Water to Burn Read Free Page B

ordinary Chaos creature would have popped like a balloon and left a skin or pieces on the floor for a couple of seconds.”
    “That’s very true.” Y paused to remove his glasses and wipe them on a white handkerchief that materialized in his image’s hand. “It bears investigating.” He put the glasses back on. “But be very careful.”
    “I will. You can bet on that.”
    “I need to sign off and go to a meeting, but quickly, is there anything else you need to report?”
    “I have a question. What about that gate between worlds? The one in my aunt’s house.”
    “I’m afraid I don’t have anything new to tell you. The higher-ups are still making up their minds what to do.”
    “They’d better make them up faster. It’s beginning to wear on the family, wondering if some radioactive weirdo’s going to come charging in one night.”
    “I could possibly put in a requisition for a Marine squad to stand guard—”
    “That would be worse. Never mind. Just try to drop a few of the right words in the right ears, will you?”
    “I’ll do my best.”
    Y’s image flickered and disappeared.
    I swam back up to the surface of my mind and opened my eyes. Ari was sitting on my computer chair on the other side of the coffee table and staring at me.
    “I’m fine,” I said. “I’m back.”
    “You need to eat something.” Ari glowered at me.
    “No, I don’t. Aunt Eileen’s going to fix a massive meal to welcome you back. I’ll wait.”
    I changed into a dark green corduroy skirt, brown boots, and a rust sweater, so I could look respectable if, by some miracle, we saw a workable apartment for rent. Since the day looked cold, I added my raincoat. I also carried my cross-agency government ID, which is not precisely fake—that group knows I have it even though I don’t work for them. Ari wore the navy-blue pinstriped suit he calls his police outfit, a move that turned out to be prescient, even though he has no psychic talents.
    Since I wanted to live by the ocean, we drove to the outer Sunset district, one of the least interesting parts of San Francisco. It stretches from the big crosstown artery, 19th Avenue, down to the Great Highway and Ocean Beach on the western edge of the city. The neighborhood features street after street of jam-packed houses, painted in pastels, most of them built in the late ’30s and ’40s by the same company. The typical house is your basic cube, set above a garage and fronted by a tiny square of lawn.
    After an hour or so of cruising for “for rent” signs, Ari turned glum. We were heading north on 37th Avenue when I realized that he was staring out the window with a hopeless sort of expression on his face.
    “I know this isn’t the coolest architecture in the world,” I said.
    “It’s not the architecture. It’s the sodding fog. Look at it! Doesn’t it ever leave?”
    Since we’d paused at a stop sign, and no other cars moved on the gray and windswept street, I looked. In the sky to the west a hovering Fog Face stared at me with a hopeless expression that matched Ari’s.
    “Uh, yeah, it does sometimes,” I said and hung a left onto Rivera. “We’re going to the beach.”
    Fog Face smiled and disappeared.
    As we drove west on Rivera, I heard the thuck thuck thuck of a helicopter passing overhead, going in the same direction as we were. Ari rolled down his window and stuck his head out to look.
    “It’s a police chopper.” He had to yell over the noise.
    At that point we heard sirens, too, racing ahead of us. I drove faster. When we reached the end of the street, which stops at the Great Highway, we parked the car and got out. Just across Rivera I noticed a small yellow school bus. Inside, maybe a dozen kids sat oddly quietly for kids waiting to go somewhere. A pair of adults walked up and down the aisle. Above us the helicopter headed out to sea. The noise dimmed, and I could hear myself think again.
    The Great Highway runs on a semi-artificial surface, built of