Tricks of the Trade - By Laura Anne Gilman Page 0,14

wrapped in a silvery chamois. Unwrapping it revealed a chunk of crystal about the size of her thumb, a hazed pale pink chunk of rose quartz.

It had been a birthday present from Bonnie, a few months ago. Sharon wasn’t big on aids, but Bonnie swore that using a focus would help her, and none of them were going to refuse anything without at least testing it. Sharon had planned to do that testing in a more controlled circumstance, but...

The crystal felt warm in her hand, but otherwise it just lay there, more a distraction than not. Bonnie had claimed that it would warm to her, connect her to herself more fully, and deepen her fugue-state without losing touch with the actual world.

Nothing happened. Sharon slipped the stone back into her chamois, and went to work without it

The client stood and watched them for a few minutes, but when they didn’t do anything more interesting than run their hands lightly over the furniture, seemingly lost in thought, he gave a quiet snort and left them to it.

That was exactly why Venec had them work low-key, not showy. People who were bored were less likely to hang around and interfere.

After giving the desk a full once-over, Sharon sighed and shook her head, waiting until Nick blinked his way out of his own fugue-state, and looked at her.

“I’m not picking up anything,” she said. “You?”

“Annoyance,” he said. “But I’m not sure if it’s his, or mine. Otherwise, this place is clean as a washed-down whistle.”

“Like someone cleaned up after themselves?” The perp, she meant, not the victims.

“Maybe,” he said. “Or like they weren’t here at all.”

Not a Talent, he meant. “Client may not know as much as he thinks he does,” Sharon said, “but I’m inclined to agree with his conclusions, whatever I think of his logic. There’s no way a Null could have gotten in, and done all this. Not in the time he claimed, without a clear point of entry.”

Nick lifted one narrow shoulder in a shrug, a move he had stolen from Pietr. “Fatae? Some of them are pretty good at fast and sneaky, and those slashes might have been claws. That’s a guess, though. I’m nowhere good enough to pick up an unknown fatae trace. Hell, I’m not even sure I could pick up a known breed, unless I’d encountered it before. We need to find out more about the client, see if he might have pissed off any of the Cosa- cousins.”

Sharon considered it, then put the crystal into her suit pocket, and lifted her kit up off the carpet. “If he did, Lou will turn it up, and Venec will let us know. Come on, let’s check the other rooms.”

They both had the bad feeling they weren’t going to find anything useful, but by god, they’d check every inch, first.

* * *

three

Not every aspect of PUPI involved investigation. Some times, it required suasion and statistics. That particular part of running the company they left to Ian Stosser.

Or, more to the point: that part, he kept for himself.

Ian stood in front of his audience, making eye contact with selected members seemingly at random, and infused his words with the firm and fervent belief he had in his team, his methods, and his results. “In the year we have been accepting clients, our success rate has been a rather significant 87%. Of the remaining 13%, we still managed to bring up enough information to pass along to Null authorities. The fact that my team has not yet been able to close the case you referenced – ” organ-leggers, an open ticket that still annoyed Ian “ – merely emphasizes the difficult and delicate nature of the work we do. More, that we are the only force that is both willing and capable of taking on cases involving magic.”

He did not emphasize the willing part, but knew that his point had been taken, here among those who could do good, and instead chose to hamstring his efforts.

Someone in his audience tapped a gold-plated pen on the table, impatiently. “There are others who work with magic, Stosser. You’ve been involved with some of them yourself.”

“Private investigators, working on a borrowed shoestring and their own instincts.” That was damning the half-fatae detective, who was actually reasonably capable, but Ian Stosser did not let anyone get the upper hand in presentations he was making. “My team is trained to use science as well as magic, harnessing their instincts into verifiable and logical routes,