Write, Wrote, Written

“What does she see?”

Adam responded to Steve’s question by glaring and putting his finger over his lips. They were sitting across a table from an ample Creole woman. She hummed softly to herself as she drew cards from a deck and placed them face-up in front of her. Steve had been attempting to garner clues to her thoughts for the last half hour, but her expression remained inscrutable.

He shifted in his seat. The smell of incense filled the room. It was making him sick. They were surrounded by shelves laden with jars containing dessicated…things, and peering through the jars at odd intervals were carved wooden masks hanging on the walls. Their faces were not happy.

Mme. Lafarge owned a shop on the same street as Ford’s Theater. The shop sold perfumes and herbal remedies–in the front. In the back, where they were, she plied her real trade, negotiating with the spirit world. Apparently, the spirits were driving a hard bargain that day. In the time that they had been there, she had reshuffled and redrawn the tarot cards three times without saying a word.

Steve stole a glance at Adam. His eyes followed Mme. Lafarge’s hands as she drew each consecutive card and placed it precisely on the table. It had been his idea to come there, which surprised Steve. Adam was a good Catholic boy, and Steve hadn’t expected him to put stock in such things. Nonetheless, Steve had agreed to the consultation, mostly because he didn’t know what else to do.

The first time Steve was attacked by a vampire had been almost two years prior, right after moving to the city. He had dumb luck to thank for his survival. Since then, he had become quite good at destroying them whenever they decided to pounce on him. The attacks were usually random, and they never amounted to much more than a brute frontal assault. Lately, though, that had changed. The attacks, in addition to becoming more frequent, also seemed more planned, even coordinated. It disturbed Steve, because vampires were the ultimate sociopaths. They didn’t play well with others, not even their own kind.

And then there were the nightmares. They had been going on for over a month. They all started out differently, but they ended the same. The last things Steve saw every time were glowing red eyes and flashing white fangs.

Mme. Lafarge stopped humming. She removed her hand from the last card that she had placed, and she just stared at it. Adam grabbed the cross around his neck and began to mutter something under his breath. It took Steve a few seconds to realize what he was saying.

“Crux sancta sit mihi lux. Non draco sit mihi dux. Vade retro satana. Nunquam suade mihi vana. Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas.“

Obviously, you could take the boy out of the liturgy, but you couldn’t take the liturgy out of the boy. Steve had heard him recite this formula before. Vade retro satana meant “Step back, Satan.” It was a spoken amulet against evil.

“What is it?” he asked.

Neither of them answered. They both just stared at the cards.

“What is it?” he asked again.

Silence.

“Fine,” he said, “I can figure it out myself. How hard can it be?” He leaned over the table to get a better look at the cards. “Okay, see that one that says ‘The Devil,’ that represents the vampires. And then the one next to it, the knight with the sword, that’s me. And then there’s the one that says. ‘Death,’ which can’t be good, but given the circumstances, I’m not surprised to see it. And the one next to that, ‘The Magician,’ that’s my friend Adam here, even though he’s a history professor. The next one, the woman holding the cup, that’s our friend Abigail, which makes sense because she’s right underneath ‘Justice,’ and her father was a judge. So, is this supposed to somehow represent my present situation?”

Mme. Lafarge shook her head. “Non, Monsieur, Dese cards, dey do not show your present. Dey show your future.”  She lowered a finger onto The Devil card. “De Debil, he does not represent de monster you fight. De Debil is you.”