Justice League of America - Batman: The Stone King by Alan Grant (best english novels to read .txt) 📗

Within seconds, he had left the city behind and disappeared into the shadowed world below its streets.

"The sign outside says you do tarot card readings. I want to know my future."

Raymond Marcus sat in the small consultation room, fighting to still the involuntary twitch that threatened the entire left side of his face. His cheek was puffed up and swollen, half closing his left eye. He should have taken his dose of painkillers an hour ago. But they clouded his mind, and tonight–for once–he wanted to be able to think straight. No matter how much it hurt.

Across the table from him, Madame Cassandra pursed her lips. "That's a tall order. The future doesn't give up its secrets easily," she said quietly. "There are so many possibilities, most of them intertwined. It's easier–and usually more accurate–if you can focus on one particular problem."

"Oh, I can do that all right," Marcus said bitterly. "Problem: facial neuralgia. Result: constant pain verging on agony. Treatment: painkillers so strong they're destroying my mind."

Cassandra looked directly at him, and in the light of the small art nouveau lamp on the polished tabletop, Marcus noticed her eyes for the first time. They were the deepest blue he'd ever seen, set off perfectly by the duster of platinum curls that fringed her pretty face.

"And what exactly do you want to know, Mr. Marius?" Cassandra asked.

"I've tried everything for this condition. The doctors are fed up seeing me, but nothing they prescribe seems to work. I just can't stand the pain any longer." Marcus hesitated for a moment, a little embarrassed, before going on. "I'm thinking of attending an All-Faith meeting tonight. The guy on television said they can do miracles. There was a blind guy who had his sight restored." Marcus hesitated again, as if fearing ridicule, before finishing. "I want to know– Do they have a miracle for me?"

"I'm a clairvoyant, Mr Marcus." Cassandra gestured with one hand, taking in the whole room. Marcus had already noted the bookshelves filled with arcane literature, and the idols and artifacts from a dozen cultures that stood everywhere. "I don't count many religious people among my clients."

The pain in Marcus's cheek was mounting. A serious attack was about to come on. "I'm not religious," he snapped. "I'm desperate!"

Cassandra didn't reply. All her life, she'd been inordinately sensitive to other people's feelings. "Empathy," her mother used to tell her. "It's a gift, girl. My own mother had it. You must use your empathy to help people."

For a long time after her mother's death, Cassandra had done anything but help people. She didn't want to feel the pain of others, didn't want to empathize with them, didn't want to be burdened with the problems of total strangers. So she'd dropped out of her university art classes and set off to find the world. Or, perhaps, to lose herself in it.

She went to Egypt, and to the Rose City of Petra carved out of the sandstone rocks of Jordan. She spent a year in an Indian ashram, fasting and meditating. Only when the Chinese soldiers turned her back as she tried to enter Tibet over the mountain passes did she realize her long journey was over.

She'd seen a lot in those years, but the most important thing she'd learned was, you can never run or hide from yourself and what you are.

Now, twenty-five years old, Cassandra was back in Gotham City, back in the apartment she grew up in, doing exactly what her mother had told her was her duty–helping other people.

Cassandra took a small black silk bag from a shelf behind her, loosened the drawstring, and slid out the pack of worn tarot cards it held. Slowly, deliberately, she began to shuffle the well-thumbed cards, at the same time striving to relax and let her mind go blank. Foretelling the future–or even reading a person's character–never seemed to work properly when her ego was involved.

Finally, she held out the pack to Marcus, facedown. "Select a card," she told him. "Lay it on the table, picture side up."

Tarot cards had been used for centuries to pierce the veil of the future. Cassandra had read a library of books on the subject, from medieval texts to modern psychologists' treatises on universal archetypes and their interactions. But, as with all divination, it was her own subjective interpretations that would count the most.

"'The tower,'" Marcus read aloud from the card as he laid it face up. The image on the card was of a medieval siege tower, starting to disintegrate as lightning bolts from the clouds struck it. "Is that a good sign . . . or bad?"

"The cards themselves are neutral," Cassandra told him, almost automatically. "They merely reflect the situation. It is the human reaction to the situation that is significant."

"Yeah, yeah," Marcus muttered. A stab of pain raged through the left side of his face, all the way from his mouth to his forehead. "Spare me the details. Is it good or bad?"

Cassandra gazed steadily at the upturned card, striving to understand how it might apply to this man's pain-wracked life. Although it had its positive aspects, the tower card often signified death, or outright destruction. But how did that tie in with Marcus's hope for a miracle cure?

She frowned suddenly. There was something in the image on the card she'd never seen before. How could that be? She'd used this deck for a thousand readings, practiced with it for a thousand more. She knew every card, every detail of every illustration, back to front and inside out.

Narrowing her eyes, Cassandra stared harder. She could swear something in the picture was moving–something hidden behind the tower was making its presence known. Fighting down a little knot of panic, she forced herself to stay calm. When you're dealing with the unknown, she reminded herself, you should always expect the unknown!

The image on the card seemed to expand until it filled her consciousness, sucking her into it like a visual