Diana Tregarde - Burning Water Part 3

She waited quietly for him to organize his thoughts, while he negotiated the Ghia out of the parking garage and onto the superhighway. A quick glance to the side told him that if she was feeling any impatience she certainly wasn't showing it. But then, she rarely displayed signs of emotion; she kept her feelings, like her private life, to herself.

"Like I said," he told her, finally, "if it had been up to me, I'd have called you earlier. The feeling of the whole area has been real weird for the past month or so."

"How so, weird?"

"Off just off. Unsettled, and not in a good way. You know I'm not real sensitive, that's the best I can tell you. But we've been getting all those signs of 'bad ju-ju' you always told me to watch out for "

"Increased violence at mental inst.i.tutions, an upswing in the number of nasty cultists coming out of the woodwork, an increase in psychiatric admissions?""All of the above. And the fourth an increase in certain kinds of people finding excuses to bug out of the area."

"Like?"

"Most of the Rom are gone. Flat gone is what Bunco tells me. So far as we can tell, the great majority of our regular gypsy population pulled out and headed north last September. And we're down to half the usual population of 'psychic advisors,' and it ain't 'cause Bunco is busting 'em. It's getting so that Bunco can't even find them. I figure the real ones left early, the marginally sensitive bailed out this month, and all we're left with now is the flimflam artists, or the ones too desperate poor to leave."

She pursed her lips, looking thoughtful. He hit the brakes as a pink-beige Cadillac with a vanity license plate saying TOMMY H and an "I love Tulsa" sticker cut right across his front b.u.mper.

"a.s.shole," he muttered under his breath. "I heart Tulsa. Jerk."

"Accident looking for a place to happen," she supplied, absently.

Then, a fraction of a second later, the look of abstraction vanished and she seized the steering wheel and yanked it violently right, sending the Ghia careening across three lanes of traffic with a shriek of tortured rubber. Behind them came the sound of frantic horns and the scream of brakes And at exactly the same moment, the driver of the Cadillac that had cut them off made a fatal misjudgment.

He tried the same maneuver that he'd inflicted on them a moment earlier, only this time it was with the semi-rig in the far left lane. Unfortunately, the driver of the semi chose the same instant to accelerate.

The semi clipped the rear of the Cadillac, sending it spinning right across the slot they'd occupied until Diana had wrenched the wheel over.

Before Mark even had time to blink, the Caddy spun across their lane behind them, rolled, rammed into an overpa.s.s, and burst into flame.

"My G.o.d " He started to pull over; the automatic reaction of any cop. Diana, face as white as skim milk, forestalled him.

"Go just go," she choked. "He you won't help him."

After one look at her deathly pale face, he obeyed.

He had forgotten that among other things Di was an empath sensitive not to thoughts, but to feelings and emotions.

My G.o.d she must have felt the whole thing Silence reigned for so long that he finally reached over and turned on the radio, unable to stand it any longer.

"Ah " After a song -and-half she shook her hair back and ma.s.saged her temples; her color was returning. "That was not good. That's what I get for unshielding on the highway."

"Yeah, well." He negotiated a tricky bit of driving to get around an elderly Buick doing forty. "I'm glad some of your other talents are still working."

She grimaced. "Not as well as I'd like, nor as predictably."

"You " He took another glance at her. She looked okay, now. Pretty well back to normal. "You ready for the debriefing again?"

"No but go on, anyway. Instinct says I'm late getting on this one as it is."

"Okay. So far as the Chief is concerned, this whole mess started about three or four months ago "

"I take it you think differently."

"Uh-huh. I think it began about eight or nine months ago. We started to get the cattle mutilations about then, and I'm convinced that they're related."

Now she looked at him, quizzically. "There's something you're not telling me. About why you're convinced. Confession time."

He blushed. "One of the ranchers getting hit was an old rodeo cowboy; you know, the oil economy isn't the only thing that's in trouble down here, the ranchers are having problems with keeping their spreads. This guy d.a.m.n it, I felt sorry for him; he spent half his life risking his neck just so he could save up for a place of his own then these sickos start wrecking his herd. Well, I couldn't get anyone to stake out the place, and I had the feeling this was more than just the work of a garden-variety sicky, so I snuck out there on the full moon ""And?" she prompted.

"I I warded it." He could feel his face burning. Good Catholic boys didn't go around casting pagan magic. Good cops didn't either.

"Well?"

"They never hit his place again."

"Hmm. If it looks like a duck "

"Yeah. It wasn't just some sicko; a sicko wouldn't have cared squat about a warding, right?"

"A sicko wouldn't have noticed it, right. He might even have been caught by it; that's the thing about the warding I taught you bunch of refugees from the loonybin, it's a little like a watchdog. If somebody sensitive comes, it warns them off; if they come in anyway, it bites them; if they're wearing armor or just don't notice it, it raises h.e.l.l with the master. If it had just been a nonsensitive sicko, the minute he crossed the boundary with ill-intent, your cowboy would have felt a pressing need to go visit that pasture armed."

"Well, we've had animal mutilations before, just not so close to Dallas or so many; the Chief was inclined to let the county mounties handle it. But then it escalated, and we started getting dead people."

"Ah. So our weirdie upped the ante."

"They," he corrected, pulling off on his exit ramp. "What we've been seeing is too much work for one person alone. And I know you told me that my main psi -talent is mediumism and not sensitivity, but well, I've been feeling something around the murder sites. Something I don't know "

"Evil?"

"I guess. Something I don't want to touch, anyway. Makes my skin crawl, and frankly scares the s.h.i.t out of me."

"How's the shielding I put on you holding up? Any chance you could be getting leakages? That might account for it. Violent death tends to make for violent spirits. And you could be a very sensitive medium if you ever unshielded. Spirits could just slide into you like they were coming home. That was why that critter was targeting you the night we met, not one of the others."

He shook his head. "No way; that's the first thing I checked for. Shields are as good as when you put them on me right after that Halloween party. Anyway, that's when I talked to the Chief and managed to get him to agree to your coming in on this."

"Not under my true colors, I take it?"

"Are you kidding? I don't want you burned on my lawn! This's Bible-thumper country; one hint of the stuff you're really into, and we'll both end up covered in tar and feathers if we're lucky. No, you're an 'expert on modern cults.' That double major of yours in anthro and psych helped convince them you had the credentials. They still think this is just another Manson thing."

"Gah. I wish. Not by all my preliminary investigation. Yeah, it's cult-related, I'm sure of it but I'm also sure there's a purpose and they know exactly what they're doing. But I was hoping it would just be one person. Group-minds are a lot harder to pin down, and a lot better at covering their tracks."

He shook his head. "Sorry. All our evidence points to at least three."

"So your department is feeling out of their depth, huh? They must be pretty antsy; a little bird in the Hartford PD told me they'd been making inquiries." She grinned. "I suspect they liked what they heard."

"Liked it enough that they're going to put you on a retainer. Your rep for never getting involved with the press or blowing your own horn helped."

"G.o.d " she shuddered. "No thanks. I have enough problems without getting followed around by Astral Annies. Good; at least they're going to be predisposed to listen to me. Now, how big is this retainer? You know I'm not exactly rich."

"Hey what about all those books?"

Her face was shadowed for a moment, and her eyes darkened with unmistakable sorrow. "I I've got some very expensive things to take care of."

Then she brightened again, though he had the impression that it was a forced brightness.

"Expensive honey, I got expenses you wouldn't believe have you seen the price of crystal b.a.l.l.s recently? Things I need you don't find at K-Mart. And they don't come cheap. And I still have to eat and pay the rent. So what's my retainer, hm?""Well we're under a budget crunch. Not real big. It'll cover a hotel bill or food. Not both."

He pulled into an old residential neighborhood; houses that dated back to the mid to late 1800s which for Dallas, was old. The street was tree -lined, quiet; a considerable relief after the highway.

"I have a couple ideas, though."

"Hm?"

"I've got an old maiden aunt that takes in student boarders, and one of her 'girls' just headed out for overseas study last semester. She's got a room free. And she's a darn good cook. I already asked her she said she'd be happy to have you. My apartment isn't too far from here it's in the Rose Point complex. She'll give you bed and board for the amount of the retainer."

"Okay. Or?"

"You could stay with me. But I've only got a studio. One bed."

"Uh-huh. And I don't think you picture either of us sleeping on the floor." She shook her head. "No, I don't think so, love. I'm not the one you want, so I'm not going to settle for being the one you're with."

His mouth dropped open. "I uh " he felt himself blushing again, this time all the way down to his toes. Despite the earlier reminder, he'd completely forgotten that picking up odd information about people's emotional states apparently out of thin air was one of her most unsettling habits. Her primary psychic talent, the one she relied on most, was empathy as she had so amply demonstrated back on the highway. It was a very useful gift, but did tend to cause some consternation among her friends.

Especially when she blatantly said things like that.

"Uh okay, well I kind of figured Aunt Nita is pretty much waiting for us."

He pulled into the driveway of an enormous Victorian home, painted light gray with darker gray trim, and genteelly shabby. The lawn was the usual withered brown of Dallas gra.s.s in midwinter, but was showing some signs of reviving in the unseasonably warm weather.

The driveway was obviously a relic of earlier times; it was cobblestoned, and barely wide enough for the Ghia. Mark would never have wanted to pull a standard-sized vehicle in here.

His aunt as he could have predicted had been watching for them. As he and Di got out of the car, a white-haired old woman in a gray, lace-trimmed dress opened her front door and descended the steps of the porch with the same dignity and poise Queen Elizabeth exhibited when treading the steps of Parliament and with a good deal more grace than most monarchs ever displayed.

Mark waited respectfully; Aunt Nita was not a woman that anyone treated lightly. She was a ramrod-straight, iron wand of a woman of aristocratic hidalgo blood. Her parents and grandparents had held rancheros the size of counties. Her great-grandparents had been virtual monarchs.

All that had vanished, either at the hands of greedy Texas politicians, or in the Depression. All that was left her was her dignity, her pride, and this enormous house.

"Aunt Nita," Mark said, "This is the young lady I told you about, Diana Tregarde. Di, this is my Aunt, Juanita Valdez."

Di offered her hand with a smile whose warmth surprised Mark. He was even more surprised to see that his aunt was wearing a smile of identical warmth.

"I believe I have read one of your books, Miss Tregarde Blood and Roses "

"Good heavens, Miss Valdez! I didn't think anyone had bothered to buy that one!" She smiled ruefully at Mark. "That was one of my rare attempts at a serious historical and it was a total failure. I thought it was a natural, it was set during the Spanish Campaign of the Napoleonic Wars, and done from the Spanish viewpoint. I guess I didn't get enough fainting and ravishing in it."

"It may have been an economic failure, Miss Tregarde," the white-haired lady admonished, "but it was an artistic success."

Di laughed. Mark wished she'd do so more often; it was such a musical laugh, like a clarinet arpeggio.

"If you're going to praise me so extravagantly, Miss Valdez, you've earned a friend for life, and you're going to have to call me Di."

"In that case, you must give me the pleasure of hearing you call me 'Aunt Nita,' as Mark and my young ladies do. Would you care to come in and see your room? You are staying "

Mark sighed. "Yes, Aunt; Di's staying. Her virtue is safe."Di gave him a warning look, but his aunt merely smiled.

"Has Mark told you why I'm here?" she asked, as they climbed the stairs of the ornately carved wooden porch.

"You are some sort of expert in the occult, and he thinks you can help with these dreadful murders,"

she answered, obviously surprising Di.

Di looked back over her shoulder at Mark, who was following with the luggage. By the look on her face, she was no little taken aback.

"Aunt Nita's a believer," he said. "She actually tried to warn me about being too open before I went off to college, but I had no idea what she meant."

"A believer, but not a pract.i.tioner," his aunt agreed. "Poor young Mark was so puzzled he thought I just meant that he was too trusting!"

"Anyway, she knows a good bit about you "

Di sketched a pentagram in the air and looked back at him with an inquiring expression. He shook his head negatively.

"In that case," Di said, turning back to his aunt as they climbed the staircase to the rooms rented out to the boarders, "my work will be a little easier. I might do some odd things from time to time I might ask you some odd questions. I promise that whatever I do or ask, I won't compromise any of your beliefs. If you feel any doubt or any discomfort at all, just say so."

"That statement alone confirms my welcome to you," the old woman replied, as Mark heaved a mental sigh of relief. They were hitting it off just fine. That had been his only worry.

After all, both Di and his aunt were very strong-minded individuals. "Alpha b.i.t.c.hes," was what Di would have said. There could have been only two endings to this meeting mutual respect or mutual antagonism. It was, thank G.o.d, mutual respect.

"Whatever else you are, dear, you are certainly on the side of the angels. I'm certain my parish priest would be shocked, but my people spent a great deal of time among the indios. There is good, and there is evil, and whatever other differences there may be are window dressing."

Mark smiled. This was going as well as he could possibly have hoped.

The old woman led the way down a white-painted hallway; the wood floor was highly polished, and bare of rugs. She paused before the door at the end.

"This will be your room, my dear, for as long as you care to stay," she said, unlocking it and handing Di the key.

Di just stared. "Oh my "

"It is rather nice, isn't it?" his aunt said, pleased at her reaction.

Mark dropped Di's bags just inside the door. He had seen all the rooms at one point or another; he'd known this was one of the better ones. The furniture was all antique; st.u.r.dy stuff that had been handmade by local craftspeople. It was of the dark wood and simple style found in most of the early rancheros, but having seen originals like these, no one would ever be content with the copies. The walls were painted white, with Indian rugs carefully mounted on them. The tall, narrow windows were curtained with loosely woven beige material. The bureaus and desk held fine examples of Indian and Mexican pottery.

"Aunt Nita is fairly careful about who she takes in," Mark said wryly.

"I trust my instincts," his aunt replied, just as dryly. "With one exception, most of my young ladies are graduate students in cla.s.sical music and anthropology. They appreciate a good environment."

"What's the exception?" Di asked, plainly amused.

"I rent the bas.e.m.e.nt to a young lady who is a dancer with the Fort Worth Ballet. She has a studio set up down there which, she tells me, you are welcome to use."