The Final Catch: Book 1: See Jane Charm (A Tarot Sorceress Series) (8 page)

“You’re the Star spirit!” she continued, sickly sweet, like Shirley Temple in a rerun, as if that was the most wonderful thing in the world.

“Maybe,” I said, “At least some of the time.” I agreed. I knew I wasn’t myself after sitting in Maisie’s card for a while. I knew Glendie was right. I was the Star card spirit and me, even if I didn’t want to admit it. But I didn’t feel like I was about to spontaneously combust while driving out of town.  So, I was the Star spirit, but I was different. My transformation was different from Glendie’s; more subtle, or perhaps not completed.

If I’d continued driving out of town, maybe I’d have eventually combusted myself, but I hadn’t felt like I was burning up, so maybe if I’m not in my card I
can
get out of town.
But what about Glendie? I wouldn’t abandon her like this.
  I had lots to figure out here, but if nothing else, Glendie as the Sunny spirit and me as the Starry spirit, working together in this crazy tarot town takeover had the nights and the days covered. 

If you enjoyed book one in the Tarot Sorceress Series then here is a sampling of three chapters from the next book,

See Jane Hex

CHAPTER 1

The Queen of Wands; Charismatic Cash

Well, after my nightmare attempt to get outta Dodge with the deck of cards, which I’d planned on destroying, but ended up returning to the shop (minus Glendie),  I decided I needed a distraction, so that meant I needed to go on a date, real bad.

One of my favourite pastimes was online dating. I didn’t know why I liked it so much; maybe it reminded me of getting a new present each time I found a guy to match. But before I could do that I needed more money. I’d freed my best friend Glendie from being possessed by a tarot spirit by flicking the corner of the card, three times, the way I’d seen Maisie do it at the shop. Flick, flick, flick of the fingers on the card corner and
pop
, she came back, sitting in the car like she’d never been gone.  I’d dropped that Sun card to the bottom of the deck.

After that Glendie and I, well, we went to the Ten Lanes bowling alley and bowled a few games, and that calmed our nerves. We didn’t talk about what happened. Instead, I bought Glendie a few too many beers and brought her home in the evening to her tiny, overcrowded apartment and put her to bed. 

I hung around her place for a while, till it got dark and then decided it was time to go get cash, so I could set up one of my dates.  Before I left Glendie’s, I noticed Sia’s collar in the fridge. How had did it get there?  

I took it back.

*

Koldwell bank surprised me! Their money machine began talking to me! It had never done that before.

The fall weather was arriving earlier than usual (which can happen on the west coast, especially in the evenings.) and it crept in, and with it came the damp web like mist that liked to wrap itself in my hair and flatten it.

My breath shot out in front of me like steam from an old train engine. I wasn’t any richer tonight even though it was pay day. I walked alone to the outdoor ATM that hung on the granite walls of the bank. Never did it make any sense to me to put money machines on the outside walls of banks, towards streets and alleys where creepers can watch people take their cash, so they can, in turn, take people’s cash away from them.

I can imagine those old, croaky bankers in their board rooms planning the demise of their clients and chuckling at the different robbery scenarios they helped create by placing the money machines where they do.

Koldwell was my bank and aptly named because its attitude was well and truly cold. The night’s mist seemed to love Koldwell.  I swear the fog thickened and swirled even more fiercely around the hewn granite bricks of the impassive building.

I drew closer and the mist choked everything out of sight and clung to me demonically with damp, unwanted cotton candy like tendrils. The next thing I knew I was cocooned in it. My orientation suddenly got wonky because I couldn’t see anything to the left or right. I tried looking up to see if there were any lights on at Koldwell, or if I might even spot the location of one of the many gargoyles that hang off its sides, nothing. 

Mist, mist and more mist.

I kept walking. I knew the bank was right in front of me. Eventually, after a few more steps through the mist, I saw warm, glowing lights. The fog thinned around these lights. They appeared like welcome stars to a sailor lost at sea; they weren’t very bright, but bright enough to lead me through this curtain of weather.

I drew closer, step by careful step; the lights not only cut through the fog, but the fog disappeared in the aura of the glow. Had I stepped into another dimension? They were actually light bulbs. Old fashioned ones, not halogens or spots, but old colored light bulbs, red and blue and yellow, and they flickered in a pattern that made them look like they were a moving banner. Not all the bulbs on the outside of the machine worked, a few blinked and fritzzed, some remained unlit, but I was drawn to them. I became the proverbial moth.

The mist all around me parted like a stage curtain to reveal the fortune teller machine and her lights, and for a few minutes I forgot where I was standing.

“A nickel for my thoughts.” To my utter horror a voice came out of the machine.

I almost peed myself.

Maisie Price’s fortune telling machine! The very one I’d seen in her shop on that fateful day when I’d released all the major arcana folk that were held prisoner against their will in Maisie’s cursed tarot deck.

On that day the machine was dark and dusty and barely noticeable as it sat partially covered by a tarp. More of a giant paper weight than anything interesting. Now it was completely lit; the unblinking dummy inside with black, glass eyes and black hair held back by a purple silk scarf and a ruby encrusted turban, stared at me. She had chipped red lips, and as scary as she was, she made Koldwell bank and its granite blocks look warm and welcoming. 

I approached cautiously, and the fortune telling booth lit up brighter than a shopping mall Christmas tree. The gypsy automaton inside began to move. Her head scanned back and forth as if alerted to my presence. A burgundy coloured fringe hung on the inside of the glass box in which she sat, (her body disappeared from the waist down). A red velvet curtain behind her was drawn closed and the curtain looked a little worse for wear. The colour clash made my eyes ache.

At her finger tips lay a pile of cards that looked exactly like the ones I’d thrown at Devon Raker’s ass in Maisie’s shop; that day the sorceress and the demi-demon captured me and made me their factotum!

This machine had to be Devon’s doing.

While the gypsy fortune teller was a distraction from the cold and isolation of the foggy night, I began to get creeped out by its presence. When would Devon jump out of the fog and scare me?

“Hello, Jane, a nickel for my thoughts.”

Holy crap!  I did pee myself.

I tried to hang on to my wits, but that wasn’t really working. I looked around me. The fog tightened again and got thicker than ever, nothing but me and the gypsy mannequin.

“Hello, Jane, a nickel for my thoughts.”

Geez
, I hated it when she spoke. I decided to play along for minute to see where this would go; my peripheral vision was on high alert. I looked left. I looked right and then I said, “You look like Maisie.”  I don’t know what I expected from “her,” maybe that she’d turn into a real person and step out of the booth and say “surprise” you’re on our TV show and here are a bunch of prizes and money for being such a good sport!

“A nickel for my thoughts.”

Fine. She wants a nickel. I will give her a nickel.  Although, I wasn’t even sure I had one to give. I dug deep into my black patent leather, Armani shoulder bag. It had a decorative chain and studs. I loved it!  I didn’t have much change, and I usually let any change I did have lie loose on the bottom of my purse, pennies galore and oddly enough many quarters, which I mistook twice for nickels.  They were too big to fit in the slot of the machine. As I was about to give up, I discovered a nickel and quickly slipped it in.

At first, after I deposited my nickel, the gypsy fortune teller only stared, mute. I thought that once again I’d been ripped off by a machine.  Maybe she needed to warm up; maybe the fog made her gears damp, but eventually I heard some odd internal squeaking noises as things began to roll and grind deep within the old box.

While the mechanical lady warmed to the weather, I noticed a sign I hadn’t spotted earlier.  It said Cartomancer for the Ages. Car-to-man-cer.  Never heard that word before.  There was more:
Madam Leonard Knows All and Tells All
.  I could’ve sworn Madam Leonard blinked while I read her sign.  I tried reading it aloud and watched her face as I did, but there was nothing, not even a twitch from her. The glassy glow in her eyes seemed to reflect my movement. The fog crowded in.

I was so creeped out; I didn’t know what to do.

“Come on genie. Talk. I want my fortune.”  I decided she was better company when she was talking. Then a card slid out of one of her slots, a business card, or so I thought. I grabbed the card, read it --

Money comes your way.

At first I felt puzzled, then elated.

I turned the card over --
Easy come easy
–

I stood there and read the card a few more times, flipping it over and over, wondering how a pile of bills pushed out of Madam’s slot.

My eyes widened and I grinned like a dog in a bone yard.

“Money!” I said to Madam, and clapped her on the glass. “Yes!” More money than I might have got out of my accounts.  While I was making friends with the generous fortune teller, a shadow slid across her glass pane. At first I wrote it off as my own reflection moving in for the cash. I reached for the cash, steadied my purse under the stack of bills and got ready to fill my Armani.

The fog had to have cloaked the sound of footsteps behind me. Then, as if out of nowhere, a strange hand darted in from behind and beat me to the stack of bills.

“What the eff?” I said to Madam Leonard, as if she had anything to do with it.  The fog cloaked us so heavily that the identity and the direction of the thief remained a secret. Still I recognized that dirty, nail broken and bitten hand.

Devon Raker!

“Devon!” I yelled after him to let him know that I knew it was he who ripped me off. Then I turned back to the fortune teller hoping for more money to come sliding out, but Madam Leonard, Cartomancer, was gone, and only the regular ATM rested in its place.

*

When I finally got to Maisie’s shop, late that morning, I found her there dusting a few things. Emilia sat on a large crate pushed to the rear of the shop. The shop chimes announced my arrival, but neither Maisie nor Emilia looked at me. Maisie had a huge old fashioned feather duster that made me think of a turkey tail on a stick.  I don’t know how she didn’t knock every knick knack to the floor using her duster. 

Emilia sat on the unpacked box in a corner polishing her sword.  I carried my favorite over-sized Gucci handbag. It made me feel wealthy and secure, and I flopped it down onto the counter.

That got their attention.

I nodded first at Maisie and then to Emilia, and I didn’t care how much of my grumpiness got expressed. And I guess I expressed myself pretty well because Maisie and Emilia exchanged amused looks of a sort.  I didn’t want to talk, so I pretended to look for something in my purse. I really wanted to chew some gum, but I knew I’d eaten my last piece a while back. Emilia got up and moved a little closer to me and as usual she wore her black and red judogi, although she keeps telling me it’s not a judogi because it’s not Japanese.

Whatev
.

Her long, wild, almost afro, with dreads, was held back with a brightly colored, woven headband and her sword handles protruded from her in all directions. She looked like a walking pin cushion. Then I remembered the fog and the fortune teller and the fact that I had no money and I got grumpy again, wondering if the two of them had anything to do with last night

I’d received Maisie’s text message.  She said she wanted me this morning because she wanted discuss me working for her in the shop for awhile. She said she’d schedule me around my part time teaching job, and  that she paid well, also, that we’d sort out the whole weird star card and ‘you’re my prisoner’ business that had also happened the day before.

So, here I am.

“Good morning, star shine. What took you so long? I thought you'd find your way out of the star card a lot sooner,” Maisie said, as she continued to dust.

I gave her the silent treatment.

“You have a bad date?” she asked.

I gave her a look.

How’d she know about my dating?

“Devon stole money from me last night, if that's what you're getting at,” I said, staring down the two of them. 

I saw her exchange looks with Emilia who’d walked over and stood behind me.  I turned to look at Emilia and she avoided eye contact, not hard considering I’m five foot two and she’s about half a foot taller.

“I realize you had a bad experience last night, but I need you to go to the bank today,” Maisie said, unsympathetically. I wasn’t letting her off the hook that easily. I looked Maisie straight in the eyes, well, as best I could, she kept ducking to dust bottom shelves. 

“How’d your gypsy fortune telling machine end up at Koldwell’s last night? Who's Madam Leonard?” I asked. Maisie didn’t miss a dusting-beat, but I heard Emilia give a small groan. Maisie on the other hand acted like she never heard what I said. She ignored my question.

“I plan to take out a large amount of cash. I've found a restaurant I want to invest in. Emilia will go with you for security. ”

“Can’t you see the girl’s had a bad day, Maze? Maybe tomorrow,” Emilia said in my defense.

I looked at Emilia and gave her a quick smile.  I was beginning to like her selflessness, and she seemed to be okay with me and my ways, and I got the sense from her that maybe she was even on my side, a little, in all of this.

“Madam Leonard looked a lot like you,” I said to Maisie.

There was no reaction from Maisie but Emilia laughed and Maisie gave her a killer look, so Emilia decided that her sword needed another quick polish.