She was also helping me cope with my abilities. She was the only psychic I knew, and trusted. She knew the shapeshifters almost as well as I did, in some ways better, in some ways not. But she was the closest thing I had to a mentor of late, and I needed one.
"Marianne, it's great to hear your voice. What's up?" My voice sounded breathy even to me.
"I just got this overwhelming urge to call you. What's wrong?"
See, she's psychic. I wanted to explain everything, but Nathaniel was behind me in the car. What was I supposed to do, make him put his fingers in his ears and hum while I talked? "It's a little awkward right now."
"Should I guess?"
"If you want."
She was quiet for a few moments, and she wasn't guessing. She was using either her own gifted intuition, or she was drawing a card, a tarot card that is. "I'm looking at the Knight of Cups here, that's usually Nathaniel's card." I'd been skeptical, to say the least, when Marianne first got out a deck of cards to do a "reading," but they were eerily accurate, at least in her hands. When she'd first started, Nathaniel's card had been the Page of Cups, a child's card, or a least a very young person, but of late he'd been promoted. Knight of Cups.
"Yeah, that's it."
Silence, and I knew she was laying a spread. She'd actually tried to get me to use the cards, to see if I had any abilities for divination, but they were just pretty pictures to me. My gifts lay elsewhere.
"King of Wands, Micah is with you, too." It wasn't a question.
"Yes." I could picture her with her long gray hair tied back in a no-nonsense ponytail, probably in one of her loose, flowing gowns, sitting cross-legged on the bed, which is where she'd have been this late. She was slender and strong, and her body didn't match her hair, or the fact that she was closer to sixty than fifty.
"The devil, temptation. You haven't fed the ardeur yet, have you?"
It used to creep me out that she could do this, but I'd gotten used to it. It was just something Marianne could do. She didn't hold it against me that I raised zombies, and I didn't hold it against her that she could tell what was happening hundreds of miles away. In fact, sometimes, like now, it came in handy.
"Not yet."
"The Priestess, you have a question for me."
"Yes."
"You're not doing something silly like trying to choose between Micah and Nathaniel, are you?"
"Thanks a lot."
"You can't blame me, Anita, you do tend to complicate your life."
I sighed. "Fine, true, but sort of, and not exactly."
"Fine, be cryptic."
"Not in the way you might mean," I said finally.
"So not dumping one for the other," she said.
"No."
"Well, that's good." She was quiet for longer this time. "I'll stop guessing. I've laid a reading." She preferred to do a reading without knowing anything about the problem. Marianne felt that if you talked to much you influenced the person doing the reading.
"I put you in the center, Queen of Swords. The past is the five of pentagrams, being left out in the cold, not getting your needs met. Deity is the six of cups, which can be someone from your past coming back into your life, someone you felt a strong connection with. Future is the Knight of Cups, Nathaniel's card. The mundane is the four of pentacles, the Miser, holding on to things that no longer help your life run smoothly. Now we'll do the connecting cards." She was quiet for a second or two, while she thought, or prayed, or whatever she did to make the cards talk to her. I understood everything but the six of cups so far. "Connecting the mundane to the past is the Lover's card. Something happened in your love life that made you be afraid of being hurt, or giving up something, or someone. Connecting the past to deity is the King of Wands, usually Micah's card, but it could be energy, a male presence in your life. Connecting deity to the future is the two of swords; you have a choice to make, and you think it's difficult, but if you take off the blindfold, you can see, and you have what you need to do it. Connecting the future to the mundane is the Knight of Wands, another man in your life. You do draw a lot of male energy to you."
"Not on purpose," I said.
"Hush, I'm not finished."
"Overlaying the Miser is the six of swords, help unseen, or help from a spiritual source. Overlaying the Lovers is the four of rods, the marriage card. Overlaying the out in the cold is the ten of pentacles, happy prosperous home. Hmm. The King of Rods and the six of cups stand on their own, but the two of swords has crossed with the Queen of Wands. Nathaniel's card is crossed with the ten of cups, a happy home, true love. The Knight of Wands is crossed by the Devil, temptation."
"Okay, I get most of it, but who is the Knight of Wands, and why is he covered by temptation? And who is the Queen of Wands?"
"I think the Queen of Wands is you."
"I'm always the Queen of Swords."
"Maybe that's changing. Maybe you're coming into your power, into yourself."
"I'm already myself," I said.
"Have it your way."
"I'm trying to."
"I'd say the Lovers and the four of rods are your old fiancé in college that dumped you. That experience led you to be the Miser with your emotions. You need to let that go. Your home was the five of pentacles, cold, but now it's a happy prosperous home. You're going to be offered up some difficult choices soon; that has something to do with someone from your past. I think Micah's card is the message that he's helped you heal some of those old wounds, because he bridges the past with deity."
"He's a gift from deity?"
"Don't be cheeky. When the universe, or God, or Goddess, or whatever you choose to say, gives you someone in your life that comes in and makes so much right, so quickly, be grateful. Be grateful instead of picking at it." Marianne knew me too well.
"And the Knight of Wands?"
"Someone new, or someone old, but you'll be seeing them in a new light. It will be a temptation, but the wands represent power, so it could be a temptation to use power or gain power, rather than anything relationshipwise."
"I don't need more temptation in my life, Marianne."
"Did you start a case tonight?"
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I felt compelled to draw another card. It's the eight of swords, a woman bound and blindfolded, surrounded by swords. A woman died tonight."
I try to avoid calling Marianne in the middle of a murder case, for a lot of reasons, this was one of them. It creeped me out, and gave her nightmares.
"Five of rods, there will be a lot of conflict on this one, and more to die. But the Justice card says the guilty will be punished, and it will work out, but not without loss. The eight of pentacles? That's odd. Someone will be involved that was once your teacher. Someone older. Do you know who that would be?"
I thought about it being Dolph, but that didn't sound right. "I don't know, maybe."
"They haven't come into the situation, yet, but they will. They will help you."
"How sure are you that there will be more killings?"
"Aren't you sure of it?" she asked, and she had that tone in her voice that said she was listening to voices I couldn't hear.
"Yeah, I got that feeling."
"Trust your feelings, Anita."
"I'll try," I said.
"You must be almost home by now."
I didn't ask how she knew we were turning into the driveway. She wouldn't really have been able to tell me. Psychic stuff wasn't big on A, B, C logic. It was more like A to G, leaps of logic, with no road map as to how we got to G.
"Yeah, we're home."