The Fortune Teller's Daughter by Jordan Bell Page A

delivered
one of his own, and in the dark I could hardly follow their street violent fist
fight that left fine mists of blood on my walls. A flashlight spun chaotically across
the hard wood, flashing on the yellow-eyed man every half second, highlighting
the blood drooling from his nose and lip.
    The second
silhouette bent at the middle and fell forehead first into the floor. The
Magician stumbled back and twisted towards us in time to see the one he’d put
into my fridge scramble out the front door and hit the stairs at a run.
    “Dammit,” he
swore, but didn’t go after him. Instead he slid to his knees next to me and
captured my face in his hands so gently I hardly felt him. “Let me see. Are you
hurt? Did he hurt you, Sera?”
    “My head…” I
touched the back of my head but there was no blood. “I’m ok. I think.”
    He closed
his eyes briefly. “I need you to pack some bags. Only what you can carry. Only
what you need. As fast as you can. Can you do that for me?”
    I gripped
his arms as I got my balance. “What’s going on? Why did they come here for
you?”
    “Later, I
promise. Others are coming and we have to go right now.”
    Without
arguing, I pulled down two of my mother’s powder blue suitcases and my backpack
and started stuffing them too quickly for neatness.
    It wasn’t
hard to leave things behind.
    The Magician
stood sentry at the door. When I’d packed the box that contained my mother’s
ashes in my backpack, put on shoes and my coat, I took one last glance around
the dark apartment. I’d wanted to leave it so badly for so long, but not like
this.
    He took one
of my suitcases, my hand, and pulled me down the stairs. Out into the empty
street I hardly felt the rain and had to practically run to keep up with his
long strides. He did not release his hold on me. We did not speak.
    Who are
we running from, I wanted to ask.
    Why do
they want you?
    Why did
you come back for me?
    Instead I
kept my head down against the rain and followed the path I’d taken earlier that
night in much different circumstances to the el, a lonely glowing artifact in
the dark. We climbed the stairs to the platform, the only souls going in either
direction. We stood close to the tracks, as close as safety would allow. We
said nothing. There was nothing to say.
    The Magician
watched our backs, spun at every sound. Every few minutes he’d reach out to
make sure I was close enough to grab, tension like a bow ready to snap between
us.
    The subway
squealed to a stop on the wet tracks. He put his hand on my back and urged me
onto the empty car. We sat together, one suitcase between my feet, my backpack
on the seat beside me.
    When the
train jerked forward and we were on our way, I finally felt the wet and the
cold and the exhaustion. I slouched into the plastic bucket seats and let the
train toss me about bonelessly as it clattered down the rails.
    Without
thinking, I leaned into his side to steal as much of his body heat as he’d let
me.
    Without
asking, he took my hands, pale and icy in his grip, and rubbed life and heat
into my fingers. He threaded his fingers through mine, raised them to his
mouth, and cupping them in both hands, blew warm air across my skin that spread
magically up my arms and into my chest to stop the shivering.
    “I don’t
even know your name.” I lowered my head to his shoulder and he relaxed
physically. Even though we were the only ones in the car, I didn’t speak over a
whisper. “And I mean your real name, no fake magician names like the Great
Lamborghini or the Enigmatic Master Mystic.”
    He ran his
thumb along the back of my hand. If I wasn’t so tired and scared and sore, I
might have felt that touch all over my body. Tomorrow I’d think about that
touch. Not tonight.
    “The Great
Lamborghini?” he murmured against my hair. “Where do these mad thoughts of
yours come from? You should be caged and studied.”
    “You didn’t
actually answer the question though, magician.”
    He