License to Ensorcell

by Katharine Kerr

  Nathan blinked, opened his mouth, stared at me for a moment, then finally spoke. “You’re not joking, are you?”

  “No.”

  “I was afraid of that. Very well, then. This group DD belonged to—they must have something else to hide.”

  “Yeah, something that can get them into trouble so big that it’s worth killing for. Pat hinted about it in his journals. He was going to go to the police, but the full moon intervened. It gave Johnson three days, is my guess, to shut him up permanently.”

  “Which he did.”

  “Yeah, but Pat must have told the other Hounds. If we can make contact with them, we might be able to answer a lot of questions. If this Grampian has a brain in his head, he should be scared enough to tell us what he knows. He’s probably next.”

  “Quite so. He knows that the police suspect him, so you’re the one who has to make the contact.”

  “At least at first, yeah.”

  Nathan looked away and thought something through. “Another thing that troubles me,” he said at last. “How did DD discover the Hounds in the first place? Did your brother ever find that out?”

  “No, but I can make a guess. Chaos calls to Chaos. Werewolves are essentially Chaotic. The Hounds are rowing upstream against a torrent, trying to control that side of their natures. Pat’s journals make that very clear. DD—or maybe even Johnson—could practically smell them out on the aura field.”

  “You’re assuming there’s two of them?”

  “Well, of course. DD couldn’t have shot the Romero girl.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he has to be a werewolf, too. Why else would he have tried to join the Hounds?”

  Once, thanks to a variety of odd circumstances, I’d been forced to break a bottle of beer over a man’s head. He had looked at me with the same expression of aggrieved surprise as Nathan did, but unlike the other guy, Nathan did not fall forward onto his face. He merely said something in Hebrew in a tone of voice that told me it wasn’t a phrase from the Bible.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “Is everyone in this sodding case a sodding werewolf?”

  “They run in packs, Nathan. They find each other and revert to type. So, yeah, I’d expect the major players in this game to suffer from lycanthropy or be involved with someone who does.”

  I waited for him to answer. He fixed me with the reproachful stare but kept quiet.

  “Okay,” I continued. “We also have Jerry’s evidence about the Chaos lights and the well-dressed guy by the windmill. Jerry was convinced he was a Chaotic.”

  “By saying that he gave him the creeps, you think it was?”

  “Yeah. It certainly suggests Chaos on the move.” Something struck me. “And this may be why the forces of Harmony saddled me with you. It could be that Johnson and company are responsible for the Chaos breaches. My handler thought there had to be a connection, and he may have been right.”

  “Saddled you with me? That’s insulting.”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

  “Oh, very well,” Nathan said. “I suppose I deserve that.”

  “You do, yeah. Now, I want to go talk with the Agency’s other stringer. Annie, her name is. She lives out in the Sunset district, that is, about twenty blocks west of here and then ten or so south. Think that’ll be safe enough?”

  “If I’m with you.”

  “Okay. We’ll take a cab.”

  “No, we won’t. It’s too dangerous. But I’m driving.” He looked as if he were hiding a smile. The secrecy intrigued me enough to keep me from arguing.

  “Will you try to drive like a sane person instead of James Bond?” I said instead.

  “I do not drive like someone in those wretched movies.”

  “No, you’re worse. In the movies they use highly trained stunt drivers.”

  He set his hands on his hips and glared at me.

  “I’ll call Annie and make sure she’s there.” I decided I might as well give in. “It might be one of her Senior Center days.”

  Annie answered the phone and told me to come right over. I relayed the information to Nathan.

  “Good,” he said. “I was hoping she’d be willing to see us right away.”

  “The Agency owes her money, and she needs it.”

  I got my burgundy trench coat and umbrella from the bedroom. I figured that I might as well be well-dressed if I was going to die in a car accident. When I came out, I noticed that Nathan had put on a gray V-neck sweater over his shirt and under a shabby khaki raincoat that looked like old Army issue with all the insignia removed, which, as he admitted when asked, it was.

  He needed that extra layer, too, when we left the apartment. The rain pelted down, unusually heavily for the beginning of March, but then, we’d had an unusual amount of rain already this year. As we walked, I was looking around for the Audi, but I never saw it. Nathan led me around the corner to a squarish black sedan. When I looked in I saw a red, white, and blue light bar on the dashboard and what appeared to be a full radio-phone as well.

  “This is a squad car,” I said.

  “Unmarked, but yes.” He was grinning at me. “Which is why I can’t let you drive it.”

  “Okay, but where did you get it? I can’t believe the cops would just let you have one.”

  “Connections. That’s all.”

  I decided that forcing the issue would be out of line and got myself and my trepidation into the car. The drive over rattled my nerves, but not quite as much as I’d been dreading. Whenever we got into any kind of traffic, Nathan flipped on the car’s siren, and other drivers got out of our way, thus saving themselves as well as us from death or dismemberment.

  Annie lived in a quiet neighborhood where the streets stayed empty all day, which meant we could park without one of Nathan’s tire screeching flourishes. Annie’s studio apartment, if you could call that cheap and illegal rathole a studio, had originally been a garage. Like most garages in the Sunset district, this one stood underneath the square-built Thirties stucco house it belonged to. Similar Art Deco cubical houses, painted in various dull colors, mostly grays and whites, lined both sides of the street. The only color came from the tiny squares of green lawn beside each driveway.

  “Bleak neighborhood,” Nathan said.

  “Very,” I said. “Especially when it’s foggy, and it usually is out here. Today’s rain counts as fog relief.”

  I opened a narrow wooden door that led to an equally narrow concrete walk down the side of the house. Barking greeted us.

  “That’s Duncan,” I told Nathan. “Kathleen gave him to Annie. He does a good job on watch.”

  Annie had seen us coming from her tiny side window. With the fox terrier at her side, she stood in her doorway, a gray-haired woman with thick glasses. She wore faded jeans rolled up around her ankles and a blue sweatshirt so baggy you could have hidden a watermelon under it. A battle with breast cancer had cost her thirty pounds and her life savings.

  “Come in, come in!” she said with a glance at Nathan.

  I introduced her, and we followed her and Duncan inside. First thing, she took my umbrella and put it into the kitchen sink to drip. She kept her one long room as spotless as Aunt Eileen’s house. It reeked of the same cleaning products. At the back end, by the window that looked out into a halfhearted garden, she sat us down at the round oak table and chairs that she’d owned since her better days. We squeezed ourselves in between the table and the tiny refrigerator and stove.

  “Can I offer you some tea?” she said.

  “None for me, thanks,” I said.

  I didn’t want her spending any of her food money on us, and Nathan either didn’t like tea or had caught my mood, because he said no as well. Fortunately the Agency had put plenty of cash into my bank account, thanks to the State Department dumping Nathan onto us. When I handed Annie five twenties, she looked as if she might cry, just for a moment, before she put on a brave little smile.

  “I only invoiced
you for eighty.” She peeled off one of the twenties and held it out.

  “I invoiced the Agency for more on your behalf.” I grinned at her. “Keep it, and I’ve got more work for you.”

  “About those Chaos lights?”

  “You saw them, then.”

  “Yes, I certainly did.” She paused to put the money away in her jeans pocket. “I was trying to clear out some of the weeds in back when they floated over, heading north. They were on the TV news last night, too. Someone driving by took pictures of them with his cell phone. It really is amazing, what you can do with a phone these days.”

  “That’s for sure. Did you pick up anything about them?”

  “They were here because of someone. That’s all.”

  “Jerry told me the same thing.”

  “You know, I had the oddest feeling about Jerry last night.” Annie frowned and looked away. “That he knows something you need, but he doesn’t know you need it, and so, of course, he didn’t tell you.”

  “That could be real important. Thank you. He’s probably up in the stratosphere by now, though. I paid him the money the Agency owed him. You can guess what he did with it.”

  “Oh, yes, his drug problem. It’s really too bad—”

  Annie’s face stiffened into a mask. She half-rose from her chair, propped herself palms down on the table, and stared down the length of the room into the shadows at the far end. I slewed around in my chair but saw nothing but her neatly made daybed and her collection of framed prints and posters.

  “What is it?” I made my voice as soft as I could.

  “Persian white.” Annie sat back down with a little sigh. “Do you know what that means? Some breed of cat, maybe?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s a top grade of heroin.”

  Nathan made a small choking noise of agreement.

  “Well, I think,” Annie said, “that Jerry either just bought some, or found out where to get it, or some such thing. I think that’s what he has to tell you, but I’m not sure.” She turned to Nathan. “I’m sorry to be so vague, but you know how these things work.”

  “I’m beginning to,” he said.

  “You’re new to the Agency?”

  “No, he’s with Interpol,” I broke in. “We’re just assisting.”

  “Interpol? Oh, like that TV show, the one on the BBC channel.” Annie gave him a bright smile. “That’s nice. Well, probably Jerry can tell you a lot more than I can about this sort of thing. Drugs, I mean. It really is too bad that he’s so addicted to cocaine.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but he can’t see it that way. Yet.” I took another twenty out of my jeans and slid it across the table. “I’ll invoice the Agency later, but you might as well have this now.”

  “Well, thank you! ” Annie beamed at the twenty, then tucked it away with the others. “Such a help!”

  Nathan had tactfully looked away during this exchange of cold cash. Annie noticed him studying the framed posters on the wall down at the other end of the room. The lithographs portrayed a woman in a flowing black dress and red turban; she stared out at the viewer with a crazed expression on her face.

  “My grandmother was a vaudeville performer,” Annie said. “She had a very successful mind-reader act. Most of the so-called psychics on the circuit were nothing but tricksters and cheats, of course, but she really could read minds and see into the future and the like. I suppose that’s where I get it from.”

  “Seems reasonable,” Nathan said. “As reasonable as any of this is.”

  “We must be quite a trial for you.” Annie patted his hand in a grandmotherly gesture. “Policemen are usually so rational.” She lifted her hand, smiled, and held up his Interpol ID. “My grandmother knew so many little tricks. Vaudeville must have been so very interesting.”

  Nathan stared at her, started to speak, then merely laughed. He slipped the ID back into his pants pocket. “Must have been,” he said. “I’m just glad you’re on our side.”

  I decided that I might as well try calling Jerry, but he never answered his phone. He was either asleep, with a client, or too loaded to answer. After a good many rings, I did get a tasteful message via an answering service, announcing that Mr. Jerome had left his salon for the day but would return calls during business hours. Annie and I got a good laugh out of this cover story.

  “After all,” she said, “the things he does would curl my hair, certainly!”

  Nathan smiled politely, and we left.

  As we walked back out to the street, I was considering Annie’s flash of insight. I knew only the basics of the drug trade, but even the network news talked about heroin from Afghanistan and how it reached American markets. I waited till we were clear of the house before I said anything to Nathan.

  “Persian white, huh? You think?”

  “I do. It comes through Kurdistan, where Johnson was spotted.”

  Spotted. The word caught my attention and refused to let go. I was standing in an enormous library, miles of pale gray shelves in all directions. In a flurry of white wings the angel came to me and showed me an open book. “Sister Peter Mary,” the angel said. “Heresies.”

  I was sitting in the backseat of the unmarked squad car. Nathan sat next to me with his arm around my shoulders. Rain pounded on the metal roof with the sound of machine guns. When Nathan leaned close to study my face, I caught the faint scent of witch hazel.

  “Why don’t you use a real aftershave?” I said.

  “I suppose that means you’re back,” he said. “Do you remember me putting you into the car?”

  “No, now that you mention it. Why do you look so frightened?”

  “You might have warned me that you go into walking trance states.”

  “I didn’t know I did.”

  Since Nathan’s arm felt heavy and warm, I could assume that he was real, and the angel had been the illusion. The scent of his painful idea of aftershave lotion underscored my conviction. Otherwise, I might have doubted it. I wanted to rest my head on his shoulder and sleep, but he slid over to the open door and got out of the car.

  “Come sit in the front.” He held out his hand.

  I needed his help to change seats. During the ride I fought off the clouds gathering inside my head. If the angels wanted to tell me something, I figured, they could damn well wait till I got home. They must have been assisting, however, because Nathan actually drove in a halfway sane manner, and we got a parking spot right near my apartment—a sure sign of divine intervention.

  Nathan helped me out of the car and held the open umbrella over us both. Once I got my feet on the solid sidewalk, I took a deep breath of wet air and felt my head beginning to clear.

  “How do you know what a walking trance is?” I asked him.

  “It’s something I learned in my miserable childhood. Here’s the door to your apartment building. Mind the step up.”

  “I’m okay now, thanks.”

  I shook myself free of his arm, an ungrateful action in a way, but I was determined to stay unmelted. Getting inside my own space made me feel almost normal again. I hung up my wet coat on the shower rail and dumped the umbrella into the bathtub. The effort of returning to the living room made me flop ungracefully onto the couch. I realized too late that I’d left myself open to his sitting next to me. He took off his raincoat and tossed it over the back of the computer chair.

  “You need something to eat,” he said.

  “I don’t think I could keep it down.”

  “If you don’t eat, you’re going to keep slipping into trance.”

  “How do you know—oh, right, the spiritual retro kibbutz.”

  He looked at me and smiled. “I should have known your agency would do a workup on me.”

  “Of course. Yours probably did one on me.”

  “It didn’t find much.”

  “Neither did mine. What happened to that kibbutz, by the way? Is it still there?”

  “No. A year after my father and I left, Reb Ezekiel had a heart attack in
a whorehouse and died in the embrace of impurity. The remaining faithful lost their faith and fled.”

  “I can see why.”

  “There’s no doubt, though, that odd things happened under his regime.” He let his voice trail away for a moment, then shook himself. “So, yes, I know what fasting can do to someone.”

  “Okay, I’ll eat. Just for you.”

  Since I’d left the heat on, the apartment was hot. He pulled his sweater over his head and tossed it onto the coffee table before he trotted into the kitchen and began bustling around. I rested my head on the back of the couch and considered my vision. The gray library, I realized, probably stood for my brain, and the angel symbol had been pointing out something that I knew or had known at one time and forgotten. Heresies: Asia Minor, and the entire Mediterranean world, for that matter, had spawned a hell of a lot of them. Sister Peter Mary had confined her lessons to a few of the important “enemies of the true faith,” as she’d called them. Arians, Nestorians, the iota controversy, Gnostics—empty words, jumbled together, rose in answer to the call of memory. One term, however—Gnostics—did ring in my mind as a subject that I’d once found interesting.

  Nathan reappeared with a cheese sandwich, made with green lettuce and a lot of mayonnaise, and a mug of cold coffee, heavily spiked with milk. I’d never been waited on by a guy wearing a gun before. It had a certain charm.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate this.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He handed me the plate and mug, then disappeared into the kitchen again. He reemerged a moment later with a plate of his own, then sat down next to me.

  “Good sandwich,” I mumbled, then swallowed before I went on. “I’m surprised you know how to make one.”

  “Why? I live alone. The bachelor’s best friend, sandwiches. Usually I stuff things into pita bread, but English style will do.”

  “Yeah. I’m a lousy cook myself.”

  For some minutes we ate in silence. I tried to figure out why the word “spotted” had seemed so important, what it might signify in conjunction with heresies. I dimly remembered a college history lecture about a cult where leopards loomed large, drawing a chariot of some kind. Dionysus, yes, but something even older. They had some kind of peculiar ritual—