Erin Dameron-Hill (5 page)

“If you think you can, we appreciate it.”

Matt was really too nice for his own good or maybe that’s what brought out my better qualities. Because if he wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be helping them out now. I preferred to be on my own, a lone wolf if you will, and I wasn’t used to the idea of a family. I spent my childhood being handed from one Foster home to another like ice cream in the wintertime, never being chosen. And until I was attacked that fateful evening two years ago, I didn’t know I could ever have a family. So, I owed him. All of them.

If they had given me this curse, I would have hated them, but still, to this day, no one knows what or who caused my lycanthropy. Matt believes it was an out-of-town rogue wolf and I guess I would have to agree. But in public, with the other wolves in our pack, Matt told everyone that he had bitten me and given me the disease. He lied so that no one would think he was weak, imagine the head honcho letting something like that happen in his town, inconceivable. Besides, if other wolf packs heard about it, they would try to take over. That’s just how animal instinct works. It’s not logical, its all primitive and territorial.

I stood in the middle of the room, facing the dead body and destroyed coffee table. I didn’t close my eyes this time nor allow any other senses to complicate my feelings. Instead, I let them come.

And the wrong ones came. I felt the flurry of sadness and depression oozing from Sheila, the disappointment and fear from Matt, the insane rage from Billy who was racing down the street outside, and the passion and the lust from…from who? Me? No. Who was feeling that? Who else was in this room? They weren’t the residual feelings from a corpse, that’s for sure. Or were they?

“Were Billy and Clyde staying in tonight?” I asked.

“Yeah,” replied Matt, “Why?”

“I can feel lust and love from him. Those were his last feelings,” I said.

“His very last?”

“Yeah.” When I said that, I had the sickly suspicion that maybe Billy didn’t have everything under control. Sex and love can sometimes bring a beast to the surface depending on how passionate it is and according to these hot feelings of lust rolling off the corpse, that might have been what happened.

“It couldn’t have been Billy, though, right?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” asked Sheila.

“His very last thoughts were of sex,” I said, “not instant death.”

For a moment they brushed it to the side, “how do you know?” Matt asked.

“I know that you’re disappointed and fearful, that Sheila is depressed, and that Billy is beyond angry.”

Matt sighed and walked towards me. He placed his large, smooth hands on my shoulders, “those are scents, Sophie. We can all smell that. Besides, Billy isn‘t capable of something like that.”

I brushed off his hands and plopped down on a wooden chair that was placed in the corner of the room. I guess I had lost my abilities. I had gained new ones, but none that would help us here.

I didn’t know how exactly that explained Clyde’s last emotions, but I didn’t need to question it either. If Matt could smell it, then it wasn’t a clue.

“I’m sorry,” Matt said, “you should go home. Take Billy with you. He needs you right now.”

“Are you going to call the police?” I asked.

“I’ll leave the door open, let the neighbors smell it.”

“What about wild animals?”

“We were never here, Sophie, so we can’t do anything stupid.”

“But our DNA is all over the place.”

“Yeah, but were friends, we’ve been here before. The cops will ask us questions but they won’t suspect any of us.”

“I can’t leave him to the ravaging of vermin,” I said.

“You have to. We have to. We can’t know about this.”

“Sheila, back me up here, this is wrong,” I said in attempt to make my point.

“My husband’s right, Sophie, we have to just leave him.”

“This isn’t right,” I said and headed back towards the door. Part of me was angry with not being able to help and the other part was furious that there was nothing I could do. I had a super-smeller, crazy good hearing, better than 20/20 eyesight, Hulk-like strength, Flash-like speed and still there was nothing I could do.

If there was a can on the sidewalk, I would have kicked it, but a sign said quite proudly that there was no littering. I saw the occasional cigarette butt in the brown dirt as I meandered to my car. I knew I had to find Billy, but I just didn’t want to deal with that right now. I couldn’t handle my own emotions much less the deranged anger that comes from the death of a loved one.

I know, it’s selfish and ridiculous of me, but I couldn’t help it. How was I supposed to face him and tell him that there was nothing I could do? That we had to rely on the police to solve a supernatural crime? If that was our only option, then we would never know who killed Clyde. Not only was it supernatural, but Clyde was Black and gay. There was no way, down here, that he would get the justice he deserved. It’s the awful truth of living in the South, most people just don’t want to admit it. So back off if all I wanted to do was go home and sleep.

Chapter
Two

I paced back and forth across my dining room floor carefully inspecting the laminated wood. As I looked at the fake pine I couldn’t help but to think about Clyde. It had been a few hours since Clyde had knocked on the pearly gates and that image of his mangled body had not left my mind. It’s hard to ignore a scene like that even if you’re trying to focus on living an ordinary life.

I had taken up chewing my nails and pacing because I blamed myself. And if I stopped to think about my past regrets, then my heart became heavy and I would cry. I’m not one for tears, but somehow it was my fault that I couldn‘t ‘read‘ the scene or divine anything from it.

And worse than that, I hadn‘t answered the phone since then. Matt had tried calling and I had just let him go to voice mail. I couldn’t face them, I could barely look at myself in the mirror. I just felt so useless.

The soft pounding of a few knocks brought my attention from a fake knothole in the flooring; my one o’clock was here.

Just because life had gone to hell in a handbag didn’t mean my business would be closed down. No, I still had bills to pay and give Caesar’s things to Caesar. In other words, the federal government was still taxing me. I really wish they had some sort of loss clause allowing me take a few days off to mourn and only charging half the normal taxes. That would be nice.

I quickly lit a candle encased in a purple globe and pushed the ‘on’ button on the Airwick to release the scent of Sage and Pine. My customers believe in my skills because the mood is always right. Bring a person in a stark white room and say you can read their fortune, and they’ll laugh at you five ways to Sunday. So, the dining room was decorated in a heavy Turkish motif with billowy scarves floating from the ceiling.

I ran my business out of my home, and because it was a one bedroom condo, every space was precious. Therefore, I turned the dining room into the fortune-telling room. Practical. Besides, who needs a table to eat pizza?

Along the side of the wall where the table rested, hundreds of small glass apothecary bottles had been placed on several shelves. Anything from love potions to truth serums could be found on that wall. Some were real. Others were pure snake oil. I usually sold the snake oil to my clients because real potions in the hands of amateurs would be like a horrible remake of
Dawn of the Dead
.

I walked past bushels of dried herbs including sage, rosemary, thyme, cilantro (which I used for cooking, but my clients don’t know that), lemongrass, flame caps, and the list goes on and on. I usually pull a few twigs from the pile as a gift to my clients after a session for use in their home.

My bandaged forearm reached for the French door knob and with the other hand, I pulled the sleeve low enough to cover the wound. I regard my privacy highly, never showing any weakness so that no one asks personal questions. I especially keep to myself when a wound is caused by another werewolf because how exactly would I explain the cuts on my arm?
Oh, its nothing, I nearly turned last night to go on a rampage to kill tons of human babies when my father slammed me into the ground forgetting how strong he was.
So, I tugged on the sleeve harder, fully covering the white bandages.

I pulled on the doorknob, revealing a mid-thirties mom of four who already had the title of Grandmother. Her cloudy blue eyes were camouflaged by the bright blue eye shadow that covered everything from the eyebrow down to the bottom line of false lashes. Whenever she blinked, her lashes danced like spastic jumping spiders on cocaine.

The woman was attractive if someone removed all that eye make-up, three shades darker than her skin foundation, bright pink lipstick, and bleached white hair. I was pretty sure she didn’t bother with boxed hair colors, that her hair was indeed scarred with peroxide.

Today, her leathery skin was showing in places that a mom should never reveal, forcing one to look at her breasts that spilled over a tight, leather vest. She wore matching black leather pants that she must have been poured into and five-inch black stiletto pumps. She was obviously ready for Bike Week to start.

“Hi, Sophie,” she said with a deep, musky voice that was ruined by smoking too many cigarettes.

“Ms. Jean,” I said smiling softly, “how have you been?”

I took her hand and led her into the dining room where she sat facing the crystal ball and me. The table was round so that no one felt they sat at the head or the foot of the table. Everyone was equal here. Yeah, King Arthur had given me the idea, but it made sense. No one likes to feel inferior.

“Guess what?” she began, her eyes going wide with excitement and the need to spill the dirty details of the night before.

“Stop right there, Ms. Jean. Don’t give me any hints. You know the drill.”

Ms. Jean had been seeing me once every two weeks for the past year. She was definitely what I considered a regular along with several other customers. They fully believed in my abilities and paid handsomely for my advice.

Yeah, I’m ripping her off, but I also offer hope. And hope is more important to the customer than money, right?

As I sat across from her, I grasped both of her bony hands in mine and felt her large, fake diamond ring push into my skin. She still wore it even though she had been divorced for over three years.

I closed my eyes and breathed her in. The first smell that reached its way inside me was the stale scent of cigarettes entrenched in her clothes mating with the smell of overly powerful floral perfume that was probably backed by JLO or Mariah Carey. Past that, the musky flavor of sex bounded from her more delicate parts and I knew she had found a new man. He was probably a one-nighter based on the lingering smell of beer and usually it was my job to tell her. But like I said, I like to offer hope. It makes what I’m doing less sleazy. So, instead, I twist the readings to make it appear like she’s doing the right thing.

I opened my eyes and gazed deeply at my globe, telling her that the answers will come from this thing made of plastic. My hands gently roamed over the surface, pretending to separate the imaginary mist within, allowing me to fully see her life.

“Ms. Jean”, I said still smiling, “You have found yourself a new man.” It’s true, I can see into the…present.

She gasped and shook her head, “How do you do that? You’re some kind of special. What does it say about us?” she urged trying to see into the globe, bending over the table so that her breasts literally rested on the hard surface.

I removed a pack of Tarot Cards from a small, cherry colored chest that rested just beside the globe. They were ornately decorated with artistic pictures of queens, mermaids, and wheels. I didn’t really know how to read them, but none of my clients ever corrected me. I think mainly because I never gave them a wrong answer and I was really vague on the future aspect of the whole thing.

I shuffled the deck slowly, allowing the cards to amble through my fingers (having animal-like quick reflexes allows me to perform otherworldly shuffles and it really gets the crowd on its feet). As the cards meandered over my hands, the soft chill of, for lack of a better word, magic, tickled at the cards.

I brushed off the sensation secretly hoping that the air conditioner had turned on. But it hadn’t. I made sure to turn it off so that the aromas of sage, rosemary, and countless other herbs stifled the life-giving oxygen.

I had dreamed last night, and it wasn’t a normal dream. The tickling sensations of a true reading were about me now. If the trend continued, I would find myself screaming into the night, watching as hundreds of people were murdered, raped, and molested. The only good thing to come out of my attack was the loss of this ability--I didn’t want it to return.

So, I secretly prayed that the chills were from a machine.

“This is your past,” I said placing one card face down in front of me, “your present,” another card joined the first, “and your future.”

Ms. Jean looked at the cards and then hungrily looked up at me, anxiously waiting for my fingers to flip her life over.

The first card I turned over, ‘her past’, was the Nine of Swords. “By the light of a crescent moon,” I began, throwing my voice around the room to give it a hollow, more creepy and eerie sound, “a woman sits up in bed as if awakened by a nightmare. A silent cat watches her as nine swords float above her head,” I paused and tried to remember the passage of the training manual I had memorized entitled
Ripping the Public Off VII
(it wasn‘t really called that, but it my hands, it should be).

“She crosses her arms over her chest to protect her heart. As evidenced by the swords, this woman is clearly troubled by some large problem, large enough to disturb her sleep. In your past, Ms. Jean, you agonized over something, your love life, and yet you walked through that problem alone, avoiding the true help that you desperately needed. This card reminds you to allow someone to reach out and comfort you.”

“That is so true,” replied Ms. Jean, slouching in the large, red leather chair.

The pull of soft, chilly wind once more echoed over my goose prickled skin. I shivered slightly into the hot and humid room. The scents of the mixing herbs nearly choked me as I took in a larger breath to continue on.

“You may feel like you’re alone or your pride may stop you from calling for help, but this card, the Nine of Swords, says quite clearly--You are not alone and if you let your pride consume you, your future will be bleak.”

“Oh, Lord,” she said, placing a hand on her chest, “I promise I will look for help. The card reminds me, right, to seek help?”

“Yes.”

“Well, here I am. So, I’m finally doing something right with my life.”

I smiled again and felt a small twinge of guilt bite at my conscious.

So, I flipped the middle card. The Two of Cups. I began to quote the passage again, “A blonde woman…”

“That’s me!” she screamed silently into the heavy perfumed air.

I continued softly, nodding my head, “and a brunette man…”

“Dear Lord, that must be Jonathan!” She squealed with delight over the so-called truth of the cards.

“join under the shadowy light of the moon. Their union creates a unique energy that is mystical and beautiful…”

“That is so true. It was beautiful.”

“You are faced with the opportunity to partner with someone. The potential for creating something very special is there. Honor the gift of the moment and enjoy it.”

“Oh, I will.”

“But there is warning from this card. They are under a shadowy light. So enjoy the moment but do not let it enslave you.”

The chill of magic became harsh as I looked at both of the cards. It snapped at me and bristled along my spine. I could feel the cards coming to life, talking to me, telling me to embrace the past and present before me. They spoke in hushed whispers in the crowded room allowing every single word to become entranced in my mind. It isn’t technically magic, because there is no such thing, it is more like an entity, a spirit that allows this sight. And it is an awful thing. It doesn’t understand human emotion, nor does it understand suffering, instead it shows only the harsh truth. The more you ignore it, the more violent it becomes. The images and whispers begin to scream so loudly that the sudden icy chills of that power will break skin.

It has happened many times to me before. During particularly harsh dreams, I have woken up in a pool of my own blood.

I was thankful that I now was only a charlatan; I didn’t want to be real. I wanted to be a fake.

My eyes peered down at the Nine of Swords and the Two of Cups. The breeze shifted around me and I could feel my metaphysical shields being torn asunder. In the past, I had thrown up shields to protect myself, to keep the entity from telling me its secrets, but I hadn’t been using my shields these days because the entity had left.

But as I saw the shields tumbling down like the walls of Jericho, I knew the spirit had returned.

If I had any brains at all, I would have asked the fey what exactly the entity was. Fairies know every single thing about the supernatural world because they are the most curious beings a person could ever meet. They’re also the most dangerous. Albert Einstein was a fairy and look what he created, the atom bomb. So, as much as I wanted to know what exactly it was whispering to me, I also didn’t want the fairies to know my secret. Like I said before, they are dangerous, curious, and most importantly, intelligent. If killing you gets them ahead in the world, then so be it. They are not plagued with a conscious, so human life doesn’t matter. And they are downright creepy. A few months ago I met a tooth fairy, and trust me, you don’t want to know how the conversation went. In the end, I was suffering from twelve cavities that the wench had cursed me with. So, asking a fairy for help? I don’t think so.

The chill of the entity snapped at me, tearing me away from reality; from normality. I swallowed loud enough to choke on my own spit and to choke on the lies that had enveloped my home. I coughed steadily in the suffocating air, gasping for breath, holding my chest as if my heart were about to explode.

I suppose I looked like a flailing goose or a dying weasel but I didn’t care. The power had returned albeit gently. The spirit or whatever the term was being gentle. It hadn’t hurt me yet, instead it caressed the skin where it had slapped it, stroked the strangled suppression of breath, and if it had formed, I think it smiled.