Highway to Hell (25 page)

The recess was lined with a seamless oval of pale rock, which formed a backdrop for the statue of the Blessed Virgin. The stone reflected the diffuse sunlight, surrounding the icon's delicate simplicity with a rosy white halo.

The knoll itself was more prominent than anything around, which meant it was probably all of six feet above sea level. From the top, you might be able to see all the way to the Big House. That would mean looping around and climbing up one of the sloped sides, and it would
technically
mean you were standing on the BVM's roof, but with a telephoto lens, you could get quite a panoramic shot.

Lisa studied the figure's painted blue veil and peaceful face. “She looks good for fifty years old.”

“Doña Isabel wouldn't let her get shabby,” I said.

She crouched to examine the plants growing in cultivated disarray around the base of the shrine. “Keeping her spruced up might be a way to keep the spell fresh, too.”

“Spell?” Henry shifted his weight, as if uncomfortable with the word. “Wasn't Doña Isabel adamant that it was divine intervention that stopped the killings in the fifties?”

“She's not telling the whole story.” I was sure of that.

“Someone knew what they were doing.” Lisa pointed to the different plants. “Marigolds, calendula, dill, fennel, and rue.”

Justin brushed a spring of rue, and grimaced at the smell. “Those are all protective, right?”

“Right. So are aloe, blackberry vine, honeysuckle …” She
gestured to other flora around the hollow, including a spot in the tree just above Henry's head. “Mistletoe.”

He glanced up, then took an exaggerated sidestep.

“You wish.” She straightened and brushed off her hands. “The mistletoe and the aloe could have been native. Everything else had to be cultivated.”

Henry frowned at the statue, then at Lisa. “So you're saying the Virgin is just an excuse for putting this spell here? A Marian shrine is as good as anything else?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. If this statue was meaningless, it wouldn't work. I think this required real faith to enact it, and to sustain it.”

An idea was sprouting from the depths of my brain, where things filter down and germinate while I'm busy thinking too much. “Zeke said people come to pray here frequently. If that recharged the batteries, maybe that's why the spell has lasted so long.”

Lisa's eyebrows arched in overstated surprise. “Good job, Mags. You
are
starting to figure this out.”

Henry cleared his throat. “But the spell hasn't lasted. The … chupacabra, whatever, is back.”

“Yeah, but look.” Justin pulled the USGS chart out of his pocket and unfolded it to show where we were. “This area is the only one where nothing has been attacked. No goats, no dogs, no cattle. So something is still working.”

I peered around his shoulder. On the map I could see the infinitesimal slope of the pasture toward the shore. The contour markings outlined the grassy knoll that held the BVM in her niche, and the shallow depression in front of it.

“Look at this spot.” I pointed to the lopsided oval where
we stood. “Doesn't it look like it could have been a pond if there was a spring underground?” It would have been twenty feet across and about a foot deep, but I couldn't shake the image. The smell of herbs and clean dirt filled my head, but so did the nearby dampness of fresh water.

“Could be.” Justin compared the chart to the shaded clearing around us. “This low spot is too irregular to have been made just for this shrine. And these trees sort of clumped here might mean a source of water.”

“So what happened to it, then?” asked Henry. “Did it dry up?”

“The trees are still alive. So there must be water under the surface.”

“That's what I'm getting,” I mumbled, more to myself than to them. “Something under the surface.”

I stared at the Madonna, willing her to give me some answers, maybe a little wink to say I was on the right track. But the icon's painted face remained inscrutable and as immobile as the granite that framed her.

Tracing the pale rose rock, I followed the curve of the detailed edge. “What would this stone symbolize in the spell, Lisa? If rue and fennel and all that are for protection, what is the granite for?”

Tapping a fingernail against her teeth, she contemplated the shrine. “It's a barrier.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, yeah. I meant symbolically.”

“One doesn't exclude the other, dimwit.”

Justin jumped in before things got ugly. “Do you mean the granite in particular, Maggie? Because different rocks have different properties.”

That's true. Granite isn't rare, but it seemed an odd choice in the rustic environment. Why not make it native limestone, like the bench and the blocks that framed the pathway?

“What do you think of with granite?” I asked.

“Igneous rock,” said Justin. “Cooled magma.”

Lisa leaned close to examine the pattern of flecks. “The mineral composition is what gives it color.”

“And it's impermeable,” I said. That was why granite and not limestone. I'd read about this in one of the library books. Water, oil, natural gas—all of it seeps through the limestone under the Texas soil. But granite is … “A barrier. Like you said, Lisa.”

“You've all lost me,” said Henry. “Can I get a crib sheet or something?”

Lisa took up the challenge. “A spell uses the practical or symbolic properties of something to represent what you're trying to accomplish.” She plucked off a sprig of rue. “For example, during the Middle Ages, people thought this would magically keep away the Black Death. Which it actually would, if you mixed it in with the rushes on your floor, because the smell kept the fleas away, and fleas carry the plague.”

Henry's nose twitched at the herb's pungent odor. “So is it magic or not?”

“The plant is not magical until it's combined with some kind of energy and the practitioner's intent. Then its traits— in this case, warding off disease-carrying insects—become part of the spell. Warding off a demon.”

She gestured to the plants and the niche itself. “These components are just plants and stone and some painted
plaster until you add power and intent. And true faith is a deep well for both those things.”

That was why I didn't think just anyone could perform spells like this. Maybe it isn't as simple as being born a wizard or a Muggle, as Lisa said, but there has to be some spark inside a person, some connection with—I don't know … the elements, or the universe, or God. Maybe you don't have to be born with it, or maybe we're all born with it, but it isn't as easy as baking a cake. Even if Lisa does make it sound that way sometimes.

Henry turned to Justin, who'd been listening soberly to her explanation. “Doesn't it frighten you, how much they know about this stuff?”

Justin answered with certainty. “After the things I've seen, I'd be more frightened if someone on our side
didn't
know about this stuff. Lisa is scary, but she has her uses.”

“Thanks, Galahad,” drawled Lisa. “You're a pal.”

As they talked, I ran my hand along the smooth inside of Mary's granite backdrop. I thought it would stop at ground level, with the icon's pedestal set in front of it. But as I followed the curve of the shell, I found that it kept going.

On my hands and knees, I silently apologized to Mary as I dug to discover how deep the stone went down. The soil around the statue's base had been improved for the flowers; it was dark and loamy and easy to brush aside.

“Maggie?” Justin asked in alarm. “What are you doing?”

“Hey!” Lisa bridged the distance to the shrine in one jump. “Do you really want to be tearing up Doña Isabel's shrine of vanquishing?”

“I'm not digging past the granite.” Sitting back on my
heels, I brushed my hair out of my face with the back of my hand. “Look. The rock goes all the way under the statue.” The pedestal was carved in one piece with the stone underneath, and the soil filled in around it, incorporating it with the earth.

I started to laugh as the three of them crowded over my shoulders to see. “Maybe it really is that simple. Doña Isabel put up the shrine, and it trapped the demon underground.”

“By blocking the spring?” Justin asked.

“Yeah.” That's why granite—it's impermeable.

He ran his hand through his hair. “So, the demon is … was … imprisoned in the water reservoir, like a genie in a bottle?”

“Then how is it loose?” asked Henry. “If the shrine is intact, what uncorked the bottle?”

“I've been reading about this in one of the library books.” One of the things I like about journalism is getting to learn a little about a lot of different things, but I never thought I'd need so much science to fight Evil.

Drawing in the dirt, I illustrated. “The water reservoir isn't like a big hole in the ground. The liquid seeps through permeable rock, like limestone, until it meets a barrier of nonporous layer.” I drew a straight line for the ground, and a squiggly one under it to represent the water layer. “More than one well can tap into the same reservoir. That must be what happened here.”

Justin frowned at my drawing. “But there are springs, wells, and stock ponds all over the place. If your theory was right, the demon could have escaped anytime.”

“Maybe someone drilled a new well.” I felt giddy with
relief. “Nobody had to summon the demon. It was let out by accident.”

“Okay.” He understood my point, but wasn't conceding yet. “But why don't all the other springs”—he drew lines into my dirt reservoir—“release the demon?”

“I don't know.” My bubble of elation popped. “Maybe there is some other component that allows it to escape.”

“What about the drought?” said Henry. Then he checked himself, as if he hadn't expected to be taking this seriously. “The past incidents in the records happened during dry spells.”

Lisa brushed off her hands. “We need to backtrack. Trace this to the original case. Then Mags and I can do our thing, see if we can get a read on what happened there.”

Justin went to the stone bench and spread the map across it. “What was the first attack?”

“Teresa's goats,” said Lisa blandly. “Great.”

“What about Carl's herding dog?” I wiped my dirty fingers before I smoothed a hand over the chart. “The victims have been getting progressively bigger, right? Goat, calf, cow … herd of cows. And finally Dave and Jorge.”

“Well,” said Lisa, “most men are smaller than cows.”

“But ‘bigger’ in a philosophical sense.” Two memories popped up in quick sequence: Dave telling me about his great-aunt's dog, and Buck the mechanic telling me about another little girl who had lost her puppy.

I dug in my hip pocket for my cell phone, in the forlorn hope that I would get a signal. To my surprise, I did— one short little bar. We must have been close enough to the Big House for the antennae on the tower to work. Thumbing through the phone list to a number I'd programmed in on
Saturday, I hit Send and crossed my fingers, while the others watched curiously.

“Hey, Buck,” I said, when the call connected. It sounded flimsy, but I put it on speaker. “This is Maggie Quinn.”

“You don't let any grass grow under you, do you. Your Jeep's not ready yet.”

“That's okay. I was wondering. About your granddaughter's puppy.”

There was a pause, full of static from the country music radio in the background. “The new one she got from Mr. Zeke?”

“No. The one that was killed.”

“Lord, girl. Why do you want to know about that?”

I floundered for a reason. Usually, even when I didn't have a lie prepared, my mojo kicked in and something convincing came out of my mouth. Not this time.

“Is this about that chupacabra business?” he asked. “Teresa was going on in the Duck this morning about you city girls poking your noses around, stirring up the Chupy and making things worse.”

“Oh. Really?” Her, too?

“Yeah, but she doesn't always know what she's talking about. What do you want to know, little missy?”

“Where you found the dog. Was it anywhere near a pond or a spring?”

He paused to think. “It was out past my daughter's barn, which has a stock tank. Does that count?”

I didn't know, but I had him give me directions anyway. As I relayed them aloud, Justin found the place on the map.

“That isn't far at all,” he said, after I'd thanked Buck and
closed the phone. “If we go across the pasture, it wouldn't be more than a couple of miles.”

“You mean, walk all that way?” My horse-abused thighs ached just thinking about it.

A gust of wind caught the edges of the map, a moment of relief from the stagnant heat. The paper flapped madly then subsided.

Justin folded the chart. “We'll drive to the barn and then walk across the pasture where the dog was found. But we'd better get going. This heat is going to brew up some serious rain when that front blows in.”

I thumbed my camera back on. “Just let me grab a couple of pictures before we go.”

“Don't take too long.” He and Henry headed back up the trail to the car.

They were barely out of sight before Lisa turned to me. “So what is the story on the future friar?”

We hadn't been alone since the guys broke into our room and we hadn't had a chance to discuss the new addition to the Evil-fighting team.

“What do you mean, what's the story?” I snapped pictures of the shrine and the plants so I would remember what was here. Compulsive, yes, but with everything so spread out, there was no running back to check my memory.

Lisa stared at me in disbelief. “You mean you haven't done your touchy-feely thing?”

I made a disgusted face. “Don't call it that, Lisa. Gross.”

“Don't you want to know if he thinks you're going to Hell?”

“Definitely not.” I had been extremely careful not to brush against Henry without my deflector shields on maximum. “Plus, it's cheating.”

She sat on the bench. “How do you figure that?”

I fiddled with my lens as I spoke. “I can't really read the people I'm closest to. Which is usually a good thing, because I definitely don't want a flash into
your
psyche.”

“Well, no. Because then I'd have to kill you to preserve my secret plan for taking over the world.”