The Collected Christopher Connery (27 page)

Gail was washing her face when she heard the knock.
Grabbing a towel she dried her cheeks with a few hard scrubs. The blood had
been mostly gone since before they had left the subway, but she couldn’t help
peering closely at her eyes before leaving the bathroom.

When she answered the door, Nia was standing awkwardly in
the center of the hallway. It looked like she had tried to take a polite step
back, but had overdone it. When the door opened, she looked up, startled, as if
she had forgotten how doors worked. “Oh, hello, detective.”

“Hey,” said Gail, still braiding her hair over one
shoulder. “Do you want to come in?”

“Thank you.” Gail held the door open for Nia then closed
it behind her. The Illuminator was wearing a long pale blue dress and her thick
hair was loose around her shoulders. She was also twisting her hands together
like she had put them on the wrong wrists and couldn’t get them off again.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Gail asked her.

“No, thank you, I’m quite all right.” Then, to Gail’s
confusion, Nia huffed out a breath, put her fists on her hips, and said,
“Honestly.” Before she could ask what that meant, Nia reached out and took her
by the hand. “Come here, detective, I want to be sure that you’re still
recovering properly from the magic extraction.”

“I feel fine.” But Gail obediently sat down on the edge
of the bed. “Was it hard to do?”

“No, it’s not difficult, just complicated.” Nia put her
hands gently under Gail’s jaw and tilted her head from side to side. Her brow
furrowed endearingly as she thought. “It requires multiple magicians to
perform.” She smiled. “That’s always troublesome. We magicians are solitary by
nature.”

“Yeah? Then how do you stand being cooped up in the
Academy?”

“It’s a daily struggle, I assure you.” Nia pressed the
back of her hand to Gail’s forehead. “Does your head still hurt?”

“Not really.” There was still a faint ache around her
temples, but compared to the earlier crushing pain, it was less than nothing.

“You might feel a little pain for the next couple of
days, but it will pass.” Nia smiled again, but there was something dark lurking
behind her eyes.

“What’s the matter, princess?”

“Nothing.” Nia moved to turn away, but Gail caught her
hand.

“Nope, no more lying, remember? What’s the problem?”

“There’s no problem. I’m only – I’m slightly concerned
about Arthur.”

“Why?” Sure, doc had looked a little tired, but Gail had
figured that was just because of the whole evil train thing.”

Nia looked down at her clasped hands. “He had to help
with the magical extraction. It weakened his binding.” She must have read the
confusion on Gail’s face because she continued. “The process of binding a
magician’s magic is very unpleasant. If the influx of magic had broken the
binding, he would have had to go through it again and I – I wouldn’t have
wanted that.”

“Oh.” Gail tugged on her braided hair. “Hell, I guess I
better thank him.” She laughed and shook her head, still a little stunned.
“It’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to risk that for me.”

Nia answered quietly, “No, it’s not.”

Gail turned just in time to accept the kiss Nia pressed
to her lips. After a moment or seven, she tried to pull back to make some
stupid comment about whether she’d be getting a stern note from the Academy
about this, but apparently Nia was no longer interested in chit-chat. By the
time, she managed to break away long enough to speak she was flat on her back
with Nia on top of her.

Not that she was complaining.

Something occurred to Gail as Nia industrially set about
unbraiding her hair for her. “Sorry about your scarf.”

Nia blinked at her. “What?”

“Your scarf. I’m pretty sure I dropped it somewhere.”

Nia only laughed, leaning down to kiss her again.

When Nia woke the next morning, the sky was still nearly
night-dark. She could hear rain lashing against the window, the dry spell
having broken with a vengeance during the night. She lay still for a moment,
listening to the wind howling around the hotel walls.

Gail made a soft sound in her sleep, turning her head
toward Nia on the pillow.

Smiling, Nia propped herself up on her elbow and brushed
a lock of hair off of Gail’s forehead. She would have to remember to thank
Arthur for pushing her last night. He would probably be unbearably smug about
it, but she supposed he had earned that right.

Glancing at the clock, Nia saw that it was nearly nine
o’clock. She supposed she would wake Gail soon. Neither of them had eaten since
breakfast the day before and it wouldn’t do to go much longer without food, but
for the moment, she was content to let her sleep.

She was snuggling back down under the blankets when
something crackled underneath her shoulder. Sitting up, she found a folded
piece of paper lying on the pillow beside her. As she looked at it, Gail shifted
beside her and opened her eyes.

“What time is it?” she mumbled, pushing herself up on her
elbows. Then she rubbed her eyes, flipping from half-asleep to wide awake in
less than a second. She smiled sheepishly as she added, “Sorry. That probably
wasn’t the most romantic line I could’ve opened with.”
       

“Well, I wouldn’t expect to see it in the poetry books
any time soon,” Nia replied, but she couldn’t keep from smiling when Gail
leaned into kiss her. A few minutes later, Gail pulled back and looked down at
the folded paper in Nia’s hands.

“Talk about spoiling the mood. They didn’t waste any
time, did they?”

“No, they like to keep on top of things.” Nia broke the
Academy seal and unfolded the message. It was even shorter than the one she had
sent the night before, just a few lines informing her, grudgingly she thought,
that they were pleased to hear she had overcome her difficulties and that they
hoped to hear from her again very soon. It ended by saying that if she
did
require
assistance, she shouldn’t hesitate to ask.

Gail snorted lightly, reading the message herself as she
leaned her head against Nia’s arm. “Are they always so accommodating?”

Nia folded the message and set it on the bedside table
without answering. It seemed the Directors were momentarily pacified, but she
had no idea how long their patience would last.

They don’t just expect me to fail. It seems they
want
me to fail.

What had she done to deserve that?

Noticing the darkening of her mood, Gail sat up all the
way so she could put her arms around Nia and pull her back against her chest.
“Can I give you some advice, princess?”

“I suppose I could use some.”

“Don’t let them fuck with you. Just do your work as best
you can and let that speak for itself.” She grinned against Nia’s neck. “Then
you can be the one sending the passive-aggressive notes.”

Nia chuckled, turning until her forehead was pressed
against Gail’s. “You’ve hit upon my greatest career goal: be successful enough
that I can be passively aggressive to whomever I choose.”

“You’re well on your way.”

Leaning back a little, Nia studied Gail through narrowed
eyes. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

Gail widened her eyes, clearly trying for innocent, but
innocence had never worn a grin that wicked. “What’s what supposed to mean?”

“You know very well to which what I am referring.”

“Well, now I’m just confused. Could you go through that
again for – hey! Now, this is just plain aggressive. What would your bosses say
if –” The rest of Gail’s recriminations were lost in laughter as Nia pushed her
back down on the bed.

About an hour later, Nia left Gail to finish getting
ready for the day – since trying to do it together cut their effectiveness in
half. When she slipped back into her room, wearing the same dress she had worn
the night before, Arthur was sitting in an armchair, reading a book. She
deliberately didn’t look at him as she walked into the bathroom.

“Have a nice evening?” he called after her.

“I’m ignoring you,” she replied in a sing-song voice as
she started the shower.

“I’ll take that as a yes as well as an invitation to
pester you later.”

Nia rolled her eyes, though she still couldn’t stop
smiling. Later, when she was sitting in a chair, taking care of her hair,
Arthur followed through on his threat by pulling his chair up to hers and
asking absurdly personal questions that soon had her blushing and swatting at
him. Of course, she recognized the strategy he was employing: ask enough
inappropriate questions and the victim of your interrogation will eventually
slip into answering your less invasive ones. She had employed the same strategy
herself multiple times, but it was still annoying to find herself falling for
it.

“So you like her?”

“Of course I like her,” Nia replied, pointedly turning up
her nose at the question. “If I didn’t like her, this conversation wouldn’t be
happening.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t think I do.” Adjusting her dressing gown,
this one far less pretty than the one she had destroyed, she got to her feet
and went to the wardrobe. She had no idea what they would be doing today, but
her choice of dress still seemed deeply important.

“The pink one looks pretty on you.”

“It’s not pink,” Nia retorted over her shoulder. “It’s
rose.”

“Fine, the
rose
looks pretty on you.”

Nia almost took the pearl-gray instead just to prove that
she was not slave to the opinions of others, but Arthur was right, the rose did
look pretty on her.

“So what’s the plan?” Arthur asked her as she went into
the other room to change.

“I’m not sure yet. I’ll need to investigate what we found
yesterday before I’ll know for sure.”

“Yeah, I mean, but when we’re done –”

“Considering how long it took for us to find this last
piece, I hardly think it’s productive to worry about ‘when we’re done’ just
yet.”

“If you say so.”

If I’m right,
Nia told herself,
things will
only get more difficult from here.
Still, as she finished dressing, she
found herself hoping for the first time that the investigation would take more
time rather than less.

The morning seemed like it was going to be a peaceful
one. Sure the rain was coming down in thick whips that slashed the glass and
the wind was shrieking like some dying thing, but it was snug and warm inside
the hotel. Gail didn’t even mind the rain too much – so long as she didn’t have
to sit beside the window.

Breakfast was a pleasant if distracting affair. She
somehow managed to keep up a friendly conversation with Arthur about his work
at the layman hospitals even with Nia casting her warm looks under her
appalling long eyelashes and linking fingers with her under the table.

This could end very badly,
she thought after
returning one of Nia’s flirtatious smiles.
Or at least very awkwardly.
She
liked Nia. She liked her a hell of a lot, but she’d be a damned liar if she
said the woman didn’t confuse her too. One minute she was so full of awkward
blushing stammers that Gail would have thought she’d never so much as held
hands with anyone before, and the next – well, the next proved that first
theory so completely wrong that Gail had to struggle to keep up.

She just wasn’t sure what Nia wanted from her – if
anything. And if she didn’t know that, she sure as hell couldn’t decide if she
wanted the same thing or not. Well, she guessed there was no point worrying about
it now. The case might end by this afternoon in which case what happened the
night before would be nothing more than a pleasant break in the tension.

The only thing that bothered her about that idea was how
much that idea bothered her.

“So,” she said when the talk of hospitals and sutures and
incisions had run their course, “what’s our next move?”

“Well, that depends,” said Nia. “I still have to perform
another locating spell. I’ll use the legs since they’re the most – freshly
found, but I learned from our last adventure and I want to be careful this time
around. I certainly don’t want to have us running around in the rain until I’m
sure what we’re dealing with. Or at least as sure as I can be.”

Arthur widened his eyes in exaggerated surprise. “Are you
sure you’re feeling all right, Ni? You didn’t hit your head yesterday, did
you?”

“No, Arthur, it may surprise you to hear this, but I
can
learn from my mistakes.”

“I know what you’re about to say, doc,” Gail put in just
as Arthur opened his mouth, “but I wouldn’t do it. She’s the only one who can
fix you if she hurts you, remember?”

“I am not going to hurt him,” said Nia haughtily. “I am
above rising to such foolish taunts – oh, and Arthur, if you say, ‘you are?’ I
will take it upon myself to change every single item of clothing in your
wardrobe to fluorescent orange.”

Gail smiled in confusion. “That’s an oddly specific
threat.”

“Arthur hates orange.”

“It makes me look like a walking carrot.” Brother and
sister smiled at each other.

White light flashed beyond the window. Distracted as Gail
was, she didn’t have time to prepare for the crash of thunder. She
automatically ducked her head and her hand clenched hard on Nia’s, making the
other woman wince.

Gail immediately let go. “Sorry, princess.” There was
another flash of lightning, giving her a moment to brace herself, but the
thunder still made her insides tremble. Worse still, the thunder heralded even
heavier rain. She could hear it beating down on to the roof like it wanted to
smash its way inside.

Nia touched her hand and looked at her with concern. “Are
you all right, detective? You’re cold.”

“I’m fine.” Gail forced a smile, though it twisted into a
grimace when the next crack of thunder struck her like a punch in the gut. Her breakfast
lay half-eaten in front of her, but the first big storm of the season always
stole her appetite. Hell, honestly? It stole her ability to do anything. Hoping
to beat the next crash of thunder, she got to her feet. “If we’re not planning
on going out today –”
and god, I hope we’re not, not in this
“ – I’m
going to work on my reports for a bit.”

Arthur just nodded, maybe remembering the conversation
they’d had in the empty lot, but Nia took Gail’s hand as she looked up at her.

“Are you certain you’re all right?”

Even through the old darkness that always overtook her
during heavy storms, Gail was touched by the concern. It actually managed to
draw a smile from her, which was no small feat during this sort of weather. She
bent and brushed a light kiss across Nia’s knuckles. “I told you, I’m fine,
princess. Let me know if you need my help with anything.”

“I will.”

Gail smiled once more then released Nia’s hand to give
Arthur a quick salute. “See you later, doc. Maybe today we’ll be able to have
lunch without everything going all evil.”

Arthur smiled, though his eyes were still a bit too
knowing as they watched her face. “I hope so.”