Chapter 6 ~ Magic Tricks
Unfortunately, Kori was still in full-on shopping mode.
They had barely left the lingerie store that had so successfully terrified Dick before she bounded gleefully into the maw of another pink bedecked monstrosity.
Raven scrambled after her into what looked like a children's jewelry store, keeping close to stay within the bubble of brightly-charged space around her—the energy from Kori's inhuman emotional aura helping to block out the jumbled chaos of emotions from the other shoppers.
She still had to deal with Kori's emotions, but it was nothing compared to having to deal with everybody's.
The alien went straight for an entire wall covered in cheap, colorful, sparkling jewelry, her hands pressed to her cheeks as she gazed up at it in wonder.
"Oh, Raven! It is glorious is it not?!" Kori beamed down at her, and had to fight back a giggle at Raven's dark expression.
Raven just switched her glare to the girl next to her, her face cast into partial shadow by her hood, then sighed, trying to relax. "Sorry, it's…just not really my style…"
She turned back to the wall covered in cheap, plastic rhinestone encrusted jewelry as Kori bounced up and down on her toes, brilliant green eyes flicking rapid-fire over the display. A faint, throbbing pain started to pulse behind her temple, energy prickling over her skin, and the riot of colors in front of her seemed to swirl together.
Nausea rose in the back of her throat and she focused in on a single spot of color within the glittering mass, trying to block everything else out but that tiny flash of vibrant green.
It took her a few seconds to even register what she was looking at.
She let out a dark snort of laughter before she could stop herself, making the light above them flicker.
Kori looked down at her in question, her hands full of sparkling hair clips, then immediately scanned the wall to see what had caught her attention. She followed Raven's eyeline to the little set of jewelry and tugged it down, frowning at the matching stud earrings and small pendant.
Bright green, stylized enamel faces with large, slanted black eyes stared back up at her.
"What is humorous?"
"Um…" Raven's eyes flicked down to the little green heads, then up to the bright green eyes watching her closely, their unearthly neon glow hidden behind her spell. "…They're aliens…"
Kori's eyes widened.
"I mean, not real aliens," she muttered back. "These are just a cartoon—like a drawing—of what humans think aliens look like…"
Kori gaped at her, then brought the jewelry right up to her face to examine it in shock. A few hair clips clattered out of her arms to the floor. "These misshapen green tiny heads are meant to represent lifeforms from other planets?" she asked incredulously. "But they are most adorable! I thought Dick said that humans were terrified of extraterrestrial beings!"
Raven winced as she bent to pick up the items Kori had dropped, glancing around them quickly to make sure no one had overheard.
Kori dumped the rest of the pile in her hands into Raven's and tugged the thin chain of the necklace out of the plastic backing, giggling as she put it on. The little green face glared at Raven as it settled just under her collarbone.
The alien beamed at her.
Raven let out a small laugh despite herself, shaking her head, Kori's radiant excitement and the ridiculousness of the jewelry just too much.
Kori popped one of the earrings out next, turning it over in her long bronze fingers, examining the post on the back closely. "How are these meant to be attached?"
"They're earrings—" Raven reached up to tap the lobe of her ear beneath her hood— "but you need to have pierced ears."
"Pierced?" Kori blinked in surprise. "You mean they go through the skin?"
Raven nodded, dropping her voice lower, Kori leaning in close to hear her, "You saw women with earrings on the TV—that's how they're worn. Human girls traditionally have their ears pierced, it's not a big deal." She pointed up to the sign hanging at the front of the store. "They can do it for you here if you want..."
Her eyes drifted traitorously down to the ear-piercing station sitting below it.
Kori glanced up at the sign, the strange shapes of the letters recognizable after the weeks of Dick's lessons, but still difficult enough to decipher that she didn't bother. She shook her head quickly, "No…you can have them." Her face brightened at the thought, "that way we will match!"
Raven's fingers drifted back up to her ear, still staring out across the store, her expression closing off. "I can't," she said tonelessly, "I never got mine done…"
She remembered asking her mother hopefully, just once, wanting to be able to wear the same jewelry that she saw on everyone else—and still remembered the surge of knife-edged panic that had filled the woman at the thought, the sheer terror of letting someone get close enough to her daughter to notice the strange phenomena that had started following her around, to see how quickly her body healed itself.
She had never asked again.
And once she had left Earth, it hadn't mattered anymore, because Azarath did not share the custom…
"I thought you said females on your planet had such ornamentation?" Kori asked in confusion.
"I wasn't raised here," Raven murmured absently, her voice nearly too soft to hear.
Kori frowned down at her. "But then where were you—"
She pushed the pile of merchandise back at Kori, making up her mind before she could think better of it, the alien cutting off with a soft sound of surprise. She turned on her heel, walking purposefully towards the little counter against the glass front of the store and the employee organizing a nearby display.
"Um…excuse me…" The young woman turned around as Raven reached her, Kori following right behind. "Is the person that does the ear piercings available…" she trailed off, fingers twisting nervously in the hem of her baggy sweatshirt.
"Oh, yeah, sure. I'll get her—" she pointed to the high chair stationed next to the counter, its back to the window— "you can take a seat."
Raven nodded. She climbed up onto the chair as the employee disappeared into the back of the store, perching on the very edge of the seat, her arms tucked in tight against her body.
Kori leaned up against the earring display beside her, her eyes full of light. "I thought you said we were not doing the makeovers," she said smugly.
Raven just glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, trying not to fidget while her heartbeat started to pick up tempo in her chest, her fingertips tingling. "I changed my mind."
Kori hummed, her smile growing.
A plump, middle-aged woman in the same pink shirt as the other employee came out of the back of the store, a large cardboard box in her arms. She handed it off to the worker behind the register with a few instructions, then made her way over to them, giving Raven an empty smile as she stopped in front of her.
"Alright dear, ear-piercing?" she asked absently. She opened the cabinet without waiting for an answer and started pulling out various bottles and bits of equipment, setting them out on top of the workstation as Raven slid her hood down, nervously straightening her bangs. She gave her a once over, taking in the formless black hoodie and jeans and beat up boots, then tilted her head from side to side, looking at her ears. "Is this your first one?
Raven bit back the sarcastic retort on the tip of her tongue—the answer obvious—and just nodded, trying to ignore how close the woman was standing to her. "I'd like three."
"Three?"
"On each ear."
The woman's eyebrows jumped up. "That's going to hurt…" she said, her attention sharpening, voice tinted with a note of condescension. "And they'll take a lot longer to heal, it's probably best to just start with one."
She eyed Raven again, looking her over more closely this time, then twisted, glancing at Kori, before scanning the rest of the store—as if waiting for an adult to step forward to claim her.
The woman faced back to her, suspicion and concern dripping out of every pore. "How old are you, honey?"
"Sixteen."
It wasn't a lie, but she didn't have any documentation or ID to prove it. And parental consent was definitely out.
The woman opened her mouth again, shifting back, eyes narrowing, the refusal building under her skin, and Raven clenched her jaw.
She stared straight into the woman's brown eyes, and pushed.
Just slightly, just enough to smooth away the hesitation and concern—to make her not care.
The woman's gaze slid slightly out of focus on Raven's face.
A beat of silence, the entire demeanor of the employee standing in front of her slowly relaxing, then the woman shrugged. She turned back towards the supplies she had set out on the workstation next to her, her attention flitting away from the ethical question of the girl in front of her. "Alright, if that's what you want."
Raven shot a quick glance at Kori, her gut twisting with a twinge of guilt, but the alien hadn't noticed anything strange about the exchange. Her eyes stayed glued on the tall display rack of earrings beside the chair in fascination, unaware that Raven had just forcibly altered the woman's emotions.
The employee slipped into a kind of autopilot under Raven's touch, the foreign pressure of her emotions soothed away, her mind now focused completely on her task. She pulled on a pair of plastic gloves, lining up three pairs of small silver studs on the countertop, then leaned forward, a marker in her hand. Raven stiffened, holding very still in the chair as the woman moved in close to her without warning, tucking a strand of black hair out of the way so she could get to her ear.
She forced herself to relax, breathing slowly and evenly, pulling her power in tightly under her skin to make sure it stayed contained.
Kori looked up, watching with rapt attention as the woman marked Raven's ears with three dots on each side, quickly checked the placement, then held the little machine up against her skin.
The gun let out a pop, and the needle punched through her skin.
She barely even felt it. The tiny, bright zing of pain not even making her flinch. The shadows under her chair deepened slightly, but stayed still, her powers staying safely coiled beneath her skin, her breathing remaining even.
Kori leaned away, grimacing.
It took only seconds for the wound to heal, the sting vanishing and her skin prickling as it regrew around the post of the earring, no one the wiser. The woman made the second piercing, then the third, then matched them on the other side, and by the time she had cleaned the gun for the final time and placed it back on the counter they had already all completely healed.
"Oh they look most lovely!" Koriand'r leaned in against the chair, peering closely at her ears with a brilliant smile.
"You will need to leave them in for at least six weeks." The woman spoke in a sort of dazed monotone, no inflection in her voice at all as if she was reading the words blankly from a script, her hands already moving to clear the workspace. She handed Raven a paper to bring up to the register and then went back to her work, brown eyes never quite focusing on her, sliding right over her face as if she wasn't really there.
Raven winced and slipped down from the chair, a deeper stab of guilt biting into her.
Kori caught her expression, moving aside to make room for her in front of the display. "Is it painful?"
Raven shook her head, forcing her face back into neutrality, trying to push her discomfort away. She tugged her hood back into place, her fingers brushing against the foreign sensation of the metal in her ears.
"I thought you might wish to purchase some—" Kori held out a handful of earrings that she had picked out from from the display, bright waves of excitement and enthusiasm bubbling up inside of her. "What about these—"
Raven looked down at the pile of black and dark blue and purple, her hands still at her ears. A flash of acid green winked at her, and fished out the little alien earrings that Kori had first offered to her.
She pulled the first pair of small silver studs out of her ears, replacing them quickly with the little angry green enamel faces, and let out a soft breath of relief as the earrings slid in easily, her skin keeping the shape it had been forced to heal into.
"But she said you are required to wait…" Kori watched in mild concern.
"They always over-exaggerate, it's fine." She shrugged, fighting back a smile, fingers once more brushing her ears.
A little rectangle of mirror sat at the top of the display in front of them, and she caught a glimpse of her own face looking back at her from the glass—skin too pale, eyes too dark, expression blank and empty, but her ears now marked by a decidedly human symbol.
A tiny glow lit in her chest.
Kori beamed at her, warmth suffusing the air around her, the matching necklace glinting at her throat.
Then she frowned, lips pursing, once more examining Raven from head to toe.
"What?" Raven twisted back to face her, immediately wary.
"You are right, this store is not your—" the alien scrunched her nose— "what did you call it? Style?" She shook out her mass of hair, lifting her chin into the air, fierce eyes glinting dangerously. "We shall have to find another."
Raven let out a huff of breath, shoulders slumping. "Do we have to?"
"Yes," Kori said firmly. She dumped the collection of earrings into Raven's hands before she could object, then scooped up her pile of items with glee, leading the way towards the register.
"Phone trackers say they're in here." Vic closed the panel on his arm that he had been trying to read surreptitiously as they walked, tugging the fabric of his sleeve back in place before anyone noticed the electronics seemingly sticking out his flesh.
He gestured towards the store off to his right, a low bass beat coming out of the darkened interior, and headed inside, winding his way through the much heavier afternoon crowds on the walkway, Dick and Gar right behind him.
He spotted Kori immediately near the back of the store picking through a rack of clothing— her red hair a bright beacon in the low light, even hidden beneath Raven's illusion spell—and started to wind his way through the field of clothing racks and people between them.
"Hey Star—hot damn, girl, you look awesome!" Vic called.
Kori looked up at the name and beamed. Her scarlet curls had been twisted and pinned around her face with a dozen little white flower-covered clips, making her look like a flower crown had been woven into her hair. She flounced over to meet them, drawing several stares from around the store, and spun in a graceful twirl, her lavender dress flaring out around her in a ripple of fabric.
"Close your mouth," he muttered to Dick, fighting not to laugh.
Dick snapped his jaw shut and shot him a look, spots of pink burning high on his cheeks.
Gar sniggered.
"Thank you!" Kori grinned, her eyes lingering for a moment on Dick's before she looked back to him, a pretty orange flush to her own cheeks. "The shopping has been most enjoyable!"
"Where's Raven? She in here with you?"
Kori nodded, pointing back to the entrance to the dressing rooms behind her. "She is trying on the clothing."
Gar immediately leaned around her to look, the lights flashing against the gold in his hair.
"How'd you manage that?" Vic chuckled, "I thought hell would have frozen over before you got her to willingly agree to go shopping with you."
Kori frowned at the unknown phrase, then planted her hands on her hips, giving him a playfully stern look, her muscular arms flexing slightly. She raised her chin. "I can be most persistent."
"Oh, I'll bet you can." He grinned back at her, and his eyes slid evilly to Dick standing next to him. The shorter boy's face flushed a darker pink.
"Richard—" Koriand'r's posture relaxed, and her smile turned suddenly shy. She reached into a pocket of her dress, pulling out a tiny object, and proffered it out to Dick, not quite meeting his eyes. "I purchased you a gift—as an expression of gratitude. It is your house sigil, is is not?"
A tiny pin sat in her palm, the glossy black enamel shaped like a bat, ridged wings stretched out wide.
"Uh—"
"Oh, Robbie-poo! Look! Your own little bat-baby pin! Star, stick it on his shirt—it'll be like a corsage, and I'll get a picture—"
"Stop it," Dick hissed at him. He snatched the pin out of Kori's hand, jamming it into the pocket of his jeans as Victor cackled.
"You…do not like it?"
"What? No—Star, it's great—I just—" Dick shoved Victor away, glaring at him, and tried to repair the dejected expression on Kori's face. "I do like it, really—thank you—it's just not really something I can have on me in public—"
"How about this then?"
They all turned to Garfield, barely restrained laughter behind his voice, as he tugged a garment out from the clothing rack next to them. He held it out for them all to see, a red and black t-shirt with green accents, the bright yellow logo on the top left corner of the chest on full display. "You can get your very own officially licensed Robin shirt!"
Dick glanced at the shirt, and did a double take in horror.
"Put that away!"
Gar rolled his eyes, unable to keep from chuckling. "Oh, come on, it would be funny!"
Dick groaned, running a hand roughly through his hair as he glanced quickly around the store to make sure no one was watching. "I hate that stupid costume! I don't even know where the media came up with that! I mean who in their right mind would go out and fight crime wearing a fucking bright yellow cape?"
"The panties really made the outfit though," Vic added helpfully.
"Panties?" Kori snapped her head around to stare at Dick, eyes wide as she looked him up and down, then back at the shirt. "You wore this outfit with—"
"Shorts!" Dick snapped. "And no I didn't—"
"Short shorts." Vic held up a hand, pinching his thumb and forefinger together, and squinted through the tiny space between them. He threw his arm around Dick's shoulders, tugging him in against his side and pitching his voice to a higher register, "Cute little green ones."
Kori pressed a hand to her mouth to cover an explosion of giggles, brilliant eyes dancing with light as Gar and Vic both burst into laughter.
Dick grimaced, smacking Vic's arm off of him. "I never wore that!"
"I don't know dude, I think the whole 'stripper traffic light' look is pretty sexy—holy shit—" Gar's laughter choked off with a squeak, the shirt halfway back on the rack, his eyes fixed on a spot at the back of the store.
Raven froze in the doorway to the dressing rooms as all four of them turned to stare at her, flushing slightly as their attention hit her like the beam of a limelight.
Garfield's mouth fell open.
Kori lit up immediately, bounding back over to her. She plucked the bundle of Raven's old clothes out of her hands before the other girl could object, dumping them into one of the shopping bags she had placed on top of the rack of clothes next to her, and took her pale hands gently, holding her arms out at her sides so she could get an unobstructed view of the outfit Raven had selected.
"Um…good?" Raven raised her eyebrows.
She held still, looking up into the alien's face, not flinching back at the contact or the enthusiasm, that tiny, hopeful glow building once again in her chest.
She would never have worn anything like this before—she would never have been able to, the loose, flowing styles of her previous home the only option available to her—but she had looked into the mirror, the formless, too-large clothes finally removed, and for the first time, she had felt like she was actually looking at herself.
Kori's eyes swept over her, taking in the all black, tight-fitted, long-sleeve shirt and high waisted shorts, the silhouette emphasizing her curves and slim waist, legs covered by a pair of dark tights, her familiar, comfortable boots on her feet.
"Good." Kori beamed at her, nodding approvingly, and a rush of glowing pride rolled out of her, suffusing the air with warmth.
Raven smiled back.
Then she peered nervously around the taller girl, back at the boys. At Garfield—still standing and gaping at her like an idiot.
Vic smacked him on the back of the head.
"Ow!—Hey—" Gar snapped back to reality, rubbing his head, then blinked in mortification as the other boys laughed quietly.
Raven rolled her eyes, biting back another smile at his reaction. She reached up, moving to pull her hood back up over her head out of habit, but her fingers met only empty air. She hesitated, tucking her hair behind her ears in a nervous motion, then stepped to the side, going up on tiptoes to retrieve the hoodie that Kori had deposited in the shopping bag on the rack beside them.
"Not that one—" Kori reached out before she could grab it, blocking her arm, pulling down a diffreent piece of clothing instead— "this one. I know that you prefer to have a hood, and this color would suit you much better…"
She smiled hopefully, holding out a slimmer, longer, sweater-like hooded garment in a deep shade of royal blue.
Dick and Victor made their way through the racks towards them, and Garfield snatched something large and white up off the floor, stuffing it behind his back, hurrying to catch up.
Raven took the garment from Kori, running her fingers over the soft fabric.
It was the same color. The same color of the robes she had worn for nearly ten years as Arella's student.
She had never been able to progress to a higher level, the dark color a visual reminder of her lack of skill in their style of magic, her lack of control of her abilities. The highest-ranking magic users wore robes of the lightest blue, and Arella, as high priestess, had worn pure white.
The last time she had seen those robes… they had been stained red.
Screams echoed in the back of her mind.
She closed her eyes, forcefully blocking out the images that sliced at her, pushing down on the energy trying to claw its way out from inside her skin.
"What is wrong—"
"Nothing," she said quickly, keeping her face, and her emotions, as blank as she could. The shadows all around her darkened, rippling across the floor like water. "It's...perfect, thanks." She slipped her arms into the sleeves and pulled the garment on, the hem falling to just below the edge of her black shorts, the loose fabric fluttering around her body almost like a cloak.
The hood settled over her head, and instantly, her heart calmed, the rising panic quieting down, the buzz of the emotions around her fading to a more manageable level.
Kori studied her for another moment, concerned, but brightened as the boys joined them.
Vic smiled at Raven, his rich brown skin crinkling at the corners of his eyes—her spell mimicking the effect from his human eye onto the illusion on the other side. "I, uh…like the new look," he said warmly.
"Thanks." Raven gave him a small smile in return, tugging nervously at the hem of the sweater. The dark blue fabric brought out the faint hint of color in her face, making her pale skin appear slightly more normal.
Gar caught up with the rest of the other two boys and pushed past them, shoving Victor out of the way with his hip.
He dropped down to one knee in front of the girls, and with a dramatic flourish, yanked the giant, stuffed chicken he had won in the arcade out from behind his back, holding it aloft in front of him as if it was the greatest treasure that Earth had to offer.
"As promised—" he said, his voice dropped for dramatic effect like some sports announcer. "The prize of all prizes."
He tilted his head at an absurd angle to peek out at Raven from behind the ridiculously proportioned ball of white fluff, tousled dark blond hair flopping to one side, an exultant, tooth-bearing grin swallowing up his whole face.
Warmth and light swelled around him, washing against her skin. The small, forced smile on her face relaxed, turning into something more natural, the ghosts in her memories fading into silence.
She took the stuffed animal from him and held it up, fighting to keep her face as impassive as she could.
"Wow," she said dryly, scowling into its big black glass eyes. "I must be the luckiest girl in the world."
"Oh, you are." Victor grinned evilly down at her, brown eyes dancing as Dick shook his head, smirking at Garfield, "Wanna know why?"
The tone in Vic's voice made her suddenly apprehensive, and she glanced between the two boys, frowning. Garfield levered himself back up to his feet, smile turning sheepish.
"You lost?"
"Sorry Rae—" Victor smacked the shapeshifter on the back with a dark chuckle, making him stumble— "dishes for a week, that was the deal!"
She glared at Gar, then groaned, pressing her face into the chicken's plush fabric, her voice coming out muffled, "I hate you both."
She lowered the chicken, holding it in front of her by a handful of fluff as she gave Gar another glare. He grinned back and she rolled her eyes, the corner of her mouth twitching imperceptibly upwards.
The others stood in a semi-circle in front of her, Kori at her side, racks of clothing blocking her from view from the other people filling the store. She cast a quick glance around her to make sure no one was looking, just in case, then summoned a wave of shadow to swallow up the ridiculous stuffed animal. Her hands momentarily filled with inky blackness, then cleared, the chicken vanished.
"Whoa!" Gar watched it disappear with wide eyes. "What did you do to him?"
"Him?"
"Yes, him!" Gar waved his hands frantically at her now empty arms. "Henchy! Your newly recruited evil chicken henchman!"
Vic pressed a massive hand over his face, his shoulders shaking in silent laughter, Dick and Koriand'r watching with amusement.
Raven blinked. "That is the most ridiculous—"
Gar pointed at her in accusation, hazel eyes sparkling. "Where is he!?"
She put her hands on her hips. "You think I'm gonna carry that thing all over the mall with me? I sent it—him—" she corrected with a dark glare as Gar opened his mouth again— "back to the Tower."
"You!—wait—you did?"
Her mouth curved in a small, smug smile, and her eyes flicked up to Victor. "Oh, and this is yours." She held out her empty hand, shadows flowing up between her fingers, solidifying into the black credit card.
"Whoa!" the two boys gaped at her in unison, and Dick at least had the decency to look slightly guilty, realizing that he hadn't checked if she had any money before leaving her with Kori.
Victor slapped a hand over his pocket, feeling for the card that was no longer there. "Hey—" He made to snatch it back from her, but caught only empty air, the card vanishing from between her fingers in another flicker of darkness.
"How'd you do that?" Gar snatched her hands, leaning in closer to her, eyes flicking back and forth over her fingers in amazement as if he could spot where the card had vanished to.
Energy surged up from his fingertips, light dancing along her skin, and she snatched her hands back from his, stepping back as his fascinated, excited face turned up to hers.
She blinked at him in surprise, then forced her face back into a neutral expression, regaining her composure.
"A magician never reveals her secrets," she said darkly.
Kori laughed, following the exchange with bright, knowing eyes. She tugged gently on Raven's arm, pulling her away from the boys towards the register. "Come," she chirped, "we will purchase the clothes, then we may all go get lunch!"
Raven shot Gar one last look, then shook her head, trailing after Kori through the racks of clothing.
She snapped the tags off of the new clothes, placing them on the counter with her stolen credit card, Kori adding her own items to the pile.
The young woman behind the register—only just a handful of years older than them—did a double take as the alien stepped up to the counter. Her dark brown, heavily made-up eyes went up, then down, then back, taking in Kori in in all her lavender-dressed, bronze-skinned, red-haired glory. Pierced eyebrows rose sky high.
Kori beamed at her.
The employee smiled hesitantly back, her cheeks flushing, and started ringing up the purchase.
"Oh, Raven, look," Kori peered down to inspect something on the counter, on a display set up on the side of the register. "The image looks just like you!"
She picked it up and handed it to Raven.
Raven looked down in surprise at the card sitting innocently in her hands, at the detailed, richly colored picture printed on its front. Something pulled at her, a tiny, little tug, like a string had been attached to her sternum, connecting her to the gilded rectangle of plastic-coated paper.
Every muscle in her body locked up.
A woman draped in the folds of a dark blue cloak stared back up at her, the top half of her pale face obscured by a deep hood. She held a heavy book in front of her chest, a chain of glowing red gemstones resting across her shoulders, and a crescent moon hung behind her in the red-painted sky—the points forming a horned crown above her head.
Raven's face drained of color, her chest squeezing painfully.
She recognized the card instantly.
Arella had used a deck just like this, the images different, the very fiber of the cards imbued with dangerous power, but the feeling exactly the same.
The lit display screen on the cash register flickered, the dim lights on the dark store sputtering in the ceiling above them.
"What a strange collection." Kori said brightly. She had already turned her attention back to the display on the counter, to the rest of the deck of colorful cards spread out on a swath of black velvet, missing Raven's reaction completely. "I wonder if there is a tiny replica of me…"
The girl behind the register shifted over to the display, watching Kori shuffle through the gold-backed cards, her pierced eyebrow raised again at the odd phrasing. "That's a new design we just got in," she said in a bright voice, "it's pretty cool, twenty dollars for a pack."
"What are they?"
"Tarot cards?" The girl shrugged. "They're fortune telling cards, like, ya know, magic? I can do a reading for you if you want, I just started learning but—"
"You read the cards?" Kori leaned down to inspect them closer as the employee watched her hopefully. "How? There are no words, only pictures."
"It's all symbolism, the pictures have a bunch of different meanings. I have a guide book here somewhere—" she frowned, turning to examine the disordered counter space behind her— "but you lay them out and they can tell you the future or answer a question—"
"But that is impossible, the future…has not yet happened." Kori shot a questioning glance at Raven, a confused frown scrunching her face. "It is unknowable."
Raven fought back against the sudden surge of nausea in her gut.
She snapped out of her shock, flinging the card away from her like it had bitten her fingers. It landed face up on the metal counter, the image searing into her brain, the dark tinted lips of the woman in the drawing seeming to smirk knowingly up at the ceiling.
She took a step back.
The employee turned back to face them and shrugged, the small, glossy guidebook for the cards now in her hands. "Eh, people see meaning where they want to, but they're still fun."
She reached over, collecting Raven's card where it had landed and peered down at her manual. "Major Arcana two, ummm…." She flipped through the book, looking for the appropriate page. "The High Priestess: secrets, mystery, hidden power, intuition. When representing a person—" she glanced up at Raven in her blue hood, her dark eyes taking in the uncanny resemblance to the image, then back down to the page— "they hold the solution to your problem. They are the key, the opener of doors, the—"
The velvet covered stand shot sideways off of the counter, the deck of cards all tumbling to the ground in a flutter of gold and shadows.
The girl yelped, jumping backward, and Kori froze. She turned quickly to Raven, concern in her eyes, and saw her standing petrified behind her, face drawn in fear.
"Well that was kind of freaky…" The employee tiptoed slowly around the counter, as if afraid any sudden movement might spook the cards again. Her dark eyes widened.
"…Whoa…"
The cards lay scattered in a haphazard circle across the floor, all face down, only their foiled backs visible—except for three.
They sat face up in a nearly straight line right in front of Raven and Kori, right in the empty space in the center of the rest of the deck as if the other cards had been physically repelled away from them.
The first, a woman dressed in a gown of brilliant yellow, fair hair twisted up behind her head, a golden cup held aloft before her in a sunburst of light. The image faced away from them, as if it had fallen upside-down, the card reversed.
Beside it, an indistinguishable form huddled on the ground, body pierced by six gleaming silver swords. A seventh blade hovered above, raised by a shadowy figure, the weapon held poised to pierce down into the victim's back.
And the final card. A gleaming tower struck by a bolt of lightning, bodies and shattered stone falling from the height.
Raven didn't need to look up the meanings from the little guidebook. She knew what the cards meant—knew it in her bones—knew it as if those three cards were screaming their warnings at her.
Emotional turmoil and manipulation. Deception. A mask of innocence that hid darkness beneath.
Betrayal.
Her eyes locked on the third card. On the Tower.
And destruction.
She bolted for the exit.
Darkness flickered around her, her heart picking up tempo in her chest as she moved as quickly as she could without actually breaking into a run. She burst out of the store, nearly crashing into a group of people, and stumbled past them, barely registering anything around her as the swirling maelstrom of emotions from the crowd washed over her.
She grabbed onto the balcony railing lining the second story, holding tight, her torso pressed against the metal banister, leaning forward out over the drop.
She squeezed her eyes closed, dragging in heavy breaths, pulling herself back in before she exploded in the middle of the crowded mall. The handrail creaked ominously under her fingers.
"Raven!" Dick caught up with her first, dodging through the crowd with ease, his voice worried. "Are you okay?"
He stepped in close to her, peering around at her face beneath her hood, then down to the inky darkness stretching out behind her against the white marble floors.
"Raven—"
"I'm fine," she said quickly, backing away from him. "I just—there's a lot of people and I—it's been a long day." She fought to pull her shadow back in around her feet, and it melted in towards her, returning to a more normal shape but still much too dark. "I just need to meditate."
The others caught up with them, matching looks of concern on their faces. They converged on her without any discussion, creating a kind of barrier between her and the flow of people on the walkway.
"Raven, I apologize," Kori said fervently. She reached for her, but pulled back before she made contact, thinking better of it. "I did not mean for the cards to upset you, I did not realize—"
"Cards?" Dick asked sharply.
"I—"
"It's fine, it's nothing." Raven shook her head sharply at Koriand'r, hoping the other girl would understand, and as Dick turned back to look at her questioningly the alien just shook her head, not saying any more.
"Look, I'll meet you back at—at the Tower, okay?" Raven nearly choked on the word, the image from the final card flashing behind her eyes.
Destruction.
The glass panel of the balcony rail cracked beneath her hands. She let go hastily.
She couldn't stay any longer. She couldn't meet them back there, she would have to go, disappear, before she ruined their futures forever.
Dick stepped towards her, his concern leeching into the air, and she shifted away. "I just, I need to go, I—"
Energy prickled suddenly over Raven's skin, sharp and stinging, zapping against her with a thousand tiny pinpricks.
She stiffened, her head snapping up, wide eyes locking on the crowd just over Dick's shoulder.
He caught the change in her body language immediately, and tensed, his posture mimicking hers, adrenaline shooting into his veins. "What's wrong?"
"Someone's watching us," she breathed.
Vic moved in behind Raven protectively, his heavy mass a comforting shield at her back. He followed her gaze, searching the flow of people from over her head. Gar's ears perked up, his eyes quickly scanning the crowd.
Dick held still, fighting the instinctive urge to spin around. He grabbed Kori's elbow next to him, catching her before she could turn. "Don't look," he muttered to her, his attention fixed on Raven.
"What do you mean?" he asked her calmly, not letting his voice betray his tension.
Her eyes darted frantically across the crowd, searching, but she couldn't tell—there were too many people, a nauseating jumble of emotions coming at her from every direction, bombarding her all at once.
The prickling sensation shot all along her skin, the intensity stabbing into her with a thousand tiny needles, and she suddenly felt trapped, pinned beneath that unseen gaze as whoever it was studied her—them—with razored focus. Analyzing each of them like bugs trapped under a magnifying glass, picking apart every little detail with cold, calculating, brutal efficiency.
And a sickening hint of amusement.
"Shit—" Vic's left eye suddenly twitched, the illusory human skin of his glamour stretching and distorting as the aperture on his cybernetic eye contracted underneath.
"What?" Dick looked up at him, alarmed, as Gar stared at the bizarre effect in morbid fascination
"I can't see anything!"
"What—"
"I mean—I can see with my regular eye—but something over there is generating a jamming signal or something, it's fucking with my tech—" He winced, his left eye appearing to rapidly shrink to half its normal size then double to grotesque proportions as the spell attempted to compensate for the inhuman movements of the machinery, and clapped a hand over the side of his face. "Ow, fuck, that feels weird."
The crowd parted for the briefest second in front of Raven.
Her eyes locked in on a figure leaning casually up against one of the glass storefronts, drawn straight to him like a lodestone. A tall, well-built man in unremarkable clothing, colorless enough to blend in, not dark enough to stand out, square jaw coated in salt and pepper stubble, the rest of his face obscured from view by a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes.
His piercing scrutiny sliced across her skin like a knife.
She recoiled, pressing into Victor's hard chest behind her. The man's mouth twitched upwards in a chilling smile, and he muttered something—a phone in his hand—the words lost to the distance between them.
The crowd shifted again, another group of people moving in front of her, concealing him from view as they passed.
And then he was gone. Vanished. The space where he had been standing just a second before completely empty in the blink of an eye. Like he had never even existed in the first place—nothing more than an illusion, a magic trick.
"He's gone," she whispered.
"Okay, time to go," Dick said forcefully. He moved in close to Raven, his shoulder nearly pressed against her back as he tried to steer her into motion along the walkway, repositioning subtly so he could search the crowd behind him.
She didn't move, her body completely rigid as she stared out at the crowd, unnatural purple eyes flicking rapidly back and forth.
"Let's—"
Three loud, explosive bangs cracked through the air in quick succession, echoing hollowly through the vast space, almost like gunfire—
Screams erupted from the floor below them.