Page 33 of Roma King
“She’s in a terrible mood,” he rumbles. “I wouldn’t fucking bother if I were you.” A cold, dark smile comes my way, but the frown remains. He blinks at me, as if he’s just remembered how to accomplish the action, and then he turns his back to me, completely ignoring Garrett, and walks away.
How fucking strange. What a weird thing to do, to stare so openly at someone like that. The arrogance and the condescension that radiated off him still nips at my skin as he stops and twists briefly, throwing a handful of words over his shoulder at me, like they aren’t strange, and it isn’t a weird thing for him to do at all.
“Nice hair,Gadje. Looks like a sunset. Or a nightmare.”
Garrett actually growls, low and angry, like a rabid dog, as the stranger disappears into the crowd. My hackles are up—a pretty damn canine response of my own. What a…what afuckingasshole. Baring my teeth, I whirl around, disregarding the guy’s warning and I storm into the tent. I don’t care if Madame Shelta’s in a bad mood.I’min a bad mood. I’m cold, I’m wet and I’m tired, and the fact that Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome just turned me into a blushing school girl in less than three seconds flat hasn’t made my day any better. Garrett audibly grinds his teeth as he follows inside the tent after me.
I was wrong before; the tent isn’t in complete darkness after all. The lighting is just incredibly dim. A small chandelier lamp sits on a table at the far side of the space, casting off a barely-there, orange glow. Beside the lamp, two stacks of cards sit side by side on the surface of the wood. There’s nothing else of note inside the tent. A carpet underfoot. A small brazier with a couple of pieces of wood resting in it, thankfully unlit. I don’t even know how you’d manage a fire down here, undergr—
“I’m not changing my mind, Pasha. This isn’t a negotiation. If you can’t see how your—”
I haven’t noticed the small curtained off section to my right. I barely see the black curtains move now as a woman appears from behind it, her eyes growing wide as they land on us. Her hair is a dark brown, lightened by a streak of grey that has been pinned back by a floral beret. She can only be Madame Shelta. Her clothes hardly confirm her identity, though. In place of the long gypsy skirt and loose-fitting blouse I’ve been imagining since I read the sign outside the tent, her crisp white button-down shirt and neatly pressed grey pants scream office worker or a bank teller, rather than fortune teller in an illegal fairground. Her sharp, grey eyes spear through me as she walks over to the table.
“Ah. I thought you were my son,” she says. She sets the steaming cup she’s holding in her hands down on the table and slowly lowers herself into one of the chairs at the table, then looks up at me again, a faintly annoyed expression on her severe, though beautiful face. “If you’re my one o’clock, then you’re late,” she tells me. Her eyes flicker toward Garrett and linger on him. “And I did inform you that I only saw one client per session.”
“I’m sorry to intrude. I actually don’t have an appointment. I just wanted to ask—”
She’s already shaking her head, though. Already primed to cut me off. “If you don’t have an appointment, you’ll need to come back another night. I’m fully booked until next Thursday.”
“I just want to ask,” I continue, “if you’ve seen a little boy. Corey Petrov. He was taken from his house five days ago. I got a phone call saying that he might be here tonight.”
Her body stiffens at this. She doesn’t like the determined tone of my voice, or the fact that I’m clearly not going to be told to go away. I’ve been met with resistance and poorly disguised hostility ever since I arrived in Rochester Park, and Shelta must recognize the fire in my eyes. Her posture remains rigid as she picks up her mug and takes a sip from the piping hot liquid inside. “I don’t know who called you, or what you were told, but we don’t allow children at the Midnight Fair. It’s not safe for children here.”
“That’s what the Fox said. But if you’d just take a quick look at his photo, then I’d be very grateful.” I already have it in my hand. Corey’s smiling face doesn’t seem to make an impression on her as I wield the print-out in her direction.
Her head tilts to one side. “The Fox?”
“The man with the cups game.”
She considers this, and then nods. “I suppose Archie does look a bit like a fox. What’s your name? Deborah? Jennifer?”
God knows where she’s pulled those names from. “No. It’s Zara.”
She doesn’t look pleased. In fact, she looks offended, which is strange. “All right. Sit down. I suppose I could spare a few moments. You’re going to have to wait outside, though, I’m afraid,” she tells Garrett. “Only one person inside the tent at a time. That’s the rule. Things get too clouded otherwise.”
Garrett stares down at the woman, arms folded across his chest again. I don’t even need to look at him to know he’s not going to budge. Not after Sarah’s caution-filled words.
Shelta collects the cards from the table in front of her and places the two stacks together, neatly arranging them back into one pile. Her hands seem unsteady as she sets them down again, though everything else about her is still taut and unyielding. “Don’t worry, Sir. You can wait just outside there. If she calls, you’ll be able to come running to her rescue in no time at all.” Shelta seems amused by this, as if Garrett’s tension is ridiculous to her.
Wary, Garrett shoots me a questioning look:should I go?I nod once, sighing, and that’s all he needs from me. He goes, exiting the tent with a riled grumble, but he makes a point of standing just outside the entrance, the toe of a scuffed leather boot still visible between the flaps.
“Protective, isn’t he? Come and sit down so we can get this over with. My head’s killing me, and I have plenty to be getting on with tonight.” Shelta gestures to the chair opposite her. I sit, and she takes the print-out of Corey from my hands, casting a brief, disinterested gaze over it. “Haven’t seen him. Here. Cut the deck for me, young lady.” She folds the photo, setting it down next to the deck of cards. Tarot cards, I note, now that I’m closer.
“I don’t really believe in that sort of stuff. I just came about the boy.” Truth is, I don’t want to touch her tarot cards. I’ve always been unsettled by the idea of having my fortune told. People like Shelta prey on the naivety of the gullible. Tell them the things they want to hear, simply to appease them. To cure them of some hurt. The height of manipulation. My grandmother wasn’t as jaded and cynical as me. She believed in all kinds of superstition and nonsense, and even she said fortune tellers were the worst kinds of frauds around.
Shelta seems unfazed by my admission. “That’s not how this works. You don’t have to believe. Doesn’t change a thing. Cut the deck. I’ll see if I can tell you anything about this missing little boy of yours.”
If she’d cracked my head open and looked inside, she would have known that this, telling me she might be able to help find Corey, would have been the only thing she could say to get me to cut the deck. Since it isn’t possible that she’s read my mind, however, I take the coincidence for what it is and quickly pick up a wedge of cards from the deck, setting them down on the table. I’ve cut close to the bottom, so only a few cards remain in the right-hand pile. The woman glares at the deck, openly upset by the split for some reason, but she doesn’t say anything about it, or tell me to do it again. She picks up the card now sitting on top of the deck and she flips it over, placing it in front of me.
I look down at the intricate image depicted on the card—a beautiful woman with flowing, unbound hair, seated on a throne and holding a scepter in her right hand. Her robes flash under the light of the lamp, limned in gold. On her head, a bright, elegant crown shines, dotted with a series of what look like stars. There’s no text on the card. Nothing to let me know which one I’ve drawn.
Shelta’s face is expressionless as she stares down at the card. Her face has gone deathly pale. She picks up the glittering woman, her hand shaking even harder as she puts it back into the deck and pushes them to one side. “I’m afraid this isn’t working,” she informs me. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
So far, I’ve managed to keep a tight leash on my temper, but this…this is too much to bear. “Look. This little boy is in trouble. He’s five years old.Five. You have children. You said that smug piece of shit that just walked out of here was your son. So imagine for a second, if you can, that he went missing when he was Corey’s age. How would you have felt? What would you have done to get your son back?”
Her face is carved out of stone. She pins me to the chair with her gaze, her eyes dark stony and uncompromising. “What do you know about him? My son?”
“What? Nothing. Why the fuck would I know anything about him? I only met him a couple of minutes ago. And he wasn’t exactly polite.”
