License to Ensorcell (28 page)

“That should bring in a few tips.”

“Let’s hope.” He stood up and stretched. “They want me to appear at the press event.”

“Saying what?”

“That the suspects are also wanted in Israel for murder.”

“Both suspects?”

“I doubt it, but it could be true.” Ari shrugged. “Sanchez has the right idea. He wants to stress that these men are too dangerous for anyone but the police to approach.”

“Now there I agree one hundred percent.”

I decided to try an LDRS for Johnson before we checked out. If he tracked me to the hotel, we’d be long gone before he arrived. As soon as I started to draw, my hand sketched out the view from the backseat of a small car. I picked up the sensation of eating greasy food, too, some kind of fast food eggy horror, and the definite stink of an unwashed human.

“I think Johnson’s living in a car,” I told Ari. “But damn it, I can’t focus on what it looks like. He’s too busy stuffing his face.”

“Well, can you try again later? That’s very significant.”

“Yeah, I will, but we’d better get on the road.”

They held the press conference in a bleak wood-paneled room at the Hall of Justice, a concrete slab of a building down near the Morrison office. I sat well away from the clustered cameras and microphones and watched while Sanchez spoke at length, announcing the reward. Ari added a few sentences about the murders on his home turf, then mentioned Michael and displayed his picture as another possible victim.

In that building, with cops swarming all around, I felt safe enough to run a full Search Mode for Johnson. I picked up danger loud and clear to the west-northwest on the inner compass. When I tried to refine the sensation, I felt the greasy anxiety I’d come to associate with the murdering bastard. While I should have stopped the scan immediately, I had picked up something so interesting that I let it run for a brief few moments more.

The anxiety I felt was coming from Johnson, not me. He was so intensely preoccupied with something that I risked probing a little deeper. His thoughts circled around and around the bite Mary Rose had given him. Soon, in less than three weeks, the moon would return to full. He would know, then, if he’d been infected or not.

Next I searched for Doyle, only to run into a solid Shield Persona. I tried every trick I knew, but I never managed to break it down. I did receive a faint impression of gloating, a childish satisfaction that Johnson might be going to suffer what he himself had had to suffer for years. I broke off the attempt rather than subject myself to that twisted sentiment any longer.

As soon as the conference ended, a uniformed officer trotted up to Sanchez and Ari, who listened intently to what he had to say. Ari filled me in as we walked back to the car, parked in an underground garage.

“Forensics came through,” Ari said. “They found some prints on the windmill goods that match Johnson’s. He—and probably Doyle—put those things inside it.”

“That’s weird. That’s totally weird.”

“Everything about this case is. Why are you surprised?”

“You have a point. Unfortunately.”

I made another stab at finding Johnson as soon as we reached the car. I sat in the backseat with my pad and crayons. Johnson seemed to be on his guard by then, but I did see a few faint images—a steering wheel, a misty view framed by a metal rim, glimpses of a dashboard. I tore off the sheet of paper and tried again with Doyle, only to get the same kind of scribbles minus the steering wheel but plus a stretch of blue metal. Wherever they were, they were sitting in the blue sedan together.

“This is not real helpful.” I put my supplies back in the tote bag. “I’m just surprised they haven’t left town.”

“So am I,” Ari said. “Arrogant little sods, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, apparently so. Unless they can’t leave for some reason.”

I changed seats to the front, buckled on the seat belt, and realized what I’d just said.

“Ari, I need to get back to the doorway in the park.”

“Are they there?”

“No. I just need another look at it.”

Although downtown the sun shone, out by the Portals of the Past the fog lingered. The gray sky reflected on gray water. The ducks quacked as they glided back and forth out in the pond. The marble pillars and lintel stood unchanged. As I walked up the steps, I perceived no energy field whatsoever, but when I stood directly under the lintel and held my hands out to the sides like antennae, I felt the barest trace of a very faint wisp of energy.

“Hah! I thought so.”

I returned to solid ground and a puzzled, shivering Ari.

“You should have worn that sweater,” I said. “Or jumper. Whatever you call it.”

“It’s in the boot. I’ll fetch it in a moment. What did you pick up in there?”

“The energy field’s gone. If it’s regenerating, it’s doing so really slowly.” I realized that I’d never told Ari about Y’s theory. “The Agency thinks this thing leads into deviant levels of the multiverse, aka parallel worlds. Do you know what those are?”

“I’ve seen them referred to in science fiction films.” His voice turned weary. “Don’t tell me those are real along with everything else.”

“I don’t know if they are or not. No one at the Agency’s sure about any of this. But just suppose for a minute that they are real. Now, suppose Johnson or Doyle comes from such a level. He could have turned this portal into some kind of device that lets them go back and forth.”

“Very well. I’m supposing. Carry on.”

“Michael may have the ability to move between levels on his own, on the natch, as it were. If Michael walked through the gate, he’d give the energy field a double blast of psychic power—Qi, as we call it. He’d short the thing out. Now the portal’s nonfunctional, just as if that had happened.”

Ari blinked, looked briefly distressed, then smiled his tiger’s smile. “Which leaves Johnson and Doyle trapped here without their escape route.”

“If our suppositions hold, it’s no wonder they haven’t left the Bay Area. They need this gate, and they must be hoping to fix it, or maybe they’re hoping it will regenerate the field on its own.”

“Do you think it will?”

“I don’t know. I hope so, because this theory means that Michael’s trapped on the other side of it.”

“I thought you said he could come through on his own.”

“
Maybe
he can. Even if he can, does he know it? Can a person with his talent just come back anywhere, or do they need another gate of some kind? No one knows. This is all new territory for the Agency.”

Ari frowned down at the ground. He absently kicked a stray eucalyptus pod, then looked up.

“I remember now,” Ari said.
“Kefitzat haderach.”

“Say what?”

“It’s a term from a midrash. It means “a shortening of the way,” a shortcut, I suppose you’d call it. It’s one of the things that Reb Ezekiel claimed he could teach. Teleportation of a sort, my father told me. But now I wonder.” He nodded at the portal. “It could easily have meant something like this.”

“If you could pop into a gate and pop out somewhere else, yeah, that would shorten the journey, all right. That’s fascinating. I just wish I knew more. If Sanchez can round them up, maybe we can make Johnson and his lupine pal give us some answers.”

“True. The police might be able to make some sort of bargain.”

“I was thinking of a more direct method.”

“Nola!” Ari’s voice turned sharp. “I know you love your brother, but I’m not going to do anything unethical.”

“Not beating them up or anything. Sheer psychic talent.”

“Oh. Very well, then.”

He didn’t realize that if I used my talents to force a confession, I’d be doing something as unethical in my little world as physical torture would be in his. You’re slipping into Chaos thinking again, O’Grady, I told myself. Watch it!

“There’s one thing that makes me doubt our suppositions,” I said, “and that’s how public this place is. You’d think they’d rent a house and build their device inside out of sight.”

“This portal might have some particular property they need,” Ari said.

“Could be.” I wondered if Y could figure out a way to analyze the portal without attracting the wrong kind of attention. “Either that, or the theory’s not valid.”

“Well, that’s always a possibility.” Ari glowered at the lintel for a moment. “Vitrified marble.”

“Say what?”

“Marble is limestone transformed by high heat, usually volcanic action. This particular bit’s been through a second vitrification, thanks to the fire in 1906. There might be some sort of crystallization that transformed the stone into something they could work with.”

“I’m impressed,” I said. “Science isn’t my strong point.”

“I’ve noticed. But then again, it’s not mine, either. I suppose it would be unethical to nick a bit off a pillar and send it to a lab back home.”

“Not a good idea, no. The citizenry just raised a lot of money to repair the thing.”

“Oh, very well.” He paused, glancing around. “Let’s go. There’s too much cover around here. I don’t want anyone taking another shot at you.”

“I’d just as soon avoid it myself.”

“That’s why you need me for a minder.”

“A what?”

“Sorry. A keeper, I believe the American word is.”

“Very funny. Ha-ha. Let’s get out of here.”

He grinned at me and caught my hand as we walked together back to the car.

CHAPTER 10

ALTHOUGH ARI REFRAINED FROM telling me where we were going, he’d driven only two blocks before I realized that we were heading for my apartment. I concentrated on images of the hotel in Daly City where we’d spent Monday night, just in case Johnson came snooping around the aura field, but I never felt his greasy touch upon my mind.

We found a place to park up from Judah. I took one piece of luggage, the suitcase containing Pat’s journals, with me, and Ari brought along the sample case. When we came around the corner, I saw that plywood still filled in the bay window. Ari opened the street door leading to the stairs, then stepped sharply to one side. Since no hail of bullets greeted him, we went in. We’d just gotten to the landing when Mrs. Z opened her door with a blare of TV noise. She was wearing the orange muumuu that clashed with her purple hair.

“You back?” she said.

“Yeah, but I don’t know if I’ll stay,” I said. “I see that George hasn’t finished the repair.”

“Well, he was supposed to show up today, but you know how he is. What was all that noise last night?”

“Noise? I wasn’t here.”

“You weren’t?” She let her mouth hang open. “Oh, oh, well, I suppose, oh ...”

I could feel Ari go tense in sudden alarm. He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Let me just take a look.” He set his sample case down on a step. “Give me that suitcase.”

I did, then waited on the landing with Mrs. Z while he went upstairs. He put his key in the lock, turned it, then swung up the suitcase like a shield before his face and kicked the door open. Nothing blew up except his temper. He swore so violently that Mrs. Z began to dither even though neither of us understood a word he was saying. I ignored her, snagged the sample case, and trotted halfway up the stairs.

“You can come up,” he said. “They’re gone.”

They? I hurried up the rest of the way and looked into the apartment. All my worldly goods lay strewn across the floor, the couch cushions, the books, the china cat figurines, some of my clothes from the bedroom, even. When we went inside, I put the heavy sample case down and stood there staring at the mess. I could see that every kitchen drawer had been emptied out, and the fridge, too. I was expecting that they would have taken my computer and the TV, but the electronics all sat where I’d left them. I pointed them out to Ari.

“They were in a hurry,” he said. “Too much of one to even stage a proper burglary.”

The searchers had hit the bedroom as well, stripped down the bed, tipped up the mattress, emptied the drawers of my dresser, thrown the clothes out of my closet. I had two pieces of good jewelry—some diamond earrings and a gold and opal brooch that had belonged to my grandmother. They sat in their little velvet boxes in a corner with the dust bunnies. I picked them up and put them back onto the dresser.

“What a mess!” I said. “Doyle must have been looking for Pat’s journals.”

“Which you took with us. Good.”

From behind us I heard an “Oh, my gawd!” We returned to the living room to find Mrs. Z staring horrified at the disarray.

“Why didn’t you call the police?” Ari said. “When you heard the noises.”

“Well, I didn’t think it was, oh, I suppose I should have, oh, er, it wasn’t that loud. I just thought it was you two doing, oh, well, I don’t know, something.”

Ari smacked his right fist into the palm of his left hand and snarled as if he were thinking murderous thoughts. She stepped back fast and pulled herself up to her full height, such as it was.