Natural Evil (Elder Races #4.5)(11)

“Not really,” said the woman. “They have a spark of Power but they’re not spelled, and they’re not harmful.”

Claudia raised her eyebrows. “How did you know they wanted to come to me?”

“They pulled toward you. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“And just what exactly do you think I’m supposed to do about it?”

“I don’t know. Whatever you would normally choose to do.” The woman started walking backwards, talking as she went. “I’m sorry to shove them at you and run, but I’m late to meet my fiancé. I guess if you need money, they should be worth a fair amount if you take them to the Magic District. I paid several thousand dollars for that deck over ten years ago… Oh, I really have to go—good luck to you.”

Disturbed and intrigued, Claudia had gone to the Magic District to get the box and its contents appraised. Two different magic users confirmed what the woman had said, that while the antique deck had a spark of Power, it wasn’t dangerous. It was also quite valuable and would be worth between eight and ten thousand dollars at auction. The third person told her the deck was dangerous and offered to take it off her hands for fifty bucks. Yeah right.

She decided to keep the deck. Despite its value, its previous owner had been willing to give it to a total stranger in order to honor the Power that was soaked into the cards. She supposed she could hang on to it for a while to see what happened. She could always sell it later.

Since then she had fallen into the habit of playing with the deck whenever she was idle. Shuffling and reshuffling the cards gave her hands something to do while she thought. Once or twice she had tried setting out one of the card spreads from the paperback, but she didn’t have the learning or aptitude for reading a card spread.

She knew some general things from what the book described. The cards on the left were positive, and the cards on the right were negative. Some cards indicated the future, and some indicated the present or past. But the significance of the specific cards and their relationship to each other was beyond her, and she frankly had no interest in trying to learn more.

But then she discovered a curious thing. The seven Major Arcana, which depicted the seven Elder gods, turned up every time she laid the cards out in a basic spread: Taliesin, the god of the Dance; Azrael, the god of Death; Inanna, the goddess of Love; Nadir, the goddess of the depths or the Oracle; Will, the god of the Gift; Camael, the goddess of the Hearth; and Hyperion, the god of Law. The seven Primal Powers, the Elder Races considered them the linchpins in the universe.

They also showed up when she shuffled the deck and turned the first seven cards over. So she shuffled them again. And then again. And they still showed up.

Not once, or even most of the time.

Every. Fricking. Time.

The book didn’t have a section on this occurrence. She searched online, and eventually found one posting in an obscure forum. Someone had claimed to have turned up all seven of the Major Arcana in a spread and had asked for advice. The discussion had been long, excited and involved, and filled with speculation, but in essence there was only one consensus: the spread indicated an upcoming period of time that would be filled with life-altering significance.

Like that was helpful.

Over the last couple of months, Claudia had developed an obsessive habit of shuffling and flipping over the first seven cards. The only thing that changed was the order in which the seven gods appeared.

Shuffle, flip.

She could probably develop a grift around it, make some money off some poor slob in a bar somewhere. Maybe she should consult with an experienced Tarot reader. For fifty bucks, they would probably tell her that turning up the seven Major Arcana had “life-altering significance”.

Shuffle, flip.

Life altering, like maybe saving a Wyr’s life. One who had been tortured and left for dead. What had been done to him really had been dumb and mean.

Shuffle, flip.

And it wasn’t just one dumb, mean bastard who had done it. Claudia might not have talked much while Jackson had ministered to Luis, but she had clocked the two different-caliber bullets the vet had cut out of him, and both were from rifles. She palmed them and afterward, when she and Jackson had been washing up, she had rinsed the bullets off and slipped them into her pocket.

So there were at least two bastards involved. And like she said earlier, Luis was a big son of a bitch. One big Wyr would be more than a match for Bradshaw Junior and his dumb, mean friends, unless they shot him first.

Shuffle, flip.

So that’s what they did. They shot him first and brought him down. Then they could have tapped him in the back of the head with another well-placed shot, but they hadn’t.

The rest of what they did to him had been for fun.

And Rodriguez knew he was here.

She kept circling back to Rodriguez. Brutal as it sounded, the simple truth was that he would have no need to clean up a mess if it had just been a dog that had been tortured, because a mundane dog couldn’t talk.

No, Rodriguez had to have gotten involved because they knew Luis was Wyr. If Luis survived, he could talk.

And for some reason, it mattered to them that he didn’t.

Chapter Four

The Dance

Even as that last thought went through her mind, she was on her feet and moving out of the trailer, tucking the Glock at the small of her back. She covered her mouth and nose against the blast of sand outside as she strode across the small backyard.