Unknown - Cat_In_A_Midnight_Choir-spaces_ru

“Superstition is one way of fooling yourself, and you just said a couple hours ago that self-deception was a dangerous state.”

Temple turned a page and blinked.

“Another blasted star chart. These things make my head hurt. Sidereal time and minutes and planetary positions. I like to read my horoscope in the morning paper, but please!”

Max read over her shoulder. “This section seems to cover astrology. What that has to do with magic I shudder to imagine. Skip it.”

Temple started to turn several pages at once, but two stuck together. She pried them apart. “Yuck, red sauce. Somebody was eating pizza over this tome.”

“That’s not red sauce, Temple. That’s…blood.”

“Double yuck!”

She stared at the pages sealed with a blot of blood as they parted under the pry bar of her fingernail.

“Max! That’s it! Look. That’s the symbol on the professor’s floor!”

He leaned close to peer at the small drawing. Dots connected by lines. Stars linked in arbitrary patterns so that humans could put a name and shape to their geometry and call it a…

“A constellation,” Temple said. “The figure is a constellation. What a weird word they call it: Ophiuchus. You ever heard of that before?”

“O-fee-yuch-uss? Hmmmm. Have you?”

“Or O-fie-a-cuss. Never.”

They exchanged a glance.

“Web search.” Temple hit the boot-up button on the dead computer sharing the desk with the books from Professor Mangel’s shelf.

In moments a list of entries with the word Ophiuchus unrolled like a carpet containing a hidden Cleopatra announcing herself to Caesar.

Max and Temple studied the entries together, heads touching as they stared at on-line “pages” that showed the very drawing that had contained Jeff Mangel’s dead body.

“Ophiuchus,” Temple repeated almost reverently. “I’ve played around a little with horoscopes…when I was a kid, Max. I used to know the symbols for the planets even. But I never ran into a thirteenth sign of the zodiac. And this is it. Ophiuchus, the Serpent Beaver.”

“Thirteen is not a lucky number.”

“Don’t give me the willies! I know that. Black cats and thirteen are unlucky.”

“So far we’re batting a thousand.”

“Leave Louie out of this. He’s just an innocent stray.”

“And so am I?” Max raised a Mr. Spock eyebrow.

Temple elbowed him in the ribs, not hard enough to notice.

“Cut it out. Seriously,” Max said, “this constellation has as long a history as any other recognized sign of the zodiac. No wonder some ancient zodiac systems included a thirteenth sign. It’s probably as old as Eden. The serpent. Ophiuchus.”

“Serpent. Sneaky, convoluted, quiet. Hidden. Poisonous. Enduring since the Fall.”

“I take it you’re describing the Synth.”

“I take it that’s how the Synth describes itself.”

Max nodded. “Members of a secret cabal of magicians might flatter themselves that way. The snake has always been considered a symbol of guile, wisdom, and evil.” He frowned for a moment. “I wonder if it’s a parallel image of the Worm Ouroboros.”

“The Worm Ouroboros?”

“You’ve seen the image: a snake devouring its own tail. A symbol of eternity and entropy: the way things fall apart and unite at one and the same time, over and over.”

“How do you know about this stuff?”

Max smiled. “While you were dabbling in horoscopes, I was dabbling in mystical mumbo-jumbo. In some forms it’s called philosophy. In others, superstition.”

“We both must have had a very weird adolescence.”

“Perfectly and normally abnormal, I’m afraid.” Max touched the crude five-sided “house” that pinpointed the stars of the constellation Ophiuchus. “Like all secret occult societies, the Synth needs to leave a trail. That means it needs someone to follow and find it.”

“Why?”

“Why does anything lethal leave a trail? To entrap. To destroy.”

Temple looked at the book in which she’d found such a perfect clue.

She didn’t feel like a mouse, but she could smell the strong, lilting odor of sharp cheddar.

Max saw her to the door, his arm draped over her shoulder like a comforting shawl.

“Good detective work,” he said. He squinted out the door. “And you did an excellent job of hiding your car.”

“Ah, thanks…but actually I did a good job of changing my car.”

He looked again.

“That ’s yours?”

“What?” she asked innocently.

“Not the Odyssey next door. The little red thingamajig.”

“It’s a Miata.”

Max’s arm left her shoulders. “A Miata. Is that a good investment?”

“I don’t know. It’s a fun car.”

“A convertible? For a redhead? In Las Vegas?”

“I’ll get a big hat.”

“Temple.” Max turned her to look at him. “This is the first major purchase you’ve made since we’ve been together without asking me about it.”

“Well, yeah. I suppose so.”

“I really can’t fit into a Miata.”

“You can’t? Oh. I didn’t think of that.”

“Oh.”

“But…we always drive places in your car. Or cars. Or whatever They leave for you.”

“It won’t always be like that. Haven’t you been listening to me?”

“Yes, but the Storm was worn out and I finally had some real income from my semipermanent floating PR work for the Crystal Phoenix and the Jersey Joe Jackson attraction is done and open and a big success and I thought I deserved something…and this seemed like fun at the moment.”

“You used to think that what we did was fun at the moment. You used to consult me about big decisions.”

“It’s a…little car.”

“It’s a big issue. I don’t fit in it. Are you sending me a message?”

“Max, no! Don’t be paranoid. I wasn’t even thinking about you.”

The words hung there, an intended reassurance hoisted on its own petard.

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” Temple said.

“No one ever does,” Max said, and shut the door on any further discussion.

Temple felt awful. She wanted to blame Molina for it, but that was too simple.

The car looked like a toy as she approached it. Silly. Too small for anyone but a shrunken Alice in Wonderland. Eat me. Humble pie, that’s what she should eat. She felt about two inches tall, and short stature was such an issue with her that feeling small meant she felt really, really guilty. Because she was.

She’d only been thinking of herself when she’d bought the Miata, and maybe not very maturely at that.

Despite the sun-warmed sidewalk, her feet in their Mootsie’s Tootsies high-rise slides felt ice cold. This was a lot of money to spend on a whim. An impractical whim. A whim that hurt a significant other’s feelings. Max always acted so strong she sometimes forgot that he had feelings to hurt.

She got in, arranged herself and her tote bag, glanced at Max’s stoic house facade. Here she sat, in a brand-new car, with a brand-new clue in her tote bag, and she felt horrible.

The only thing to do when troubled was to get on with the routine of life. She started the car and headed back toward the Circle Ritz. She needed to stop at the Lucky’s store first. Buy groceries. Her least favorite chore. She saw a lot more chocolate in her future than was healthy for her figure.

Forty-five minutes later Temple stood on a sun-baked asphalt parking lot, her arms cradling brown paper bags, bulging plastic bags dangling from both wrists, wondering where to put her groceries.

One brown bag could share the passenger seat with her tote bag if she squeezed them together and belted them in. The second brown bag and a couple plastic bags could crowd into the well behind the seats. The other two plastic bags full of bottled water could go in the trunk, such as it was.