Free Staying Dead by Laura Anne Gilman Page A

moment to make a quick gesture with his fingers to avert ill luck—there was nothing he could do about it until she bothered to check in.
    He took a deep breath, let it out. This was Wren. She would check in. His partner was occasionally reckless, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew what she was doing. He had to believe in that. Believe in her. Don’t make her asinine fears—that he didn’t trust her enough—any worse.
    And, in the meantime, he had a gallery to run.
    â€œLowell,” he said into the intercom. “Please bring me the week’s invoices, if they’re ready? And tomorrow’s guest list as well.”
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    The building was more of a shack than anything you could properly call a house. Derelict in the middle of an oversized lot given over to wildflowers and knee-high grasses, the two-story building boasted a wraparound porch and tall windows, but the wood sagged, the white paint was cracked, and the windows were blurred with grime.
    â€œLovely.”
    Wren pulled her rental car—an innocuous dark-blue sedan—to the side of the dirt road, and stared at the structure. There was no need to check the address against the information written in her notepad. There wasn’t anything else that could be her destination on this isolated road miles from the nearest town. Besides, there wasn’t a house number anywhere to be seen.
    With a sigh, she tossed the notepad into her bag, slung the strap over her shoulder, and got out of the car. Dust swirled around her heels, the dryness at odds with the riot of greenery on the property. She couldn’t feel anything, but that was hardly surprising. You never could—until the trap was sprung, and it was way too damn late.
    â€œYou shouldn’t have come.”
    â€œMax. I want to help you.” The Wren-self in the memory was years younger, her hair longer, tied into a braid halfway down her back. Sergei in the distance. Too far away. Far enough away to be safe.
    â€œI’m already damned, girl. Didn’t you learn anything?”
    His eyes had still been sane, then. Thirty seconds later, he had tried to kill her.
    Wren stopped just shy of the border of grass, and sighed again. Then sneezed, her sinuses reacting to the overabundance of green growing things.
    â€œGreat. He couldn’t have holed up in a concrete warehouse somewhere? Max!”
    Approach protocol thus satisfied, she waited, shifting her weight from one sneaker to the other, wiping her palms on denim-clad thighs.
    â€œMax, you shit, I just want to talk to you!”
    There was no answer. She hadn’t been expecting any, but it would have been nice to get a surprise. Wren was tempted to reach out, to try and feel for the currents she knew were floating around the house, but she didn’t. Bad manners, and dumb besides. This was her last stop of the day, and she was tired, short-tempered, and really not looking forward to this at all.
    â€œMax!” A pause. “You mangy bastard, it’s Wren!”
    A harsh bark of laughter right in her ear startled her, but she schooled her body, refusing to let it jump. Sound waves were easy to manipulate. A cheap trick.
    â€œCome in then, you brat. Before I forget you’re out there.”
    That had been easier than she expected. Suspicious, she stepped onto the grass, watching as the blades bent out of her way, creating a path directly to the porch steps.
    Far too easy. She had a bad feeling about this.
    The inside of the house was actually quite comfortable, if you liked extreme lo-tech living. The front door opened onto a large room, encompassing the entire front of the house. A fireplace took up all of the far wall, and bookshelves covered much of the other three walls. No television, no computer, no phone in sight. Just books and the occasional piece of what might have been artwork. Not that she had anything against books, but there was only so long you could live in someone else’s