License to Ensorcell

by Katharine Kerr

  “Well, eventually you’ll have to, but tonight, yeah, I can cut you some slack.” I heard footsteps and turned around to see Ari with the milk in one hand and a box of crackers in the other. “Have you called Sanchez?”

  “Not yet.” He handed the glass to Mike and the crackers to me. “Michael, for now you have amnesia. I think that’s the best line to take with the police. You simply cannot remember anything much after you were hit on the head. That bruise looks quite convincing.”

  “I was hit on the head,” Michael said. “But that was later.”

  “Brilliant! The police will want to know more, but we’ll figure out something to tell them.”

  “Thanks.” Michael drank half the milk in the glass straight off. “Okay, someone hit me on the head. I don’t remember anything much. Got it.” He finished the milk in one long glug and reached for the crackers. I handed them over. “Can I have some more milk?”

  Ari took the glass and left to refill it.

  “That’s your boyfriend, huh?” Michael said. “Isn’t his name Morrison?”

  “No, it’s Ari Nathan, and he’s a cop from Interpol. Know what that is?”

  “Yeah. You know what the worst thing was?”

  “What?”

  “There weren’t any of us there. I mean, no O’Gradys, no O’Briens, no Houlihans. I looked us up in a phone book. There were phones there, but it was weird. They were all landlines.” He paused to stuff his mouth with crackers.

  “But you found this house okay.”

  “Yeah.” The salty crackers made him mumble. “It looks different on the outside, though.”

  “Here’s Ari with more milk. We can talk about all this later.”

  The Chaos critter was trotting after Ari like a pet dog. Michael grinned and held out a couple of crackers. The creature snatched them and crunched.

  “Thanks,” Michael said to it. “Good—well, boy or girl, I dunno.”

  Ari was watching the crackers disappear into what must have looked like thin air to him. A few bits fell onto the carpet. The creature picked them up with the tip of a green tongue, then slowly vanished.

  After dinner, Uncle Jim headed off to bowling, and Aunt Eileen called my mother. When Ari and I left, Michael was feeling well enough to take a shower and change his clothes, a good thing, since we all knew that Mother would make some unnecessary remark about the dirt.

  After we got into the car, Ari turned in his seat to look at me, or toward me, since it was getting dark by then.

  “You’re sure,” he said, “that Michael wasn’t just hiding near the house somewhere?”

  “Very sure,” I said. “I know it must all seem impossible to you.”

  “It does. I keep reminding myself that you said Johnson would be in the museum, and he was. And there’s the windmill incident, where you were right again. I’m sorry, but this is all difficult for me.”

  “I know that. Not a problem.”

  Ari put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it. He looked at me again.

  “It’s just such an odd coincidence,” he said, “one of those gates being here.”

  “Isn’t it? I’m having trouble with that myself. There has to be a reason, besides, I mean, us being O’Briens and O’Gradys. Something keeps nagging at me. I should know why, the nag says. It must have something to do with Nanny Houlihan. It was her house before it was Uncle Jim’s.”

  “Can you find out more?”

  “I’m going to try. When Michael’s back to normal, and she’s not so distracted, maybe Aunt Eileen will remember something about her mother-in-law that will explain it.”

  “That will do to get on with, then.” Ari started the car.

  In the soft dark of early evening, Ari drove back to the apartment without causing an accident or giving me an ulcer. We crept up the stairs and managed to avoid Mrs. Z, an omen that life had taken a turn for the better.

  “There’s still no glass in the window,” Ari remarked as we walked in. “Just that sodding plywood. You need a better apartment.”

  “I need a raise first,” I said. “Rents are high around here.”

  “Well, you may not be living in this city much longer.” He grinned at me. “You’d find Tel Aviv interesting, I think, if you wanted to take a look at it. For a visit, a holiday, say.”

  I just smiled in answer. Yeah, sure, I thought. Just wait till you get home and start to think about things.

  “I’ve got a report I have to file,” I said. “The Agency will want to know that Michael’s back.”

  “So will the police. I’ll call Sanchez. They’ll want to talk with Michael tomorrow, but I’ll go with him.”

  “Will you?” I felt like I could cry out of sheer gratitude. “Thanks, Ari. I really appreciate it.”

  “Don’t worry. If they try to get rough with the boy, I’ll be right there.”

  And Sanchez will know it, too, I thought. Good.

  After he finished the call, Ari settled himself on the couch and flipped on the TV. I sat down at my computer, but when I heard Vic Yee’s voice, I swiveled around to listen to his story.

  “A reliable source in the city attorney’s office,” Yee was saying, “has assured me that the city is going to fight the Army’s attempt to confiscate the Portals of the Past. As a first step, they’ve arranged a judicial hearing tomorrow on the question of whether or not the Army must file an environmental impact report for the project. The hearing’s likely result is that the Army officials will have to comply, resulting in a delay of some months if nothing else.”

  I laughed, but Ari looked utterly puzzled.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “I’m not used to seeing a military forced into compliance with local regulations.”

  “That’s too bad. Life’s saner that way.”

  I was waiting for him to ask if I was joking, but instead he gave me a dirty look and picked up the remote again. He began channel surfing with the sound off for soccer games. I got to work at the computer.

  I found it much easier to write about Michael’s return than the ensorcellment report of the morning. Still, I took a lot of care with the phrasing, since it did involve my brother. I was beginning to regret returning to San Francisco. I realized that as long as I lived in town, my family was going to get itself involved in my work, something I’d never wanted to happen. Yet at the same time, I hated the thought of leaving them again.

  I finished the report, sent it off, and wrote NumbersGrrl a quick update on the situation along with my heartfelt thanks for all her help. Finally, even though it was late by then, I checked my personnel file. Much to my relief, the ensorcellment report had been accepted and marked “JUSTIFIED USE.” I could thank Y for the speedy turnaround, I figured. I logged off in a better frame of mind than I’d been in for days.

  I swiveled around on the computer chair. “You can turn up the sound,” I said, “I’m done.”

  “It’s all right,” Ari said. “All the football matches are in Spanish, anyway.” He clicked off the set and tossed the remote onto the coffee table. “I can think of better ways to spend the evening.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” He imitated my accent. “Come sit down, and I’ll show you.”

  So I did, and so did he.

  CHAPTER 14

  ABOUT MIDMORNING Dan drove Michael over to my apartment. Lucky Dan O’Grady, they called him in the Army, because he always knew if the enemy had laid an ambush or where the terrain could turn into a death trap for his men, like magic, they said, but of course, it’s genetics, not magic. For an O’Grady he’s tall, just a little over six feet, with the dark blue eyes and straight black hair of our clan, though he wore it in a buzz cut. The sight of gray hair at his temples shocked me. He’d just turned thirty-two, but he’d been through several years of hell in Afghanistan and Iraq since I’d last seen him.

  Aunt Eileen had cut Michael’s hair short, too, for the occasion, not in a crew cut, but to a respectable part at the side and c
omb over length, well above the collar. He’d put on a pair of slacks and a navy blue pullover sweater over a white shirt. Dan himself was wearing civvies for his leave, a pair of gray slacks, a rumpled blue shirt, both a little big for him, with an all-wrong white belt. He always looked uncomfortable out of uniform.

  “Hey, bro,” I said to Michael. “You’re the very picture of teenage respectability. That’s good styling for the cops.”

  Michael shrugged and continued looking around the living room as if my collection of junk actually interested him. Although the bruise on his face had turned to a bluish shade of purple, with the shorter hair it stood out even more.

  “Nervous?” Ari asked him.

  “Yeah,” Michael said and stared at the rug.

  I introduced Dan and Ari to each other, then watched as they shook hands and sized each other up, both barely smiling, both pairs of eyes distant. Two of a kind, I thought. After a couple of minutes they seemed to realize it, too, and lapsed into affability.

  “I hear you’ve been in the Middle East,” Ari said.

  “Yeah, taking a good look around your home turf,” Dan said. “You know, Mike here’s been telling me about the portal he went through. I’ve seen things like that in the ruins all over Iraq and Turkey, free-standing pillars capped by a lintel. They all look worse for wear.”

  Ari’s expression twitched, then smoothed into the tiger’s smile. “Yes,” he said. “There certainly are a good many of them, aren’t there? In North Africa as well.”

  And in Kurdistan, I thought. Light dawned inside my own brain. No wonder Johnson and Doyle could travel so easily without being traced. If even a fraction of those ruined marble pillars had been altered by fires—and from what I knew of ancient history, a lot of the now-shattered cities in question had burned—our unlovely pair had had a virtual freeway at their disposal. When I glanced at Michael, I saw his eyes flare with sudden curiosity.

  “Ruined cities?” Michael said.

  “You bet,” Dan said. “Most of them died a couple of thousand years ago. So far we’ve avoided adding to the list, but we’ve come close in this last unpleasantness.”

  “Unpleasant—” Michael began, then grinned. “You mean the war.”

  “Yeah,” Dan said. “Unfortunately.”

  Michael’s grin disappeared. As he stood there between Ari and Dan, I suddenly saw what he’d become one day, a man like them, tough and capable of violence, but smart as well. His talent would make him fundamentally an outsider, touched by strange things and fascinated by them.

  Ari glanced at his watch. “Almost time for the appointment.”

  “Do you want me to go with you, too?” Dan asked Michael. “It’ll go smoother if it’s just you and Inspector Nathan.”

  “That’ll be okay then,” Michael said. “You don’t have to come.” He hesitated. “But you’ll be here when we get back?”

  “You bet,” Dan said. “Remember, though, I promised Mom I’d have dinner with her, so I’ll have to head over to her place.” He glanced my way. “Could you guys take him back to Aunt Eileen’s?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Not a problem.”

  I walked with Ari and Michael to the door. As they left, clattering down the stairs to the street outside, I could hear Michael asking Ari about the ruins in the Middle East. His life’s work had just opened like the first page of a book. I shut the door and locked it, then turned back to find Dan settling himself at one end of the couch.

  “Coffee?” he said. “Or that poisonous brew you call coffee.”

  “Always,” I said. “I made a pot before you got here.”

  I got us both coffee and sat down at the other end of the couch. Dan sipped his and smiled in approval.

  “Good and strong,” he said.

  “Thanks. How long will you be in town?”

  “A couple more days. I got this leave because of Mike, but I’m also supposed to be thinking about OCS.” He paused for another sip. “They want to kick me upstairs, but I dunno. I like being where I am.”

  A master sergeant, he was at that moment. “It’s the responsibility of being an officer, isn’t it?” I said. “That you don’t want. For the decisions that could get someone killed, I mean.”

  Briefly he looked murderous, then laughed. “You always have my number, don’t you? My kid sister with the X-ray vision.”

  I smiled.

  “Mom came by Aunt Eileen’s last night.” Dan changed the subject to my own bête noire. “No one blew your cover.”

  “Thank God for that. I just hope I don’t run into her on the street somewhere.”

  “San Francisco’s small enough so you could. Do you think you’ll ever end the feud?”

  “I already have. You can’t have a war if one party won’t fight.”

  “Yeah, that’s true, but I bet she won’t drop it. That’s just the way she is. She’s pissed as hell that I’m staying at the Houlihans’, even though they have the room and she doesn’t.”

  “That’s like her. While she was in the house, were there any phenomena?”

  “Oh, Jesus!” Dan rolled his eyes heavenward. “Cracks, bangs, booms all over the house. You’d think we were launching fireworks from the roof. A vase shattered in the living room. Poor Al’s T-shirt ripped up the back. She could only stay a hour, thank God, and it all stopped when she left.”

  “If she’d only admit she’s got talents—”

  “A cold day in hell when that happens.”

  “Yeah. Unfortunately.”

  We observed a moment of silence in honor of my mother’s stubbornness.

  “Uncle Jim told me,” Dan said eventually, “that Nathan shot the guy who murdered Pat.”

  “He sure did.”

  “Good.” Dan’s expression turned solemn. “It’s a crappy thing for me to say, maybe, but good.”

  “I’ll admit to having thoughts that way myself, but I’d have preferred to see him get a fair trial.”

  “Yeah?” Dan shrugged. “Vermin are vermin. Why waste the money?”

  We could have argued that one for hours. We’d done so before. Instead, I said, “Did Kathleen and Jack come over to Aunt Eileen’s last night?”

  “No, they’ll be there tomorrow.” He looked relieved at the change of subject. “I don’t know about Maureen and the kids. They live too far away for a quick visit.”

  For hours, that day, we talked family gossip, Dan as eagerly as I. He’d gone into the Army at eighteen to get away from the role my mother had tried to impose on him, a sort of substitute father after Dad’s disappearance. He’d been far too young to fulfill it, but over the years he’d drifted into that role, no matter how far away the Army took him.

  Ari and Michael returned around five o’clock, just as Dan was getting ready to call Mother and tell her he’d be late. Mike flopped onto the couch, but the rest of us stood around in the middle of the room. Although Michael looked exhausted from the questioning, they had good news. Since Mike had bruises on his chest and shoulders, beyond the one on his face, Sanchez was willing to believe that he’d been mugged badly enough to spend his lost days in an amnesiac panic.

  “Or at least,” Ari told us, “he was willing to appear to have believed the boy.”

  “I don’t think I get that,” I said.

  “Because of the Army team,” Ari said. “Where did Michael disappear? At the portal. What does this Army team want from the city?”

  “The portal.” I smiled. “Okay, now I get it. Top secret stuff going on, and Sanchez figures he’ll just keep his nose clean and out of it.”

  “Exactly. It worked out very well.”

  “Sounds like it.” Dan glanced Michael’s way. “So we don’t need to get you a lawyer?”

  “No,” Michael said. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Good. I’ve got to go, Mike. I promised Mom we’d have dinner out somewhere. But I’ll see you later.” Dan strode to the door, then hesitated and turned back. “Say, Nathan. What about you and me and Mike go to
a basketball game tomorrow night? The Warriors are home over in the Coliseum.”

  Michael sat up straight and beamed.

  “Sounds good,” Ari looked my way. “If you don’t mind?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “But can we take Brian, too?” Michael said.

  “Definitely Brian, too.” Dan grinned at him. “Good call.”

  The boys’ night out turned out to be a great success, or so both Ari and Michael told me later. I only wished Dan could have stayed in town longer, but with Michael found, his first duty lay with his unit back in Iraq. Before Uncle Jim drove him down to the airport, they stopped at my place so I could say good-bye.

  “Think about OCS, will you?” I said. “Military intelligence could use an O’Grady.”

  Dan blinked in surprise. “That never occurred to me,” he said. “Okay, I’ll think about it.” Then he grinned. “You and your X-ray vision!”

  Over the next few days, while we waited for Interpol and Ari’s agency to decide what to do about Johnson’s death, we spent as much time as possible with Michael. In bits and pieces he told me or tried to tell me, at least, what had happened to him. When I explained the concepts of the multiverse and its levels, he grasped the math and physics side of it better than I ever had. The social issues involved, however, baffled him.

  “You know, at first I thought I’d ended up in the past,” he told me, “but the dates all matched ours whenever I saw a calendar. They had paper calendars in windows and stuff. Weird.”

  “It was pretty low tech, huh?” I said.

  “Yeah, because of some kind of war. Back when was that?” He frowned out at the air. “Someone told me. The 1930s, I guess. San Francisco never got bombed, but the radiation killed a whole lot of people.”

  “Wait a minute! Nuclear weapons in the 1930s?”

  “Yeah, the Germans had them.”

  “Thank God we don’t live there!”

  “You bet! But the Germans lost anyway, and we bombed the Russians under—” He paused for a moment. “Under President Patton, yeah. That was his name.”