“What were you coming to me about?”
“Who said we were coming to you?”
She chuckled and took a sip of the flask. It didn’t smell like hard alcohol. Maybe a berry wine. Cherry and sweet.
“Sweetheart. I know. Talk to me. Your sister’s going to be here any second.”
“Jean?”
“Myra.”
Yeah, and I didn’t need magic to know she’d be angry and worried.
“Ben’s been kidnapped. We need to find him, soon. Before the full moon. Now would be better. The vamps can’t find him. The weres can’t find him. All Yancy could tell me was that he was cold, bound, in darkness and can’t feel the passage of time.”
“And what did you think you’d get out of a witch? I don’t see the future, honey. You know that.”
“The thing that has him wants dark magic. That’s his demand. We hand over an item of dark magic, and he’ll give us back Ben.”
“When did you start allowing dark magic into our town, Delaney?”
“I’ve never allowed it. But it’s here.”
“Must be well warded. Or Old Rossi has it.”
I might have winced a little.
“No,” she breathed. “Really? He’s dabbling in the darkness? He of all things should know better.”
I sipped tea and didn’t reply.
She sighed. “All right. Then we should do this. Had to pull the Two of Coins, didn’t I? Come on. This should work in here.”
She manhandled me into a tiny room with an empty bed. She turned on the light and shut the door at the same time.
“Hold on.”
“No. Just sit, honey. It’s what you need to hear from me. I wouldn’t have come here if this wasn’t supposed to happen. I mean, of course I would have come here to see Jean.” She pointed at the chair on the opposite side of the bed. “Sit.” She followed her own command and lowered into the chair on the close side of the bed, her dress floating out in blinding layers of sunshine, her perfume–soft and comforting–rising with the motion of the air.
“I need to be out there for Jean. For Myra.”
“Everyone in this town has your phone number, and there’s an intercom system. If you’re needed–if there’s an emergency– you’ll be found.”
She dug in the bag over her shoulder and pulled out a silk-wrapped deck of cards. “Let’s see what we can see.” She looked up as she unwrapped the cards, her gaze holding mine. “I’ll need you to be in a receptive place to hear this, Delaney. Right now you’re throwing off a mess of negative energy. That’s going to screw with the cards. Sit. Drink the tea. Think Zen thoughts. You’ll see Myra and Jean in just a minute. That handsome boy of yours too.”
I sat, fiddled with my cup as she cut cards, shuffled, spread them in an arc on top of the silk, which she had smoothed out on the bed. She pulled three cards.
“The energy around you, your challenge, your assistance.”
Nine of Swords, Death, and the Devil. I didn’t know much about the Tarot, but the images were dark. A woman grieving in her bed, her hands over her face, and nine swords on the wall behind her; a skeleton in a knight’s armor riding a pale horse; and the devil squatting on a throne behind two chained people.
“Neat.” I said.
“Hush. You’re humbugging my energy.”
“I’m humbugging? Do you not see those cards?”
“Just because they look dire, doesn’t mean they are. For goodness sake, you of all people should know never to judge a book by the cover. All right, let’s see what we have. Nine of Swords. You’ve been worried, sleepless, sad. That’s a no-brainer. As for your challenge, we have Death. Well. Hm.”
“Hm, what?”
“Hm, Death doesn’t usually represent a physical, actual death. It represents change. A caterpillar-to-butterfly energy. Your challenge is to accept a change. Possibly a difficult one. A change that will apply to you, personally. And your outcome is the Devil. Again. Not one of my favorite cards, but it’s not usually a literal translation.”
“So a devil isn’t going to show up in town? That’s a relief.”
“Well, this is Ordinary. I wouldn’t rule it out. But it wouldn’t be my first inclination. The devil represents the chains that hold us back. Sometimes those chains are addictions, bad habits, behaviors, sometimes they are people or life circumstances. But for you….”
I waited. Jules was good at this kind of thing. I knew she’d be able to tell me what kind of chains and what kind of devil would be my outcome.
“Give me your hand, sweetheart.”
I reached out and she took hold of my right hand. Then she picked up the first card, set it down, picked up the second card, frowned and put it down, then picked up the last.
“Oh, Delaney.”
“Yes?” That didn’t sound good. Didn’t sound like I was going to be happy with the devil I’d have to deal with.
“This is…well, it feels like there is a clear literal bent to the reading. There may be a death in your near future. And a devil with chains.”
Wow. Way to make me hate tarot readings.
“Is the, um, death something about my dad?”
She picked up the middle card again. “Yes. That resonates. It is connected with his death.”
So that might mean his ghost showing up in my life was going to be a challenge. Fine. That was something I was pretty sure I could deal with.
“The chains, would that be the bite?”
“I wondered if you were going to tell me about that. Which vampire did you let mark you?”
“Not one of ours. Not one from inside Ordinary.”
“And not willingly?”
I shook my head.
Without a word, she passed me the flask. I thought about taking a nice long drink, but decided to stick with my tea.
“Could that be it?” I asked. “The chains that bind me?”
She picked up the last card and held it for a long time. Then she returned all three cards to the deck and carefully folded the silk scarf around them.
“The bite could be the chains you need to break.”
“But?”
“But it doesn’t resonate. There’s something else, new chains coming. Read very literally, the cards are saying you are afraid, but through a death you will bind yourself to a new devil.”
“Well, now I’m so glad you pulled me aside to tell me this terrific news.”
She grinned. “Your mother had the same kind of sarcasm.”
“No she didn’t.”
“Not with you girls, but with her friends, oh, she very much did. So.” She sat back and peered at me like I was a lake of muddy water and she was trying to track the fish swimming beneath.
“You needed this message. Enough that I let Marty run the game tonight. Marty.” She shook her head, letting me know exactly what she thought of her nephew and his store-running capacity.
“I really did not need to hear that death and chains and darkness are in my future. You know what I needed to hear? How to find Ben. Think you can pull that out of your cards? Because if the answer is hazy, I’ll try again later.”
She barked out a laugh. “I miss my Magic 8 Ball.”
“You have twelve.”
“They all lie. I used to have this one that always told the truth. But someone worked a hex on the toy manufacturer and now the things spit out nonsense. All right, let’s pull a card for Ben.”
“No, I don’t have time. Jean–”
“You have time.” She unwrapped, shuffled, cut, cut again, let me cut, shuffled one more time then pulled a card.
“Huh.”
My sentiments, exactly: Judgment.
“You said I was Judgment, right?”
“I did. You’re going to be the one to find him, Delaney. No one else. Through you, and only through you will he be free.”
Silence exploded between us from that truth bomb. I could feel it, we could probably both feel it: she’d just predicted the future, told the truth t
hat went bone-deep.
I was going to save Ben. And from my reading of death and chains, I knew I was going to pay something for him to be free.
That lined up with what Yancy had told us. I was in the middle of this, or I was the middle of this.
It terrified me, but hey, that’s what I was trained to do: make the hard decisions, do the right thing, keep the people of my town safe.
“You don’t look surprised.” She took a swig out of her flask before packing the cards away again and placing them in her bag.
“That’s pretty much the same thing Yancy told us when we went to talk to him.”
“He knows his stuff. But sometimes what he says can be misconstrued.”
I laughed, one short huff of air. “Yeah, well, since every card you pulled did nothing but strengthen what he said, I’m going to go with the consensus.”
“Free will, baby.”
“I know I have it. I know I can use it. I know it can change the future. But I also know who I am and what I will give to save the people I care about.”
“What will you give, Delaney?”
“My heart and soul and anything else that’s necessary.”
“Oh, honey. You sound just like your father, the stubborn old ass.”
I choked on a sip of tea and she chuckled. “He used to say the exact same thing, and I don’t know if you heard him, or if you’re just cut from the same batch of dough. But I’m going to tell you what I told him. Do not give your heart or soul lightly. They are the most precious and valuable coin, and I will hunt you down and smack you in the back of the head if I find you running around here missing one of them. Do you understand me?”
“Don’t sell my soul. Got it.”
“I’m not kidding, Delaney.”
“I know.”
“You aren’t listening to me.”
“I really am.”
“Stubborn. Just like your father.”
“True.”
“He didn’t listen.”
“You said that. See? Listening.”
She sighed, then stood. “I love you, but you drive me crazy, Delaney Reed.”
“Love you too, Jules.”
She motioned me forward and folded me into a big, soft, marshmallowy hug. Her perfume filled my nose and the jingle of her earrings and multiple bracelets brought back all the times she had hugged me when I was little and afraid.
“Whatever you get yourself into, know I’ll be there doing what I can to pull you out.”
“Thank you.” I meant it from the bottom of my heart.
“Good. Now.” She released me. “Myra’s here.”
The door swung open and Myra walked in. “What is going on?”
“Have you seen Jean?” I asked.
“They said she’s getting X-rays. Are you okay? Jesus, Delaney.”
We closed the distance without another word and wrapped arms around each other.
“You weren’t hurt were you?” she asked.
“No. But Jean. She’s conscious. She might have a concussion. Tell me you got a lead on the car.”
“We have more than a lead. We found the car.”
I pulled back to make room for Jules who shoved her way in between us to give Myra a hug.
“I’ll let you girls talk for a moment. I’ll be out there with Jean if she’s brought back to her room.” She swung out the door, and Myra glared at me.
“What?”
“How the hell does she get hit by a car?”
“That’s what I want to know. She was ahead of us, crossing the street. Traffic was stopped. It was on purpose, Myra. I know she was run down on purpose.”
“Yeah, she was.”
“What? What do you know? Where was the car? Who was driving? Do you have a lead on who was driving?”
“He’s dead. The driver is dead. He was a vampire who left Ordinary twenty years ago, or that’s what Rossi told me. The car was down by Cape Foulweather. Smashed into a tree on the side of the cliff. Engine still running. Rossi found him before any tourists could stumble on him.”
“And Rossi killed him?”
“No. He was already dead.”
“I don’t understand. The driver killed himself?”
“No. The crash didn’t kill him. He was already dead.”
“Vampire dead, or dead dead?”
“Dead dead. Had been for days, maybe months. But he was controlled like a puppet. Covered in blood and symbols.”
“Are you kidding me? Lavius remote-controlled a vampire in a Corvette and ran over my sister? I am going to kick his ugly old ass.”
“No. We’re going to kill him. There is no negotiating. No trying to trade some book for Ben. We go in direct and we take Lavius out. Fast. Hard. Done.”
“Do we know where he is? Where he will be?”
“Not yet.”
“Then until we do, we keep all avenues open. Even negotiating on the full moon, if that’s what it takes. We can’t kill Lavius without knowing where Ben is. So we get hands on Ben first and then go after the bastard. Understand?”
Myra clenched her jaw but nodded.
“Where is the dead guy?”
“Rossi has him out at his place. He’d doing something to ‘neutralize’ the body. So it’s not some kind of bomb, or spy, or zombie stowaway in town that can be reanimated and used by Lavius again.”
“Well, shit. Reanimated vampire zombie. Is that a thing?”
“Rossi says that’s what it might have been.”
Might. That wasn’t a definite.
I rubbed at the back of my neck, my hand sliding to the bite I couldn’t feel on the outside. It felt cold on the inside though, as if a sliver of ice was lodged beneath my skin, that cold sliver pushing in deeper and deeper, aiming for my lungs, my heart.
“Okay, so Rossi has the body. We have the car?”
“Ryder’s dealing with the car. Hatter and Shoe are here.”
“That was quick”
“They were on leave.”
“Do I want to know what for?”
“I didn’t ask. They assured me it was just a formality. I’ll run the record on it when I have time.”
“Okay. So they’re covering the car. Maybe we’ll get some clue as to where Lavius and Ben might be.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. Do you?”
“No.”
“What did you get from Yancy?”
Ah. This wasn’t going to go over very well.
“You don’t want to tell me, do you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Spit it out.”
“It was a lot about how our choices change the future.”
“He always says that. What else did he say?”
“Ben is alive.”
She exhaled and nodded, as if a great weight had been pulled off of her chest. “Good. That’s good. I mean, I know Than said it too, but it’s good to hear it from a second source.”
“He also said he’s bound, in the dark, and can’t sense time. He said I’d be the one who had to make the right choice to save Ben. That nothing of this world can save him. That he’d have to be given to us. Like a gift for something traded.”
She stood there and stared at me until I finally shrugged. “It’s what he said.”
She pulled her fingers back through her thick, straight dark hair, and tucked part of it behind her ears. “Okay. That’s… I don’t like any of that. But fine. What did Jules say?”
“That I’m the Judgment card. That’s neat, right?”
“I thought you were the Queen of Wands.”
“Not today. Hey, let’s go check on Jean.”
“Delaney, no.”
But I was already moving, and the room wasn’t that big anyway, so it wasn’t all that hard to slip past her and get the door open.
“Delaney.” Jame stood on the other side, looking solid on his feet, arms crossed over his chest, like he was a bouncer guarding the entry to an exclusive club. “Answer her.”
/>
Stupid werewolves and their stupid hearing.
“Fine. She said I’m Judgment. That Ben will be freed through me. And also that I haven’t been sleeping well and Death is a butterfly and that she’ll smack me on the back of the head if I lose my heart.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Myra said.
“Have you met her?” I asked.
“Yes. And she’s very clear when she gives information like that. Was it a tarot reading?”
“Three cards. Nine of Swords, Death, Devil.”
“What does that add up to?” Jame asked.
“I’m distressed, but through a death I will bind myself to a new devil.”
“That’s horrible,” Myra said.
“Is it? I was listening, but half my brain just keeps replaying Jean getting hit by that damn car. I froze, My. I totally panicked and froze. She was lying there and I wasn’t doing anything. Anything to help her.”
“That’s not true,” Jame said. “You ran to her. You were almost there before she hit the ground.”
That was impossible, so I didn’t believe him.
“Speed. Not as fast as a vampire but.” He shrugged. “The bite.”
Oh, gods, I wanted to barf. “That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
“That you’re fast?” he asked.
“That anything about me has been changed because of what that bastard did to me.”
“A bite from a vamp that old? You expected nothing?”
I rubbed at my forehead. “I just…. Yes. I expected either all-out bat-transformation or nothing.”
He sniffed, and I knew he was scenting me, probably smelling how much vampire was flowing in my veins.
I scowled. “Don’t do that.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t smell-search me.”
“I’m not searching. I’m being politely aware.”
“Is there anything else?” Myra asked. “Anything else in her you can sense?”
Jame shook his head real slowly as if he were balancing a headache on his spine. Which he probably was. I wondered when he’d last eaten, knew he should be in bed resting, sleeping instead of hanging around the emergency room while my sister was looked after by doctors who would prefer Jame checked in beside her.
“Otherwise, she’s the same,” he said. “Now.”
“Now?” we chorused.