Part 35 (1/2)

”Sorry,” Enderby said. ”In your present condition you're unsanitary. I'm not letting you near her.”

There was a silence that could be described as strained. I suspected that the eye contact between them was less than pleasant. I was betting on Ari, but the impossible happened.

”Oh, all right!” Ari snapped. He appeared in the doorway and blew me a kiss. ”I'm going to go home and clean up. I'll come back in a few hours.”

”Get some sleep first,” Enderby said. ”And a good breakfast.”

Ari muttered something in Hebrew and left. I heard him stalking off down the hall. Father Keith slipped back into the room before Enderby could send him away, too, though he was doubtless clean enough to pa.s.s muster.

”I'm wondering if we should tell your mother,” he said.

”No.” My blood pressure raised itself a couple of points. ”I'm not going to die, so she doesn't need to know.”

”Is that the only condition you'd see her under?”

”Yeah, but don't tell her that. She might arrange it.”

He opened his mouth as if to argue, then merely sighed.

Father Keith left when Aunt Eileen arrived a few minutes later. Came down a second time, she told me-she'd been there the night before, but of course I hadn't known it. When Enderby brought me a high-calorie breakfast on a tray, Aunt Eileen helped me eat it. My fingers showed an alarming tendency to drop forks and spoons.

”I'm very glad they'll be doing more tests, dear,” Aunt Eileen said. ”And you really do need to rest. Either Keith or I will be here on guard, so you won't need to worry.”

”On guard?” I said. ”What happened when I was out?”

”An invisible fiend tried to come into the room. Fortunately, I had the rosary from the Holy Land with me, and I chased it away.”

She said all this in the calm, everyday sort of voice that she would have used to tell me that she'd dropped a tissue but picked it up again. I stared. Goggled at her would be more like it.

”Well, I don't know what else to call it,” Aunt Eileen said.

”Uh, that's fine, yeah. Invisible fiend, huh?” I leaned back against the pillows. Belial, probably. ”Maybe I do need to have those tests done. The Agency will pick up the tab, after all.”

”You're going to need your strength.”

”Yeah. My thought exactly.”

At that point I realized Nurse Enderby was standing in the doorway. ”Invisible fiends,” she said, in a matter-of-fact voice that matched Aunt Eileen's, ”are not allowed to mess with my patients in my ICU. Don't worry about it.”

If she could make Ari do something he didn't want to do, I figured that she'd have no trouble with fiends, invisible or not.

”Okay,” I said. ”I won't.”

She gave me a smile-an oddly impish smile considering her strength of character-and left. The meaning of her acronym hit me. I was in the Intensive Care Unit. Intensive Care generally meant ”you could die,” as far as I understood the label.

”We were all so worried,” Aunt Eileen said. ”You do look much better today.”

”Good. You know, I was kind of worried, too.”

During the rest of that boring day, filled with tests that mostly involved making me uncomfortable with various machines or drawing blood the old-fas.h.i.+oned way, Belial never dropped by. I had plenty of time to think over our battle. I made a few notes about the encounter on a pad of pink notepaper that Aunt Eileen found in the gift shop. Each sheet had a cartoon kitty printed on one corner, but it was better than nothing.

The first note I made concerned Reb Ezekiel. When he'd talked about the flying saucer people getting him wet and chilled, he must have meant a similar attack to the one on me. The flying saucer people most likely meant Brother Belial, I figured, but the water and chills had been real enough. Either the rebbe had fought him off before Belial could drain enough Qi to put him in a coma, or something had interrupted our murderous little friend's attack. I was betting on the interruption, but I'd probably never know which.

The how of these attacks baffled me until I remembered Michael's critter, Or-Something, picking up its liquid mess and dumping it onto another deviant level. I was willing to bet that Belial had a similar talent, strong enough in his case to transfer seawater by the gallon. I wondered if the skill Belial shared with Or-Something meant they came from the same world. Small details added up to indicate that his species lived underwater: the single ”leg,” the tentacles, his skill with aquatic Qi, his need of a psychic mechanism to interact with creatures of the air, the Cryptic Creep's remark about calamari. Belial's ability to drain Qi, however, was a common Chaos weapon. So was Caleb's ensorcellment attempt.

One other detail came clear in my mind. I remembered the strange chilly premonitions I'd had when we went to see Reb Zeke in San Francisco General. They'd been warning me that I could end up in the hospital myself if I met the same being who had sickened Reb Ezekiel.

Toward the end of the afternoon, Ari brought me my Agency laptop in its canvas tote to replace the kitty notepaper. He was wearing the pinstriped suit and a clean white s.h.i.+rt. Aunt Eileen tactfully excused herself to go find the coffee shop. Ari leaned over the bed rail and kissed me. He was s.h.i.+ny clean and smelled only of witch hazel.

”Thanks so much for this.” I patted the laptop. ”I see you're going to consult with the Pacifica police.”

”Yes,” he said. ”How did you know?”

”What you're wearing. No psychic powers involved.”

Ari smiled. ”I'll be meeting Jack Donovan and his lawyer there. He's going to press charges.”

”Wonderful! That means they can issue a warrant for Caleb, right?”

”A second warrant, actually. He's a convicted felon, and he has a gun in his possession. That's illegal even in gunmad America. They've already put out an all points bulletin on him.”

”If he's smart he'll be miles away by now. Let me see if I can pick him up.”

I set the laptop bag down next to me on the bed, then ran an SM:P. I received a strong, clear impression. Brother Belial must have been off recovering rather than helping Caleb hide.

”He's watching TV in a motel room somewhere,” I told Ari. ”But I've got no idea where or which one. It looks like a pretty cheap room, though.”

”Donovan told me over the phone that Sumner had withdrawn a lot of cash from the credit card account he'd given him. He can probably travel for some days on that amount. Donovan doesn't know how much money from other sources Sumner has at his disposal. He must have other cards, too.”

”Probably under a.s.sumed names, yeah. Say, was everything all right back at the flats?”

”Yes.” He hesitated. ”Except for one odd detail. The security system picked up some sort of energy discharge in the lower flat. According to the log, though, it happened just before we left to join Jack at the restaurant.”

”Weird.” I remembered the transparent woman I'd seen at that moment. She might have been some sort of manifestation rather than an IOI. ”I'll investigate that once they let me out of here.”

”Good, but for now, please rest.” Ari glanced at his watch. ”I'd better go, but I'll be back this evening.”

”Okay. Just don't go too near the ocean.”

”Does it matter? After all, the ocean came to you.”

”Yeah, but let's not make it easy for the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I doubt if he's got enough Qi left to pull that stunt again.” Not right away, anyway, but I kept that thought to myself.

Ari kissed me, then walked to the door, where he paused and looked back.

”One last thing I've been meaning to ask you.” He kept a perfectly straight face. ”Is this what the Roadrunner does? Manipulate Qi?”

I laughed, and he grinned at me. ”Yeah,” I said, ”that must be it.”

After he left, Enderby unhooked me from the monitors, though the IV in my hand stayed, dripping a.s.sorted electrolytes into my bloodstream. Aunt Eileen returned, bringing big paper cups of coffee, one for me as well as for herself, bless her.