Page 42 of My Instant Karma

“Maybe it isn’t for good,” Dante muses. “If I’m honest, I don’t like half the stuff we do. She wanted me to do that job last night, get it trending on social media. Sure, the guy deserved it, but I feel like the predator now.”

“It’s like she feeds her power with the attention.” Kurtis surprises me in that he’s hopping onto the same thought train I have.

Evan takes control of the meeting. “First, we discover what you can do.”

“Wait a second. Tessa has a point,” Dante says. “I haven’t known anyone who’s worked past their ten-year mark. What happens to us? Do we get traded to Death or something worse?”

Now it’s time for me to play devil’s advocate. “Maybe she lets us retire. Maybe it isn’t a nefarious mastermind plot or selling us to Death.”

All of us shiver, and I can tell by their expressions that they don’t buy her altruistic side either.

“I’ll start researching what happens to ourretirees.” Evan stares at each of us in turn. “We all keep this to ourselves. If you agree, we meet here at night to help Tessa, unless we have been requested on a karma job.”

We all nod.

“Do we start figuring it out now?” Dante asks.

I smile at his enthusiasm. “Well, we know I can do the blasting thing.”

“But is it moving air, energy, or both?” Evan asks.

“Felt like a blast of wind.” Kurtis rubs his neck like he’s reliving the moment.

“And the visual and physical sensations are like a tornado inside me.”

“Can youseeit?” Dante inquires, intrigued.

“Yeah,” I say, my thoughts lost in what it means. “It felt like my emotions, fear and anger, were taking form, but last night it felt more electric in nature.”

“Noted. Is there anything else you can do?” Evan asks.

I hesitate, worrying this is all a bad idea to include them in my self-discovery quest.

“Hey,” Kurtis says reassuringly, “I know I’m an asshole, but I won’t rat you out.”

He sounds sincere, so I share, “I can sense death.”

“How?” Evan asks.

“If I brush past someone, I can sense if they are going to die soon. Or if I’m doing a reading, I’ve seen when their end is coming, but I rarely get the vision if it’s a long way off. It happened a couple times, but it was blurry, like a potential event.”

“Power number two, predicting death,” Evan counts.

“Anything else that comes to mind?” Dante leans forward, staring at me like he wishes he could read my mind.

“Other than my intuitive abilities, I don’t think so. You all had some psychic abilities before working for Karma, right?”

“Yeah, to varying degrees and better at some aspects than others,” Evan says, rubbing his chin. “But were your psychic abilities strong?”

“Most of the time, yes. Strong enough to perform accurate readings.” I think about what I have done and learned over the years. “But I didn’t practice defensive magic before, except for the ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” they all exclaim.

“You don’t see them?” I’m surprised by their reaction. “Or sense them?”

“No. You need defensive magic for ghosts?”

“Well, most of them don’t attack, but it’s hard to concentrate on anything with them popping up and getting in my way. I finally learned how to block out their energy.”

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