I pulled the box from the safe and started to hand it to Dottie, but she shook her head. “You need to take all of the stones and drop them one at a time into the cup. I can’t touch them. I only touch the cup.”
“All right.” It sounded a little odd, but magic is one of those things that frequently defy explanation. The rules may not make logical sense, but they’re the rules . . . and if you don’t follow them, the magic doesn’t work.
I took the cup from the box and set the box on the desk. The cup was small and, compared to the box, quite simple. It was made of beaten gold set alternately with lapis and moonstone. I set it on the desktop and began dropping the scarabs in, starting with the one Isaac had aged for me. Each stone landed with a soft click. With each, I could feel the power build, drop by drop, until the air actually felt thick with it. I felt heat radiating upward and when the last stone fell into the cup shafts of brilliant white light beamed out through the moonstones, practically blinding me with their brilliance.
“Hand me the cup.”
I picked it up. It was warm to the touch and surprisingly heavy. I passed it to Dottie carefully and she used both hands to take it from me. “We need to do three throws to get guidance for each of the three levels of your present existence: the first is for the physical; the second, the intellectual; and the third, finally, for the spiritual and emotional.”
“If you say so.”
She gave me a sad little smile. “I do.” She shook the cup and scattered the stones across the top of my desk. They glowed, each stone shining with its own light. They scurried like the beetles they resembled to form two precise groupings.
Dottie gave a soft gasp. I didn’t blame her. It was one hell of a show: both startling and surprisingly beautiful.
She began pointing to the arrangements. “The group over there represents your past. There was danger, suffering, and death, but it served to make you stronger.”
I couldn’t argue with that and I didn’t want to break her concentration. Her voice had taken on a singsong quality that I recognized as indicating the beginning of a trance. If I interrupted her now she’d lose her train of thought and the reading would be ruined.
“The right grouping is your present. You notice the death stone in the center halfway between the two groups? It has a double meaning. First, the death of your old self and your rebirth with new powers and abilities.”
That didn’t sound so bad. I’d been afraid it meant something more . . . well, sniper bullet–ish.
“But it also represents real danger. You must be very careful. There are traps and betrayals ahead, people plotting your death.”
Sniper. Bullet. That pretty well says it all.
“Your survival may depend on your acceptance of your changed existence.”
She looked up at me; her expression was serene and her eyes were shining, but Dottie, the Dottie I knew, wasn’t “home.” I wondered if she’d even remember the things she was saying to me when this was done. Probably not.
“Fill the cup.”
I did, again feeling the power build, and she repeated the throw. This time, though, the beams of light shone through the lapis, the shafts of intense blue looking like nothing so much as Luke’s lightsaber slicing across the room.
This time the scarabs formed a single picture, again with the death stone in the center.
“You are clever. But so is your enemy. Life and death balance on a knife’s edge with deception determining the winner. You must be brave, but more, you must be
I dropped the scarabs into the cup with increasing dread. I’d had enough experience with clairvoyants that I had never before been bothered all that much by the process. But while I might not admit it out loud, this frightened me. There was so much
She spilled the scarabs onto the desk. Several scurried across my hand, sharp pinpricks like tiny claws on my skin. Shuddering, I pulled back, and they moved to form a picture.
Dottie waited until I’d recovered before continuing, her voice both sad and thoughtful. “There is deception here and a deep, crippling loss. Endings and beginnings, if you are willing to be open to them. Lies and pain. But hope. You must be strong and not lose faith in yourself. Do not let the inevitable betrayals keep you from trusting those worthy of trust, but beware the smile that hides the viper’s fangs.”
She fell silent, her head drooping onto her chest. I rushed around the desk to check her. Her pulse was fine, her breathing steady, but her skin had taken on a grayish tinge. I turned to call for help and saw Ron and Bubba standing awestruck in the doorway. Apparently they’d seen the light show and wanted to know what was going on. Following their gaze, I watched as the scarabs scurried back into the carved wooden box. Well, that was more than a little disturbing.
Bubba took Dottie to the ER to be checked out. I couldn’t go. Hospitals are a bad place for people who crave blood. So far, lunch was holding, but I couldn’t guarantee it beyond a few hours. She was awake and acerbic, swearing she was fine, just tired, but we all wanted to make sure she was all right. I made Bubba promise they’d call me to let me know what the doctors said.
Dottie’s vision had given me a lot to think about and the light and bug show made me want to lock the Wadjeti back in the safe and never take it out again. Definitely creepy.
Still, a promise is a promise and El Jefe had gone to a lot of trouble to get the expert from UCLA. So I slathered on more sunscreen, pulled on my new jacket and black straw fedora, armed myself to the teeth, and drove off to meet some of the world’s leading experts on the preternatural. Here’s hoping they didn’t give me
8
“You should be dead. It is that simple. Based on what I’m looking at, this mark has been here since you were a very small child. There is no possible way you could have survived through puberty.” Dr. Sloan was a dessicated little man with freckled brown skin. What hair he had stuck out in a wiry white ring around his age-spotted scalp and his heavy graying brows bristled over the top of Coke-bottle glasses that made his watery eyes seem too large for his face. He was holding my hand, palm up, staring at it with absolute absorption through a jeweler’s loupe. The rest of us might as well not have even been in the room—assuming, of course, I left my palm behind.
The three of us were crowded into Warren’s office. Despite his status within the university and the field, El Jefe had a very small and ordinary office space. Warren had chosen the L-shaped workstation with a round table and four chairs in the far corner from the university’s catalog. He’d added bookshelves along two walls, filled partially with research books but partially with odd collectibles such as an actual shrunken head and a voodoo doll that (thank heavens) didn’t resemble anyone I knew. Hanging above his desk were framed original movie posters of
El Jefe is one of my favorite people in the world. He’s got that rare combination of brains, common sense, and a terrific sense of humor. The package is nicely rounded out with better-than-average looks. All of which he’d passed on to Kevin and Emma.
“It makes no
