He didn’t know how long he sat there waiting. As time passed he knew he was right, his antibodies were safe. He knew he needed to get back to the lab to prove his antibodies were safe but he couldn’t find the strength to get up from the floor. His heart started to race until he heard the pounding in his ears. He raised his hand to the woman standing in front of him, asking for help but the words were only in his head. He couldn’t move his lips and he watched his hand drop to the floor. His eyes shifted to the left then right. There were others standing silent as well, watching him as his body began to convulse. He felt an unimaginable burst of pain, then nothing.
Kyle knocked on the door of Peter’s room. No response. He knew Peter was home. His car was in the driveway. He’d heard what happened. The doctors found that the patient’s blood was full of antibodies, as if they had spread uncontrollably. Maybe he’d taken things a little too far, but it was Peter’s fault for betraying him. The last remnants of their friendship had prompted him to check on his friend but he had another, more pressing motive. He opened Peter’s door and called out to him. Again, no response. He didn’t see Peter in the room and turned to leave but his attention was caught by a shoe jutting out from behind a chair. He moved closer. Peter lay on the floor, arms out, blood running from his eyes, mouth and nose. A syringe dangled from an outstretched hand.
“Geez Peter,” Kyle said, slowly letting out his breath. He pulled out his phone to call 911 then stopped. The box was sitting on Peter’s desk. He picked it up and took it to his room then made the call.
After the paramedics left, Kyle called Melissa. The sadness in her voice touched him briefly but all he wanted to do was hurry her off the phone and get back to the box, his box now. One of the purchase orders Peter had signed for him was actually a document willing Kyle the box. After promising Melissa he’d be over soon, he grabbed the box and sat down on his bed, running his fingers along the smooth top.
“I’m not going to mess this up,” he said out loud. “Nothing but great things ahead. For me, anyway.”
He opened the box, excited to see his name burned into the underside of the lid. Something was wrong. The card was still reversed. He shut the lid, opening it again but nothing had changed. Again, then again, one more time until he realized that he wasn’t alone in the room.
It was full of people, silent, staring at him with empty eyes. He grabbed the box, clutching it to his chest as he slowly backed away. One by one they lifted an arm, pointing at him, until all arms were raised. He froze, terrified, as they slowly started moving toward him, still pointing in accusation.
Kyle swung around to the door just as it slammed shut in his face.
28
bONUS STORY
ace of wands
JANCE M. JONES
Upright:Creation, invention, enterprise, principle, beginning, source, birth, family, origin, money, fortune, inheritance
Reversed:Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish, clouded joy
“Ace of Wands, Danae speaking. How may I help you?”
A nasal voice on the other end of the line said, “Hi Denny, Marc Sancha here. I presume you’ve heard of me?” Danae cringed. Of course she’d heard of him. He was the only surviving kin of her recently deceased boss, Apolline “Pauline” Fanchon. Danae’s chicory coffee abruptly tasted bitter and she sat up straight and set her cup down.
“Of course, Mr. Sancha,” she replied smoothly. “We were wondering when we’d hear from you personally. How can I help you today?”
“Well, Denny, where exactly are you located? I thought Ace of Wands was in the French Quarter.”
She didn’t know which annoyed her more: his New Jersey dialect, the sense of entitlement she could feel even over the phone, or the fact that he couldn’t be bothered to come to his great aunt’s funeral, but was probably only making contact now to see what he’d inherited. “It’s pronounced Dah-nay-ee,” she corrected. She was used to repeating her name to people—the joys of having parents who were fans of Greek mythology. Her close friends called her Danny or Dah-nay, but “Denny”, was just plain irritating. And while she would never ordinarily correct a customer over the phone, something about Marc Sancha’s voice made her abandon her usually professional demeanor. Her friends would say she had a sixth sense about people; Danae would just say she had a really low tolerance for bullshit. Her immediate and profound dislike surprised her; she usually went out of her way to cut people some slack. She gave herself a mental shake. For Pauline’s sake she would be civil. Besides, maybe he wasn’t the arrogant gold-digger she’d been lead to believe he was. With an effort, she spoke with the calm, detached customer service tone usually reserved for hostile interactions: “We do have a kiosk in Jackson Square in the French Quarter, but the warehouse and our mail order and website fulfillment center is on St. Claude Avenue, near Tupelo, just across from the Lower Ninth Ward. Where are you now? Do you need directions?”
“I’m in the Quarter right now. We’re walking around Jackson Square and then the driver is bringing me to the warehouse. Will you be there? I don’t have a key.”
“I should be here,” Danae said, “but you can also get a key from Aubrey when you get to the kiosk.”
“Who’s Aubrey? Please tell me it’s not the skinny, blond chick with the nose ring and tattoos I’m seeing… and you call that a kiosk? It looks like a card table with a bunch of sticks on it. The whole thing looks like a set-up for a Three-Card-Monte scam or something.”
Danae started to explain that things were a little different in New Orleans—that the tourists loved the “starving artist” look of the Ace of Wands display and that Aubrey was not only a great salesperson, but also skilled in accounting. Pauline trusted her to do the books and that was saying a lot. Of course, Pauline would have also told Danae to save her breath—Marc Sancha had already disconnected the call.
*
Danae nervously straightened the warehouse, waiting for Marc to arrive. Hard to believe she and Aubrey had worked for Pauline for almost fifteen years. Since before Hurricane Katrina - the storm that changed everything. As usual, whenever a hurricane threatened, residents were always advised to evacuate. After a while, when each hurricane touted as The Next Big One skipped New Orleans or turned into a tropical storm that merely uprooted some trees and dumped tons of rain, it was easy to grow a little more complacent. Easy to just put up a few shutters, grab a drink and “Laissez les bon temps roulez” with other like-minded individuals in the Big Easy, watching the storms roll in from one of the Quarter bars.
But this one was different. Looking at the radar images constantly interrupting all the regular TV programming, pretty much everybody could agree it was a credible threat. It made everyone feel uneasy. Aubrey and her family decamped to her uncle’s place in Jackson, Mississippi. Danae was supposed to join her family at her cousin’s place in Alexandria, Louisiana, but only made it as far as her apartment in Baton Rouge, because Pauline refused to leave her home in the Lower Ninth Ward. Pauline wasn’t related; she was only Danae’s boss, but there was no way Danae was leaving a seventy-year-old woman by herself, even if it only turned out to be a tropical storm. Pauline didn’t have a car. She had plenty of friends, but no family nearby. Danae finally convinced Pauline to at least wait it out at her apartment until after Katrina made landfall. Baton Rouge wasn’t that far away, she’d reasoned—she could bring Pauline back home in an hour or so if it turned out to be another near miss.
Pauline had finally agreed as the sky blackened and the rain started pelting sideways. She insisted they stop by her house first so she could pack a few things and Danae grew more and more anxious with each gust of wind. While Pauline packed, she placed a quick call to her cousin’s place to let her parents know she wasn’t coming to Alexandria. They weren’t happy about it, but they agreed she needed to help Pauline.
Finally, Pauline was ready. Danae shook her head as she saw Pauline only carried the smallest of overnight bags, yet toted what looked like a shotgun ca
se. A gun? Really? Pauline hated guns. Danae stared at the case as Pauline loaded it carefully into the backseat of Danae’s car. “It’s the ace of wands, my dear,” she said, as if that explained everything. Danae didn’t know if that was supposed to be a metaphor about superior firepower or if there really was a wand of some kind in the case—maybe Pauline’s very first wand? All she knew was that the storm was getting rapidly worse and they really needed to leave now.
Looking back on it today as she unpacked a case of Harry Potter wands, Danae still wasn’t sure how they managed to make it to her apartment. She hated driving in storms, especially across all that open space of the bayou, and this storm was the worst she’d ever seen, times ten. Wind gusts kept trying to blow them off the road and it was impossible to see more than about a foot beyond the front bumper. She could only focus on the tail lights directly in front of her. The usual hour-long trip took a harrowing five-and-a-half hours. Evacuees were bumper-to-bumper, and for long stretches of time, traffic wouldn’t move at all. The worst part was not knowing whether there were just more evacuees merging into the queue across the I-10 that was holding things up, or if there was an accident, or someone ran out of gas, or if the road had collapsed into the bayou and they’d be stuck there forever. Thank God she’d had a full tank of gas. She’d tried to distract herself, find some music on the radio, but the FM stations came in sporadically at best, and were running only commentary about the storm and constantly admonishing listeners to, “Find shelter immediately!” Not exactly a confidence booster. The AM stations were even worse—no music, nothing but static, and lightning somehow intensifying the noise through the radio speakers with every strike.
Thank goodness she actually lived in Baton Rouge and didn’t need to go any further to get to her apartment. The radio reports were all saying that there were massive snarls in Baton Rouge as major roads joined the interstate, and backups as far away as Shreveport. She took the first Baton Rouge exit and worked her way across the side streets to her apartment. The drive was no less harrowing off the interstate. She had no idea when she went through intersections if the lights were red or not. Not only was it was impossible to see more than a foot or two in front of the car, but lightning flashes illuminated traffic lights, swinging so hard in the wind, she was afraid they were going to snap off and crush the car. She couldn’t move any faster, still couldn’t see any further than she could before, but at least it was slightly less claustrophobic. There were alternative routes if there was a backup.
Pauline had been rather composed the whole way, speaking in a calm voice if Danae asked her a question, but offered little conversation otherwise. She seemed to understand that Danae needed every particle of concentration to stay on the road and not give in to hysteria. It wasn’t so much that Pauline emanated serenity; it was more like she absorbed the excess turmoil in the car so Danae could keep her mental edge. They’d staggered through the apartment’s parking lot, wind and violent surges of rain thrusting them back a foot for every two feet gained, until they finally found the door. Once inside, Danae lashed the door against the tempest, Pauline set the shotgun case carefully on a table, and both collapsed on the floor, not caring that the apartment was without power. Eventually, Danae crawled to the coffee table where she kept her scented candles, but her hands were still cramped from gripping the steering wheel and she couldn’t light a match. Pauline had taken the matches away from Danae, reached into a pocket and pulled out a lighter. She remembered laughing because Pauline didn’t smoke, but fell into exhausted sleep on the floor almost immediately after Pauline lit the first candle.
*
Marc Sancha was not impressed. First, the wand set-up in Jackson Square was run by some goth girl who probably couldn’t get a job making coffee in a 7-11—not that he was a snob—hell, he was from Jersey, they had all kinds there. But first impressions counted when you were trying to run a legitimate business. Tattoos and piercings were a major turn-off for a lot of people. And she’d refused to give up the key, even when he’d shown her his I.D., saying Pauline told her to never, ever give out the key. She wanted to play games? No problem. He’d get some “girl next door” type to replace her.
So here he sat in the taxi, getting a first impression of the place, now his place, that that Denny girl had called what? Oh yeah, “the warehouse and mail order and website fulfillment center.” Probably not a lot going on upstairs there, either. Not that he wasn’t grateful that they’d both stayed on to work after Pauline had died, he was—at least he knew no one was to try to break in and steal stuff if they knew somebody was keeping an eye on it. But this was one run-down looking building. Maybe not any worse than the rest of buildings around it, but that wasn’t saying a lot. Definitely not the high rent district, or even the middle rent district. A fresher coat of white paint made it look a little cleaner than the other buildings, at least, but debris collected at either end. He didn’t even want to check the passageway between buildings; he could imagine the vermin he’d probably stir up there, and he noted a couple of bashed in wooden pallets leaned up against the front, next to the window. It was a small warehouse, but he supposed there wasn’t a huge market for magic wands anyway. He’d have to look at the books and decide if keeping the business open was worth the hassle.
He told the taxi driver to wait, unsure if he could get another one to come to this location in any kind of timely manner. From what he’d seen so far, nobody seemed to be in any kind of hurry to get anything done in New Orleans. He looked through the front window, which he decided was a little grimy, but not too bad. He could see a neat row of wands displayed with sale prices clearly marked. What caught his eye, though, was the wooden “Ace of Wands” shingle sticking out next to the door. It was probably a couple of feet long, and maybe a foot-and-a-half wide, with a carved and hand-painted rendering of what looked like a Tarot card. A hand, reaching out from a cloud, was holding a rod, or wand, he supposed, along with a castle in the background. It was actually pretty striking and Marc decided if he sold the business, he was keeping the sign as a souvenir.
A bell tinkled as he opened the door. He stepped onto worn, but clean linoleum— probably fifty years old, if it was a day—and stared up at what appeared to be white Christmas lights. Strange. He walked around checking out the various table displays. From what he could tell, wands were grouped together according to type or brand: “Wizard”, “Tweaked”, “New Day”, “Oracle”, etc. Maybe there was more to this wand crap than he thought. Apparently enough to at least support his great-aunt and a couple of full-or part-time employees. The showroom, if you could call it that, was pretty small and various signs suggested that the buyer could customize their wand using crystals, ribbons, and sigils. A sign above the counter read: “No Returns on Custom Wands!”. Another next to a computer terminal read “Wave Wand for Service—if that doesn’t work, Press the Bell!”
“I see you found the place okay,” said a voice to his left. He jumped a little since he hadn’t seen or heard her approach, and realized she must have come from the back of the place, probably from the warehouse. A petite, black-haired, pixie-like woman with a headset approached Marc and held out her hand. “Welcome to Ace of Wands. I’m Danae.”
Marc Sancha shook her hand, but said, “Hi, Denny, is your idea of good customer service startling people?”
*
Danae withdrew her hand. Hard to believe he was related to Pauline. “Sorry, Mr. Sanschagrin, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s Sancha,” he said. “My father changed the name to Sancha before I was even born. And you didn’t scare me, I was just startled.”
“Of course, Mr. Sancha,” she replied. She knew Pauline’s family name was Sanschagrin. At some point, her good-for-nothing nephew must have decided to change it. Probably to avoid creditors or something. And his son didn’t impress her as being any better. Here it was, July in New Orleans, and he was liberally sweating in his black, pin-striped business suit. Served him right. Again, she trie
d to shake off her automatic dislike for this man. She caught the insignia as he twisted his ring. She didn’t need to see it close up to know it was from the Naval Academy. So he was a ring knocker. She could cut him some slack, then. Her father had been a Navy man. He wasn’t an Academy graduate, but he always brought shipmates he’d served with to the house when they were in town, and Danae had met a few of the “ring knockers” as the Naval Academy graduates were called, along with all the others. So this man had served his country. She had to give him points for that.
“I see you’re a ring knocker,” she said. “How many tours have you done?”
“Ring knocker?” He looked bewildered for a moment, then said, “Oh, I get it. The ring. No, I’m a lawyer,” he said, laughing. “I won it from a plaintiff. It’s the case that actually made me decide I wanted to become a lawyer.”
It was Danae’s turn to look bewildered. It was a Naval Academy ring, for God’s sake, not some prize.
“You see, Denny, before I became a lawyer, I owned a pawn shop. A friend of mine I’d known since childhood, Eddie Taylor, comes in one day, desperate for money. All he has is this ring. So, I ask if he wants to pawn it or sell it, and he tells me he wants to sell it. So we agree on a price, and a couple of months later, he’s back and wants to buy back the ring. I tell him that he sold it. He didn’t pawn it, and he’s shit out of luck, that I keep what’s mine. We argued for a while and I finally threw him out.”
“Why not just sell it back to him?” Danae asked. “Sounds like he would’ve paid what was fair for it.”
He shrugged. “It was the principle of the thing. So next thing I know, I’m getting slapped with a civil lawsuit from Eddie to get the ring back. Couldn’t believe he actually tried to sue me for it. You want to know the best part? The judge ruled in my favor, because the only contract was the pawn slip, and the slip was checked “sell” not “pawn”, and poor Eddie had signed it. So, I lucked out on that one, but I decided then and there that I needed to know about contract law, so I became a lawyer.” He twisted the ring around his finger. “This is my own little reminder to never let someone take advantage of me.”
Never Fear - The Tarot: Do You Really Want To Know? Page 54