"Should we think about pulling out of this?" he asked slowly.

"Let me counter that with a question of my own: Dare we?" she returned. "So far these people have killed ten victims that we know of, and three of those were little kids. Do you want more deaths on your conscience? I don't." She swallowed, and bit her lip. "I do this probably for the same reason that you became a cop, Mark there are things out there that people need to be shielded from. Since I have the talent and the knowledge it's almost a duty for me to stand in the line of fire. And unfortunately I don't know of anyone better equipped than I am who isn't already out fighting fires of his own."

"Unless I'm very much mistaken, this could get fatal."

She nodded, and twisted a strand of hair around one finger. "It could. We have one advantage going for us, though ""And that is?"

"That everyone who's been killed has been attacked physically, not by magic. And between the two of us, I truly do not think that there is anything physical that we can't handle."

He nodded, and forced his hands to unclench. "Okay, I'll grant you that. Can you shoot " he bit off the rest with a blush of chagrin.

"How quickly we forget," she replied with a hint of irony. "The more appropriate questions would be, What can you get me in a hurry, and can you manage a permit for me to carry concealed?"

"You're asking a Dallas cop? When you're working for the force? What do you want? I recommend against a howitzer, they're awfully hard to hide." He put the car in gear and eased it into traffic.

"My current personal is a Colt forty-five; a revolver, I like to keep things simple. And b.u.t.ton that lip on any smart comments about it being too big a piece for me to handle; I happen to have stronger wrists than you do, and I never fire it one-handed. I did not bring it with me I never thought I was going to have to contemplate putting holes in people, and I've always figured that traveling with a firearm is a Very Bad Idea, since you never know who is going to be able to get at your luggage when you check it through. And you are not heading for my voudoun contact."

"No, I'm heading for HDQ. We are going to get you armed right now; you're already dangerous." He accelerated and squeezed the Ghia into a gap between two pickups. "What we have mostly are Browning nine-mil autos; that's close enough to your forty-five for you to make the transition."

"I'll take your word for it. I should warn you, there are going to be some situations where I will refuse to carry the thing."

"It's your skin." He hit the freeway on-ramp and piloted the Ghia into the traffic flow with the ease of an Indy 500 driver. "I'll feel better knowing you've got it. Now answer me true, lady what do we do if we get in a situation where we are out-magicked?"

"You run like h.e.l.l. And don't argue; if our positions were reversed, I'd run while you covered me. In a case where I'm the expert, don't you try to be a hero."

"Agreed. But what am I supposed to do if you get put out of action permanently?"

"Now that," she replied, so softly he could barely hear her over the traffic noise, "is something you will not have to worry about. If I go and I swear to you by all I hold sacred that I can do this I take whoever's behind this with me."

It was late afternoon when they headed back out; Diana was now armed, checked out on the police range as being competent, and equipped with all the appropriate permits for the weapon now clipped to her waistband over her right hip. With her jacket on, even Mark had a hard time spotting it.

And that was weird because a Browning nine mil is not an easy gun to hide.

"Now I feel a little better " he admitted. "It isn't rational, but I do. Now tell me how in h.e.l.l you're making it look like you're not carrying anything bulkier than a fat wallet!"

She smirked. "Trade secret."

"You could walk."

"Creep."

He growled threateningly; she winced and ducked. "Okay, okay, I'll tell you. I'm projecting harmless innocence; as an empath I'm very good at that your mind doesn't expect Snow White to be packing, so it refuses to see the bulge."

"Huh." He shook his head, not sure whether to believe her or not. "Is that how you're hiding your black eye?"

"No. I'm using the same stuff they use to cover strawberry birthmarks. Would you like to know the color of my underwear too before you let me out?"

The sharpness of her answer told him how much on edge she was, so he kept the retort he'd wanted to make behind his teeth. "Where do you want me to wait for you?"

"Halfway down the block." They were approaching the address, which proved to be a tiny storefront on the corner. Late afternoon sunlight glared off the window, and Mark couldn't quite make out what was painted there."What is this place, anyway?"

"An herbalist which around here is admitting you're an arcane pract.i.tioner."

Mark contemplated the denizens of the area, and felt a twinge of serious mundane misgiving as he parked the car. "I don't want to sound racist, but aren't you a bit pale to be wandering around this block?"

"I would be," she replied, slipping out before he could stop her, "except that they aren't going to see me. They're going to see only what they expect to see. Watch "

And sure enough; as he watched her saunter off, he could see that not only was she attracting no attention, but the glances of the loiterers and pa.s.sersby actually seemed to slide right off her.

He sighed, and scrunched down in his seat, making himself comfortable. If she could bottle that, he thought, we'd make a fortune.

Di sighed, feeling some of the weight of the need to stay constantly under shields drop from her shoulders. She had known from the moment that she stepped in through the door of the tiny, fragrant, shadowy shop that she was in the presence of a friend, even though she had never met n.o.ble Williams in her life. And the silver-haired, wizened, ebony man behind the counter had responded to her hesitant self-introduction as if she had been a long-absent relative, locking the shop-door, pulling down the shade that said Closed and ushering her into his own sitting room in the apartment behind the shop.

Before she had time to blink she was enthroned in a wicker chair and plied with a very impeccably British tea.

The shields he's got up on this place she thought, a little in awe. Granted, he's been at this game twice, maybe three times as long as I have, but still you could hit this apartment with a psychic nuke and not penetrate.

And the atmosphere within the shields was genuinely welcoming and friendly; as an empath she was doubly sensitive to things like that. It was the first time since she'd arrived in Dallas that she felt safe.

As she sipped her tea, she smiled at her host across his tiny hardwood table. "I must say," she told him, "that of all the things I was antic.i.p.ating, the very last was a Mahatma Gandhi clone with the voice and accent of Geoffrey Holder! n.o.ble, I could listen to you read the phone book and enjoy the experience to the hilt!"

"You are far too kind," n.o.ble Williams laughed richly. "But my dear Miss Tregarde," he continued in mock protest, "our surprise was mutual! From my colleague's brief description, I was expecting a six- foot-tall Amazon warrior, wielding a mighty flaming sword only to be accosted by what? A music - box ballerina in blue jeans! Do have more tea, won't you?"

"Please " She held out her cup, deciding that if he wasn't going to mention the Browning which he had most certainly noticed neither was she. "And this room something tells me you've really read all these books, and at least twice each!"

For the room was wall-to-ceiling bookcases, everything from books Di had in her own arcane library to Shakespeare to Tolkien to War and Peace.

He laughed again. "It is a hunger with me, books. I had rather read than eat, I do think."

"How on earth did you ever meet up with Marie? I didn't think the Haitian pract.i.tioners and the Louisianans even spoke, much less kept up a regular correspondence."

He let his eyelids droop, stirred another spoonful of honey into his tea, and smiled slyly. "My dear child, we aren't going to tell you everything, you know! We must keep some secrets!"

She returned the smile. "I have been rebuked. I'm just glad you were willing to talk to me. This is turning out to involve a lot more than I thought it would."

"Indeed." He set his cup carefully down on the saucer and steepled his fingers thoughtfully, his puckish expression turning serious. "But you remind me, rightly, of business. This present situation calls for a great deal of cooperation among all the blessed. Ask I shall answer with honesty, and with as much information as I possess."

She set her own cup down, and looked into his depthlessly dark eyes, allowing the last of her shields to drop completely. "By now you've heard what turned up a few blocks away did you, or anyone you know, sense anything last night? Or any other night, for that matter?"The voudoun priest shook his graying head regretfully, a genuine regret she could feel quite strongly. "No. Nothing at all. And it is a source of wonder and concern to me that we have not. Those of us who are in tune with feelings have only experienced the fear and sickness of those discovering the bodies of the victims. None of us have sensed the deaths themselves, which surely must have been horrible."

"You've felt nothing?" Not even anything like a power-point where there wasn't one before?"

"No we have felt threat, and strangeness. But what we have had is a feeling of growing not evil; it is hard to quite describe what we have felt. It is a kind of hunger, a kind of violent, and very angry hunger. And " he hesitated a moment before continuing. "The loas have been warning us of danger for some time now."

Di sat up a little straighter at that. "So they knew of something. Danger to your folk specifically?"

"Again, no." His eyes looked off somewhere into the far distance, to a place far removed in time and s.p.a.ce from the pleasant little sitting room. "No, they have only warned us of places to beware of, and times when it would not be wise to be alone. I trust you have deduced that all the victims were alone?"

"Except for those three children "

"Who were scarcely able to protect themselves; I think they could be counted as being 'alone.' And again, they were not as the old phrase of my childhood went 'persons of color.' Have you not noted this also?"

"No," Diana replied, blushing with chagrin at missing something so obvious. "I hadn't. You're saying there's a connection "

"One I do not yet understand," he said, looking vaguely puzzled. "It is subtler than I am stating; I feel sure of this. But this much I do know; there is a powerful anger, a hatred that this being has, and it is not directed at the black population. For once in our lives, we are not the target of rancor. If this thing were to take one of us, it would be because, like Mount Everest, we happen to be there. We are not immune but we are not the preferred targets, either. Given a choice between a black and a white, this thing would slay the white and allow the black to move on unmolested. But this is not anything of ours, either; I can swear this to you. I do swear this to you, by all that I am."

Di let out the breath she had been holding in a soft whistle. "I believe you. But that the hatred for whites is not only interesting, it's something I didn't even consider. So that's why you haven't b.u.t.toned up, like the 'readers,' or run off, like the Rom."

"Not all the Rom have fled," Williams told her, shifting a little so that the wicker of his chair creaked.

"And that may be significant as well. It is certainly significant that the Gitano, who normally do not wander, have left the city. Yes, the few Gitano we had are all gone, and the Kalderash with them, and most of the Lowara "

"But not all?" If there were still some Lowara the Lowara owed her. It might be time to collect.

"But not all," he agreed. His eyes now seemed to be looking inward, not outward. "Miss Tregarde "

"Diana," she said firmly.

"Diana," his voice deepened, and took on a heavier coloration of accent and a firmness of tone that almost forced her to believe every word she was hearing. "You are in most perilous danger. Believe this. There is present threat, and peril to your life."

She went still, almost frozen inside. Power moved here; had moved in so subtly that she had not noticed it until it was there. What was speaking now was not n.o.ble Williams.

"This thing has the scent of you and while it is now in the position of the quarry, it may well turn hunter, especially if you press too hard. It knows you, and it can find you if it chooses. Be wise. Do not walk anywhere unshielded, or unarmed. Keep all your weapons about you at all times. Guard your back."

A chill of fear threaded down the length of her spine, for she knew that it was the height of stupidity to ignore that advice. Especially from a houngun whose loa was Ogoun, G.o.d of war and warriors and statesmanship and craft.

"Yes?" she breathed, making of the word a hesitant request for further help.

"Until now it has walked in the shadows, in hiding but the sunlight does not weaken it, and it does not fear the day. It is as strong in sun as in moonlight, so do not presume to think that daylight will protect you."

"What is it?" she pled, not really hoping for an answer."We do not know," came the bleak reply, "We do not know. It is nothing we have ever known but it is very old. Old in blood and old in death; old in strength and old in cunning. And it has never known, never wanted peace. You must keep it from making a home here for itself, Diana or it will make of this city a h.e.l.l of blood and pain. For every living thing." And the far-off gaze faded from the old man's eyes.

At her mute look of inquiry, he shook his head.

She sighed, and forced her shoulders to relax, telling herself that she would not give in to the fear and feeling of utter inadequacy until she was forced to. But she wanted to cry so badly that her throat hurt with the effort of holding the tears back; wanted to go running back to Hartford and Andre and forget she'd ever heard of Dallas. Wanted to pack it all in and let someone else take over.

But she knew that there was no one else to take over. She was all there was; she and Mark were all that were standing between a city full of innocents and something a major Power feared enough to warn her against.

I'm not good enough for this. I'm just a troubleshooter; a competent magical hacker. This it's out of my league. I can't handle this oh G.o.ds, and I have no choice, I have to.

But she was careful to let none of that show. She swallowed a sip of tea, exerted the iron control that had gotten her a black belt in three years, and forced herself to regain an outward calm.

"Well, that was more than I expected, anyway. Every sc.r.a.p of information helps."

He picked up his teacup and stared thoughtfully into it for a moment. "I believe I can give you another contact," he said finally. He rose before she could say anything and flitted silently back into the shop. When he returned, he had an index card with a handwritten name and address on it.

"One of my occasional customers," he said, as she copied the address into the notebook she dug out of her purse. "I doubt that she has fled the city; I do not think her purse would permit it, nor her employer. If my own judgment is anything to go by, I would say she is practiced, though not as practiced as you."

"Which means she is pretty well entrenched in the local neo-pagan movement?" Di hazarded, since the name on the card was a simple "Athena."

"I believe so," he nodded. "If you will give me a day or two to contact her, I shall try to smooth the way for you."

Mark relaxed when he saw Di emerge from the herb shop and sprint for the Ghia. He was beginning to have uneasy feelings whenever she was out of sight. "Got anything?" he asked, as she pulled the door open and slid in beside him.

"A bit," she replied, as he drove off, noting that the neighborhood denizens still didn't seem to be giving him, Di, or the car a second glance. "Whatever, whoever it is seems to have it in for Caucasians.

And I was told that it is 'very old' which could mean a lot of things. But it isn't voudoun killings; n.o.ble said not, and I believe him."

"You think he'd fink on his own people?"

"In this case yes," she said firmly. "We might want to look into Middle Eastern or Asiatics though, after all. I'm sure as h.e.l.l not infallible there's a lot of room there for nasty surprises, and those are not areas that I know much about. I mean, despite that I thought not, we could have a new Kali cult going; the heart-cutting-out certainly fits that profile, and it fits the pile of bodies in the alley "

"But not the drowned kids?"

"I don't know; I told you, I'm just not familiar with that brand of occultism. The flower petals would fit, though."

"Okay, what else did you get from this guy?"

"I've got a contact into the local neo-pagan network, but n.o.ble wants to warn her I'm coming, first.

And there's another 'but.'"

"Which is?"

"That I really do not think this thing has any ties into the neo-pagan movement. It just doesn't feel right; it feels independent."

Mark whistled tunelessly for a moment, squinting into the late-afternoon sunlight reflecting off the windshields around them. "Okay, I had a pair of thoughts myself while you were in there. One of them actually dovetails with your feeling. Thought one was that there is a fourth way to do things without leaving psychic fingerprints."

"So?"

"Use tools. In this case, human tools."

Di hit her forehead with her palm. "Oh h.e.l.l! The oldest trick in the book, and I forgot it! My G.o.d, that's Crowley's old trick and the Kali cult's, and a dozen others'! How could I forget?"

"Did you?" he countered. "Or were you led to forget? Couldn't this have been an effect of one of those 'traps' you sprung on yourself?"

Silence from her side of the car as he shifted gears and dodged around a double-parked cab. "It could have been," she finally said, sagging a little. "Only the G.o.ds know what blank spots I've got in my memory now. It's enough to make me want to throw in the towel and hang it all up. What the h.e.l.l good am I? What use am I?"

"Don't," he said forcefully. "Don't say things like that. And don't blame yourself. That's exactly what 'it' wants you to do you told me yourself how easy it is for you to get caught in a downward spiral.

We'll just realize you may have gaposis, and deal with it. Okay, thought two was maybe we ought to check on a couple of the maverick tea-leaf readers. The ones that don't feel right, you know? There's still a couple with their shingles up; not many, and all on this side of the tracks, but a couple."

"And?" she prompted, looking very interested.