Staying Dead. Laura Anne Gilman

Village Pest Removal services. “‘Let us remove infestations and unwanted visitations.’” Well, poetic, anyway. Then she frowned, looking more closely at the wording on the sheet of paper: Tired of coming home to unwanted visitations? Concerned about the infestation of your building? Your neighborhood? Call us. We can clean things up for you.

      “Your entire neighborhood?” Hell of a claim, in Manhattan.

      A hunch tingled at the back of her head, her brain reaching for two and two in order to stretch it into five. Something about the wording sounded unpleasantly familiar. She put the paper down flat on her desk and reached over to pick up the phone and headset. Dialed the phone number listed on the flyer, pacing as she did so.

      “Hello. Yes, I’d like to speak to someone about an…infestation.”

      The voice on the other end of the line was enthusiastic. Perky. Oh so happy and eager to please.

      “Yes, they’re huge…winged, too. I just saw them tonight, and then I saw your flyer…” She was a pretty good actress, if she did say so herself. Wren almost believed that her apartment had been invaded.

      “What? No, I have no idea how they got in, haven’t seen them anywhere else. Well, of course, who goes poking about looking for cockroaches—hello?”

      The perky, friendly boy on the other line had hung up.

      “Expecting something different, were we? Oh yeah. I know who you are now.” They weren’t here for pests—at least not the way New Yorkers usually used the term. Wren snarled and tossed the crumpled-up flyer across the room, missing the wastebasket by an embarrassing margin.

      It was the NYADI—New Yorkers against Demonic Infestation—all over again, she’d eat someone else’s hat if it wasn’t. They had first appeared about three-four years before, when she was still living uptown, made life hell for everyone, Talent and Null alike, before they finally disappeared as suddenly as they’d arrived.

      “Jesus wept, I so don’t need this now!” All it took were a couple of newcomers to the city, who didn’t know enough not to look directly at the strangers sitting next to you on the subway car, and you got spooked vigilantes trying to save humanity from demonkind. Wren snorted. As though demons were some big threat. She blamed the endless repeats of Buffy for that. And The X-Files. Some people really just couldn’t separate fact from fiction.

      But this was way more directed than the ranting street-corner attacks had been. Way more careful, subtle even, which meant someone was thinking. Which was never good when it came to extremist loonies.

      “Bastards. If it is them I swear I’ll…”

      The familiar sound byte of her log-in interrupted her, and she exhaled heavily, forcing herself to relax. Slowly, as though tracking current, she lowered her shoulders, opened her hands, and let the tension slide out through her pores.

      Leaving the rest of the mail in a pile on the top of a filing cabinet near the window, she took the headset off and sat down again at the desk. Work, Valere. Deal with those bastards later. And there will be a later….

      Entering in the series of passwords, she logged into her server, downloading the day’s e-mail. Most of it was junk and spam, a few were from old high-school friends she managed somehow to keep in touch with, and three were headed “Old Sally.” She clicked on those first.