"Laura Anne Gilman - Staying Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilman Laura Anne)

Technically Wren was a pure, but she didn't see the point in bragging on it. It was like having a high
IQтАФwasn't much unless you worked it, did something with it. Drawing down the power was easy for
her, siphoning off the energy from an external source to flow through her, as though she were running
water through her hands. Any source would do, but current that was already tamed and channeled made
it so much easier. Like called to likeтАФenergy was energy, and where there was one, there was the other.
The electronic age was a godsend to magic users, despite what the fairy tales said. If she'd been a little
better at channeling out what came in, she'd have been Council material for sure. The thought still made
her shudder.

Five fingers now extended, she touched wires at random, discarding anything that sang back to her,
looking for a discordant note, something that might indicate a flaw, a clogтАж or the remnant of
supernatural tinkering. In short: look for an elemental.

"Ah-hah!" she said as her thumb grazed a wire that felt different from the others. "Gotcha, you sneaky
littleтАж " Pushing with that finger, she listened to the difference.

Elemental were exactly what they sounded likeтАФentities that existed in an elemental state. Very small,
and barely sentient, they were nonetheless useful, if you knew how to coax them. Now that she had a
handle on one, Wren could sense a flurry of elemental within the wire she had tappedтАФhardly surprising.
Barring a thundercloud, there were few places an elemental flocked to like a live wire; it must be like an
amusement park, or an opium den to them, pick your metaphor. Now, to see how long they had been
there, and if they'd noticed anything.

"Right. Come to mamaтАж "

Having already gone into the fugue state once that morning, it was like stepping off a curb to find it again.
No thought, no effort, just a sudden snapping into awareness, chasing glittering tendrils up and down her
neural pathsтАж

"Excuse me, miss?"

She blinked, shaken out of her intense concentration by the goon placing a paw on her shoulder. He
looked nervous.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry, but, whatever it is you're doingтАФcould you stop? They're reporting power outages on several
floorsтАж "

Wren grinned sheepishly. "Right. Sorry." She must have gone too deep, and drained some of the charge
down accidentally. She flexed her neck and arched her back as though to straighten out stiff muscles,
feeling for the natural current within herself. It hummed and snapped with vigor, confirming her suspicion.
She'd gone for an automatic skim, copping a buzz off the charge of magic that could be found even in
man-made electricity and storing it in the pool that every current-sensitive person carried, knowingly or
not, within them.

Oops. Technically, that would be theft. Never a good idea, to steal from your employers. Probably on
the level of office supplies; a pen here, a ream of paper thereтАж Wren shook her head, dismissing that
train of thought. It didn't matter. She had gotten what little information was there. The trick now was