Page 5 of Stronger Than Blood
Rory Jenkins
Istared at the crystal ball for an hour and didn’t see a damned thing, not even my reflection, considering Madam Bellamy had put me in a dark room with the thing. When she threw the curtain open, I sighed. “I told you I can’t do divination—I’m just not made that way.”
The woman, way too pretty for being so close to fifty years old, studied me for several moments before she sighed. “Rory, I’ve done all I know to do. Your talents are strong, at least when they choose to be, but you sure can’t call them up when you need them. I’m sorry, love, but I can’t hire you to see clients by yourself unless you can actually read their futures.”
I sat back, frustrated. I’d always seen ghosts. I mean, not all the time. And to be honest, not often enough to say it was anything other than an occasional heartstopper. I’d sought out Madam Bellamy over a year ago, asking for her help.
My life at that time had been shit. I’d lost my family—both of the grandparents who raised me had died within months of each other. The farm I’d grown up on had been sold, and I was like a kite whose string that tethered me to the ground had been cut.
I was a man without a mission, or any direction at all. I’d come to Memphis on a whim, mostly because I didn’t want to live in Nashville, and as a very active gay man, I didn’t want to lose access to the men I knew I wanted to interact with. So, this city made the most sense.
I’d walked into Madame’s store shortly after I settled in Memphis. The moment I saw her, I knew I needed to work for her. She was like pure magic bound up in a human body. Her wig—I learned after I met her that she had one for each day—was huge, not unlike what Whoopie Goldburg wore in the old showGhost, which was one of my favorite movies. She loved to wear loose-fitting and flowing gowns when she worked. I now knew she bought these from some designer in Asia and they were 100 percent silk. I dare not even guess what she paid for them.
Unlike Whoopie though, this woman was real—at least real enough to get a read on people quickly, allowing her to do all sorts of readings, including sharing information from the dead.
I’d decided to work with her when she’d told me under no circumstances was I to lie to a client. I either saw something or I didn’t—sadly, I never did.
“So, I should what? Quit?”
She sat across from me and looked into the ball. Her eyes glossed over, and she smiled. “Well, things are happening in your near future. A man,” she said and looked up at me, waggling her eyebrows. Then she paused. “There’s darkness, too, lots of darkness.” I saw her swallow hard a couple of times before she continued. “There are three men you must face. One is related to you. I can’t tell who it is, but it’s a fatherly figure, maybe an uncle, maybe… no, the ball won’t let me see it clearly. The other is a nasty man who’s already passed… well, mostly passed. He’s angry, and he hungers to kill…”
She looked at me, then reached for my hand. I’d seen her do that when doing a reading. I had come to learn that it was asmuch for her as it was for others. Sometimes, readings were intense and scary.
“He will try to hurt you. He may try to hurt others.” She stared at the ball for a long time before she pulled her hand back.
After a few moments, she smiled. “The other man is for you. Again, I can’t see it clearly enough, but he could be a lover. I can’t see his face, but he’s built nice enough.” She wiped the perspiration from her forehead. “Wow, okay, it’s been a while since I’ve had a reading that intense. Would you go grab me a little orange juice?” she asked and leaned back in her chair.
I quickly complied. Occasionally, a reading caused her blood sugar to drop, and when that happened, something like orange juice helped her recover.
As soon as she finished her juice, she looked at me. “I think your destiny lies in your past, Rory. I’m not sure who any of those men are, but they all seem to be somehow related to you, and not in the biblical sense. They seem to be more… in proximity to one way or another.”
“The father figure?” I asked, causing her to sigh.
“I didn’t see him clearly. I tried… well, that’s why I was exhausted. I pushed too hard, but I can tell he is a part of you somehow, some way.”
“And the killer?” I asked.
She sighed. “He’s not as much of a threat now as he has been in the past. But he’s not passed over, and he wants vengeance. Although I’m assuming that while he lived, he was one nasty piece of work. I see a lot of death surrounding him.”
“What? I’m supposed to go seek out a serial killer and send him across the veil?”
“Sure, if you’ve got a death wish.” She shook her head at me. Madam Bellamy didn’t have a lot of patience for my sarcasm or silly questions.
“He’s what you must avoid. Hold on,” she said and left, only to return a moment later with her favorite tarot deck. She lifted the heavy crystal ball and placed it on its pedestal on the far side of the room, then returned and handed me the cards. “Shuffle. You know the drill.”
I did. I’d spent months trying to master the reading of the tarot, only to finally give up after it proved to be the opposite of an accurate reading.
I handed the cards back to her, and she flipped the first card. “See, the emperor is the first to show, once again, a father figure. Do you remember what the emperor represents?” she asked.
I nodded and forced up the cards I’d memorized. “Yeah, he’s the father archetype, but also, hard worker, powerful, takes care of family, devoid of emotions—”
She shook her head. “No, not devoid of them, but he doesn’t let emotions cloud his judgment. He’s about doing what has to be done.”
She immediately turned over the second card. The ten of swords. “As you can see—danger. The worst of the worst, and in this and your other reading, this is the middle card, the present, so to speak. You’ll have to go through this man, this evildoer, to get to the future.”
I wasn’t sure what to think of this. Mostly I feared him, and what he meant for my life. On the other hand, I was tired of playing in the background. If he was my destiny and that led to me finding my path forward, I was willing to take him on.
She flipped over the empress next and smiled. “Well, that’s a pretty card at the end of this, so I’m going to go ahead and guess that this is a potential lover, or at least a potential good relationship of some kind. Could be friend, could be sibling, but you’ve done the work needed to get to him.”
