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murmured.
    â€œYou don’t date much.”
    â€œI’ve dated.”
    Susan smiled enigmatically.
    â€œWhat?” Lauren asked.
    â€œYou don’t date much because you feel that you meet nothing but dimwits and users since you lost your man.”
    â€œIt’s hard to meet the right person.”
    They had been chatting casually, almost as if they were engaged in a normal conversation at any one of the smaller cafes or bars in the city. But Lauren realized that something had been subtly changing since she had come into the little tent.
    The crystal ball had begun to glow, to fill with a red mist.
    She stared at it, unable to tear her eyes away. She only dimly noted Susan’s face, registering as if from a great distance that the other woman looked tense, even distressed.
    â€œYou must leave here…you and your friends…must go.”
    â€œYes,” Lauren said.
    But she couldn’t move. It felt as if she were frozen where she sat, as if her very muscles were paralyzed.
    There was something dark at the core of the crystal ball, dark and red, finding form as the milliseconds ticked by.
    It was a bird. A winged thing.
    Then it was not.
    It took the shape of a man. Tall, the face dark, the figure imposing.
    A sound seemed to rise in her ears, and she realized that it was laughter. Deep, rich, taunting-and cruel.
    She heard words.
    So soft at first that she couldn’t understand what was being said. Then she knew.
    â€œI’m coming for you. I’m coming to get you.”
    â€œNo,” Lauren murmured, struggling for sanity, for reality. Someone had heard them talking earlier. Someone had heard the words that Deanna had spoken teasingly.
    â€œLauren…” The dark figure called her by name. “I’m coming to get you, Lauren….”
    â€œNo!”
    â€œI’m coming to get you, and you’ll be mine in a world of blood and death and darkness.”
    Susan suddenly jumped up, as if she, too, had suddenly broken of the invisible bonds holding her there.
    She made a strange sound and her arm flew out.
    The crystal ball flew off the table and shattered on the ground.
    But even as it flew into a thousand pieces, it seemed to Lauren that she heard a husky whisper of evil laughter.

2
    S he wasn’t sure how she’d gotten there, but Lauren found herself outside the tent. It seemed so normal now, nothing more than a little red canvas tent again.
    She was back outside just as if they had finished their session completely normally,, as if she had casually strolled out after hearing some nice normal prediction for her future. She was back outside, in the midst of the neon light and movement of the night. The very normal night. She could hear footsteps and laughter, bits of conversation, the sound of mules’ hooves as they clattered on the pavement, drawing carriages filled with tourists.
    Both Heidi and Deanna were staring at her in surprise, and that wasn’t normal at all.
    Lauren turned to look back inside the tent. The images she had seen now seemed ridiculous, but the shattered crystal ball was there as proof that something out of the ordinary had happened.
    â€œLauren!” Heidi said, shocked. “Susan, we’re so sorry. We’ll pay for your crystal ball, of course. What on earth happened?” She stepped forward, slipping an arm through Lauren’s, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I knew you weren’t exactly into this, but did you have to break her crystal ball?”
    â€œIt was an accident!” Lauren protested.
    It had been an accident-and she hadn’t even been the one to break it. But beyond that, she couldn’t have seen what she thought she had. She had been tricked. It must have been some kind of a parlor trick, though that seemed impossible now, with all the light and noise around her.
    Even now, the details of what she had seen, what she had heard, were slipping from her mind. She tried to hold