He looked at Justin and Henry, who were flanking me in a strangely protective way. I made belated introductions. “Zeke, this is my friend Justin, and his friend Henry. When they heard we were stuck, with the accident and all, they came down to make sure we were okay.”
It was a weak explanation, and Zeke wasn't fooled, judging by the dubious glance he slanted at me as he offered Justin his hand. “Glad to meet you. I'm Zeke Velasquez.”
“Sorry you're having troubles,” said Justin.
“Thanks.”
The exchange was banal, but there was a territorial wariness to the way they sized each other up with that handshake. I remembered what Zeke had said about feeling responsible for us “girls,” and Justin had certainly proven his protective nature. Henry, of course, was his wingman.
Judging from her wry expression, Lisa must have sensed it, too. We exchanged a look, and I got back to important matters. “The game warden wasn't big on the chupacabra theory, huh?”
Zeke glared toward the tan truck, his voice bitter. “No. He seems to think that we staged this for insurance money.”
“What would be the sense in that?” Henry asked. “This is breeding stock, right? So if all you got was the cost of the animal, you'd still take a loss on all the calves they could produce over time.”
Lisa's eyebrows shot up. “Playing polo has given you a real understanding for livestock, Henry.”
He shrugged. “I'm a Renaissance man.”
I caught the glance that Zeke flicked between them, a little sharper than plain curiosity. “Normally you'd be right,” he said. “But the drought has hit us hard. When the pasture won't produce, you have to buy hay and feed, which means breeding can become a losing proposition.”
“Which is academic,” I said, “because the game warden doesn't know what he's talking about.”
Zeke smiled slightly. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Maggie. But I don't think it would help my case if you told him you thought I was innocent because the chupacabra did it.”
“You said you were out of better ideas.”
He grimaced, then changed the subject. “How'd you end up out here? Did Lisa call you?”
“We were headed over to Lady Acre to see the shrine, but we had some trouble finding it.”
His brow wrinkled in bemusement. “You pick the strangest places to sightsee. How did you find out about that?”
“Teresa told me.”
Understanding dawned, and he stared between the guys and me, incredulous. “Is this about that legend, how the Virgin Mary was supposed to have stopped some cougar attacks way back when?”
“We're just going to go check it out,” I said.
He set his hands on his hips. “I used to go there all the time with my grandmother. It's nothing mystical. Just a nice, peaceful place where people go to pray.”
“Well then, maybe that's all we'll do there.” I could be stubborn, too. The Velasquez family didn't have a lock on obstinacy, though they seemed to be making a run on denial.
“Suit yourself. Just be careful.” He looked at Justin as he said that last bit, putting the responsibility on him to keep us out of trouble.
As if Justin needed to be told. “Don't worry about it,” he said, arms folded.
Zeke nodded, as if that settled things, and turned to Lisa. “I have to get back to rounding up stock and monster-proofing the corrals.”
“You don't need to stay here?” She gestured to the carnage and the workers organizing the cleanup.
“There's not a lot else I can do,” he said. “I'm leaving men to help Rob Garza out, but we need to get the rest of the cattle penned up before the storm comes in, or the helicopter won't be able to fly.”
Lupe called him over, and he gave a be-right-back sign to Lisa before stepping away. She turned to us, pushing her sunglasses up on her head. “What's the deal with this Lady Acre place? What does this shrine have to do with the chupacabra?”
“That's what we're sorting out,” said Justin. “Maggie thinks it's a big piece of the puzzle.”
“You should come with us, Lisa.” I made sure that Zeke, conferring with Lupe and Mr. Garza, was out of earshot. “Your expertise would come in handy. I think there may have been some kind of spell done there to vanquish the demon once before.”
She stared at me, grim-faced but not very surprised. “When did we decide that's what it was?”
“I decided last night, but I didn't want to start calling it that until I had to.” “Chupy” was a lot less scary.
“Okay. Let me tell Zeke I'm going with you. I'll leave the D word out of it for now.” She slid her sunglasses back into place. “But don't think the consultation of an evil genius comes cheap.”
“Just meet us at the car, Wile E. Coyote.”
Justin and Henry fell in on either side of me as we walked back to the Escort, our sneakers crunching the dry grass. Both of them had to shorten their strides to match mine. Glancing back at Lisa, Henry asked, “She's joking about the evil genius bit, right?”
“It's hard to tell with Lisa,” Justin answered, then had a question for me. “Is Zeke like his grandmother?”
“Yep. Bone structure of the gods. Denial as wide as the river in Egypt.”
“But no …” He tapped his forehead. “Psychic superpower.”
I stopped walking, forcing them to do the same. “Okay, what's going on? Why the inquisition about Zeke?”
“It's just a couple of questions,” said Justin. “Not an inquisition.” He exchanged a glance with Henry, then forged ahead. “After Teresa's infodump this morning, I couldn't help wondering how serious Lisa is about this guy.”
My jaw dropped open. “There is no way she's after him for his money.”
He raised his hands, warding off my fury. “No. This isn't about Lisa.”
Henry stated the obvious. “It's about Zeke.”
“You don't seriously think he's behind this.” My voice squeaked with the effort to keep it from carrying.
Their sober faces were my answer. I stared from one to the other, unable to believe they were tag-teaming me. Me! The only one of us with an Evil-meter in my head. “Why on earth would he summon a demon to kill his own cows?”
Justin spoke in a soothing, don't-fly-off-the-handle tone. “We noticed when the Old Guys were talking this morning—it's only been his tenant's cows. Not his.”
“Oh, yeah. That makes it so much more believable.” I pointed an accusing finger at Henry. “You don't even really believe in any of this.”
“Actually,” he said calmly, “I was thinking about old-fashioned insurance fraud.”
“Think about it,” said Justin. “If his grandmother vanquished the demon before, maybe he has inside knowledge on releasing it.”
I gestured wildly behind me, to where Zeke was still working on cleaning up the mess and saving the rest of the cattle. “He doesn't even believe in the chupacabra, or his grandmother's Sight. He's only humoring Lisa and me because no one can come up with a better plan.”
Justin caught my flailing hand, endangering his life by stepping in close so he could speak almost in my ear. “Here's a better plan, Maggie. Just admit it could be possible, and I won't mention it again.”
Lisa was on her way toward us, which must have prompted his whispered compromise. I tightened my jaw, because I didn't want her to hear this about a guy she was willing to spend the day being Dale Evans for. “Fine. If you and Henry will admit that if I say he's a good guy, I'm probably right.”
“Yes,” he said, squeezing my hand. “You are probably right, and I'm probably wrong. But we'll keep our minds open. Okay?”
I looked at Henry, realizing that I'd put him on the spot, vis-à-vis our tête-à-tête in the Duck Inn. I knew Henry didn't really believe in my Sight. And his stare back at me said that he knew I remembered that.
“Okay,” he said. “I admit the possibility that Maggie knows what evil lurks, or doesn't, in the hearts of men.”
Pursing my lips, I
gave him points for quoting The Shadow. Even bad science fiction movies got credit from me.
Lisa reached us then, stopping warily when she picked up on our mood. “What's going on?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Arguing over who gets to ride—”
“Shotgun,” called Henry, heading for the passenger side of the Escort. Okay, now he had really pissed me off.
Lisa slanted me a look that said she wasn't fooled a bit, but had decided to let it go. She edged around Justin and me and climbed into the backseat.
Justin was still holding my hand, watching me cautiously. “Are we okay?”
My glare was so tart it made my own face hurt. “Am I really angry at you for teaming up against me? Yes. Will I forgive you for it? Only after I get to hear you say that I was right and you were wrong.”
“Deal.” He leaned down and kissed me before I could remind him I was still mad. I was much less mad after that, even though the kiss was way too short to make me completely happy.
21
Lady Acre was as picturesque as its name. Or it would have been if the drought hadn't turned the surrounding grass to a carpet of faded brown. Justin pulled off a dirt road onto a level parking space delineated with limestone blocks. A weathered sign read: SHRINE OF OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL AID.
As I climbed out of the car, I saw that a path led from the parking area, winding around a small hill the way a stream winds around a rock, and into a copse of live oak and mes-quite trees.
The slam of Lisa's door startled a bunch of doves from a clump of grass in the distance. Only then did I realize how still the vista was, and empty.
Henry scanned the pasture, shielding his eyes against the sun. A few gray clouds had started to gather on the horizon, but it remained bright overhead. “Where are all the cattle?”
Lisa twisted her braid up and tucked it under her hat. “They must have been through this area already, herding them up.”
I ducked into the car to grab my camera, popped off the lens cap, and took a few pictures of the terrain. Justin looked at me curiously, and I explained, “If I do live through this, I can use them for my photography final.”
“You better live through this,” Henry said. “We burned a lot of frequent flier miles to rush down here.”
Lisa rolled her eyes and headed for the path indicated by the sign. “Yes, lucky us. What would we poor womenfolk have done if you brave, strong men hadn't shown up?”
We followed her to the trail, which was shaded by twisted live oak trees and lined by rustic chunks of limestone. Despite the sultry heat, I could feel a kind of peace knitting around me. Dragonflies darted across the path. An armadillo trundled out of a thorny bush, took one look at us, and dashed off with startling speed.
The hill that the path circled was as steep as anything I'd seen here. The path curved around, then down into a low spot on the other side, a shallow sort of hollow. Fragrant bushes lined the area, and a large, spreading tree shaded a stone bench.
The focal point of the space was a stone-lined niche, carved into the steep side of the hill that sheltered the low clearing where we stood. A grotto is, traditionally, a small cave where people put statues for either decoration or worship. This one hardly qualified as a cave; it was more of an alcove, just big enough for a not-quite-life-sized statue of Our Lady of Perpetual Aid, aka the Virgin Mary.
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?”
Highway to Hell Page 18
