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Authors: Laura Anne Gilman
during our first case. Then, weâd gotten caught up in the last moments of the victimsâ lives, almost been swamped by the experience. Weâd refined the process since then, so it was an external view only that kept the hooks to a minimum. What we missed in information we avoided in agony and near-death. I was all about that.
Freaky shivers, I could live with.
The image flickered with the current I infused into it, and came to life. Girl, check, dressed in cute clubbing clothes totally unsuited for the weather, her coat open to the air. She was bubbly, bouncing. I could almost feel her adrenaline rush in the way she moved. I knew that rush, had been caught up in it myself over the years, when youâre so tired and so energized you donât think you could sleep even if you were dead. Your brainâs going a hundred miles an hour, and you know youâre not making sense anymore, and you just donât care, because you feel so damn good.
I forced myself to look away from her. Where wasâ¦there was the ki-rin. For something so pale, it blended really well with the predawn shadows. She skipped ahead, and it fell back a couple of pacesâ¦and that was when it happened.
I made it about halfway through before I threw up, but my concentration stayed steady on the job, even while I was heaving the remains of coffee and bagels onto the floor.
three
When I unsealed the wards and opened the door, Venec was standing there in the hallway. You know how some guys just make you feel better by looking at them? Not comforting or daddylike, justâ¦âall right, youâre here, the ground is solidâ kind of way? Venec was like that. Well, sometimes, anyway. When he wasnât making you feel like an idiot.
He handed me a mug, and I took it automatically, my hand shaking more than I wanted. Venec took note, his gaze sharp, but he didnât say anything. Tea, not coffee. Not Pietrâs green tea: herbal. My face screwed up in distaste even as I was drinking it. Heavy on the sugar, and I could feel my energy level starting to pick up again. Burning too many calories, using up too much current. I had to remember to watch that.
âYou done in there?â he asked.
âYeah.â
Venec stood there and watched me drinking, his gaze on my face like a nannyâor a dark-feathered falcon, watching a rabbit to see which way it was going to hop. He didnât touch me, or try to offer any kind of comfort, which was good, because I didnât want any. I needed the rawness, the bitter taste in my mouth that not even sweet tea could erase, the acid burning in my gut. I needed to remember every detail of what I had seen, what I had felt. It wasnât even close to what any of the actual participants had felt, distanced by being third-person, but it would keep me going when we hit dead ends or inconsistent facts, give me the energy to push through and keep working.
The truth was I hadnât seen much of anything of the attempted assault, just a scuffle in the shadows. The flash of hooves and horn, after, had been far more clear. My brain was filling in more of those shadowed details than was healthy, but I didnât know how to stop it. Curse of an overactive empathy, one woman to another. If one of the guys on the team had been better at gleaningâ¦
No. My instinctive reaction to that thought was, well, instinctive. As bad as it was that I had eavesdropped like thisâ¦even if the girl never knew we were poking around in her trauma, somehow I felt I had a responsibility to her now, to take care of that trauma. I couldnât protect her, but I could protect her memories.
The fact that I couldnât, really, that it was evidence now, preserved for anyone on the team to look atâ¦well, they still had to go through me, in order to view it. That was a distinction without a difference but somehow, it helped
It did strike me as worrisome that while the initial attackmade me feel ill,
Freaky shivers, I could live with.
The image flickered with the current I infused into it, and came to life. Girl, check, dressed in cute clubbing clothes totally unsuited for the weather, her coat open to the air. She was bubbly, bouncing. I could almost feel her adrenaline rush in the way she moved. I knew that rush, had been caught up in it myself over the years, when youâre so tired and so energized you donât think you could sleep even if you were dead. Your brainâs going a hundred miles an hour, and you know youâre not making sense anymore, and you just donât care, because you feel so damn good.
I forced myself to look away from her. Where wasâ¦there was the ki-rin. For something so pale, it blended really well with the predawn shadows. She skipped ahead, and it fell back a couple of pacesâ¦and that was when it happened.
I made it about halfway through before I threw up, but my concentration stayed steady on the job, even while I was heaving the remains of coffee and bagels onto the floor.
three
When I unsealed the wards and opened the door, Venec was standing there in the hallway. You know how some guys just make you feel better by looking at them? Not comforting or daddylike, justâ¦âall right, youâre here, the ground is solidâ kind of way? Venec was like that. Well, sometimes, anyway. When he wasnât making you feel like an idiot.
He handed me a mug, and I took it automatically, my hand shaking more than I wanted. Venec took note, his gaze sharp, but he didnât say anything. Tea, not coffee. Not Pietrâs green tea: herbal. My face screwed up in distaste even as I was drinking it. Heavy on the sugar, and I could feel my energy level starting to pick up again. Burning too many calories, using up too much current. I had to remember to watch that.
âYou done in there?â he asked.
âYeah.â
Venec stood there and watched me drinking, his gaze on my face like a nannyâor a dark-feathered falcon, watching a rabbit to see which way it was going to hop. He didnât touch me, or try to offer any kind of comfort, which was good, because I didnât want any. I needed the rawness, the bitter taste in my mouth that not even sweet tea could erase, the acid burning in my gut. I needed to remember every detail of what I had seen, what I had felt. It wasnât even close to what any of the actual participants had felt, distanced by being third-person, but it would keep me going when we hit dead ends or inconsistent facts, give me the energy to push through and keep working.
The truth was I hadnât seen much of anything of the attempted assault, just a scuffle in the shadows. The flash of hooves and horn, after, had been far more clear. My brain was filling in more of those shadowed details than was healthy, but I didnât know how to stop it. Curse of an overactive empathy, one woman to another. If one of the guys on the team had been better at gleaningâ¦
No. My instinctive reaction to that thought was, well, instinctive. As bad as it was that I had eavesdropped like thisâ¦even if the girl never knew we were poking around in her trauma, somehow I felt I had a responsibility to her now, to take care of that trauma. I couldnât protect her, but I could protect her memories.
The fact that I couldnât, really, that it was evidence now, preserved for anyone on the team to look atâ¦well, they still had to go through me, in order to view it. That was a distinction without a difference but somehow, it helped
It did strike me as worrisome that while the initial attackmade me feel ill,