Velvet Haven

the counter by the cash register. “So, you just missed two of the hottest guys on the planet.”
    “Yeah?” Mairi drawled, looking around her friend’s New Age store. “Was one of them your weekly Tarot Guy?”
    Rowan flushed. Mairi swore that even the tips of Rowan’s short blond hair glowed pink. “Uh-huh. He brought a friend this morning. Double the visual pleasure.”
    “Thought you swore off men for a while after the disaster that was Aaron.”
    “Yeah.” Rowan sighed. “Still, it can’t hurt to look and . . . dream. It’s good for your mental health.”
    Mairi knew all about dreaming. Her subconscious had been conjuring up a hunk for the past couple of weeks. Man, the things the guy could do with his hands and tongue.
    “So, what’d Tarot Guy buy this week?” she asked, making a beeline for the bookcase. Rowan watched her with interest as she scanned the Occult section of the case.
    “His usual. A tarot deck. I swear, the guy must have hundreds. He says he gets different vibes from different decks so he has to have a lot to choose from to get the right reading. Today he picked out this really creepy black magick deck. The pictures were gruesome.”
    Mairi whirled around. “What do you mean, gruesome?”
    “Well, really dark. Morbid, with a sexual edge. Normally, I don’t carry that kind of stuff. Brings bad karma and energy, but it came by mistake. I had it on the counter, ready to pack up and send back to the supplier, but he saw it and went through the deck. I guess he liked what he saw because he bought it.”
    “I wonder what he wanted it for.”
    “Tarot readings.”
    “Well, duh, I know that,” she snapped, turning back to the bookcase. “Ro, you got anything on satanic symbols?”
    “Why, did you have that dream again?”
    This was when Mairi really hated the fact she had confided in Rowan about her strange dreams. Rowan was just way too in tune with people and the shit they tried to hide. Maybe her friend really was psychic.
    “Okay, I’ll take the silence as a yes. And, no, I don’t do satanic stuff. Enchantment is a New Age store with positive energy.”
    “Okay, then, help me out, Glinda the Good Witch. Tell me what these mean.”
    Pulling a piece of paper from her purse, Mairi set it in front of Rowan. It was a poorly drawn sketch of Lauren, complete with the symbols and their locations on her body. Rowan looked up, the sparkle in her jade-colored eyes gone.
    “Is this what you dreamed about?”
    Mairi swallowed hard. “If I tell you, you have to swear you won’t breathe a word. It’s confidential.”
    “Well, it’s wearing on you, Mairi. You look exhausted. You can’t keep it in. And of course, I won’t tell a soul. We’re best friends.”
    Mairi nodded. “Last night, one of the girls from Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow arrived in the ER. She was found lying half dead on a chalk drawing of an inverted pentagram. Those marks”—Mairi pointed to the drawing—“were carved on her body.”
    “Oh, God!”
    “And worse, I counseled her last week. She had my card. And I . . . I remember her.” And worst of all, Mairi had dreamed of those symbols weeks ago, the night she started having the strange dreams of him . The guy with the magic hands and mouth.
    “You’re creeped out,” Rowan murmured. “Look at you, you’re shaking.” Reaching for her hand, Rowan pulled Mairi around the counter and offered her a stool.
    “A bit unnerved, yeah,” she replied with a shaky laugh.
    “I have a pot of herbal tea all ready to go. Let me get you a cup.”
    “You don’t need to wait on me.”
    Her friend just glared. “I’m not an invalid—yet. Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to wait on me hand and foot next week after they operate on my brain. God only knows what will be left of me then. And you can be damn sure I’ll milk it for all it’s worth.”
    “That’s not funny,” Mairi snapped. “That tumor is going to be benign and you’re going to be perfect.”
    “Well, I’ll have a bad haircut, that’s for sure.” With a laugh, her friend disappeared behind the purple satin curtains.
    She shouldn’t be burdening Rowan with her problems, not when her friend was so sick. But Mairi had nowhere to turn. No one who would understand like Rowan understood. There was something almost ethereal about her friend. She virtually radiated goodness and light.
    As Mairi sat quietly waiting for Rowan to return, she pulled up the sleeve of her denim