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Synopsis

Manhattan's night life just got weirder...

It starts as a simple job -- but simple jobs, when you're dealing with the magical world, often end up anything but.

As a Retriever, Wren Valere specializes in finding things gone missing -- and then bringing them back, no questions asked. Normally her job is stimulating, challenging and only a little bit dangerous. But every once in a while...

Case in point: A cornerstone containing a spell is stolen and there's a magical complication. (Isn't there always?) Wren's unique abilities aren't enough to lay this particular case to rest, so she turns to some friends: a demon (minor), a mage who has lost his mind, and a few others, including Sergei, her business partner (and maybe a bit more?).

Sometimes what a woman has to do to get the job done is enough to give even Wren nightmares....

Excerpt

"Hey, lady! Move it or lose it!"

The cyclist sped past her, a blur of expensive aluminum, narrow wheels and Lycra-clad body topped by a screaming-orange helmet. He -- she? it? -- hopped off the curb and dove into the light traffic moving up Madison Avenue, almost slamming into a cab that was cruising around the opposite corner looking for an early-morning fare. The cabbie slammed on the brakes and the horn at the same time, and the bike messenger made a rude gesture as he wove in and out of the middle of the street, heading downtown.

"Oh, for a stick to spoke his wheels," Wren said wistfully, staring after the cyclist with annoyance. The man standing next to her smothered a surprised burst of laughter. Wren blinked. She hadn't been kidding; bicycle messengers were a menace.

Dismissing the incident with the single-minded focus she brought to every job, Wren turned her attention back to the building in front of her; the reason she was standing out on the corner at this ungodly hour of the a.m. on a Monday. What terrible sin had she committed in a past life, to get all the morning gigs in this life? She made a soft, snorting noise, amused at her own indignation. At least it was a pretty morning as those things went.

In fact, Manhattan in the spring was a pretty decent place to be. Winter meant slush and biting winds, while summer had a range of heat-induced smells that ranged from disgusting to putrid. You could live in the city then, but you generally didn't like it. But spring, she thought, spring was the time to be here. The sun was warming up, the breeze was cool, and people were in the mood to smile at each other. Even bad days had an edge of promise to them.

But right now, spring weather aside, Wren couldn't find a damn thing to be happy about. Seven in the morning was way too early, and the job that had sounded like quick and easy money at first was rapidly going deep into the proverbial shitter. She was going to have to do some actual work for her paycheck on this one.

"Maybe that will teach you to answer the phone before six," she said out loud. "Excuse me?"

Rafe, the guard who had been detailed to "help" her, had a cute little wrinkle between his eyebrows, totally spoiling his until-now perfect Little RentACop look.

"Nothing. Never mind." Don't talk to yourself in front of civilians, Valere. It wouldn't have mattered, anyway. Even if she had ignored the phone's ringing two hours ago, before either she or the sun had thought about getting up, the sound of Sergei's voice on the machine would have made her pick the receiver up. She might have the skills that people paid for, but her partner was the one with a nose for jobs that was slowly but surely making them moderately well-off, if not obscenely wealthy. Only a fool would pass up a call from someone like that, no matter what the time.

And while Wren Valere was many things, a fool had never been one of them.

"Rafe? Can you go get me a refill of water?" she asked, handing him the plastic sports bottle she had been holding. He wasn't thrilled at being an errand boy, she could tell, but his orders had been explicit. Give Ms. Valere all the help she needed. Type of help not specified. So he went.

Freed from observation, she sat back on her heels and closed her eyes slowly, holding them shut for a count of ten. She had been doing this long enough that it didn't take her any longer than that to slip into a state of clear-minded awareness. The sounds of early-morning traffic, the smells of exhaust and fresh-budding greenery all faded, leaving her with a clear, concentrated, settled mind. As she opened her eyes slowly, not rushing anything, her gaze went back to the sleek marble foundation in front of her, as though there might have been some change in those ten-plus seconds of blackout.

Nope. Nothing. It still looked as ordinary and commonplace as before, one of any of a hundred-plus buildings throughout the city built in the same time period. No bloody handprint, no chisel marks or dust left on the pale gray surface, no sign of any kind of disturbance at all. Nothing to suggest there was something different about this northeast corner of the building, as opposed to the southeast, the southwest or the northwest sides. The four corners of this building stretched out over a full city block, and she'd just spent the past hour becoming far too familiar with all four.

God, she hated prep work! But you had to check everything before you started looking for anything. Even the stuff you knew you wouldn't find. Except, of course, the fact that one corner, or rather one small block inside of this corner, wasn't really there anymore.

A deliberate letting-go of her concentration, and the fugue state slipped away. Wren stood, arching her back to release some of the tension that had gathered there. Magic -- current, in the post-eighteenth century terminology -- was easy enough to use, if you had the Talent, but that didn't make it easy.

Her throat felt like sandpaper. She looked around, but Rafe wasn't back yet with her water. He must have gone all the way up to the executive lunchroom for San Pellegrino.

She clicked on the miniature recorder in her hand, and spoke into it, remembering to speak slowly enough that she would be able to transcribe correctly later on that day. "No indications of newly-made marks or disturbances on the site, not that that means anything -- I bet they have a team of sanitation experts who come in every morning and sluice the building down, just in case a pigeon poops on it accidentally."

All right, she thought. A slight exaggeration. But not by much. The guy who'd designed this had obviously had some penile issues that needed to be worked out, though.

The building in question was a thirty-eight-floor skyscraper, gleaming steel and glass in the early-morning light. A troop of window washers could spend a full year just wiping and polishing the expanse of windows. An edifice built to proclaim the owner's ego to a city already overwhelmed with capital-P Personalities.

"From the exterior, the building looks intact. This is supported by the engineer's report --" And how the hell had they found someone willing and able to do a full review of the building this morning? Money not only talked, it must have bellowed.

But the report she had found in the folder left at her door by one of Sergei's ever-efficient contacts was clear on that. The missing piece had been removed from within the building, without cracking the concrete and steel surrounds. The building itself had not been harmed in any way by the alleged disruption to its structural integrity. Therefore, it was only her imagination that made the headquarters of Frants Enterprises tilt ever-so-slightly to the left. Cornerstones didn't actually support any weight in modern buildings, or so she had been informed by a quick skim through the multitude of building and construction sites on the Internet while she waited for her coffee to brew. They were there for show, to display the construction date, as tradition. Sometimes, as receptacles of time capsules, or good-luck charms --

Or protection spells.

Wren had been part of the magic-using community since she was fourteen. She'd never once used a protection spell, or known anyone else who did, either. But a lot of people swore by them, apparently. And were willing to pay good money to get them back.

She drummed her fingers on her denim-clad thigh, thinking. Sometimes you needed to know all the facts. Sometimes, knowing anything more than the essentials just clogged the works. The trick was knowing which situation called for what method. She glanced up the length of the building, then blinked and looked away again quickly. The view made her dizzy, not so much from the sunlight reflecting off the glass as the sense of...no, not menace, exactly. But a looming emptiness that was disturbing. As though something more vital than a chunk of rock had been stolen away.

Wren frowned, redirecting her attention to the build-ing's foundation again, squinting as though hoping to suddenly be struck with X-ray vision. Not one of the recorded skill sets of Talent, worse luck. But if a Talent couldn't get the job done, it was time to use your brain, and she had a pretty decent one if she did say so herself. Eliminating the impossible, you're left with the obvious; it would take magic to get the missing slab out without doing major damage to the entire building. And that was exactly the feat someone had apparently mastered on this very building, at approximately 11:32 the night before. So, magic. Which narrowed the playing field not only for culprits, but motives.

She nodded to herself, twirling the recorder absently in one hand. A rather impressive act of vandalism, in more ways than one; it showed off the vandals' abilities without making a fuss the usual authorities could follow, assuming they would even be interested in a case like this; it in no way harmed the integrity of the building and therefore didn't put anyone working there at risk; and it struck deep in the heart of the building's owner and prime resident's deepest, ugliest fear.

It was a hacker's trick, showing how easy it would be to really harm the target, without doing anything they could easily be prosecuted for. Only in this case, it wasn't all just show. Damage had been done, if not anything you could explain on a police report, or an insurance waiver.

Their employer had two very simple questions: who did this, and how soon can you get it back? Right now Wren was more concerned with how it had been done. In her experience, once you found the tools, it was generally a simple matter to find the workman. And once they'd found him, the fun part began.

Only problem was, this bastard didn't seem to have left any external traces at all. Wren was -- grudgingly -- impressed.

Copyright © 2004 by Laura Anne Gilman

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