Michael shrugged again and fished in his jeans pockets. He brought out the nails he’d taken from the door and began sliding them back into the board. It took him several minutes to line the board and the nails up with the holes in the door, but eventually everything looked just like Uncle Jim had left it.
“The prospect of a long slow death from radiation poisoning may not mean much to you.” I took up my cheery little theme again. “But it’s not exactly a cool way to go.”
“Yeah.”
“Mike—”
“Just shut up!” he snapped, then softened his voice. “You’re right, okay? I just don’t like thinking about it, what’s going to happen to all of them.” He turned around to look at me, and I could see tears in his eyes. “They’ll be dead before they’re thirty. If the cops don’t get them, the rads will.”
“I should have thought of that. I’m sorry.”
“Well, maybe some of them will be okay. Some people do live a long time even with all the rads, like the old guy who owns the house. But no one knows why.”
“Look, I’m real sorry I mouthed off.”
“It’s okay.” He sighed and took the padlock out of his shirt pocket. “It’s thinking about Lisa that really bums me out.”
“I kind of wondered if that was the case.”
He shrugged. I waited. He slipped the padlock back onto the staple, then closed it with a click.
“The Lisa here, you know?” Michael said at last. “I don’t think I can see her again.”
“She broke up with you already?”
“No, not what I meant. I don’t think I can stand to see her again. I just don’t know how to tell her.” He turned around and looked at me with eyes full of real distress. “Hey, there’s this other girl just like you, Lisa, but she’s a cheap whore in another world, and she’s gonna get real sick, too, one of these days, and here you are, okay and everything, but I can’t look at you without seeing her, too. That’s not going to go over real well.”
“No, it isn’t.” I thought hard, but nothing came to me. “I don’t know what to suggest, Mike, except to play for a little time. You were beaten up pretty bad. Tell her you’re still kind of concussed, and you have to stay home and rest, doctor’s orders, and then see what you feel like later.”
“Okay. I’m beginning to see what you and Pat meant, when you talked about how fucking hard it is to be an O’Grady. I just didn’t see it before.”
“We all learn, and it’s always lousy.”
Michael said nothing more while we went outside. We got into the truck so he could drive me home, but rather than starting it, he leaned back in the seat and rested his hands on the steering wheel.
“Ah, hell,” he said finally. “At least I got them some cool stuff. Thanks, Nola. I’ll pay you back. Uncle Jim told me last night that he’ll pay me for yard work. He wants to build some new back steps.”
“Well, you don’t have to.”
“I want to.” He managed a smile. “I don’t want Inspector Nathan thinking I’m sponging off his girlfriend.”
“He wouldn’t approve of that, no.”
If he ever finds out, I thought. If either of us ever see him again. Fat chance of that.
I was trying to reconcile myself to Ari being gone forever, but every time I logged on to my regular e-mail, I scanned down the list, dreading to see his final good-bye. I did get a second letter a couple of days later, announcing that Interpol had cleared him of any wrongdoing in his use of deadly force. He ended that one mysteriously, “further developments to come.” I assumed he meant the news that our affair was dead and gone. As the days passed and I received no dismissal, I could put some distance between us in my mind. After all, I’d only known the man for a couple of weeks. He couldn’t matter that much to me.
I had a lot of work to keep me busy, reports to file about the Silver Bullet Affair, research into the Peacock Angel cult, further discussions with Y about Michael and his talents, and the problem of the Houlihan house. Whether Washington would want to seal that gate, I couldn’t say, though Aunt Eileen worried about it daily. I could see why, of course, even beyond the rational reasons against having a radioactive back door. Now that I’d gotten a good look at it, I sensed a real peculiarity about that deviant world level. Nothing about it added up in my mind. Yet the thought of asking Mike to take me there for a good look around made my stomach twist.
I took refuge in my other work. I also went back to Morrison Marketing one last time to clear out my personal belongings. The Agency was shutting that cover story down. I returned to Chaos watch and regular dice walks, too, while I tried to decide if I should ask for a transfer out of San Francisco. It would depend on whether my family would be safer with me there or elsewhere. Certainly my sister Kathleen expected me to stay. We had lunch one day, and she mentioned that she was giving a party soon that she wanted me to attend. Aunt Eileen had no qualms about letting me know that she wanted to keep me in San Francisco.
“Michael needs you,” she told me one night on the phone. “It’s very nice of your agency to take an interest in him, and heaven knows the scholarship money will help with his college, but he needs a member of his family here with him. Sean can’t help much.”
“He needs help himself.”
“It’s not easy, being an O’Grady.”
“Yeah. I should know.”
“Well, that’s very true, of course. Anyway, Michael probably won’t ask outright, but he really wants you to stay.”
That sealed the deal. “Okay, I’ll put in for a permanent assignment tonight over the Internet. It’s not a hundred percent certain that I’ll get it. Most likely I will, but you never know what Washington will decide. I’ll contact my handler tomorrow.”
When I linked up with Y in the trance state, he had a surprise of his own for me. It’s a good thing I recognize the touch of his mind, or I’d have been convinced that he was an impostor. Instead of a blue-eyed blond, his image appeared Japanese-American, with thick but heavily gray hair and glasses. In his youth, though, he must have been good-looking, and he still had a distinguished air.
“Wow,” I said, “this is quite a change!”
“Yes,” Y said, “I thought over what you said about appearances. It was time I showed you the truth. There really was no reason for me to look like Tab Hunter.”
“Who?”
“A Fifties movie star. His career was over before you were born. Now, about this assignment request, I take it you want to stay close to your family.”
“Yeah, that’s part of the motivation.”
“Well, it won’t be a problem. I have news for you, good news, I hope. The Agency’s decided to establish a San Francisco bureau.” He rolled his eyes. “The higher-ups are calling it the Apocalypse Squad.”
“Say what? Why?”
“The big boss thinks it’s funny. Why else?”
“I thought maybe someone had a vision.”
“No, nothing so sensible. At any rate, I’ll start the paperwork for your new assignment and send it to you via TranceWeb. You’re getting an offer to head up the new bureau. Don’t be too flattered, though. No one else particularly wants the job.”
I laughed. “I can see why,” I said. “Does this mean a raise?”
“Yes, and a better expense account. I’ll send you the details.”
The details arrived that night at my home computer. I looked them over while I ate a couple of cold-storage apples for dinner. The new salary, if everything went through, would allow me to move out of Mrs. Z’s and find a decent apartment. Best of all, I’d be in charge with no supervisor to make my life miserable, though of course I’d continue to report to Y. I finalized my end of the agreement and sent it off right away, then called Aunt Eileen to share the good news.
“That’s wonderful!” she said. “I’m so happy for you, as well as being glad you’re staying. A promotion’s always nice.”
“Yeah, it sure is.”
“Did your employer say anyt
hing more about the gate in the house? Closing it, I mean. It really is rather worrisome.”
“He didn’t, no, but I’ll keep after him. I’m still wondering why it’s there at all. I don’t suppose Uncle Jim remembers anything about his mother opening it up or doing something that might have started it? Kind of as a back door to her lair.”
“Lair is a good word for it.” Eileen paused for a sigh. “We’ve talked about it, but no, we’re both as baffled as you are. She did get awfully strange by the end, though.”
“Well, we may never know.” Yet I knew a thought was struggling to rise into consciousness. You do know. Think, O’Grady! Think!
The thought stayed hidden.
I stayed up late that night collating my notes on the deviant levels of the multiverse. We knew of one level that we could access. Could we find more? Did we want to? I had a feeling that the level we lived on presented enough trouble for the Agency without adding others, but I had no idea what the higher-ups would decide. I went to bed around two in the morning. As I was drifting off, I decided I’d sleep in.
At six in the morning, my phone chimed. I grabbed it from the nightstand and opened the connection while I yawned.
“Hello, Nola?” Ari’s voice. “Did I wake you?”
Here it comes, I thought, the brisk good-bye. “Yeah,” I said. “Good morning.”
“I was afraid of that, but I’m at the airport.”
The words refused to make sense. “Say what?” I said.
“I’m at the airport, SFO. I’m waiting to get passed through customs by the security people. Will you come pick me up, or should I just rent a car?”
He’d come back to me. Maybe time stopped, maybe it didn’t, but I stared at the phone until the universe started moving again.
“I’ll pick you up,” I said. “I want to see you again, not just identify your body in the morgue.”
He chuckled, as close as Ari usually came to an actual laugh. “Take the underground down, and we’ll rent a car here.”
“Okay, but it better be one I can drive, not you. Where will you be?”
“Waiting for you at the underground station, assuming I’m through security by the time you get here. If I’m not there, wait for me.”
He hung up, leaving me wide awake. If I hadn’t still been holding my cell phone, I would have thought I’d dreamed the entire conversation. During the long ride down to the airport, I replayed it in my head with a running refrain of my own. He came back. And here I hadn’t had a single premonition.
I got off the BART train and confirmed the reality. Rumpled from the long flight, unshaven, smelly, and just as gorgeous as I remembered him, Ari was waiting for me next to a huge mound of luggage. I tried to play it cool, but something gave way inside, and I ran to him. He threw his arms around me, pulled me close, and kissed me. Several times, in fact.
“Glad to see me?” he said at last.
“Hell, yeah,” I said. “What is this, your vacation?”
“Didn’t they tell you?” He let me go and stepped back. “About the new bureau?”
The pieces fell into place. “Yeah,” I said when I could breathe again. “The Agency just didn’t tell me you were part of it.”
“I’m on an indefinite assignment via Interpol. I’m going to be your liaison with the local police. And your bodyguard.”
“Indefinite, huh?”
“Well, my lot saw their chance to get me out of their sight, I think. I suppose I may have stepped on a few toes over the years.”
“You? Really?”
Ari started to answer, then forced out a smile. “You’re having a joke on me.”
“Yeah, ’fraid so. Did you try to turn the assignment down?”
“Why would I have done that? Someone has to keep you from starving to death.” He paused, glancing around us at the crowd of passengers, and dropped his voice. “I can’t say much more here. But there are other reasons they sent me over.”
“Let’s go home, then, and you can tell me there.”
“Over dinner. After I make sure you’re hungry enough for a proper meal.”
“Then maybe we should stop at the store on the way back. My apartment doesn’t have room service, and who knows, it could be late by the time I work up an appetite.”
“It could be.” He grinned at me. “Let’s go get that rental car. And this time, you can be on the insurance.”
AGENCY TALENTS AND ACRONYMS
ASTA Automatic Survival Threat Awareness
CDEP Chaos Diagnostic 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
SAF Scanning the aura field
SM Search Mode
SM: G Search Mode: General
SM: P Search mode: Personnel
SAWM Semi-Automatic Warning Mechanism
SH Shield Persona
SPPP Subliminal Psychological Profile
UPC Unexplained Personnel Capabilities (occult powers)
Also available from DAW Books:
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)
Katharine Kerr, License to Ensorcell
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