“Than to watch a gorgeous woman belly dance? We are talking about
“So it was good?”
“I sure couldn’t figure out why you were freaking out about the whole thing. Until the pole incident, of course. Good thing nobody saw you but me.”
“I saw her.” Cassandra came up beside us, laughing so hard her shoulders were shaking.
“Oh for—isn’t it your turn?” I glared at her.
“Yes, and I was dreading it so badly I threw up three times. But now I feel better.” Her smile was as warm as a hug. “Thank you.”
“Hey, anytime I can entertain you with my humiliation, I feel I’ve done my job. What the hell is it with me lately?” I wondered aloud. “I can’t seem to make it through a single day without running into or falling over something. And I was a college athlete!”
Cassandra regarded me soberly. “The universe requires balance, Jasmine. Your powers as a Sensitive have increased, have they not?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Perhaps your recent spate of awkward incidents is the price you are required to pay for that boost.”
“Well, if it’s true, that sucks.”
She nodded, clearly distracted by other, more important considerations. “Will you”—Cassandra licked her lips as her eyes darted toward the tent, as if she could see Lung through two layers of canvas and a black curtain —“when the time comes, you will stay close by, won’t you?”
“Is in the room close enough?”
“Oh, really? I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that.”
“It was Vayl’s idea. When we give away the free reading, we toss in a private belly dance too. That puts me right beside you the whole time he’s there.” There was a moment of silence from inside the tent, followed by a healthy round of applause. Then Vayl began his final song. “We know from talking to Yetta Simms that Lung loves the escargot. So we’ll offer him a tray of delicacies and hope he’s in the mood to indulge himself.” Cassandra already knew this stuff, but I needed to keep her thinking, thus the review. If her analytical mind let go, she was going to freeze like a math whiz at a spelling bee.
“And if he won’t eat it?” she asked.
“We’ll figure some other way to get him to swallow the pill. Maybe stuff it in his vitamins or something. That comes later— maybe. For now, encourage him to eat. Eat with him even, but stay away from the snails.”
She nodded, looking fairly calm until your eyes dropped to her hands. Her long slender fingers kept twining in and around one another like newborn snakes.
“Hey, Cassandra,” said Cole, “I meant to tell you. Your boyfriend’s in the audience.” He said it as if we’d teleported back to junior high, and he suspected she’d just contracted a terminal case of the cooties.
“My . . . what?”
Cole went into his superhero pose, legs spread, hands on hips, chin directed squarely at the sky, and sang, “Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, SWAT man!”
“Oh, God!” Cassandra clutched at me, her fingernails digging into my arms.
I hid the dread that twisted my insides at the realization that everybody in her divination had now reached his or her appointed place. “Don’t worry, Cassandra. When I see the snake, I promise I’ll shoot it before it strikes.”
“I’ll be there too,” Cole assured her.
I watched Cassandra, wondering how she’d manage to keep it together with her head full of death and her future depending on a rookie assassin, a woman with more stitches than sense, a distracted vampire, and a paranoid engineer. But I guess I already knew. She would because she had to. That’s always how people like us end up getting through hells like this.
The applause built to a crescendo and then faded as Vayl began to introduce our main event. Cole held the back tent flap aside for Cassandra and she stepped into the staging area, gracefully avoiding the pole that had nearly concussed me minutes earlier. She took a couple of deep breaths. “How do I look?” she asked.
She’d pulled her braids back and tied them with a vivid-blue scarf. Her matching skirt was embroidered with black sequined flowers. Her black sleeveless top provided the perfect backdrop for one of the pieces of jewelry she hadn’t lent me—a gold choker that started just under her ears and ended slightly above her collarbones. “Very Egyptian queen,” I said.
She nodded and smiled, but the pleasure never reached her eyes.
Vayl swept the backdrop curtain aside. The applause pulled her forward.
Cole asked, “Is she going to be okay?”
“I think so. But SWAT man’s presence is not a good sign. He dies in her vision too.”
“It must suck to be psychic.” Under his breath, Cole added, “We have company.”
I heard it then, a soft step accompanied by the squeal of a pumped-up baby. Xia Ge’s husband stepped around the corner of the tent. He carried Lai, whose resemblance to his dad was remarkable considering the difference in their ages and emotional states. Lai obviously thought walking with Dad was the be all, end all of great times. He bounced his butt against his dad’s forearm and patted him repeatedly on his broad chest and shoulders, as if Lai was a one baby band and Dad his instrument.
Dad, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to cry. It wasn’t the face he’d worn inside the tent, but then his
