Dark Oracle (22 page)

“You’ve been an adult for quite some time. This is moving forward to a new phase. You’ve got a lot of wands in this reading, which are suggesting a great deal of forward momentum and movement toward your goals. I think you have more autonomy than you realize.”

Tara plucked the last card from the tree’s foliage, positioned to the southwest of the Star. The Wheel of Fortune showed a sphinx holding a wheel between its paws. In the clouds around it, symbols of the four elements perched: a bird, a man, a cow, and a lion. “Another card of endings and beginnings, new cycles. Whatever is past is falling away, and the future is rolling in. The Wheel of Fortune also speaks of taking risks and accepting the consequences, whether good or bad.”

Tara turned over the first card in the tree’s trunk. “The Four of Pentacles illustrates your hopes and fears. In this case, it’s reversed.” The card showed a woman sitting under a tree in a meditative posture. She cradled three pentacles in her lap and was crowned by the fourth. “It suggests you’re in deliberation, but that you will need to take action or a risk to move forward. It’s a card of complacency and miserliness.”

“Does it mean I shouldn’t take any action now?” Cassie’s brow wrinkled.

“Not necessarily. It just means that if you don’t act, nothing will be gained, and you’ll remain in the same position.” Something tickled Tara’s memory about the card, and she grinned. “Traditionally, the reversed Four of Pentacles can sometimes herald being sent to the nunnery.”

Cassie stuck her tongue out. “Screw that.” She paused, reflecting. “Wait a minute.”

Tara lifted a brow. “Oh?”

“I haven’t seen any men around here. Besides Harry.”

Tara avoided the insinuation. “Yes.”

“Does that mean. . . ?”

“Does it mean what?”

“Does that mean that joining Delphi’s Daughters means I have to take a vow of celibacy?” Panic crossed the girl’s face.

Tara laughed out loud. “No. I think you’re safe.”

Cassie sat back. “Whew. I mean. . . I wondered there, for a moment, if that was the real reason why you’d left Delphi’s Daughters.”

Tara shook her head. “No. That wasn’t any part of the equation. That ‘wife of Apollo’ stuff wasn’t even strictly adhered to back in the time of sandals and togas.”

Cassie nodded. “Okay. I’ll try not to panic at the rest of the reading.”

“The last card is the final outcome of your question,” Tara said. She was heartened by the positive flavor of the reading, and expected the final card would seal the reading.

The Page of Swords. A woman armored like Joan of Arc stood against a gray sky with sword lifted, peering into the wind with wariness. Her green cloak curled around her, hiding something.

Tara’s finger rested on it. She’d encountered this card recently, when Gabriel and Corvus had sent the assassin for Cassie. Then, she’d associated the card with the shooter, with a puppet of Gabriel and Corvus, but hadn’t quite been able to get the feminine taste of the card out of her mouth.

“This card cautions you to be clearheaded and quick-witted. It also suggests the need for discretion. Be cautious and enter the situation with your eyes open.”

She circled the configuration of cards with her finger. “Overall, I’d say that the cards predict an auspicious beginning to the next part of your life. You have many allies, though you have some emotional business to attend to. Joy is on the horizon. But be vigilant, and guard against complacency.”

Cassie nodded. “Understood. Thanks, I do appreciate it.”

From the other side of the door, a knock rattled. “Cassie, it’s time for flowers. . .”

Cassie made a face. “Ugh.”

Tara smiled. “Go get tarted up like a parade float. I’ll check on you in a bit.”

Cassie dragged her feet going to the door. When she closed it, Tara picked up the Page of Swords. She turned it over in her hands, observing the cold expression in the Page’s eyes.

She’d seen that cold expression before, in Adrienne’s agate gaze.

“Shit,” she breathed.

She shuffled the deck, cut the cards, and began a reading for herself. “What’s coming next?” she muttered at the deck. She did a simple three-card spread.

The first card she drew was Strength: the woman holding the jaws of the lion closed. A runnel of blood traveled from her collar where the lion had bitten her, soaking the front of her gown. But the woman held fast, her expression serene.

The Ten of Swords depicted a man lying prone on a beach, his back pierced by ten swords. Blood drained into the water of the nearby lake. It was the sign of a painful and inevitable ending.

The Page of Swords brought up the last position, vigilant and staring back at her with eyes the color of the gray sky behind her. Adrienne again. The young upstart, seeking to dethrone the Queen of Swords.

Could she have survived the mine collapse? Tara steepled her fingers at her chin. The cards were insisting she was a proximate factor. Drawing the card twice in two different spreads went far beyond chance.

There was an ending to be had between Tara and Adrienne. And the cards predicted it would be bloody.

H
ARRY DROVE THROUGH THE COLD HOURS OF NIGHT UNTIL
the stars burned out.

He felt guilty for leaving Tara, but he needed to sort this shit out. There was clearly some bat-shit craziness going down at the farmhouse. Asking him to believe in Jung’s synchronicity was a far stretch for him, and this cult stuff. . .

He felt guilty for leaving Cassie behind. He wondered how much brainwashing Cassie might be subjected to. So far, all he had to go on was Tara’s word that she’d be safe. Several times he picked up his cell phone and started to dial the local FBI field office. It would take some doing to get agents to descend upon the farmhouse, but he might be able to pull enough strings to get it to happen. Each time, he hung up without completing the call. Tara was right; Cassie’s life was safer with Delphi’s Daughters than in any witness protection program he could place her under.

But it bothered him that there seemed to be nothing he could do about the situation. He was accustomed to being able to act and solve problems. . . and there was no good answer for this situation. It was merely a choice between two evils. And it was Cassie’s choice.

Dawn reddened the horizon before he stopped along the interstate, at a small town near the edge of the state line. Few lights were on as he cruised down the main street. Convenience stores and restaurants were closed, not to open for another hour or more. He doubled back down residential streets, searching for caffeine or a place to piss.

Spying the inviting red glow of a vending machine in the distance, he pulled off the road. He’d take his caffeine any way he could get it. He drove through an open gate in a chain-link fence, through a deserted county fairground. Parking the car before the seductive red glow of the pop machine, he emerged from the car. He jingled change in his pants pocket as he perused the selections.

Choosing a high-octane energy drink, he fed a handful of change into the humming machine and punched the button. The machine rejected his change. Harry growled and fed it to the machine again, one coin at a time. The damn machine spat them out again. He kicked the machine.

Harry snatched the change from the coin slot, sifting through it. Maybe he’d accidentally picked up a slug somewhere. His fingers counted out two quarters, a dime, a couple of nickels, and. . . a weird coin that was the wrong shape.

It figured that the damn machine wouldn’t take Canadian money. Harry turned to go back to the car. Perhaps he could scavenge some more change from the seat cushions. But something tingled in the nape of his neck, and he opened his hand again to look at the strange coin.

It wasn’t Canadian. It was British money. One side of the golden coin showed a portrait of the Queen. The other side showed the words
Ten Pence
above a crowned lion.

Harry paused. The coin reminded him of the Tarot card he’d found where Tara had been buried: Strength. The tattered image of the woman holding closed the jaws of the lion had inspired him to start digging.

He’d driven away from the caldera, as she’d wanted. But as soon as he’d pulled out of the compound, he’d picked up a tail. Through some harrowing turns down two-lane roads in the desert, Harry had succeeded in ditching the tail. He called the nearest field office for reinforcements, then turned back to the caldera. The only thing on his mind had been rescuing Tara. Halfway back, he heard a roar that jangled gravel on the road and shook the lines on the overhead telephone poles. He could feel the shudder of the earth through his foot jammed to the gas pedal, and his heart lurched into his throat. He arrived at the old silver mine just behind the local volunteer fire department. Sheer luck had led him to Tara.

Perhaps not luck. He flipped the coin in his hand, weighing it.

Movement behind the building caught his eye. The morning sun illuminated a grand old carousel. Filled with horses and fantastical beasts, the immaculately maintained paint shone brightly. It was closed down for the winter; tarps covered the control panels.

But someone still imagined riding it. Astride a brightly painted lion, a woman in a long coat sat sidesaddle. The lion’s mane was painted orange, and he was captured mid-roar, with white fangs glistening. She stared up at the sun, while a dog snooted around the base of the carousel. The woman held a leash in the hand that rested on top of the lion’s head as she waited for the dog to finish his business.

It was the scene of a simple morning stroll, but it hit Harry hard, hard as the shredded Tarot card perched in the dirt.

Harry climbed back into the car, started the ignition. He turned the car back down the way he’d come.

He couldn’t shake the irrational sense of impending danger. He was certain that Tara needed him, whether she knew it or not.

“Y
OU’RE NOT WEARING THAT
.”

“I am.”

The Pythia planted her fists on her hips, jingling the gold bracelets over her thick gauntlets. She was dressed in a scarlet dalmatica with gold trim and a matching girdle strung with tiny bells that tinkled when she moved. The overall effect was of having one’s pissed-off fairy godmother cast in a Bollywood flick.

“You are,” Tara growled, “not my mother.” She folded her arms over her button-down shirt and black jacket. She was wearing jeans, period. There was no way to hide a gun in a toga.

“This is an initiation. Have some respect.”

“Yeah, well. . . I’m a guest. I’m not in the club, remember?”

The Pythia rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. She flipped on the burner of the gas kitchen stove to light a cigarette. On the kitchen counter, Oscar poked his head out of the breadbox. He fixed Tara with a baleful look and disappeared back inside.

“Pythia.” Tara tried to change the subject. “I read something in the cards that has me worried. About Adrienne.”

That got her attention. The Pythia glanced sidelong at her. One of the flower petals from her headdress drooped precariously over one eye. “What about her?”

“That she may still be out there, somewhere, and in revenge-seeking mode.”

The Pythia plucked a bay leaf from her headdress and dropped it into the burner. Tara’s stomach rumbled as the sweet smell of bay leaf smoked up to the flame hood. The Pythia watched the blue fire catch it, burn yellow, curl it, and reduce it to ash.

“There is nothing here that can be changed,” she said.

“But there is no immutable future,” Tara protested.

The Pythia made a slicing gesture with the hand not occupied with a cigarette. “Let it play out the way it’s meant to.”

“But. . .” Tara began.

The Pythia poked her in the ribs with a sculpted fingernail. “Go get something to eat. You’re too skinny.”

“Radiation sickness will do that to you.”

The Pythia snorted.

Cassie stomped into the kitchen, flower petals flying in her wake. Two of Delphi’s Daughters twittered after her, trying to tuck the errant flowers in place. The girl looked like a maypole. Flowers covered her: a chaplet of bay leaves curled around her head; wilting crocuses were tied to her arms with ribbons; orange and yellow tulips were garlanded around her waist.

Cassie sneezed. “Is this all really necessary? I’m allergic to this shit.”

The Pythia raised her eyebrows. Cassie fell into a sneezing fit that dislodged her chaplet and blew a handful of tulips off her toga. She stood in the kitchen floor, miserable, wiping her nose with a paper towel. Tara went to her and started plucking the worst of the flowers from her clothes and hair.

The Pythia threw up her hands again. “Let’s just get down to the spring.” She stalked out the back kitchen door.

Cassie looked at Tara. “Is she pissed at me?”

“No. She’s really mad at me. Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.”

“Used to her being mad at you or me?”

“Both.”

The Pythia was calling for Cassie. Delphi’s Daughters were beginning to flock together on the front porch. Like extras from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
their pale dalmatica robes were white, and the women had braided flowers and herbs into their hair. Tara smelled incense, and someone yelped as Maggie’s nose scooted up an unsecured skirt.

Cassie rolled her eyes and dragged her feet to the door. “You’re coming?”

Tara set her mouth in a grim line. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

She just hoped the guest list was under control.

Chapter Twenty-one

T
HE PYTHIA
Parade began shortly before noon.

Tara resolutely fell in line behind the uneven line of women spewing rose petals across the field. She stubbornly refused to change clothes, and stuck out like a sore thumb among the women dressed like the Muses’ crazy old aunts. The drinking had already begun, and some were already none too steady on their feet. Sophia’s chickens followed them for a short distance before losing interest, but Maggie bounded through the freshly plowed field to catch up to Cassie. Mud began to sully the edges of their skirts, and claimed more than one sandal.

Tara scanned the edges of the field and the tree line of the forest. Between the flower petals and the tracks in the mud, they’d leave a trail easy enough for a child to follow. She reached self-consciously for her gun. She remembered the Page of Swords, with her sword upraised: the Page did not enter any conflict without being well-armed. Neither would Tara.

They crossed the field into the shade of the forest, following a winding overgrown footpath downhill. Tara remembered this place from her childhood. Delphi’s Daughters were versatile: they didn’t fight to possess locations for permanent oracles, like the Temple of Apollo. Their ancestors had wasted too much energy on places. Delphi’s Daughters could play a pick-up game of magick wherever they found themselves.

But this place was one of Tara’s favorites. She remembered when her mother had led her by the hand down this labyrinthine dirt path, years ago. Tara had stepped on a honeybee, and her mother had carried her down into the deep, shaded ravine to the place where a spring bubbled before a shallow sedimentary cave. She remembered the way the sandstone glistened, the cool feel of moss under her feet, and the sharp taste of the iron-laced water. Improbable trees had wedged their roots into crevices in the stone, clinging to the sides like spiders, reaching up toward the sun.

It was almost the same as she remembered it, but smaller. The cave seemed less deep, and the trees were still mostly bare this early in the year. Pale sunlight shone down onto the spring, which bubbled and gurgled like a half-open tap on a water hose. This early in spring, it smelled like moss and leaf-rot.

The Pythia delicately stepped onto a flat rock overlooking the spring. A fissure had formed in the rock decades ago, splitting it halfway. Below and behind it, darkness stretched, and the spring ran beneath. Tara’s mother had never allowed her to play there, warning her away from the steep sides.

Delphi’s Daughters busied themselves with building a fire in a brazier on the flat rock and arranging the Pythia’s tripod chair. They kept a few affectations of the old order of the Oracle of Delphi. Tara appreciated the fire aspect of it (the Pythia was a pyromancer, after all), but thought the small, tippy chair looked terribly uncomfortable. Perhaps it had been designed to keep the original Pythia from getting too comfortable and falling asleep after long sessions at the temple of Apollo. Tara was wholeheartedly glad she’d never be Pythia.

Two of the women led Cassie down to the pool at the edge of the spring. Tara heard Cassie exclaim shrilly, “What? I’ve got to take my clothes off?”

It was a tradition going back to Delphi: initiates had to be ritually cleansed in pure water. In ancient Greece the Castalian Spring had been used, but Pythia’s modern daughters would use any handy source of water. In an emergency ceremony, she had once seen the Pythia use a garden hose wrestled from a kids Slip’N Slide game.

But using the spring had much more gravitas. And the Pythia loved ceremony.

Maggie bounded ahead of her into the water, splashing mightily. She took two small circular laps, jumped up to the shore, and shook herself off. Frigidly cold water peppered the assembled women, who squealed in dismay.

Cassie shyly pulled her tunic over her head. She crossed her arms over her body, and Tara could see her cheeks flaming red. She hissed as she was led into the water and her foot connected with the chilly surface. Modesty won out over goose bumps, and she waded to her neck in it to obscure her body. Tara could hear her teeth chattering from her stance at the edge of the circle of women.

After a few false starts, Delphi’s Daughters managed to get a decent fire going with some scrap wood brought from the house and a couple of fire bricks. The Pythia gathered her robes and perched on her ridiculously little chair. She popped a few laurel leaves into her mouth to chew. Unlike in times past, hallucinogenic vapors were not required to have a ceremony. The Pythia maintained that hallucinogenic substances were for poseurs. She looked out over the women, and her voice echoed off the walls of the gorge. “Sisters, we assemble today in great sadness and in great joy. We come to mourn the passing of our sisters and to welcome a new initiate. Time passes, and times change. Sophia and Adrienne are lost to us, but our lineage begins anew, in the veins of Cassie Magnusson. She will carry our line forward into the future.”

Cassie shivered in the pond so hard water droplets were shaken off her laurel wreath. Tara was thankful that her own initiation had taken place in July, when the spring had been warm as bathwater.

“We mourn the passing of our loyal sisters from our sight, and we ask Apollo to bless their memories.”

A voice from above rattled down, thin and reedy. “So easily out of your sight and out of your mind. Is that right, Pythia?”

Tara reached for her gun. Footsteps creaked in the leaves above the crevasse. This place was too much of a natural trap, with blind sides and echoes, and she couldn’t tell where they originated from. She scanned the ridge of the landscape over the sight of her gun, skimming that high horizon for any sign of movement.

“Everybody get down,” she shouted.

Delphi’s Daughters scattered, pressing themselves to the walls of the cave. Cassie sucked in a deep breath and ducked under the surface of the water. That was a temporary hiding place; she was far too open. Maggie stood at the mouth of the spring and barked. The Pythia climbed out of her contraption of a chair and drew herself up her full five feet in height.

“Adrienne,” the Pythia bellowed. Tara was amazed that such a mighty voice could come from such a tiny woman. “You’ve dishonored yourself. Come here and face judgment.”

Bitter, rusty laughter squeaked overhead. “I’ve dishonored myself? You’ve dishonored the lineage by your own weakness. You’ve squandered your power on the ungrateful. And the successor you’ve chosen? A girl with no power of her own? Unimaginable.”

“I do not answer to you,” the Pythia shouted.

“The Daughters of Delphi are dying, old woman. And I am happy to help consign you to history.”

A hail of bullets cracked into the gorge. They split the surface of the water and spattered shards of sand from the stone. Tara returned fire blindly, unable to see, much less hit anything over the outcropping of rock. She glanced back at the spring in her peripheral vision. She didn’t see Cassie. Maggie plunged into the water after the girl. The Pythia had pressed herself against a wall, hands balled into fists. Her tripod chair was shattered by the bullets, lying like a broken insect on the stone. One of Delphi’s Daughters lay, bleeding and twitching, on the ground.

“Haul your ass down here and face me, Adrienne,” Tara shouted.

The footsteps echoed overhead, receded. A figure appeared at the mouth of the gorge, and Tara froze, momentarily stunned at the sight of her.

Stringy blonde hair brushed the shoulders of a too-baggy military flight suit. She held an MP-5 in her hands, even as some part of Tara’s brain tried to figure out how many shots she had left in the clip. Cold gray eyes glared with searing malevolence.

But that was all that remained of Adrienne. Her pale skin had warped like glass under too much heat. It sparkled like quartz at her temple and on her warped lips, but blackened to the color of rich prairie soil on her chin and throat. A vein the color of silver pulsed behind the zipper at her neck. She looked like a rough-hewn diamond, just pulled from the ground, uncut and without polish. She limped toward Tara, and Tara could see that her foot was pigeon-toed in her boot. She couldn’t imagine what else was ruined beneath that flight suit.

“What the hell happened to you?” Tara breathed.

Adrienne tipped her head to one side. “Gabriel said I got too much dark matter. Particles of the earth fused with me.”

“You survived what happened to Magnusson.”

“Adrienne.” The Pythia moved forward. Her almond eyes were widened in horror. “Come back to us. We will take care of you, get you the help you need.”

“Help?” Adrienne spat. “You’ll take care of me like you took care of me as a child? You’ll shuttle me from place to place, never having a true home?”

“We were training you,” the Pythia said. “I had high hopes that—”

“Not high enough to give me the title of Pythia, no matter how hard I worked.” Tara could see tears glittering in those inhuman eyes as she paced forward, onto the Pythia’s dais.

The Pythia met her eyes. “I had hoped that for you, yes. You were a brilliant student. But there was too much coldness in you.”

Behind them, the surface of the water broke open. Cassie’s head burst through the surface to gulp a lungful of air. Adrienne spun to shoot, presenting her back to Tara.

Tara lunged forward and opened fire. The bullets struck Adrienne in the throat and below the ribs. Adrienne pulled off two shots that shattered the surface of the water before she fell, growling, at the edge of the rock.

Maggie paddled, whining, in the crystal-clear water. Tara dove in behind her. The shock of the cold water against her chest was like a slap in the face, driving the breath from her lungs. She grabbed for the arms of the pale figure suspended beneath the water and hauled Cassie to the surface. The Pythia, looking like a drowned rose in her soaked robes, helped her drag the girl out of the water.

A gunshot echoed through the tiny gorge.

Tara turned to see Adrienne aiming at her with the MP-5. Tara instinctively shielded Cassie and the Pythia with her body. She tensed, anticipating a bullet tearing into her.

Another gunshot echoed, and she flinched. But the gunshot wasn’t from Adrienne’s hands, and it didn’t strike Tara.

It came from above, and struck Adrienne in the eye, the last human part of her. Red blossomed on Adrienne’s cheek, and she fell on her back to the rock. The MP-5 clattered away into the water.

Tara looked up at the ridgeline. Harry stood on a rock outcropping, gun in hand.

He’d come back.

“She’s not breathing,” the Pythia shouted. Cassie’s head lolled limply on the Pythia’s shoulder, and she’d turned blue.

Tara shoved the Pythia out of the way. She performed the Heimlich maneuver on Cassie. A trickle of water emanated from her mouth.

“C’mon.” She jammed her doubled fist into Cassie’s diaphragm again. This time, water gushed from her mouth as if poured from a pitcher.

Cassie coughed and sputtered. She leaned over and vomited up water.

“Are you hurt?” Tara demanded, shoving her wet hair back from her face. She could see no sign of blood on the girl’s body, quaking from the cold.

She shook her head but couldn’t form any words under the force of her teeth chattering. The Pythia wrapped her cloak around her, and one of Delphi’s Daughters retrieved the girl’s toga to wrap around her shoulders.

Tara climbed back to the flat rock for Adrienne, but she had disappeared. A smear of blood extended from where she’d been shot to the dark crevasse behind the spring. She’d gone to ground. The darkness below was thick, black as the Gardener’s graves.

But Tara felt no residue of panic when she lowered herself into the space between the rocks. She landed in cold water splashing up to her knees. There wasn’t enough room to stand upright, and Tara hunched over. Water dripped from the ceiling, and the enclosed space smelled like iron. Light poured in a jagged shaft from the fissure above, enough to distinguish a human shape, curled into the fetal position in the farthest, darkest part of the tiny cave.

“Adrienne?”

She sloshed forward and warily touched the woman’s shoulder. There was no movement, no rise and fall of her chest. Tara couldn’t be sure, but in the dim light, it seemed a smile played across Adrienne’s swollen lips. Adrienne had chosen a familiar grave. The geomancer had gone back to earth.

And the close earth held no fear for Tara, now. She took a moment to marvel at that, at the sharp contrast between dark and light in this place, at the sound of water and the breath rattling in her throat. Her fingers brushed the wall of the tiny pocket cave. It felt safe, womblike. She knew then that her ordeal at the hands of the Gardener had been cleared from her psyche; she had no lingering fear.

“You all right down there?” Harry’s head and shoulders were outlined at the opening of the cave.

“Yes.” She grinned up at him. “What brought you back?”

Harry shrugged. “Your cards.”

She looked up at him quizzically.

He shook his head. “Long story. I’ll tell you later.”

He extended his arm to pull her out, and she reached up to take it.

S
ITTING IN SOPHIA’S PORCH SWING
, T
ARA LEANED BACK TO
stare into the starry sky. Her cards lay in her hands, and she shuffled them over and over without drawing one. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to know the future, what lay ahead. There was too much to contemplate: Cassie’s initiation, the Pythia’s intentions, whether Harry would stay.

And Tara had to decide where she wanted to go next. Being thrust out into the world like this. . . It had felt good to break exile. To be useful again. The last few days, she’d been contemplating what it would mean to go back into practice, if the world of profiling was necessarily closed to her.

Unlike so many of the others, she had options and a mutable future. One of Delphi’s Daughters was killed in the firefight. She had no surviving blood family, and the Pythia was having her buried nearby. Delphi’s Daughters had moved a large stone over Adrienne’s rocky grave, and showed no interest in retrieving the body.