License to Ensorcell by Katharine Kerr Page B

Copertino and let the subject drop. Still, Nathan had spoken the truth about my putting myself in danger. If danger existed—I’d not received a single warning since the day Aunt Eileen first met me on the street, not about assassins, at any rate, only about Nathan himself.
    Sometimes I’m slow. The tarot reading finally fell into place along with the latest vision. Lust kills. Sister Peter Mary had been right, though not quite in the way she’d meant. What most people would call sexual desire comes from the Qi flowing between two people. What summons the flow depends on the desiring person’s psychology, whatever they find sexually attractive for whatever reason. Nathan and I attracted each other enough to pour out Qi, surrounding both of us in what amounted to a thick psychic fog. While it was physically uncomfortable for him, it made my talents impossible to control.
    “Tell you something,” I said. “I’d be safer if you weren’t around.”
    “No, you wouldn’t.” He slewed around to face me.
    “You told me that first day that you prefer to work alone.”
    “Yes, well. That was before.”
    “Before what?”
    “Before I realized you have suicidal tendencies. Why do you think you’d be safer alone?”
    “I’m good at avoiding being noticed. You’re not.”
    “Don’t lie.”
    “Bastard!”
    We both began staring out the windshield. I could either tell him the truth or just put up with him acting like a bodyguard, even though my raw physical feeling for him was causing nothing but problems. I could see a third option, allowing us to balance out the Qi in the usual way, but that would bring problems of its own.
    “You were lying,” he said eventually.
    “Yeah, so what?”
    “I’m not going to apologize.”
    “What makes you think I wanted you to?” At that point, I realized that our conversation had sunk to the level of thirteen year olds, and for reasons appropriate to that age. I thought up a half-truth as a cover story. “Nathan, look, I’m sorry. I’m all to pieces, thinking about Pat.”
    “Well, yes, you must be.” He turned toward me again. His Byzantine eyes radiated genuine sympathy. “I just don’t want you to join him.”
    “I’m not real keen on leaving this wicked world the same way he did, no. All right, I won’t go down to the Tenderloin alone.”
    “Fine. With me along you’ll be a lot safer.”
    “You can’t stay with me twenty-four hours a day.”
    “Why not? I’ve got my suitcases in the boot.”
    “No. You’re not moving in.”
    “I was planning on sleeping on the floor of your lounge.”
    Oh, yeah? I thought. For how long? Five minutes? Aloud, I said, “I can protect myself. I know you don’t believe in things like ensorcellment, but they work.”
    “Against a military sniper’s rifle fired from a hundred meters away?”
    “How is your body on my floor going to protect me from that?”
    “It won’t, of course, but if someone tried to break in, they’d have a surprise waiting for them. Nola, why aren’t you taking this threat seriously?”
    “I’ve wondered that myself.”
    “Look.” He made a fist with his right hand and punched it into his left palm. “My superiors must have believed that the kind of talents your Agency offers are essential to this case. I scoffed at first, but I’m coming around to their way of thinking. I need your help, so damned if I’m going to lose you to the psychopath we’re hunting.”
    I considered the offer on its merits. Beyond the problem of the superfluous Qi that Nathan and I were generating, I suspected that Johnson had talents of his own that allowed him to interfere with my extra senses. If I had a bodyguard, I could take the risk of scanning for him. If he physically followed the scan back to me, Nathan would be waiting to surprise him.
    “All right, Nathan. That makes sense.”
    “Brilliant.” He hesitated briefly. “Why won’t you call me by my first name?”
    “Because,” I said and started the