License to Ensorcell

by Katharine Kerr

  “That last makes no sense at all. Life force?”

  “Ever read Henri Bergson?”

  “He’s not that Swedish filmmaker, is he?”

  “No, that’s Ingmar Bergman.”

  “Sorry.”

  I waited to continue until Ari finished swerving around a sudden pedestrian.

  “But anyway, I can’t really explain what I mean by life force,” I said. “I’ve got an intuitive grasp of it, but I can’t put it any more clearly than that.”

  “Very well, then.”

  Ari laid on the horn and blasted the slow SUV ahead of us into the right lane. I decided that the secrets of the universe could wait till we got home alive, assuming we did.

  But what would this effect mean for Michael, I wondered, if it were true that his substance belonged in our part of the multiverse to the exclusion of all others? He was wandering somewhere out of place, out of touch, the most lost of all possible lost boys. If he got so much as a cut finger in that other world, would the rot set in and spread?

  “We’ve got to get Mike back,” I said. “Fast.”

  “Quite so,” Ari said. “The question is how.”

  “I’m beginning to get an idea.”

  I brooded the idea all the way back to the apartment. Although I called Sean as soon as I got in, his line was busy. I changed out of the suit into a decent pair of jeans and a new top, pale gray with a green watercolor print and a deep V neck that I figured Ari would like. He did.

  “A question,” I said. “If you’re on admin leave, why did Sanchez call you?”

  “He pretended to forget. The leave’s not from his department, after all.” He smiled at me. “But he did it because of you, not me. He’s out of his depth. He knows it, he can’t admit it, but he’s good enough at his job to do something about it. The coroner’s already brought in the federal-level health people, but your agency’s part of the security apparatus. You have need to know.”

  “Right. And I have need to file another report. Calling Sean can wait a few minutes.”

  I considered contacting Y directly, then decided that using TranceWeb to file an official paper, where others could see and read it, would be a more efficient way to get the word out. Composing this report went fast and easily, compared to the ensorcellment filing. When I finished, I marked it “TOP PRIORITY” and “URGENT.” I also sent my theory about the life force—Bergson’s élan vital—to NumbersGrrl, then checked my personnel file. A brief message waited for me. “Ensorcellment report taken under advisement.” Nothing more.

  “Well,” I said, “I haven’t been placed on leave yet.”

  “Good,” Ari said. “At least one of us isn’t in limbo.”

  “That’s true. I need to act fast before they put me there.”

  Sean’s phone persisted in being busy. I took the opportunity to check TranceWeb again and found two things, a terse confirmation that my report on the corpses had been received, and an e-mail from NumbersGrrl. I read it twice, then logged out again.

  “Hope!” I said.

  “What?” Ari said.

  “If my speculation’s right about the deviant levels and Michael and all that, then the most likely thing is that he’s in some version of San Francisco, just one or two levels away, that is. I had a few dark fears, like maybe he’d been dumped into interstellar space or on some other planet.”

  “Do you watch a lot of science fiction films?”

  “I’ve been known to, yeah. Why?”

  Ari set his hands on his hips and scowled at me. I got the point.

  “Well, all right, maybe the interstellar space idea was kind of far-fetched,” I said. “Still, the news is good. My idea just might work, after all.”

  CHAPTER 13

  WHEN I FINALLY GOT HOLD OF SEAN, about an hour past noon, he told me that Aunt Eileen had already called him. She’d invited him and his partner, Albert Wong, over to the Houlihan house. She’d included Ari and me in the invitation because she knew Sean and I would want to discuss finding Michael.

  “I told her we’d bring some food,” Sean said. “She feeds all of us too often as it is.”

  “Bless her heart!” I meant it sincerely. “Will Al be coming with you?”

  “Sure. It’s Uncle Jim’s bowling night, so we’ll only have to put up with Mister-I’m-Tolerant-I-Tell-You-Tolerant for a couple of hours.”

  “Ah, come on, Sean! He’s trying. It’s better than Al’s dad, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah, I have to admit that. At least Al hasn’t been consigned to the outer darkness of complete non-existence like I have.”

  “It’ll be good to see you guys. Do you think Al could make one of his special lasagnas? I’ve love to have some of that again.”

  “Ohmigawd! The end of the world is upon us.”

  “Say what?”

  In the background I could hear Al asking the same thing. “Nola wants some of your special lasagna.” Sean’s voice became briefly fainter. “Yeah, the apocalypse is upon us, for sure.”

  “Oh, come off it,” I said. “I’m not that bad.”

  “Yes, you are. The last time you were faced with Al’s lasagna, you did a caloric analysis of it, layer by layer.”

  “Did I really?”

  “Yes, you did. Complete with estimated fat grams.”

  “Tell Al I apologize.”

  Sean did so. I could hear Al speaking.

  “He says in that case he’ll make the lasagna,” Sean said.

  “Cool! How come he’s not at work?”

  “Furlough day. He’s doing his share to keep the state of California from sinking slowly into the west.”

  “Well, then, when can you get over to the house? I need your help finding something.”

  “I think our esteemed aunt told me something about that, but it was garbled and really weird. Deviant levels of the multiverse? Michael’s in one of them? You got to be kidding.”

  “I wish I was. I’ll explain when I see you.”

  “Okay, we’ll get there as soon as we can. Al can always make the lasagna over there. He and Aunt Eileen love to cook together anyway. What about your hunky new boyfriend?”

  “I can’t believe Aunt Eileen called him hunky.”

  “Of course not, but she made him sound hunky.”

  “Well, he kind of is, yeah. He’ll be there, so you can see for yourself.”

  I ended the call to find Ari watching me with the reproachful stare. “What have I done now?” I said.

  “What does hunky mean?”

  “Sexy and good-looking, just like you are.”

  He made a sour face and snarled, but his SPP told me that he was flattered.

  When we returned to Aunt Eileen’s, Sean opened the door. He’s the other natural beauty in our family, wavy black hair, brooding dark blue eyes, a full mouth and chiseled cheekbones, a slender body that he keeps reasonably well-muscled. He also trembles a lot, which detracts from the overall effect, though Al has told me that when Sean’s asleep and still, he’s almost too beautiful to be real. If I were still a believer, I’d thank God daily for Al, solid, loving Al who keeps my brother in one piece and reasonably sane.

  I introduced Ari, who smiled and reached out to shake Sean’s hand. Sean recoiled as if Ari had pulled a gun on him, then blushed scarlet at the gaffe.

  “I’m sorry.” Sean was looking at me with begging eyes. “I don’t mean to be insulting.”

  “What?” Ari said in his typical subtle way. “Do you have a phobia about germs?”

  “No.” Sean swallowed heavily and took a step back. “You just shot someone, didn’t you? I mean, not just now, but like, recently. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Ari gaped at him.

  “Sweetheart,” I said, “why don’t you go say hi to Aunt Eileen in the kitchen? And meet Al. You’ll like Al. He’s normal.”

  Like a good soldier Ari followed orders and marched off, though he did turn at the entrance to the hall and stare for a moment before going on. Sean continued
trembling and rubbed his beautiful mouth with a perfect hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Nola, how can you sleep with that guy? He scares the hell out of me.”

  “I noticed. Come on, calm down.” I slipped my arm through his in the hopes of steadying him. He leaned against me and quivered at a slightly lower register.

  “Your boyfriend, he did just kill someone, didn’t he?”

  “He’s a cop, Sean. He was part of the Silver Bullet Killer task force. He’s the one who brought down the guy who murdered Pat.”

  Sean took a deep breath, which slowed the trembling. “Okay, that’s different,” he said. “Aunt Eileen told me that you were shot at, too.”

  “Yeah, I sure was, but the creep missed.” I decided against telling Sean that I would have been dead except for Ari’s intervention. While the thought would have sweetened his opinion of Ari, he might have blacked out. He does that at times, when he hears overwhelming news.

  Arm in arm we wandered outside to the backyard, Uncle Jim’s great love in life, a long stretch of perfect lawn bordered by cottage-garden flower beds, in summer a welter of color and scent set off here and there by flagstone paths. A squirrel chattered in the maroon leaves of the Japanese maple. Sean and I sat down on a white bench under the bare branches of an ancient gnarled apple tree. Among the flowers and growing things, Sean took another deep breath and stopped trembling.

  “I’m sorry I insulted your boyfriend,” he said. “These things just jump out sometimes.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?”

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll apologize to him if you say so.”

  “No, I’ll explain it to him later. He understands about the family. He’s not a local police officer, by the way. He’s from Interpol, and he’ll be leaving the States soon, so it’s not like you’ll have to see him at every family gathering.”

  “Another guy who’s going to leave you?”

  “Yeah. I pick them for it, I think.”

  Sean cocked his head to one side and smiled at me. “You have the worst damn taste in men of anyone I know,” he said. “And I know some guys who are really weird that way.”

  “I just bet you do. No, I don’t want the details.”

  We shared a laugh.

  “But look, about Michael.” Sean began trembling again. “He’s not dead, is he? I tried to see if I could find him, but I can’t.”

  “He’s not dead, no. He’s in some other part of the multiverse. I’m working along that hypothesis, anyway. His talent just developed, and I think he’s what the Agency calls a world-walker. That means he can access deviant levels at places where the level meets ours. At a gate, that is, between the two.”

  Sean tried to digest this pronouncement for a moment, then shrugged in the mental equivalent of a burp. “Whatever,” he said. “What do you need me to find?”

  “A way he can get back here. I’m betting there’s one in this house. Do you remember the voices you used to hear?”

  “The ghostwalk, yeah. And then in the other upstairs.”

  “The other upstairs?”

  “Where Nanny Houlihan’s rooms were. Nothing mystical.”

  “Right. I remember now.”

  The south end of the Houlihan house, two stories high, contains the kitchen, four bedrooms, and the master suite. The middle of the house, the living room section, is only a single story, but on the north side, there are two more stories’ worth of rooms, all of them mostly rectangular though not precisely so. At the very northern end, three square little rooms sit one on top of the other like a tower. At one time Jim’s mother lived in them.

  “Let’s look at the ghostwalk first,” Sean said. “It used to scare the hell out of me when I was a kid.”

  We returned to the house and headed for the kitchen. When we turned into the hallway, I saw the blue meerkat-lizard thing. Just where the hall veered into its peculiar angle, the Chaos creature sat on its scaly little haunches and wagged its tail at me.

  “What are you up to?” I said. “Spying for someone? Johnson’s dead, you know.”

  At the name it squealed in terror. It jumped up, swung its head around, and ran toward the wall. Just before it rammed into the paneling, it vanished. I took that reaction as answering my question with a no.

  “What did you see?” Sean said.

  “Just a harmless critter.”

  “Okay. You still see those, huh?”

  “Just now and then.”

  I squatted down and looked at the section of the wall that had been its apparent destination. To me it looked perfectly ordinary and perfectly solid. Sean knelt down beside me.

  “That’s spooky,” he said.

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “I feel like I could put my hand through the wall right here.”

  He reached out, but I caught his wrist and held him back.

  “Let’s not take any chances,” I said. “For all I know, your hand could stay over there while the rest of you stayed here.”

  He winced and flinched.

  “How big is the spot?” I continued. “The spot that makes you feel you could go through it, I mean.”

  “Not very.” With his hands he gestured out an area that was just about a foot on a side.

  I muttered something unladylike and stood up. Michael was a skinny kid, but not that skinny. Sean followed my example.

  “That’s depressing,” I said. “I was counting on a gate being here.”

  “There’s still the other upstairs. I hated going in there when I was a kid. Nanny Houlihan used to dare me to spend a night there, but I never could.”

  I had always remembered Nanny as a sadistic martinet of a woman. Apparently my memory was accurate.

  “Well, it’s daytime now,” I said. “Let’s take a look.”

  At the end of the north-running hallway stood a narrow staircase leading up into gloom. Some of the steps had a small pile of things on them—a stack of old books, some children’s clothes, an ancient Mixmaster—things, I guessed, that Aunt Eileen had placed there to wait till the next time she had reason to go up. Sean and I each took a pile and climbed to the top. I pushed open the door and saw what appeared to be a well-organized, dust-free antique store. I flipped on the light switch.

  “Eileen even cleans in here,” Sean said. “Wow.”

  We placed our little heaps of once and future junk down by the door, then walked in. Sean stood with one hand on a treadle sewing machine and went into Find mode. His eyes narrowed and appeared to be focusing on some far distant place or time. His mouth went slack. I got a tissue out of my jeans pocket in case he drooled. He does, on occasion.

  “I see a lot of comic books,” he said eventually, “in plastic bags.” He paused. “Baseball cards.” He shook himself like a wet dog and came back to the moment. “I’ll bet she saved everything Jimmy ever collected.”

  “So do I, but I’ll also bet they’re worth bucks by now. Next time Jimmy’s in town, you might tell him they’re here.”

  We searched the top room but found no stash of valuable paper products. None lurked in the next room down, either. Finally, at the bottom, where saner people than us would have started looking, we found them. A row of archival cardboard cartons, stacked four high, lined one wall. In Eileen’s clear round hand they were labeled by content and year: comics, all right, and sports cards, football as well as baseball, plus Christmas cards, reusable Christmas wrap, and all the holiday decorations Eileen put out year after year, Easter, Fourth of July, and Halloween as well as Christmas.

  We moved two stacks of cartons out into the middle of the room and contemplated the wall, papered in a delicate pattern of violets on a cream background, marred with a big oval stain about five feet off the floor. Ancient water damage, I assumed. The older Houlihans had had a very cavalier attitude to things like roof maintenance.

  “This was Nanny’s sitting room.” Sean walked over to the window and pulled up the shade to let in a shaft of sunlight. “Toward the end Uncle Jim
put a single bed in here, too, so she wouldn’t have to go up and down the stairs.”

  “She used to talk about hearing voices,” I said. “I thought she was nuts, frankly.”

  “I heard them, too, but then, I am nuts.” Sean grinned at me. “So that might not count.”

  We fell silent to listen. I heard nothing, but at one point Sean frowned and tilted his head to one side.

  “I thought I heard someone calling a dog,” he said. “Did you?”

  “No, not a thing.”

  “Whatever.” He shrugged and spread his hands. “If there’s a gate in this house, it’s here. I’m not real sure, though, if there is or not. In the hallway I was sure, but not here.”

  I found solace in bad language. Sean agreed.

  We returned to the kitchen, where as usual everyone had gathered. At the counter by the sink, Aunt Eileen and Al were chopping various kinds of food on matching cutting boards. She’d changed into turquoise capris with a white sleeveless snap-front blouse on top and the pink fuzzy slippers on the bottom. Al looked his usual normal self in jeans and a Giants T-shirt.

  “It’s good to have you back,” Al said to me. “I’ll have to hug you later, though. I’m chopping garlic.”

  “Later will be fine,” I said. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  Ari was sitting at the round maple table and drinking coffee out of a mug glazed with a view of Candlestick Park, one of the family mugs, not the porcelain ones with the flowers that my aunt saves for important company. I sat down next to him and snagged it for a sip. Sean took a chair across from us, but he turned Aunt Eileen down when she offered him coffee. He could get shaky on the natch.

  Eileen took a plate of cookies from the top of the refrigerator, where she’d put them out of garlic and onion range, and placed them on the table. I picked up a wave of feeling from her. Her SPP confirmed a trace of fear but above all, apprehension.

  “We’ll get Mike back,” I said. “Don’t worry. Have you had any significant dreams?”

  “Just a rerun of that one about him trying to call and his phone not working,” Eileen said.