Kat Dubois Chronicles, Tome 1: Inkwitch

Chapter 1

“Same question as last time?” I stared across a round table at my Friday night regular, Rita. She was pretty, trendy, and young enough that hanging out in a fortune-teller’s studio having her cards read on what was most Seattleites’ go-wild night out struck me as a little odd. Especially considering that Rita always asked the same thing: will I fall in love this week? Maybe, but she wouldn’t find it in the back of my tattoo parlor, where I moonlighted with my tarot deck. I didn’t even need my cards to tell her that.

If I had fifty bucks for every time somebody asked me a variation of the love question . . . well, actually, I did have a fifty for every time, and it more than paid the bills. Nine out of ten clients returned, because I’m that good. Because my cards are legit; made them myself. Because I’m a Nejeret, a god of time. Or a goddess—and I’m really more of a demigoddess, if we’re getting technical, descended from the ancient Egyptian god, Re—and my soul is jacked into the time stream. Sort of.

Rita sighed, resting her chin on her palm and tapping the side of her jaw with nails polished a vibrant indigo. “I guess I’m pretty predictable,” she said, laughing dryly.

“Only you and the rest of humanity . . .” A species I didn’t belong to anymore—hadn’t for nearly two decades. I shuffled my hand-drawn deck of tarot cards one more time, then slid it across the pentagram seared into the tabletop. The symbol was purely atmospheric, but clients appreciated the witchy vibe. “Cut,” I told Rita.

She straightened and reached for the deck, picking up a little less than a third and setting it next to the larger stack of cards. “You know, Kat,” she said, flashing me a sly smile, crimson lipstick stark against her straight, white teeth, “I’ve got a good feeling about this reading.”

She leaned forward as I retrieved the cards and stacked them to shuffle a few more times. All the shuffling was really for show; the only part of my routine that actually affected the reading was Rita touching the cards. So long as they contacted her skin—her DNA—the spread would fall the same way regardless of whether I shuffled the cards five times or fifty. It’s not magic, exactly. Magic doesn’t exist, not really. But what I can do—what my people, the Nejerets, can do, tapping into the primal universal energies—is as close of a thing to magic as exists in the real world.

“I’ve got a good feeling, too,” I said, tapping the edge of the cards on the table to straighten out the deck and flashing Rita a quicker, slyer smile. Not that I could actually sense anything from the deck. That wasn’t my gift. But Rita didn’t know that, and it wouldn’t hurt her to have a little faith. My gift lies in the ink itself. Anything I draw has a tendency to take on a life of its own, revealing hidden truths about the past, present, and future, connecting dots that otherwise seemed unrelated.