Inception

Maeve scoffed. “I checked with the coven. There are no witch-finders and no threat to any of us. Obviously, it’s just a stunt so that the Red Witch can reign supreme. As always. But no more! We want her—”

“Listen, bitch!” Playing nice was over. As usual the female didn’t know when to give up. My voice rose. “It’s not a stunt! Ashmedai confirmed everything that was said at the council meeting. Hunters…witch-finders…whatever you want to call them do exist. And, the Charles Family is working with them to eradicate all supernaturals.”

That nugget of information slammed the hateful female’s mouth shut. Her beady eyes bugged as she swallowed hard. Without warning, she jumped to her feet and dashed over to the shelves. She reached for the wire-framed glasses hanging around her neck. Placing them on her long nose, Maeve scoured the titles for a few minutes before tugging out a book with a raggedy brown spine. Carefully, she placed the tome on a stand and began flipping through the discolored pages.

Claudius and I looked at each other. He mouthed, “What is she doing?”

I replied, “Hell, if I know.”

After a few minutes, the aging female glanced up. “Elsbeth, I trust that you’ve heard of Michel de Nostredame?”

Was she joking?

“I knew the man personally. He was fond of scrying while sitting upon a three-legged stool. I even helped him write many of his predictions. Why?”

Okay, so I stretched the truth. I was only with him when he jotted down his prognostications, but Maeve didn’t need to know that.

“Then you know of the prophecy?”

Unholy shit! “You knew there was one, and you’re just telling us now?”

I lifted my hand to zap her, but Claudius caught my wrist.

Maeve sneered. “It didn’t serve my interest to tell you.”

Claudius said, “Ladies, can we focus on the real issue?”

I squinted up at the female, still wishing to do her harm, but he was right. We didn’t have time to bicker.

As far as Nostredame was concerned… The man was commonly known as Nostradamus, and he foretold a great many events. Nostredame was fond of writing his predictions in four-line verses, but some of them were so obscure that they couldn’t be deciphered.

“What are you talking about, Maeve?” Claudius asked.

She exhaled loudly. “There’s a little-known prognostication of his that had to do with…” Her voice trailed off as she stared toward the front of the shop.

“Spit it out!” I was quickly losing my patience with her. Lifting my hand, I let a ball of blue energy form. Bouncing it up and down, I said, “Or, do you need some help?”

Maeve shook her head vehemently, and I doused the orb as she began to read from the page. “Evil walks through the streets of man. Blood shall be shed and souls condemned; the hunted shall be no more.”

Honestly, those damn words could mean countless things. Besides, there were those who believed that Nostredame’s verses were nonsense—since they couldn’t be easily translated into in English. Yet, many events he had predicted came true—like the Great Fire of London (something I narrowly escaped), the French Revolution, and even the devastation of Hiroshima.

Claudius, never one to mince words around me, said the obvious, “And, how do you know that that’s about the pending war? Sounds like random bullshit to me.”

Maeve eased the book closed. “We can’t, but it is a strong possibility. I’m certain no one believed Nostredame’s warnings about the rise of Hitler. You do remember how that turned out?”