‘I don’t understand,’ Danny said five minutes later as they stood with Verna on the porch of the Light-horse. ‘She was in room 2A this morning. I know.’
‘No, dear,’ the little woman protested. ‘We’ve had that room closed for redecoration. You’re sure it wasn’t a dream?’
‘No. She was wearing a white dress, and…’
White. Ah, Xan, such delusions. Dee grabbed Danny by the arm and steered him for the steps. ‘Jet lag,’ she said brightly. ‘Thanks, Verna.’
Danny turned on her. ‘But I saw her.’
‘I know you did. Now, we’re going to find out where she’s gone to ground and take her out before she wreaks havoc.’
Two feet from his bike, he stopped and turned on her. ‘Dee, she’s only a woman. Just let her go. I mean, what can she really do to you?’
Dee looked up at that dear, honest face and struggled again with the truth. She had no choice, now. She had to at least try to make him understand, no matter that it would send him screaming for the hills by sundown. Oh, well, he would have run screaming eventually anyway. Why not get it over with?
‘No, Danny,’ she said, holding on to his hand. ‘She’s not only a woman. She’s far more powerful than that.’
‘Now, Dee…’ He was already trying to turn away. She couldn’t let him. Not anymore.
‘She killed my parents, Danny’
He froze. ‘You said they died of hypothermia.’
‘I lied.’ She shook her head, so frustrated with what she knew, what she realized he wouldn’t want to hear. Hell, Mare didn’t want to hear it. ‘The official report was hypothermia. It matched the findings. Cold. They were so cold…’ Like wax dolls tossed aside by an impatient child. She thought she’d never get warm again after holding her mother. ‘I found Xan bent over them and I screamed and everybody came running, but there was nothing they could do. She convinced the authorities that she’d been trying to save them, but I know better. I don’t know how she did it, but she…’ Dee laughed, knowing perfectly well how outrageous her words sounded. Even so, she straightened and faced Danny. ‘Somehow I think she sucked the life out of them.’
‘You can’t believe that.’
‘And now she’s come after us.’
Danny stiffened like an outraged minister. ‘Now, Dee…’
There was nothing for it. She had to show him. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’re going someplace to really talk.’
She directed him to a nondescript field at the north edge of town, where Old Church Street crossed a vague path that had once been an Indian track. Weeds littered the vacant lot nobody liked to use, and a straggly cottonwood struggled to leaf. The sky seemed darker of a sudden, the clouds full-bellied and the breeze fetid. Dee hated this place. She walked Danny straight up to it and stood him in the center, right where the paths crossed.
‘What?’ he asked, looking around. ‘Is she here?’
‘What do you hear?’ she asked, standing carefully away.
Danny shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. He opened his mouth. He shook his head as if to clear it.
‘Screams.’
He tried to walk away, but Dee grabbed him. ‘What else?’
‘This is-’
‘What else, Danny?’
‘Jeering. Shouts. And those… screams.’ He’d lost some of his color, and his eyes looked stark. Dee knew.
‘You know those witches who danced on the mountain?’ she asked, her voice gentle, her hand holding him still.
‘Of course.’
‘This is where they were burned.’
Danny gaped like a landed fish. He threw off her hand as if it scalded him and stalked over to his bike. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
Dee didn’t move. ‘There is power out there, Danny. My mother had a great amount of it. My father didn’t have so much, but Xan made him believe he did. Xan can make you believe anything. She impressed you so much with her whispers you named your damn bike after her without ever even meeting her. She whispers, and what she whispers is believed. My sisters and I have power, and I think she wants it.’
‘Don’t be-’
‘Ridiculous? Xan wasn’t there this morning, Danny. Not in the room. But she made you see her. And believe her.’ Dee smiled, shaking her head. Although it seems she couldn’t do a complete job of it. She’ll use you to get to us. And then she’ll try and sap our power to strengthen hers. She’s a predator. A carnivore. A psychic vampire.’
‘There are no-’
‘Psychics? Yes there are. And you’d better start believing it, because you are one.’
For the first time she saw Danny James truly angry. ‘Oh, yeah, that’s what they told my mother. Every goddamn one of them. “Just believe. There is great power, and I have it. I’m a psychic. I can tell you… I can-”‘
Dee thought her heart would break. ‘“Communicate with your husband.” It was your mother who fell prey to the con artists.’
‘And they took every dime she had. It’s bullshit, Dee, and the sooner you get that through your head the sooner you might join the real world again and stop jumping at phantasms. That woman you’re so afraid of is nothing more than a standard-issue drama queen.’
She kept her voice so gentle. ‘And the voices you just heard in your head?’
‘My imagination! I told you. It’s very good.’
‘Danny, if you’d just listen…’
And then Danny James did the first rude thing Dee had seen. He simply turned away from her and climbed on his bike. ‘No,’ he said, kicking it into gear. ‘I won’t.’
And then, as she stood alone in a bare field that rustled with an incoming storm, he left.
‘Are you just going to let him go?’ Dee heard from behind her.
She didn’t even bother to turn. She knew that voice. It had haunted her nightmares for years.
‘Hello, Xan,’ she said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her. She suddenly felt like she was twelve again. ‘I was wondering when you’d show up.’
Right there in the middle of the Burning Field. How appropriate.
‘Darling, aren’t you even going to look at me?’
Dee couldn’t see Danny anymore. The sound of his bike had faded into traffic noise. All that was left was Xan. ‘I don’t look at snakes.’
For a moment there was silence, then a sigh. ‘Oh, Dee.’
Dee had to turn around. She had to face her worst nightmare, or she was never going to get past it: She just hoped Xan couldn’t see how shaken she was.
Ready or not…
Xan didn’t look a day different. Elegant and sleek, her thick raven hair caught in an effortless chignon, her maroon suit a Chanel, her ears hung with chunky gold earrings that gleamed in the sullen light. She looked as if she’d just stepped out of a salon on Madison Avenue – or from backstage at the Fortune Hour of Psychic Power. Dee wanted to run. She wanted to fight. She wanted, God help her, for her aunt to approve of her.
‘A little overdressed for the occasion, aren’t you?’ she said instead.
Xan held out her perfectly manicured hands with their bloodred nails, and all Dee could think of was talons. ‘Style is never out of place.’ She smiled. ‘You look lovely as ever. Always appropriate.’
Tilting her head, Dee motioned to the severe lines of her aunt’s attire. ‘Is that how you think I see myself? Appropriate? Like you?’ She shook her head. ‘I need to toss out some gray suits.’
Oddly enough, Xan looked as if she were amused. ‘I should have looked harder for you. I’m going to enjoy getting to know you again.’
‘Don’t put yourself out,’ Dee said. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I have things to do.’ People to warn, pitch-forks and torches to collect…
Pretending she felt nothing but disinterest no matter how hard her heart was beating, Dee turned and walked away.
‘You’re not going to make this easy, are you?’ Xan asked.