License to Ensorcell Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  AGENCY TALENTS AND ACRONYMS

  “WELL, THIS ROOM’S SECURE.”

  It was until you walked into it, anyway, I thought. He took off his jacket and draped it over the back of the leather chair. Over his pale blue shirt he was wearing a gun in a shoulder holster. I hate guns.

  “Do you have a license for that thing?” I pointed at it.

  “Of course.” He looked at me slant-eyed. “Why do you ask?”

  “They make me nervous, guns.”

  “Oh? It’s a deadly business we’re in. You should carry protection of some sort.”

  “I can take care of myself. I’ve got a license to ensorcell. There’s only four of us in the entire Agency who do,” I went on. “It’s not a skill we use lightly. I hope you feel the same way about that gun.”

  I picked up the two drawings I’d just done, and waved them at him.

  “Anyway, your target’s in San Francisco, all right, or he was ten minutes ago. He was at the Cliff House out on Ocean Beach. He’s driving a blue late-model four-door sedan, but I couldn’t see where he was headed.”

  He took the drawings, looked at them, laid them down, then picked up the white envelope. “You haven’t even opened this.”

  “I didn’t need to open it. That’s not how Long Distance Remote Sensing works.”

  The words seemed to burst out of him. “I cannot tell you how much I hate this kind of—of—this psychic bilge.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “Following the orders my superior gave me.” He threw the envelope into my lap. “Open it, will you? At least do that much. Pander to my sense of reality.”

  “If you’re not going to believe a word I say, why should I do anything you want?”

  He started to retort, stopped himself, then shrugged. “You’ve got a point,” he said. “Very well, would you please open the sodding envelope?”

  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)

  Copyright © 2011 by Katharine Kerr.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-47708-3

  All Rights Reserved.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1537.

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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  FOR ALIS

  Who understands family

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to Kate Elliott and Amanda Weinstein, who gave me the kind of information about Israel one doesn’t get from gazetteers—to say nothing of their emotional support. Also, many thanks to Christian Stubø for the data about the sniper’s rifle that appears in the text.

  CHAPTER 1

  I HAD JUST STEPPED OUT OF THE SHOWER when the angel appeared. It stood in the bathroom door and scratched its etheric butt through its billowing white robes.

  “Yeah?” I said. “I’m dripping wet, so hurry it up.”

  “Joseph had a coat of many colors.” Its hollow voice echoed through my apartment, although the angel itself turned transparent and vanished.

  As I dressed in a tan corduroy skirt and an indigo and white print blouse, I asked myself if real angels itched. It seemed unlikely. Yet I doubted that demons suffered from skin problems either. Heat rash, maybe. Itching butts—improbable. So, the question became: which side was this apparition on in the eternal battle between Harmony and Chaos?

  My name is Nola O’Grady. I can’t tell you the name of my agency. You wouldn’t believe it if I did. Let’s just say it dates back to the Cold War, when certain higher-ups became convinced that the Soviets were using psi powers against us. The Soviets thought the same thing about us. Neither side had it right, but the paranoia turned out to be useful. Other people—if you can call them people—have given the Agency plenty of business over the years, which, incidentally, gives me a job. I had come home to San Francisco as an Agency operative, investigating a Chaos breach.

  I grabbed an apple for breakfast and ate it while I waited for the N Judah streetcar. I stood on the concrete platform with a small mob of bleary-eyed office workers and college students, the majority of whom were drinking coffee from those fancy insulated paper cups. In a gloomy Tuesday mood, still a long way away from the weekend, most aimlessly watched the cars whizzing past us on the street. A few, like me, studied the weather. The night’s fog was just beginning to pull back from a sky that promised to be sunny later. Although I kept a look-out, I saw no more angels in the silvery mist.

  When the streetcar finally arrived, however, St. Joseph di Copertino was holding a seat for me next to a nice-looking blond guy in jeans and a leather jacket. To be precise, the saint was floating with his legs crossed under him above the seat. Although no one else seemed to see him, the other boarding passengers walked right past the empty seat, most likely for no reason they could have voiced. When I sat down, St. Joe obligingly floated higher and hovered over the back of the seat in front of me. The good-looking guy next to me smiled a little and looked at me sideways, waiting for me to break the ice, but saints always come first.

  “What are you doing here?” I said. “I’m not an astronaut.”

  St. Joseph of Copertino smiled his trademark gape-mouthed grin and disappeared. The streetcar started up with its usual jerk and whine. It’s gonna be one of those days, I thought. The guy next to me had stopped smiling. He was trying to merge with the wall.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I see saints now and then. This one happened to be the patron of astronauts, and so I wondered—”

  He gave me the blank stare that people cultivate in a city known for its crazies and weirdos. Scratch this one, I thought. I’d learned, over the years, that I needed to let prospective friends and especially interested guys know what I’m like right off the bat. It saved hysterics later. Still, I wondered why St. Joseph di Copertino had appeared just then, until I remembered he’s also the patron saint of fools. Maybe he was making a general comment on my current love life, though the patron saint of zero, nothing, nada would have been more appropriate.

  My cover story office, Morrison Marketing and Research, sat on the top floor of a 1930s building south of Market Street, a believable location for a low-level business, and pure WPA�
��the clunky stone contruction, the neoclassical pilasters, the dark wood interiors. I chose that office partly because the other suites on that floor stood empty, probably because of the view, or its lack thereof. The windows gave you a good look at the on-ramps to the freeway leading to the Bay Bridge.

  Still, it offered advantages—its age for one. In my small suite the wood-framed windows opened to let in the outside air and the vibrations the air carries. I had a wood desk and a wood file cabinet, plus a couple of chairs for the nonexistent customers and a big potted plant. The expensive furniture the Agency had provided had gone into the office behind mine, the one for my nonexistent boss.

  I wrote up the morning’s two sightings and sent them off to the Agency via e-mail using the Agency site, the heavily encrypted TranceWeb, then took my standard morning walk. I was on Chaos Watch, which means you do a lot of looking around, preferably in as random a manner as possible. Chaos eruptions follow no schedules, no reasons, no logical connections—if they did, they wouldn’t be chaotic, would they?

  I used a procedure the Agency calls Random Synchronistic Linkage to determine my route. In laymen’s terms, I threw dice. You take a map of the city and pinpoint where you are, then assign the numbers two through twelve to the surrounding directions. Throw the dice and follow their lead, just so long as the chosen direction doesn’t take you into the bay or onto a freeway without a car.

  I set out on foot into a day turned bright and sunny, though still cool from the halo of a winter fog wrapping the horizon. Up the concrete canyon of Montgomery Street, past the new glass and steel towers and the old marble fronts where bankers work their legal mayhem on the body politic, out again into the sunlight. At the corner where Montgomery heads up a steep slope toward Russian Hill, a gray-haired woman stood waiting for me. I recognized her pink and black tweed Chanel suit first—vintage Fifties—with the pointy-toed black patent shoes and matching handbag. She waved.

  “Aunt Eileen,” I said. “Fancy running into you! I take it you saw me here in one of your dreams.”

  “Of course, so I came down to meet you.” She wagged a finger at me. “Really, Nola darling, it was awfully mean of you to come home and never call.”

  “I don’t want Mother to know—”

  “Not one word. I promise.”

  She smiled. I smiled.

  “And the rest of the family?” I said.

  “Doing well, most of them—” She let the words trail off.

  “How’s my little brother?” I could guess at the reason behind her reluctance.

  “Still trying to transform himself.” Aunt Eileen rolled her eyes heavenward. “I do not have the slightest idea, not the very slightest, why Michael wants to be a werewolf, but he does.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “After what happened to Patrick, you’d think he’d have learned, but no.”

  “Let’s not talk about Patrick. I don’t want to cry in public.”

  “I understand, dear.” Aunt Eileen paused, glancing around her. “I don’t think anyone can overhear us.”

  Traffic was rushing by, the wind was sighing through the concrete canyon behind us. I let my mind go to Search Mode: Danger and felt nothing.

  “I don’t think so, either,” I said. “Why the secrecy?”

  “Well, I’ve been having a really awful dream about you, and you never know who’s where.” She glanced around for a second time. “In the dream someone wants to kill you.”

  When she comes out with statements like that, I’ve never known her to be wrong. “Uh, where is this supposed to happen?” I said.

  “Somewhere in San Francisco.” She lifted one Chanel-clad shoulder in a nervous shrug. “I certainly hope I’m wrong this time. It’s all been very distressing, especially once I realized you’d come home.”

  “Can you see what he looks like?”

  “No, which is so annoying! He dresses like Sam Spade. He’s in black and white even when the rest of the dream’s in color. Very shadowy. Very Thirties.” She gave me a sad look. “If you’d called me when you got in, I would have told you earlier.”

  “I’m sorry now I didn’t. Can I buy you lunch to make up for it?”

  “Some other day, I’d love that, but I have to go to the dentist.” She wrinkled her nose. “How I hate it, but then, everyone does. I really must run, but I saw you here when I was waking up this morning, and so I thought I’d just catch up with you. You should go to the police about this person.”

  “And what am I going to tell them? My aunt had a dream?”

  “Um, I suppose they wouldn’t take it very seriously. I do wish you’d get a regular job, Nola. Something safe.”

  “It would bore me to tears.”

  I had never wanted her to know about my real work, but no one in the family can hide anything from Eileen. If one of her blood relations has a secret, sooner or later she’ll dream out the truth, even when she’d rather not know.

  “You always were a difficult child, and in our family, I’m afraid that’s saying a lot.” She rolled her eyes. “Now, you call me when you’re free. Ah, here’s my cab.”

  An empty cab was gliding up to the curb. She had luck that way, if you can call it luck. I waved good-bye, then stepped into a doorway to consider. Did I want to continue the dice walk so soon after hearing about this would-be assassin? Possibly my knowing about him had made a synchronistic connection that would lead me right to him, to the detriment of my health.

  I turned around and went back to the office.

  The answering machine on my desk was blinking when I came in. I kicked off the cheap high heels I was wearing as part of my cover persona, then punched the button on the machine to retrieve a message from Y’s secretary. (That’s the only name I have for him, Y, even though he’s been my handler for years.) She told me that her boss wanted to know how the ad campaign for his company’s new dog food was going. Dog food. With an assassin looking for me, that particular bit of code sounded entirely too appropriate.

  The Agency loves code. It’s heavy on the secrecy in general, mostly because the higher-ups are afraid that Congress would cut our funding if it ever found out what we do. I don’t even know how large the Agency is or how many other agents work for it, though whenever I’ve needed help, I’ve always gotten it. Code words and handles may keep us separate, but our skills unite us at a deep level and get the work done.

  I found a notepad and a ballpoint pen, then went into the supposed boss’ office, which I’d done up with blue wall-to-wall carpet, a big oak desk, and a black leather executive chair. I sat down in the secretary’s chair next to the desk and went into trance. In a few minutes Y’s image materialized in the leather chair. I can’t tell you what he really looks like. The image he used back then for these trance-chats radiated pure movie star, the tousled blond hair, the crinkly smile, the blue eyes.

  “So what is all this?” I said.

  “I have a job for you,” he said. “But you probably knew that already.”

  “Why else would you call me?”

  “To talk about this alleged angel, for one thing. Seen any more of them?”

  “None. They’re probably just the usual visual projections.” I tend to see clues, and I do mean see them.

  “That’s the safest assumption, but in our line of work you never know.”

  Ambiguity, the bane of my profession—having psychic talents makes the job sound easy. People think that clues should just drop into your lap, but on the rare occasions when they do, they usually mean two or three things at once.

  “Any other Chaos manifestations?” Y continued.

  I considered telling him about the assassin, but he’d want to know how I knew. I wanted to keep the family out of official business. Sooner or later, the guy from the Thirties movie would make a move or leave a track for me to follow, something I could report to Y as standard information.

  “No, none yet,” I said.

  “Good. Now, about this job. It concerns an agent fro
m Israel.”

  “Holy cripes! Mossad?”

  “No, some group we’re not supposed to know about. Now, technically he works for Interpol. Technically. This is all very hush-hush, but State called me in.” He paused for a smug smile. “Called me in personally, that is. You know that State doesn’t like asking for our help, but they’ve got good reasons to, this time.”

  “Any you can tell me?”

  “Sure. This agent is hunting down someone wanted for a couple of murders back in Israel. One of the victims was an American citizen, working for the consular office over there.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice, just as if someone could actually overhear us. “There were circumstances, our kind of circumstances. The agent will fill you in when he arrives.”

  “Now wait a minute! I already have a job on hand. Our stringers sent us evidence of a Chaos eruption. Why are you saddling me with some kind of secret agent?”

  “Nola.” His image looked at me sorrowfully. “In the service of the Great Balance, everything serves to further. Melodies appear, sing, and twine together. I don’t know why this fellow is appearing at the moment, but he too is a thread in the great web of sapient life, a thread that has crossed our threads. Is it ours to question?”

  When Y starts spouting philosophy, arguing gets me nowhere. I did allow myself a vexed sigh, which materialized as a rat skittering around between our chairs. Y never noticed it, and a good thing, too.

  “All right.” I surrendered. “How am I going to contact this guy?”

  “Openly. He’s going to come to your office on the pretext of hiring the marketing firm. His words to you are ‘prayer shawls.’ Yours are ‘four-thirty appointment.’ Got that?”