Prey

Holly Kline First American Serial Rights
© Holly Kline, 2006

PREY

Being psychic is not exactly the chintzy, crystal-ball and cheap costume jewelry market that your average TV show would lead you to believe. Actually, most of us work out of the home, in jeans and a T-shirt, and only sometimes is the jewelry cheap. Okay, mine is. I’m still looking for a job that will pay me well enough in the television industry to allow me some of the good stuff. I’m partial to emeralds. Or I would be, if I could afford them.
So it was, on a fairly gorgeous October Saturday, that I was waiting for a client. The sky was that great color that just shouts, “BLUE!” at you, and the leaves were starting to show more red and gold than green. It was just a perfect morning; steam gone now from the lake, the air starting to warm up. I had a mug of hot chocolate and my favorite seat in the screened-in porch, overlooking the yard and my late roses. Cozied up with my cat in my lap, I looked out for Dr. Gerald Sotheby.
For a half-hour Tarot reading I charge twenty-five bucks; a little on the low side, from what I’ve seen. If you want an hour, it’s fifty, but that’s worth every penny to my regulars. I have a lot of regulars. Dr. Sotheby was not one of them. On the phone, he’d told me one of my clients had recommended my services, but that he couldn’t remember who it was. It was no surprise to me that the fellow was nearly twenty minutes late. I could feel he was terribly absent-minded and unsure when we spoke. I wasn’t at all convinced that he was going to show at all, which is why I’d suggested a morning time; if he hadn’t made it, I would have gone back to bed and snuggled up under my pretty green Amish quilt, none the worse for wear.
Eventually, however, the avocado-colored Gremlin (I kid you not!) turned the corner, and I knew it had to be the good doctor. He matched exactly the picture I’d had in my mind when he called. Of middling height, brown hair thinning all the way back from the crown of his head, watery but intelligent brown eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. He hunched his shoulders over, just as I’d seen, protective of something small in a cardboard box. He regarded me with no small amount of suspicion.
“Good morning, Dr. Sotheby,” I said, smiling my very friendliest smile. It tends to help with the nervous ones. “I hope the directions were okay?”
“Fine,” he agreed, nodding his round head like a bird. “Fine. Are you Laine?”
“I sure am. Would you like to come in?” I stood up with little regard for Chumpash, the cat. He’d be fine without my lap for a while. Dr. Sotheby followed me into the small, comfortable place I called home.
I imagine, always, that my home is something of a disappointment to clients the first time they step inside. Rather than the shadowy fortune-teller’s booth they seem to crave, you’ll find mostly earth-toned furniture, bought more for comfort than for appearance, some Ansel Adams and Leighton prints on the walls, and light, sheer green curtains. There are also quite a few plants, though all of the hardiest varieties – I am known for my black thumb. Perhaps the only unusual feature of my home is that one corner set aside for readings. There’s a small table, two chairs, and a deck of cards in the center. Though you can’t see it, the underside of the table is painted with protective symbols; there are a few pieces of quartz and amethyst set on the nearby mantle and bookshelf. Dr. Sotheby made a beeline for it; he plunked himself down, but set the box on the table as gently as crystal. I offered him tea, which he declined. He was ready to get down to business.
“I want you to tell me something,” he said, without preamble.
“I’ll try. I assume it’s the bone in the box?”
Dr. Sotheby did what everyone does when I pull something like that on them; he blinked, then widened his eyes as his jaw grew slack. It’s a look I’ve grown accustomed to. Rather than get into the how-did-you-know conversation, I reached for the box. I opened it carefully, conscious of his eyes watching my every move.
Sure enough, it was a bone inside, fossilized. A claw, to be exact. I didn’t touch it just yet. I spoke to the man first.
“What you want is psychometry? For me to touch it, and tell you what I feel?” I asked.
“That’s right. But be careful.”
“It’s a kid of raptor claw, isn’t it?”
“Yes! How did you know? You haven’t even touched it yet.”
I shrugged. “I saw Jurassic Park.” I said. “First time a movie ever made me scream. I kept forgetting I didn’t have to avoid the dinosaurs on the way home.”
Dr. Sotheby said nothing.
“Right.” I continued, after a moment. “Did you bring a tape recorder, or bring something to make notes? I won’t remember what I’ve said when I’m done, so it’s up to you.” Strange trick, that. I could read just about anybody fairly well, but when I was done reading, I could seldom remember a word I’d said. I often wondered if that was why certain of my clients were so loyal.
A dutiful Sotheby produced a mini tape recorder. Lousy quality, in my opinion, but easily portable.
“Put the voice control on the highest setting,” I suggested. “I can be a little quiet sometimes.” He clicked the button and laid the recorder on the table, next to my cards.
I ground and centered, willing the energy in my body to coalesce at my solar plexus, and then dispersing it evenly throughout myself. Immediately, my mind was clear; my heart rate slowed; calm flooded me, soft, like lying down on foam. Dr. Sotheby’s aura popped into view, yellow mostly, with reds and browns around the edges. An intellectual, obviously; passionate, which surprised me; and nervous about this unorthodox, unscientific method he’d resorted to.
Enough. I looked at the bone. No real aura left; after so many millions of years, I can’t say I was surprised. Most auras degrade quickly, fading, like a superimposed image in a film. Tentatively, I reached for the little cardboard box and picked up this small piece of history.
Had I not been grounded before I started, the reading would have ended in that moment. Immediately, the living room fell away from me, and I spiraled out into the long-distant past like a maple pod dropping to earth, the kind the kids call helicopters. This was no slow descent; this was a plunge, with little control to recommend it. I knew deep within that this fall could not harm me. I went with it.
The first thing I noticed was the smell. It was nothing like the October I’d left outside. It was cold, dry, wintry.
“You found this out west,” I said. “In Montana. You had four grad students assisting on the dig, and a handful of volunteers, but you found this yourself. That was three years ago, and you still aren’t sure, but you think this is a new species of raptor. You’re right.” I breathed in again. “It’s small. Three and a half feet, maybe, and sort of tan or dun-colored with darker patterning along her back. This one was female.”
I could see the raptor clearly, but found it hard to really describe her. She felt cold, like reptiles often did. I knew she’d been very hungry when she died.
“I think she starved to death. She was lost. That’s why you can’t find any more of her. She was separated from –“
Suddenly, I was inside the dinosaur in my mind.
Lost, we were, pack mates gone, chased away by some larger, fiercer creature. We could not smell the pack, or hear them. Our head ached horribly. We had taken a blow in the fight, but scurried out of the way quickly enough not to get eaten. The rest could be anywhere.
This was not good. We shook our head to dislodge the pain, but that seemed to have the opposite effect. Like a small wild animal in the maw, it wriggled around, stuck inside. We chose to sit and wait it out. Perhaps the wind would bring back pack-scent. There were no kills nearby. The pack must have run very far. We wondered which of our pack had fallen to the predator so that the rest escaped.
We scratched out a spot on the ground for our own and watched for small prey.

The sudden return to my living room left me feeling as dazed as that long-ago dinosaur. My mouth was dry and the critter’s headache seemed to be psychically contagious, for my head throbbed with each pulse beat.
Dr. Sotheby took a moment to register in my senses, now that the usual five were up and running again. The images of the dinosaur immediately faded; but he was looking at me very much as if I had shown him the face of God.
“Did I give you anything good?” I asked, smiling weakly.
Dr. Sotheby packed up his bone and handed me twenty-five dollars. Before he left, we made an appointment for the following week.
Chumpash refused to come near me the rest of the day.

The week passed quickly, full of regular clients and more stunning October skies. I forgot about Sotheby and almost completely about the dinosaur. I wasn’t worried at all about the upcoming visit with the paleontologist when Saturday rolled around. I hadn’t really thought about him all week. So I welcomed him in, settled us at the table, and picked up the claw.
Later, Sotheby described it to me like this: I had been doing what I normally did, which was simply sitting, describing in as much detail as I could what my mind’s eye showed me. About the time I had merged by consciousness with that of the dinosaur, I had changed my behavior – radically.
I had stood, sniffed the air, and begun searching the room for something. Sotheby hadn’t known what. I seemed to focus, crouched, and paused, breathing slowly and carefully. I was preternaturally still.
The burst into the chase had taken poor Sotheby completely by surprise. In one sudden, fluid motion I had lunged for - something. The table went flying as cards scattered everywhere – and I began to chase some small, invisible prey. He flattened himself against the wall and watched, afraid to so much as breathe, as I did my best imitation of a chicken with its head cut off. Finally, I had gone for the kill – narrowly missing a solid concussion by slamming into the stone mantle – and Sotheby has listened, stunned, while I had thrown my head back and made a strange chlunk! chlunk!, reminiscent of a sneeze. He had watched as I choked down invisible dinosaur chunks. He sat down only when I stopped, and dropped bonelessly to the floor.
“Do you do this shit all the time?” he asked. His fear was palpable.
“Never,” I replied wearily. The episode had taken a lot out of me. I was exhausted. Sotheby eyed me in mild disbelief.
“Honestly,” I said. I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing.
I don’t remember Dr. Sotheby helping me to my room. I don’t remember doing anything he said I did. I do remember, and rather clearly, him tucking me under the covers, treating me as tenderly as one of his bones. For this unexpected kindness, I kissed his cheek.
Sotheby turned my face to his and kissed back, somewhat more soundly than I had expected. I couldn’t help myself – I met his kiss, sliding my arms around his neck and sighing.
I felt his hands slide over my collarbone, past my shoulder.
But when I woke up later that afternoon, I was alone. The table had been righted, all the cards replaced, as the broken lamp repaired with Crazy Glue. There was an envelope on the table with my name on it and my session fee inside, with a note:
Same time next Saturday.
G.S.

I went back to sleep for an hour, and spent a lonely Saturday night trying to figure our what was happening to me.
I called Sotheby first thing Monday morning.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to continue with our sessions, Gerald,” I said, feeling ridiculous as I realized that this was the first time I’d called him by his first name. And here I’d mashed my face – and other body parts – up against his two days ago.
“Why on earth not, Laine?” he asked, quickly angered. “I’ve been thrilled with your work, but I still haven’t learned what I really need to know. Where are the other raptors? You have to promise me you’ll keep trying. We’ll tie you down or something.”
I squelched the image that brought to mind.
“I don’t want anything to happen to me,” I argued. “What if I do run myself into the wall next time?”
Sotheby shook his head so hard I could hear it over the line. “No, no, Laine. I promise. Imagine what we could accomplish together. With your help I could unearth more digs than ever. You could help me know what to look for what no one has ever thought of before.”
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“I’ll pay you more.”
I sighed. “It’s not about money.”
“I wish you’d change your mind, Laine.” His voice was tight and regretful. I paused, wanting desperately to relent and see him one more time. He was a strange bird, but then, so was I – and I liked him, even though I wasn’t sure he felt the same yet.
He caught that pause and stuck his foot back into the door. “Laine, just one more time, okay? Please?”
I couldn’t help but think about his kiss. The man looked gnomey, but his kiss was princely.
“One more. One.”

Thursday night, I dreamed of the dinosaur.
I dreamed of her pack, of hunting, of the joy of prey between the teeth. Somewhere during the dream, one of my pack became Gerald Sotheby, and as dinosaurs we mated, claws and teeth flipping back and forth with human parts. I woke both aroused and embarrassed, and wondered just what the hell I was getting into. I don’t sleep around. I don’t particularly like meat, though I’m not really a vegetarian. Yet I woke with the urge for it, and lots of it, rare.
But I also woke feeling strangely alive.

Saturday came again. With it, rain, destroying my beautiful October mornings. Still, I waited on my screened-in porch for the man in the avocado-mobile.
“Good morning, Laine,” he said as he climbed out of the Gremlin.
“Good morning,” I chirped, and flinched at the sound of my own voice. I had taken an involuntary step forward. My turquoise, broom-pleated skirt caught on the edge of the chair I’d been in, stopping me where I stood. Face warm, I hastened to free myself.
I turned back to Sotheby to find him watching me with amusement.
“Why, Laine, I’d think you’re happy to see me. Or is it just that you’re a little eager?” he asked, sounding smug. I glowered. I suddenly got it. He was that type – he’d had me, so I was no longer all that interesting.
“No more than you are, Sotheby.” But I flushed, thinking of the dream.
“Then I guess we’d better get to work. I brought a list of questions this time. When you do your little trick, see if you can answer any of them, will you?”
My hackles rose fully at the condescending tone he’d taken. “It’s not a trick,” I answered coolly. “It just happens.” And I did something I usually don’t permit myself, and listened for his surface thoughts. “And stop wondering if I know what color underwear you’re wearing. Boxers with blue pinstripes.”
There, I thought. That ought to put him in his place.
Dr. Sotheby just walked past me to the door and let himself in.
I looked at Chumpash. Chumpash looked at me. I followed Sotheby inside. Chumpash, probably the wiser of us both, took off for parts unknown.
We sat at the table, the doctor and I, and he began to read from a long list of questions. “What do the plants look like? The night sky? How fast could you run? How intelligent are you?”
“I’m not her.” I said, tone flat.
He paused, and I understood that to him, the dinosaur and I were one and the same. It wasn’t me he’d been making love to at all. It was her. His real passion was her.
“Of course you aren’t,” he said, but I sensed his true feeling.
He added more questions. Did the dinosaur have pack loyalty? How many in her pack? Did she try problem-solving? What were her thoughts like? And on, and on. Some I couldn’t understand the relevance of; others, I thought he might be testing me with, to see if I was somehow faking.
At last, the claw was again on the table. The micro-recorder came out. I ground and centered with difficulty; too many layers of hopped- up emotions. Excitement at the thought of going back, anger with myself for sleeping with this jerk, anger at the jerk himself. It blocks up the flow of the energy. I hoped I wouldn’t be too blocked to work.
I reached for the bone.
Dropping, dropping, and then I was with her again. It was dark; the night was close all around us, very cold, though it didn’t bother us much. The pain in our head took precedence. We were weak. We had lost blood. The taste of it seeped into the left side of our maw, below the wound, and to the part of us that was me it was not the familiar, coppery sting of human blood. It was something alien.
The dinosaur’s belly rumbled, and mine along with her. The urge to hunt rose up in us – too strong to resist, as we tried to stand. We gathered ourselves to lurch to our feet. We stood, barely, but stronger now for having succeeded. The body ached, stiff, scraped, and bruised.
We raised our snout to the air and sniffed. We listened.
No pack scent. No water close by, either. We took a few steps to escape the smell of our own blood. Something in the darkness moved.
Sharp, sudden, all senses focused on the tiny noise. We felt the thrill of the hunt tingling along our maw, our spine, in our claws. The growl in our throat we held back; whatever it was, it knew we were here. We could smell that acrid fear. The muscles in our back contracted with pleasure. The hunt was about to begin.
The thing in the dark made a break for it.
Had we been able to, we would have howled with glee. We felt raw and alive in a way I had never experienced alone. We burst forth from our crouch, flying through the night after our dinner. With each thumping step we pressed forward. We raced death. We moved faster. We lowered our jaws for the kill. We opened wide, baring our many cutting teeth, and lunged.
It leapt out of the way. Frustration flooded us. We dodged after it, snapping at its tail, each time just missing the kill. We were tiring, the head wound ruining our reactions.
Once more, we bit down, and this time caught that smaller creature by its long, slim tail. The imminent kill rushed through us, thrilling, electrifying. Our blood was hot. We were alive. We would eat. We yanked our head up and back, to snatch the victim into our mouth.
A strange popping sound came, and the weight of the creature suddenly vanished. There was still a tail in our mouth. What went wrong?
Confusion turned into rage as we realized the thing had separated from its tail, leaving us with no meat. Our dinner scurried away.
Exhausted, we sagged to the ground. We ate that tail anyway. Call it spite.

When I came out of it, the living room was in a shambles. The table had been overturned yet again, and this time, a leg snapped off. The cards were everywhere, and my favorite lamp had toppled and broken, Crazy Glue rendered useless. I held the claw in my hand in a death grip. I held it like a weapon, between my index and middle finger, ready to slash at prey. Sotheby was nowhere in sight. The micro-recorder clicked along on the floor.
My legs gave and I landed on my ass on the floor. I felt like I’d run a few miles at top speed. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. I suddenly realized my skirt was torn and stained with –
Oh, God!
Blood.
Where the fuck was Sotheby?
I couldn’t stand, so I cast my head about and crawled. I couldn’t seem to speak. I wanted to call his name, but I was overwhelmed with the most frozen, shaking feeling. I could not. I crawled, finding more blood in the hallway, a trail leading into the kitchen.
We had chased our prey through the woods.
In the kitchen is where I found Sotheby, bleeding everywhere from bites and scratches, his eyes wide and staring as I approached him. He made a sound. A small, terrified sound. The sound of the conquered.
We threw back our head, instinctively calling the pack to the feast. Chlunk! chlunk! The prey was down. Now came time for the kill.
We were strong. Our head did not hurt anymore. Our legs did not shake. We were ready.
We leapt.