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left cheek. Her blue eyes skated around the shack. The breathing ceased, she stood, leaning over, ready to blow out the candle when the curtain of colorful quilted fabric moved. She stumbled back, cursing herself for not listening closer. She grabbed the back of the chair but went down, taking the chair with her. She held it out in front of her, the glazed over black eyes of her intruder too obvious to mistake. He might have had brown skin and chunks of coal for eyes but unlike most people she’d recognize him anywhere.
    “Krishani,” she seethed, righting herself and putting the chair beside the table. Her tailbone hurt and she rubbed it as she settled behind the table, gingerly taking the fat white candle on the right side of the table in her hands. She brought it to the large one on the left side and lighted it, then set it down. She picked up the deck, a very old thing and shuffled idly while Krishani turned a fraction of an inch, his eyes cast to the floorboards.
    “I don’t know that name,” he said, his tone lethal. A shudder rippled through Shimma but she didn’t stop shuffling.
    “What do you want?”
    He looked at her and she saw the madness in him. His host had messy black curls, round face and pointed nose. He looked to be in his twenties. He wore modern clothing, khaki pants and a black polo shirt, small white lines crossing the breast and sleeves.
    “How long?” he asked, his voice catching.
    Shimma put the cards down. She didn’t need them to answer this question. By the sweat on his brow and the way his eyes looked lazy and dead, she could tell. “Hours … days …” They’d done this so many times before it was tedious. He knew where she was and she didn’t move as much as she did before. Contrary to popular belief, a gypsy in Romania in the twenty first century didn’t bode well for any of the wannabes out there. She’d gone through her fair share of being the old witch at the end of the lane, the troll under the bridge, the wicked witch of the west, and even the crazy cat lady, but she preferred mysterious shaman over all those titles. In India people sought her for guidance, and there was a level of respect that came with her work. In Europe men wanted both her skills and her body and didn’t care to pay a thing for either.
    She was disgusted by it.
    Krishani on the other hand had it worse. He was a pawn in their games, property of Morgana until she bit the dust, and currently, Darkesh’s pet. She didn’t want to see the Prince of Darkness anytime soon. She steeled herself, crossing her arms, feeling the rivulets of her corset digging into her arms as she glared at Krishani. “Coming to me won’t keep you off his radar forever.” Her tone was flat.
    Krishani’s eyes blazed with anger but she had seen this look too many times to count and wasn’t in the mood for it. “How … long?” His hands came down on the table, his face hovering near hers. She didn’t flinch or sit further back in her chair, if anything she leaned in a little closer, curious if he’d place those lips on hers for a change. In nine thousand years he hadn’t. Not with her, not with anyone.
    “So … the usual then?” she chirped. He pulled back, crossing his arms and showing his back to her. Shimma resumed shuffling, part of her mind on Darkesh and the other part on the Vulture in her house. What he had become in nine thousand years was gruesome. These interludes were his vain attempt at a life no longer his to live. She’d seen him twenty two times since that storm in Scotland, each time his desperation to cling to human life more exasperating than the last. She tried to tune out her thoughts, leaving her millennia of plights in the past. She didn’t need to think about her problems, if any of these so-called humans thought they had it bad, they should meet her, or Krishani or any of the elders that fought in a war they lost. She was never entirely faithful to Tor when he was the High King, or to