Strong Light of Day (19 page)

“So,” Paz surmised, “if the sun represents that strong light…”

“The moon suggests it will shine somehow at night. That's symbolic of an enemy that can't be seen.”

“As in invisible?”

“More like out of sight. Hiding from view. Does that mean anything to you?”

“It will,” Paz said, assuredly. “And when placed in the
context
of the Outcome card here?”

“The Wheel of Fortune.”

“You said that wasn't good.”

“Because it represents something that stands beyond the realm of our understanding and control. Notice that the Wheel of Fortune hovers in the clouds, showing that you can try to reach it but that you can never fully understand it. That indicates some change, a dramatic change from the established order, is not only likely to happen, it is certain to happen, and soon.”

Paz nodded. “‘Are these the shadows of things that will be, or things that may be?'”

“Excuse me?”

“It's a line from
A Christmas Carol,
a question Scrooge asks the Ghost of Christmas Future. I read the book a whole bunch of times as a boy. First book I ever read in English. My first priest gave it to me.”

“Flip the next card,” Madam Caterina told him.

Paz did, revealing the Hierophant figure, a holy man holding a cross in a vague position of prayer.

“This priest was your teacher—”

“I watched him murdered in the street for trying to help kids like me. We discussed that last time, remember?”

“Stop interrupting me,” Madam Caterina ordered. “I was going to say his death was his final lesson to you, setting you unalterably on the road to the man you are now.”

“That question Scrooge posed,” Paz said to her. “The ghost from the future never answered it. You haven't answered it either.”

“The future isn't set. If it was, people like me wouldn't exist to warn people about it.”

“So whatever this thing is that's beyond our understanding and control…”

“You can defeat it. That's what the entire context of this reading suggests. A battle against a great foe you can defeat … but not alone.” Madam Caterina pointed toward the second card again. “The Queen of Pentacles.”

“My Texas Ranger.”

“Flip another card.”

Paz snared one between a pair of thick fingers and turned it over.

“Justice,” Madam Caterina noted.

 

41

S
AN
A
NTONIO,
T
EXAS

Standing on the sidewalk outside Madam Caterina's office, Guillermo Paz realized he felt hot, his skin so superheated that he could barely stand the sun and retreated into the shadows. A trio of Hispanic gangbangers wearing tight tank tops to show off muscles likely primed behind bars, bandanas tied around their bald skulls, moved into the street to avoid coming anywhere near him, but Paz ignored them anyway.

Paz couldn't get Madam Caterina's tarot reading out of his mind, how spot-on it had seemed to be.

Change, a dramatic change from the established order, is not only likely to happen, it is certain to happen, and soon.

Paz had been feeling that for a while now, but it was the clarity supplied by the psychic's next words that had put him on edge, concerning the Chariot card in particular.

The moon suggests it will shine somehow at night. That's symbolic of an enemy that can't be seen.… Hiding from view.

What did that mean exactly? Who was this new enemy he was going to be facing alongside his Texas Ranger?

Paz found himself distinctly unnerved, offered just enough glimpse of the future to fear what was coming. Violence and danger bothered him not at all; they were the things upon which he thrived. But the unknown was something else again. The unknown set him sweating and roasting inside his skin, like it was an extra layer he wished he could strip off.

Thinking of that reminded him he'd forgotten to pay Madam Caterina before taking his leave. That's how much her reading of the tarot cards had unsettled him. So Paz retraced his steps from the shadows, back through the sun. He rang the buzzer, and then knocked on the door when she still didn't answer.

Paz thought about simply paying when he came for his next session, but he felt himself opening the door and entering the tiny reception area rich with the smell of incense. He didn't announce himself for fear of disturbing another client's reading and resolved to retrace his steps if it turned out he was interrupting. And then he heard an accented voice that told him he was indeed doing just that.

“You're late with your fees, senora, two months late. We can't have that, eh? If we're going to keep the neighborhood safe. That takes resources. You understand.”

Paz moved through the beaded curtain, leaving the beads clacking against each other as he entered Madam Caterina's reading room. The three gangbangers he'd glimpsed outside were facing her from the other side of the table. The now-flickering candles sat between Madam Caterina and them, as if this was a session instead of a shakedown.

“You boys here to have your fortunes told?” Paz said, just as they noticed him. “Because I can do that for you for free. Gratis. As in no charge.”

They'd all pulled back their flannel shirts to showcase nine-millimeter pistols stuck in the waistbands of their sagging pants, but made no move for them as he stood there.

“I'm afraid your futures are bleak,” Paz continued. “Lots of pain and broken bones. I see ambulances and rescue wagons and jaws wired shut. But this is your lucky day. Know why?”

None of the gangbangers seemed intent on answering.

“You ever read
A Christmas Carol,
maybe saw one of the movie versions? See, old Scrooge learned he could control his own future, alter the path he was on, by changing his ways, rethinking his decisions. That's what you can do today. Alter your path by walking out of here and never coming back.
Comprendes?
”

“Mind your own fucking business, man,” the one Paz took to be the leader said, swallowing hard when he finished, as if drained of bravado.

Paz smiled. “So you wanna choose a different path, muchachos? Fine by me.”

Two of them went for their guns, but they never even touched steel. Paz lurched forward, a single stunningly long step, more like a leap. He had the wrists of the two who went for their guns in hand by then, jerking down and in at the same time and hearing one splintering crack followed by another.

The third gangbanger used that moment to go for his gun and actually managed to strip it from his pants, leaving them to sag even lower. Paz grabbed the gun as it swept toward him, a toy in his hands as he stripped it free and tossed it aside.

“Fuck you!” the banger leader screeched at him. “Fuck you-u-u!”

His lips were still puckered forward when Paz snatched a lit candle from Madam Caterina's table and jammed its flickering end through them, straight into his mouth, shoving the wax down his throat. He saw the banger's neck expand, his eyes bulging desperately as his face purpled.

“You can't breathe,” Paz said, holding him up. “That's your present. You're going to die—that's your future.”

The other two bangers were trying for their guns again by then, using their off-hands now in place of their ruined ones. Paz took an oversize plastic tarot card in either hand and lashed them outward. He had no idea where they were going exactly before the cards sliced through the air and dug home beneath the bangers' brow level, carving thin, razorlike lines through the eyelids of both men. Blood pooled outward, the pain throwing both men into a squint even before the blood blinded their sight. They began to howl in agony, crumpling to their knees.

“Guess you can't see your own future now,” Paz grinned, and proceeded to smash their heads together with a bone-crunching rattle as skull met skull. “You can't see anything.”

Madam Caterina had lurched backwards, shoulders pressed against the wall, peering at Paz as if she were seeing him for the first time. A glimpse into his soul, far beyond what cards, intuition, even the counsel of the spirits could provide. She seemed to be looking through Paz as much as at him. But he couldn't stop himself, even though he might be scaring the psychic more than the gangbangers had.

The tarot cards had been sprayed to the floor in his initial assault on the bangers, most of them ending up scattered between the two of them now cowering next to each other with blood running down their faces.

Paz knelt between them, taking a card in hand. “Time to take a good look at your future, amigos. Let's see what we've got here.… Hey, it says Judgment. How fitting is that? But do you know what it means?” he asked one of them, flashing the card before his blood-filled eyes. “No? Let's see if this helps.”

With that, Paz stuffed the card into his mouth.

“Spit that out, amigo, and I'll break your teeth.”

He snatched another card from the floor, focusing on the other banger now. “Hey, the Six of Cups. I don't know what that means, but I'm guessing it's the asshole card, since you're a serious asshole.”

Paz crumpled the Six of Cups and stuck it through his teeth. “How's the future taste to you, amigo? I'm betting not so good. But here's the lesson of today. The future's ours to control. That's why people come to Madam Caterina, so they learn what's coming. You didn't give her the chance to tell you boys about that, so it's a good thing I was around to fill in the gaps. Starting now, you can change your future. And if you don't, I'm going to come back and change it for you.
Comprendes?
”

One nodded. The other tried to.

Paz looked up at Madam Caterina. “When does the trash get picked up?”

“Today,” she managed, seeming surprised she'd found her voice. “Any time now.”

“Good,” Paz said, hoisting the two bangers up by the scruffs of their necks, “I'll put these
perdedors
out on the curb. I'll be right back for the other one.”

“You didn't have to do this,” Madam Caterina said, when he reached the door.

“Yes, I did,” Paz told her. “There are some things nobody can change.”

 

42

S
AN
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NTONIO,
T
EXAS

“So what am I supposed to be seeing here, Doc?” Caitlin asked Frank Whatley, peering up from the microscope he'd told her to check.

“What's it look like to you?”

Caitlin pressed her eye against the lens again, left it there as she spoke. “Some kind of insect larvae is all that comes to mind.”

“Close,” Whatley nodded, as she raised her gaze to meet his. “It's insect dung, better known as frass. What you're looking is consistent with beetle frass, specifically bess beetles. I found it all over the skeletal remains of those cattle, which makes sense, since this kind of beetle uses its dung as a kind of defense mechanism.”

“How's that exactly?”

“Well, when feeding on plants, the beetles ingest alkaloids that are toxic to animal predators. The toxins get excreted in their frass. Then, as the beetles poop, they contract muscles to direct the flow of feces onto their backs, rendering them utterly unappetizing to animals that would otherwise snack on them.”

“I can see why,” Caitlin told him. “Now tell me what it all means.”

The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office and morgue was located just off Loop 410, not far from the Babcock Road exit on Merton Mintor inside the Bexar County Forensic Science Center on the University of Texas Health Science Center campus. Caitlin had been coming here for over twenty years, and what struck her was how it always smelled exactly the same—of cleaning solvent, with a faint scent of menthol clinging to the walls like paint. The lighting was overly dull in the hallways and overly bright in offices like Whatley's.

The lab he supervised never changed, at least not in Caitlin's memory. It was sparkling clean everywhere, not a speck of dust or grime anywhere to be found, the cheap tile floors so shiny she could see the outline of her shadow. It smelled of the powerful antiseptic cleaner Whatley insisted his staff use after every examination and procedure, in a concerted effort to pay homage and respect to those who crossed his slabs. It was almost as if he was trying to make some kind of moral amends, especially to the victims of crime, who had already been treated with the ultimate indifference and cruelty.

“It means I found inordinately large concentrations of beetle frass over the remains of those cattle,” Whatley explained, “the condition of which stoked my suspicions as soon as I examined them in that grazing field.”

“How's that, Doc?”

“The skeletons were entirely intact.”

“Okay.…”

“You've seen what happens when predators lay siege to livestock.”

“Sure, and first of all they tend to leave some meat on the bones, not pick them dry.”

“They also wrench at those bones themselves, often shredding or dislodging them. That's why scattered bones are more normally associated with animal remains, not entire, whole skeletons picked to the bone.”

Caitlin checked the view through the microscope lens again, as if something might have changed. “Where you going with this, Doc?”

“I wish I knew. That farmer's herd wasn't wiped out by coyotes, wolves, mountain lions, or the boogeyman, Ranger,” Whatley told her. “It was wiped out by something we can't identify, and what we
can
identify doesn't make any damn sense at all.”

She was about to ask the doc to elaborate on that when his phone buzzed with an incoming text message he excused himself to check.

“Looks like this is for you as much as me, Ranger,” he said, looking up from his phone. “It appears we've got a firm location on that unidentified circle near Waco, from the map back at that Dallas crime scene.”