Nocturnal (episode n. 1)
Page 5
CHAPTER 5
It was quite clear that, in comparison with a weather crisis, a simple homicide became suddenly a lesser priority. Not to be forgotten, sure. Maybe to be delayed until after six p.m.
Anyway, Shim was good at his job and there was no way she could help him with that problem, it was a bit out of her league, so it was better for her to worry just as much as necessary and keep carrying on her investigation, maybe trying to get some more answers and some less questions. In the last few hours she had already gathered so many of the latter that the rest of her life might not be enough to answer all of them.
Especially if she had to keep that Vivienne into consideration.
Then again, if Shim weren't able to prevent the destruction of the city by a hurricane, probably Vivienne would end up being right after all. But there wasn't much she could do to avoid that.
For now, all she was able to do was asking someone else, while waiting to find out if she was going to survive the next few hours, and if she would still be able to go back to the Underdark.
There was only another person she could visit, and she was for sure the least informed about what had happened. But this was something she would have been able to fix herself, fortunately.
Seers were not very well considered by most of the world population, for a long list of reasons, all open to discussion. First and foremost the fact that, contrary to magic, seeing couldn't really be called an exact science. Each premonition, each prophecy, even the most precise, could prove to be completely useless if a wrong interpretation was given. Seers who could provide exact information, without any ambiguity, could be counted with the fingers of one hand, and even those were much less precise when it came to look into the future, which they described as continuously changing and impossible to know for sure.
Of course there was also the problem that many known seers, especially the most famous ones, where actually con men, whose true job was telling people what they wanted to hear in exchange for overwhelming payments.
Amanda, though, knew well the third, and much more important, reason: magicians were among the most important persons in society and they were absolutely, completely, irrevocably unable to see the future or the past. Admitting someone was able to succeed where they failed, especially someone who wasn't backed up by divine power or had the years of study necessary to excel in any of the Arts, someone who was what he was just for an obscure plan of fate, would undermine their believability. A very good reason to destroy that of seers and being safe, before running the risk of being sorry.
This way, fake seers were able, with their silver tongues, to keep up a remarkable business, meeting with no serious resistance, as no magician would ever waste time discrediting someone who really had reason to be discredited, and to whom nobody really believed. True seers ended up having to work almost in disguise, mostly to do good and to use in some way the gifts they couldn't get rid of if they wanted, and only marginally to earn something from that.
Amanda knew several seers of both kinds, but there was only one she trusted. Meaning she had enough trust in her not to be afraid she would try to dig some dark secret out of her mind. The few she had, she'd rather keep for herself.
She stopped to buy something to eat along the way, then she went to Kate's place of work. It was, actually, a first-floor flat comprising only three rooms: an anteroom, a little study and a third one Amanda had never seen, and that she also thought could be a bathroom, a closet or both at the same time. Not that it was her business.
She pushed the door, which caused a little bell to tingle, so softly it could hardly be heard. The anteroom was empty, but the curtains of the study were closed, which meant someone was in and she had to wait.
The room, quite plain, was remarkably devoid of any of the weird decorations and odd items that could so easily be found in the studies of other kind of seers. There were four rows of chairs, two on the left and two at the right of the door, and two small tables displaying several magazines, ranging from classic gossip ones to specialized publication about seers. Once Amanda had tried reading one of the latter and she had felt like she had opened by mistake a paper coming from another world. She hadn't tried again since, only looking every once in a while at something less abstract and not too gossipy.
She hadn't been there long when the curtains opened and a short, large and quite bald man – almost like the extra-large version of a gnome – came out. The expression on his face was unreadable. Had he received good news? Bad ones? Neither of those?
Amanda virtually shrugged. She had other thoughts at the moment.
She stood up and went to the other room, barely noticing the bell meaning that the little man was going out.
Kate's study was less than half the anteroom. The walls were covered by light-blue drapes, creating sort of a relaxing mood. There were several bookshelves, but it took moving the drapes aside to see what was in them. The few titles peeking out between curtains were all about seeing, and Amanda could easily imagine that their contents were even more alien than those of the magazines on the tables.
A round table was in the center of the room, this too covered with a light-blue cloth. In front of it there was a chair, behind it there was Kate, sitting, all intent in gathering some cards scattered in front of her. She looked as sober as her anteroom, and she had nothing to spare with the typical image of the commercial seer. No veils, no ridiculously oversize or elaborate clothes, no noticeable jewelry, no colors assailing the onlookers. She wore a simple beige suit, which collar was barely brushed by her brown hair, long just enough to cover the neck and not much more.
When she looked up to see who was there, a smile lit her features.
«Mandy! So nice to see you!» she exclaimed, then a worried stare crossed her face «Did you sleep?»
«Not much and not good. Did you see that in your cards?»
«No, in your circled eyes.»
Amanda smiled. «Lately I get up more tired than I was when I went to bed. Maybe it's the season.»
«Quite weird, the season. Did you hear about yesterday night rain?»
«Firsthand I'd say. I got home I was almost dripping.»
«You? Really?»
«Why?» she asked, not seeing what her friend meant by that «What's weird? Do you think I'm waterproof?»
«Waterproof, no. Lazy, yes. What were you doing out so late at night? No... what where you doing out so early in the morning? Is there a man involved? Let me see...» she reached out to turn one of her cards
«Hands off!» Amanda replied, almost laughing «Another time, maybe, I'll give you the details... today I'm here for business.»
«Yours or mine?»
«Yours.»
«Fine then. I didn't do my homework.» She laughed. «Well then... sit down and tell me everything. What do you want to talk about? Love? Work? Money?» she winked «... sex?»
«Death.»
Kate's features dropped. «Are you sure you chose the right person?»
«Do you know Trey Parker.»
«Trey... Parker... who? No, wait, wait, you must have mentioned him... a colleague of yours?»
«More or less. He's dead.»
«Ah, sorry about that. How?»
«That's the point. I believe he was killed, but I don't know much, and the police doesn't seem to care too much.»
«I see... but I'm not sure I can help. It's not even something that concerns you directly...»
«You're not going to chastise me now...»
«No, really. I meant it's more difficult to see something for someone who is not involved. It would be easier if he were here... but then I wouldn't be, I'm not really eager to read cards to a corpse.»
Amanda shrugged. «Whatever you're able to tell me, it will still be more than I know now.»
«As you like», Kate replied as she shuffled the deck of cards and placed it on the table. «You know how it works.»
Instinctively Amanda reached out with her right hand to cut the deck, then stopped in mi
dair before even brushing it. She pulled her hand back and cut the deck with the left before Kate could say anything.
The seer reassembled the deck and started putting some cards on the table. As usual, Amanda tried to decipher the expressions crossing her face as she looked at them. As usual, she failed.
«It seems there is a man after all», Kate said suddenly.
«Hey! Don't change the subject! That's not what I asked you to see!»
«Indeed I didn't mean that. ... ah, is really one there?» she grinned
«... may we go back to the cards?»
«Yeah, yeah... I was saying there is a man... more than one actually. Any chance your colleague was somehow involved with magic? I mean directly.»
«Parker? No... I don't think so, at least. It's not like I really knew him so well, but he didn't strike me like a magician.»
«Strange. Still...»
«What do you see?»
«Someone who is dead or about to die. But it seems he's a magician. And someone in the shadows, a manipulator. I'm not really helping, am I?»
«Still better than nothing.»
«It's just that the reading isn't very clear, there's something hazy in these cards.»
Amanda had no troubles believing her. That wasn't the first time she had Kate read cards for her, and usually she was anything but vague.
«I think that your colleague knew something he shouldn't have» she said at once, as if struck by a sudden enlightenment.
«Might he have been killed for this reason?»
«Maybe. I can't be sure. But I am quite sure you're putting yourself in a very complicated situation.»
«Did you need the cards to know that?» Amanda smiled like a kid caught red-handed stealing chocolate.
«Having a confirmation never hurts. Really,» she changed subject without a pause, «if he had been a magician, these cards would make much more sense.»
«I'm quite sure he wasn't... but let's pretend otherwise, what would they have meant?»
«That he lost control of something... someone... and wasn't ready to face the consequences.»
«Someone? Hypnosis? Mind control?»
«I'd rather say summoning.»
«Summonings are forbidden.»
«Did this ever stop anyone?»
«Might make sense.»
«Did you just remember that your Parker used to summon students when they skipped lessons?»
«He wasn't my Parker, and he had no lessons so I think that would have been useless... Thanks for all, I have to hurry?»
«There's something you don't want to tell me...»
«Maybe. Maybe not. I have to check. How much do I owe you?»
«Are you joking? And... wait a second, don't move.»
Leaving Amanda no time to reply, Kate stood up and disappeared into the closet-bathroom or bathroom-closet or whatever it was. Amanda was about to stand up in turn when she saw her come back. A flat round object, no more than ten centimeters wide, dangled from a string in her hand. It was a wooden circlet inside which many little strings where knitted in an elaborate pattern, almost like a web. From the outer brim some feathers and beads dangled. A true dream catcher. There weren't many around.
«Take this.» said Kate handing it to her.
«Should this help me to find the killer?»
«No, to sleep better. A client of mine gave it to me as a gift long ago... for the time being I think you need it more than me.»
«Well... thanks. I'll return it.»
Kate shrugged. «I'll probably sleep well anyway.»
Amanda took the dream catcher and examined it, losing herself for a second in its patterns. It was too fragile to put it into a pocket, but the string it was attached to made a loop, so she could wear it around her neck, letting it slide under her pullover.