No prompts today, just continuing where I left off in my manuscript.
You little jerk, I thought, trying to think of something to do to him on the way with the water. But nothing came to me.
I panicked for a moment. Because she was a witch, did that mean that my powers were negated here? I turned around in the kitchen, feeling closed off. I guess maybe I had to leave.
——————
“Young man?” I heard her call.
I went through the kitchen to the small parlor. I stood before her. She looked for all the world like a black beached killer whale, flopped out on the couch. She was gasping for air. Brian looked at her, concerned. “Want me to get that Oxycontin for you, Miss Blake?”
“No! No, I need to read this young man’s cards; the spirits are telling me to.” She looked around the couch. “Where are they?”
“Where you last had them,” said Brian, not even disguising the contempt in his voice. This was getting past the point of wanting to hurt this guy; it was heading into murder-land.
She looked up at Brian. “Do you think you can find them?”
“Oh, Miss. Blake,” he said with a tone of false wonder, “you’re attuned to your tarot cards. You should be able to find them easily.”
She then started to nod, struggling up from the couch. She then stood up, and closed her eyes, stretching her hands out. She took a few deep, cleansing breaths.
Brian leaned over to me, “Watch this.” He gave Dottie a light push to the right.
“Oh! The spirits say this way!” She started walking.
I sat there, my mouth open. How could this kid get away with all this? How does Quintin let him? I figured that Quintin, if he was going out with her, would have had a say in what Brian was doing to her.
And I was shocked that I was shocked about it. I couldn’t see myself taking advantage of someone like he was. This woman was kind, if a bit of a ditz, but maybe that’s because she was old. I didn’t know, and I didn’t like it.
She walked and bumped into walls and doorways, while Brian snickered behind her back. I could take no more and gave him a hard shove, hard enough so that he fell into the side table, barely knocking over the lamp.
“You twit,” he snarled at me. “You just wait.”
“Bring it,” I said, looking directly at him.
“Oh, I will, guaranteed.”
Then I heard a cry of triumph. “Ah, here they are! I wonder why they’re in the bathroom.” She came out of the bathroom, holding a box of Ryder-Waite cards. I could see the cover from the couch. “Come in here, young man. What’s your name again?”
“Mike,” I said, and followed her into the kitchen.
She sat down at the kitchen table, which was the cleanest spot in the house. “Have you ever had your cards read, Mike?”
“Not by a real reader,” I said. We used to all read each others’ for fun at the Academy, but no one liked reading mine. I often had too many swords come up. Brian gave me a look, as if to say Yeah, right.
She started shuffling the cards. “Well, I do things differently. I let the spirits tell me what goes on. The cards don’t mean the cards.”
“Um, okay,” I said, a little mystified by that.
She finished shuffling and handed me the deck. “Shuffle three times.”
I did, and handed it back. She spread out the cards in a fan. “Pick five cards.”
I did, handing them to her one at a time. She placed them face down in front of her. I knew from reading them that she would look at them from her direction, so any reversals would have to be from her point of view. There are many different layouts to tarot cards, and she was choosing a five-card layout. This usually answered a question and gave ideas of what to do, and how the answer would be received. But every card reader was different.
She turned over the first one. I half-expected “The Magician”, that famous one with a man pointing down and holding a staff. As above, so below, was the short phrase for that one. However, it wasn’t The Magician at all.
The card was of a man, his back to eight shiny cups in the foreground, while he walked away from them. In the background were craggy peaks. This was a man fit for travel.
“You’ve abandoned your old life,” she said, looking up at me. “You’re a runaway.”
I nodded slowly. I couldn’t deny the spirits here. “Yes’m.”
“Let’s find out why.” She turned over the next card. This was a man carrying a bunch of sticks on his back, walking away from the viewer. “You have a lot of things to carry. You’ve been forced to run away because you had too many obligations. Too much was expected of you.”
Not quite true, but I read it differently. I understood that card to mean “oppression”. Too much was expected of me – in the sense that I was supposed to be just like all the other students, when I really wasn’t. I only nodded, and she continued.
Next came the King of Swords upside down, but she turned it right-side up. I was always taught to read the cards as they landed, but, as I said, each reader is different. “This is a man with dark hair and dark or light eyes…” She reached for another card. This one was the eight of pentacles, that of a man working hard at labor. “Ah…he’s a teacher. You’ll be a student.”
I said nothing. The next card was the Queen of Cups, and she drew another card on top of it. “A woman with dark hair and light eyes, she will come and give you rest.” The last part was based on the four of swords. See? I told you I had too many swords. The four of swords was an overgrown tomb, with a knight’s impression in marble lying on top of it. Some people read that card as death. Why should they? There is a Death card.
I nodded again. I knew exactly who that was, and I was sitting right across from her.
Finally, the last card was turned over, the knight of wands upside-down. She righted it, with a noise of frustration, and drew another card. This one was the nine of swords – someone is in a bed, waking up from what was surely a nightmare, and there are a line of swords behind her. I couldn’t help but grin, also knowing exactly who that was, and what that was all about.
“A messenger…sends you nightmares.” She was wrong about that. So wrong.
——————–
“Well!” said Brian, and he turned to the fridge. “I guess it’s time to make dinner.”
She frowned at the cards. “They didn’t answer my question.”
“What was it?” I asked.
“Miss Blake, I have to make dinner,” Brian said authoritatively scooping her cards together. “I need the kitchen clear.”
“Of course,” she said, and got up. I watched as he tossed them loosely in what looked like a junk drawer. He had no respect whatsoever.
Dinner consisted of nothing that Dottie had bought. She seemed to be confused as she ate. I watched her, concerned. “So,” said Brian to me after dinner, “You’re leaving now.”
“No. No, I’m not.” I felt it my duty to protect Dottie. And the first thing I was going to have to do was take Brian out of the picture. But how could I without my abilities?
He turned from me and whined, “Miss Blake, he can’t stay here.”
“Why not?” I said. “It’s her house.”
“You can stay the night, young man,” she said. “I find you to be good company.”
Brian tossed a dish into the sink. I barely resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him. She brought me into the other room, and started chattering away. Then, she started fading, drifting off…and she fell asleep, drooling on her shirt.
I got up like a shot and ran into the kitchen. “Did you slip her something?”
“Yeah, so? She needs her beauty rest.”
“I’ve had it with you.”
“Well, you know what? I’ve had it with you!” He pulled a knife out of the soapy water of the sink. “I think you need to leave. I know how to use this.”
“Prove it, big boy.”
He slashed at me. I jumped back. Ritter’s training actually worked. Brian growled and went at me again, this time for my face. And it was so close, I thought for sure he got me. He even thought he got me. I felt nothing but the rush of wind as the knife passed my face. He tried again, this time slashing at my chest.
He did get me. It tore the shirt I wore, but didn’t even hit my chest. I felt no pain, no wound, smelled no blood.
“What the hell…?”
I grinned. “That’s just it.” I started to remove my belt.
“What’re you, a faggot?”
“Yes. And more.” I let the glamour belt drop, and stood before him as the glamour shimmered and disappeared. My onyx skin glowed with power. I could feel the power in the air rushing through me, and the spell, ah, the spell…
“I call upon ye, harbingers of hell! Show thyself to this base human creature, so he may learn and fear you as is proper!”
The floor opened up. Literally, I saw it open up right at Brian’s feet. He stepped back as the hole got bigger, and bigger…and out came a hunchbacked creature, with more horns and spines than skin, its muscles rippling under thin red skin, its green and black veins speckled throughout its body. It had horns that were at least two-feet high, and would normally look top-heavy on its seemingly small pig’s feet. Its mouth was huge, and it opened it now, roaring into Brian’s face, tossing spittle and showing three rows of teeth like stalagmites.
A wet spot appeared at Brian’s groin.
“You will leave this place, Brian,” I said, “And never come back.”
He immediately started searching for a way out. The beast roared again.
“Or maybe I can give you up to him…”
Brian looked at me in horror. “No! Oh, my God, no!”
The harbinger moaned, “Maaaaaster…”
I pulled a coin out of my pocket. “Head or tails.” Then I saw a light pass by the kitchen window, as someone pulled into the driveway. I no longer had time, and the beast would make a mess.
“Go back, harbinger of hell. You have fed well upon his fear.”
The harbinger snorted in Brian’s face, and went back into the hole. It swallowed up just as I heard the doorbell ring. Brian still stood there, pale and shaking. I smiled at him. “Go get your things. NOW.”
He jumped at the last word and with a squeak, ran up the stairs. The doorbell rang again. I went over to answer it. I peeked out the window of the door and saw that it was Quintin. I opened the door. “Hi,” I said, with a pleasant smile.
Quintin looked me over. “Why do you look like the cat that just swallowed the canary?”
I turned and yelled up the stairs, “Brian, you done?” I also opened the door wide.
He took off his hat and asked me, “Where’s Dottie?”
“Brian,” I yelled again, and he appeared at the top of the stairs. He saw my look of, Get out, because he hefted the backpack over his shoulder and started down the stairs. He dashed past me and broke out into a dead run as soon as his feet hit the bottom step.
Meanwhile, Quintin had found Dottie on the couch. “Dottie? Honey?”
“Brian slipped her something,” I said, coming back into the room.
Quintin got up slowly. “That son of a bitch, where did he go?”
Words: 2026
Total for manuscript: 22,000 words.