Tricks of the Trade - By Laura Anne Gilman Page 0,6

block away from the subway. The downside was that it was the 1 line, which meant leaving the west side required a crosstown bus, or a lot of walking. Fortunately, it wasn’t a bad day, weather wise.

We made it to the subway without speaking to each other, heading downtown toward the floater, and all the related joy therein, our kits – the assorted and alchemical tools of our trade – stashed at our feet, where nobody could walk by and grab them. And with every rattle and spark along the track, I felt more and more guilty about his being sent along with me. Normally, we take the assignments as they come and try not to whine too much. It’s not like we ever get handed a bouquet of spring flowers to investigate, after all, and if we did it would be infested by hornets and nose-rot. But I felt like I had to say something to Pietr, anyway.

“Sorry.”

Pietr turned his head slightly to look at me, surprised. “Why?”

“Venec’s punishing me for the hair disaster, and you’re stuck with it by association.”

“Oh.” His face went all closed and quiet, the way it does when he processes, and I watched him curiously. For all that he liked to cause mischief, Pietr tended to take his time to consider things. He was one of our thinkers – not that he couldn’t improvise, and quickly, but not in the instinctive, nearly impulsive way Nick did. Or me for that matter, although I used to pride myself on how well I thought shit through. Not enough, apparently.

Pietr didn’t have to think long, though. “You sure it’s the hair that’s chafing his... mood? Or that you’re the real target?”

Ow. I groaned, and looked away. “Don’t you start.”

The fact that Venec and I had sparks going on – okay, sparks like Macy’s fireworks – wasn’t something you could hide from a blind fish, much less an office of trained investigators. The guys liked to tease me about that occasionally. Not meaning any harm, just... the usual shit you get, when the job is tense and the laughs few. Pietr, though, had a different take on the situation. He and I were – on a very specifically, intentionally casual basis – sexual partners. So naturally, he figured that was also why he got stuck with the floater – because there was no way an investigator like Benjamin Venec, with more experience than the rest of us slammed together, didn’t also know about our off-hours agreement, no matter how much we kept it on the q.t.

He might have been right, in ordinary conditions. But Pietr, and the others, were missing a really important part of the puzzle. The pack knew there were sparks. They also knew I wasn’t exactly shy, normally, about going after what or who I wanted. So they had to figure I didn’t want to get involved with the boss, or that the boss had shot me down, for work-reasons. Which was all sorta true.

They didn’t know about the damned Merge, though. Venec and I both agreed to keep it that way. The fact that our current had somehow recognized each other and decided we’d make pretty babies, or some weird and seriously annoying thing like that, didn’t impress me at all, and Venec, well, he really did not like being told what to do by some biomagical force.

All right, it was more complicated than that, and according to Venec’s research the Merge is Serious Doings, but I kept control over my sex life my own self, thanks, anyway, Fate, and be damned if I was going to risk not being taken seriously in my career because my current wanted me to make babies.

I have nothing against babies. Eventually. When and if I decided to have them.

But every day we worked together, the pull got stronger. If I let down my mental walls even a little bit, I knew his mood, and if I reached just an inch, I’d get my fingers into his thoughts.

Same for him, with me.

It was making us... cranky. Venec was a fair guy, for all that he was a bastard, and wouldn’t play favorites or punish someone for a screwup once the lesson was learned. My hair color was only an excuse for him to blow off some of that crank into an actual reason. Knowing that rationally didn’t make the scolding hurt any less, though.

And Lou thought I never doubted myself? That was almost funny. The Merge had made