Brother Vahan has forcefully expressed the opinion that this may be related to an investigation you are pursuing."
"God, I hope not," I told him. But I was already getting out of bed. "Does he - do you - want me to come up there now?"
"If that would not be too inconvenient," Kawaguchi answered.
"I'm on my way," I said, and put the handset back in its cradle.
"On your way where?" Judy asked indignantly, mashing her pretty face into the pillow against the glare of the St.
Elmo's fire I called up so I could find my pants. "What time is it, anyhow?" "Two fifty-three," said the horological demon in my alarm clock.
Tm going up to St. Ferdinand's Valley." I rummaged in my drawer for a sweater; Angels City nights can be chilly. As I pulled the sweater over my head, I went on. The Thomas Brothers monastery up there, the one with all the damning data about the Devonshire dump, just burned down."
Judy sat bolt upright, the best argument I'd seen for staying home. "It wasn't an accident, or they wouldn't have called you."
Her voice was flat She started getting dressed, too.
By then I was buckling my sandals. "Brother Vahan doesn't seem to think so, from what the cop I talked with told me. And the timing of the fire is - well, suggestive is the word that comes to mind." No, I wasn't looking at her.
Besides, by that time she already had on skirt and blouse and headscarf. "You don't really need to bother with all that," I said. "Sleep here, if you like. I'll be back eventually."
"Back?" If she'd sounded indignant before, now she was furious. "Who care when you'll be back? I'm coming with you."
Procedurably, that was all wrong, and I knew it. But if you think I argued, think again. It wasn't just that I was in love with Judy, though I'd be lying if I said that didn't enter into it. But procedure aside, I was glad to have her eyes along.
She was likely to notice something I'd miss. And as far as investigating arson went, I'd be pretty useless up there myself.
That's a job for the constabulary, not the EPA.
III
The freeway flight corridors were almost empty, so I pushed my carpet harder than I could have during the day.
All the same, some people shot by me as if I was standing still. And one maniac almost flew right into me, then darted away like a bat out of hell. I hate drunks. The one advantage of being a regular commuter is that you don't see a lot of drunks out flying during regular commuting hours. It's not much of an advantage, but commuters have to take what they can get.
One of these days, the wizards keep promising, they'll be able to train the sylphic spirits in new carpets not to fly for drunks. This is another one I wouldn't stake my soul on. Sylphic spirits are naturally flighty themselves, and they hardly ever get hurt in accidents. So why should they care about the state of the people who ride their rugs?
I pulled off the freeway and darted north up almost deserted flight lanes toward the Thomas Brothers monastery. Toward what had been the Thomas Brothers monastery, I should say. It was still smoldering when I stopped at the edge of the zone the constabulary and firecrews had cordoned off.
Fighting fires in Angels City is anything but easy. Undines are weak and unreliable here: simply not enough underground water to support them. Firecrews use sand when they can, and the dust devils which keep it under control.
For big fires, though, only water will do, and it has to come through the cooperation of the Other Side: the Angeles City firecrew mages have pacts with Elelogap, Focalor, and Vepar, the demons whose power is over water. Most of the time, that just means keeping the infernal spirits from harassing the mechanical system of dams and pipes and pumps that fetch our water from far away. But sometimes, like tonight, the crews need more than sand can do, more than pipes can give. I was just showing my sigil to a worn-locking constable when one of the monastery towers flared anew. A wizard in firecrew crimson gestured with his wand to the spirit held inside a hastily drawn pentacle. I saw the mermaid-shape within writhe: he'd summoned Vepar, then.
That mage had a job I wouldn't want. Incanting always in a desperate hurry, drawing a new pentacle in the first open space you find, never daring to take the time to do a thorough job of checking it for gaps the summoned spirit could use to destroy you… only military magic takes a tougher toll on the operator.
But this fellow was cool as an ice elemental. He called on Vepar in a dear and piercing voice: "I conjure thee, Vepar, by the living God, by the true God, by the holy and all-ruling God, Who created from nothingness the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all things that are therein, Adonai, Jehovah, Tetragrammeton, to pour your waters upon the blaze there in such quantity and placement as to be most efficacious in extinguishing it and least damaging to life and property, in this place, before this pentacle, without grievance, deformity, noise, murmuring, or deceit. Obey, obey, obey!"
"It pains me to cease the destruction of the monastics housed therein." I felt Vepars voice rather than hearing it.
Like the demon's visible form, it was sensuous enough to make me want to forget from what sort of creature it really came.
The wizard didn't forget. "Obey, lest I cast thy name and seal into this brazier and consume them with sulphurous and stinking substances, and in so doing bind thee in the Bottomless Pit, in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone prepared for rebellious spirits, remembered no more before the face of God. Obey obey, obey!" He held his closed hand above the brazier, as if to drop into the coals whatever he held.
I wouldn't have ignored a threat like that, and I'm a material creature. To Vepar, who was all of spirit, it had to be doubly frightening. Water suddenly saturated the air around the burning tower; you could see fog turn to mist and then to rain. The same thing had to be happening inside, too. The flames went out.
"Give me leave to get hence," Vepar said sullenly. "Am I now sufficiently humiliated to satisfy thee?"
The mage from the firecrew was too smart to let the demon lure him into that kind of debate. Without replying directly, he granted Vepar permission to go: "0 Spirit Vepar, because thou hast diligently answered my demands, I do hereby license thee to depart, without injury to man or beast.
Depart, I say, but be thou willing and ready to come whenever duly conjured by the sacred rites of magic. I adjure thee to withdraw peaceably and quietly, and may the peace of God continue forever between us. Amen."
He stayed in his own circle until the mermaid-shape vanished from the pentacle. Then he stepped - staggered, actually - out. I hoped the fire truly had a stake through its heart; that mage didn't look as if he could summon up ten coppers for a cup of tea.
A slim, Asian-looking man in constabulary uniform came up to me. "Inspector Fisher?" He waited for me to nod before he stuck out a hand. Tm Legate Kawaguchi - As I said, Brother Vahan asked for your presence here." He affected to notice Judy for the first time. His face went from impassive to cold. "Who is your, ah, companion here?"
What are you doing bringing your girlfriend along on business? he meant. I said, "Legate, allow me to present my fiancee, Judith Ather." Before he could blow up at me, I added, coldly myself, "Mistress Ather is on the staff of Handof-Glory Publishing. As I feared magic might well be involved in this fire, I judged her expertise valuable." I gave him back an unspoken question of my own: Want to make something of it?
He didn't. He bowed slightly to Judy, who returned the courtesy. Kawaguchi turned back to me. "Your fears, it seems, are well-founded. This indeed appears to be a case of arson and homicide by sorcery."
I gulped. "Homicide?"
"So it would appear, Inspector. Brother Vahan informs me that eleven of the monks cannot be accounted for. Firecrew have already discovered three sets of mortal remains; as the site cools further, more such are to be expected."