right? I mean, after giving her the warning and all.
“Not asking, don’t tell,” P.B. said, getting up stiffly to run the towel under more water to rinse it out. “You got any aspirin?”
“Yeah. I’ll go get it.” She left him dabbing at his side and muttering about stringy terriers, and went into the bathroom. Opening the old-fashioned medicine cabinet, she shook out two aspirin into her palm, then reconsidered and took the whole bottle with her. “Here,” she said, going back into the kitchen and tossing him the bottle. He caught it in one clawed hand and flicked open the childproof container without effort, shaking half a dozen tablets into his palm and dry swallowing them.
“So tell me about this shadow,” she said, reseating herself on the table and letting her legs dangle, feet several inches off the floor.
“Nothing to tell. Saw him while I was trying to get up the fire escape—and did it never occur to you to live somewhere with an elevator? Anyway, he ignored me when we passed on the street, even though I know for a fact he saw me, then did a start when I got to your window, so it’s definitely you he’s looking for. Unless you-know-who’s got someone’s panties in a twist.”
Wren considered it for about half a second. Sergei had said that the Silence was pissed at him, too—the thought that he might be in danger made her stomach seize up for an instant, then she started thinking again. The Silence knew where to find Sergei if they wanted to. And, despite her partner’s words last night about their motives, she didn’t think they would hurt him to get her cooperation. They didn’t seem that dumb, not even Jorgunmunder. And certainly not after her little conversation with Andre over lunch. “Possible, but unlikely.”
“Job-related?”
She had already considered that. “Also unlikely. Client’s probably not happy with us right now, but he knows we’re still on the case, so I doubt he’d go to the expense of shadowing me personally. Besides, if he did, he’d never be able to get another Talent to work for him ever again, and he strikes me as somebody who is right now way dependent on what we can give him.”
“Which leaves us with the cops,” P.B. said. “Fine. That’s your problem, not mine.”
“A cop who saw you and didn’t react?” Talents on the force were notoriously even more bigoted than Sergei when it came to the fatae, and especially demons.
P.B. looked like he would have shrugged, if he didn’t think it would hurt so much. His black eyes twinkled, and Wren was reminded suddenly of the abominable snow monster from those old Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer cartoons. She shuddered to get rid of the image. “Cops are the least of my problems.”
He dropped the now-filthy towel into the sink, and went to her fridge, clawed paw sorting through the contents with a depressing familiarity. “Do you ever go food shopping?”
“Don’t you start,” she told him. Going back to the window, she rested