Rogue Oracle (18 page)

When the cards felt as if they began to stick together, her hands stilled. She pulled the first card off the top of the deck and turned it faceup on the bedspread.

The Six of Pentacles showed a smiling, bearded merchant giving coins shaped like pentacles to two needy figures. He was richly dressed in an embroidered coat and feathered cap—Tara thought immediately of the Cowboy—but his cheeks were ruddy with goodwill. The thick beard reminded her of the Kahuna. Snowflakes spangled the air behind him, suggesting that the cold season was coming, and the merchant’s alms were sorely needed.

Cassie inched forward to peer at the card. “What does it mean?”

“The Six of Pentacles is a good card. It means generosity from strangers, speaks of loyalty and good faith.” Tara looked up at the cavernous ceiling of the loft apartment. “We’re the recipients of the Steves’ goodwill. I don’t think that our trust in them is misplaced.”

Cassie wrapped her arms around her knees, tucked them up under her chin. “I hope you’re right.”

“I trust these cards,” Tara said, surprising herself. She understood that Cassie’s faith in oracles was sorely tested, and she was honored that the girl still trusted her.

“Do you think … do you think the Pythia will come after me?” Cassie asked.

“It doesn’t matter what the Pythia does,” Tara said. “Harry and I will keep you safe.”

Cassie shook her head. “I want to know if she’s going to come after me.”

Tara frowned. She didn’t have a feeling for what the Pythia would do. Whatever she did, it was certain to be unexpected. But she wanted Cassie to feel safe, to feel shielded from the knowledge.

Tara smoothed Cassie’s hair from her face. There was no use hiding the truth from another oracle. “Okay. We’ll ask.”

She handed the cards to Cassie to shuffle. The girl’s fingers worked slowly over the gilt edges of the cards as she cut the deck and clumsily worked the cards back into a pile. She handed them back to Tara, and Tara fanned them out in her hands.

“Pick three cards.”

Cassie plucked three from the fan. “This is interesting. You usually deal them out yourself.”

Tara shrugged. “I’m making this up as I go along. We’ll see if it yields any useful information.”

She turned the three cards over. “These three cards represent you and your present state of mind.” The Star card, Cassie’s card, showed a young woman pouring water into a dark body of water. Tara bit her lip. The card was reversed, suggesting that that energy had been disrupted, poured out. Cassie had been dealt a terrible blow by the Pythia’s training … and it would take time for her to heal.

She flipped the next card in the stack over. The Six of Swords showed a man ferrying six swords in a boat to a distant shore.

The third card representing Cassie was the Two of Swords. It depicted a blindfolded young woman seated beside the ocean, holding two swords in her crossed arms, balanced on her shoulders.

“What do they mean?” Cassie asked.

“The Star is the card I associate with you. It’s reversed, and it’s obvious why: you’re emotionally distraught, and your energy is scattered,” Tara said. “The Six of Swords is a card of internal and external journeys. You’ll eventually move through this to the Two of Swords, which is a card of equilibrium, balanced force.” Tara looked up at the girl. “You will get through this. I promise.”

Cassie rubbed her dripping nose.

“Pick three more.” Tara fanned the cards out again, and Cassie chose.

“These cards represent the Pythia and her state of mind.” Tara turned the first one over, where it lay haphazardly across Cassie’s cards. The Priestess gazed serenely back at them. She was dressed in heavy robes, a moon crown perched in her headdress. A coy smile played on the Priestess’s lips. The Priestess was the card Tara had most often associated with the Pythia, the embodiment of female power, intuition, and magick.

The second and third cards surprised Tara. The Five of Cups showed a melancholy man, head bowed, staring at three spilled goblets. Beside him, unnoticed, two goblets remained upright and full.

The Hanged Man showed a man dangling from a tree branch, tied by his foot. His expression was serene. Still.

Tara steepled her fingers in front of her lips. “The Five of Cups is a card of regret. It suggests that the Pythia is genuinely sorry for what happened. And the Hanged Man is a card of sacrifice, of literal suspension. I don’t think that she’s going to chase after you. She’s going to wait, watch for what you do.”

Cassie snorted. “I can’t imagine having that much power over her.”

“Pick three more cards,” Tara said. “These last three will show the relationship between you … where you agree, and where you fall apart.”

Cassie plucked three new cards from the deck, and Tara turned them over. The Hierophant showed a papal figure seated upon an imposing throne. The Seven of Wands showed a young man fighting off the blows of an oncoming salvo of staves. The Two of Wands showed the same man, dressed in rich clothes, standing on a balcony. His gaze followed a ship coming in on the horizon. In his left hand, he held a staff. In his right, he held a globe.

“The Hierophant speaks of tradition, teaching the way things have always been. In old decks, this card is sometimes called the Pope. He can signify dogma, clinging to outdated beliefs or notions. The Pythia is an old-school oracle. She’s been in power for so long, she might have calcified, become too rigid to accept change.

“The Seven of Wands speaks of fighting, of competition.”

“I don’t want to fight with her,” Cassie said. “I don’t understand why all this was necessary. What she wants from me.”

Tara pointed to the last card, depicting the man holding the globe in his hands. “This is the card of new opportunities, symbolized by the ship coming in. It’s a new order, a new day.” Tara took a deep breath. “And you’ll be the one to bring it to Delphi’s Daughters, but only if you want to. You’re to be the next Pythia.”

Cassie rubbed her nose. “I don’t understand why she did this.”

“In her own misguided way, the Pythia wanted you to be strong. But she’s lost her way.”

“I can’t.” Tears began to glitter on Cassie’s eyelashes. “I don’t want to be a part of this. I want a choice.”

“I understand.” Tara rubbed a tear dribbling down the girl’s cheek. “You want to make your own decision.”

“But … what happens to Delphi’s Daughters if I leave for good?”

Tara shook her head. “Sometimes, I feel like Delphi’s Daughters are … an anachronism. A useless throwback to a primitive time, with brutal methods. I often believe the world can spin just as well without them, though they’d never believe it.”

Cassie pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.

Tara grasped her shoulders, whispered fiercely: “She can’t make you do anything. You want your destiny to be yours. And it is.”

Cassie hiccuped, looked up with eyes the color of sea glass.

For a moment, it seemed as if she believed it.

Chapter Fourteen

G
ALEN KNEW
his time was running out. He could feel it in his bones and in the blood pulsing sluggishly to the surface of his skin. His skin twitched, attempting to assimilate the new material, the bones and organs of the NCTC analyst. Somewhere in his chest, an extra set of ribs ground and grated against his own. If he was still, he could nearly hear the sounds of the vertebrae in his spine scraping together, reorganizing …

… if it weren’t for the voices in his head. It was like being in a subway tunnel, the voices tumbling over each other and echoing. The growl of the dog, Diana, meshed with Lockley’s thoughts about his next creation for a horror film. Lena’s voice was faint, barely a contralto whisper below them. He had to focus, focus hard to separate the voice of the analyst, Veriss, from the others. Veriss knew government investigators were closing in on him. They knew where he came from, who he’d been to see.

And they also knew that he was dying.

On some level, Galen had always known his time was measured. The doctors at Minsk said he was doomed like the others …

… but he’d never really felt it. It seemed a certainty in the distant future, remote. Not like now. Now, he could feel it in his marrow. The children at Minsk had often spoken of what it felt like to have cancer, to know that one’s body was poisoned, devouring itself. They spoke of how the marrow in their bones ached, how the blood throbbed painfully through clusters of tumors, tumors growing a life of their own and chewing away at their bodies. They cried, wordlessly, when they could feel their organs dissolving, when they coughed up bits of liver and the bile stung their throats. They left bloody fingerprints behind when their own blood seeped through their skin, like stigmata.

Galen never understood, before. Then, he thought himself invincible.

Not now. Now, he understood. He could not escape his fate.

But he would meet his fate on his own terms.

Galen had ransacked the old man’s cache of disguises in the garage the day before, looking for anything he could use. Lockley’s voice was still strong enough in his head that he could manipulate the gum aspic jars, the brushes, the cosmetic paints. He knew what to take, stuffed the items in an old duffel bag. He found the old man’s passport and bottles of inks and solvents. He’d taken his time doctoring Lockley’s passport, changing the name to one of the many aliases he used, one of the aliases he’d reserved a plane ticket for. He’d left the picture intact. He knew he could wear the old man’s face. His own would be too disfigured to use for days.

Now, he hurriedly pressed a skin of silicone over his warped features, to give some semblance of normalcy at a distance. It was the cast that Lockley had created of his own face, the mask destined for Halloween.

Jamming one of the old man’s straw hats over his head and donning an oversize jacket from the closet, Galen stumbled to the back door. He needed to get away from the scene. He couldn’t take Veriss’s car … He knew that the men outside, dim as they were, would see him.

He slipped out into the backyard, scaring away the birds at the bird feeder. They were like the birds of Chernobyl, he thought: wary of humans, sensing that invisible decay on him and fleeing. He cut through the neighbors’ well-trimmed yards, behind strings of laundry that flapped in the spring breeze like ghosts. His skin itched behind the mask, and he scanned the streets furtively. There must be some means of escape. A bus, a way to flag a taxi … ?

His blurry vision snagged on something a half block away. A delivery truck. Resolutely, Galen limped toward it as fast as he could. He watched as the driver hopped out of the cab of the truck, staring at his clipboard. The driver opened the back door and rolled it up with a sound like a garage door opening. He scanned the stacked boxes for the one he wanted, the one corresponding to the address on his clipboard. He hopped up into the truck, muttering to himself. He began throwing boxes right and left, searching for the package. He dumped a small, heavy one at the mouth of the truck, discarding it.

Absorbed in his work, the delivery driver didn’t notice Galen creeping up the bumper of the truck. Galen advanced upon him, picking up the cast-aside box and swinging it as hard as he could.

The only thing the driver saw before he was knocked unconscious was the address on the package. He slumped over the towers of boxes in the back, blood oozing from a gash on his forehead.

Galen clambered out of the back of the truck. He reeled the back door down, crossed to the cab to climb into the driver’s seat. The driver had left the engine running.

Galen peered through the windshield at the road ahead, smiling beneath the silicone skin. He wouldn’t run from his fate. He’d run right into her arms: home.

Home to Chernobyl.

T
HE
S
TEVES WERE GRILLING STEAKS OUT ON THE BALCONY
, sending the sweet smell of charred meat drifting through the loft. Maggie sat beside the Cowboy, who was manning the grill, leaning on his knee and gazing up at him with adoring eyes. The Kahuna was proudly showing off his shiny new kegerator to Cassie. Apparently, the Kahuna was into home brewing. Tara had declined, but she didn’t feel as if a drink or two would hurt Cassie. The girl was well over the legal age, and nowhere near the legal limit.

Tara’s phone rang at her hip. She stiffened, plucked it out of her pocket to look at the number.

“Somebody wants to get ahold of you, real bad,” the Kahuna remarked, his moustache trimmed with beer foam. Her cell phone had been going off all afternoon.

Tara stared at the farmhouse number, grimaced. “Yeah. Too bad I don’t want to talk to them.”

Cassie hiccuped. “It’s okay. You can tell her that I’m safe. But tell her to stay the hell away.”

Tara shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Besides which, I’m sure she already knows.” She cast Cassie a warning glare, and the phone quit ringing.

Cassie turned to the Kahuna. “One of my crazy aunts.”

“Oh,” said the Kahuna. He didn’t look like he was buying it.

The phone began to ring again. Anger bubbled in Tara’s throat. Without looking at the number, she switched on the phone. “Listen, you bitch—”

The Kahuna took a swig of his home brew. “Doesn’t sound like one of your favorite aunts.”

“She’s not,” Cassie murmured.

Static rattled at the other end of the line. “Tara?”

Harry’s voice.

Tara clapped a hand over her mouth. “Shit. Sorry, Harry. I thought you were … um, someone else.”

“I don’t need to be an oracle to guess who. Listen, I’ve got a problem. That tip you gave me about Lockley panned out.”

“Yeah?” Tara’s mouth went dry. “Is he all right?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. He’s gone, and there’s blood all over the house.”

Tara rubbed her eyebrow. “Damn.”

“Veriss was here. He’s also gone.” Harry blew out his breath, and she heard it as a burst of static. “I know it’s bad timing, but I need you here to look at this scene … It’s the only uncontaminated one we’ve got, and it’s a fucking mess.”

Tara glanced over at Cassie, stomach churning. “I don’t know that it’s a good idea to leave her alone.”

The Kahuna belched and rubbed his palm frond-printed belly. “We’ve got this shit under control.”

From the grill, the Cowboy gave her the thumbs-up.

Tara frowned. She looked at Cassie. The girl blinked into her beer. “Would you be gone long?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Tara said firmly.

Cassie shook her head. “Harry needs you. Besides …” She glanced at the Steves. “I think the Steves are more than capable of keeping my crazy aunt at bay.”

Tara’s mouth flattened. She was duty-bound to help Harry,
and
duty-bound to see to Cassie’s safety. “I know, but …”

The Cowboy brought the steaks in on a platter, Maggie trotting behind him. He looked Tara in the eye. “You go on. We’ll save you a steak for your dinner when you come back.” He looked down at Maggie’s big brown eyes. “Assuming this one doesn’t eat it first.”

He fished the Bronco keys out of his pocket, tossed them to Tara. Tara caught them with her free hand and stared at the key ring. From the ring dangled a silver star inscribed in a circle, shaped like the Lone Ranger’s badge.

Or the pentacles in the Six of Pentacles card.

Tara bit her lip. She had to trust the cards, and by extension, trust the Steves to keep Cassie safe in this odd little fortress of weapons, beer, and steak. It was as far as theoretically possible from the Pythia’s stronghold of feminine power.

And Tara thought that was a good thing.

“N
ICE WHEELS
.”

Harry strode down Lockley’s driveway, nodding approvingly at Tara’s parking job. She’d managed to get the big Bronco wedged into the crowded driveway without hitting anything. Tara hopped down out of the tank, had to lean hard against the creaky door to get it to shut.

“Thanks. It belongs to the Steves. The guys you sent for Cassie.”

“Yeah, I know.” Harry said. He was dressed in a wrinkly, white Tyvek suit. In the sunset, his shadow was long across the pavement. “They’re good guys. A little obsessive about beer, but they take work pretty damn seriously.”

Tara squinted into the sun at him. “You know them?”

“I ran into them working a case a couple of months back about chupacabras …” Harry pinched the bridge of his nose when Tara opened her mouth to ask. She was envisioning a story in which Harry was bouncing along in the back of the Bronco in Texas, somewhere, chasing mutants. “Don’t ask. They’re trustworthy guys, though. Besides, they’re the only Marshals I could find who were willing to take in a dog and a cat.”

“You owe me that story.” Her eyebrow crawled up her forehead.

“I promise that I will tell you the story of the Steves and the chupacabras. Honest.” Harry made the Cub Scout three-finger swearing gesture. “But I need you to tell me a story about this crime scene, first.” His gaze flitted back to the house with the blinds pulled tight across the windows.

“I’ll spin the best yarn I can.” Tara gestured at his suit with her chin. “What’s with the gear?”

“We don’t want to contaminate the scene. Or get contaminated by it.” He said it in a low voice that wouldn’t carry to the neighbors’ open windows.

“You found radiation in there?”

“Trace amounts. Nothing serious. But nothing you want to handle and then go licking your fingers.” Harry handed Tara a white Tyvek suit of her own. She unzipped it and stepped into the oversize suit, wiggling her shoes into the feet. She felt like a child wearing oversize footie pajamas that her grandmother insisted she’d grow into.

Tara glanced at the cars at the curb. “I thought the Marshals were guarding Lockley, whether he wanted it or not.”

“Yeah. That didn’t go so well. Lockley refused to let them in, though they did manage to ring his doorbell a couple of times a day to make sure that he was all right. Last time they checked on him was this morning. They said the old man sounded like he was working on a bad cold for the past couple of days. They saw Veriss go in late this morning, but he never came out. There are signs of forced entry in the back.”

Tara stared at the façade of the house, zipping up the suit to her chin while Harry fitted a hood and respirator over her head. Everything looked normal. She could understand why the Marshals would think Lockley was simply inside, sleeping off a bad cold. “You mind if I go in and walk around?” Her voice was muffled by the plastic.

“Have at it.” Harry’s cell phone rang, somewhere under his suit. “Shit.” He began unzipping his suit to try and get at the phone.

Tara walked up the front step to the house, peered in through the screen door. The screen was thick enough and the foyer in sufficient shadow to obscure the figures milling inside. Veriss would have come here, and he would not have been able to see much inside.

She opened the door, and a wall of cold hit her. Her brow furrowed. The air conditioner was freezing. Too cold, even for summer. Around her, crime scene technicians crawled over the carpet. Flashbulbs flickered in the gloom like lightning. Tara reached for the light switch inside the door. Didn’t work. She looked up at the foyer light fixture. Maybe the bulb was burned out, and Lockley couldn’t reach it from his wheelchair to change it.

Tara reached up with a gloved hand, pulled away the clip-on plastic shade. The bulb was loose, turned easily in its socket, and produced a blinding brightness.

“I think there may be prints on this bulb,” Tara said to a hovering evidence technician, who scurried away to find a dusting kit.

Tara crossed through the living room. Something was missing. The dog. She stopped a technician taking pictures of the living room.

“Did anybody find a dog here?”

The hooded head shook. Under the visor, Tara recognized Anderson. “No. We found dog dishes, leashes, but no dog.” The flashbulb strobed again. “We found parts of the dog, though … fur and some teeth.”

“Where?”

“Back there. You can’t miss it.”