J. Ward: Possession

“ Bloond , huh,” she whispered.

“ Bloond ,” the stylist said. “ And ve’re lawyer up, tou. Ze changing vroom iz trough vere .”

Cait looked over her shoulder. Trough vere was a little hallway that had four doors opening off of it. She didn’t suppose which one you chose mattered. But not all decisions had such lack of consequences.

“All right,” she heard herself say.

Getting to her feet, she squeaked her way across the shiny floor and felt as though she were walking on water—but not like Jesus did. This was not a miracle; this was a mortal woman feeling unsteady on an otherwise stable floor.

But she wasn’t going to pull out. The recent tragedy that had struck the community in so many ways had woken her up on an even deeper level, and she wasn’t going to waste time with any lack-of-courage bullcrap. She was alive, and that was a gift.

After a moment’s hesitation, she went through the first door on the right.

As Duke Phillips strode down the sidewalk, people got out of his way, even though this was a rough part of Caldie after dark. Probably had something to do with his size, which was a bene he leveraged in both his jobs: big and muscular. Maybe it was his temperament, too: In violation of the New York State code of avoidance, he met the other schmoes right in the eye, ready for anything.

Hell, even looking for something.

The full-on stare routine was a favor rarely returned. Most of the men, whether they were gang members, drug dealers, or partiers heading for the clubs, followed the rules, their peepers shifting away from him and staying gone.

Too bad. He liked fights.

As for the women? He didn’t pay attention to them—although that was because he didn’t want to fend off the inevitable “hey, daddys,” not because they were a threat to him.

God knew females couldn’t touch him on any level except physical, and he wasn’t interested in sex at the moment.

What he was in search of was a purple door. An ugly-ass, stupidly painted purple door with a billboard-size handprint on it. And what do you know, about fifty yards later, the entrance he was looking for presented itself on the right. As he gripped the black handle, he wanted to snap the thing off, and the red neon outline of the word Psychic made him curse.

On so many levels, he couldn’t believe he was coming here. Again. It just didn’t—

A sudden fluttering in his chest made him wonder if he’d gone into atrial fib from annoyance—but it was just his phone on vibrate. Taking the thing out, he recognized the number.

“You need me?” he clipped, because he hated wasting time with any kind of “Hello, how are you, hasn’t the weather been good/bad/rainy/snowy lately” shit.

Alex Hess’s voice was deep for a woman, her words as direct as a man’s. “Yeah, can you pick up an extra shift for me tonight?”

His boss was probably the only female he respected—then again, it was hard not to take seriously someone who’d snapped a grown man’s tibia in front of you: As head of security for the Iron Mask, she didn’t appreciate dealers on her turf, especially ones with short-term amnesia who she’d already warned not to sell in her club. You had one shot with Alex. After that? You were lucky if the damage was merely cosmetic and/or cast-related.

He checked his old watch. “I can be over in about forty-five, but I’ve got to be somewhere at ten tonight—that’ll only take a half hour, though.”

“Good deal, I appreciate it.”

“No problem.” Duke hung up, and faced off at the purple door again.

Compelled by a force that he had long detested and never understood, he threw the thing open, the old wood panels ricocheting off the wall. As he caught the thing in his fist on the rebound, he looked up the flight of stairs that double-backed on itself for five stories. He’d been coming here for how long?

Such bullshit.

And yet his heavy boots carried him up two steps at a time, his thigh muscles grabbing onto his leg bones, his hard hand gripping the iron railing like it was a throat, his body coiling for a fight.

When he got to the top, the sign on the door read, PLEASE HAVE A SEAT AND WAIT TO BE GREETED. Like it was a shrink’s office or something.

He didn’t follow the directions, but paced back and forth on the cramped landing. The two chairs available for asses were mismatched and painted in a psychedelic array of bright-and-rainbow. The air smelled of the incense that was burned inside. And under his boots, a Tibetan rug was threadbare, but not because it had been made cheaply.

He hated waiting on a good day. Despised it in this context—frankly, he didn’t know why the hell he kept coming back. It was like some unseen steel chain was linked around his chest and pulling him to this place. God knew he thought this was a waste of time, but he kept showing up—

“I’ve been waiting for you,” came a female voice on the far side of the closed door.

She always did that. The woman always knew when he’d made an appearance—and it wasn’t like she had video monitoring equipment mounted on the ceiling.

Then again, his pacing probably wasn’t silent. Not with all the muttering, at any rate.

The knob on the door was old and brass, its face polished by the countless palms that had twisted it over time. Watching it turn, a warped sense of unreality crept into his body and laid claim to his mind. As the woman in draped robing revealed herself, he was the one who looked down and avoided confrontation.

“Come in,” she said in a low voice.

Damn it, he hated this; he truly did.

As he stepped inside, a clock began to chime … eight times. In his ears, it sounded like a scream.

“You need to be cleansed. Your aura is black.”

Duke shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and flexed his shoulders. “How’s that different than normal.”

“It isn’t.”

Exactly. Shit, for all he knew, she was making things worse instead of better, cursing him instead of healing him.

“Sit, sit, sit…”

He glanced over at the round table with its central-casting crystal ball, and Tarot card deck, and white candles. Just like the heavily draped psychic herself, tapestries hung from the workspace to the floor, pooling in a swirl of every color imaginable. There were two chairs, one large enough to be considered a throne, the other more pedestrian, the sort of thing you could find at Office Depot.

He just wanted to leave.

He sat down instead.

Six … seven…

Eight.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, Jim Heron waited to see if the grandfather clock on the landing had anything else to say. When all he got was an earful of silence, he took a draw on his Marlboro. He hated that goddamn timekeeper—the tone of it, the incessant gonging, and most especially the fact that from time to time, it let out a count of thirteen.

Not that he was superstitious.

Nah.

Okay, maybe just a little. Then again, events had recently shaken him out of his belief that reality was a single dimension based on what you could see, hear, and touch: Courtesy of accepting the position of savior of the friggin’ world, he’d learned that the devil in fact existed—and liked Louboutins over Blahniks, long walks on the beach, and sex doggy style. He’d also met some angels, become one himself, and been to a version of Heaven that appeared to be based on Downton Abbey .

So yeah, clocks that didn’t need to be wound, weren’t plugged into an outlet, and couldn’t count right? Not funny.

Taking a drag on his cigarette, he tilted his head back and blew out a steady stream. As the smoke rose, he looked around at his digs. Faded Victorian wallpaper. Ceiling with a stain in the corner. Leaded-glass windows in old sashes that were painted shut. Bed the size of a football field with a Gothic headboard that made him think of Vincent Price movies.