Attempting to identify a Sci-Fantasy book

I hope I have one of the right groups for this.

IF memory serves I read this snippet as a preview in the back of a paperback.

Main character is a female engineer/mechanic

Setting is a large city in North America, Chicago maybe? and I call it a Sci-Fantasy because the 'world' is split. There's the mostly familiar 'here' and there is the fantastic 'there' where magic works and elves live.


Starts off with her either tending to or just having tended to an injured elf with a spell that she brought back from 'there'. (Seems that if you bring back a charge of magic from 'there' to 'here' you can use it once.) Somehow she gets brought into a police investigation of a van/truck full of little electronic assemblies. Turns out that they are for generating magic out of electricity. (magic being a result of different subatomic forces than prevale 'here') and she talks the cop out of one so she can dissect it and figure out what spell they are designed to power (something to do with frequencies)

And that left out the interesting digression in the middle about finding payphones in bad neighborhoods.

Hope someone can untangle this MESS and tell me what I'm looking for or where I should ask the question next.

Thank You
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