She said nothing, only sitting across from the two men with her back to the bar. Michael wondered to what extent she could handle herself. Every time he glanced up, she stared transfixed at him, studied him. Given his pulsing finger-stub and barely being able to take a drink without slopping beer out of his stein, Michael focused instead on his alcohol.
He glanced up, five minutes of silence later, and saw that Mr. Ward also stared at his own stein. Lotus looked to not have blinked in the span of time. “You,” she said, “I must break.”
Pulling his bloodied bandage up, he showed her his hand. “He’s already well on his way, thank you.”
Her intensity shifted to Mr. Ward, then back to Michael. “You need a break proper. Down the middle, in. Straight line. To spear the moon. Between eye left and right comes a third, and you don’t have it. Separate self and everything else. Your face is a nothing place.”
He’d dated medicated women less crazy. Homeless people made more sense. Except he knew, unlike the others, she was not only capable of doing what she promised, she was used to it. Proud, even.
“What do you intend?”
“Nn-t’nd,” she mimicked. “To tell a story.”
Shit. Pull out the translator.
“Today I share m’self with Bellerophon’s sad thorn-throne and lean against Silenus’ pinecone-staff. May they rest in wisdom.” She slid closer to the two, looking Michael in the eye. “You are no bull. Y’t then, you are no duende.”
She stood suddenly, as if she forgot to turn her BMW off in the driveway, then slid over to the squinting bar. The barkeep’s eyes went glassy, unfocused, distant—Michael saw the man’s fingers twitch—and Lotus grabbed a pile of something behind the counter. The barkeep didn’t budge, react, or say anything at all. He simply stared into the distance.
She returned, shuffling a deck of cards, sliding into the chair as if she were made of water. She slid a 4 of Spades out, seemingly random, with her right hand. “War.” She pulled cards out, again seemingly at random, and flipped them all over: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 of Spades. “My self. Symbol collector, Glyphon. Now your self.” She pulled two cards out, face-down. A man walked up behind her and watched. “Past.” She flipped a 5 of Diamonds. “Future.” She flipped a 3 of Hearts. She removed a third card from the deck. “Present.” Jack of Spades.
Lotus scratched the back of her neck, then glanced at the man behind her. The man made a choking sound, then walked out the door. Her focus did not alter.
With her left hand she removed a stick from up her sleeve: Michael noticed the matte look of wood beneath. A series of bracelets, perhaps. “Do you know the hilawa?” she asked.
“No.”
“Dhampir. ‘To drink with teeth,’” she said with a half-smile. “Turkish war-dogs. You are much less than wild and trained to lick your masters’ hand. All of your people, all of them, eat from the same bowl. The tastier meats are thrown out to rot. To appease your owners. Y’t you sit here. I think you too trained.” She glanced at Mr. Ward, who reacted with a shrug. She shifted in her seat and removed six cards. “Scars give you a better look,” she whispered. Michael no longer followed her cards; instead he followed her eyes. She studied his right arm, where he survived a jousting match between a deer and his Subaru in the Rockies three years previous. “Savaged.” The deck meant nothing to him. In fact, he noticed, it meant nothing to her, either. “Unmended.” She scribbled things on some of the cards with a previously unknown ink jar sitting between them.
He found her sleight-of-hand incredible.
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