Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [77]
What day was it? Saturday? No, Sunday, that was why the trains had been few and far between. God, she needed to sleep. “I’m not getting paid enough for this.”
He pushed her down the hallway toward the bathroom, turning the shower on and shoving the knob all the way to hot. She took another gulp of coffee, and felt some of her synapses start to fire up again. “I’m really not getting paid enough for this. How much am I getting paid again?”
“You want to check your balance again?”
“Couldn’t hurt. Might help.”
He took the mug from her, and when she might have made a whimper of protest, placed it on the counter and tugged at her sweatshirt. Her arms went up, and he pulled it over her head, dropping it on the floor. She took the hint, shucking out of shoes, socks, and sweats in short order. Bra and underwear followed, any sense of modesty in front of him long gone in her exhaustion. She managed another gulp of coffee before he was moving her into the shower. The hot water and steam hit her at the same time, and all she could do was moan in gratification. Her hair plastered to her head, she leaned into the jets, feeling the grime and dust and dirt washing away. It was almost always the same way after a Retrieval, this bone-deep, beyond-exhaustion weariness. Hot water helped. She wasn’t recovered, not by a long shot, but now she finally felt like she might be able to sleep, at least.
The shower curtain pushed aside, and Sergei handed her the coffee mug, freshly topped off.
Or not.
When she got out of the shower, a towel was waiting for her. Sergei wasn’t. She wrapped herself in the terry-cloth, squeezed the excess water out of her hair and finger-combed it, then went in search of her partner. He was sitting in the main room, occupying the one chair. The stereo was on, playing music she didn’t recognize. Low bluesy sound, and a woman singing like a prayer, in French.
Always a bad sign, when Sergei went to Paris.
She left him there, and went into her bedroom. A quick rummage through her dresser turned up underwear and a pair of jeans. A sweatshirt left at the foot of the bed smelled clean enough, and she slipped it on, pulling her wet hair out from under the collar. Fortified, she went back to the main room, and sat down cross-legged on the carpet across from him. He tapped the remote, and the music shut off.
“Okay. What?” Yeah, his jaw was way too squared for it to be anything other than ugly news.
“The spell returned the cornerstone to its proper location, as per our agreement. However, the client claims that we did not finish the job.”
Wren blinked. Thought. Looked up at her partner. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a ghost, would it?”
Sergei’s face went through a sea change of expressions, from perturbed to disconcerted to resigned. “Start from the beginning. All the gory details.”
It took almost as long to tell as it had to perform, with Sergei constantly interrupting and asking for more, more specific details. But finally Wren got to the point where the wand struck the cornerstone.
“What happened to the stone then?”
Wren shook her head, tracing her fingers along the design of the rug. “Damned if I know. The smoke was everywhere, I could barely see an inch in front of me. But I know where you’re going with this—I thought about it a lot on the way home. Yes, I think the ghost came from the stone. No, I have no idea how it got there.”
“It was part of the spell.”
Sergei’s voice was dry. She looked up at him in disbelief, half expecting a joke. But while his finely-drawn lips were curved in a smile, there was no real humor behind it.
“What?”
“The ghost was part of—”
“I heard you, I heard you. They tied a person into a spell? I mean, a real live person?”
“A dead person, actually, otherwise it wouldn’t be a ghost.”
“No, Sergei, you don’t get