Tricks of the Trade - By Laura Anne Gilman Page 0,22

hours. The glasswork mosaic that hung on the wall where most people would put a flat-screen TV glittered when I turned on a lamp, a pale reflection of what it did during the day, and I noticed with dismay that a few of the colored glass pieces had somehow slipped from the frame and shattered on the ground.

“Well, damn.”

I was way more upset about the broken glass than it deserved, taking my frustrations out on a random bit of bad luck. What was that saying my dad’s girlfriend Claire used to trot out, about if it weren’t for bad luck she’d have none? I stared at the shards, feeling the cranky surge through me, then let it go. It was just glass, and unlike my personal life it could be fixed easily enough.

I held my hand out, palm down over where most of the shards were, and pulled the faintest trickle of current from my core. Not too much; I didn’t want the shreds to come flying up and embed themselves in my palm, just lift off the floor and come together in a glittering little lump, and then follow me back to the trash can, where I released the current-strands, and let the tiny shards fall into the bin.

There were leftovers and some salad in the fridge, but I’d eaten enough at the Devil that I wasn’t tempted. Instead, I stripped down to undies, intending to crawl into my bed with a book and read until I fell asleep.

Instead, I found myself climbing the loft ladder with, not a book, but the case file in my hand.

Sketches of drowned corpses and detailed descriptions of said remains were not high up on my bedtime reading. But I wasn’t planning on going over the details again. Pietr was right; it was a dead end, pun intended. Without evidence, that area of investigation didn’t lead anywhere.

A trained pup, though, had more options than what could be found on the body or around the scene. There was also what was caught in the flow of the universe. More, I could try using the particular skill set that my mentor called the kenning, a foresight that sometimes gave me tiny glimpses of the future, sensing when something was coming down the pike. Sometimes, if I was very focused, I could see the present, too, or at least how it intersected with the future.

Focus, though, required a little help. Mostly a kenning came without being called, without warning, at the absolute worst time possible. That was just how the universe seemed to work. To bring it to heel, I’d have to start with a scrying.

Sitting cross-legged on the mattress, careful not to bump my head on the ceiling, I put the file down on the bedspread in front of me and reached to the little shelf, where I kept my crystals.

Yeah, crystals were ridiculously old-fashioned and quaint according to most modern Talent, including J and half my coworkers. They could go jump; crystals helped me scry, and anything that helped was worth keeping.

Venec had broken my favorite shard, back when I tried to scry who was calling me in for the interview. He called it cheating, then. I suspected now he’d call it a “useful tool,” so long as I used it for work, and not to see what he was up to. I didn’t plan on asking his permission, or for his approval.

Something stirred on the fringes of my awareness and I quashed it. I did not need, nor want, the Merge anywhere near me, right then.

For once, it took the hint, and subsided.

I reached for the plain wooden box, flipping open the lid. It was about the size of a shoe box, and lined in thick, nubby, cream-colored cloth. Inside rested my two remaining pieces: a rose quartz ball about the size of my palm, and my traditional, kerchief-and-skirts style scrying globe of clear quartz, with a jagged imperfection, like a cloudy lightning bolt, through the center.

I really needed to replace the clear shard, someday. I’d gotten good workings with it then; who knew what I could do now that I had hard-core training?

Distracted by the thought, my hand reached for the rose quartz as though by instinct, but I stopped just before my palm touched it.

Rose quartz was really useful for me; I resonated to it, found details I didn’t always with another color, or clear. But it worked on a more emotional level, instinctive and visceral. I had the gut feeling