Bound to the Battle God

by Ruby Dixon

  She checks her watch. "Half hour, really. Why?"

  I shove my taco bag in a nearby garbage can, no longer hungry, and practically drag her across the street—in the wrong direction to get back to the office—when the light turns.

  "W-what? What are we doing? Is there a bookstore I missed?" Her laughter dies when she realizes I'm charging for the psychic's doorstep. “Wait! Are you serious? Faith? You want to get your fortune told?" She looks at me as if I just told her I decided to join a nunnery. "Right now? On lunch hour? We haven’t even eaten our tacos!“

  "You can go back if you want," I tell her, eyeing the window. There are beaded curtains covering the tinted glass, and the red palm is the only sign on the door. I wonder if I've ever seen this place before. Is it new? Or has it always been here and I've never noticed it despite a hundred lunchtime walks with Sherry? "I won't be long," I tell her and open the door.

  If I can't have a logical answer to what's happening, an illogical one will do. Maybe my problem isn’t neurological or chemical but…mystical.

  Okay, that sounds corny even to me, but I’m willing to roll with it if it gives me answers.

  The shop itself is kind of disappointing. I was expecting mystical runes or lush velvet curtains hanging from the walls. Instead, the walls themselves are covered with bookshelves, and there's a glass counter along one side full of jewelry. The back wall has candles stacked in neat cubbyholes and some of them are set out on stands and lit, providing a thick, herbal smell to the shop. A woman comes from the back room as the door clangs with our entry.

  "Hello! Welcome to my shop," she calls out. "How can I help you today?" She looks unimpressive as well—motherly and average, with a dumpy figure and curly, gray-peppered hair. She's wearing leggings and a tunic, much like your average soccer mom would, with a dark scarf artfully tossed around the neck.

  "I want to get my fortune told," I say, striding forward before Sherry can silence me. "I have questions."

  She goes very still, and her gaze moves up and down over me for a long moment. Her eyes widen, just a little. "Who are you?"

  I suck in a breath and step forward, forgetting all about Sherry. She sees something. I know she does. I'm in the right place. I’m so excited I can hardly breathe. “What do you see?"

  The woman shakes her head slowly, never taking her eyes off of me. "You have a very…strong energy surrounding you. It's like nothing I've seen before." She moves to the back of her little store and pulls a tapestried curtain aside, gesturing. "I can give you a card reading. Give you some of the answers you seek."

  Yes! Answers! I could cry, I'm so relieved. "How much?" I ask, getting out my wallet.

  "Oh, come on," Sherry hisses at me, grabbing my arm. "This is crap, Faith. Of course she's going to say you have a strong aura. She wants you to spend money!"

  It might be crap…but it might be answers. I shake my head at Sherry. "You can go back. I'll be there soon, I promise."

  Sherry's lips tighten in a thin line and she crosses her arms over her chest, but she doesn't leave.

  I give her a smile to reassure her, then follow the woman into the back room. Sherry follows at my heels, and the woman drops the curtain behind us. "Have a seat."

  The room isn't much to look at. There are folding chairs—two on my side of the table, and one on hers. The table itself is covered in purple crushed velvet, and I bet if I peeked underneath the garish tablecloth, I'd see it's a folding table. Adorning the walls are a few posters of psychic-looking women and stars and planets and such. Crystals hang from strings on the ceiling. I don't know what to make of this. It looks more like the cheap carnival fortune teller than the last room did.

  But she sees something in me. On me. Whatever. And I'm so desperate for answers.

  "A hundred dollars," she tells me, sitting across from me at the table. "Cash. No credit cards, no checks."

  "This is crap," Sherry murmurs in a singsong voice as she sits down next to me.

  Maybe it is. Maybe this woman's taken one look at my skirt and low heels, my white blouse and my blonde ponytail and decided that I have money to spend. I mean, she’s completely wrong about that, but I guess I could see the mistake, seeing as how we’re in the business district downtown. Lots of corporate business professionals around here.

  Doesn’t matter. I'm willing to blow some stupid cash if I can get answers. I pull five twenties out of my purse and hand them over.

  She takes them from me, careful not to touch my fingers. Odd.

  "Put your purse away," the fortune teller says to me as she picks up a small wooden box and sets it on the table in front of her. She pulls the lid off with both hands and reveals a deck of long-looking cards. Tarot cards. There’s a spiderweb design over the back of each of them. "I'm not going to give you a typical reading. You need something different than mumbo-jumbo and a few platitudes, don't you?"

  I nod, wide-eyed. It’s like she’s reading my mind. ”How do you know?"

  She wiggles her fingers in the air before pulling the cards out of the box and setting the stack on the table. "I see it around you. There's something that's different about you than your friend. Like I said, I've never seen it before. It’s like an aura. No, not an aura.” She frowns. “It’s like you’ve walked through a spiderweb of some kind and you’re covered in the residue.” She wags a finger in my direction. “I’ve never seen that before, which tells me that there's a story behind it."

  "Everyone has a story," Sherry says, her tone almost sulky. I think she doesn’t like being called normal.

  “Everyone does,” the fortune teller agrees. "But not everyone has energy pulsing around them like your friend."

  I feel a little quiver of anxiety at that. Sherry can have my weird spiderweb energy if it makes her feel special. I don’t want it. I just want to sleep.

  The woman gestures at the cards. "Take them and shuffle them as much as you feel is necessary."

  I grip the cards and study them. They feel a little waxy but well-used, and the spiderweb on the back of each card seems to gleam as if shiny. I shuffle the cards lightly, flicking them a couple of times before cutting twice and then offering them back to her.

  She taps a spot on the table, and I put the stack of cards there. "What's your first question?" she asks, watching me with intent eyes.

  I think. I have so many but there's one that keeps rising to mind over and over again. "Who is it I heard? The strange man?"

  The fortune teller nods slowly. I can see Sherry staring at me, but I ignore her. I have to, because if I feel silly, I'm going to get up and leave and I need to know what this woman sees. I keep my gaze on the fortune teller and watch as she carefully picks up the first card from the deck and sets it down on the table.

  It's a dark-haired man on a throne.

  "The King of Pentacles," she says, looking thoughtful. "That's a strong, assertive man. One of power and ambition. He's someone that stops everyone in their tracks when they see him. He's…" She thinks for a moment. "He's like a force of nature. Takes over everything in his path."

  I blink, staring at the card. It's a man. What she says matches the voice I keep hearing but…I still don't know who it is.

  "Are you dating someone?" Sherry asks, amused. “And you didn’t tell me about it? You hooker.”

  I shake my head. There’s no one.

  "Be silent," the fortune teller hisses at Sherry. "This is not about you."

  My friend gasps and shrinks back.

  Well, crap. I give Sherry an apologetic look and then turn back to the fortune teller. "I don't…I don't know this man. There's no guy in my life like this."

  The woman tilts her head. "Are you asking who he is to you?" At my nod, she turns over another card. "The Lovers."

  The card has two people standing apart, a man and a woman. They're both naked. I can pretty much guess what this is about. “You sure this is my fortune?”

  "If he's not a lover, he will be soon," the psychic murmurs, ignoring my question.
“The cards don’t lie.”

  "But…how? I don't understand." It can't be someone at work, and I don't do much outside of work. Especially not lately. "Where am I going to meet this guy? I keep going to his apartment and there’s no one there. There’s never anyone there."

  The fortune teller turns over another card. It's a woman, floating in midair, with a green wreath around her. "The World, reversed."

  "What does that mean?"

  She puts a finger to her chin, thinking. "When The World is right side up, it means that a journey of knowledge is coming to an end. The circle is being completed." She traces her finger around the wreath on the card. "But for you, the journey is just about to begin."

  2

  When we get back to the office, Sherry doesn't speak to me for the rest of the day. She’s either mad because the fortune teller was rude to her, or she thinks I’m crazy. I'll take her out for lunch tomorrow and apologize up and down. She'll forget all about it, other than teasing me at the next office happy hour. Now that I’ve had a few hours to stew on the reading, it does sound a bit like the usual “you're going to meet a man” schtick. As we left, Sherry filled my ears with how gullible I was to fall for it.

  Maybe it was a silly thing to do. I don’t care. I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere.

  A man. Like a force of nature.

  The lovers.

  You're about to begin a journey.

  Those thoughts repeat in my head over and over again as I shut down my computer at the end of the day and gather my things. More than that, though, I keep thinking of what she said about my…glow, or my aura, or whatever she called it. My spiderwebs.

  You're about to begin a journey.

  I wonder what that means. What damn journey? I've lived in the city all my life. I've worked at the bank for five of those years, and went to college here prior to that. I don't travel. There was never the money growing up, and there hasn't been a reason since my parents died while I was in college. There's no one to visit and no extra money for pleasure trips. I rarely date. I have friends, but I never hang onto them for long. They transfer to different departments, or move away, or get married and then we drift apart. I’m always more or less alone.

  I'm boring.

  So why me? Why is this happening?

  I can't help but feel that the voice in the next apartment was reaching out to the wrong person. Maybe that's why he stopped talking to me. A psychic wrong number.

  I don't know that someone as unexciting as Faith Gordon is destined to be the lover of a force of nature. I mean, my last boyfriend left me for an accountant. If that doesn’t tell you everything about my life, nothing will.

  Even so…I could use a little adventure. "Well, King of Pentacles,” I dare the air around me. “If you've got something to show me, you can start that journey any freaking time now. I'm just saying. I get vacation time in two weeks."

  The office is silent.

  Maybe the King of Pentacles is more of a night shift sorta guy.

  I wake up in the middle of the night, alert for no reason at all. My ears strain, trying to make out sound. There's only the distant rumble of thunder, an oncoming storm. I sit up and listen for voices, but there's nothing. So why am I awake?

  Then, I hear it. There's a distant sound of drums. At first I think it's the storm brewing overhead, but it's got too even a beat, and when lightning clashes a short distance away, it sounds dissonant to the music. I get to my feet, wondering if it's someone playing a CD too loud.

  But it sounds like it's coming from next door. The empty apartment.

  Oh shit. It’s him. It has to be.

  I get out of bed, sliding to my feet, and tiptoe across the floor. I move toward the shared wall, the one that faces the so-called empty apartment. We're at the end of the hall, so there's no one on the other side of that particular wall except for it. I put a hand on the wall itself and then press my ear to it, listening.

  Nothing.

  Frustrated, I lean back and study the wall. Maybe it’s not it. Thunder rumbles overhead, and the music's gone. Something about this feels wrong. All of it feels wrong. It's like…like I'm hearing something I shouldn't. Getting a glimpse of something that I have no permission to access.

  The music starts again, and the hair stands up on the back of my neck. There's a low wail of a flute, and the drums begin their ceaseless beat once more.

  This is not my imagination. My imagination can't even remember the lyrics to TV jingles, much less an entire song. I have to know what this is. Even if it's just someone messing with me, I'll be happier knowing than just wondering. I can’t let the opportunity pass by again.

  I pull on a pair of pajama pants to go with my pink pajama top, and a pair of slippers. I head to the front door of my apartment, and then pause, checking the clock. Four in the morning. Okay, that's a shitty hour, but it's still reasonably safe to assume I could be up, if I need the excuse. With that in mind, I open my door and head into the hallway.

  It's a matter of steps to the neighbor's door. I head directly to it, suck in a steeling breath, and then knock.

  There's still no response. I try knocking a third time, and when that elicits no response either, I get down on hands and knees and peer under the door, looking for light. I don't see anything.

  The apartment's as vacant as it ever was. That doesn't make sense.

  I frown at the door for a minute, then decide I have to know. I head back into my apartment and return with my credit card. I glance up and down the hall, hoping that no one's watching this. If someone is home and I'm breaking and entering, this could be really bad. But I have a hunch. If I'm right, there's no one home…and I'm just crazy.

  Yippee.

  I slip my credit card into the door and wedge it along the lock, trying to flick it open like they show in movies. Either luck is with me or it's easier than it looks—the door falls open and my credit card falls to my feet in two pieces.

  Well, shit.

  I'll worry about that later.

  I stare into the darkness of the apartment.

  Even from here, I can tell it's empty. I flick on the light switch by the door and look at nothing but dusty countertops and a discarded box half full of packing peanuts in one corner. No one lives here. No one has lived here since my neighbor left. "Hello?" I call out, just in case.

  There's no answer. I didn't expect one. The floors here are tile, and my slippers are leaving prints in the dust. No one's been in or out of here in weeks or months.

  "Well, what the fuck?" I mutter to myself. I shuffle to the wall that is adjacent to mine and press my ear to it. No music. I turn and look at the other wall, but it's nothing but windows and skewed mini blinds.

  The music starts again. This time, the drums seem more urgent, the pipes wailing more frantically. It's not any louder, but there's a real sense of…immediacy to it.

  Like it’s just in the next room.

  I open every door in the apartment, peering into closets. They’re all empty, but the music continues, always just the next room away. Eventually, there’s nowhere else to look, and I groan, putting my hands to my forehead. “Either show me or leave me the hell alone, all right?”

  God, I sound crazy even to my own ears. But this is just getting ridiculous. I can't sleep. It's interfering with my job. My friends think I'm crazy.

  I'm not entirely sure that I'm not crazy. That all of this isn't just my brain deciding to go haywire and self-destruct, and it's picking some bagpipes and a catchy beat to do it to.

  Frustrated, I lean against the kitchen counter. As I do, a light flicks on under the bedroom door.

  Well, that’s not creepy at all.

  I look down at my feet. I’ve left trails in the dust on the floor. No one’s been inside here for months.

  The prickles on the back of my neck start again. I should turn around, maybe. Go back to my apartment, shut the door, go back to bed and forget I ever heard anything. I turn to the front door…

  A
nd pause.

  And slowly turn back to the closed bedroom door.

  I need to know what's going on. I need to know who the King of Pentacles is and why I have a “spiderweb” aura. Mostly I just need to know if I’m going crazy.

  If this is a mistake, I suppose there's only one way to find out.

  I open the door and step inside.

  3

  It's daylight.

  I squint up at the blinding sun, surprised. There's not a cloud in the sky and the sun overhead beats down on me, hot and relentless and bright. How did it get to be daylight? Midday?

  I wait for my eyes to adjust, wiping streaming tears from them as the too bright light makes my head pound. Slowly, I become aware of the world around me.

  “Out of the way!” A man shoves past me, glaring.

  “Sorry,” I say automatically, moving aside…to where? I stare around me as the bright glare adjusts and now I can see.

  I can see everything and…holy shit.

  Toto, we are not in Kansas.

  It's a marketplace of some kind. I think. Or a city? It's hard to tell. I see tall stone walls, at least fifteen feet high, and they cage me in on both sides. I must be standing in some sort of road, then, because underneath my slippers, it's dusty and dirty and there's not a patch of grass to be found. Nearby, an animal brays and I turn to see something in a harness that looks like a land-hippo, with a man leading its bridle. As I watch, he pulls a buff colored scarf over his bright red hair like a hood and glares at me.

  Am I…on a movie set? But even as the idea crosses my mind, I know that can't be true. This is something bigger. Something vastly more different. I cross my arms over my chest, exceedingly aware that I'm in pink pajamas. I'm not wearing a bra and I feel a little conspicuous as I look at everyone around me, trying to absorb the picture.

  Where the hell am I?

  Why am I here?

  I frown at my surroundings. The stone walls stretch out as far as the eye can see, and so do the dusty streets. I walk forward, dodging piles of animal poop in the middle of the streets, and people pass by, dressed in the same loose, flowing clothing that the man with the land-hippo was wearing. They all look at me as if I'm crazy, but no one stops to talk to me. A few women whisper as they see me.