Water To Burn Part 24

"Those little decorations at the corner of the sungla.s.s frames contain a lens and a microphone. The lens is fairly decent, unlike the microphone. It focuses light on a CMOS imager that converts the light into voltages. The stronger the light, the larger the voltage. Those measurements are numerical, of course, and the monitor then converts that information back into a pattern of light and shadow."

He might as well have spoken in Farsi for all that I understood him. He recognized my blank stare.

"Let's put it this way," Ari said. "The CMOS process in those sungla.s.ses could respond to his electrical field, or magnetic field if that's what it was, more directly and more easily than your eyes could. He must have been producing a field of varying strengths that could activate the imager in a similiar way to light."

"I think I get it," I said. "Since you were watching on the monitor, you were seeing that captured image, not him directly. "

"Exactly! And captured is the word we want. When you startled him, he flew toward the device, and it sucked him in for a moment."

"That says to me that he's a consciousness attached to some kind of magnetic or electric field."

"That flickering distortion we saw? I suspect it was Belial fighting to get free. What I wonder," Ari continued, "is what sort of field he's riding. It's nothing I've ever heard of before."

"Qi, maybe?"

Ari shrugged.

"d.a.m.n!" I said. "It would be Sat.u.r.day! I need to run this by my handler and NumbersGrrl, too. Could you download that video onto my desktop, do you think?"

"Not directly, but I can copy it onto a DVD, and you can download from there."

"That'll do, yeah. I'll send it to them when I file a report, and it'll be waiting for them on Monday. We can use all the speculation we can get."

"Speculation? Yes, solid information would be too much to hope for."

Ari took the monitor into the bedroom, where he was using an end table as a temporary desk for his laptop. I scribbled a note on a post-it, "get more furniture," stuck it on the refrigerator, then took out my phone to call Kathleen.

I hesitated with my finger poised over her speed dial number. Jack had mentioned that they were leaving town to visit his folks for a few days. If I told Kathleen about Caleb's record now, I figured, she'd never be able to keep the secret until they returned. If Kathleen did blab, Jack would want to have it out with Caleb right away. I'd lose my chance to pry more information out of the little slimeball. I unpoised the finger and put the phone back in my pocket.

Ari came out of the bedroom and handed me a DVD in a paper sheath. I put it on my desk beside the keyboard and sat down on the chair, then swiveled around to face him.

"I should warn you," I said. "I want to string Caleb along for a few days to see if I can get more information out of him."

"Of course. Is he l.u.s.ting after you?"

"Yeah. That's why I'm warning you."

"Mata Hari in blue jeans, that's you." He stepped back out of range before I could kick him.

"I'm not real good at the vamp routine. If I was going to be seductive, I should have started at lunch."

"And I shouldn't have frightened him. What about flattering his superior occult knowledge? Judging from what I heard of the conversation, he thinks he has some."

"As you like to say, brilliant! I'll try that." I made a sour face. "But later. A little Caleb goes a long way."

Before I downloaded the captured video, I ran a check on the DVD with our special Agency software. I wouldn't have put it past Ari to have loaded some kind of Trojan horse onto it along with the video of Brother Belial, just so he could browse on my computer if he felt the need. I'd maligned him. At least as far as the Agency's detection programs knew, the disk was clean, and the Agency had very good software at its disposal.

Life intervened and made it imperative that I keep in touch with Caleb sooner than I wanted. Detective Lieutenant Sanchez called Ari later that afternoon. Since I was concentrating on filing the report about Brother Belial, Ari went into the bedroom to take the call. I'd just finished sending the file and video off via TranceWeb when Ari walked back into the living room. He shook his head in annoyance.

"What's wrong?" I said.

"Too much pressure on Sanchez," Ari said. "He's calling the Evers case suicide and ending the investigation."

"Good."

"Good?"

"Imagine this scene. I sit in the witness box in front of a jury and tell them, swearing on the Bible, that someone used a flood of Qi to ensorcell Evers, then drowned him by scooping up a rogue wave with his or her psychic powers."

"Oh." Ari blinked at me. "Quite right. Not much use in pursuing the matter, then. But the thought of letting that sodding little b.a.s.t.a.r.d off-"

"He's not off the hook yet," I said. "And for all we know, it wasn't Caleb who killed Evers. What we need to do next is find out if he did. He knows something about it. I'd bet on that."

I picked up the receiver of my landline phone and punched in Caleb's number. Four long rings, and then his answering machine clicked on with a simple name, number, please leave message. I started talking in case he was screening his calls, but no luck. I left a fake apology for Ari's behavior and hung up.

"Where does he live, anyway?" Ari said.

"I don't know." I rummaged through the papers on my desk and found the business card Caleb had given me at the party. "This only has a phone number on it. Jack must know, if it matters."

"Not at the moment. I just wanted to enter it into my files."

I heard a tapping sound on the bay window. When I walked over, I saw Fog Face hovering just outside. In the dying light of late afternoon, he held out gray and misty hands and mouthed a single word, help, before he melted back into the murky sky.

Caleb never returned my call that night. I made several LDRS attempts, which failed. Either he was asleep, or his location was pitch-dark. Either way, I received only black scribbles. When I tried an SM:P for him, I ran into his psychic s.h.i.+eld. I received a faint impression of terror, but the s.h.i.+eld held steady enough to prevent me from discovering if he was afraid of me or of someone else.

CHAPTER 11.

EARLIER IN THE WEEK, ARI HAD CONTACTED the local gun club over by Lake Merced, a short drive from our new building. Although they lacked the kind of firing range he wanted, they had put him in touch with a police-oriented facility a little farther south in San Mateo County. For his first lesson in handling a lethal weapon, Michael drove over to the flat on Sunday morning, arriving well before noon. Uncle Jim had taken the family to early ma.s.s, he told us, to get a start on the day.

"Where's Brian?" I said. "Ari would be glad to teach him, too."

"He says he doesn't want to mess around with guns," Michael said. "I can't figure that out."

I could. Mentally, I saluted Brian as a fellow sane person.

"When I drove up, you know?" Michael continued. "I saw some graffiti on your steps. A black circle thing, and then the Nortenos tag."

"Nortenos?" Ari said. "A street gang?"

"Yeah. Theirs is the red one, Nor Fifteen, but they use the Roman number for the fifteen. I dunno what gang has the black circle, but you can bet that the Nortenos wanted to tag over it."

"We'll clean that off before we go," Ari said to me. "I'm very glad the landlords painted the building the way they did."

"Yeah," I said. "A real time and stress saver."

Ari packed his sports bag with the two pieces, wrapped in black cloth, of what I a.s.sumed was some kind of rifle, a couple of pairs of earm.u.f.fs, and two sets of goggles. The sight of the safety equipment soothed my nerves.

I went downstairs with them to deal with the graffiti. Someone had spray-painted a big NORXV above the unbalanced Chaos symbol. A thrown ward had no effect on the red gang tag. While I waited for Ari and Michael to fetch the hose and rags, I examined the circle and its fringe of seven arrows more closely. I'd noticed the crisp edges and the smoothness of its paint before, but not the face that suddenly appeared in the center of the black circle. A white man, egg bald, with blue eyes in a narrow face stared out at me. He looked faintly familiar, but I was too surprised to place him.

"Join us."

I heard his high, fluting voice as distinctly as if he were standing in front of me.

"Join us," he repeated. "You can't fight us and win. Join us and receive the angel's gifts."

I wrenched my gaze away and stepped back just as Ari and Michael returned.

"Let me throw a couple of wards at this sucker," I said.

The first ward shattered with a spray of electric-blue glare; the second made the symbol hiss and writhe; the third killed it.

"Did you see the thing move when I threw the second ward?" I said to Ari.

"No. Did it?"

"What about the face?"

"Face? No, I didn't."

"I didn't see anything, either," Michael said. "Except you waving your hand around."

"Okay, I guess the message was for my eyes only. While you're gone, I'm going to report this to the Agency. I wonder if I've just heard from the man who talks to the Peac.o.c.k Angel."

"Should we stay here?" Ari said.

"No reason to. If they wanted to come see me, they wouldn't be painting stuff on the walls."

Michael and Ari washed the mess off, then drove off to the firing range. I double-checked on the Internet to make sure I was remembering the Chaos magic symbol correctly. It indeed should have had eight arrows emerging from the circle instead of seven. There had been seven members in Belial's coven, too. Connection or coincidence? I didn't know.

I filed a report on the talking graffito, then got down to work on other Agency business. I wasn't expecting to hear from my handler till Monday at the earliest, but he surprised me. When I logged on to TranceWeb, I found good news waiting for me, a message from Y, stating that he would do his best to get the secret office at the State Department to produce some papers for Lisa/Sophie. They owed him several favors, he reckoned, for taking Ari off their hands. His contact at State still remembered Ari's lack of manners and what he called "Ari's infuriating arrogance." Y promised he'd pursue the matter on Monday or as soon as his contact could accommodate a meeting.

As for my suggestion about bringing Michael onboard to see if he could find other gates, Y counseled caution.

"He's young, and you feel responsible for him," Y's e-mail said. "Think about it very carefully before you act. I can't say yes or no."

NumbersGrrl had yet to reply about the video I'd sent her. She had a life, I a.s.sumed, to live on weekends.

That left Caleb and his possible role in Evers' murder. The pressure on Sanchez had, in a sense, shoved the case into my jurisdiction, to investigate or drop in turn. My "to do" list was already too long to take on anything else, but murder is murder. No matter how unpleasant the victim, an unjust death upsets the Balance that I'm sworn to serve. I picked up my cell phone and called Caroline Burnside.

Karo not only remembered me. She was glad to hear from me. No one had bothered to tell her that the police had ruled Bill Evers' death a suicide.

"d.a.m.n them d.a.m.n them d.a.m.n them!" she said. "I know that's not true. Yeah, Bill saw that he'd gone too far with that Persian white s.h.i.+t. He also knew that he could get into programs and see doctors and get his life back. He could be really stubborn, but he wasn't dumb. Someone killed him. I'm sure of it."

"You could be right," I said. "That's why I'm calling you. But if I'm going to take up the case, you've got to be honest with me."

I could feel the silence on the other end of the connection turn to fear. I waited.

"About what?" Karo said.

"Blackmail."

Karo gasped.

"Was Bill putting a squeeze on some of his clients?" I said.

"What? No, never!" Her relief sounded too deep to be feigned. "Sorry, I didn't get what you meant at first."

"Was someone blackmailing him?"

Again the gasp, and finally, "Yeah, or so he said. But it was too weird, and I don't know if it was true, or if the smack was talking for him."

My hands began to itch, ready to reach out and grab the information.

"You don't have to worry anymore about protecting him, unfortunately," I said. "What did he tell you?"

"He was being blackmailed by a guy who knew about the coven and the drugs. You can imagine how well that news would have gone over with Bill's clients."

"I sure can. How did this person find out about those things?"

"He told Bill that Brother Belial himself had informed on him. But this guy didn't want money from Bill. He wanted dirt, news he could use, y'know? Speaking of blackmail like we were. People tell their divorce lawyers some pretty hairy stuff about their exes."

"This begins to make sense," I said.

"It does?" Karo sounded honestly surprised. "I thought maybe Bill was hallucinating."

"Heroin doesn't make people hallucinate. Why did you think that?"

"Here's the weird part. Please don't hang up on me." Karo paused for a giggle of pure anxiety. "Bill said this guy had occult powers. That's what he called them, occult powers. He is a master, Bill told me, and Brother Belial's his familiar."

"Did he ever tell you anything concrete about this guy? What he looked like, where he came from, his age, that kind of thing?"

"No, and he never told me the guy's name. Bill was pretty sure that the name the guy gave when he made his appointments was fake, anyway. But still, that's why I wondered if the guy really existed."

"Did Bill give in to this person's demands and supply him with material for blackmail?"

"Bill told me no. Maybe he was telling the truth, but I dunno, junkies lie. Y'know?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid I do. You wanted to believe him, but you couldn't."

"If only he'd cleaned up." Karo's voice began to shake. "G.o.d, if only he had. I wanted him to go to the cops about this guy, but he wouldn't because of the drugs."