"Gilman,.Laura.Anne.-.Overrush.(A.Wren.and.Sergei.Story)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilman Laura Anne)

it onto its back. Long fingers tipped the man's head back, and then
Sergei nodded once, grimly, and released him, getting back to his
feet and putting the pistol away.
Wren looked at what her partner had been looking at: a pale blue
tattoo under the dead man's chin. "A Mage."
"That the same thing that killed the other stiff?"
Wren touched the rapidly cooling skin just to make sure, but it was
a meaningless gesture. "Yeah," she said with certainty.
"Right. We're out of here." He put one large palm between her
shoulder blades and steered her toward the sounds of traffic and
cabs. Neither of them looked back.
Wren was still nursing her first cup of coffee when Sergei arrived at
their usual meeting place the next morning, sliding into the booth
across the table from her. The waitress brought over a carafe of
hot water, tea bags, and a mug without being asked, and Wren
watched him as he went through the ritual of testing the water, then
stirring in the right amount of milk. She couldn't stand the stuff
herself, but she liked watching him make it.
Finally, he took a sip, then looked at her.
"His name was Raymond Pietro," she told him. "Twelve years with
the Council. Specialized in research, which is their way of saying
he was an interrogator. Truth-scrying, that sort of thing. Only the
past tense isn't just because he's dead. Rumor has it he went over
the edge last month."
"Over the edge" was a gentler way of saying he had wizzed. That
the chaotic surges of current had warped his brain so much that he
couldn't hold on to reality any longer. But that didn't explain his
death. Wizzing made you crazy, dangerous, but your ability to
handle current actually got better the more you gave yourself over
to it. That was why wizzarts were dangerous. That, and the raving
psycho loony part.
"They dumped him?" It might have seemed like a logical
explanation to Sergei, but Wren shook her head.
"Council takes care of its own. They have a house; really well
warded, totally low-tech, so he wouldn't be distracted by electricity.
He disappeared from the house two days ago. Council was
freakingЧthe guy I talked to actually thanked me for bringing news,
even though it was bad.
"They also said Pietro wasn't the first of their wizzarts to go
missing. They never found the others."
Her partner's face, not exactly readable at the best of times, shut
down even more. She finished her coffee, putting the mug down
firmly on the table in front of her. "One might have been an
accident, or a particularly crude suicide, but not half a dozen.
Someone's killing wizzarts, Serg. Pietro, our stiff, the others. Who
knows how many others? Council thinksЧand I think they're
rightЧwe've got somebody fine-tuning a weapon. Goes right
through the nulls, but fries 'jackers."
"And they're testing it on the wizzed population?"
"Nothing else makes sense. Nobody cares about the ones who've