Skye flipped the second card, which represented the present.
Four of Swords in the reverse position. Damn those swords! Skye concentrated on the meaning. Reversed, it meant the need for immediate action and to break out of the death of isolation. Problem was, she wasn’t sure of her next move. Maybe the third card, the future card, could help. She placed her hand on the final card, held her breath, and closed her eyes. Her mind’s eye formed an image of a man in armor riding a black horse, eyes ahead, unwavering in his mission.
Knight of Pentacles. She knew it before her fingers fully turned over the card. Kheelan, a man of action, a strategizer working relentlessly to make a dream come true. Her future was bound to his but in what way she didn’t know. The only thing she knew with certainty was that she was the key for Kheelan to reach that dream of freedom.
Time for some action of her own. Skye blew out the candles and put the tarot deck back in place. When she lifted her cell phone, she hesitated before stuffing it, unused, in her coat pocket. There was something she needed to do more important than calling Mom. She had to make sure Glenna hadn’t set a final trap for the pixies on this Samhain’s Eve.
Best to get this next part over with quickly. Kheelan was probably waiting at her apartment now.
Skye grabbed a flashlight from the counter and went downstairs to the basement.
Chapter 17
The Smell of Absinthe
It was cold down there, almost as cold as the fall night outside.
Skye reached the bottom stair and flipped on her flashlight. The existing light fixture in the basement barely illuminated anything but the center of the room where the bare bulb hung on flimsy wiring.
Jiggling her keys and humming loudly, Skye strode to the back storeroom. The noise helped give her a false sense of bravado. Just a quick look in the storeroom to make sure the absinthe wasn’t set out to hurt the pixies, and she would be on her merry way home.
The smell of licorice, strong as an opened, ton-sized barrel of crushed star anise, assaulted her senses before she pulled the light chain. More pungent than ever, the aroma alerted her to the presence of evil. Skye gripped the flashlight like a weapon.
On the metal counter by the back wall, the absinthe fountain, carafe, and a set of crystal drinking glasses all sparkled with The Green Fairy. It fizzed and bubbled like just-poured ginger ale spiked with crushed emeralds.
Skye licked her lips. Her throat and mouth were as parched as if they had suffered through a season-long drought. She stepped forward, imagining the cool, bittersweet liquid trickling down her throat in waves of refreshing pleasure.
She had to have it. She would die of thirst if she didn’t.
Another step forward. Her stomach tightened and ached with need. Only the absinthe could quench that gut-wrenching ache.
Yet another step and Skye’s fingers curled around the stem on one of the sparkling goblets. Not even the sight of tiny fairy remains, floating in the pool of absinthe like drowned flies, could stop her. She raised the goblet toward her mouth. The cool rim of the glass touched her lips. A stirring in the air, a brush of movement against her cheeks caused her numb fingers to loosen their hold on the goblet’s stem. It crashed onto the concrete floor sending glass shards everywhere. Something else fell too, the thing that had come out of nowhere and brushed by the front of her face. A tarot card landed face up in the splattered, green muck.
The Queen of Swords. Skye lifted it out of the spilled gunk with trembling fingers and studied it in bewilderment, uncertain if it had materialized as a warning or a threat.
Get out. Now.
She dropped the card. It was the same voice that had told her to fly last night when she had awakened from a dream to find herself perched on a treetop sporting a pair of brand spanking new fairy wings. A whirring hum between her ears made her heart pump furiously, sending adrenaline spikes pounding through every vein in her body. Skye’s vision tunneled, the peripheral sight coated in blackness. The remaining pinpoint of light illuminated only the fallen Queen of Swords at her feet.
Impossible to think. It took all her mental energy and physical strength to stand upright and remember to breathe. Skye frantically searched her coat pocket, then jeans pocket. She needed a grounding crystal and she usually kept one on her at all times. Her fingers explored her back hip pocket and felt the smooth, hard surface of a stone. She pulled it out, placing it between her two palms, closed her eyes, and drew on its energy.