(eng) Mercedes Lackey - Diana Tregarde 01 by Burning Water

Author:Burning Water [Water, Burning]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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EIGHT

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It had been an exhausting several days, and mostly fruitless. More than once Mark had thought longingly of visiting Sherry—

But no. He contented himself with calling Robert—timed for an hour when he knew damned well Rob wouldn’t be home—and gave her a vague sort of rundown on what was going on. And why he wouldn’t be dropping by for a while. They’d talked for a lot longer than he’d planned, nearly two hours. Rob seemed to be burying himself in his work, and Mark frankly couldn’t tell her if that was good or bad, or even if it was likely to last much longer. All he could do, really, was be an ear for her. The disappointment in her voice when he told her he wouldn’t be by for at least a couple more weeks almost broke his resolve—

But work came first.

Chasing down the list of neo-pagans this “Athena” had given Di had proved more bewildering than anything else. They were a real odd lot—some about as ordinary as a dictionary; people Mark would never have guessed had odd tastes in religions. Certainly not the kind he would have picked as being psychic. Computer people, teachers, clerks—real suburban types, complete with station wagon and kids. But some—

Some were as weird as snake shoes, and as flakey as granola. Mark found himself wondering—if this was the “cream of the crop,” what were the rest like?

There was the tiny, bespectacled lady with a house full of reptiles, including a twelve-foot python, which she fed while they were there—Mark would rather not have had that particular educational experience. He really had not seen the need to know how pythons ate. But that wasn’t all—she talked to them. She kept a big lizard on her lap, petting it, the way anyone else would pet a cat. She had actively, sadistically enjoyed Mark’s uneasiness, too.

There was the long-haired guy in the Grateful Dead shirt and hat who was composing music for whales—or so he said. Mark wasn’t sure if he meant he was composing it for them to hear or that he was composing the music on their behalf, like some kind of cetacean dictation machine. The guy hadn’t been real clear—his conversation tended to wander down strange little side paths. And even when he wasn’t going on about the vibrations from the neighbors, he kept changing the subject back to his music, to the point of insisting on playing them bits of it. Thank God it had at least been easy to listen to—the guy may have been weird, but he was a decent musician. Mark had more than a suspicion that the guy was on something—acid maybe, or mushrooms; he sounded like it and looked like it. But what the hell, he was Homicide, not Narcotics, and the guy was looney, but he wasn’t hurting anybody but himself with that stuff.

There was the couple in purple robes with little pyramids everywhere—even suspended over the bathtub. Mark was ready to run for the car after five minutes in their presence.

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