Hell on the Heart

by Nancy Brophy

  He wasn’t stupid. Fortune-tellers worked in similar ways. Set the stage. Watch for tells – widening of the eyes, facial tics, or other involuntary muscle movements. Crystal ball or tarot cards were props. Everybody had tells. A perceptive grifter knew when their words struck gold.

  Already she was doing it. Her black eyes bored into his as she took the cards.

  “I don’t want to watch,” he said, pulling a large handkerchief out of his pocket. “Do you mind if I blindfold myself?”

  Her dark eyes glittered in the flickering light as she flipped her hand giving him permission. Of course, she would appear unconcerned.

  He heard the snap of the crisp card as it touched the table. Then a silence. Ha. He’d stymied her.

  “A dark-haired woman in your past,” she murmured, her voice, lower than normal, skated his spine. He said nothing. “You cared about her very much.”

  Fishing in the dark. He was Indian. Of course, he’d known a dark-haired woman from the past.

  Another card touched the table. “You are tied to her, but a veil separates you.” A silence followed. He wondered if she studied his body language. “The veil is death. This woman was a relative. A mother? No, not your mother. Your sister.”

  She was good he’d give her that. Pain threatened to choke him at the thought of Dyami. He clenched his fists in his lap, knowing she couldn’t see. When she didn’t ask questions or move on, he held himself rigid in his seat. No way was he going to squirm or shift to let her know she was right.

  With the third card she made a noise in her throat that sounded unsettled. “She’s angry at you. No. Unhappy. You haven’t let her go. She worries that you blame yourself for her death. She disagrees.” Another silence. “Give me your hand.”

  His fingers uncurled slowly. He flexed the digits open and closed before placing them on the table. Her warm hand covered his.

  “I’m going to put your hand on each card.” Her voice changed. This was the first time she’d faced his direction. The reading was for her not for him. He started to draw back his hand, but she pressed his fingertips on the edge on a card. “Tell me what exactly what you feel.”

  The card felt warm. Nothing else. “Nothing,” he reported, feeling more cheerful.

  “Nothing?” Her voice angled away from him again. She was back to studying the table. “No emotion? No heaviness or pulling? No temperature.”

  “Nope.” Figure it out on your own he gloated silently. “Well, the card does feel warm.”

  “Good.” She took his hand and moved it a few inches. “Now tell me what you feel.”

  Interesting. The card was cooler and he told her so. She moved his hand again. He drew back his fingers in surprise. “Hot.”

  “Okay, so now we know that this reading is about you.” Again, she spoke with the throaty voice that made his skin itch. He was through with this game. If she was going to read the cards, it wasn’t going to be personal.

  He reached up and pulled the blindfold over one eye and peered at her. “I don’t care about this. I want to know about the unsubs.”

  Her dark hair cascaded hiding her face as she concentrated on the table. “This is what your soul wants to know.”

  “Let’s skip this part.” He yanked the handkerchief the rest of the way off and tossed it to the floor. “Ask the right question.”

  Cezi’s head rose. Her stare pierced his soul. “For you, at this time and place, it is the right question.” Without looking at the table, she turned another card over and placed it next to the first three.

  When she didn’t look, he had to. Lovers. The card showed a man and a women intertwined. “She was my sister. We weren’t lovers.”

  Cezi nodded as though it was the card she expected while pacifying him with banalities. “Of course not. That isn’t what that card means.”

  For the second time that day leaving her house to maintain his sanity became mandatory. He bolted toward the front door, jerked it open and stepped outside. And felt as ridiculous as he had the first time. What was he running from?

  Through the window, he saw her hunched over the table turning each card over and placing it in a proscribed position. She didn’t need him near to read his tells. The cards, the ones he’d shuffled, told her everything.

  The night air was still. Even the angels weren’t laughing.

  He’d misread her. When had she ever appeared false to him. Members of family, sure. But her? Never. Aside from the fact, he suspected she was a first class pickpocket. How else could she have gotten Cain’s watch? She wasn’t sneaky or devious.

  Magic had played a part in his life from the first time he’d visited a Shaman’s home. He couldn’t have been more than seven or eight.

  Everything about the place was filled with mystery. Bags and carefully tied bundles lined the walls, interspersed with rattles, gourds, shafts and masks. Wool rugs with simple, pleasing designs covered the hard floor. Animal skins, he recognized buffalo, wolf and a patchwork of gray and white rabbit added luxury.

  His mother had worn a leather blue shift that day with her hair in long braids. He’d never seen her look more native. Without a word she knelt on the blankets a few feet from the fire. She motioned where he was to stand, side-by-side but with distance between them.

  The smoke from the fire drifted through a hole in the roof where he saw the intense blue skies of his Montana home.

  He wore only shorts. His bare chest was bony and scabbed from a hard case of measles. The sickness had ridden him hard, sucking his life force until even standing was an effort.

  The old man brought the strong scent of aftershave with him when he entered the room. At first he towered over them. John quaked until the ancient warrior knelt and placed a long gnarled finger on his chest. Refusing to shame his parents, he stood his ground as the old man chanted and shook a rattle. The earth gripped his heels, adding to his resolve.

  An inferno raged inside him, like a trapped animal desperate to claw its way out. The fever that’d gripped his body for weeks broke. Sweat poured from him. The old man held a hollowed-out gourd to John’s parched lips and he drank the foul-tasting elixir. The taste clung to his teeth and throat long after the gourd was lowered.

  Still the sweat dripped from him. Weak-kneed and trembling, the internal flame peaked, then fizzled. Soft winds cooled his body and calmed his spirit.

  The old man smiled, his teeth unnaturally sharp. “You have a strong heart, passion and courage. Look to the spider for wisdom.”

  Perhaps he’d seen the movie, Dances With Wolves, one too many times. But he’d hoped for a cool totem, like a wolf or an eagle.

  It was his sister, Mary, who possessed the eagle spirit. At thirteen, she’d changed her name to Dyami to reflect her inner Indian. It started as a joke, except the name suited her independent will and soaring character. Losing her left a hole in his world nothing could fill.

  A spider couldn’t save a soaring eagle, but a spider could kill. Special forces defined the spider.

  For years he was in the Middle East more than on American soil. After one grueling journey he and D’Sean returned more dead than alive. In the days following, D’Sean’s storytelling improved. One night he proclaimed John to be a tarantula, silent and deadly.

  As soon as the words had left his partner’s mouth, John recognized the truth of his statement. The next day he’d gotten the tattoo. He and the spider had become one. Now he stood alone in the dark wondering if his spider could protect the woman who meant the most to him.

  A noise from the house jerked him back to the present. He peered through the glass. Czigany sat framed by ruffled curtains, staring back. In the dark he wasn’t sure she could see him physically or if she was looking directly into his heart.

  He shook his head. What was he doing out here? Running from the knowledge of who was. He’d known who he was since the age of seven, but somehow he’d forgotten. Leave it to Czigany, the one person able to remind him without words.

  Closing his eye
s, he gave a silent prayer of thanks, then reached for the door handle. As he stepped back into the living room, the table with the cards symbolically arranged was empty. Cezi now leaned against the kitchen counter nursing a glass of water.

  The cards lay before him. He almost laughed. What she’d failed to mention was the very first card was The Fool. No doubt that represented him and didn’t that just say it all?

  He noted the dark-haired woman she’d mentioned and the one at the far end, she hadn’t. “This is you?” he asked, pointing to the last card.

  Czigany tilted her head and considered her answer. “As you would say, I fit the profile.”

  “What do the cards say about our relationship?”

  “Nothing really.”

  He laughed. “I always know when you try to lie. Why do you bother? You don’t want to tell me that you’re my future?”

  “It doesn’t say that. It says maybe. With change. Perhaps.”

  “Do I show up in your cards?”

  She refilled her glass with tap water and took another sip before answering. “Yes.”

  “How long?”

  “How long what?”

  “How long have I been in your cards?”

  “Forever. I can’t remember a time you weren’t there. I’ve always known both you and Cain were my future.”

  Her words knocked him for a loop.

  # # #

  Rolf dug his heels into the sheets to push himself higher on the pillows, stretching his ribcage brought pain, but he felt more like himself than he had in days.

  Cezi’s Indian said they’d be back in the morning, but the blond guy with the strange eyelashes had already been in to check on him and change the IV bag. Slipping in and out the deck door like the shadow man he was.

  “Can I work?” He’d gestured toward the desk and his computer.

  “Tomorrow. Tonight you need to heal. You were lucky with the bullet, you know.” He spoke as he worked, quickly and efficiently.

  “I didn’t feel lucky.” Even to his own ears, he sounded petulant.

  The other man didn’t notice. “The shot was a through and through and missed vital organs. You’d have been better off if you’d gone to a hospital that night.”

  With those words of admonishment and a ‘see you in the morning,’ he slid out the door and vanished into the night.

  Five minutes later, Rolf’s father and uncle knocked on the same door.

  “You look a lot better.” Nicholae placed his hand on Rolf’s forehead as if he was a child. “Fever’s down.”

  Rolf waited. His father might keep secrets, but not from his brother. “The Indian brought his medic by.”

  “I know,” Nicholae said.

  “How?”

  “The IV bag’s a big tip.” The other man chuckled. Nicholae’s eyes twinkled. “Even when my daughter is angry at me, I know what’s happening. Her asthma probably worried him.”

  “You know, Cezi,” Luca said. “She wouldn’t have wanted to get better if Rolf was ailing. I’m sure she convinced them to see him.”

  A sudden flash of sadness crossed his uncle’s face and made Rolf’s heart ache for him. “They’re in love,” he said, trying to soften the blow and prepare him for the inevitable.

  “I know. He’s at her house right now. I’m trying to decide how outraged to be in the morning.”

  Luca patted his brother’s shoulder. “Let’s see if there’s any action downtown. That’ll take your mind off things.”

  Nicholae shook his head. “Not in the mood.” He stepped to the door, opening it and tilted his head, listening. A dog barked one short sound, the water slapped the shoreline, but the usual night sounds of crickets and June bugs were missing. Nicholae looked over his shoulder.

  “The air is shifting. We need to prepare for battle.”

  Luca gave a sharp nod. “I’ll notify the gate.”

  # # #

  Santa Fe

  “I’m gonna wait ‘til the midnight hour,” Cain softly sang the words to the Wilson Pickett song. “That’s when my love comes tumbling down….”

  He snickered to himself. His love wasn’t going to tumble down, but this house would. Everything was set. The limo was packed. The C4 was strategically located. He’d had to scuttle up the stairs to reach his bedroom when the men returned home.

  Someone opened his bedroom door a few minutes later, but he’d buried himself in the covers and breathed heavily, snoring lightly for added benefit. Whoever it was, hadn’t crossed the room or touched him. His face was beaded with sweat from his exertions and serious pain racked his arm. Up close he wasn’t sure he could have fooled anyone.

  An hour later the television on the first floor blared. He crept to the door and listened. NASCAR? He wanted to know who was here, but more importantly who was missing. If seen, he’d blow everything. He’d have to trust that the explosion would cover his tracks for several hours.

  “I'm gonna wait till the midnight hour, when there's no one else around. I'm gonna take you girl and hold you and do all the things I told you in the midnight hour. Yes I am. Ooh, yes I am.”

  With a happy smile, he crawled back into bed.

  # # #

  Armadillo Creek

  “I need a shower.”

  Cezi nodded at John’s first words since she’d told him about the cards. He’d closed himself off, wanting nothing personal. Nothing out of his control. He believed his skills would survive a showdown with Cain. The cards weren’t definite. Her future was tangled up with his. She’d never had a reading that scared her like this one did.

  But every event in her life had led to this moment. The fact she pretended her mother’s words weren’t important and refused to believe anything bad could happen, didn’t make it the truth.

  They were alike, he and she. Both lived behind iron masks unable to reveal themselves. Like the three fates, her life, John and Cain’s were intertwined. It was unclear if one could survive without the others.

  She saw no point in telling him. Life delivered its curses and blessings on its own timetable.

  “Hey, is there a mystery to turning on the water?”

  There was. It involved holding one’s tongue correctly while jiggling the level and then stomping your foot in the right place. Even then the ancient equipment worked sporadically.

  She knocked on the bathroom door. “Are you decent?”

  “Yes.”

  A naked butt with dangling bits greeted her when she opened the door. He leaned over the tub, twisting the knobs. His skin was burnish copper everywhere.

  “You’re naked!” Men never thought dangling bits were an issue. Slamming the door was an option, but it would be faster to just turn on the water and get out of the room.

  “You didn’t ask if I was naked. You asked if I was decent. I’m a very decent man.”

  “Move.” She hip-checked him to get him to shift his bulk over so she could get to the levels. “Put on a towel.”

  He moved a step or two to give her room but didn’t reach for a towel. From the sideways glances she gave him, nothing drooped in front. No, he was fully aroused and pointed toward the ceiling. And he was huge. Not that she had a lot to compare it to. Sex had been a no-touch fumble in the dark operation for her. His was the first one she’d ever seen on a grown man this up close and personal. Not only that but the thick purple head looked angry.

  As she rotated the knobs to the correct position, she altered her position to keep him in her peripheral vision. Well aware he’d stretched his hands above his head and hung on to the circular shower rod that surrounded the tub. His warm masculine scent enticed her to sway closer, but she adjusted her weight and braced her legs to prevent her body from taking control.

  “Don’t put too much weight on the rod,” she scolded. “It’s not very secure.” She turned her head slightly as she spoke, but all she could see at that level was the giant penis, so she concentrated on the levers. “How hot?”

  “Really hot,” he murmured. He
r cheeks warmed. He wasn’t talking about the shower.

  He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Touch me. You know you want to. Stroke me with your soft hands.”

  She froze, her mouth suddenly dry. Her blood roared and pulsed heavy in her veins. Her ears tingled and her skin tightened. More than anything she wanted to handle him, to feel what a man was like.

  Not just any man. This man. But she’d told herself when she’d acquiesced to his demands earlier this evening they wouldn’t have sex, but that was before she read the cards. Great, now she was thinking about having what her cousins called a pity sex. She couldn’t go there either.

  “No.” She twisted the knobs with renewed vigor. Had he messed with every damn one? Get the water going and leave.

  His large warm hand touched the small of her back and rubbed small circles that sent shock waves through her body. She yanked the lever for the shower nozzle. Freezing water sputtered then gushed through the holes in the large round head, pelting down upon her hair.

  He pulled her back against him and before she could move, wrenched the plastic curtain closed to keep the water from splattering onto the floor. With her back cemented against his front, his erection pressed into her like a rod of steel.

  His lips were close enough to her ears that his warm breath caressed her before his whispered words. “Your nipples are hard.” The hand that held her hips secured against him, now slipped around her waist while his other hand cupped one breast and plucked the sensitive pearl at the end, proving his point. Had he not been holding her upright, her knees might have given way. She was shocked to find arousal robbed the muscles of power and that moans could escape, even though she’d clamped her mouth shut.