Buried Secrets by Evelyn Vaughn Page B

simply means a belief in the old gods, the Aesir —Odin, Freya, Thor, Frigga. We’re into strength, valor, honor, ancestry. Warrior pagans.”
    Jo noticed an ornate sword hanging over their front doorway. “And you believe in magic?”
    Sigrid, who wore a silver knotwork headband—in honor of their visit, or everyday?—cocked her head. “Don’t you?”
    Jo noticed Zack slant his dark gaze toward her, maybe curious himself. “I’m not sure I really understand it.”
    â€œMagic is changing your reality through your will, which everyone does daily,” Sigrid explained. “But of course it’s more than that, too. It’s everywhere. We’re just used to discounting it, is all. Try this. Sometime when you’re alone, close your eyes, take a deep breath and imagine your feet growing roots deep into the earth—like Yggdrasil, the World Tree. Imagine your arms are your branches, spreading into the cosmos, connecting you to everything in the world. Then slowly open your eyes, and make note of what you see before what you call reality crashes back. You may surprise yourself.”
    â€œThat sounds awfully…easy,” said Jo.
    â€œYou’d be surprised.” Sigrid winked, then looked at Zack as he shifted impatiently. “But you had other questions?”
    â€œYeah. World Trees aside, have you or anyone in your clan sensed anything unusual in the area? Magically speaking, I mean.”
    â€œYes,” said Dane. Jo noticed some mail on the coffee table addressed to a David Thorson. Huh. “But this is Almanuevo, Mr. Lorenzo. A great deal of the unusual goes on—magically speaking.”
    Zack said, “Unusual as in necromancy?” And despite the heat—the temperatures were pushing the 90s now—the room chilled.
    â€œWe’re not into that stuff,” stated Dane flatly. “Try the guy who runs the Pet Mummification place.”
    Jo said, “We didn’t mean to upset you.”
    â€œWe realize that,” agreed Sigrid. “Before you go, perhaps you would let me do a rune-cast for you. If you mean to battle forces of darkness, perhaps the Gods will help guide you.”
    â€œThe more the merrier,” said Zack.
    Sigrid’s runes weren’t the prepackaged, ceramic kind Jo had seen in bookstores. These were cut from a length of branch with the bark still on it, runic letters carved into the faint rings of the wood. Jo watched Sigrid spread some sort of animal fur—white—over the coffee table, then toss a handful of runes.
    As she interpreted them, the runes agreed with Señora LaGuadalupana on two important points. One was that they faced a great evil—“Interesting,” mused Sigrid, “since the concept of evil is less clear-cut among the Aesir than some religions.”
    The other was that Zack and Jo would be strongest if they faced it together.
    Once they were back in Zack’s car, he muttered, “ That was a waste of time.”
    But Jo had to wonder.
    Â 
    Zack didn’t wholly trust Dave and Susan Thorson, any more than the Bruja, but he wouldn’t call them flakes. Neo-pagans were big on renaming themselves, like he imagined hippies did. And they were bikers. But it’s not like they charged people for their services. “Dane” made a good living as an accountant. Maybe a warrior accountant. Who could tell, around here?
    Now Sirus, who ran the Eternal Companion Pet Mummification Shop downtown, he was a flake. Not that he’d decked himself out like an extra from The Mummy Returns or anything. In fact, what with his paunch and his bad toupee, Sirus reminded Zack of his Uncle Maury. But Uncle Maury had always been kinda off, too.
    It was Interview Number Five, sort of. They’d stopped off to question a Santero—a priest of Santeria—en route, but he hadn’t talked. Now they’d gone from the silent to the silly.
    â€œAs you