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Authors: Katharine Kerr

BOOK: Water to Burn
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“I wonder if he was a very illegal alien, then, from another Ireland all together. That would certainly explain why he didn’t bother getting a proper green card.”
“Even if they issued them on some other deviant level, it wouldn’t have been valid here.”
“It’s a good enough theory to get on with, then.”
“Yeah. Huh, I wonder if Mother knows more. I doubt it. If she did know, she would have repressed it, anyway. She desperately wanted to be normal. I guess she still does.”
“Do you think he came from that same level that Michael’s been visiting?”
“Not necessarily. Sophie talked about people going through it to somewhere else. If it’s true about the nuclear wars, which I doubt, there’s not much of Ireland left there, anyway.”
Ari held out his hand. I put mine into it without even hesitating. His clasp still felt warm and comfortable. I slid over close and rested my head on his shoulder. I could feel his deep relief even without running a formal SPP.
“I wonder why Dad left home?” I said. “Maybe he was born in a trashed Ireland.”
“He could have had a good reason to come here, in that case. Although I’ve only seen that one world, and I’d like to think it’s not typical.”
“Let’s hope it’s not. What I really wonder is where did he go when he left us? Did he return home and why, if he did? He always seemed happy enough here.”
“Maybe he didn’t have a choice. Someone might have come to fetch him, such as that level’s version of the Gardai.”
I sat up straight and pulled my hand away. “What makes you think the cops would be after him?”
“Your reactions to this conversation.” Ari was watching me with no trace of a smile.
Family history had run me right into his trap. I must have looked furious, because Ari grimaced.
“Nola, I’d have no authority to cause trouble for your father no matter what he did back in wherever he came from.” Ari held out his hand again. “Even if he were here right now. Please don’t hold this against me. I didn’t mean to open old wounds.”
“They’re more like old abscesses. They’ve never really healed.” I laid my hand in his. “Okay. You’re right. I know that Interpol’s a big deal, but I bet it’s not a trans-deviantlevel authority in the greater multiverse.”
“Very doubtful, yes.” He smiled at me.
My backbrain registered an odd twinge, but I could make no sense out of it. His SPP showed me that Ari was telling the truth as he saw it. If he said he couldn’t arrest my father, then he couldn’t.
“I’m mostly curious,” Ari went on. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me why he was a fugitive.”
“I don’t know. No one wanted to tell us kids anything.”
“I’d suppose not.”
I was about to tell him what little I knew when a SAWM stopped me. The family conditioning ran too deep. What with overhearing things, plus asking Aunt Eileen when I was old enough, plus a vision or two, I had pieced together a story. I suspected that he’d shot and killed a pair of British soldiers who were beating up a buddy of his. Dad was IRA to the core back when that meant something. I’d often wondered if his real name was even Flann O’Grady.
“If he’d been on the run, no one would have told me,” I finessed the truth. “He might have just come here for the chance at a good job and a better life. That’s what most immigrants want. Back when he arrived, Ireland was still a very poor country.”
“What do they call it now?” Ari smiled so easily that I knew he wanted to believe me. “The Celtic tiger, that’s right.”
“But you can see why no one wants to talk about him much. It’s also why the whole family learned to be so closemouthed. From the time we were, like, two years old, we knew we had to keep our mouths shut about the family talents in general and about Dad’s country of origin in particular.”
“Yes, I can understand that. Especially about the talents.”
“And you know,” I finished up, “if Dad was from some other deviant level, we don’t know what the situation’s like in their version of Ireland. I wonder if the whole island’s still occupied by the Brits. I remember him talking about our Republic of Ireland with a reverent tone to his voice, as if it was some kind of miracle.”
Ari slumped back against the couch cushions. “Just when I think I’m used to all of this,” he said, “and to your family, I learn something new, and I’m gobsmacked.”
“You know what?” I said. “Sometimes I feel that way myself.” I stood up so I could retrieve my cell phone from my jeans pocket, then sat back down. “I’ve got to call Michael. He needs to know this right away.”
It took Michael a few rings to answer his phone. He’d been in the bathroom, he told me, taking the first round of the pills Sophie had brought home. He sounded proud about needing them.
“You haven’t told Aunt Eileen, have you?” I said.
“Only about the crabs. Like, that’s seriously gross, so I didn’t want her to have to touch my sheets, and she wanted to know why I wanted to wash them myself, so I had to tell her that. She was okay with it. She said she wasn’t surprised.”
“Well, good for you! Listen, I’ve got some big news. I figured out who put that gate in the Houlihan house.”
“Yeah?” His voice turned eager. “Who?”
“Dad. That’s where you get them, bro, the world-walking genes.”
I heard a choking sound, then silence. “Mike? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Jeez, I wish I’d known him. I can’t even really remember him, y’know? I can sort of see his face, laughing about something. That’s all.”
“Yeah, I wish you’d known him, too. You were only three when he—”
“I’m gonna sign off. I’ll call you later.”
The line went dead in, I was willing to bet, a trickle of tears. You could have broken the news better, I told myself. Yet when I tried to think of fancy ways of saying it, I decided that out with it and blunt was the only way it could have been told.
“Well,” I told Ari, “Michael is growing up every which way at once.”
“We all have to, though I must admit, you O’Gradys have a more difficult time of it than most. It must have been particularly difficult for you.”
I got an impression that he was waiting for me to go into detail about those miserable years. “Yeah, it was,” I said. “I hate remembering it.”
“I can understand that.” He put his arm around my shoulders. “I feel that way about my childhood.”
We shared a sigh that was not nostalgic.
“Anyway,” I said. “I’m beginning to think Caleb has no intentions of returning my phone calls. It’s been days now.”
“True. I wonder if he knows you’ve been given information about him.”
“He might. He’s got talents of his own. And his friend Belial does, too.”
I remembered his invisible presence hovering in the restaurant, watching Ari’s charade of the jealous boyfriend. What did Belial make of it, I wondered, and of me? Nothing good, I was willing to bet. Nothing good at all.
CHAPTER 13
 
 
B
ETWEEN CALEB AND REB ZEKE, I grew increasingly irritated with men who refused to show up on my psychic scans. Zeke, at least, was harmless. Caleb, who was not, presented the more pressing problem. When Kathleen called to tell me that she and Jack had returned from the wine country, I decided that the time had come for the big reveal.
“Ari’s got the information you asked for,” I said. “He wants to tell Jack himself, though I don’t see any reason why you and I can’t be there to listen.”
“That’s great!” Kathleen said. “I guess the information makes you know who look bad.”
“Very bad. Do you want us to come out today?”
“Why don’t we come in? I haven’t even seen your new flat. Say, do you want a couple of living room chairs? They’ll fit in the SUV. Jack’s mom gave them to us, and I don’t have room for them.”
“Yeah, I sure do! Thanks. That way you’ll have something to sit on when you’re here.”
Jack, Kathleen, and two very modern chairs with wooden arms and burgundy leather cushions arrived at noon. While Jack and Ari wrestled the chairs upstairs, I showed Kathleen the flat. She looked typically gorgeous in a pair of cheap jeans and an Anna Sui black-and-white print blouse with dolman sleeves. In the kitchen she noticed my post-it about getting more furniture.
“What else do you need?” she said. “I’ve got stuff just sitting in the attic.”
“A desk for Ari is the main priority,” I said, “now that you’ve given me those chairs.”
“Okay, that’s easy. I’ve got Dad’s old desk. I pried it off of Mom because she was turning it into a shrine, and I didn’t think that was, y’know, healthy.”
Every now and then Kathleen could hit the target dead center.
“I’d love to have that,” I said. “And you are so right about the not healthy.”
“Okay. Just don’t let Ari take it when you guys break up.”
Then again, there were times when she could score a real miss. Still, I could see why in this case. Breaking up with boyfriends had been something of a hobby of mine.
“I won’t,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
With the chairs in place, we all sat down in the living room. I ran a quick SM:Danger and then an SM:Personnel just to make sure that neither Caleb nor Belial was spying. They weren’t. Jack was watching Ari so apprehensively that I figured Ari had hinted at bad news. I was right.
“Okay,” Jack said, “out with it.”
“I did some research on your business partner,” Ari said. “Do you know he’s a convicted felon?”
Jack stared at him for a long moment, started to speak, then stopped and stared some more.
“A blackmailer, as a matter of record,” Ari went on. “As a teenager, he mowed lawns for pocket money in his small town and collected information on his customers while he did so. He was particularly good at spotting adulterous affairs and then extorting cash from the guilty parties, which he spent on alcohol and drugs. He was sent to juvenile facilities twice for possession of cocaine. At nineteen, he became too ambitious and tried to blackmail a local politician who was something of a womanizer. This victim went to the police. He figured, quite rightly, that if the scandal got out it would only increase his status among male voters.”
Jack had turned bright red. His hands clenched into fists. Kathleen leaned forward in her chair and put a hand on his knee.
“Your blood pressure,” she said. “Honey—”
“I’ll strangle the little bastard,” Jack said. “So he’s pulled this shit before, has he?”
“Yes, and he served a sentence of eighteen months for it. Who’s his target this time? You or your father?”
“Dad, of course. I’ve got nothing to lose, now that the statute of—wait a minute, how do you—” Jack ran out of words. He returned to staring at Ari, this time with the helpless smile of a man who knows he’s put his foot in too deep to pull out.
“Interpol keeps detailed records on everything that comes its way,” Ari said. “When Nola told me that Sumner struck her as a criminal type, I did a bit of research. From there, I wondered what information we might have on you, because your wife had told Nola that Sumner had some sort of hold over you. As you say, it’s an old matter. But I gather it would hurt your father if it came to light.”
Jack’s red face returned to its normal heavy tan. Brilliantly done, I thought. Ari’s explanation left Kathleen in the clear, put Jack at ease, and as for me, everyone in the family knew I saw ‘things’ about people.
“Rather than physically assaulting Sumner,” Ari said, “I suggest you threaten to go to the police. There are protections for blackmail victims these days. With a prior conviction for the same offense, Sumner would be wise to say nothing to anyone to avoid prosecution.”
“Yeah, he would, but will he?” Jack glanced at his clenched hands and relaxed them. “Wise isn’t a word I’d use to describe him.”
“Who knows?” Ari shrugged. “If you like, I’ll go with you when you confront him.”
“Right, you’re an actual cop,” Jack said. “You can’t just arrest him, huh?”

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