Better Read Than Dead
Victoria Laurie

Excerpt

     It suddenly dawned on me that this man was waiting for me to say something, and the first tinges of panic tickled my neck. I had no idea what this death card was trying to say. To distract the man I laid down another card. This card was labeled, “The Tower” and showed a huge medieval tower being struck by a bolt of lightning sending its roof off to smash on the ground. People were running out of the tower as if their lives depended on it.      As I looked at this card, there was the tickle of a thought on the edge of my intuition, but it was faint and distant. I called out loudly to my crew, and demanded their presence immediately, furious that they would abandon me at the beginning of a reading. To stall for a little more time I laid down yet another card labeled, “Judgment” which depicted three luminescent human figures rising from the earth with outstretched arms toward an angel blowing a trumpet. In one electrifying moment I felt my crew smash back into place and I snapped my head up to look at the man in the chair as I gasped, “Oh my god…you’ve killed someone!”