Tricks of the Trade - By Laura Anne Gilman Page 0,36

you could play with, run scenarios... play hunches and see how they worked out.

I moved the concrete-block building back a little more, trying to gauge exactly how far it had been from where the body was, and added a few more cars to the parking lot, rearranging the scene to my satisfaction, and then stood up, looking at it from all sides. The current was solid; to anyone looking with plain sight, it appeared like a solid model of the dump scene. Or, more accurately, the discovery scene, where the NYPD Harbor Patrol had spotted the body, and laid it out for display. Where the actual dump occurred was what I wanted – needed – to find out.

All I had to do was set things in motion.

Since the diorama was constructed from my own current, I didn’t have to draw down anything more to trigger it. With my hand palm down a few inches over the surface of the water running under the concrete pier, I commanded it: “Water, flow naturally. Bring the body back to me.”

The uneven surface of the East River stirred and began to move. A tiny lump – the corpse – disappeared from under the tiny orange tarp as the magic cycled back through its movements in time. Sympathetic magic, with a twist. The body should appear from upstream, caught in the currents, and hit the underground net where the cops found it.

Instead, it appeared across the river, barely a few feet upstream from the net, and splashed into the river without a sound. I sucked my cheeks in and leaned back from the table in surprise.

“Huh.” Either the spell wasn’t working – entirely possible – or our theories had just been thrown for a very interesting loop.

*c’mere*

Nick’s ping was like a horsefly: unwanted, irritating, and impossible to ignore. *busy* I sent back, a flick of irritation and a sense of actually being, yes, busy.

*now* That came from Venec, not Nick, and carried the flavor of an order. Venec knew what I was working on, so if he wanted me to leave it... something was Up.

“Damn it.” I glared at the diorama. Shutting it down was difficult enough, but letting go wasn’t an option. I had no idea if I’d be able to re-create it so well a second time, and the fact that the body had been dumped so close meant it had also been dumped much later than we thought – once it hit the net and the sensors went off, it couldn’t have been more than an hour or so before someone was sent to investigate. That was the point of the city-installed nets, after all.

Could I freeze it successfully, without snap back? If I could, yay. If not... ow. And the ow could hit whenever the snap happened.

I decided to risk it.

Sliding back into a faint fugue-state, I looked at the current with mage-sight, noting the weave and warp of the threads. Seen this way, it was a chaotic and yet ordered mass. I wondered if that’s what atoms looked like to Null scientists, when they broke us all down to our basic parts. J might know, or he’d know who to ask.

“Freeze and hold,” I told the combined threads, my voice scarcely above a whisper. It wasn’t volume but control that made it work. “Hold and wait.”

The threads shimmied, like they were trying to break free, but the motion of the water halted, and a stillness fell over the diorama, like a cold winter morning seemed to make the world quieter.

I swallowed hard, and moved my hand away from the display.

It held.

I stepped backward, one careful shuffle.

It held.

I turned my back on it, slowly, and felt a quiver from the current-shape. I stopped, and it stilled, just like J’s sheepdog, Rupert, when he’d been a puppy learning his commands.

“Hold,” I told it again, my voice as even and composed as I could make it, willing myself not to brace against any anticipated snap back. “Hold.”

It held.

When I followed the voices toward the break room at the front of the office, I could feel the diorama still waiting. It took everything I had not to flinch, not to anticipate it breaking control and recoiling back into my core... until I walked through the open doorway and saw why Venec thought it worth dragging me away.

A klassvaak. Not on the same level of a Great Worm, thank god, but it was like being visited by the Pope, if you were Catholic – you