“Painting. Smallish, should be easy enough to stow in the tube. In and out, seventeen minutes, tops.”

“I can do it in eleven, if it’s in the main gallery.” It wasn’t ego if you really were that good. And she was. Possibly-probably-the best Retriever of her generation.

He waited a beat, then dropped the other shoe. “And we got a Call.”

She heard the capital letter in his voice, and her head lowered to rest on her crossed arms on the table. “Of course we did. Because my life just wasn’t full to the brim with joy already.”

“Beats unemployment.”

“Easy for you to say, Mister Stay at Home and Cash the Check.”

Which wasn’t fair, she knew. Sergei had warned her about working for the Silence. They wanted first call on her time, always and ever. But it had seemed a worthwhile trade-off at the time.

And their checks always, but always, cleared.

– 

“You going to need to charge up?”

“Now you ask?” They were sitting in the car-a yellow sedan, mocked up like a cab, the quintessentially invisible car in Manhattan -outside the Meadows. Although she knew the answer, Wren reached deep inside, touching the roil of current that always rested within her, the sign of a Talent. A gentle stroke, and it uncoiled, sparkling like glitter in her veins. “No, I’m fine. Soaked up a bit when the last batch of storms rolled through, in case things got ugly in the Park.”

She had loved storms since she was old enough to lurch against the windowsill. “You’re a current-user, kid. You’re always going to crave the storm.” Her mentor’s voice, years and lifetimes gone. You could recharge current off man-made sources, and there were lonejacks who preferred that. Safer, more readily accessible, and no hangover if you pulled down too much. But Wren went to the wild source every chance she got.

She didn’t have much chance to rebel, these days.

“If you draw down too much, remember that there’s a secondary generator over here.” And his index finger stabbed the blueprint on the seat between them.

“Yeah, saw that.” They’d been over the plans half a dozen times already. But it made Sergei feel better if they rehashed everything just before she went in. Normally he wouldn’t be anywhere near the scene on a simple grab like this, but the transit workers had gone on strike, and she couldn’t risk hailing a real cab to get home. So he would drop her off, go drive around for a while, and come back for her.

“Try not to pick up any long-distance fares while I’m gone.”

“Not even if they offer to tip like a madman,” he promised.

She laughed, touched his cheek for luck, and slipped out into the darkness.

In some ways, the strike was a nice bit of luck. In her dark grey tracksuit and black sneakers, if stopped by anyone she could claim to be heading home from a late night at the office. A knapsack slung over her shoulder held a lightweight dress and strappy heels to back up the story, plus a thin, strong nylon rope coiled in an inside pocket, her lockpick set, and a wallet with realistic-looking identification and enough cash to get home for real should something go wrong.

Pausing just beyond the reach of the closed-circuit cameras, Wren took a deep breath, let it out. Ground. That was the key. Focus. Center. Ground.

As though she had grown from the earth, Wren felt the weight of its comfort rise up through her, from bedrock into flesh and bone. Soothing the serpent of energy and coaxing it up her spine, into her arms, down her legs. It was like an orgasm, a muted one, pleasure sparking every nerve ending until she was completely aware of everything around her, but not so much that she was overwhelmed by it. Balance. Balance… There was a thin line you had to ride, when you directed current. It wasn’t enough to be able to sense it, or to be able to direct it. You had to convince it to do what you wanted, when you wanted.

Taking the faintest hint of current, she lifted her hand, drawing the camera’s attention. It was like weaving without a loom. Flickers left her fingertips as she concentrated on the circuits and wires of the camera system. Too much, and you burned it out, setting off alarms. Too little, and a sharp-eyed watchman might spot her. Just a hint of static, something that could be brushed off, so long as it didn’t go on for too long. Just long enough for her to move, crouched low and flowing across the grounds like the low-flying bird she was named for, until she reached the relative safety of the decorative overhang. God bless old buildings. The Meadows had started life as a mansion, and still boasted any number of odd architectural details that created enough shadows for Wren to wrap herself in.

Letting her heart rate slow down to normal, Wren pictured the assignment in her mind. It was a small thing, barely twelve-by-twelve, set in a severe silver frame. Part of a traveling exhibit of paintings that were as of yet unattributed but considered by a number of experts to be “rediscovered” works by various Impressionist masters. The art world was wild over the find; Sergei had been to see the exhibit twice even before they got this gig. If she knew her partner, he’d want to hold on to the painting for a few days until they handed it back, just to have one of the so-called Fabulous Finds in his possession.

Actually, if she’d been prone to liking artwork, she thought she might want to own something like this too. The colors were almost alive, creating a wash of light on the landscape that reminded her of the photograph Sergei had in his own office, the black-and-white nature photographer, the guy who took all those pictures of national parks.

Art critique later she told herself. Clock’s tick tick ticking…

The thing about museums is, they weren’t stupid. They knew that technology was fallible, and that humans were fallible. But most of them also had serious budget restrictions. The Meadows had a top-of-the-line electrical alarm system. It would probably have stopped any casual intruder, or at least alerted the police to the incursion. But the Board of the Meadows had one serious disadvantage. They had never heard of current, the magical kind, or the Cosa.

Magic wasn’t the fairy dust and wild imaginations science liked to claim. It was real, and tangible… if you were part of the small percentage of the human population able to sense it. An even smaller percentage of those humans, like Wren, were able to direct the current into anything useful.

And Talents like Wren, who honed her skills for the specific purpose of larceny, were called Retrievers.

A light touch to the door, and she felt the tingle that meant elementals were around, drawn to the current that was bound into electricity, no matter what form. A quick push of current bridged the gap in the alarm system long enough for her to open the door and slip inside. She started to move in the slow-slide fashion she had perfected for not creating footfalls, when she stopped and returned to the lock. Placing her hand on the alarm pad, she waited. Elementals had the reasoning ability of inbred hamsters, but you could use them, if you knew how. She did.

Come on, you know you’re bored with that stale, man-made electricity… come taste some of mine…

They came to her tentatively at first, then swarming in their eagerness. Natural current “tasted” better to them. She let them feed for a few seconds, nibbling around the edges of the current curling up from her belly, twining around her spine. All right. Earn your keep. She visualized clearly what she wanted them to do. A faint hesitation, and the swarm was off, splitting into a dozen different directions as they moved along the museum’s state-of-the-art wiring.

A pity they couldn’t call back to warn her if someone else was in the hallways; but if a person didn’t have current, elementals didn’t know he or she existed.