“The table must be crossed with silver for the spirits to talk,” Michael junior tells us both.
We’re behind the purple curtain in a fairly standard reading room. A lit white taper in a holder, a card table covered in a batik orange and brown paisley scarf. A crystal ball about the size of a human head on the shelf behind him and a set of Tarot cards in front of him.
I hand over my platinum card, “Silver enough?” I ask, even though it’s Jojo’s reading and not mine.
“The spirits accept,” he nods and runs it through his Square reader attached to his smart phone, “That will be two-fifty,” he tells me and gives me the phone to sign.
Two hundred and fifty dollars? Damn – when I was into this phase it was one hundred.
I sign and take my card back.
“Let me see your palms, Jo,” he tells Jojo and she turns them over, “You do something in the medical field. A nurse, perhaps.”
“No,” she shakes her head and I nudge her not to give him any more information.
“You have the hands of a healer,” he continues, “Some sort of care-taker? Children or an elderly parent?”
“No,” I answer this time.
He scowls at me.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says smoothly, “The cards will tell you what you need to know. Now, concentrate on a question while I shuffle the cards.”
I snigger silently behind her and she kicks me under her chair.
“Now, Jo,” he says after shuffling a bit, “I want you to hold that question firmly in your mind and cut the cards three times with your left hand – right to left.”
I snigger again. Jojo is left-handed.
She does so and he tells her, “Feel the piles and find your card.”
She pulls out the Queen of Swords and kicks me again before I can snigger at that. She is so the Queen of Wands. I am the Queen of Swords.
She is the scholar. I am the fighter.
“Hold your card between your palms and let it gather your energy,” he tells her.
I feel him then. I don’t smell him – he’s invisible and probably poofed in the main store. With that much incense around, who would notice? But I feel his arm snake around my waist and his kiss on my cheek.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I ask, standing up.
Michael-junior looks up, annoyed that I broke the mood.
“Bathrooms are for paying customers only,” he tells me.
“Well, considering I just paid two hundred and fifty dollars for this reading – not to mention my own – I think I have paid for the privilege of having a tinkle.”
“Fine,” he scowls, “Go through the blue curtain and it’s the first door on your right.”
I go through the red curtain instead. Drake is right behind me.
The room is empty except for a large crystal bowl on a tripod.
“What are you doing?” Drake chuckles and manifests in front of me.
“Clark said that Michael had a scrying bowl tuned to the Goddess,” I tell him softly, “I want to check it out.”
Knowing that we only have a few minutes, he and I stand over the bowl and look down. He scratches softly along my shoulders and I lean into his touch.
YOU ARE READING
Sinners and Saints
FantasyHell has demons, imps, succubi and incubi. Not to mention Don Lucifer and Doña Lilith. What does Heaven have to combat that nefarious, meticulous bureaucracy? Overworked priests mired in scandal and an outdated rule book and angels as disassociat...