License to Ensorcell (41 page)

Authors: Katharine Kerr

“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 anything 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