Water to Burn

by Katharine Kerr

  “I can’t keep a shield up all the time,” I told Ari. “I won’t be able to use most of my other talents if I do.”

  “That may be what he’s counting on,” Ari said. “From now on, just blast the sodding circles. Don’t give him a chance to speak.”

  “I may have to, but I could be missing clues if I do. I don’t suppose the neighbors saw someone do the tagging this time, either.”

  “No, or so they say. They must be lying.”

  “Not necessarily. He could be transferring paint onto the wall the same way Belial transferred seawater onto me.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Very well, then. A question. If Belial could slosh water across the worlds, why couldn’t he bring his sodding body with him?”

  “He’s alive. The water isn’t. I bet that his body would end up a lot worse for wear if he tried to travel in it that way. He’s obviously not a real world-walker.”

  “Obviously, is it?” Ari paused for a sigh. “I should have been an insurance adjustor.”

  I heard the signal and changed the subject.

  On Thursday, Aunt Eileen drove Father Keith over to the flat to discuss the letter from Dad and the problem it presented. Just as I’d predicted, my mother had refused to believe that it was genuine. Ari took himself off to the gym so we could have a family conference. Aunt Eileen had brought chocolate chip cookies. I made coffee, and we ended up sitting at the kitchen table.

  While we all sipped coffee and ate cookies—I made a point of having a couple, doctor’s orders—I took a good look at my aunt and uncle together. Immediately, I found myself remembering Cryptic Creep. He looked familiar, I realized, because he reminded me of my O’Brien relatives. Except for his peculiar voice, he could have been one of their siblings. Doppelgänger. Which member of my family, I wondered, did he duplicate? I shivered and turned my mind to what Aunt Eileen was saying.

  “Now your mother’s angrier than ever,” Aunt Eileen told me. “She’s annoyed that you came back without telling her. I asked her why, since she kept saying she never wanted to see you again. She just went off on a tangent and never told me.”

  “She wanted the pleasure of having me call her,” I said, “so she could hang up on me. Maybe after she’d told me off.”

  “I’m afraid that sounds like her.” Eileen addressed her absent sister. “Honestly, Deirdre!”

  “But what about the letter?” I wanted to keep this unpleasant subject focused and get the discussion over with. “Did she think I forged it to annoy her?”

  “No,” Father Keith said. “She thinks Michael forged it to annoy her.”

  All three of us sighed.

  “The real problem,” Father Keith continued, “is the way she refuses to believe that any of us have talents. Especially herself, which is the height of ridiculousness, considering how easily and often hers manifest.”

  “Boom crash bang,” I said. “I guess she doesn’t do that at the office or when she’s out with her friends.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Eileen said. “Only around family. So it’s all our fault. We must be doing it to tease her, or so she says.”

  Father Keith took a mournful bite of a cookie.

  “If she refuses to believe that anyone could be a world-walker,” I said, “it’s no wonder she thinks the letter can’t possibly be authentic. If someone had forged it, it would be a really cruel joke, after all.”

  “Now, that’s very true,” Keith said. “And let’s remember that she is a seventh. Things have always been harder for her. Let’s be charitable.”

  Aunt Eileen and I glared at him. He sighed again and looked up to speak to God. “Well, I tried.”

  “Speaking of sevenths,” I said. “I’m beginning to get the impression that Michael is bilging out of school.”

  “Yes, he is.” Eileen paused for a scowl. “He’ll have to go to summer school. He’s passing Spanish and second year algebra. Everything else—he’ll be lucky if he gets one D among the Fs.”

  “I’ll try to make more time to help him,” I said. “Now that I know I’m back here for good.”

  “It’s not a lack of homework help that’s the problem.” At that moment Father Keith’s sour face reminded me of Sister Peter Mary. “It’s that young lady of his. She offers a lot more entertainment than civics class does.”

  “Yeah, unfortunately,” I said. “We need to figure out what to do with her, too. Home schooling would probably be best.”

  Father Keith nodded his agreement.

  “You don’t have to take care of Michael any longer, dear,” Aunt Eileen said, “or of Sophie, either. It’s hard to let them go at that age, but you have to. He needs to learn the consequences of not doing his homework.”

  “You’re right, but I really was his second mom.”

  “Thanks to your mother. After your father disappeared, she demanded so much from all of you children. Yes, it was terrible for her, but she’s not the only woman in the world who lost her husband.”

  I found myself remembering those awful months of Mother’s alternate tears and rages, and how bitter she was about having to get a paying job.

  “She wanted you older children to replace Flann,” Keith put in. “It’s no wonder Dan joined the army the day he turned eighteen.”

  “And Maureen married the first man who asked her,” I said.

  “Yes,” Eileen said. “And it’s also no wonder that the marriage didn’t work out. I’ll admit to being relieved when they divorced.” She shot Father Keith a nervous glance.

  “Officially, as a priest,” Keith said, “I was horrified. As me, the uncle, I was relieved, too. This new boyfriend—is he any better?”

  “No,” Eileen said. “The children are afraid of him. It worries me.”

  “She’s got lousy taste in men,” I said. “It’s too bad Ari doesn’t have a brother.”

  Aunt Eileen smiled. “It is, yes, and really, Nola, the only person you do need to take care of is your Ari. He’s rather odd, but then, so are you.”

  We shared a laugh. Father Keith smiled at both of us.

  “You don’t mind that he’s Jewish?” I said.

  “No. It doesn’t bother me at all.” She looked away in thought. “If he were Protestant, it would be different. That would be a betrayal, somehow, after all our families have gone through over the centuries.”

  “All I’d ask,” Father Keith said, “is that you let me preside over some kind of nonsectarian ceremony when you marry him. Times have changed. I’m not going to throw a churchman’s holy howling fit.”

  “I am not going to marry him.”

  Father Keith snorted.

  “Of course not.” Eileen was trying to keep from smiling. “But does he know that?”

  I felt a SAWM go off like a fire alarm.

  “No,” I said. “I’ll have to have a talk with him.”

  “Good luck,” she said, and she and Father Keith both laughed.

  After they left, I wandered over to the window in the living room and looked out. The fog was blowing in thickly. Swirls of gray covered the sky and sent long tendrils over the roofs across the street. A familiar gray face drifted in from the sea, then paused just beyond my window. Illumination struck my brain.

  “Javert?” I said.

  The consciousness I’d been calling Fog Face nodded.

  “I’ve got Belial pinned,” I said.

  The projection smiled at that.

  “Was he the one who murdered that little girl?”

  The smile disappeared, and he nodded a yes.

  “And the lawyer guy?”

  Another sad nod.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll see about transferring custody over to your people.”

  I raised one hand in the sign of peace. With another grin he turned away, then frayed out into tufts of normal fog, sailing on the wind.

  Like Belial, I realized, this being was a master at projected forms. Belial had managed to form the Qi he stockpiled into the shape of a robed figure. So
mehow he’d been able to manipulate the air to produce sounds, too, in order to seem to be speaking. Javert had never spoken to me, but then, I’d only ever seen him through window glass. He’d just heard me speak, of course, unless he’d merely read the words from my mind. Their species, whatever it was, had to have talents beyond ours in some areas but only some. Their set of genetic mind tools must have lacked world-walking, since they’d been forced to rely on projections instead.

  When they transferred their consciousness, though, they lacked hands, physical hands or tentacles to manipulate objects here on our world. Caleb had supplied those for Belial. Had he found Drake’s treasure, he would have had the money to work with his so-called spirit to do whatever mischief Belial had planned. Nothing good—I was willing to bet on that—a plan dangerous or criminal enough for Javert to stalk him across the worlds. Javert, in turn, had needed my hands and my ability to speak in order to stop the malfeasance.

  I’d just finished sending this new information off to the Agency when Ari returned from the gym. He brought with him a receipt for one of those apartment-sized washer/ dryer combos. He’d seen one advertised on sale in a local appliance store.

  “They’ll install it next Tuesday,” he told me. “I don’t want you going down to the launderette alone.”

  The white picket fence gleamed on the green lawn of my mind.

  “Thanks,” I said. “But we could just go do the laundry together.”

  “Of course, but I hate those places, so why should either of us bother?”

  He smiled and left to hang his sweaty workout clothes over the back porch railing. I logged off TranceWeb, closed down my system, and sat down on the couch. Ari returned with a bottle of a silvery gray sports drink and joined me.

  “That looks like dishwater,” I said.

  He scrutinized the bottle, then shrugged. “It doesn’t taste like it.”

  “Whatever. Um, Ari, we need to have a talk. I take it you’re planning on staying in San Francisco for a while.”

  “Indefinitely, according to my superiors.” He paused for a swallow of the bottled dishwater. “Both of them. I’ll admit to both since there’s no hiding it from you. There’s a nexus of anti-Israel activity in this city, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

  “Well, yeah. I don’t mean to pry.”

  “Pry?” He smiled, just a brief flicker of his mouth. “Good word, I suppose. Very tactful. It’s one reason I love you.”

  I went tense.

  “Don’t you think I feel that?” he said. “The way you freeze up, pull away, turn into yourself, whatever it is, the minute I say something, too—oh, I don’t know—too sentimental, I suppose it is. I don’t have to be psychic to feel you pushing me away.”

  “I’m sorry.” I felt like a bleating sheep, but the words crept out before I could stop them. “Ari, I’ve only known you—what? A couple of months? It’s not long enough for either of us to know how we really feel.”

  “Where did you read that?” He leaned over and put the ghastly-looking drink down on the coffee table. “One of your college textbooks?”

  I had to admit that my wording needed improvement. “Oh, okay. Let me amend that. Do you really think this relationship can possibly work long-term? Look, we’re both really strange people, misfits, I guess I mean. We’ve both been wounded in strange ways.”

  “Who else goes in for our line of work?” He turned on the couch to look directly at me. “How many normal family men or career women do you see in your agency? I can’t think of any in mine. There’s too much lying, too much danger, the tedious kind of danger that’s mostly waiting for the worst to happen. Only a misfit would take the job.”

  “That’s true.” I looked away and listened to my heart pounding in fear. “But I just don’t see how we can make any kind of commitment to each other. Your country’s always going to come first to you. I’ll always be waiting for you to leave me. Not for another woman, I mean, but for Israel’s sake.”

  “If I go, I’ll take you with me.”

  “But I don’t want to leave here. I’ve got my family to consider, and now, come to think of it, so do you. They’ve taken you in lock, stock, and barrel.”

  Ari smiled as if he was about to make a smart remark, then let the smile fade. “That could present a problem.”

  “It’s not the only one, either. What am I supposed to do? Sit in some flat in Tel Aviv and worry myself sick while you’re gone?”

  “Gone?” He blinked at me in fake innocence.

  “Yeah, gone! Wandering around the hill country pretending to be Iranian. What’s your cover? Just a simple tribesman herding goats? What do you look for out there? Military installations? Missile emplacements?”

  Ari whistled under his breath. “You do puzzle things out, don’t you?”

  “Hey, it’s part of my job. What would happen if the Iranian military caught you? I bet you wouldn’t live to reach a court of law.”

  “Probably not, no.”

  “Would I ever even know what had happened to you?”

  “Probably not, though I assume you could guess.” He grinned at me. “After all, you are psychic.”

  “Oh, great! And so one night I’ll have a nightmare where I watch you get shot or beheaded. Only it won’t be a dream. It’ll be true. No, Ari. I won’t live like that.”

  The grin disappeared. He sat silently for a couple of minutes, weighing things out in his mind, or so his SPP indicated. “Well,” he said eventually, “I suppose I could compromise on my career choice.”

  “Career choice. What a phrase to use!”

  He laughed. He actually laughed. “True,” he said. “How about mission assignment, then? I can turn it down in the future. No one forces that kind of assignment on an operative. I’ve always volunteered for it.”

  “Know something? You’re an adrenaline junkie.”

  “What?”

  “Someone who’s addicted to their own adrenaline, which starts flowing when they’re doing something dangerous.”

  “I’ve never thought of it that way before.” Ari paused in contemplation. “But it’s a fair evaluation. Why else would I want to marry you?”

  I decided that I must be psychotic to care so much about a man like him. He caught my hands in his and pulled me a little closer. His touch made me feel like melting. No, I realized that I’d already melted. Psychotic, I told myself. O’Grady, you actually love this guy. How could you?

  “Nola?” he said. “Think of the Roadrunner cartoons. The coyote runs off the edge of the cliff, but as long as he doesn’t look down, he doesn’t fall. He can walk on the air. That’s what our marriage is going to be like. Just don’t look down, and we’ll do splendidly.”

  “That’s absolutely nuts!”

  He raised my hands to his mouth and kissed each of them in turn. “No, it’s a metaphor. It makes perfect sense.”

  “I’m not going to marry you. I’m not going to marry anyone.”

  “Oh?” He smiled his tiger’s smile. “We’ll just see about that.”

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  AGENCY TALENTS AND ACRONYMS

  ASTA Automatic survival threat awareness

  CDEP Chaos diagnotic emergency procedure

  CW Chaos wards

  CDS Collective Data Stream

  CEV Conscious evasion procedure

  DEI Deliberately extruded images (visible only to psychics)

  DW Dice walk

  E Ensorcellment

  HC Heat conservation

  IOI Image Objectification of Insight

  LDRS Long distance remote sensing

  MI Manifested indicators (of chaos forces)

  PI Possibility Images

  RSL Random Synchronistic Linkage (dice walking)

  SAF Scanning the aura field

  SM Search mode

  SM:P Search mode: Personnel G:General D: Danger L: Location

  SAWM Semiautomatic warning mechanism

  SH Shield persona

/>   SPP Subliminal psychological profile

  UPC Unexplained personnel capabilities (occult powers)

  Available from DAW Books:

  The Nola O’Grady Novels:

  LICENSE TO ENSORCELL WATER TO BURN

  Katharine Kerr’s

  Novels of Deverry,

  The Silver Wyrm Cycle:

  THE GOLD FALCON (#1)

  THE SPIRIT STONE (#2)

  THE SHADOW ISLE (#3)

  THE SILVER MAGE (#4)