Occult & Supernatural
“There are channels,” she said, “for adopted kids who want to find their parents. There are also agencies that specialize in it.”
“I know. This is different. Ian said I should talk to you.”
“Ian …” Collie said. As if there could be more than one answer.
“Ian McLaren.”
Anna let her head drop to her desk . From that position, she heard Collie’s response.
“Mandrake.”
“Uh … I don’t think he likes being called Mandrake,” the prospect said.
“I don’t think we liked the last four clients Mandrake sent us,” Collie countered. Reluctantly, Anna lifted her head.
“What exactly did Mandrake say about us?” she asked.
The prospect turned to her with undisguised relief. Apparently he was tired of talking to Collie.
“He said you were a retrocognitive clairsentient.”
“And do you know what that means?” Anna asked. “Because I don’t.”
Collie made a choking sound, which alarmed Anna until she realized it was the start of a laughing fit.
“Did Mandrake tell you that we specialized in anything?” Anna asked.
“He said to ignore the sign on your door.”
Anna glanced at the door. Maybe it had changed since her arrival five minutes earlier.
Nope. It still read, “Colette Kostyna, Public Relations.”
“Most people ignore it,” Anna said. She glared at Collie, who had more or less finished laughing. “Please step in anytime.”
“We’re, uh, not well-qualified detectives,” Collie said. “We just have some specialized knowledge and, because of that, we’re able to work within a certain community. I really am a PR person most of the time.”
“Huh.” The kid tried to lean back. His chair didn’t do that, so he gave it up and settled for resting one leg on the other, right ankle over his left knee. “I would have figured a retrocognitive clairsentient would be more broadly useful than that.”
“Regardless,” Collie said, “the situation is as I described it. So Ian was probably wrong to point you in our direction.”
“He told me what you did in Victoria,” the kid said. Anna was surprised to hear herself snort.
“And you took that as a recommendation?”
He looked at her, emotion seeming to push his sharp features forward.
“Yes,” he said. “I told you I was in kind of a different situation.”
“Look,” Anna said, “Rowan … is it actually Rowan?”
The kid smiled. Something about the smile made Anna feel bad for him again.
“Ever since I can remember.”
“Rowan, Colette and I have one, ah, skill in this detective thing. One. You can call us if you have a problem you can’t explain to the police or to a real detective without sounding like you’re crazy. That’s it. If you can explain it to a normal person, or if you don’t care that you sound nuts, we are not for you. I mean … unless you’re pretty sure things can’t get much worse, I would question hiring us for any reason at all. Except PR. Collie knows how to do that.”
Collie raised her travel mug to Anna.
“We have got to get you on tape, make some infomercials.”
“I’m just saying,” Anna said, looking Rowan in the eye, “we can’t guarantee that we will not screw up and cause trouble. Unless you need our … unique point of view … you’re better off with professionals.”
Rowan shook his head and Anna got the sense her little speech had meant nothing to him. He had the look of a guy in the midst of a downpour who’d been threatened with a squirt gun.
“You have another skill.”
So that was what retrowhatsis meant. She’d figured as much. Fucking Mandrake.
These cards had been held in the hands of the Italians who had ordered them created. Used for what purpose? To play games, as jaded historians would have everyone believe? I couldn’t believe that such beauty?—?each card a hand-painted treasure of Renaissance art!?—?could only exist to kill time in some overstuffed castle. I had to prove that these cards weren’t simply a European spin on the ancient Chinese game of “money cards,” but a sacred tool of the ancient Egyptians brought to Europe by nomadic Arabs and Romani gypsies?—?a connection many occultists swore by, even if secular Tarot researchers scoffed at the notion.
For me, though, the cards were too charged with symbolism and meaning to be simply a game. Their intricate facades overwhelmed me with the fine detailing of those master craftsmen who’d created them. Each tiny brush mark, each application of pigment, a stroke of genius. For a moment, I forgot about the divinatory significance of each card and was struck merely by the beauty of the artistic technique…
And then the gloved hand unveiled the fourth card in its transparent sheath.
I had studied the reproduction of this card before viewing the original, but nothing had prepared me for the earthiness of its tone, and that smudge along the young page’s profile in such a rich hue. I was reminded of Egyptian hieroglyphs and African pottery. There in the Renaissance depiction of the archetype I carry within me?—?this message-bearing page who has crossed centuries on his quest to enlighten others?—?I found the earth of Africa.
I’m not talking about a symbolic earth, but rather an actual physical quality to the pigment used to paint the card: a gritty streak of savannah sludge worn into the delicate figure as if by the cruel thumb of fate. No, it wasn’t a streak, but rather more like an exposed foundation revealed through the chipped plaster of the white figure’s fragile cheek.
These cards were not born in Europe.
Had I gasped out loud at my discovery, I wondered, as the librarian whisked away the final image from me? My time with the cards had come to an end.
“You are lucky,” she said, as she placed the page back into the box she had used to transfer it from the dark recesses of the library where it was presumably stored. “Normally this particular card is kept in Bergamo.”
I was stunned. “Really? Then why is it here?”
“A wealthy collector of Tarot art was looking to verify the authenticity of a privately acquired piece…” She stopped herself as if realizing she’d revealed too much.
