Water to Burn (40 page)
Authors: Katharine Kerr
We reached the Boulevard at 1:15, fifteen minutes early. I found a good parking place near the steps that led up to the entrance, then sat in the car and ran an SM:P on both Caleb and Belial. This time I received a misty image of Caleb driving on a wide street or narrow highway, on his way, I figured. Since he made no psychic response to my scan, I could assume that he hadn’t noticed it. I felt no contact with Belial at all.
Jack had gotten a table for four in a quiet corner toward the rear of the open-plan restaurant. We sat down facing the door. The table stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling brown curtain near the kitchen and out of the main traffic aisle to the entrance, which ran slantwise between lines of maroon booths and banquettes. If Caleb decided to bolt and run, he’d have a difficult time making speed in the maze of chairs and customers.
“I’m starving,” Jack announced. “The dog pack woke us up real early this morning, barking at a damn deer that came up to the fence. I had breakfast a long time ago. I’ve told the waitress we’re expecting someone else, but we could at least order. Have you guys eaten yet?”
“No,” Ari said, “and I’m hungry, too. We know, of course, that Nola isn’t.”
“Oh, shut up,” I said.
They both grinned at me, the swine. When the waitress came over, they ordered, and I got a caffe latte, made with skim milk, of course.
And we waited. They ate, and I snagged a piece of Ari’s toast and even put jam on it. At 1:45, I ran another SM:P. Nothing. The restaurant began to clear out. We waited a bit longer while they finished their food. At 2:10, I realized the obvious.
“He’s not coming,” I said. “You can call this an O’Grady moment or common sense, but something’s tipped the little slimeball off.”
Ari and I exchanged a glance. We both could guess that Brother Belial was most likely the “something.” Jack, who knew nothing about the coven or my real job, started to swear like the ex-Marine he was, then stopped himself because the waitress was within earshot. She brought them more coffee. The busboy came and cleared the table. Just to make sure, we waited another fifteen minutes. No Caleb. Jack paid the bill.
“What now?” Jack said.
“Now we go to the police,” Ari said, “and request they get a warrant for his arrest. For that to happen, you’ll have to make a formal statement. Are you willing to do that?”
Jack sagged in his chair and looked away.
“If you make the complaint to the Pacifica police,” Ari continued, “and you have that right based on Sumner’s last known address, it’s highly unlikely that anyone who lives near your father will ever hear of this. Blackmail victims have the right to remain anonymous.”
“But will my father have to make a statement?” Jack said.
Ari drank the last of his coffee before he answered. “I’m not sure. Sumner never directly extorted anything from him. He played upon your fear of his being harmed and extorted money from you. Can you say how much, come to think of it?”
“Over eight thousand. Not counting the current credit card bill, which is probably plenty.”
“We’re definitely in the felony range, then. Blackmail’s always a felony, I should say, but a clever solicitor can get the charges reduced if the amount is small. At any rate, you’re the principal victim here.”
“Sure am.” Jack drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “You know, I want to talk with my lawyer about this before I go to the police. It’s a cop out, I know, but shit, I just saw Dad, and he’s getting frail. He’s only seventy, but the cancer really took it out of him. I was hoping we could settle this without bringing him into it.”
“That would have been best,” Ari said. “It’s your choice, but my advice would be to go to the police.”
“If it was just me, I would, but it’s not. Look, I’ll do what my lawyer advises. I’ll call him from here and see if he can fit me in today. If he says file a statement, I’ll file. Shit!” Jack looked away again. “It would be Friday. I hope he’s still in the office.”
“So do I,” Ari said. “Let me know either way, will you?”
“You bet. Hey, Nola, thanks. I appreciate your help.”
Out in the parking lot, Jack called his lawyer, who was willing to wait to start his weekend if Jack came straight in. The Donovan business interests were keeping the law firm in luxury, I supposed. Unfortunately, “coming straight in,” meant that Jack would have to drive to San Rafael out in Marin County. He promised us he’d call as soon as he and the lawyer had had their talk. We watched him drive away, then returned to our car.
Before I got into the Saturn, I ran an SM:P on Caleb. I received a faint impression of him driving with the ocean to his right, that is, he was traveling south. I focused in and put some Qi behind the scan. The image clarified into a grassy cliff top. He seemed to be parking his car.
“I wonder if he’s gone back to Pacifica to collect his stuff before he runs,” I said. “He told me he had maps and old books and important papers for his research.”
“Good thought,” Ari said. “We could go take a look, but I don’t want you doing anything dangerous. If we apprehend him, leave him to me.”
“Okay. And I don’t want to go anywhere near the beach. Belial likes the beach entirely too much. I don’t want to run into him until we’ve dealt with Caleb.”
We drove west on John Daly Boulevard, which intersects with Skyline Boulevard heading south. While Pacifica lies reasonably near this intersection, I hadn’t driven out that way in years. I ended up taking the wrong turnoff and finding myself in a maze of suburban development. I finally reoriented myself—or re-occidented would be the better word, because I found a place where I could see the ocean—on a long, mostly empty street named Palmetto Avenue. This I could follow south to Pacifica itself.
“We don’t want to get too close,” Ari said. “These situations are always difficult. We don’t know if he’s armed or not.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Here’s a turnout.” I slowed down and pulled over. “Let’s park, and I’ll get out and do another scan.”
The turnout, on the eastern side of the road, proved to be the partially paved end of a decaying street. At one time, I supposed, a developer laid in the street, then for safety reasons broke off his plan to build houses along it. The west side of Palmetto abutted right onto the top of the sea cliff. Another bad winter like the one just behind us, and the blacktop would wind up on the sand below. Any houses built on the east side would have been next in line to go swimming. Even though we parked some fifteen yards away, I could hear the ocean fretting and gnawing at the base of the cliff.
We got out of the car. The strip of half-dead paving led east up a slight slope into a cluster of low-growing trees, bent and twisted by the perennial wind. I ran an SM:Danger and felt a warning at some distance.
“Something nasty’s around here,” I said, “but it’s not strong enough to give me a SAWM or an ASTA.”
“How close are we to Sumner’s old address?” Ari asked.
“Let’s see.” I looked southward down the road. “Esplanade joins this road about a quarter of a mile down there. He’d be some ways along it, maybe another quarter mile. I’m not sure.”
Ari swore in Hebrew and pointed at the sky. When I looked up, I saw a pale green Chaos light dancing just under the dark gray clouds.
“Isn’t that interesting?” I said. “Let’s go up a little higher. I don’t want to go out on the cliff top itself.”
“Quite right,” Ari said. “It looks unstable.”
Weeds and slippery iceplant covered the slope, but we managed to scramble up to the crest. Behind us, to the northeast, stood a small cluster of houses. When I looked off to the southwest, I could see onto Esplanade and a row of dark gray apartment houses that were barely clinging to the cliff. I pointed them out to Ari.
“Those look like the ones they’ve been showing on the TV news,” I said. “The red-tagged ones.”
The Chaos light, flickering like a green beacon, dropped away from the high clouds and danced over one particular long dark roof.
“Should we go investigate that?” Ari said.
“No, because this whole thing stinks. Real Chaos lights always come in pairs or clusters.”
“We’re being set up?”
“Exactly that. Can you call for police backup? Tell them your government contact’s gotten information from aerial surveillance. She thinks that Sumner’s hiding out in one of the red-tagged buildings.”
“Yes.” Ari pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll do that right now.”
The fake Chaos light disappeared, just as if someone had heard us. I did a fast SM:Danger but picked up nothing. An SM:P for Caleb placed him approximately a half mile away. Waiting for us in the deserted building? Possibly.
Far below the ocean muttered as the tide came foaming in over the rocks. While Ari called, I turned and looked down at the road where we’d left the Saturn. I was thinking only of leaving when I felt the first drops of water. Rain? I looked up, but I saw no rain, only clouds. More drops, more water from above—but my feet felt wet. I looked down and saw water welling up out of the ground where I stood. Water dropped from the sky. It oozed through my clothes, soaked my body, ran dripping from my hair. A trickle ran into the corner of my mouth. Saltwater.
“Say what?” I snapped.
Ari shoved the phone into his pocket and spun around. By then I was dripping wet, soaking with seawater that swirled around me in midair while the rest of the slope and the cliff top across the road stayed dry. Ari swore in Hebrew and grabbed my hand.
“Let’s get out of here!” he said. “Back to the road.”
I took a few steps toward him, but I was shivering so hard that I could barely walk. He threw an arm around my shoulders and guided me as I stumbled through the ice plants and weeds. The icy-cold water followed. It dripped, flowed, welled up with every step I took, just as if someone were pouring it from an inexhaustible pitcher. I had trouble breathing without choking on it.
I fought back. I raised a Shield Persona, then formed images of desert, dry, hot, parched, soaking up the water. I imagined a gust of wind that slammed into the downpour and blew it away from me. Abruptly the salt flow stopped. I looked around, dazed. We were still about twenty yards above the road, where our gray Saturn sat waiting. I heard a distant engine and the squeal of tires.
“Car approaching,” Ari said. “I hope it’s the police.”
A sleek white sedan came racing down the road. With the screech of tires it pulled off and came to a stop next to the Saturn, but the driver left its motor running. He flung open the door. I felt an ASTA like a stab of ice to the heart.
Ari let go of me and drew the Beretta in one smooth motion. Caleb slid out of the car and stood up behind the open door. He raised both hands as if he were going to surrender. Ari lowered his gun and took a step toward him.
“Ari, no!” I screamed.
Caleb laughed aloud and flung his hands forward to release a net of Qi. I could see glittering strands like ice as it swept over Ari and bound him. I was expecting him to fall, but he took one step backward to brace himself, then froze in the tangled ensorcellment. I summoned Qi of my own in a ball of fire between my hands, but before I could free Ari, Belial attacked.
A wave of pain slammed into me and forced me to my knees. I felt it as claws, ripping holes in my shield. I threw my readied flaming ball, then thrust back with the image of lightning, dancing blue fire on the water that he commanded. The electricity flared. Water boiled. He screamed and pulled out his claws. I summoned more Qi, struck again, and shoved him back in time to see Caleb bringing some kind of pistol out of his jacket.
I had no time to gather enough Qi to both ensorcell Caleb and protect myself. From behind my Shield Persona I flung one last bolt of energy at Belial. He bubbled and retreated. I dropped the shield. With one hand, I managed to summon just enough Qi to form a tiny sphere, a weak sphere, but when I flung it at Caleb, it hit him so hard that I knew he’d failed to raise a shield of his own.
Caleb yelped and fell back against the body of the sedan. The net of Qi around Ari disappeared. Ari swore and fired. I had just time to hear a staccato of shots before Belial leaped on my mind again, as savage as a hungry shark.
I fought him off, symbol after symbol, electric bolts, parching desert winds, thrusting them into his mind, shriveling his ocean waves to a trickle. He backed off long enough for me to raise my Shield. Cold, freezing cold, I’ve never felt so cold, utterly drained of Qi, of body heat, of everything but a numb dim awareness that Ari had flung his arms around me, two ropes of warmth.
“Caleb?” I whispered.
“Don’t worry about that now.”
I heard a rumbling sound, the pounding of waves on earth. Ari swore again. He picked me up and slung me over his shoulder like a sack of dirty laundry, then ran, halfstumbling, for the road. My arms flopped, my hair covered my face, I could do nothing but concentrate on breathing, forcing air into my lungs one gulp at a time. The sound grew louder. What it meant finally reached me, a rumble, a thump and crash, rocks rolling somewhere, huge rocks if I could hear them over the sound of the battering waves.
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