by Cara Wylde
Magny sighed. He turned to the Magician card, where Veles was sleeping in his dragon form. Typical.
“Hey!” He pocked the card. Of course, the god couldn’t feel him, but it still gave the hobgoblin some kind of satisfaction. “What are you? A cat? Only cats sleep for half of their life.”
The dragon puffed out a cloud of steam and opened one electric blue eye.
“For your information, Mr. Hobgoblin, dragons sleep more than the furry creatures you’re talking about.”
“Where’s Valentina?” Loki snapped his book closed and made it vanish with a flick of his wrist. “What are you doing with her cards, anyway?”
“Well, she’s asleep.”
“In the middle of the day?”
“Humans take afternoon naps, Loki,” mumbled Veles under his steaming hot breath.
“This is not exactly an afternoon nap,” Magny chuckled nervously. “You know how you sent us to that guy in the morning, Loki? The past-life regression guy.”
“Yes. Did you go? Did she do it?”
“Yeah. But now... I don’t think she’s feeling that great.”
Loki jumped down from his branch. Veles shifted into his naked human form in an instant. He grabbed the Magician’s red coat when Magny scrunched up his nose at him.
“What do you mean? What happened? Where is she?”
Magny held the two cards upright, so that Loki and Veles could see Val lying on the bathroom floor, next to the toilet. If it had been up to her, she would have still been hugging the thing.
“She’s fine for now, but I don’t know how she’ll be when she wakes up. She keeps getting chills, she threw up so many times that I lost count, and she says she can now see the past, the present, and the future. At once. It happens when she moves her head, blinks, and... I don’t know... speaks. When she does anything, pretty much. She says she gets flashes, and they make her ill.”
“The time sensor,” Veles said.
“The... what now?”
“Time sensor. It’s something that humans have. Gods have it too, but we also have full control over it. We can switch it on and off, depending on what moment in time we want to see. Humans can’t do that. Theirs is on all the time. Stuck in the ON position, so it would never turn OFF. It would drive them mad in minutes. They’re not even aware it’s something they’re born with, something that functions on its own and is crucial to their survival. You see, in Valentina’s case, for instance, her time sensor is set to do one thing only: keep her in the present. It appears that, somehow, the past-life regression session has messed with her time sensor. Now, it’s like she has the time sensor of a god or goddess, but without the knowledge to control it.”
“This is very bad, Magny,” Loki said. He was pacing back and forth. “How did you even manage to screw up so epically? It was past-life regression, not rocket science. People do that hypnosis crap every day. I know practitioners all over the world who can’t fit in all their clients! Ordinaries, witches, vampires...” When Magny looked at him sideways, he added: “Yes, vampires have past lives, too. Seriously, though! Only Valentina could have screwed up something so basic!”
“Hey! That’s not fair! Not how it happened!”
“If only I’d been there with her…”
Oh, okay. He was blaming himself for Val’s predicament. Magny put down “gods” on the list of beings he didn’t understand.
“Her time sensor is broken,” Magny reasoned. “Okay, at least we know that now. How do we fix it?”
Veles shook his head. Loki remained silent.
“Come on! No ideas? Not even one?”
“I don’t think this has ever happened before... to a human,” said Veles. “To anyone.”
Loki took a deep breath, ran his hands through his dark brown hair, then jumped in his upside-down position, hooking one foot on the branch he’d been sitting on before. He closed his eyes and assumed a posture of deep relaxation and meditation. Looking at him, one could have thought he’d just invented a new yoga position.
“What’s he doing?” Magny asked the white-haired god.
Veles cocked an eyebrow. “Searching for precedents, I believe. If this or something similar happened to someone else before, maybe we can get an idea about how to help Valentina.”
“Fingers crossed.” And Magny did cross his stubby fingers, too.
Valentina moaned in her sleep, turned on the other side, but didn’t wake up. She was now facing away from them, her arm coming to rest against the icy cold porcelain of the toilet bowl.
Two minutes later, Magny had grown so impatient that he couldn’t sit still anymore. He lay down on his belly, arms tucked under his chin, staring at Loki in the Hanged Man card. The god was so small that the hobgoblin couldn’t quite see all the fleeting expressions crossing his face. Loki’s eyes moved rapidly behind his closed lids.
“Well?”
One more minute.
“Loki...”
Finally, the Hanged Man opened his green eyes.
“I couldn’t find anything relevant. It hasn’t happened before.”
The hobgoblin let out a frustrated sigh.
“What do we do, then? There has to be something! You’re gods! You should be able to fix anything.”
He went silent when he heard a knock on the door. His pointy years perked, he sniffed the air, and proceeded to gather all the tarot cards hurriedly, tucking them back into their pouch. When he opened the door, Gideon Jove almost stepped on him.
“Hey! I’m down here! What the hell?!”
“Oh, it’s you, tiny fellow. I didn’t see you there. Where’s the bratty witch?”
Magny scowled at him. “Don’t call her that. What do you want?”
“What are you? Her bodyguard?” The god chuckled and stepped over the hobgoblin. He scanned the room quickly, his dark brows furrowing. A feeling of unease swept over him. “Where is Valentina?”
Magny rolled his eyes. He closed the door and poofed himself on the bathroom floor, from where he called out: “In here. Sleeping. I was just trying to figure out how to fix her damaged time sensor. Maybe you can help, since you’re here.” When Jove followed him, Magny tilted his head questioningly. “Why are you here, anyway?”
Jove knelt beside her. “What did you say? Damaged time sensor?”
“Yes. Don’t touch her! Let her sleep. If she wakes up, she’ll go all crazy and cover us both in vomit.” He shuddered.
“What... Why?”
“Seeing so many timelines at the same time makes her horribly sick.”
“I guess it makes sense,” Jove whispered as he studied Valentina’s face. She was twitching from time to time, her lips curling up in a smile, then down in a frown. Her brows kept furrowing and relaxing at regular intervals, as if they were just coming up with a dance of their own. She was having anything but a peaceful sleep. “Nightmares.”
“Of course she’s having nightmares! She’s just relived about a dozen of her own deaths!”
Jove’s head snapped to Magny. His golden eyes were filled with both worry and curiosity.
“What did you do?”
The hobgoblin waved his hands around. “I didn’t do anything! She wanted to do past-life regression to find out... err... it’s complicated! Long story about an ancient curse.”
“Valentina is cursed?”
“Apparently! What’s even more interesting,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “is that she cursed herself. In another life. She was born into this other family that is now enemies with her current family, she cursed someone, then started reincarnating into her current family as if on purpose. So she’d catch her own curse.”
“You’re not making much sense now.”
“Ugh! It’s a hell of a story! And I’m not that great at explaining family dramas. Look, she’ll tell you everything herself once she gets better.”
“If she ever gets better,” Jove muttered.
Hovering o
ver her, the god brushed her cheek lightly, checked her temperature, and pushed a sweaty lock away from her forehead. She was covered with a thin blanket, but he could see she wasn’t wearing much underneath. Slowly, trying to disturb her as little as possible, he sneaked his arms under her shoulder blades and the back of her knees, and lifted her effortlessly.
“What are you doing? I told you not to move her.”
“I can’t help her, but I think I know someone who might be able to do something.”
Jove carried her out of the room, with a very agitated Magny in tow.
“Who? Where are you taking her?”
“Relax, hobgoblin. She’s safe with me.”
“Is she, though?!”
As Jove was trying to get her into the back seat of his car, Magny realized he’d forgotten her tarot deck. Swearing under his breath, he poofed himself back in the hotel bathroom, grabbed the deck, and poofed himself into the god’s car just as he was pulling out of the parking lot. Valentina was waking up.
“What’s going on?” she mumbled. “Where am I?”
Magny didn’t know whether he should get closer and comfort her, of get as far away from her, just in case she threw up again. With a sigh and a little pray, he moved onto her lap.
“Jupiter is taking us somewhere. He didn’t say where. He says he knows someone who might be able to fix your time sensor.”
“My what?” She opened her eyes and regretted it instantly. Jove’s red car turned into a wooden cart for a second, then went back to normal. She groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. “What’s a time sensor, Magny?”
“Veles told me about it. It’s this thing that we all have... It’s like a switch. You keep it on, and you live in the present all the time, and if you turn it off, you can see all the past, present, and future timelines at once. Very bad, apparently. Humans shouldn’t turn it off ever. And there’s no precedent! Nothing like this has ever happened to...”
“Shh... Please, just please...” Valentina pressed her hands to her ears. “Too much noise, too much light, too much... I can’t take it.” She started breathing through her mouth. “Magny, I think I’m going to die.”
“No, no, no! You’re not going to die! Ever!” He scratched his wild beard. “I mean, at some point... for sure...”
“Just like any brat, you got yourself into a load of trouble,” Jove said in a kind voice, doing his best to mask his concern. He looked at her in the rear-view mirror. The blood had drained from her face. She looked like a very sick, very lost ghost. “I got you, my bratty witch. We’re going to get you fixed.”
“We? Who’s we?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Sphinx club looked different during the day. The narrow street that was always so crowded at night was empty now, and Jove parked right in front of the entrance. He took Valentina into his arms, and she wrapped her hands around his neck, eyes shut tightly. The feel of his strong chest against her shivering frame calmed her nerves and her stomach. Her mouth was parched, and there was a bitter, foul taste in the back of her throat that made her crave something sweet, something to make the bitterness go away. Magny poofed himself on Jove’s shoulder, which the god didn’t seem to appreciate in the least. Seeing how he had his hands full, Jupiter let it go. Once they were in the club and Valentina was lying safely on a couch, he’d get rid of the hobgoblin. He was surprised how heavy the tiny creature was, then he saw that Magny was carrying Valentina’s tarot deck. He’d magically shrunk her belt so he could wear it, and now he had this huge, rectangular bulge right in front of his already fat belly. Marvelous! A hobgoblin who thought himself a Keeper! The world was going mad alright!
“Where are you taking me?” Val asked. “Describe what it looks like.”
“You’ll have to trust me,” Jove growled.
“We’re at the night club,” said Magny. “It’s pretty empty, but I guess that’s going to change soon enough. There are a couple of girls on the stage... Oh, I like the blonde one! She is tall, curvy, she’s wearing these high leather boots... I don’t even know how she walks in them, let alone dance. Oh! She’s climbing up the pole! How is she doing that? Magic? I couldn’t climb up that thing with my bare hands.”
Valentina smiled. “Not the strippers, Magny! Don’t tell me about the girls, tell me about the place.”
“Dark, gloomy atmosphere. You wouldn’t say there’s still light outside. Two bartenders. One is making a cocktail, the other one is chatting with a long-legged brunette. There are five or six men sitting at the front tables, watching the dancers.” He shrugged. “That’s pretty much it. Oh! We’re going through a back door now, walking down a narrow corridor. There are so many doors here, all closed. Wait, we’re making a left, down a second corridor.”
Valentina heard a door open.
“We’re in one of the rooms. No, it’s more like a small apartment. There’s an open-space kitchen, a long couch, two armchairs, a coffee table... There’s a bed behind them, to the right. There are more sexy girls here than in the club!”
Valentina furrowed her brows. She was dying to open her eyes and see for herself. She hated that she had to trust Jove to take care of her and Magny to tell her about her surroundings. She felt helpless! Maybe her time sensor could be fixed with a time spell? She knew a couple of those. But there was no way she could perform them in the state she was in. For now, she was at the mercy of a god and a hobgoblin. And, apparently, the god had just taken her to a room full of strippers. Whatever the purpose was, it eluded her.
“Oh, how nice!” Magny continued. “Do you hear that?” He was talking about the background music. It was slow and sensual. “The girls are moving in fascinating ways. I didn’t know they could dance like this without the aid of those poles.”
Jove laughed out loud. He’d tried to hold it in, smiling from time to time at the hobgoblin’s reactions, but it was too much.
“Don’t worry, bratty brat, I’m not selling you to the club, or anything. Although, I do wonder how you’d fare as a stripper.”
“Don’t call me that,” she murmured.
“Gideon, what are you doing here? I thought you were going back to New York. You’re not going to try to convince me again, are you? You’re wasting your time. And mine.”
“Oh, a guy just came out of the bathroom,” Magny reported dutifully. “I like his style, but all that leather does look comfortable. He’s got blond hair. What is that? A bun? I didn’t know men wore their hair in buns too. Isn’t that a women’s thing? And his eyes...” He gulped. “Well, maybe it’s better if I skip this part.”
“What about his eyes?” Val asked.
“What is this charade?” the man inquired. He rounded the couch and sat down, legs and arms spread wide. “Who is she? And why is she rolled up in a blanket? What’s wrong with her? Is she blind?”
“Interesting,” Magny noted. “Two girls just straddled his knees, and they’re now performing some kind of slow lap dance. Huh. I wonder why they like him so much.”
“Shut up, creature! Gideon, tell me what’s going on. Why are you here again?”
“This has nothing to do with what we talked about earlier.”
“And I refused.”
“And you refused.” Jove lowered Valentina onto an armchair, then grabbed Magny by the back of his coat and placed him on her lap. “This is Valentina De Rossi, witch and Keeper of the Spades. She’s dealing with... well, quite a situation, and I think you can help her.”
“What situation? Speak plainly.”
“My time sensor is damaged,” Val said. She leaned forward, caught Magny by the shoulders, and held on to him. Not being able to open her eyes and see the man before her was beyond frustrating. “At least, that’s what I understand... I was hypnotized this morning so I could travel to my past lives. When the session ended, I started seeing things. Flashes. Now, every time I move my head or blink, the world around me changes and I’m transported either to the past or the future. It�
�s making me terribly sick, that’s why I have to keep my eyes closed.”
“Wow! That’s quite a story.” He turned to Jove. “And why do you think I can help her? It’s not like I’ve done it before. I’ve never heard of anything like it. I didn’t even know humans could screw up their time sensor.”
“The hobgoblin told me something else. It made me think about you.” Jove poked Magny on the back of his head. “Come on. Tell him what you told me.”
Magny scrunched up his nose. “He smells of god and something else,” he told Valentina. “Remember that black motorcycle? It’s his.”
“Focus, creature!” The man didn’t seem to have much patience for Magny’s kind. “I don’t have all day.”
“She witnessed her own deaths. Many of them. In all the lives she visited, she died violently, and under hypnosis, she went through them all over again. It was horrible!”
Valentina shuddered. “I listened to the recording afterwards, and I know it happened, but honestly, I don’t remember feeling those deaths.”
“Oh, believe me, you felt them,” Magny insisted. “You were choking, then burning alive, drowning, then scratching at the insides of a coffin.”
“Interesting.” The blond man motioned for the girls to step away and stood up. He approached Valentina slowly, studying her from head to toe. “You died so many times.” His voice was low and thoughtful. “One might think you would’ve gotten used to dying by now.”
When he leaned in so close to her face that she could smell his breath, – cinnamon and cloves – Val opened her eyes. Her heart skipped a beat. She knew him. She’d seen him before. He was the god who’d shot her during the Test, then thrown her off a roof. He was the one who called himself Death.
Blink.
She was still in the night club, in the same room, but hours in the past. Jove and Death were sitting at the kitchen counter. Jove was talking feverishly, something about needing the other’s help.
“She’s dying anyway! She’s been dying for years, her body rotting from the inside to the point where she’s just a breathing corpse, then healing instantly right when she’s about to pass on. And the cycle begins again. And again, and again. It’s torture. I can’t see her like this anymore! I can’t.”
