Gravelight (39 page)

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Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley

BOOK: Gravelight
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But if it's what I need to be doing, I'll find some way of managing it,
Truth assured herself. At least she wouldn't need to relocate; as Dylan had told her many times, she could find trouble wherever she went.
Dylan. Telling him that she'd decided to quit her job and join the Occult Police would probably be the last straw.
As Truth and Sinah reached the place where the dirt road turned to blacktop, they could see two sheriff's cars and a large van with official markings drawn up near the general store. In front of the building she could see Caleb and Evan Starking talking to a man in a broad-brimmed hat.
“What's going on?” Sinah asked, coming to a stop. She looked as if she might bolt at any moment.
“The sheriff's department must be coming out with dogs to see if they can find Luned Starking,” Truth said.
Still Sinah hung back. “Come on,” Truth said with a touch of impatience. “There's nothing to be afraid of.”
“I don't …” Sinah began. “I thought I could handle it, but it's been such a long time since I've met a bunch of people all at once like this, that I—”
Of course. She's a telepath.
In the onrush of events and the press of her own problems, Truth had nearly forgotten that Sinah had this particular ability.
“We could go back,” Truth suggested, but Dylan had already risen from the table set up in front of the camper and begun walking toward them.
“How nice to see you again, Ms. Dellon. Can I introduce you to my young colleagues? I know they'll be delighted to have the opportunity to meet an actual movie star,” Dylan Palmer said.
“Rowan Moorcock, Ninian Blake.” Each stood as Dylan made the introductions: a tall, strapping-looking young woman with long cinnamon hair; a slender brunet of the sort her foster mother would have categorized as “interesting.” They must be the other ghost-hunters that Truth had mentioned.
Ninian extended a hand. Because it was the expected thing, Sinah grasped it, bracing herself. But there was no way to prepare herself for what occurred. She recoiled, jerking her hand free from Ninian's clasp.
She was blind.
No, not blind exactly—she could still see colors, movements, shapes. But her gift, her ability to hear what others did not say, had vanished at last. She could no longer feel the press of others' emotions—even if she touched them.
She looked at the others, bewildered. She'd met Dylan only briefly when she could still sense emotions, and the other two she'd never met before at all. She had no idea of what they were thinking, or what they might be like inside. At last she was alone in her mind, alone with only the voices of ancestral ghosts and the consciousness of the Sacred Water Place like the light of a sullen invisible sun.
“Sinah?” Truth said.
“Just a twinge,” Sinah muttered. “Pleased to meet you, Ninian.” She took his hand again and squeezed it firmly.
The young man smiled uncertainly and sat back down in his chair. Dylan held his own chair for Sinah, who slid gratefully into it, before going to find seats for Truth and himself.
A lifetime's habit of concealing her difference from other people made Sinah conceal her normalcy now. What could she say? That she could no longer eavesdrop on people and use what she knew to manipulate them like puppets? A fat lot of sympathy
that
would get her!
But there are other ways to spellbind a man. Older, surer, and more secret … .
The internal voice was as compelling, as insistent, as any external voice had ever been. Sinah tried to shut it out, praying that it would not simply rise up and engulf her.
“Some coffee, Ms. Dellon?” Dylan said.
“Please,” Sinah said. “Call me Sinah. And is there any possibility of tea?” she asked, noticing the tag hanging out of Rowan's cup. “I hate to be a snob, but …”
“Tea's better for you anyway,” Rowan said promptly.
“I'll make it.” She bounced to her feet and ran into the camper, letting the screen door slam behind her.
“How is Rowan feeling?” Truth asked Dylan in formal tones.
“No lingering effects; not even a headache,” Dylan said. “But it's just proof that haunted houses aren't something to be taken lightly.”
“Or haunted un-houses,” Truth added, more to herself than to him. She wondered how she could make the time to talk to Dylan privately. Sinah looked as if she'd seen a ghost; Truth wondered what had happened.
“Something wrong?” Sinah asked.
“She had a bad spell this morning,” Ninian said, grinning faintly at his own pun. He saw Sinah's look of puzzlement and amplified. “We were up at the Wildwood, and, well.” He shrugged. “I shouldn't make fun of her. Ro's a medium, and that place is enough to give The Amazing Randi the whim-whams.”
“You were up there?” Sinah said. “At the sanatorium?” Inside her she felt the rest of the bloodline rally together, searching frantically for a way to drive out these interlopers, these
outsiders.
“You shouldn't go up there. It's dangerous.” Her voice roughened.
“We're taking every precaution,” Dylan said soothingly. “And Truth has even taken some extra ones on our behalf. I hate to break this to you folks,” Dylan said, raising his voice slightly to include Rowan, who was stepping carefully down out of the camper with a mug in one hand and a pastry box in the other, “but the site probably won't be available after tomorrow.”
Well. I guess Dylan thinks the best defense is a good offense.
“Urban renewal?” Rowan wondered aloud, setting the mug down in front of Sinah. “Milk or sugar? We've got both; I just couldn't carry them all at once.”
“Plain is fine,” Sinah said, taking the cup.
“I called a friend of mine to come and banish the … residue … of The Church of the Antique Rite,” Truth said
evenly. “So if that's what you're studying, with luck it'll be gone by tomorrow afternoon.”
Rowan looked from Truth to Dylan, her jaw hanging slightly open in shock. It didn't take a telepath to pick up on the young woman's sense of frustrated indignation. “But … you just
called
some
faith healer?
” Rowan sputtered.
“No,” Truth said. “Michael is … the sort of person who can deal with places like that. You've all been up there. There's very little doubt that The Church of the Antique Rite was meeting in the sub-basement of Quentin Blackburn's sanatorium. It's a nasty little cult, and nasty little cults leave psychic residue. I wouldn't be any more comfortable leaving that lying there than I would be leaving around an unexploded bomb. And neither should you be.”
Sinah glanced from face to face. Rowan still looked indignant, but subsided when Dylan did not protest. Dylan looked thoughtful.
“Probably the best thing,” Ninian said soberly. “We never did get any documented history on the sanatorium itself for the database—not even a ghost.”
“Oh, pooh, Nin, where's your sense of adventure?” Rowan teased. “I think we should have turned it inside out ourselves. If you don't bet, you can't win.”
Ninian just snorted. Truth envied Rowan her lighthearted sense of adventure—whatever paranormal events Rowan Moorcock had been witness to in her life, they had not dimmed her inexhaustible appetite to experience more. Perhaps she simply didn't know how high the stakes could get.
“Pardon me,” a new voice said. “Is one of you folks a Doctor Palmer, from Taha—Tagga—well, from some university in New York?” the man finished with a grin.
It was one of the sheriff's deputies.
“Taghkanic, actually,” Dylan said, getting to his feet. “It pronounces easier than it looks. I'm Dylan Palmer, this is Rowan Moorcock, Ninian Blake, Truth Jourdemayne, Sinah Dellon. What can I do for you, officer?”
“I'm Sergeant Wachman of the Lyonesse County S.D.
Caleb over to the general store said you folks were … hunting ghosts?”
Sergeant Wachman's accent was broad and flat, with vowels that had changed little in the last four hundred years. He was a tall man with the fair coloring so common in these hills. The broad brim of his navy-felt sheriff's hat cast his eyes into shadow, but Truth could feel him watching Sinah.
“Well, Morton's Fork is supposed to host the largest number of paranormal occurrences in the local area,” Dylan said. “We're parapsychologists from the Margaret Beresford Bidney Memorial Psychic Science Research Laboratory, which is affiliated with Taghkanic College in New York. We've been here for almost three weeks now. I met Luned Starking a couple of times when I was in the store. Do you think you'll find her?” Dylan asked.
“Well, it's going to take divine intervention, after the rain we had the other day,” Sergeant Wachman said. His eyes were still on Sinah. “You said
Psychic
Science?” he added. “You mean, tarot cards and things like that? Like they have on the television?”
“More or less, Sergeant. Would you like a cup of coffee? It's fresh.” Dylan's easy smile didn't waver, but Truth could sense the tension in him, left over from their own fight, that might easily spill over into this new outlet. And like it or not, Lyonesse County certainly qualified as the backwoods, and for many people, there was little distinction to be drawn between “psychic” and “Satanist.”
“I wouldn't turn it down,” Wachman said. He scratched his head, pushing his hat to the back of his head. His skin was fair, red, and freckled, giving him the bland, stolid, bovine look.
“My turn,” Ninian said. He got up and headed for the camper. At Dylan's gestured invitation, Sergeant Wachman took Ninian's seat.
“Dellon …” he said. “You any kin to old Miss Rahab Dellon who used to live up in the hills here with her daughter?”
Sinah flashed a look of mingled panic and shock at Truth. “I'm her granddaughter,” Sinah said. “At least, that's what my birth certificate said.”
“Why, sure you are.” Wachman's face held nothing but an expression of pleasure. “My daddy used to talk about you; you're the little foundling baby he drove on down to the hospital in Elkins about thirty year gone this month.” Abruptly realizing what he'd said, he stopped, flushing pinkly. “I mean to say—I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't mean to go telling your age out of turn.”
Sinah smiled. “I don't mind at all, Sergeant, especially since you're the first person who's looked pleased to see me since I got here.”
Now Sergeant Wachman looked embarrassed. “Well, folks down here in the Fork take some time to warm up to strangers. Not that you're quite a stranger, Miss Dellon.”
Ninian came back with paper cups, sugar, and the carton of milk all awkwardly tucked under one arm while he carried the half-full coffeepot in his free hand. Though he moved with the dramatic awkwardness of a young heron, Truth had never actually seen Ninian drop anything.
“Sorry we're out of real cups,” he said, setting his burden down on the table. “But there's plenty of coffee.”
Rowan pushed the pastry carton toward him. “And plenty of calories.”
“Just what I don't need,” Wachman said with a wistful sigh. “The wife's always after me to take off a few pounds … .” Despite which, he helped himself to a slab of crumb cake from the bakery in Pharaoh.
“Ambrose, we're ready to go with the dogs. Got some of the girl's clothes for a good scent trace. You want us to start up at the old Dellon place?” The speaker—another uniformed deputy—was whip-thin and intense, but despite that, he bore a strong family resemblance to Ambrose Wachman.
“That'll be a good start. Remember, your radio isn't going to work worth diddly around here, so you be sure to bring it on back here around noon and let me know what you're up to, Davey-boy.”
The younger deputy saluted and went back to the others. In a moment, two green and white Lyonesse County four-wheel-drive vehicles rolled slowly past the Winnebago, and disappeared up Watchman's Gap Trace Road.
“You living at the Dellon place, Miss Dellon? It's pretty raw.” Sergeant Wachman sipped his coffee. A faint dusting of powdered sugar starred his tie and his short-sleeved navy shirt.
Ninian picked up his cup and went over to stand behind Dylan.
“No. I bought the old schoolhouse further up the road and renovated it before I moved in.”
Sinah's voice—like her face—was small and pinched, and Truth wondered what thoughts were uppermost in the sergeant's mind. Did Wachman suspect
Sinah
of killing Luned? Was this all some long
Columbo
-style charade to get her to confess? Even if Truth didn't know what was going on in Wachman's mind, surely Sinah must. Was it that frightening?
“That's right. You did one hey of a lot up there; put in a phone and a septic system and all. You plannin' to move back here? Or you got other places to be?”

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