Free Fall by Laura Anne Gilman

Author:Laura Anne Gilman [Gilman, Laura Anne]
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Romance, Fantasy, Contemporary, Fiction, General, Romance - Fantasy, Fiction - Fantasy, Fantasy - Contemporary, Romance: Gothic
Publisher: Luna
Published: 2010-01-31T09:00:00+00:00

Wren was pretty sure that someone was following her. Considering the neighborhood, which was still quite nice, it probably wasn’t a random mugger casing the potentials, although anything was possible. No, considering where she had been, and what she had been doing, Wren thought it might be better to assume the worst: that the Silence had spotted her.

Any other time, any other place, and Wren would have triggered her no-see-me cantrip and just faded from the awareness of whoever was trying to follow her. She could do it; no matter how good the guy was, or even how many they had set on her, she was better than any Null ever trained, and most Talent, too. False modesty had its place, but not on the job.

But not today. Not now. Not these bastards. Her teeth showed in an ugly smile. If they wanted to play, she was more than willing to oblige them.

They’d find that she wasn’t quite so easy to take by surprise, this time.

She let a strand of current rise, forming it between mental hands until it was wire-thin, then split it into half a dozen strands, and let them trail behind her, searching for anyone who had their attention focused on her. It was a tricky bit of work, especially since she had to keep moving, and not look as though she were doing anything more complicated than searching for the next Starbucks.

“Mal-intent be well uncovered and remarked.”

That, she thought smugly, actually wasn’t bad, as on-the-fly spell-work went. The words didn’t matter so much as the force of will and concentration behind them, but when you clicked the right words, the focus was that much easier. She made mental note of the cantrip for later—a little fine-tuning and she might discover it would do more than the original use.

The strands streamed out in search of anyone who was even indirectly paying her any attention. If found, the current would give them the magical equivalent of a paintball splotch, visible to anyone Talented. If they were Talents themselves—unlikely but possible—they would know that they had been splotched, but not be able to remove it. Only she could do that.

And she wouldn’t. Let everyone know. Let them be marked for the rest of their lives.

She paused to look at the most recent Lotto results, and decided on a whim to buy a ticket. Current was crap-all for influencing games of chance—it had probably been much easier when they used chips of bone or wood rather than an automated system, she presumed—and her very limited Precog had worked exactly twice in her entire lifetime, but hey, you never knew, right?

And $40 million, even after taxes, could make life so much easier.

While she waited for her ticket to spit out of the machine, keeping her attention scrupulously focused on the magazines in front of her so as not to current-screw the tech and draw unwanted attention, Wren let her nonmagical awareness of the people around her flow. Talent wasn’t everything, and it wasn’t the only way to be taken down.

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