The High Priestess’ Game – Chapter 6
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Chapter 6
The security guard’s hand pushed against my back, steering me through the maze-like corridors hidden behind the casino. Each step felt heavier than the last, my heartbeat a percussion instrument drowning out the muffled slot machine symphonies beyond the walls.
“In here,” he said, opening a door that seemed to swallow light rather than emit it.
I entered, my fingers fidgeting with the hem of my blouse. The room smelled of stale coffee and something sharper—fear, perhaps. My fear.
“Sit.” The word sliced through the dim air.
I lowered myself into the chair opposite the desk, the vinyl creaking beneath me like a confession. Behind the desk sat a woman whose posture suggested she had steel for a spine. Veronica. The name badge on her tailored blazer caught what little light existed in the room, winking at me mockingly.
“Ms. Rahel Vega,” she said, not a question but an accusation. “I know who you are. You own a spiritual supply shop called Empowering Tarot.”
“Yes,” I whispered, my voice betraying me. I cleared my throat. “That’s me.”
“Do you know why you’re here?” Veronica’s eyes were calculating, measuring the tremor in my hands, the sweat beading at my hairline.
I considered lying, but falsehood had never sat well with me. “I think so.”
Veronica’s fingers began a rhythmic tap-tap-tap against her desk. The sound reminded me of rain on a tin roof, of waiting for storms to pass. But this storm was just beginning.
“You had quite the winning streak tonight,” she said, her voice like silk over sandpaper. “Remarkable, really. Some might say… too remarkable.”
My throat constricted. “I was lucky.”
“Luck.” The word hung between us, suspended in the stagnant air. “We don’t believe in luck here, Ms. Vega. We believe in statistics, probabilities… and surveillance.”
Her hand moved toward a remote control resting beside a computer monitor angled away from my view. Her crimson nails scraped against the plastic, the sound sending shivers down my spine.
“I wasn’t—” I started, but she raised her other hand, silencing me.
“Save it,” Veronica said, her gaze piercing through me like a knife through gauze. “The cameras never lie, even when people do.”
I felt my lungs collapse, imaginary walls pressing in from all sides. What would they see? Had my whispered conversations with empty air been caught on camera? Would they notice the slight pause before each winning hand, the moment when guidance came from voices only I could hear?
“Please,” I said, unsure what I was pleading for. Mercy? Understanding? The impossible chance she might believe that sometimes the dead whisper winning combinations to the living?
Veronica’s lips curled into something too sharp to be a smile. “Let’s watch together, shall we? I find footage like this… educational.”
Her finger hovered above the play button, the tap-tap-tapping momentarily suspended. In that breathless moment, I wondered if compassion could save me, if my earnest explanations might penetrate her professional armor. But her eyes revealed nothing but cold determination as she leaned forward, remote in hand, prepared to expose what she believed was my deception.
“I think you’ll find this illuminating,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper that felt more threatening than any shout.
I gripped the edges of my seat, knuckles whitening, waiting for my secrets to play out on the screen before us.
Then a shimmer – like heat rising from pavement – appeared behind Veronica’s rigid shoulders. The air condensed, particles gathering into the familiar silhouette of Auntie, her spectral form draped in flowing fabrics that moved without the aid of any breeze. A jolt of recognition shot through me, and I stifled a gasp.
“Something wrong, Ms. Vega?” Veronica asked, misreading my expression.
“No, I—” I stammered, trying desperately not to stare at Auntie, who was now wiggling her translucent eyebrows comically.
Auntie winked at me, her eyes twinkling with mischief I’d come to recognize as her signature look before chaos ensued. She raised a finger to her lips, then made an exaggerated pantomime of cutting wires with spectral scissors.
“I’m just anxious to see what you think you’ve found,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt as Auntie circled behind Veronica, giving me looks that made clear that she had some kind of a plan.
Veronica narrowed her eyes. “Anxiety is the natural response to guilt.”
“Or to being falsely accused,” I countered, drawing confidence from Auntie’s presence. The spirit now stood directly behind Veronica, making calming gestures, drawing her hands downward in the universal sign for ‘relax.’
The air in the room shifted subtly – a drop in temperature, a change in pressure – nothing Veronica would consciously notice, but I felt it in my bones. Auntie tapped her wrist, then formed a circle with her thumb and forefinger. Everything will be okay.
“Let’s get this over with,” Veronica said, pressing the play button with triumphant finality.
The screen remained black.
She pressed again, harder this time. Nothing.
“What the—” Veronica muttered, turning the remote over to check the batteries.
I fought to keep my expression neutral, even as Auntie smiled satisfied over the victory.
The tension crescendoed as Veronica jabbed repeatedly at the remote, each failed attempt darkening her expression. I could almost hear the tick-tick-tick of her patience unwinding.
The door burst open. “Ms. Veronica!” A young man in a casino uniform stood there, breathing heavily. “There’s an urgent call for you on line one. They say it’s about a major security breach at the south entrance.”
“Now?” Veronica snapped, slapping the remote down. “I’m in the middle of something important.”
“They insisted it couldn’t wait. Said it was the owner himself.”
Auntie gave me a conspiratorial wink and a thumbs-up.
Veronica exhaled sharply through her nostrils. “Fine.” She pointed at me, her nail a crimson dagger. “Don’t. Move. I’ll be back in two minutes, and we will finish this.”
“Of course,” I said, folding my hands in my lap, the picture of compliance.
She stalked toward the door, turning back one last time. “This doesn’t change anything. The evidence is quite damning.”
After she left, Auntie’s form began to fade, her outline blurring at the edges like watercolors bleeding into paper. Her expression remained triumphant, her eyes sparkling with satisfaction as she dissipated into the shadows, leaving me alone with the blank screen and the faint scent of lilacs – Auntie’s perfume – hanging in the air.
The moment the door clicked shut, silence descended like a heavy blanket. I could hear the hum of the overhead lights, the soft whir of the computer, and my own shallow breathing. My thoughts raced like frightened birds trapped in a too-small cage.
What was on that footage? How much had they seen? The money I’d pocketed felt like burning coals in my purse.
“You’re in quite the predicament now, aren’t you?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin. Mister B. had materialized in the chair beside me, his spectral form crisp and clear despite having no physical substance.
“What am I going to do?” I whispered, my fingers digging into the armrests. “She has evidence. Real evidence.”
“Perhaps,” Mister B. said, his voice carrying the rasp of someone who had smoked too much in life. “But evidence only matters if you’re still here when she returns to show it.”
“You want me to run?” The idea seemed absurd, yet my heart leapt at the possibility.
“Listen carefully, Rahel,” he leaned closer, his form wavering slightly as he did. “The woman will return in less than a minute. There’s a service corridor three doors down on the right. It leads past the kitchens to the emergency exit near the east parking lot.”
I shook my head. “I can’t just—”
“You can and you will,” he cut me off, his tone brooking no argument. “This isn’t the time for your characteristic hesitation. You think they’ll be lenient because you look frightened? Because you say pretty words? These people break fingers over unpaid debts.”
“But running makes me look guilty,” I protested, though my resolve was weakening by the second.
Mister B.’s form flickered impatiently. “You are guilty. Now get up. Walk, don’t run. Look like you belong. And whatever you do, don’t look back.”
My heart hammered against my ribs like a wild thing seeking escape. Could I really do this? Just walk out? What about consequences? What about—
“Now, Rahel!” Mister B. hissed, his form surging toward me with sudden intensity that made the air temperature drop several degrees.
That did it. I rose from my chair, my legs trembling but holding. Every instinct screamed to stay put, to explain, to apologize.
“Good,” Mister B. nodded approvingly. “Head high. Confidence, not arrogance. You’ve done nothing wrong according to anyone who matters.”
I took a steadying breath and moved toward the door, each step feeling like I was walking through molasses. My fingertips buzzed with adrenaline as I grasped the cool metal handle.
“She’ll be coming back up the main hallway,” Mister B. whispered, now hovering near my shoulder. “Turn right immediately.”
I pulled the door open just enough to slip through, my senses heightened to painful clarity. The carpet seemed too loud beneath my feet, the dim hallway lights too bright. I could hear my own pulse in my ears, drowning out everything but Mister B.’s urgent whispers guiding me toward escape.
The corridor stretched before me, empty but foreboding. Each recessed light cast pools of amber that barely penetrated the gloom between them. I moved like a thief through a museum, hugging the wall.
“Left at the next junction,” Mister B. instructed, his translucent form gliding just ahead. “Security office is ahead on the right—don’t even glance that way.”
My shoes made soft whispers against the plush carpet. I tried to match my breathing to my footsteps—quiet, measured, invisible.
“They’re watching for someone running,” Mister B. said. “Walk like you belong. Like you’ve been sent on an errand.”
A distant voice echoed down a connecting hallway. I froze.
“Keep moving,” Mister B. growled. “Stopping makes you suspicious.”
I forced my leaden feet forward, past the security office where shadows moved behind frosted glass. My fingers traced the textured wallpaper as I went, seeking something solid in a world gone liquid with fear.
“Through those double doors,” Mister B. pointed. “Service corridor beyond. Quick now.”
The doors opened with a soft hiss that sounded like thunder to my overwrought nerves.
“Nervous people look down,” Mister B. reminded me. “Keep your chin up.”
“I can’t breathe,” I whispered.
“You’re doing fine. Three more turns and we’re at the emergency exit.”
Fluorescent lighting replaced the warm glow of the main corridors. We were in the staff areas now—stark white walls, linoleum floors that amplified every footfall.
“Someone’s coming,” Mister B. warned.
A maintenance worker rounded the corner ahead, pushing a cart of cleaning supplies. My throat constricted.
“Smile and nod,” Mister B. instructed.
I did. The worker barely glanced up, returning my nod with disinterest before continuing on his way.
“Last turn,” Mister B. said as we approached a T-junction. “Right, then straight to the end.”
The emergency exit loomed ahead, its red sign casting a bloody glow onto the institutional white walls. I approached it with mounting dread, each step heavier than the last.
“It’s alarmed,” I whispered, staring at the push bar across the door and the small warning sign beside it.
“Of course it’s alarmed,” Mister B. replied, his patience wearing thin. “That’s the point.”
My hand hovered over the bar, trembling. “They’ll know it was me.”
“They already suspect you of theft. What’s a fire alarm compared to that?”
I hesitated, fingers inches from the cool metal. “There has to be another way.”
“There isn’t,” Mister B. said, his voice surprisingly gentle now. “Sometimes the only way out is through the fire, Rahel.”
Behind us, a door slammed. Voices. Coming closer.
My hand still wouldn’t move.
“You’ve spent your whole life afraid to set off alarms,” Mister B. said. “Look where it’s gotten you.”
The truth of his words stung more than any rebuke. I pressed my palm against the bar, feeling resistance, the weight of consequence.
“What happens after?” I whispered.
“Freedom happens,” Mister B. replied. “But only if you push.”
I closed my eyes, drew a breath deep into my lungs, and shoved with all my might against the bar.
The alarm shrieked to life, a banshee wail that ripped through the casino’s hushed atmosphere. I bolted through the door, the cold night air slapping me awake like an ice bath. The stark difference between the casino’s artificial warmth and the biting autumn chill made me gasp, but I didn’t slow down.
“Left! Now right at the dumpsters!” Mister B. commanded, his voice somehow cutting through the din of the alarm.
My legs pumped beneath me, high heels abandoned somewhere in the first twenty steps, stockinged feet barely registering the rough pavement. Each breath tore at my throat, hot and painful. Behind me, shouts erupted from the building—muffled at first, then clearer as other doors opened.
“She’s headed for the main road!” A man’s voice, authoritative and angry.
The bus stop was on the other side of the parking lot. My lungs already burned.
“They’re following,” I panted, not daring to look back.
“And you’re faster,” Mister B. insisted. “You’ve always been faster than you believed.”
The casino’s floodlights didn’t reach this far into the parking lot. Darkness swallowed me as I darted between parked cars, crouching low, the hard-won money weighing heavy in my purse with each frantic step.
“Will I make it?” I gasped, heart hammering against my ribs.
“You will if you stop wasting breath on questions,” Mister B. replied.
The alarm’s wail grew fainter with distance. I emerged onto the sidewalk, streetlights casting pools of sickly yellow glow every fifty feet. Between them, shadow. I ran through light, through dark, through light again. Each illumination felt like exposure, each shadow like temporary salvation.
The bus stop appeared ahead—a simple metal bench beneath a plexiglass shelter. Empty. No bus in sight.
“Did we miss it?” I wheezed, stumbling the final yards to the shelter.
“Look,” said Mister B., somehow directing my gaze to the right.
There it was—the number 42 night bus, headlights cutting through the darkness. My salvation, if only it would stop.
I staggered to the curb, waving my arms frantically, my shadow dancing grotesquely behind me. The bus seemed to slow, but was it stopping? Would the driver see a disheveled woman, barefoot and wild-eyed, and decide to keep going?
“Please,” I whispered, then louder: “PLEASE!”
The bus’s brakes hissed. It pulled alongside the curb, doors folding open with a pneumatic sigh. I lurched forward, grabbing the handrail and pulling myself up the steps, collapsing against the fare box. My breath came in ragged gasps, each one burning like fire in my chest.
“You got somewhere to be in such a hurry?” the driver asked, eyebrows raised.
I fumbled in my purse, past the casino chips, finding my transit card. My hands shook so badly I could barely tap it against the reader.
“Home,” I managed, the word emerging as little more than a croak. “Just… home.”
The doors closed behind me with finality. Through the windows, I could see two security guards appear at the corner, scanning the street frantically. The bus pulled away from the curb, engine growling, carrying me into the night and away from my pursuers.
I collapsed into the first empty seat, my legs finally giving out beneath me. The fluorescent lights cast a sickly pallor over the nearly empty bus, revealing the tremor in my hands as they clutched my purse against my chest.
“What did you do?” I hissed under my breath, eyes darting to make sure no one sat close enough to hear. “What did all of you do? I was supposed to leave quietly with my winnings, not flee like a criminal!”
I could feel them there—Auntie, Ma, Mister B., Grandpa—hovering at the edges of my awareness, silent but present. Their collective silence only fueled my mounting anger.
“Veronica had footage,” I continued, my voice rising slightly. “Evidence that could have—that could still—get me arrested. And your brilliant plan was to set off the fire alarm? To make me run?”
A middle-aged woman sitting across the aisle shifted uncomfortably, deliberately looking out the window.
“Don’t pretend you can’t hear me,” I said, glaring at the empty space beside me. “You promised to help me, not turn me into a fugitive. How am I supposed to face any of this now?”
In the rearview mirror, I caught the bus driver’s eyes flicking toward me, then quickly back to the road. His mouth tightened into a thin line as I continued my one-sided argument.
“I trusted you,” I whispered harshly, tears threatening to spill. “I put everything on the line, and for what? So you could have your fun watching me scramble through the night like some desperate—”
The bus lurched to a stop, and the driver cleared his throat pointedly. “Everything okay back there, miss?”
Heat crept up my neck, spreading across my cheeks. The few other passengers were now openly staring, their faces a mixture of concern and discomfort.
“Fine,” I said, forcing a weak smile. “Just… rehearsing for a play.”
The driver held my gaze in the mirror for a beat too long, unconvinced. “Right. Well, keep it down a bit. Disturbing the other passengers.”
I nodded, shrinking into my seat, mortification mingling with my fear and anger. As the bus resumed its journey through the dark streets, I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the window, watching the city lights blur through unshed tears.
“You’ve made me look crazy,” I murmured, barely audible now. “But I suppose that’s fitting. Only a crazy person would listen to ghosts in the first place.”
Mister B.’s reflection materialized in the window beside me, superimposed over the passing streetlights. His expression was maddeningly calm, a stark contrast to the storm raging inside me.
“There was nothing unplanned about tonight, my dear,” he said, his voice a smooth, unhurried baritone. “Quite the contrary. Everything unfolded precisely as it needed to.”
I clenched my jaw. “Being chased out of a casino by security was part of your grand design?”
“The universe rarely offers straight paths,” he replied, adjusting his spectral bow tie with maddening composure. “Sometimes the route to success requires… creative navigation.”
“Creative navigation,” I echoed bitterly. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
Mister B.’s eyes flickered with something—perhaps amusement, perhaps pride. “You adapted beautifully. That’s the mark of a survivor.”
The bus hit a pothole, and I clutched my purse tighter, feeling the reassuring weight of the casino chips within. My fingers trembled, adrenaline still coursing through my veins.
“They’ll be looking for me,” I whispered.
Grandpa’s presence settled into the empty seat beside me, his weathered features softening as he regarded me with familiar affection.
“Look at what you’ve got clutched in your hands, Rachel-girl,” he said, nodding toward my purse. His voice carried the same comforting timbre it had when I was a child scared of thunderstorms. “Not bad for a night’s work, is it?”
“It won’t matter if I’m arrested for theft.”
Grandpa chuckled, the sound like autumn leaves rustling. “They’ve got bigger fish to fry than chasing down a small-timer who got lucky. Besides,” he tapped his temple with a translucent finger, “the house always expects to lose sometimes. It’s built into their calculations.”
“The old man is right,” Mister B. interjected. “And what’s more, you’ve learned something invaluable tonight.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That I should never listen to spirits with questionable moral compasses?”
“That you possess more courage than you give yourself credit for,” he corrected, his usual impatience softening. “When the moment demanded action, you didn’t hesitate.”
Grandpa reached out as if to pat my hand, his touch nothing more than a cool breeze against my skin. “We never doubted you for a second, sweetheart. Not for one second.”
The driver glanced back at me in the rearview mirror again, concern etched in the creases around his eyes. I realized I’d been nodding, responding to voices only I could hear. I looked away quickly, but the weight of Grandpa’s pride and Mister B.’s quiet confidence lingered, gradually tempering the chaos of my emotions.
The bus lurched to a stop, throwing me forward. Outside the window, streetlights flickered like dying stars against the night sky. My hands still trembled as I clutched the backpack containing my winnings.
“Maybe they’re right,” I whispered to myself, low enough that the driver wouldn’t hear. “Maybe I did get away with it.”
But even as relief washed over me in tentative waves, something dark and jagged remained lodged in my chest. A splinter of doubt. Of fear.
“You’re overthinking again,” Auntie materialized beside me, her form wavering like heat rising from summer pavement. “Always making mountains of molehills.”
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass. “A security breach at a casino is hardly a molehill.”
“And yet here you sit, free as a bird.” Her laughter swirled around me like perfume. “With enough money to make some real changes.”
The thought sent a jolt through me. Changes. Possibilities. For the first time in years, I had options beyond scraping by.
“I could afford staying some extra months in my apartment,” I murmured.
“You could do more than that,” Mister B. appeared across the aisle, his spectral form strangely dignified against the grimy bus interior. “You could move forward with your life. Finally.”
The driver’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror again. I caught his gaze this time and offered a weak smile, which he did not return.
“They’ll come looking for me.” The words tasted like ash in my mouth. “Veronica knows my name, and the name of my store.”
Grandpa materialized, sitting in front of me but turned backward. “Casinos deal with thousands of guests every day. You are just one more in the crowd.”
“Unless…” I bit my lip, the possibilities unfurling like a map of dangerous terrain. “Unless I run. Really run. Start somewhere new.”
The spirits exchanged glances—a conspiracy of the dead conferring over the fate of the living.
“Now you’re thinking,” Auntie beamed. “That little apartment of yours was never meant to be permanent anyway.”
I closed my eyes, imagining freedom. A clean slate. But beneath that fantasy lurked the shadow of what I was becoming—a person who runs, who takes what isn’t hers, who consorts with spirits instead of people.
“Is this who I am now?” The question escaped before I could catch it.
“You are who you’ve always been,” Mister B. said, his voice like stone worn smooth by time. “Someone who survives. Someone who adapts.”
The driver called out my stop, though I hadn’t requested it. Perhaps he was eager to be rid of the woman muttering to herself in the back of his bus.
As I stood to leave, Grandpa’s voice followed me down the aisle. “The world was never built for people like us, Rahel. We make our own way through it.”
