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

experts who come in every morning and sluice the building down, just in case a pigeon poops on it
accidentally."

All right, she thought. A slight exaggeration. But not by much. The guy who'd designed this had
obviously had some penile issues that needed to be worked out, though.

The building in question was a thirty-eight-floor skyscraper, gleaming steel and glass in the early-morning
light. A troop of window washers could spend a full year just wiping and polishing the expanse of
windows. An edifice built to proclaim the owner's ego to a city already overwhelmed with capital-P
Personalities.

"From the exterior, the building looks intact. This is supported by the engineer's reportтАФ" And how the
hell had they found someone willing and able to do a full review of the building this morning? Money not
only talked, it must have bellowed.

But the report she had found in the folder left at her door by one of Sergei's ever-efficient contacts was
clear on that. The missing piece had been removed from within the building, without cracking the
concrete and steel surrounds. The building itself had not been harmed in any way by the alleged
disruption to its structural integrity. Therefore, it was only her imagination that made the headquarters of
Frants Enterprises tilt ever-so-slightly to the left. Cornerstones didn't actually support any weight in
modern buildings, or so she had been informed by a quick skim through the multitude of building and
construction sites on the Internet while she waited for her coffee to brew. They were there for show, to
display the construction date, as tradition. Sometimes, as receptacles of time capsules, or good-luck
charmsтАФ

Or protection spells.

Wren had been part of the magic-using community since she was fourteen. She'd never once used a
protection spell, or known anyone else who did, either. But a lot of people swore by them, apparently.
And were willing to pay good money to get them back.

She drummed her fingers on her denim-clad thigh, thinking. Sometimes you needed to know all the facts.
Sometimes, knowing anything more than the essentials just clogged the works. The trick was knowing
which situation called for what method. She glanced up the length of the building, then blinked and
looked away again quickly. The view made her dizzy, not so much from the sunlight reflecting off the
glass as the sense ofтАж no, not menace, exactly. But a looming emptiness that was disturbing. As though
something more vital than a chunk of rock had been stolen away.

Wren frowned, redirecting her attention to the building's foundation again, squinting as though hoping to
suddenly be struck with X-ray vision. Not one of the recorded skill sets of Talent, worse luck. But if a
Talent couldn't get the job done, it was time to use your brain, and she had a pretty decent one if she did
say so herself. Eliminating the impossible, you're left with the obvious; it would take magic to get the
missing slab out without doing major damage to the entire building. And that was exactly the feat
someone had apparently mastered on this very building, at approximately 11:32 the night before. So,
magic. Which narrowed the playing field not only for culprits, but motives.

She nodded to herself, twirling the recorder absently in one hand. A rather impressive act of vandalism, in
more ways than one; it showed off the vandals' abilities without making a fuss the usual authorities could
follow, assuming they would even be interested in a case like this; it in no way harmed the integrity of the
building and therefore didn't put anyone working there at risk; and it struck deep in the heart of the