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

Setting the volume level to where she could hear the music throughout the apartment, Wren grabbed the
mail off the counter, sorting it as she walked down the hallway into the bedroom that was set up as her
office. "Phone bill, credit card, junk junk junk, more junk, political junk." She tossed all but the bills into
the recycling bin next to the desk, and thumbed through the flyers that had been stuck in the doorjamb,
setting aside one menu and tossing the rest into the bin. That was the third flyer she'd gotten for pest
removal. At this point, they were more annoying than her nonexistent cockroaches, current being a great
and totallyтАФin her mindтАФunderutilized way to keep a location insect-free.

"If I could only market that little side effect right," she told the photo of her mother tacked to the board
on the wall in front of her, "I'd be able to make us both filthy rich overnight. And Sergei, too."

The office was the largest of the three bedrooms, but barely managed to hold the small dark wood desk
where her computer and a headset phone reigned, a comfortably upholstered office chair, and a tall
potted plant against one wall. The corkboard hung on the wall over the desk was cluttered with papers,
takeout menus, and the one posed photo of her mother. Five two-drawer file cabinets marched along the
opposite wall, pulling double-duty as a table for an assortment of odd but useful objects she didn't know
where else to put. That wall also held a closet, its door had been removed, and half a dozen shelves
installed, to serve as a makeshift bookcase. The window was covered by a rice paper shade, allowing
light during the day, but keeping prying eyes out 24/7.

She sat down at the desk and turned on the computer. While it hummed to life, she reached over to the
phone, dialing a number from memory while she hooked the wireless headset up, pulling her hair clear
where it tangled with the mouthpiece with a mutter of disgust. She hated using the thing, but the
phoneтАФlike her computerтАФhad been rigged with so many surge protectors to make it safe for her to use
on a regular basis that you couldn't move the damn thing without creating disaster.

One ring, and then a crisp, efficient "Yes?"
"It's me."

Sergei's raspy tenor voice changed, so subtly it would have taken someone paying close attention to
recognize the new, softer tone for affection.

"You looked at the job site?"

"Yeah, for whatever that was worth." Wren leaned back and swung her feet up on the desk. Her loafers
needed polishing. "External was clean, but there was one possible smudge-marker up on the ceiling
inside. Although, in retrospect, it could've been there since Adam went fig-less. Anyway, ruled out
anything else. Distance grab, no doubts. A pro."

"But it was definitely a magic-user?"

Sergei was, like so much of the human population, in that nether area between Null and Talent, but after
so many years as her partner he was well-versed enough in the uses of it to make certain assumptions.
Besides, realistically, what else could it have been?

"Yeah." She refrained from sarcasm. Barely. "Whoever it was used the building's wiring to convey the
spell. Probably had every person in the building so hocused, they couldn't have told you what color their
socks were."

"And then got the cornerstone outтАФhow?"