Velveteen (10 page)

“Yeah,” Velvet grumbled in response as she took a seat, then launched into the prepared speech. “I’ve come because I lost my brother recently. A horrible—”

“Had he been sick a long time?” the woman asked, interrupting, brow furrowed in concern.

Velvet recovered from the invasion into her memorized speech. Poorly. “Car crash. Car. A car. I was going to say ‘car crash.’ There was a crash.”

“Oh, my,” Madame Despot said, tilting her body awkwardly and fumbling for something under the table. “That is terrible.” She retrieved an intricately carved wooden box, set it gently to her left, and dusted the top carefully.

It
was
turrible. Or would have been
, Velvet thought.
Had it been true
.

She was, at that moment, completely mesmerized by the fortune-teller’s actions, waiting for the magic to reveal itself. Velvet had already dismissed the idea that a spell was at play; there simply weren’t any signs. No smudges marring the air, no glowing auras blistering from Madame Despot’s
hands like gunpowder residue. No. The shadowquakes were the result of something much more foul, anyway, and Velvet wondered if the magic would reveal itself from inside the box. Would the woman put the power of an imprisoned soul into play so soon? With the door still locked and everything? She chewed at the nurse’s lip.

Madame Despot drew a wood match from a porcelain dish and sparked it to life at the end of her cigar. “And you want to know that he’s okay? In the afterworld, I mean.” She lit a squat crimson candle—the flame’s reflection danced on the lenses of her sunglasses—and waited.

“Um … yeah,” Velvet managed. “You think you can help?”

The woman said nothing, just continued to stare, or, Velvet supposed, she could have been taking a nap, for all Velvet would be able to tell with the fortune-teller’s eyes hidden like that. She’d dismissed the possibility that the fortune-teller was blind. That would have been another matter entirely. Blind seers were nearly always authentic, at least in her experience, and wouldn’t need a captured soul or something to prestidigitate. Their magic was pure. For the most part, it didn’t send waves of hate into purgatory.

Meaning either of two things.

One, Manny’s visions had been skewed and Velvet’s team was barking up the wrong tree, and the epicenter of the most recent shadowquake was actually someplace else, somewhere hidden. Or two, this woman was a serious threat and could easily banish Velvet, Quentin, Luisa, Logan, and the yet to appear fifty-seventh soul with no more effort than you’d use to swat a fly.

So not cool.

Velvet shook off the discouraging thoughts—their intel couldn’t have been that far off. Manny was very precise. And besides, if the fortune-teller was a real threat, she wouldn’t need Velvet’s fifty-seventh soul. Velvet glanced at the box.
Is it a cell?
she wondered.
Is this where Madame Despot keeps her magic?

The woman unlatched the lid and opened it, creaking back the rusty hinges (more cheap effect). She reached inside and retrieved a package wrapped in a floral scarf and set it on the table. The scarf was knotted, and Madame Despot proceeded to loosen it and spread the silky fabric out like a tablecloth.

Inside was a deck of cards.

Tricky, Velvet thought. The woman was holding back. A soul couldn’t be trapped inside a card. A proper cell required a hollow, a talisman, or a juju bag, something fit for a soul. Tight with magic.

“Um.” Velvet held up one of the nurse’s fingers. “Tarot cards?”

Madame Despot’s hands stopped midshuffle. “Would you prefer something else?” Her words went from casually comforting to crisp and short. “My tarot are
very
accurate, dear.”

“Something different, I mean,” Velvet said. She had to tread lightly here. If Madame Despot did in fact possess a soul, then she’d be suspicious of anyone who might request that she use it. She thought quickly and responded, “I don’t really believe in tarot.”

The fortune-teller guffawed. “Don’t believe in it! Why, it’s the cornerstone of modern divination, and has been proven
reliable by lesser readers than yours truly.” She stopped and glowered across the top of her glasses; a glimmer played in the whites of her eyes. One that Velvet hoped was a reflection of the candlelight and not the other thing.

It couldn’t be.

Velvet quickly shook off the possibility that she’d seen another of her kind staring out from behind the woman’s eyes. It just didn’t make sense. Plus, they’d have known before now.
Wouldn’t they?
Manny would have sensed the presence of a possession at play in this shadowquake, surely.

The woman huffed and then wrapped up the deck quickly and set it and the box aside. She swiveled around and began to reach her short stubby fingers toward a porcelain cup with rose vines wound about it like chain link.

Tea leaves?

Velvet felt the irritability creeping through her nerves and stopped short of blurting out,
“Where the hell do you have the soul, witch?”
She opted, rather, for the ultimately more subdued. “Uh. Do you have anything more dramatic? Something … showy? I have money, you know. I’d like a little entertainment—”

Madame Despot spun on Velvet, her sunglasses reflecting the nurse’s grizzled face.

Velvet wished she could eat her words back out of the air, but no such luck.

“Entertainment?” the woman spat. “I thought you were interested in making contact with your brother, were concerned about his welfare.”

“Oh, I am,” Velvet backpedaled. “I just—”

“Well, if it’s entertainment you want, it’ll cost you.” The fortune-teller slammed her hand down on the table, bringing her face so close to the nurse’s that Velvet could barely breathe from the cloud of cigar smoke billowing from the woman’s mouth like a chimney. “And I don’t have a credit card machine.”

“I have cash,” Velvet lied quickly. “Plenty.”

“You’d better.” Madame Despot tore the cigar from between her lips and tamped it out in the match bowl, sparking a few to life in the process and leaving them to flare and flicker. She launched from her seat and disappeared behind a thick curtain. Her grumbling muffled but audible, she banged around in the hidden room.

Velvet, not seeing even a hair of either Luisa’s or Logan’s lousy head, took the opportunity to scramble for the locked door. She jerked around to make sure the woman was still midsearch before slipping into the vestibule. Then she slid open the bolts slowly, one by one, wishing she had some oil to stop the tiny squeaks that crept out—sounding way louder than they actually were, she hoped. The next to last one screeched like an owl. Velvet cringed and had to force a quick cough to cover up the racket.

“It’s here somewhere!” Madame Despot called out. “Just be a second.”

Velvet straightened and waited for a sign that the woman had continued her search. Clang and clatter echoed through the space, and the woman cursed and spat in response. Velvet went back to work on the door, unlocking the last bolt before rushing back through the hall and into the room.

She’d nearly made it to her chair when Madame Despot whipped the curtain open with a grinding hiss from the bronze rings holding it to the rod.

Velvet froze midstep.

“Oh. Were you leaving?” the woman asked, her mouth crimping into a tight line.

“Nah—no. Nope. Of course not.”

“Thought you might skip out before I’d issued your bill? Make a run for it? Dine and dash?” Madame Despot’s lips had completely disappeared by this point.

“I’m not sure how that last one is appropriate, since you haven’t offered any food. And you haven’t given me a reading, yet, so …”

A grin flickered on the woman’s lips.

Velvet continued, “But no. I was just admiring …” Her eyes scanned the bookcase by the front hall, eyes lighting on a ratty-looking stuffed crow. “Your lovely taxidermy.”

“Oh?” The fortune-teller wasn’t convinced.

“Um … yes. I love stuffed animals, and this is a particularly nice crow specimen.”

Madame Despot tilted her head to the side, glancing in the direction of the bird, her shoulders loosening along with her suspicion. “It’s a raven.”

“Well, then, it’s a fantastic piece. Where on earth did you get it?”

“Oh, dear, I don’t know. Target, probably. You want this reading or not?” She pointed toward the empty chair, disappeared behind the curtain briefly, and then reappeared carrying a crystal ball on a footed stand.

Velvet inadvertently caused the nurse’s abdomen to tighten.

A cell
.

The
actual
cause of the shadowquakes. Killing a person wasn’t nearly enough to create such a disturbance. The real evil was in the spell that imprisoned a soul inside the crystal ball. It had to be shattered to stop the destruction in purgatory.

Velvet sat back down in her chair, eyes never leaving the cloudy depths of the glass orb. “Yes,” Velvet said, trying to contain her desire to leap over the table and snatch the ball immediately. “Very much.”

“What was your brother’s name?” Madame Despot asked.

“Spencer. Spencer Pratt.” She took the name from a television show she hadn’t thought of in years. If she recalled, Spencer was a bit of a douche. Much like her real brothers, only, to be fair, much older and worse.

“Spencer Pratt,” the woman repeated. “And your name?”

She almost responded “Heidi,” then thought it might be a jinx and recalled the nurse’s actual name. “Antoinette.”

“Of course.” She pointed at Velvet’s chest. “Silly me; it says so right on your badge. I’m going to call for your brother now, see if he’ll come in search of your essence.”

That’ll make two of us
, Velvet thought, and glanced toward an antique mirror, dark and smoky where it met the ornate frame that held it. Sticking straight out of the center was Grover, fresh from Sesame Street and nodding wildly. The costume, the one Logan had been wearing the Halloween night when he’d died, never failed to surprise her when it
popped up, wild eyed and tongue protruding from the fuzzy blue mask’s wide mouth. She thanked God she hadn’t been wearing her ratty bunny slippers the day she’d died, or she’d be stuck in them every time she crossed into the daylight. Why wearing slippers to school was ever a fashion trend would remain a mystery—an eternity of
cute
was enough to send chills spiking through her, right to the bone, or whatever it was that kept her frame up these days, so hard to tell. But Logan didn’t seem to mind his costume. He was like that, good-natured, easy. Until it was time to fight. Then watch out.

Their eyes met, and Velvet motioned with a nod of her head toward the crystal ball. Grover nodded and ducked back inside the mirror, presumably to collect Luisa and get ready for the attack.

Madame Despot caged the ball between her stubby fingers, running the tips over the glass and moaning annoyingly. “Spencer Pratt!” she bellowed.

Velvet rolled her eyes.

Logan must have alerted Luisa and they’d met up with Quentin, because the next thing Velvet knew, amid Madame Despot’s loud orchestrations and ball rubbing, Velvet heard the soft click of the front door latch and the sloshy footsteps of what could only be the bare rotten feet of a corpse.

And if she could hear him, it wouldn’t be long before Madame Despot would.

Velvet forced out a violent cough and joined the fortune-teller in yelling, “Spencer!”

Madame Despot’s eyes snapped open and glowered. “Please! Let me do my job.”

Velvet made like she was locking her lips closed with a key, and the woman went back to her show. It didn’t matter what kind of drama she employed; the soul inside the cell would be implored to respond no matter what. Even now, the cloudy imperfections in the glass turned inky and swirled inside.

Luisa appeared through the curtain hiding the back of the shop and waited.

So did Velvet. She sensed Quentin’s readiness to her left, and after Logan appeared in the mirror again, Velvet nodded to each of them to begin.

Luisa and Logan disappeared and immediately began making a racket in the back room. Pots and pans clanged, chains rattled—it was amazing how those two always managed to find kitchen stuff to bang together, not to mention chains.

Where do you even find chains when you’re alive?

Velvet expected Madame Despot to scream, to jump from her chair on cue and spin toward the clatter.

But she didn’t. She did turn her head a bit, glancing suspiciously in the direction of the curtain.

Seeing the smallest opportunity, Velvet dove across the table for the glass ball, and so did the fortune-teller, her hands twisting into gnarled claws, her face recast into a tortured grimace. Velvet looped her finger around one of the stand’s knobby feet and pulled the base out from under the orb. Madame Despot’s hands slammed against the bare
table, and both watched as the orb rolled across the tablecloth toward the edge.

“Nooooo!” the fortune-teller cried.

“Yesss!” Velvet hissed, hoping that the thing would just shatter when it hit the floor.

But by some trick of fate—and frankly the fates hadn’t been so kind as of late—instead of busting into a thousand pieces, the crystal ball bounced off the soft fringe of the Oriental carpet beneath them and rolled across the maple floors toward the entry hall. Madame Despot dropped to her hands and knees and scrambled after it. Velvet launched herself from her chair, sending it crashing somewhere behind her as she cursed herself for picking such a slow body for a job as important as this one.

“My cell!” the woman yelled. She tore at the floor with loud scrapes of her nails as she scuttled toward their rolling target. If the fortune-teller could have acted guiltier in that moment, Velvet was pretty sure she would have won an award.

Velvet darted up next to the woman and felt a thick arm slam into her shins, clothesline style. She lost control, and the nurse’s body dropped forward onto knees that screamed with pain as they banged against the solid surface.

“Oh, crap.” Velvet winced. That was definitely going to leave a pair of bruises.

The fortune-teller swiped at the ball, nearly grasping it, but her fingertips clipped it and sent it rolling off toward the door. “Dammit!” she shouted, and sprang up from the floor, sneering at what she saw waiting for her in the hall.