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Back The Empress File Save as PDF
Chapters (20)
  1. Prologue
  2. CHAPTER 1
  3. CHAPTER 2
  4. CHAPTER 3
  5. CHAPTER 4
  6. CHAPTER 5
  7. CHAPTER 6
  8. CHAPTER 7
  9. CHAPTER 8
  10. CHAPTER 9
  11. CHAPTER 10
  12. CHAPTER 11
  13. CHAPTER 12
  14. CHAPTER 13
  15. CHAPTER 14
  16. CHAPTER 15
  17. CHAPTER 16
  18. CHAPTER 17
  19. CHAPTER 18
  20. CHAPTER 19

“Jesus Christ, I’m starting to think Bobby was right about you guys,” John said. “I’ll call Marvel. I’ll send her in.”

“I’ll call her,” I said. “There’ve been some changes. I think I’ve figured out how it’ll go, all the way to the end.”

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 14

We had taken out one hundred thousand dollars in cash. After counting it, we put it back in the bag and stuck the bag in the Fanny’s engine compartment, where it would be safe from accidental discovery. The boat was now a floating time bomb; on board we had LuEllen’s burglary tools, the books from the Longstreet machine, a hundred thousand dollars in stolen city cash, and the murder photos.

Dessusdelit arrived promptly at ten o’clock, and we cold-decked her. I almost, but not quite, felt sorry for her. She was as nervous as a hen, settling into the querant’s chair with a series of twitches and unconscious starts. She’d been up all night, rolling the crystal ball in her hands. The ball had been dead, she said as she handed it back to LuEllen, except for a few moments around three in the morning. For a few seconds then she thought she saw her mother again.

“She seemed to be welcoming me,” Dessusdelit said bleakly.

“Maybe that means you’re going to visit her,” LuEllen suggested ingenuously.

“She’s dead,” Dessusdelit snapped. “I thought I told you.”

“Oh

I’m sorry,” LuEllen said, covering her mouth in embarrassment.

We shuffled the cards, and Dessusdelit cut them. LuEllen reached out and touched her arm and said, “You can keep the ball for a while if that will help you reestablish a channel

“

When Dessusdelit turned her head to reply, I switched the decks and started laying down the Celtic Cross. Out came the Tower or, as some tarots have it, the Tower of Destruction, symbolic of the wrath of God. The card shows a medieval tower struck by a lightning bolt, with two people tumbling out of it.

“Things seem to be stirred up,” I said as Dessusdelit turned back. I tried to put the best face on it but let enough sickly kindness ooze into my voice that she had to know what I was doing.

Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, and finally she blurted, “I’ve had some personal difficulties.”

“That’s what we’re seeing then. But remember, the Tower doesn’t always mean disaster,” I continued with a patently false heartiness. “Remember when I told you that sometimes it’s as simple as looking at the picture? One time I had an opening scheduled for a Chicago gallery. For me it was a big deal. I don’t usually do the magical kind of tarot spreads, but I was worried about this opening; my career was in the balance. So I said, what the heck and did a spread-“