Water to Burn

by Katharine Kerr

  “Okay. And if you and Ari want to go there and look around, just let me know.”

  “Thanks.” My stomach twisted itself into a cold knot over the idea of walking any distance away from the gate. “We’ll be over tomorrow. We can talk more then.”

  Wednesday was one of those frantic days when you run one errand after the other. I wore my best jeans with the teal sweater and the black satin-backed crepe jacket, practical but with a touch of class, and carried a red umbrella. In the morning, Ari and I drove to the airport, where I met the Agency courier, exchanged passwords, and got the attachè case. Since Paul from Peoria had a return flight to DC leaving twenty minutes after the exchange, I left him to it and drove back to San Francisco. I woke Jerry up with a phone call and made arrangements with him.

  When I got to Aunt Eileen’s, I opened the attaché case. We found naturalization papers for Sophia Yelena Chekov, along with a document in Ukranian, which is close enough to Russian for Ari to tell us it was a birth certificate, and a long document in English and Ukranian purporting to be the ruling of a court giving her the legal status of emancipated minor on the grounds that her parents had abandoned her. A note from Y remarked that we should get her an American passport as soon as possible and a California state ID card, too.

  “I’ll put these in the safe until we need them,” Aunt Eileen said. “Jim insisted that we have a fireproof place for the mortgage papers and things like that. Because of the earthquakes, you know.”

  The safe, a small round door in the wall, turned out to lurk behind Father Keith’s portrait. The papers would be protected by sanctity as well as the steel door.

  Thanks to her pale skin, Sophie made a smashing honeyblonde. She told me that Michael really liked the way it looked, her last truly happy moment of the afternoon. We took her over to Jerry’s and picked him up. He’d washed his usual hairspray out of his blond hair and tied it back with a macho strip of leather, though he was wearing a woman’s flowered rayon red dress over his straight-leg jeans. Sophie paid no particular attention to this fashion statement. I supposed that she’d seen weirder.

  I followed Jerry’s directions and drove them down to the VD clinic. While we waited, Ari and I drove around downtown, looking for Sarge and Reb Ezekiel and finding neither. With an SM:P, I did locate Sarge in a homeless shelter that was staying open in the rainy weather. He was playing cards with a couple of friends in the midst of maybe a hundred homeless guys. I could never have gone in and kept my cover story, not safely, anyway.

  Finally, we returned for Jerry and a very subdued Sophie, who had a fistful of prescriptions for antibiotics and dusting powder, some of which she needed to share with Michael on the doctor’s orders. She wallowed in shame and guilt while she told me about them until I told her to shut up, she was forgiven.

  “But Aunt Eileen’s been so good to me,” she said. “I feel so bad about being so well dirty and sick, I guess. I shouldn’t have taken a bath last night.”

  “Oh, come on,” Jerry said. “Chlorine bleach works wonders on the fixtures. Nola, this poor child had never had a pelvic before. No wonder she’s grossed out. I’m real glad we got her to the doc.”

  Every muscle in Ari’s body went tense. He scrupulously pretended he couldn’t hear a thing, even though he was in the front passenger seat about three feet from Jerry, in the back.

  “I’ll scrub everything I touched,” Sophie said. “I promise. I just feel awful.”

  “You’d have felt worse if you hadn’t seen the nice doctor,” Jerry said. “Itchier, anyway. Count your blessings, little girl. You should have gone to the clinic months ago.”

  I winced, waiting for Sophie to tell him the truth, that in her world no such thing existed, but she said nothing, only sniveled into a tissue.

  We dropped Jerry off, then stopped at a big chain drugstore on outer Mission Street to get the prescriptions filled. I let Ari drive around the block—parking was impossible—while I went in with Sophie. We saw a security guard just inside the door, a barrel-chested white guy who gave us a vague smile as we went past.

  “Wow,” Sophie said. “You must really be somebody, Nola.”

  “Huh?” I said. “Why?”

  “He passed you right through and didn’t shake you down.”

  “Sophie, things are different here. Honest. The cops don’t shake you down. If one tries, you can report him.”

  Sophie’s eyes went very wide. “Wow,” she whispered. “Just, well, wow.”

  The young woman pharmacist acted totally blasé about the conditions that the prescriptions indicated, which allowed Sophie to regain a small portion of her sense of selfworth.

  “Just make sure you wash all your boyfriend’s underwear with bleach in the water,” the pharmacist said. “Body lice don’t like chlorine. You’ve got to destroy the eggs.”

  “Okay,” Sophie said. “Maybe we should buy a bottle of that stuff, too, huh?”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  And we did, two big plastic jugs of it, not a very romantic purchase, but a necessary one.

  The real rain began just as we reached the Houlihan house—while we were still outside at the bottom of the hill, of course. We scurried up the steps and got in before we were soaked. The house smelled like dinner. I actually salivated.

  “That does smell good,” I said.

  Ari smiled and agreed. Sophie tipped her head a little to one side and sniffed. “It does,” she said, “but what is it?”

  “Fried chicken,” I said. “And apple pie. Ever had them?”

  “I’ve had some chicken, a couple of times. But I don’t know what pie is.”

  When the time came for dessert, she decided that she liked it a lot.

  We left Aunt Eileen’s after dinner, because my mother called and announced she was coming over. Mom never actually waited to be invited when it came to visiting relatives. She merely gave an ETA. Michael hid Sophie in his room, and we fled.

  I also wanted to put some time into tracking Caleb and Ari was expecting some important e-mail. Once we got back to our flat, I checked the answering machine: nothing from Caleb. I ran an SM:P only to find it blocked. I threw some Qi behind my probe and got a faint image of Caleb sitting on a bare wood floor and reading a book by flashlight. Although he was occupied, someone began pushing my probe away. Belial? The Cryptic Creep? I broke off the attempt.

  I turned around to tell Ari only to find him nowhere in sight. I had a peculiar moment of panic, where I thought that everyone I needed to see or speak to had suddenly disappeared. I took a deep breath and realized that Ari had merely gone into the bedroom. From the sound of clicking keys, I deduced that he’d started working at his laptop. Not precisely at Sherlock Holmes’ level, but the deduction did dispel the panic. I went in and saw him sitting on the edge of the bed with the laptop on the end table in front of him.

  “Just checking e-mail,” he said. “We’ve got to have another talk.”

  “What now?” I snapped. “Jack again?”

  “No,” Ari said. “Your father wasn’t in the States legally, was he?”

  I turned around and stalked out of the bedroom. Although I seriously considered grabbing my jacket and leaving, the rain hammered on the roof and swept across the street in gusts. Besides, I reminded myself, it’s not like Dad’s still around to arrest. I flopped down on the couch and scowled across the room at the bookshelf. Ari followed me in, but he stayed standing. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “I suppose you’re angry with me,” he said.

  “Whatever makes you think that?”

  “Look, I’m trying to help you sort out the situation. That’s all. I can hardly arrest a man who disappeared thirteen years ago.”

  “I did have a similiar thought.”

  “Good. I’m not an immigration official, either. I’d have no jurisdiction in a case of illegal entry.”

  My mood turned a small degree sweeter.

  “I asked Sanchez a favor,” Ari said. “He looked up the
file on your father’s disappearance for me and sent it over this afternoon. I thought I might find more information for your family from Interpol files if I had some concrete search terms.”

  Although Ari paused as if he expected me to say something, I refused on general principles. He sat down on the couch and turned toward me.

  “Was he an illegal alien?” Ari went on. “The police had no proof, but one of them was suspicious enough to write down an odd remark of your mother’s. In a case like this one, it’s possible that someone from the missing person’s background is responsible for the disappearance, so she was questioned about your father’s history. Your mother told the officer that as far as she knew, Flann was born in Boston, but he never talked much about his family there. It made me wonder.”

  To lie or not to lie—what did it matter, with Dad gone for thirteen years?

  “Yeah, he was an illegal,” I said. “He was actually born in Ireland. You’re good at what you do.”

  Ari smiled. “Do go on,” he said. “How did he manage to get into the States?”

  “It’s easy, if you’re white and European, particularly if you come to a city where there are a lot of legit immigrants from your country. They’re your support system.”

  “And your family would have provided that.”

  “Oh, yeah. After Dad married my mother, in fact, it was Jack Donovan’s father who gave him a good job and promoted him and all the rest of it.”

  “No wonder you were determined to protect the Donovans.”

  “You bet. When Dad disappeared, Kevin Donovan gave my mother a job, too, and paid for the training she needed to do it. Bookkeeping, that is. That’s how Jack met Kathleen, at an office Christmas party.”

  “I noticed that there’s nothing in the report about consulting the I.C.E.”

  “This was before they started fingerprinting everyone who visits the States.”

  “True. Still, I was surprised that the local police didn’t follow up on their suspicions.”

  “Oh, they did, kind of. They consulted the public records in Boston. They found so many O’Gradys that they gave it up. Besides, half the cops in this city are Irish.”

  “And they’d let that influence them?”

  “Maybe, yeah. I wouldn’t know for sure.”

  Ari didn’t exactly snarl, but his mouth twitched as if he wanted to.

  “On top of that,” I continued, “Dad was born right about the time that home births were popular. I remember Mom telling the cops what little she knew about his mother. Mrs. O’G was heavy into hippie stuff like natural foods and herbal medicines. He’d been born at home, and the certificate never properly recorded.”

  “I see. The report did mention a baptismal certificate from a Boston church.”

  “Yeah, he did have one of those.”

  “So once he arrived here, he was reasonably safe.”

  “Just that. He met Uncle Jim down at the Irish Cultural Center, and Jim kind of took him under his wing. This was before Jim and Eileen got married. Dad lived in the Houlihan house for a while, in fact.”

  Ari said something that, oddly enough, I couldn’t hear. I leaned toward him, but I found myself sitting on a chair in the gray library, where shelves full of books shot off in all directions, even straight up. I’d been there before. The angel with the pince-nez was standing at the dark oak lectern, thumbing through a massive leather-bound book. When I cleared my throat, he looked up and waggled his wings.

  “Family history, family future,” he said. “Don’t you remember?”

  “I remember you telling me that, but—”

  “Where does your brother get his talent?”

  The bookshelves began to turn, slowly at first, then faster and faster, a gray whirlpool spinning around me, so fast that they turned into a swirl of lamplight.

  I was sitting on the blue couch. Ari had his arm around my shoulders.

  “I’m back.” I was so dry-mouthed that I nearly squawked. “I need to get some water.”

  “Stay where you are. I’ll fetch it.”

  While he went into the kitchen, I considered the angel’s message. Ari returned with a glass of tap water, which I drank off in a couple of big gulps.

  “Well?” he said.

  “My dad opened that gate in the Houlihan house.” I leaned forward and set the mug down on the floor by my feet. “That’s where Mike gets his world-walking genes, isn’t it? From his father. No wonder the gate opened so easily for him.”

  Ari sat down with a long hard sigh. “Now that I know those things actually exist,” he said, “that makes sense.”

  “And that’s why the gate is ever so conveniently there,” I continued. “I should have seen this before now. I still hate thinking about Dad being gone, I guess. We all really loved him.” I managed to keep from crying, but only just.

  “I wonder if he was a very illegal alien, then, from another Ireland all together. That would certainly explain why he didn’t bother getting a proper green card.”

  “Even if they issued them on some other deviant level, it wouldn’t have been valid here.”

  “It’s a good enough theory to get on with, then.”

  “Yeah. Huh, I wonder if Mother knows more. I doubt it. If she did know, she would have repressed it, anyway. She desperately wanted to be normal. I guess she still does.”

  “Do you think he came from that same level that Michael’s been visiting?”

  “Not necessarily. Sophie talked about people going through it to somewhere else. If it’s true about the nuclear wars, which I doubt, there’s not much of Ireland left there, anyway.”

  Ari held out his hand. I put mine into it without even hesitating. His clasp still felt warm and comfortable. I slid over close and rested my head on his shoulder. I could feel his deep relief even without running a formal SPP.

  “I wonder why Dad left home?” I said. “Maybe he was born in a trashed Ireland.”

  “He could have had a good reason to come here, in that case. Although I’ve only seen that one world, and I’d like to think it’s not typical.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not. What I really wonder is where did he go when he left us? Did he return home and why, if he did? He always seemed happy enough here.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have a choice. Someone might have come to fetch him, such as that level’s version of the Gardai.”

  I sat up straight and pulled my hand away. “What makes you think the cops would be after him?”

  “Your reactions to this conversation.” Ari was watching me with no trace of a smile.

  Family history had run me right into his trap. I must have looked furious, because Ari grimaced.

  “Nola, I’d have no authority to cause trouble for your father no matter what he did back in wherever he came from.” Ari held out his hand again. “Even if he were here right now. Please don’t hold this against me. I didn’t mean to open old wounds.”

  “They’re more like old abscesses. They’ve never really healed.” I laid my hand in his. “Okay. You’re right. I know that Interpol’s a big deal, but I bet it’s not a trans-deviantlevel authority in the greater multiverse.”

  “Very doubtful, yes.” He smiled at me.

  My backbrain registered an odd twinge, but I could make no sense out of it. His SPP showed me that Ari was telling the truth as he saw it. If he said he couldn’t arrest my father, then he couldn’t.

  “I’m mostly curious,” Ari went on. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me why he was a fugitive.”

  “I don’t know. No one wanted to tell us kids anything.”

  “I’d suppose not.”

  I was about to tell him what little I knew when a SAWM stopped me. The family conditioning ran too deep. What with overhearing things, plus asking Aunt Eileen when I was old enough, plus a vision or two, I had pieced together a story. I suspected that he’d shot and killed a pair of British soldiers who were beating up a buddy of his. Dad was IRA to the core back when that meant somethin
g. I’d often wondered if his real name was even Flann O’Grady.

  “If he’d been on the run, no one would have told me,” I finessed the truth. “He might have just come here for the chance at a good job and a better life. That’s what most immigrants want. Back when he arrived, Ireland was still a very poor country.”

  “What do they call it now?” Ari smiled so easily that I knew he wanted to believe me. “The Celtic tiger, that’s right.”

  “But you can see why no one wants to talk about him much. It’s also why the whole family learned to be so closemouthed. From the time we were, like, two years old, we knew we had to keep our mouths shut about the family talents in general and about Dad’s country of origin in particular.”

  “Yes, I can understand that. Especially about the talents.”

  “And you know,” I finished up, “if Dad was from some other deviant level, we don’t know what the situation’s like in their version of Ireland. I wonder if the whole island’s still occupied by the Brits. I remember him talking about our Republic of Ireland with a reverent tone to his voice, as if it was some kind of miracle.”

  Ari slumped back against the couch cushions. “Just when I think I’m used to all of this,” he said, “and to your family, I learn something new, and I’m gobsmacked.”

  “You know what?” I said. “Sometimes I feel that way myself.” I stood up so I could retrieve my cell phone from my jeans pocket, then sat back down. “I’ve got to call Michael. He needs to know this right away.”

  It took Michael a few rings to answer his phone. He’d been in the bathroom, he told me, taking the first round of the pills Sophie had brought home. He sounded proud about needing them.

  “You haven’t told Aunt Eileen, have you?” I said.

  “Only about the crabs. Like, that’s seriously gross, so I didn’t want her to have to touch my sheets, and she wanted to know why I wanted to wash them myself, so I had to tell her that. She was okay with it. She said she wasn’t surprised.”

  “Well, good for you! Listen, I’ve got some big news. I figured out who put that gate in the Houlihan house.”

  “Yeah?” His voice turned eager. “Who?”