Seven of Swords Read online

  The Storyteller’s Tarot

  Seven of Swords

  L. A. Jacob

  copyright © 2022 by L. A. Jacob

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, except for the purpose of review and/or reference, without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.

  Cover design copyright © 2022 by Niki Lenhart

  nikilen-designs.com

  Published by Water Dragon Publishing

  waterdragonpublishing.com

  ISBN 978-1-957146-15-7 (EPUB)

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FIRST EDITION

  Seven of Swords

  I hate day jobs.

  To further my studies, I had to take this stupid day job as a blackjack dealer in a casino. I wore a white (or gray) shirt with sleeves, red bow tie, black pants and shoes. I looked like a goddamn waiter or elevator operator — which was the idea. They didn’t want us to be intimidating, but to look like “the help”.

  I serviced the serious gamblers, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Hardly any tips, as most of the players were either too drunk or too tired to care. I was on my feet for most of those four hours, with a five minute break … sometimes.

  I was going off duty, to the chagrin of one lady who was having a string of good luck, when I looked at my phone. A series of texts from my apprentice, reading more and more urgent, had come through while I was working.

  Someone stole a pittie can you find him?

  A little later: There’s a reward.

  Well, that made it worthwhile. I texted back: Where?

  I changed into my civvies, leaving the uniform in the laundry pile. I had two uniforms in reserve, and this one would be back in about a week. My phone buzzed while I pulled my t-shirt over my head.

  RI border.

  Millennials. So helpful. Since I had to drive all the way back to Providence, I would be crossing the border in about an hour.

  Send me the address.

  My apprentice did better than that: she sent me directions.

  * * *

  Finder of lost objects. Curses and hexes for the right price. Fortune telling on the side. That was my real job — a job that took up most of the off hours. It didn’t pay the bills, but I had favorite customers who saw me often enough to buy me coffee for a week.

  I had found the missing teenager in Providence a couple of years ago, which gave me a bump in customers for a good six months. Since then, I had been struggling with handling an apprentice and working a day job for the last three months. Unless you’re a medium, you make no money doing fortune telling.

  Following the directions on my phone, I found myself in the small town of Foster. Rural, compared to my apartment in Providence, the home was on the main street — such as it was in this town.

  No cars were parked on the street in front of the house, but the driveway was full of SUV’s. Feeling a little out of place in my dinky Ford Ranger, I pulled up in front of the house. No fencing in front, so it was probably no surprise that the dog got loose. Electric fencing does nothing but torture the poor dogs.

  I walked across the well-mowed lawn to the front door. I already had my business card in my hand.

  The woman who answered the door was heavy set, with a bobbed red haircut that I hated but was the current style. Her hair had been colored, because her eyebrows were a darker black and painted on.

  She talked to me through the screen. “Yes?”

  “Are you missing a pitbull?”

  “Who are you?”

  I held up my business card. “Finder of lost people. And objects. You might have heard of me. Joseph Tamerlane.”

  “No, I haven’t heard of you.” She examined the business card through the screen.

  The ugly woman had to trust me, or none of this would work.

  “Who’s at the door, honey?”

  Ah, a man that I could probably talk into opening the door.

  “A man who says he can find Rocky.”

  The man appeared behind the woman. Equally heavy-set, he had deep brown skin and short black hair. His dark eyebrows were not painted on.

  “You can find Rocky?”

  “I find lost people and objects. That’s my job.”

  “He’s only here for the reward,” said the woman.

  Well, there was that. I still didn’t know what the reward was. It had to be more than I was making at the tables.

  The man said, “It’s a black and white pitbull named Rocky. He was taken from our back lawn yesterday.”

  “Taken?”

  “I have a video.”

  Too easy. “Mind if I see it?”

  “Are you a psychic or something?”

  I let out a short breath. “Or something, yes.”

  The woman was skeptical. “We have the police looking for the car.”

  “What’s to say the car wasn’t stolen? How did they take him? Pick him up?”

  “They put a leash on him and dragged him to their car,” said the man.

  The woman interrupted, “But if you were psychic, you’d know that.”

  Why were all the women who had bobbed hair-cuts assholes? I pulled on whatever light smile I could muster from my time at the casino. “Ma’am, do you have a photograph of the dog?”

  The woman looked at the man. He said, “It couldn’t hurt.”

  The woman retreated, and the man stepped forward, opening the door. “I apologize for my wife. She’s very attached to Rocky.”

  I stepped inside, handing over my business card. He glanced at it, turning it over. “Curses and hexes?”

  “Only if I’m paid for it.”

  “So you’re a witch?”

  I tried not to wince. I hated being called a witch. “A magician.”

  The woman returned with an entire photo album. She stepped back in surprise at seeing me inside her house. She thrust the album at me. I took it, and, standing before the front door, not even invited further into the house, I paged through the album.

  She really was attached. Picture after picture of a black and white pitbull, from a puppy to a very large, very stocky adult. It wasn’t going to be easy picking up this animal, so I could see how it would be dragged.

  I pulled out a recent picture. “Mind if I borrow this?”

  The woman looked horrified that I had disturbed her pristine photo album. The man said, “Do what you need to do.”

  “Mind if I look around back?”

  The man beckoned me. I followed him down a hall with pictures of framed dogs every few feet. From there we entered a kitchen, where a crowd of people sat around the table. They all looked up at me.

  “This is …”

  “Joseph Tamerlane.”

  “He’s a psychic.”

  Someone snorted. I kept the fake smile and headed for the back door. “Excuse me.”

  I found my own way outside. I studied the picture, and then took my four-fold breaths to put myself into a light trance. I walked around, being pulled by the imaginary leash that Rocky had been pulled with. I paused at the fence that led to the driveway. I walked out of the gate, and stopped cold. Whoever it was, they parked close enough to the gate so they didn’t have to pick up the dog.

  I saw a white van in my mind’s eye. No markings, but its front bumper was rusted while the rest of the van looked relatively new. On top of the van were ladders, pipes, and metal frames. Again, a four-fold breath, and I came out of the trance.

  “Do you have the license plate?” I asked.

  “The doorcam didn’t catch it.”

  “But it did catch the white van?”

  He nodded, surprised.
“Pulling out of the driveway.”

  I handed the picture back to him. “I take it that your wife will not be happy if I took this with me.”

  “We have pictures of him up on Facebook in Rhode Island Lost Pets. You can use those.”

  “Okay,” I said. I walked two steps.

  I saw the dog in the driveway.

  Help me.

  I blinked, and the dog disappeared.

  I walked over to the area where I had seen the dog, superimposed over a black SUV. “Who owns this?”

  “My brother-in-law, why?”

  “Would he have access to a white van with ladders?”

  The wife approached the gate. “Matt? What’s going on?”

  “Does Kevin have access to a white van?”

  The dog reappeared again, this time at the end of the driveway.

  Help me!

  I didn’t hear the answer the wife gave, but her reaction was an uncomfortable laugh.

  Hurt!

  The dog appeared in the middle of the street now. I followed Rocky as he kept disappearing and reappearing just a few feet ahead of me. I almost got hit by a car that went through Rocky like he wasn’t there. When he appeared at an intersection, he had faded to almost nothing.

  Help.

  I dashed back to my car. But by the time I got back to the spot Rocky had appeared, he was totally gone this time.

  I looked up and down the intersection. He leaned toward the right, so I took a right-hand turn. Where was I going to find a white van in this mess?

  The dog did not appear before me when I got to the next intersection. I was lost, and so was he.

  * * *

  Rhode Island Lost and Found Pets was full of sad people. Either they found a dog or cat and looked for its owner, or they lost an animal. It was a desperate place.

  I found the photo album online for Rocky. They’d posted way too many pictures of this poor dog. They also posted the reward: $500. More than the tables.

  I did what I had done in the yard: took a few breaths to slip into trance. It wasn’t a good idea to do so while driving, so I parked in a Walgreens parking lot near the intersection I last saw Rocky’s essence.

  C’mere, boy, I thought. Come back.

  If he wasn’t going to come back, then that meant I had to search. I pulled back out of the trance, looking around the parking lot. I didn’t know if someone would try and wake me up if I slipped into trance here. I had to take the chance.

  I rolled up the windows, settling into the seat. I closed my eyes. One breath, protective trance. Second breath, detach the astral self. Third breath, open my astral eyes.

  The parking lot was crowded with souls — some living, mostly dead. All different time periods were here; from the 1800’s, even back as far as the indigenous peoples. They all saw me and came right toward me, like iron filings to a magnet. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time for them.

  I raised my right hand to shine light from it. That made some of the older shades recoil into the grayness of the astral realm, but most stuck around, looking for a weakness in my soul or body.

  I saw Rocky far down the street, so I sent my astral body after him. Rocky took off and I followed, with the souls right behind me. I stuck with him as he almost galloped down the street.

  He ended up going up a hill which was again full of souls and wrecked vehicles. I sensed it was a busy street where more than a few accidents had occurred.

  Rocky stopped in the middle of the street and said, Help. Hurt. Here.

  I took note of where the place was, any landmarks that looked like they would be reproduced in the real world. A dark gray garage, with a white van parked in front of it, sat on the side of the street.

  And dog sprits. Lots of dogs. From Chihuahuas to big-boned pitbulls. Poodles and Labradors. And Rocky.

  I snapped back into my body. I’d deal with the headache after I found the place.

  * * *

  The garage had blue doors with black trim in the real world, but the white van with the rusted bumper was where I had pictured it. I pulled into the driveway of the garage and heard a distant “Ding-ding!”

  I got out of the car to see a thin wire on the ground that my front tires had run over.

  The door to the side opened. A thickly-barreled man with a bushy beard and curly black hair came out. “We’re closed.”

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m looking for a dog.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t got dogs.”

  This man was much bigger than me. He could easily have picked up Rocky and put him in the van. I needed backup.

  But I never used it.

  “Sure, you do. I hear them barking.” I lied, of course.

  The man came at me. “Better get outta here.”

  I backed up to my car. I put a hand to the hood, pulling residual energy from the parked car that had just turned off. Energy is energy, and all I needed to do was mold it to my will.

  I used the energy to power my aura, which surrounded me for three feet in all directions. As the man approached, he touched the aura and got a noticeable shock.

  He jumped back, glaring at me. “The hell?”

  “I’ll leave after I get the dog I need.”

  “Which one?”

  “Black and white pitbull.”

  He looked back at the door. “Hold on.”

  “You have five minutes, or I’ll set fire to the place.”

  Setting fire to the garage would take a lot out of me. Magic works, but when it’s flamboyant, you’re going against what’s natural. Some people believe what they’re seeing; most people will find a rational explanation for magic. Coincidence and the like. I could very well set fire to the building, but I’d first have to overload the electricity, which could be the cause of the fire.

  What, you think I throw fireballs for a living?

  Well within the five minutes, the door opened and the man pulled out Rocky. I had memorized his picture, so it definitely was the expected dog.

  “Get outta here,” the man said, thrusting the dog at me. He took the leash, so I bent over and grabbed the dog by the collar.

  “Who brought him here?”

  But the man turned away and went back into the garage.

  Rocky, if he had wanted to, could cause me issues getting in the car. At least a hundred pounds, this dog was packed solid with muscle. But he jumped into the back seat as if he was going out for a joyride.

  During my drive back to the house, I debated on reporting the breeders to the police. When I got my $500, my decision was made.

  Let animal control handle this. I called them and left an anonymous tip. Not my circus, not my monkeys. Or dogs, as the case may be.

  About the Author

  L. A. Jacob has been writing since she could hold a pencil and draw a straight line. She wrote fan fiction before branching out into novels and short stories. After her first book was published, she wrote five more within the span of three years. She is also the author of Real Magic for Writers.

  Interested in magic(k), cards, and divination, she lives in Rhode Island with her son and three cats. You can find out more about L. A. Jacob at her website, lajacob.com.

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  L. A. Jacob, Seven of Swords

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