The Final Catch: Book 3: See Jane Spell (The Final Catch: A Tarot Sorceress Series) (5 page)

Whitman caroused with the waitresses and tucked bills of money into the dancers’ skinny straps.  It didn’t take him but a moment to catch my eye and smile at me. He raised his glass to me.  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the key I’d taken from Emi.  I raised it to him and watched his winning grin disappear.

Time Out

I was having one of my out of body dreams again. I floated above the empty, dark main street of Meadowvale, the street that went right through town. It was late at night--a cool aerial view of the empty main street, like looking down on a board game. A white stretch limo floated slowly by, a long, glistening boat on wheels.

I am in the backseat.

I’ m alone and dressed for a night out, headed home from a date. I felt tipsy and called up to the driver. “Stop, please. I wanna get cash.” I saw him look in the rear view at me.

“Where?”

Through the window I scanned the street and noticed a strange sparkling fog roll into the quaint and quiet downtown. Then, as if the building called to me, the fog parted and Koldwell emerged. I pointed out the bank. “There!”

The driver glanced in the rearview at me.  I had the sense that he didn’t really want to pull over.

While I waited for him to follow my instructions, I returned to that place high above the limo, above the street lamp. I floated over the scene then looked to see the long white, limo angle over to the Koldwell building and stop.

I heard the rear door lock thud open.

Still floating above the limo, I saw a doll sized image of me get out of the elegant vehicle and run up Koldwell’s stairs.  I must be drunk because the doll person below me zigzagged up the stairs.  I heard her heels clack, clack, clacking on the stone steps. The fog thickened, and obscured my view.

I sank down to street level swayed a bit. The light from the ATM shone strongly through the fog, but the fog obscured the ATM machine.

Pausing on the stairs, a sparkling fog surrounded me requiring me to move more cautiously, as if in slow motion, nevertheless, I continued toward the yellowish light of the ATM. Through the fog I heard the now familiar voice of the Madam fortune-teller.

“A nickel for my thoughts, Jane.”

Staggering slightly, I called cautiously into the fog.

“Devon? Are you here?”

I stepped a little closer and those steps brought me through the fog and face to face with Madam Leonard, Cartomancer the gypsy fortune-telling machine.

“A nickel for my thoughts, Jane.”  When I looked at the slot where the nickel goes I saw one already there.  It waited for someone to tap the thin cool edge of the nickel and send it hurtling into the interior of Madam’s gears.

I pushed the nickel in

Madam Leonard and I lit up with a flash worthy of a lightning bolt.

Something strange  happened.

I’d gone back in time. That was the only way I could explain it.  POOF! I now wore formal evening wear from the mid-1800's. There was a bustle on my butt and a tightly cinched waist, which made it very uncomfortable to move. My ankles were covered and I appeared to be wearing some form of dainty ankle high boots. I carried a dark, ornate fan which I flicked open like a pro. The antique fan looked black and hand painted with hand sewn sequins. The delicate ribs interspersed by black lace. “I could kill a few flies with this.” Oh, my I was drunk.

Then to add to the crazy, I heard a horse whinny. I looked behind me and expected to see Mr. Ed or some other talking horse from the internet come through the sparkling fog, but it didn’t happen. Instead, a fortune card slid from Madam Leonard’s slot.

I read the card several times: Love is the key to everything.

Its message made me feel weary. “Love is the key to everything.”

Then if things couldn’t possibly get stranger, they did. The Gypsy automaton spit out a key. It fell to the pavement with a tink, tinkle. I hesitated to pick it up. I looked around for a prankster, one in particular, Devon. Still all alone, I reached for the key, hesitated a moment before touching it, then snapped that sucker up.  I didn’t yet know what all these keys had to do with anything, but now I had two. This one and the one I got from Emi when she cut away Vince Cabria’s jacket pocket. When I checked out the key I saw that it was another old fashioned brass one. I struggled with my unfamiliar hand bag, more like a silk, pull-string sack.  I finally got it opened and slipped the key inside of it.

I glanced at my fortune telling card. Gave the sparkling fog a flirtatious pose and said, “Okay, Love. Come and get me.” But the street sounded quiet and no one showed up to kiss my hand and put a glass slipper on my foot.  I was really hoping these old fashioned clothes were going to disappear soon, as lovely as they were they were no match for my little black dress.

The quiet street and the sparkling fog seemed to be finished with me. No one showed up to snatch my key, give me cash, or stroke my butt.

“Hey, Madam.  Any money, honey?” I asked her, keeping a little distance between us. I could feel myself sway a little. I was still fairly inebriated. When nothing happened, no verbal response or spitting out of cash, I moved in a little closer and that seemed to do the trick. Cash pushed out from the same slot the fortune card had come from. Suddenly, it didn’t matter to me that I was wearing some old fashioned outfit with a silk purse and a hand fan, and oh, yeah, I had a big fancy hat on my head, too.

I eagerly reached for the cash and I was stuffing it in to my purse, when I noticed something odd.  The cash was old.  Not dirty old, but old fashioned like the clothing I wore.  I looked closely at the bills and it said something about the Dominion of something with a picture of a woman--her majesty–I presumed, and a two in the upper right hand corner of all these bills.

A two!

Well, my disappointed feelings were enough to fill a bathtub.  And then of course, I got mad. “Aww, hell, what's this?”

Behind me I heard the sound of horses snorting and whinnying, and thought I must be dreaming, and I really wanted to wake up and find myself back in my condo in bed with some nice guy. Instead I heard the voice of the limo driver.  He had a heavy British accent that I hadn’t noticed earlier.

“You all right Miss?”

I wasn’t able to see him – and then I saw him – well, his shadow. The fog, thick and sparkly, covered everything. If I looked up I saw the starry sky above and that was it. I’d had enough.  I stepped away from Madam Leonard and into the fog.  I found the steps that led me down toward the street and the limo parked at the curb.  I looked back. Madam Leonard was gone and coming down the stairs toward me was the tall, superbly dressed William Tell.

He held a hand out to me.

I guessed William and I were going on a date. William, and not Devon, it seems was the man behind the fortune telling Cartomancer machine.

When he caught up to me he kissed me lightly and led me down to the street curb where a pair of Windsor Greys and a carriage awaited us.

William was a classy guy.

*

We had a lovely time walking around the quiet dawn lit town. William told me we were between dimensions, on the boarder of the Cheshire society’s realm and Meadowvale. We wouldn’t be seen and there was no traffic to disturb us, and as long as no one knew we were there, no one could find us. When I asked how he did it he explained that Cheshires can move freely between the two dimensions, but in order to bring me with him he had to give me an outfit that belonged to an old Cheshire woman who no longer existed in the Society. She’d died from that world.

“I’m wearing a dead woman’s clothing?” I asked, horrified.

“She’s only dead to the Cheshire. She’s still alive in this realm,” he said, calmly.

“Really? I asked.” He had me intrigued. My head was beginning to hurt. “Tell me,” I insisted.

“Guess,” he said, suddenly delighting in the game.

“William, please. Tell me. I can’t play this game. I’ve had too much to drink.”

“Very well, are you sitting down?” He laughed at his own silly question. He kissed me on the nose.

“Maise. Maisie Price.”

*

After I got over the shock that Maisie Price was once part of the Cheshire Society, and that I was now wearing one of her defunct dresses, I told William I wanted to go home and sleep it all off. He told me I could sleep off the alcohol, but not the fact that Maisie Price was Cheshire Society material. He had the driver bring the horses back around to Koldwell where we stepped out a moment while the carriage turned back into the white limo parked against the curb.  William escorted me back to the vehicle, held open the door, helped tuck my ridiculous dress into the car and leaned close to my ear and said, “Do you have the key Madame Leonard gave you tonight?” I nodded, yes. “Hang on tight to it,” he said, then shut the door. The carriage driver became the limo driver and we sat there in the car and watched William walk back up the stairs toward Koldwell and disappear into the mysterious sparkling fog –

--And modern times had returned, my dress, my purse, the hand fan gone. By the time the limo reached the main road, I was once again myself.

Cinderella had found midnight. 

Strength at Voodoo Tattoos

Now I had two keys. Two keys meant I had some sort of control over two majors from the deck.  As I understood it, the keys allowed me to put majors back into the deck without forcing them to come back to Maisie’s shop. I only needed to determine who belonged to each key and how to use the key to return the escapee. William, for reasons I had yet to determine, wanted to help me.  I was going to need his help. I had already returned Justine Dahliday, Joseph Seer and Malcolm Price to the deck, and I nearly had Christian Whitman! If I counted Devon, Emilia and Glendie, who would be easy catches, that meant I had a possible six out of twenty-two.

Yikes! Not good enough.

This was all taking way too long.

I really needed to get Sia, and get me, untangled from this mess. With my developing magical abilities, and the new information from William on the true purpose of Whitman’s keys, and with a couple successful tarot returns under my belt, it was time for me to take things into my own hands!

*

I was on my lunch break, well, I hadn’t officially started at Koldwell, but if I had, I’d be on my lunch break. They make their staff wear uniforms. They gave me a navy blue blazer with a frothy-frill of a white blouse, a navy skirt, low heeled pumps and a peach colored ascot -- gaaak. Oh, yeah, and a name pin, so everyone can know who the person is that did their transaction all wrong.

Apparently Maisie was good buddies with Ross, the bank manager, and he owed her a favour or two. And according to Maisie I’m supposed to get access to some of the safety deposit boxes for her in Koldwell, once I finish my teller training.  Ross thinks I’m some long lost niece of Maisie’s. He must be a pretty gullible guy.  But I made Maisie a bargain.  I’d go work in the bank without complaint and do my best until I got the job done, or until I got fired, whichever came first, but only if she’d let my bff Glendie Pin out of the cursed tarot deck, so that I could hang with her. I was missing our beer and dart night at the bar. They just weren’t the same without Glendie.

Maisie
wanted to know if I wanted to release anyone else?

The first day of work for Koldwell bank found me nowhere near the place. Instead, Emilia and I ducked and hid below the window on the lane side of the Hercules Gym. From our position we could clearly see Meadowvale’s downtown and the interior of the workout center. The huge Hercules sign hung above our heads, while a scrappy line of juniper bushes kept us out of sight.  The very old gym building was made of wood, dried cedar that splintered like crazy. It gave us big nasty slivers if we touched it.  It was a huge turn of the century building and a perfect big empty space to set up the local gym.

Emilia was right beside me as always, riding shot gun. She wore her bright white training dobok, but something had happened to it. I guess she got promoted, although I personally don’t see any improvements in athletic coordination or anything. Her belt no longer white had turned orange in color. She continues to accidentally cut my Gucci’s and smash Maisie’s crystal Swarvoskis.

At least she hasn’t cut anyone in half, lately.

Emi and I took turns peeking through the dusty window of the gym. We tried to get a glimpse of some guy Maisie told us about.  Of course I need to get back to Koldwell Bank soon because I’m supposed to start work there this afternoon. But this morning I’ve got the worst hangover headache ever! I had a great date last night, but I’m paying for it.

I didn’t feel much like participating in this little escapade.

“Alcohol is bad for the Qi,” Emi said.

“Tylenol? Please!”

“You should take up meditation.” She got up and took a big long stare through the window. I had the impression that was her attempt to get away from me and my whine.

I don’t know if Emi has ever tried alcohol in her life. Mind you I don’t know how long she’s been alive. She’s probably only existed since Maisie brought her out of the tarot deck.

Oooh, all this thinking and spying hurts my head. “Just kill me.”

Emilia gave me the creepiest look ever, like she actually contemplated killing me for a moment.

“Not today,” she said. “Hey, that’s him,” she said, pointing.

I popped up to have a look.

Omg—it was him. The bouncer from the Wild Swan, Barkman Moore, super buff, big, big muscles covered in tattoos, and framed by the window like a movie star on a set. Yum, yum, I thought. Emi nearly killed Barkman at the Wild Swan pub when he tried to throw her out. Emilia told me she’d saved his life for me, because she saw how attracted I was to him. She looked at me and said she knew what it was like to have feelings for someone but only from a distance.

Barkman wore his fawn colored hair a little longish, a little below his ears and swept back from his forehead like a super hero movie star. Barkman looked like he’d recently completed a set of reps. He was soaked with sweat and his muscles throbbed through his clingy t-shirt. He dropped his weights because his cell chimed like an impatient stove alarm.  I heard it from the lane. He grabbed a towel, wiped down his glistening muscles and took the call. After a moment on his cell, he looked very angry.

Emi tried to squeeze me out of the picture to get a better look, but I pushed back. The banging and clanging from the weights caused so much noise it was difficult to hear, and the noise from the overhead TVs made it impossible to know what Barkman said into his cell. “What do you see in that guy?” Emi asked me.

“Oh-my-gracious gorgeous George.” What could I say? If Emi wasn’t feeling it, I was feeling enough of it for the two of us.

“Wipe your chin with that weird scarf you’re wearing. You're drooling,” she said, then ducked back down and pulled me down beside her.

Then Emilia did something no female has ever done to me before, well, except maybe my mom, she gave me a gentle enough slap on the face to snap me out of my swoon for Barkman.

“Hey!” I said, really annoyed, but it worked, Barkman’s image went right out of my head.

“Check the address Maisie gave us. Make sure we got the right place and the right guy.”

“Again?” I looked at her cross eyed.  I’d already checked a half dozen times.  Geeez, there are only two gyms in town.

“Just do it,” she snapped.  If I didn’t know better, I’d think Emi was a little jealous, maybe a lot jealous; anyway, she had her game face on so I complied with her request. I’d never seen Emilia like this. Usually she’s pretty laid back about everything. I pulled out my cell phone and did a quick search to once again show Emi we had the right place.

“...6667 Dingle Lane.”

Emi double checked the address on the side of the building. She nodded. “Maisie said Devon would be making a delivery to Barkman here.” What I didn’t tell Emi was that I was the one that had decided we’d come out here to the gym, not Maisie.  Emi was in the dark about that and for all she knew, Maisie thought I was at Koldwell learning the new job she’d assigned.  William had informed me about the gym and the delivery that was supposed to happen, not Maisie.

“Well, while we wait. I’m going to feast my eyes,” I said. But Emi got to the window first and blocked me from getting my eye full.  “He’s still on his phone, pacing, brows furrowed. He’s clearly angry about something,” she reported to me.

“Let me have a turn!”

Then we both heard the angry Barkman, right through the walls. “How the eff did she get in there?”

We wondered who he could possibly mean and what the heck he was talking about?

Meanwhile, as I watched the Mr. Fabio look alike yell into his phone, I knew that my best friend forever, Glendie Pin, a tiny, pretty, dark haired woman, hurried down the main street toward Koldwell bank, her place of employment. I’d asked her to check out Voodoo Tattoo’s on her way back from her coffee break.

She told me later, in great detail, what went down at the tattoo parlor. That’s one of the things we love about each other, the amount of detail each can soak up from the other about anything. Today she was dressed in the same banker's outfit as me with an added diamond, sunburst brooch on her jacket lapel, but while I was at the gym pretending to do spy work for Maisie, she was coming back from her coffee break.

Glendie told me that she noticed the ‘OPEN’ light was on at the Voodoo Tattoos ink shop. This was a big deal because that light was never on, which means that Tattoo shop never opened, which meant it was probably not a legit business. That can only mean one thing, someone must be laundering money. Glendie and I loved our conspiracy theory. It worked for us and there was probably some truth to it, at least that’s what Glendie and I thought. What I hadn’t told Glendie was that William had something to do with the light being on that afternoon. She checked her watch because her coffee break was about to terminate, but instead of heading straight back to work…

*

…Glendie rubbed a spot on the filthy window of the tattoo shop and peeked through the little portal she created, but the shop was dark and gloomy with no one inside and yet the neon red and purple sign in the window was lit, so Glendie pushed her way in.

Even though Voodoo Tattoos was grungy and dim and dark with every corner filled with exotic items, like shark tooth fossils! A table held books full of tattoo designs and chairs and equipment, no one seemed to be in the place.  The shop visibly brightened of course when Glendie, the sunshine girl, stepped into it. Everything took on a little brighter aura of radiant energy in her presence.

With no shopkeeper inside, Glendie took a quick look around. “You hooo, I want to be tattoooooed.” She found the place spooky, but she really wanted that tattoo, or at least a consultation.

She called throughout the shop several times but no one answered, and she was very disappointed for two reasons.  The first; this was the first time the shop had opened and she was hoping that at the very least she’d be able to make an appointment, perhaps look at a few designs from a book. The second disappointment; well, that would come a little bit later for her.

She hadn’t noticed the security camera tucked up in the corner of the ceiling, watching her, not that it would have mattered because Glendie was honest.

When she checked her watch again she panicked and made a hasty exit from the tattoo parlor. And sadly, she didn’t notice her sunburst diamond brooch drop from her lapel as she left. If only she’d looked down for a moment, she might have seen that her brooch glowed oh, so brightly on the old stained wooden floor. The pin looked like a tiny light bulb, signaling to her that she was leaving it behind.

Glendie walked out of the shop without it.

Emilia and I were still at Hercules making fools of ourselves over the ridiculously handsome Barkman. “He’s got to be from Maisie’s crazy cursed tarot deck,” I said to Emi.

“Which card major do you think he is?” she asked.

“My guess is Strength”

“He hasn’t done anything magical,” she said.

And she was right. So far the gorgeous Barkman hadn’t done anything to give himself away as anything but a big brawny guy.

Then just as we were about to flip a coin to see who got to go in and talk to him, Devon Raker, suspicious-looking under the hood of his hoodie, rode up to the back of the gym on an old bicycle.

He didn’t see. He carried a rather large box strapped to his rat trap; when he got off the bike, he spent a moment untying the.  

We were beside ourselves with delight. William said Devon would be delivering a special package. Emi, of course, thought we were under Maisie’s orders. For once I got it right.

Devon entered the gym through the back door. We had an excellent view of him. I stood on tippy toe to peer through the window. I wanted to see exactly what Devon did with that box.

From our point of view we could read the stamp on the large package.  It said VOODOO TATTOOS. I thought that was odd that a box marked for the tattoo shop arrived? Devon handed it over to Barkman, who took a quick look inside and gave Devon the thumbs up.

I turned back to Emilia and give her a "what's-up" look.

“I know that place. I'm going to the tattoo shop,” Emi said and would have walked away, but I grabbed her by the hand.

“Wait. What gives? What’s the rush to get there?  I mean, if you’re going, well, then, me too.” I said, and hoped I sounded supportive.

“I'm going to pretend I want a tattoo. I'll tell them there's a design at Maisie's shop -- on the wall of her shop that I want tattooed on my butt. I'll see if I can get Barkman to go there and look at it.”

“What? Get Barkman to look at your butt??”  I laughed so loudly I had to cover my mouth with my hand. “Oh, yeah, that's gonna work.”

Emilia looked frustrated. “Okay. I'm all ears. Give me your better idea.”

“First of all we don’t know what Maisie wants with this guy or this box,” I said, still pretending we were on a Maisie mission.  “And for sure she doesn’t want you getting a tattoo from Barkman. She’s probably saved that little job for me.”  I was joking, but thought I might mention that possibility to Maisie once I got back. Barkman could tattoo my butt anytime! “The best way to get to a guy like that is – a partay.”

“Partay?”

“Guys like Barkman like a good party.”

I’m not sure why Emilia thought it was important to go to Barkman and get a tattoo, but maybe she batted for both teams, after all, if the goods were good-looking enough maybe anything goes, but I suspected that wasn’t the case here. Emilia knew something about this situation that she wasn’t sharing and I figured I’d never get it out of her. My guess was that Emi had already informed Maisie of our whereabouts and had given Emi a little task that I didn’t know about. Something was up and probably only Maisie, and possibly Emilia, knew the truth.