Part 1 (1/2)

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?”