Retrievers - Burning Bridges Part 22

"They were strangled and left on our steps with a warning about a 'Burning' to come."

Sergei waited for further details. "And this means...?"

"The Burning, my boy, is a term that has some resonance among your Cosa . It refers to the persecution of witches and those who use magic."

"A persecution the Silence has been known to take a hand in, " Sergei said calmly. Not often, and never without perceived cause, but hands washed in blood, nonetheless. Another secret he'd kept from Wren. "So it may be that someone in the Cosa has a specific grudge. Why come to me, accuse me?"

"They laid these bodies on our doorstep, Sergei Ka.s.sianovich. I am not being entirely metaphoric here. They were discovered this morning by the cleaning crew, the warning burned into their skin."

Oh. The Silence's building was one of the best-kept secrets, maintained since the plot of land was first purchased in the 1950s. A great deal of money had been spent to keep it more off-the-radar than even Wren could manage.

Two murders, a Cosa -specific reference, plus an implied we-know-where-you-are threat against the larger organization. Yes, he could understand why gazes might turn in his direction-or Wren's, although anyone who knew her at all would know how unlikely violence was from her.

Him, though? The Silence had trained him, praised him for violence in the greater cause.

"It wasn't me, Andre."

It was all he could do or say; either his former boss believed him, or he didn't. If he did, it might or might not carry through to the rest of the Silence, who would never forgive him for taking up with a lonejack, anyway. If Andre didn't believe him...Well, that would be too bad for the old man, wouldn't it?

"And Miss Valere?"

There was a chime outside, and Sergei hit the remote that opened the door. Lowell brought the tea in, a full silver tray service with cream, sugar and narrow Italian b.u.t.ter cookies the bakery down the street specialized in. Lowell had many skills, and the ability to smell money on a potential customer was one of his best, second only to his ability to make those potential customers feel deeply valued, if not outright cherished.

"Thank you, son, " Andre said, accepting a steaming cup from the tray. Sergei accepted a refill from the teapot, then nodded at Lowell to indicate that he should leave the tray on the desk.

The conversation did not resume until after the door had closed behind his a.s.sistant.

"Wren has no love for the Silence." In fact, Wren had great hate for the Silence, on several levels, and almost all of them totally justified. "But can you see her killing someone, marking their bodies with a message, and then dumping them on your stairs? She'd be far more likely to get into your bedroom at night and leave a rude message written with a Sharpie on your still-breathing body."

That almost got a flicker of a smile from Andre. Wren didn't like him, but he liked her.

"It doesn't matter if you did or did not do it. You are the most likely-in fact, the only reasonable suspect, in the eyes of those who will take action."

"You've lost that much power, that you can't do anything? Or..." Sergei looked at his former boss with knowing eyes. "Youwon't do anything. Because if Duncan acts against me, and it's proven-ifI prove that it was someone else, then Duncan will have been shown as fallible, not only in not being able to protect the Silence, but also incapable of striking back against those who would harm the organization. His information will have been shown, publicly and irrevocably, to be flawed."

Information was the lifeblood of the Silence; it was what they traded in; who did what to whom, and the means to set it right. Or, Sergei amended to himself, with a tired, low-level bitterness, to set according to what they deemed right.

"You're a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Andre Felhim."

"I do what I need to." He put his teacup down on the small table that was placed next to the sofa for just that purpose, and leaned forward, engaging Sergei's attention completely. "I had to know if you were involved in this, in any way. And I wanted to warn you. If that makes me a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, then so be it."

He stood, adjusting his sweater with a tug, and reclaiming his overcoat from the coat tree.

"Do what you need to do, Sergei Ka.s.sianovich." For the first time Sergei could remember, the patronymic did not set his teeth on edge. "Do as I trained you to do."

Twenty.

Sergei had waited all of ten minutes after Andre left before doing anything. Ten minutes spent sitting, quietly, his hands folded in front of him.

Was Andre playing him?

Yes.

Was Andre lying to him?

No. Probably not. Most likely not.

Had Andre told him everything?

a.s.suredly not.

Did that change what he needed to do?

No.

A full ten minutes, until his tea had turned cold and bitter, and he shut off his workstation, turned off the lamp, and took his own coat off the rack and left the gallery.

"I won't be in tomorrow, " he told Lowell, scooping up a mint out of the bowl on the counter before pulling on his gloves and tucking his scarf more firmly under his chin.

"We're supposed to get a delivery tomorrow-"

"You can handle it, " he said, and was gratified, in a distant way, to see Lowell's already perfect posture straighten and broaden even more.

Lowell was good. He had to tell the kid that, more often. It was just tough to remember, most days.

The streets were cleared, for the moment. A few cars were parked on the side of the road, coated with ice on the windows, a dusting of snow on the hoods and roofs. He hoped to h.e.l.l the owners had quality lock deicers, otherwise they weren't going to be getting into the cars any time soon.

He stood in the cold air and debated with himself. Go home, and wait for Wren to get in touch with him? Go to her place, and hope that she was there, that she would let him in? Stop in at Truce Central, even though there was no more truce, and see if anyone would give him the time of day? He didn't know, without her, where he stood with the supernatural community. He was the reason the Silence knew about them-did they know that? They must, by now. On the other hand, he was also the reason many of them were alive. And he was still Wren's partner. He thought. He hoped.

"You Didier? Of course you're Didier, who else would you be?"

He turned in the direction of the voice, and blinked at the sight of the creature standing in front of him.

"You're..."

"Yeah, I know, I hear it all the time. Notoriety's a b.i.t.c.h." To the pa.s.serby, he was merely a particularly grotesque old man, wizened and bent, with a face liked a dried apple and drool threatening to appear at the corner of its pale-skinned lips. Only the creature's dark red eyes gave its species away: demon. Wren had told him that demon all looked different, except the eyes; she hadn't said that one of them looked like Koshschey. Koshschey the Invulnerable. Koshschey the d.a.m.ned. Koshschey the Murderer.

"You are Didier, right?"

Ky3eH ApaKoHa. I mean, right, yes, I am." The sight had shocked him back into Russian, as though he were a six-year-old terrified by his father's stories, all over again.

"Good, because if I had the wrong street again I was going to hand in my courier's badge and go hibernate for another decade or seven. I hate this city."

Of course it spoke Russian. Sergei had trouble keeping up, mentally translating in his head and stumbling over a few words. "You have a message for me?"

"Yeah. You're supposed to meet Herself at Dante's. Half an hour. Was more time but these d.a.m.n streets twist and turn on one another, I swear to G.o.d Kana'ti couldn't find its way through this without a compa.s.s."

The demon turned and walked away, its message delivered. Sergei stared after it, trying to pa.r.s.e what he'd just been told. She hadn't come to get him herself, had sent a courier, a demon to fetch him like an errant schoolboy.

And yet, could he blame her? At least she was still calling for him, for whatever reason. Maybe she couldn't get away, or she was around too many lonejacks to use a phone safely-or all that were available were mobile phones, and those c.r.a.pped out if she so much as looked at one, these days. There were a dozen reasons why she wouldn't have come to the gallery herself, and only half were because she was still angry, or upset....

Only when it had pa.s.sed a couple of students and disappeared around the corner did he realize that he had no idea where Dante's was.

It turned out the place was in Manhattan, although the Javits Center was not an area he typically thought of for food above the grease-cart level. He walked in and a waiter-an overweight, bald-pated man in traditional black pants and white s.h.i.+rt, and a drooping mustache-rushed over and directed him to the right table. They were seated, he noted, out of the direct line of sight of the doorway, in an alcove without windows, with an emergency exit off to the side. He approved, then wondered who had chosen it, and why; he wanted Wren thinking smart, but there was a fine, scary line between planning for a fast exit, and antic.i.p.ating a gunfight.

"Where the h.e.l.l have you been?" The object of his thoughts looked up from the table, lines forming between her eyes as she frowned at him. Her hair was pulled back into a tight braid, and she was wearing all black. Retriever-mode, even if the black was jeans and a turtleneck rather than her slicks, or the less expensive, more easily explained sweats she sometimes used.

She was working, even if she didn't know it, consciously. He wasn't going to start a fight, not here or now, but-"Next time, send directions with your invite, okay?"

Wren had the grace to look abashed, but only for a moment. In point of fact, if he hadn't been able to call an old friend in the restaurant business and ask for help, he would never have gotten here at all. From the outside, the place looked like a warehouse: an abandoned warehouse, specifically. He'd almost told the cab driver to forget it, and take him home. But the smells that hit his nose the moment the door opened made him willing to forgive any cosmetic default, so long as someone put a plate of something in front of him.

"You guys are taking this whole' Cosa ' thing a little too seriously, don't you think?"

From the looks he got, Sergei suspected that he wasn't the first to make the joke, and it hadn't been funny the first dozen times, either. He reached over and tore off a chunk of garlic bread, and closed his eyes in ecstasy as the warm bread, b.u.t.ter and garlic did terrible, wanton things with his taste buds.

All right, so there were real benefits to having crisis meetings in downscale Italian restaurants, yes.

It was back down to the lonejack's Quad, Wren, and a man with long orange-red hair that Sergei didn't recognize but seemed to be leading the meeting. After so many months of having fatae at elbow and heel, it felt strange to be surrounded only by humans.

"The local police department is also working on the case." The man resumed speaking, once Sergei had settled in. "Our connections there are keeping tabs on anything that may come up. So far, their findings echo that of my PUPs-the bodies are normal, in all ways except the manner of their death."

"You are referring to the remnants of current found on them?" one of the unknown faces asked. "Their manner of death was strangulation. Cruel, but normal, as these things go."

"Yes. My apologies."

Sergei was willing to bet that this guy had never misspoken himself a day in his life. He knew who he was now-Ian St.o.s.s.e.r, the co-founder of the PUPIs, or private unaffiliated paranormal investigators, the Cosa 's answer to the metro CSI labs. Sergei made a point of knowing the ident.i.ty of as many movers and shakers as he could, no matter what they were moving or shaking. You never knew when you might need someone.

"Do we even have names? Affiliations?" Michaela, tapping a pen against the side of her place; uncharacteristically jumpy. "Are these souls innocent scapegoats, or do they have some connection with what has been going on?"

"Again, we don't know just yet."

"Does it really matter? They were Null, yes?"

"Yes." He hesitated. "I should say, that as far as we know, they were not members of the Cosa , neither Council nor lonejack. That much we got from the Council, before they slammed the doors shut."

"What?" Sergei hadn't heard about that.

Michaela filled him in. "KimAnn has decided that, with the Truce broken, and these murders, she has no obligation to do anything other than protect her own. They've called their members off patrol, and are not offering any more information."

It didn't surprise Sergei at all; the Council had come to the Truce-table for their own reasons, which involved KimAnn trying to keep control of her organization in the aftermath of a rather spectacular power grab. With humans-Nulls-being killed, and Talents suspected of the murders, she could use that as a justification for her actions and as a reason to close the borders, as it were, as well.

"We keep acting as though the murders were in retaliation for the angel's death. Why?"

"Because I don't believe in coincidences, " Bart said grimly.

"Nor do I, " St.o.s.s.e.r said. "But sometimes, what look like coincidences are simply things happening within the same geographic and chronographic areas."

"I almost understood that, " Wren muttered, but Sergei suspected only he heard her. The past few months she had been making an effort to stand out, shaking off her natural tendency to meld into the background noise in order to be heard and seen by the rest of the Cosa . But since the angel was killed, she had faded a little, and he wasn't even sure she was aware of it.

He didn't mind, at all. He'd never been comfortable with her taking such a front-and-center position, even as he understood the need for it. It might be parochial, or s.e.xist, or just overbearing of him, but he wanted her out of the spotlight-and therefore out of the sights of whomever was gunning for Talents.

He knew better-barely-than to say any of that. He was still in the doghouse with her for recent events: she might not have brought it up, and he wasn't going to say anything, either, but he knew. If he ended up sleeping alone tonight, it was his own d.a.m.n fault. She had warned him, and he had pushed anyway.

The waiter came by with a menu, and he waved it away, asking only for a gla.s.s of the house red. The way his stomach was tied up in knots, suddenly, he didn't think food was such a good idea after all.

After the meeting broke up, and the plates were cleared away, Wren stayed at the table while everyone else stood up and said their goodbyes. Sergei pushed his chair back, but didn't stand up. Bart swirled the dregs of his wine in his gla.s.s, thoughtfully, and didn't look at either one of them.

Bart was an opinionated, arrogant jerk, who never hesitated to say what was on his mind and d.a.m.n the fallout. Recent events hadn't put any diplomatic polish on him, either. But he was smart, and he was a survivor, and Wren had every intention of listening to whatever it was he was about to say.

"They're idiots." Bart's sideways glance at his departing fellow Quad members made it clear who he was talking about. "Well-meaning, and good people, don't get me wrong, but they're idiots. All this discussion about who and why and what can we do about it...they're missing the point, and I don't know if it's intentionally because they're scared, or they honestly are too dumb to see it. But either way, it makes them idiots."

"And what do you see?" Sergei asked.

"That we're being played."

Well, duh. Wren was suddenly less impressed with Bart.

"Okay, yeah, you figured that out already. You're not an idiot, either of you. At least not when you're out of bed."

"Excu-" He steamrolled right over her.

"But the question everyone's been asking is the wrong one. They're asking why."

"And you know why?"

Bart scowled. "You ever play war games? No, of course you didn't. You probably never even played Risk, did you?"

Wren looked at Sergei. He was the strategic one, the chess player. Her partner was still sitting back in his chair, carefully not showing anything on his face. That meant he was listening, and listening intently. She hadn't wanted to bring him in on this, not with her suspicions, her fears. But she needed him, d.a.m.n it. They needed him, and his brain, and his knowledge. She would keep her fears locked in their boxes, for now. Until there was proof, one way or the other.

"You have an enemy. A big, bad enemy, with powers you don't have, powers you don't understand. What do you do?"

"Find their enemy and make him or her your ally?"

"Not bad, and that's part of it. But-"

"Divide and conquer, " Sergei said. "Find the enemy's soft spot, and cut there, deprive them of their support, their allies."

"Better. What do you use for a knife?"

Sergei tapped the table with his forefinger, his eyes going clouded, like he was looking a million miles away. Wren felt a surge of glee at being half a step ahead of him. "You use something of theirs, something they'd never think to question. Like, oh, paranoia or extreme reluctance to trust anyone."

"So we have someone or several someones who know the Cosa well enough to use their own weaknesses to take them down. That's the how. You said you knew the why."