The kids were glancing at each other, like they didn’t know what to make of it, either. But Fred looked hopeful. And then he started moving his creation up and down, so that the tortured appendages hanging off either side flopped about in a dying-bird sort of way. One of the littlest girls made a sound and hid her face.
“Fred,” I began, trying to figure out how to say please stop without hurting his feelings.
And then one of the guys solved the problem for me. “What the fu—uh, heck?”
“Leo,” Roy said, frowning at him from beside the bar.
“What? I said heck. And look at that thing.”
“What is it?” another guy asked. “A spider?”
“A bat, obviously,” Fred said. And flapped it about some more, on the theory, I assume, that he just hadn’t been vigorous enough the first time.
“Freakiest thing I ever saw,” the vamp mumbled.
“Freakiest?” Roy dropped ice into a glass. “You haven’t been here long enough.”
“Then why does it feel that way?”
“I have more,” Fred said, finally realizing that his distraction was not a hit. “A lot more. I used to make these all the time—well, the pig bladder kind—”
“But were any of them any good?” Leo asked.
Fred stopped to glare at him, while Roy assessed his latest attempt. “What is that?”
“It’s a clown!”
“Oh, demonic clown. Great choice.”
The little girl started sobbing softly.
“Hang on a minute,” I said, rooting through a side table and pulling out a pack of battered old tarot cards.
They were grubby and creased and kind of pathetic-looking, and I should have replaced them years ago. But they’d been a gift from someone I cared about, so I just never had. Plus, they had a charm on them I thought the girls might like. It had proven oddly accurate at reading the atmosphere around a situation and giving advice in the form of a pertinent card.
And sure enough, practically as soon as I touched them, one popped up.
A black one.
A black one with a leering devil on it.
Well, shit.
I tried to stuff it back in the pack before it made a bad matter worse, but it was slick and my hands were fumbling and it got a good start on its speech first: The devil card signifies that the querent feels stuck or restricted in life, bound like the figures in chains on the card’s surface. But while these bonds may seem unbreakable, a closer look shows that the chains are in fact quite loose, and that the querent therefore has it in his power to slip free of them whenever he chooses. The people on the card are not bound by real chains, but by fear, lack of hope, and lack of belief in their own abilities. The devil card teaches that, as long as you are willing to allow others to exploit and restrain you, they can and will. But no one has power over you unless you give it to them. And what you give, you can take back again.”
The card went on, burbling happily about the history of the tarot and the card’s reverse meaning and God knew what else. I wasn’t listening anymore. I was staring at the devilish figure on the front, and feeling like the clue bat had just smacked me across the head.
“Cassie?” someone said, and I looked up to see Rhea staring worriedly at me. Along with the vamps. And the kids, except for the one who was still sobbing quietly, because I hadn’t done jack about that, had I?
And I still didn’t. Because a moment later, Fred was being muscled aside, and Marco knelt in front of the crying child. And pulled a playing card out from behind her ear.
She blinked at it, and then at him, and then went back to crying. But she was still watching through her fingers when it suddenly went up in flames. Several of the vamps took a rapid step back, causing Marco to sneer at them. And to let it burn down almost to his fingertips before he threw it into the air, where it dis
integrated into powder.
Only to pull it out from behind the girl’s ear again, whole and new and not even singed.
Her mouth made a perfect O of astonishment as she looked from him to the air and back again. Marco sat back on his heels, looking satisfied. Until she reached over and pulled the original card out of the pocket of his shirt.