Staying Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

saying that she could make people—or things, specifically things like an alarm system—believe that she wasn’t there.
    The problem, as far as anyone had been able to explain to her, was that for all her undeniable talent she was just a little too dense, magically speaking. The current channeled fine—she had the skill, no doubts there—but it sometimes channeled in weird ways, denying her access to a lot of the major skills like levitation and translocation. Pity, as they would have been damned useful in her career.
    â€œYou think maybe the thief meant to use it for blackmail? Or maybe ransom? Hey, got your protection spell here, what do you want to give me for it?”
    â€œOr possibly to open up the door just enough for a direct attack by someone else?” Sergei sounded like he’d given this some serious thought while she was out doing the hard work.
    â€œMaybe. I know, I know, not our problem. I’d prefer blackmail, though. Easier to find someone if they’re going to be so obliging as to send back a calling card.” If she were a better conductor…ah, well.
    On the plus side of that density, the risk of her wizzing out—losing her mind to the magic flow—was probably lower than anyone else at her comparable Talent level. There were always going to be portions of her brain the current couldn’t get into.
    â€œThey also serve those who hum in choir,” she muttered.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNothing. Look, whoever this was, he’s a subtle guy, definitely strong, but not too bright. He squelched the elementals but forgot to sedate them.”
    â€œWhich, in English, means what?” Sergei did exasperated like a guy with years of practice.
    Wren grinned, forgetting he couldn’t see her. Tweaking Sergei was always so much fun. He did the staid businessman thing so well, sometimes he forgot to take it off. “It means exactly that, which if you would ever remember anything I’ve told you about elementals you’d, well, remember.” He had the weirdest mental block about certain aspects of current—she’d almost given up trying to figure it out. Then again, non-Talents should be uneasy around current. She shouldn’t blame him if even knowing things wigged him out enough to not want to think about it. “I tapped into the wiring, and there was a horde of elementals there. Quiet, but jazzed, like something’d shoved a massive current up their tails, but told them to lay low about it.
    â€œBut when I stirred them up, they came shooting out, like they were hoping whatever it was had come back.”
    And once they had come to her hand, she had been able to stroke them into giving up the residue from that burst of magic. That was another one of her stronger skills—reading magic like some people could read Braille, or maps, or any other code. It made her useless in a really powerful thunderstorm, stoned like kitty on catnip from the overload of power, but the rest of the time it was part of her stock-in-trade. Where one magic-user had gone, she could go, recreating their trail with remarkable accuracy. Well, mostly. Unlike her other skills, which had names and entries in the skillbooks her mentor had shown her, this one seemed to be particular to her and the way her brain worked. Or if other Talents had it, they were keeping just as quiet about it as she was. The end result either way was that she had no real idea how it worked, or why, or how to control it.
    Then again, she didn’t understand any of that about her computer either, and it still worked fine. Most of the time.
    â€œI skimmed off a decent enough emotional memory of the thief to recognize him or her again. Pretty sure of it, anyway.”
    Sergei made an unhappy-sounding noise in the back of his throat. She didn’t think he was aware he did it—she couldn’t imagine him making it during negotiations with clients, or the highbrow,