License to Ensorcell by Katharine Kerr Read Free Book Online Page A

carried the platter in procession back to the living room. Brian had returned to his game, but mercifully he’d shut off the sound. Nathan was sitting on the edge of the brown armchair with a thick family photo album in his lap, while Aunt Eileen hovered behind, leaning over now and then to point something out as he turned the pages. I expected Nathan to be bored one degree away from rigor mortis, but damned if he didn’t seem interested.
    “Now, who’s that?” he was saying. “The man in the gray suit.”
    “That’s Nola’s dad,” Eileen said. “Right after he married my sister, poor fellow.”
    “There’s quite a story in that,” I said, as firmly as I could. “But it’s not one for right now.”
    “Well, of course not!” Eileen reached over and retrieved the album. “Brian, please, turn that awful thing off!”
    Brian had just finished splattering three zombies against a wall with a ray gun. He started to protest the order, then saw the cookies. The game went off. Nathan glanced at the book bag and raised an eyebrow.
    “Some things that belonged to my brother Patrick,” I said and nodded a slight yes. “Michael saved them for me.”
    “Ah,” Nathan said. “Nice of him.” He stood up. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Houlihan, but we’ve really got to leave. There are things I need to do after I drop Nola off at her place.”
    Aunt Eileen fixed him with the gimlet eye. “Drop her off?” she said. “I should hope so!”
    The weapons expert looked briefly terrified. I said good night all around and got us out of there before the lecture began.
    The sky was darkening to twilight as we hurried across the street. He unlocked the passenger side of the car and opened the door for me. I stood my ground and held out a hand.
    “The keys, Nathan,” I said. “If I do the driving, you won’t need to use that insurance policy from the rental agency. If you drive, we will.”
    “I’ve noticed,” he said stiffly, “that California drivers do seem to be timid souls.”
    “We happen to love life, that’s why. Give me the keys.”
    “You know, you remind me of your aunt at the moment.”
    “Good. If you don’t give them to me, I’ll take the bus home, and you can damn well find your own way to either my apartment or a premature death. I put the odds at fifty-fifty.”
    He sighed and handed over the keys. As soon as we’d gotten back into the car, he retrieved his gun in its shoulder holster and strapped it on.
    “By the way,” I said, “I’m sorry about the family photos.”
    “What? Why?”
    “You weren’t bored?”
    “Only a little confused. You certainly come from a large enough clan.”
    “You could say that, yeah. My grandfather—Eileen and Mother’s dad—was the seventh child of a seventh child. Then Grandpa had seven kids, too. Those are the O’Briens. Father Keith is the third O’Brien, Eileen’s the sixth, and my mother hit the jackpot—she’s the seventh of them. She married Flann O’Grady, and they had seven kids. Michael’s the seventh in our batch.”
    “Isn’t there a superstition about that? All those sevenths, I mean.”
    “If you want to call it that, yeah. There sure is.”
    Nathan turned and looked out the windshield. In the cold glare of the streetlight, he looked exhausted. “The vast majority of my grandparents’ families died in the Holocaust—their parents, brothers, sisters—anyone still in Europe when the war started. Well, except for one brother who was an infant at the time—my great-uncle. A Dutch family took him and risked everything by pretending he was theirs.” He shrugged as if tossing the grief away. “But I don’t have much of a family.”
    “Uh, God! I’m so sorry.”
    “So am I.” He began fiddling with the safety harness on his side of the car. “Let’s go, shall we? I want to get back to your place in time for the news.”
    So did I, but when we watched it, him on the couch, me on my computer chair, the news had nothing to add to the