Authors: Katharine Kerr
Water to Burn (2 page)
“Wards, you mean? The face was outside. You can’t throw a ward through glass.”
Ari opened his mouth and shut it again.
“You’ll get used to all this after a while,” I said. “I know there’s a lot to learn.”
Ari gave me the look of droop-eyed reproach he does so well. He isn’t movie star handsome but macho attractive, with his athletic body and thick curly dark hair. He has gorgeous eyes, jet black and as large and straightforward as those on a Byzantine icon, even though that’s the wrong religion. Despite his British accent, he’s an Israeli national.
He poured himself coffee and sat down opposite me at the small table. We’d begun our relationship a month or so earlier, only to have it interrupted when he’d been called back to Israel to appear at a legal hearing. He’d just returned, and now our fire was burning white-hot again. The clock over the stove read noon. We’d had an athletic night and slept late.
“Speaking of windows,” he said, “why is there still plywood over the window in the lounge? I was gone what? Almost a fortnight, and your sodding landlady still hasn’t fixed it.”
“She wants me out, is why. I’ve already given her my notice.”
I couldn’t really blame her, either. The living room window had shattered when someone tried to shoot me through it. This kind of thing does not get you a top rating on a landlord’s list of desirable tenants.
“Good,” Ari said. “With my salary and yours combined, surely we can find something better.”
“I guess that means you’re assuming we’re going to live together.”
“Of course. Aren’t you?”
I hesitated, torn because I liked living alone almost as much as I liked sleeping with him. He gulped some coffee and considered me for a moment.
“I can hardly be your bodyguard from a distance,” he said. “And I gather that you’re in considerable danger.”
“I don’t know about that. My handler at the Agency keeps sending me warnings about Chaos masters on the prowl, but I never received any ASTAs while you were gone.”
“What?”
“Automatic Survival Threat Awareness. Sorry. It’s Agency slang.”
“Very well, but the Chaotics could be just biding their time. Scheming. I suppose Chaos masters would scheme.”
“Constantly. It’s their bread and butter, scheming.” I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. “They have devoted themselves to darkness and the evils it brings.”
“I wish you’d take the threat a little more seriously.” He glared at me over his coffee mug.
“You’re right. Sorry, again.”
“You know what’s wrong with you?” Ari waved a finger at me. “You trust your sodding talents too much. You don’t feel any danger, so you assume there isn’t any.”
“What else am I supposed to assume?”
“That the danger’s too far away for your talents to pick it up. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there.” He paused for a sip of coffee. “When you depend on your talents, you turn off your common sense. It’s a kind of blindness.”
I started to snarl but made myself think instead. “You know something?” I said. “You’re right. Thanks.”
“Well, it’s my job to keep you safe.”
“One of your jobs, anyway.”
Ari froze with his mug halfway to the table, just for a second, but I knew I’d hit pay dirt. He set the cup down carefully before he said, “Just what do you mean by that?”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Do you think I’m stupid or something? I’ll bet your real agency sent you here to keep an eye on more things than me. Why else would they make this weird arrangement with Interpol?”
For a long moment he stared at me. His Subliminal Psychological Profile was giving off a welter of vibrations: irritation, mostly, but with a certain grudging admiration mixed in. Eventually he sighed, looked put upon, and picked up his coffee mug again.
“Oh, very well,” Ari said. “I should have known. What is it that your brother says you have?”
“X-ray vision. One of Dan’s favorite phrases: my kid sister with the X-ray vision.”
“Yes, that’s it.” He had a pensive sip of coffee. “But they didn’t make the arrangement. Interpol did. Someone requested I be posted to San Francisco, so it all worked out.”
“Someone?”
“I don’t know who. Someone at the NCB level.”
“The what?”
“The National Central Bureau.”
“Ah. Thanks. But even if you did know, I bet you wouldn’t tell me.”
“Quite right I wouldn’t, but I don’t.”
“So you really do work for them? I’ve always wondered.”
“Yes, in the antiterrorism unit. You Americans seem to think that your country’s the only target of terrorists, but it’s a real problem internationally, too. Of course Interpol’s involved. It’s perfectly compatible with my other job.”
“You’re right. Sorry. So okay, someone high up wanted you here.”
“Yes. I think I know the reason. I’m authorized to share intel. It might have a direct bearing on this question of Chaos masters. Reb Ezekiel’s been spotted here in San Francisco.”
I nearly dropped my mug. “I thought he was dead. Cardiac arrest in a whorehouse, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, just that. The body was properly identified at the time by reliable witnesses. He was buried on his wretched retro kibbutz. But an IT person at one of the big banks is convinced he’s seen him twice, at two different locations here in San Francisco. Both times Ezekiel turned and ran when he realized that he’d been spotted.”
“Did this tech know Zeke well enough to be sure?”
“Oh, yes. I know the fellow who saw him. Itzak Stein’s his name. He was a fellow sufferer in the sodding kibbutz, but his family returned to the States.”
“Reb Ezekiel had some American converts, huh?”
“Yes. Itzak was born in New York, and he retrieved his American citizenship once he was old enough. I’m not surprised, considering what we went through.” Ari paused and looked away, probably to repress memories from his childhood. After two minutes by the kitchen clock, he turned back to me. “So yes, he’s quite sure.”
“Okay then. Have you considered that this Ezekiel might be a doppelgänger?”
“From one of those deviant world levels? That’s my current assumption. The question is why he’s here. I had my agency send yours a dossier. Haven’t you received it yet?
“Not yet. It takes a while to get things cleared.”
Ari made the noise I call his growl, a sort of lowfrequency clearing of his throat accompanied by a scowl.
“So you were sent back,” I went on, “because both agencies know you can recognize this fake holy man. It makes sense.”
“Yes. I was glad to get the assignment.”
“Why?”
“Nola, don’t be dense.”
We were edging toward a subject I didn’t want opened. Ari leaned back in his chair and watched me, waiting, while it was my turn for the meaningless smile. Eventually he gave up. With a sigh he finished his coffee and got up. When he held out a hand for my mug, I gave it to him. He went to the stove and refilled both from the carafe. He handed me mine, then stayed standing by the stove to gulp his down.
“I’m going to shower and shave,” Ari said. “I suppose I should unpack some clothes, but not the rest, if we’re going to move—” He let the sentence dangle.
I merely smiled for an answer. He finished the coffee and left me alone to think.
I felt like sulking over this new problem that the Agency and Interpol had dumped onto the Apocalypse Squad. I already had a complex problem sitting in my metaphoric inbox. Recently we’d broken up a dangerous Chaos group. Two of their members, now dead, had dealt in heroin. A third member had been murdered, probably for knowing too much about their racket.
The question: were the two dead perps the leaders of the group? I had some evidence that they were only part of the problem. In that case, where were the rest of them? I knew of four other people in their occult circle, and they were still on the loose. The two dead members, Johnson and Doyle by name, had devoted themselves to the cult of the Peacock Angel, Tawsi Melek. Islamic clerics identified this figure with Satan, which was not good news.
So possibly a stronger force lay behind the group—and possibly behind whatever trouble had brought me Fog Face. The mystery mist might also have seen some completely other criminal mischief brewing. That’s what I mean by ambiguity: two problems or one, I didn’t know.
I got up and walked into the living room, dark and gloomy at the moment from the plywood over the bay window. A mound of Ari’s luggage, a couple of kelvar suitcases and some cardboard cartons, sat on my old Persian rug between my computer desk and the blue couch. He’d put one leather case, marked “fragile” in big red letters, on the coffee table. The floor was apparently good enough for the rest.
Ari came back in and zipped open one of the suitcases to pull out his shaving kit.
“What is all this stuff, anyway?” I said.
“Things I’m going to need for my job. A crime kit, that sort of thing, standard police issue. In locked containers.”
“Ah. I wondered if you’d been sent to blow something up.”
He scowled at me and retreated back to the bathroom.
I returned to the kitchen and saw Venus hovering a few feet above the black-and-white tile floor, over by the refrigerator. She wore a simple straight white dress, pinned with gold brooches at each shoulder, all the adornment she needed, since she also radiated a dazzling golden light.
“I admire your bedroom techniques, honey.” She sounded a lot like Mae West. “But you’ve got to get a better mirror.”
“Yes, your divineness,” I said. You don’t argue with goddesses when they give you beauty tips. “What should I look for?”
“The boyfriend’s right. You’re too thin.” She smiled at me and raised one hand in blessing. “Remember! A better mirror.” With that she disappeared.
Ari reappeared in the doorway, this time with his razor in his hand. Shaving soap covered half of his face.
“Who were you talking to now?” he said.
“Venus,” I said. “The Roman goddess, y’know?”
He rolled his eyes. “I see that nothing’s changed while I’ve been gone.” He went back into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.
While he cleaned up, I checked some Agency files on our protected site, TranceWeb, which has its own encryption system. Since the cross-agency file on Reb Ezekiel had yet to come through, I hunted for archived intel on sea creatures such as kelpies, nereids, and mermaids in the hopes of finding out more about Fog Face.
None of these creatures—whether Chaotic or Orderly—have the same kind of reality as an actual animal like a seal or a fish. Most sightings fall under the heading of IOIs or outright hallucinations. A few, however, of these “things seen” have a quasi-reality, because they’re manifestations of the hidden forces of the universe. Solid they’re not, but those who observe them are seeing something real, not mere illusions.
The trick is knowing the difference. I felt a gut response to Fog Face strong enough to assume he emanated from the forces of Order and Harmony. Since I found nothing about mist creatures in the archives, I’d have to test the assumption as I went along.
While I finished my search, Ari unpacked his clothes, then went into the kitchen and began rummaging around in the refrigerator. We’d stopped at a local grocery the night before and stocked up on a number of staples, like coffee, lettuce, and tomatoes for me.
“I don’t suppose you’ll eat breakfast,” he called out.
“No,” I said. “I won’t.”
In a minute or two he appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was eating a half round of pita bread filled with something.
“What’s in that?” I said.
“Peanut butter,” he said. “And sweet gherkins.”
“And what?”
“Pickles, you’d call them.”
I gagged. He returned to the kitchen to eat it out of my sight.
After he ate this evidence that breakfast is a miserable meal, he began stowing the other luggage. In particular he worked from his salesman’s sample case, a big tan leather holdover from his previous cover story, when he’d posed as an importer of prayer shawls as well as some souvenir goods from the Holy Land. It actually held gadgets, among them a detection device for bugs in the walls, something he called an “interference generator” to protect our cell phone connections, and a gizmo that checked my landline and answering machine for wiretaps. At one point, when the case stood open, I glimpsed a long narrow bundle, wrapped in black.
“What’s that in the prayer shawl?” I asked.
“The name is tallit.” He looked up and scowled at me. “Not prayer shawl.”
“Sorry, but you called them that when you came to my office—the first time, if you remember.”
“I had to use the sodding password I was given. That was just the kind of insensitive gaffe your State Department is known for.” He glanced into the case. “As for this, it’s just a bit of cloth. You never wrap things in a tallit.”
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