Celestial Bodies (8 page)

They both jumped when they heard the door chimes. Felix and a customer were coming out of the shop. Felix bade the man goodnight and came over to sit with Diana.

“He was here awfully late,” Diana remarked to fill the silence.

“We were chatting,” Felix said. “Hey, is that rose-hip tea? Do you mind if I have a sip, Nick?”

“Please. Finish it.” Nick slouched into a chair across the table from Diana, avoiding her eyes.

Diana noticed the small silk bundle in Felix’s hands. “What’s that?”

“He came here to show me his mother’s tarot deck. She died recently. He didn’t want it, but it’s such a beautiful deck that he offered it to me.”

“As a gift?”

“Yes.”

“That’s very nice,” said Diana.

“He read about us in the city’s
New Age Guide
. He wanted to see Ishtar,” Felix explained.

“Ah,” said Nick.

“Let’s see the deck,” Diana said.

Felix spread the cards out before them, face up. It was indeed a beautiful deck. “I’ll have to do some research. I think this deck is old. Victorian, perhaps.”

“Really?” Nick asked, studying the cards with interest. “Does that make a difference?”

“In the readings? Sometimes,” Felix answered. “I’ll have to work with these cards privately for a while before I know if I’ve established a reliable empathy with them. I’d like to use these with clients eventually, though. They’re very unusual.”

He gathered up the cards and shuffled them with great concentration. “Let’s get started.”

Nick looked at him blankly.

“Practicing with them,” Felix clarified. “Diana?”

Felix spread the cards once more, this time facedown, in an even line, and gestured for Diana to pick one. She had done this for him more times in her life than she could remember, especially before exams and job interviews. Tonight, for some reason, she felt a curious reluctance. She didn’t want to disappoint him, however, or appear foolish, so she let her heart guide her and reached for a card. She flipped it over.

Her eyes met Nick’s.

“The Lovers,” he murmured.

“Sexual and spiritual love,” said Felix. “Someone important is entering your life, Diana.”

Chapter Four

THE MAGICIAN

Major Arcana

Meaning:
Mastery of natural forces; eternity; opportunities and adventures unfolding.

Reversed:
Destructive power; weakness of will.

Despite an inexplicable nervousness about the whole procedure, Nick listened attentively as Felix explained his birth chart to him the following evening.

“A very interesting chart,” Felix assured him as they sat at the kitchen table in Felix and Diana’s apartment.

“More chamomile tea, anyone?” Diana asked.

Nick made an involuntarily defensive gesture as she tried to pour some more of the stuff into his mug. “No, thanks.” Oh, for a cup of coffee, he thought. But no nasty stimulants like caffeine were allowed inside the House of Ishtar. Didn’t Felix and Diana realize that stimulants made the world go round?

“More tea? Yes, please,” Felix said.

Diana poured the tea, then sat down at the table with them. Felix spread out Nick’s birth chart before them, and Diana leaned forward to study it with interest.

“I thought these consultations were always private,” Nick said uneasily.

“Oh, but that’s for paying clients. Were all family here, aren’t we?” Diana said innocently. Then, with an evil look, she added, “Anyhow, you’ve got nothing to hide, have you, Nick?”

Felix was staring at the birth chart with fascinated absorption, and Nick could see he’d get no help from that quarter. He shrugged uneasily and asked Felix to explain the chart to him.

“This,” Felix said, indicating the round diagram, “is a depiction of the positions of the celestial bodies in the zodiac at the exact moment of your birth.”

Big deal
, Nick thought. “Really? That must take a lot of work to track down and record, Felix.”

“Well, it takes an hour or two to do an accurate chart, and then more time to interpret the results, but I find it so fascinating that the time just flies by,” Felix told him.

Diana brushed a few long, shining strands of hair away from her face. Nick caught the movement out of the corner of his eye—the graceful flutter of her long fingers, the silken gleam of bright curls, and the way the movement exposed the creamy-white column of her smooth throat.

He found himself growing even more tense than he had been all day. A sleepless night, a subtly pulsing desire that filled his senses and clouded his mind, a sense of futility about this case as he puttered around the shop—it was all winding him up so tight, he could hardly breathe.

He tried to concentrate as Felix explained the concepts of sidereal time, the mid-heaven, the ascendant, and the mean position of the moon’s north node. Nick hoped there wouldn’t be a quiz later, because all he could think about was the full shape of Diana’s mouth, the intriguing flush of her cheeks when she caught his eye, and the jolt of electricity he felt when her foot accidentally brushed his under the table.

Felix was practically through explaining all of the exotic- looking symbols on the diagram when Diana hopped out of her chair, turned her back on Nick, and started emptying and washing the teapot as if it were the most important task in the world.

Through sheer strength of will, Nick managed not to stare at her straight, slim back or the beautifully shaped bottom defined by her faded blue jeans. But he sneaked a lot of peeks.

“Now, if you thought
that
was interesting,” Felix said enthusiastically, “wait till you hear this!”

“Uh-huh,” Nick grunted absently. He wondered if anyone else noticed how hot the room was getting.

“Now, of course, as a Scorpio, your sign is a fixed water sign.”

“Fixed water?” Nick repeated blankly.

“Yes. Fixed, as opposed to cardinal or mutable. Water, as opposed to earth, air, or fire. But I don’t want to repeat information, and I know you’ve already covered this in your reading,” Felix said confidently.

“Yeah. Right. I’m just a little confused.” That was true, at least.

“The three of us are all fixed signs. As an Aquarius, I am, of course, an air sign.”

“I believe that,” Nick said. He caught Diana’s sharp glance and held her gaze.

“Diana is a fire sign.”

Yeah, I’ll bet that’s right
. Something hot rushed through him, as if Diana’s fire had reached out to sear him.

“Now, obviously, Mars rules Scorpio,” Felix went on, warming to his subject.

“Obviously,” Nick murmured. Diana was nervous, he realized. Not as calm and indifferent as she had pretended to be all day at work. He wondered how
she
had slept last night.

“Mars represents passion, desire,” Felix expounded.

“It sure does.” Nick definitely felt Mars dominating his system right now.

“Energy, assertiveness, courage, initiative,” Felix continued. “It energizes, intensifies, stimulates, inflames, aggravates.”

“Aggravates,” Diana repeated significantly as she wiped a clean counter and fiddled with a wall hanging that was already perfectly straight.

Felix fell silent and studied the chart with total absorption. Nick took advantage of the older man’s distraction. “Come sit with us, Diana.”

She obviously took it as a challenge. Maybe he had meant it that way. He wasn’t sure. He just knew he wanted her close to him, so near he could smell the jasmine oil on her skin.

She sat by him again and folded her long-fingered hands on top of the kitchen table. She obviously knew he was barely paying attention to the reading, and he could see that familiar spark of ambivalent humor in her expression.

Felix suddenly asked, “Nick, have you ever considered investigative work?”

Nick nearly vaulted out of his chair. “What?” He almost choked on the word.

“It’s indicated with amazing strength,” Felix said. “Look here.” He pointed to some of his hieroglyphic notations. “The position of the sun gives you a natural talent for investigation. This is strengthened by Jupiter, which indicates superb deductive reasoning, coupled with natural curiosity. Mmm-hmm, look at this. Detective skills... a bearer of weapons... pursuit of justice... Of course, this is offset by an impulsive nature and several indications of enormous capacity for sensual passion. And just look at the position of Uranus!”

“What about it?” Nick croaked.

“It indicates an undeniable power to concentrate, probe, deduce and—ah-hah!”

“Ah-hah, what?” Nick said.

“There it is again. The Fourth House shows an overwhelming tendency to seek rational explanations. And the position of Venus confirms a relentlessly sensual nature.”

“Really?” Nick asked weakly.

“Are you sure about the time of your birth?” Felix asked.

He nodded.

Felix studied the chart for a few more moments. “This is extraordinary, Nick. There’s virtually nothing in the stars at the time of your birth to indicate you would be the kind of man you are.”

“How’s that?”

“Someone seeking spiritual growth and enlightenment.” Felix shook his head. “No, according to this, you should be some sort of beer-drinking, meat-eating, hotheaded, skirt-chasing, gun-toting private eye or something. Amazing! The stars have never misled me before.”

“Gee, how about that?” Nick tried to keep his voice calm. He didn’t know whether he was more chilled by the possibility of having his cover blown or by the disconcerting accuracy of Felix’s remarks. He could be exposed by a horoscope. A
horoscope
, for God’s sake! How much weirder could things get around here?

“What a challenge!” Felix exclaimed excitedly.

“You’ve got him going now,” Diana warned Nick.

“Now, Felix,” Nick began, trying to rescue the situation, “maybe you made a mistake somewhere. That diagram looks very complicated—”

“That’s the first thing I’m going to do,” Felix interrupted enthusiastically. “Double-check my figures. Then I’m going to cast your current horoscope. After that, we really need to sit down with the tarot deck.”

“Um, maybe—”

“Where are you going?” Diana asked as Felix hopped up and headed for the door.

“Down to my study.”

“Oh, Felix, can’t it wait till morning?” Diana said. “It’s already late, and you’ve got an early appointment tomorrow.”

“I do?” He stopped and stared at her in bewilderment.

“Yes. Remember? Mrs. Bouvier called today, and she was so insistent, I squeezed her into tomorrow’s schedule.”

“We discussed this?”

“Yes, Felix.”

“Oh. Well, yes, I suppose you’re right, Diana. I want to be fresh for my clients tomorrow.”

Nick was dying to ask about Mrs. Bouvier’s call, but too much had been said already, and he didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself tonight. Diana’s eyes were already sparkling with probing questions. He couldn’t afford to show too much natural curiosity or deductive reasoning.

“I guess I’ll go meditate in my room and get ready for bed,” Felix said serenely. “Good night, Nick. I can’t tell you how intriguing this has been.”

“Good night, Felix.” As Nick watched the older man leave the room, he felt a strange tug inside him. He smiled wryly as he realized he was becoming kind of fond of the astrologer.

“A gun-toting, skirt-chasing private eye?” Diana asked archly.

Nick turned to find her studying him with mingled amusement and suspicion. He shrugged. “Hey, maybe my problem is just that I’ve chosen the wrong path in life. How was I to know the celestial bodies wanted me to become Sam Spade?”

“It’s certainly interesting that the stars indicate no interest in higher spiritual pursuits.”

He gave her a slow grin. “So you
do
believe, after all.”

She ran a hand through her hair and stood up. “I never said that.”