Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [85]
“Hey, if it’s any consolation, this too shall pass. Like you said, the Council’s always getting squirrely somehow or another. Just hang tight, stay low, and we’ll all be right as rain.”
“Yeah. I’d love to do that. I really would.” But there’s still a job to be finished. One that’s already got Council fingerprints all over it, even if they do claim to be quits with it. Maybe after that I can talk Sergei into a vacation somewhere that’s not here.
“Thanks, Lee.” She stood, picking up her bag from the floor at her feet. “Really. For everything.”
He nodded. “Stay low,” he repeated. “And I’ll see you around.”
Wren forced a smile, and walked out the door. “Idiot! Idiot, idiot masquerading as a target!” But by the time she’d walked the three blocks back to her apartment, she was almost resigned to the entire situation.
Maybe the Council does have their fingers in the Frants job, despite what Sergei said. It’s also entirely possible that this Council brew-up has nothing whatsoever to do with the case. The Eastern branch has been on our backs for decades; hell, long before I was born.
By the time she had climbed the five flights, the endless loops her thoughts were taking her in had turned her resignation into amusement. “Wren Valere, scourge of New York City,” she said out loud. “The woman strong Talents fear to gossip with.”
Talk to Sergei, she decided. He probably wouldn’t have a clue what to do about it, either, but then again, maybe he would. He’d gone nose to nose with the Council, after all, twice now. Maybe he had some insight a lonejack would be too close to see.
And maybe he’ll know a nice city somewhere we can relocate to, when—if—the storm actually breaks. She left her bag on the kitchen counter, checked to see if there were any messages—there weren’t—and went into the music room to put on some careful thinking music.
“Hey. Hey!”
Wren had just been starting to bliss out to the sounds of Rick Braun’s “Night Walk” when she heard the banging on the window. One eye had opened, then closed again, but the noise didn’t stop. Heaving a sigh, she picked herself up off the floor and went into the kitchen.
“I’m going to get you your own key,” she grumbled, letting P.B. in through the window. The pleasure she felt in his casual manner—so different from the humans of the Cosa today—made her tone less irritable than usual.
“Really?”
“Not a chance in hell.”
P.B. sniffed the air. “Oh yum. Any leftovers?”
She gestured to the fridge. “Mi casa es su casa, apparently. Claws off the orange beef, that’s breakfast tomorrow.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Excuse me? You eat carrion by nature, P.B. Or have you forgotten that little detail?”
“Hey, nobody asked me when they designed my ancestors.”
Literally. Demons were the only members of the Cosa to have documented origins. Sometime back in the eleventh century, according to the journals of one H. Buchanon, sick but Talented bastard. Wren had wondered once what sort of creatures he had used as the base stock for his creations. The probable answers so disturbed her she swore never to think in that direction ever again.
“Did you have a reason for showing up, or were you just looking for someone’s day to ruin?”
He stopped with his paw inside the carton of pork fried rice. “Whoa, someone got up on the wrong side of the smiley face this morning.”
Wren sighed. “Right, sorry. It’s been a long week, a long damned day, and I had a headache to begin with.”
“Oh, sorry.” He shuffled back a step or two, and she smiled at him. That small a distance didn’t really make much of a difference to the vibes his kind put out, but it was sweet of him to