Water To Burn Part 1

Water to Burn.

by Katharine Kerr.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Many thanks to Howard Dunstan, Kate Elliott, JD Gla.s.s, Jo Kasper, Madeleine Robins, Karen Williams, and Cliff Winnig for sage advice during the writing of this book. And a special thanks to Rebecca Caccavo for her research into the arcane matter of Bay Area teenage slang.

CHAPTER 1.

I KNEW THAT SOMETHING WAS WRONG with that fog the minute I saw it. When you live in western San Francisco, as I have for many years, you come to know fog in all its aspects-the chilly blankets of late summer, the soft-focus mists of autumn, the near-rains of winter, the delicate wisps of spring-but none of them have faces. This one did. A dark gray face, about three feet high, pressed against my kitchen window and stared at me while I drank my breakfast coffee.

"What do you want?" I said to it, as politely as I could manage. "Got something to tell me?"

It shook its huge head no, then mouthed a word.

"Help?" I said. "You need help?"

It nodded yes, then pulled back. I got up from the table and took a long look out of the window at the ground, three stories below my apartment. Fog hung low over the rooftops of the local shops and the Persian restaurant across the street. Long tendrils of gray damp swayed in the wind and wrapped themselves around the electric cables above the streetcar tracks like ocean kelp on a slow tide.

Fog Face kept drifting back and forth outside. Yet no one walking by or waiting at the streetcar stop seemed to notice anything unusual, even though a sudden flood of water lapped around the concrete island out in the middle of the street. One of my IOIs again, I figured. That's slang for "Image Objectification of Insight," where a psychic like me sees intuitions or flashes of data as literal things or events outside of herself.

It pays, however, to treat them as real, because sometimes they are.

"Look," I said, "I'll be glad to help, but I don't know what you need."

I heard the sound of waves, breaking on a sh.o.r.e, a rocky sh.o.r.e or a graveled beach, because the sound rumbled and chattered. It turned into the noise of the N Judah streetcar, screeching to a halt at the pa.s.senger island, which had become dry again. For a moment more Fog Face looked up at me. It frayed out into normal fog and disappeared.

I'd gotten an answer, even though I had no idea of what it meant. Most people a.s.sume that when you're a psychic investigator, information and messages bombard your mind with no effort on your part. Once in a great while they do, but you've still got to interpret the ambiguities. Ambiguities always abound.

I picked up my coffee mug and sat back down to think. The message pointed to the ocean, possibly as a source of the Chaos eruption I was tracking. That's my job, tracking down outbreaks of Chaos into the normal world and then dealing with them.

My name is Nola O'Grady. I won't name the government agency I work for; it's so secret that even the CIA doesn't know it exists, and a good thing, too, because they'd probably try to snag some of our funding. Only two outsiders have access to the Agency, and they both work for a top-secret office inside the State Department. Technically I was the head of the new San Francis...o...b..reau, the Apocalypse Squad. My staff at that time consisted of two stringers and a bodyguard, nothing, in short, to pump up anyone's ego, especially since the bodyguard was probably spying for the Israeli government on the side.

"Nola?" Ari Nathan, the bodyguard c.u.m spy in question, stood in the kitchen doorway. "Who were you talking to?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "It only had a face, no body." I considered its silent plea for help. "I don't think it was a Chaos creature, but I'm not sure."

"What are those things you throw at your apparitions?"

"Wards, you mean? The face was outside. You can't throw a ward through gla.s.s."

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 relations.h.i.+p 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 a.s.suming 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 a.s.sume there isn't any."

"What else am I supposed to a.s.sume?"

"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 ant.i.terrorism 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 wh.o.r.ehouse, 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 citizens.h.i.+p 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 doppelganger?"

"From one of those deviant world levels? That's my current a.s.sumption. 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 a.s.signment."

"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 Peac.o.c.k 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 G.o.ddesses 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 G.o.ddess, y'know?"