Incubus Dreams

My cell phone rang. It made me jump, and my pulse was so thick in my throat that I couldn’t answer right away. A woman’s voice said, “Anita, Anita are you there?”

It was Maria

She was also helping me cope with my abilities. She was the only psychic I knew, and trusted. She knew the shapeshifters almost as well as I did, in some ways better, in some ways not. But she was the closest thing I had to a mentor of late, and I needed one.

“Maria

“I just got this overwhelming urge to call you. What’s wrong?”

See, she’s psychic. I wanted to explain everything, but Nathaniel was behind me in the car. What was I supposed to do, make him put his fingers in his ears and hum while I talked? “It’s a little awkward right now.”

“Should I guess?”

“If you want.”

She was quiet for a few moments, and she wasn’t guessing. She was using either her own gifted intuition, or she was drawing a card, a tarot card that is. “I’m looking at the Knight of Cups here, that’s usually Nathaniel’s card.” I’d been skeptical, to say the least, when Maria

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Silence, and I knew she was laying a spread. She’d actually tried to get me to use the cards, to see if I had any abilities for divination, but they were just pretty pictures to me. My gifts lay elsewhere.

“King of Wands, Micah is with you, too.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.” I could picture her with her long gray hair tied back in a no-nonsense ponytail, probably in one of her loose, flowing gowns, sitting cross-legged on the bed, which is where she’d have been this late. She was slender and strong, and her body didn’t match her hair, or the fact that she was closer to sixty than fifty.

“The devil, temptation. You haven’t fed theardeur yet, have you?”

It used to creep me out that she could do this, but I’d gotten used to it. It was just something Maria

“Not yet.”

“The Priestess, you have a question for me.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not doing something silly like trying to choose between Micah and Nathaniel, are you?”

“Thanks a lot.”

“You can’t blame me, Anita, you do tend to complicate your life.”

I sighed. “Fine, true, but sort of, and not exactly.”

“Fine, be cryptic.”

“Not in the way you might mean,” I said finally.

“So not dumping one for the other,” she said.

“No.”

“Well, that’s good.” She was quiet for longer this time. “I’ll stop guessing. I’ve laid a reading.” She preferred to do a reading without knowing anything about the problem. Maria

“I put you in the center, Queen of Swords. The past is the five of pentagrams, being left out in the cold, not getting your needs met.

Deity is the six of cups, which can be someone from your past coming back into your life, someone you felt a strong co

Something happened in your love life that made you be afraid of being hurt, or giving up something, or someone. Co

“Not on purpose,” I said.

“Hush, I’m not finished.”

“Overlaying the Miser is the six of swords, help unseen, or help from a spiritual source. Overlaying the Lovers is the four of rods, the marriage card. Overlaying the out in the cold is the ten of pentacles, happy prosperous home. Hmm. The King of Rods and the six of cups stand on their own, but the two of swords has crossed with the Queen of Wands. Nathaniel’s card is crossed with the ten of cups, a happy home, true love. The Knight of Wands is crossed by the Devil, temptation.”

“Okay, I get most of it, but who is the Knight of Wands, and why is he covered by temptation? And who is the Queen of Wands?”

“I think the Queen of Wands is you.”

“I’m always the Queen of Swords.”

“Maybe that’s changing. Maybe you’re coming into your power, into yourself.”

“I’m already myself,” I said.

“Have it your way.”

“I’m trying to.”

“I’d say the Lovers and the four of rods are your old fiancé in college that dumped you. That experience led you to be the Miser with your emotions. You need to let that go. Your home was the five of pentacles, cold, but now it’s a happy prosperous home. You’re going to be offered up some difficult choices soon; that has something to do with someone from your past. I think Micah’s card is the message that he’s helped you heal some of those old wounds, because he bridges the past with deity.”

“He’s a gift from deity?”

“Don’t be cheeky. When the universe, or God, or Goddess, or whatever you choose to say, gives you someone in your life that comes in and makes so much right, so quickly, be grateful. Be grateful instead of picking at it.” Maria

“And the Knight of Wands?”

“Someone new, or someone old, but you’ll be seeing them in a new light. It will be a temptation, but the wands represent power, so it could be a temptation to use power or gain power, rather than anything relationshipwise.”

“I don’t need more temptation in my life, Maria

“Did you start a case tonight?”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I felt compelled to draw another card. It’s the eight of swords, a woman bound and blindfolded, surrounded by swords. A woman died tonight.”

I try to avoid calling Maria

“Five of rods, there will be a lot of conflict on this one, and more to die. But the Justice card says the guilty will be punished, and it will work out, but not without loss. The eight of pentacles?

That’s odd. Someone will be involved that was once your teacher.

Someone older. Do you know who that would be?”

I thought about it being Dolph, but that didn’t sound right. “I don’t know, maybe.”

“They haven’t come into the situation, yet, but they will. They will help you.”

“How sure are you that there will be more killings?”

“Aren’t you sure of it?” she asked, and she had that tone in her voice that said she was listening to voices I couldn’t hear.

“Yeah, I got that feeling.”

“Trust your feelings, Anita.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

“You must be almost home by now.”

I didn’t ask how she knew we were turning into the driveway. She wouldn’t really have been able to tell me. Psychic stuff wasn’t big on A, B, C logic. It was more like A to G, leaps of logic, with no road map as to how we got to G.

“Yeah, we’re home.”

Micah blew me a kiss and got out of the Jeep. I heard Nathaniel get out of the back. They both closed the doors and left me in the suddenly dark car, alone with the phone.

Maria

I opened my mouth, and closed it. “I prayed.”

“What I’m getting is that you usually only pray when you’re out of other options that you like. It might be nice if you prayed as something other than a last resort.” She said it so matter-of-factly.

Nothing big, you prayed, God can’t talk to you, so he left a message on your machine. Great.

I licked my suddenly dry lips, and said, “It doesn’t bother you that you just took a message from God for me?”

“Well, it wasn’t from him directly. He just sent it.” Again, utterly matter-of-fact, no big deal.

“Maria

“Yes.”

“Sometimes you creep me out.”

She laughed. “You raise the dead and slay the undead, and I frighten you.”

Put that way, it sounded silly, but it was still true. “Let’s just say that I’m glad you have your psychic powers, and I have mine. I feel guilty enough without knowing the future.”

“Don’t feel guilty, Anita, follow your heart. No, it was the Queen of Rods, not of Cups. So follow your power, let it take you where you need to go. Trust yourself, and trust those around you.”

“You know I don’t trust anybody.”

“You trust me.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Stop poking at it, Anita. Your heart is not a wound to be poked at to see if the scab is ready to come off. You can be healed of that very old pain, if you’ll just let it happen.”

“So everybody keeps telling me.”

“If all your friends are saying one thing, and your heart is saying the same thing, and only your fear is arguing, then stop fighting.”

“I’m not good at giving up.”

“No, I’d say that is the thing you are worst at. Giving up something that no longer serves a purpose, or protects you, or helps you, isn’t giving up at all, it’s growing up.”