Dating Can Be Deadly

We turned to look into Lucien’s smiling face.

“I don’t know what that means—” Jenny giggled “—but it sure sounds nice. Was that Shakespeare?”

“Yeats,” Lucien replied. He flashed a wide smile at Jenny then focused his obsidian eyes on mine. “Jeff tells me you’re interested in pentagrams.”

I didn’t answer. It felt as if his cavernous gaze was extracting my ability to speak. I controlled my urge to fidget and my other urge to run.

Jenny stepped closer so that she was shoulder to shoulder with me. “Yes, Tabitha has had a rather interesting few days, pentagram speaking.”

“Really?” His eyebrows rose in amusement, his gaze still securely locked on mine. “It sounds like an interesting story, perhaps one that should be told over dinner? Tonight?”

“Um, sorry. Actually, I’m working tonight.”

“Oh? Jeff told me you work in a law office, is there an emergency legal matter to attend to?” The corners of his mouth twitched.

“I have a second job at a movie theater.”

“But she’s not busy now,” Jenny piped in and I would’ve pinched her if she hadn’t sidestepped out of pinching distance. “You could always go for coffee.”

“Splendid idea.” Lucien grinned. “I’ll just let Jeff know that he’ll be running the store.”

He turned on his heel and then I did pinch Jenny.

“Ow!”

“What the hell did you do that for?” I snapped. “I don’t want to go out with him!”

“You’re the one who is always saying that coffee with a man is the perfect predate test,” Jenny reasoned thumbing through the pages of her love spell book. “What’s so awful? So you spend a few minutes together. Big deal. You can determine whether or not there’s a spark and whether or not he’s capable of stringing a few words together, then if he passes the predate test you’re safe to attempt dinner.”

I hated having my own lecture tossed back in my face.

“Well, you’re coming with us.”

“No way! The man doesn’t even look at me when I’m standing right next to you.”

“I don’t care. I need a buffer because he’s just so—” I groped for the word “—intense.”

Jen rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you can handle him on your own for a few minutes. I’ll be right across the street at that discount shoe place. When you’re done having coffee with Mr. Intense you can meet me there.”

Before I could protest further Mr. Intense was at my side and shrugging into a black leather jacket and within minutes we were at a coffee shop next door cozily sipping steaming lattes.

“So tell me about your pentagram escapades,” Lucien urged.

“Jenny likes to be a little dramatic,” I replied, and after taking a deep drink of my coffee I relayed to him all about the purse snatcher, the following cat yukiness and then the incident at the Dumpster. I omitted Detective Jackson’s subsequent visit.

Lucien leaned in, listened patiently and made tsk-tsking sounds at all the appropriate places. Once I’d completed my story he leaned back and considered me with his scrutinizing gaze.

“Having the sight must be both a blessing and a curse for you.”

I jumped enough to slosh a little coffee on my fingers. “I do not have ‘the sight.’” I drew quotes in the air with my fingers then wiped the coffee from them with a napkin. “I assure you that I cannot foretell the future or read minds.” I took a long pull from my coffee cup. “Occasionally I do have intuition,” I begrudgingly admitted, then I laughed nervously. “Women’s intuition. Ha ha. We all have it.”

But he wasn’t buying it. “But you did know something was wrong even before you saw the dead cat or the Dumpster. I’m willing to bet that you’ve also had premonitions about what actually did happen at that Dumpster.”

“You’d lose that bet.”

He shrugged. “But you do believe a woman was killed and put in the Dumpster and you also believe the pentagram in the cemetery and the one on the Dumpster were made by the same person.”

“I never said that.”

“You don’t need to say it.”

“Oh, so now you’re the clairvoyant?”

He sipped his coffee and grinned. “I think some people have a sixth sense but most ignore it.”

I considered that to be true as well and told him so.

We sat in silence for a moment then suddenly he reached inside his turtleneck and pulled out a long silver chain. Dangling from the chain was a silver disc, an amulet, with a pentagram carved into its center. Intricate letters and figures I couldn’t quite make out were engraved around and inside of it.

“That’s a different kind of pentagram,” I commented. “Do all those symbols on it have a meaning?”

He nodded. “It’s called the Pentagram of Solomon. It protects from danger.” Grinning he said, “You know, many people get a kick out of playing around with witchcraft or the occult. A few satanic or Wicca doodads around the house can make great conversation pieces.” He rolled the amulet between his fingers and it glinted in the florescent lighting of the coffee shop, then he tucked it back inside his shirt. “I’d say the majority of my customers are just curious and some may even dabble occasionally but that doesn’t make them satanic cultists or evil murderers.”

“Of course not, just like going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.”

He tossed back his head and laughed throatily. “Exactly.”

“Still—” I downed the rest of my coffee “—you must get some so-called true believers in your store.”

“Sure, in Washington state alone there are over a dozen Wicca covens practicing on a regular basis.” As if he were tossing them away with a wave of his hand he continued, “They’re harmless. It’s those who don’t belong to the groups, those who follow their own path, who are probably more likely to be dangerous.”

Suddenly, he leaned on our small table until his face was scant inches away from mine. “Have you tried to focus your visions? I have a terrific assortment of scrying mirrors.”

I leaned back. “I don’t believe in them.”

He frowned and drew his brows together. “I’m sure it doesn’t work for all but many seers trust in scrying. How can you not believe in scrying when your own ability should be enough to convince you of its possibilities? Perhaps you should learn more about the subject before saying you don’t believe.”

I sighed. “Scrying is the art of clairvoyance achieved by concentrating on an object,” I recited. “The word scrying comes from the English word descry, which means ‘to make out dimly’ or ‘to reveal.’”

He clapped his hands politely. “Obviously you’ve already done your homework on the subject. Yet you still claim not to be a believer. Why is that?”

“A couple years ago I got curious. I spent some time at the library and with a psychic. The so-called psychic cured me and proved to me that most of what’s out there is a lot of horse hockey.”

I didn’t reveal to him the fact that my sudden interest was triggered by a premonition of my father’s demise followed by his actual death in precisely the manner I envisioned.

“Most—but not all—of the stuff is bunk, I’ll give you that, but how do you explain the fact that some people have very accurate visions while scrying?”

“It’s simple, if you’ve ever sat staring at a blank wall until you began to see images, or if you’ve ever lain in bed staring up at the ceiling until you saw blurry patterns in the stucco, then you’re doing the exact same thing as staring into a scrying mirror until a so-called vision manifests itself.”