The Doorkeepers by Graham Masterton Page A

very
knowing.
You both carried such a strong aura that I laid them out yesterday, after you were gone. I wanted to find out what would happen to you.”
    â€œYou’re determined to make me into a believer, aren’t you?” said Josh.
    Ella gave a thick chuckle. “You don’t have to believe if you don’t want to. You may not believe in tomorrow, but it’s coming all the same.”
    She picked up the center card and showed it to them. It was the three of hearts, illustrated with a woman in a brown silk dress sitting on a chair. “That’s me,
la consultante,
the person who’s asking the questions. But here, this is also me, the queen of clubs,
une amie sincère.
This means that I’m your friend and that I’m going to help you in whatever is going to happen to you.”
    Josh picked up the next card, on which a man and a woman were being offered a chair.
“La visite,”
he said. “This told you that somebody was coming. But how did you know it was going to be us?”
    â€œLook in the corner of the card. The jack of hearts. A man called Jack looking for something close to his heart. It had to be you.”
    â€œWell, maybe it is. My mother always calls me Jack. So what do these other cards mean?”
    â€œHere,” she said, and showed him a card with a woman looking startled as a man in a tailcoat and a Napoleonic hat put a letter on the table in front of her.
“Révélations importante,
important revelations. You’re going to find out something tonight that will change your whole life.”
    â€œI see … and what about this fat guy with the pipe, and the fellow behind him carrying all that luggage on his back?”
    â€œVoyage,
the ten of diamonds. What you learn tonight will send you on a journey to a very different place, where you have never been before.”
    â€œAnd do the cards say what’s going to happen when I get to this different place?”
    â€œYou will meet two people. One of them is your enemy … here, this one.” She showed him a card with a man swathed in a cape, waiting around a corner with a club in his hand, while an unsuspecting passer-by walked toward him. “This one, the king of clubs, this is your protector, whoever that is. But you have to watch out for this one,
pièges.”
This card showed a man sitting in a field snaring songbirds. “This means that you could walk into a trap.”
    Josh picked up the last card. “You don’t have to tell me what this one means.” It depicted a grinning skeleton in a black robe, carrying an hourglass. The nine of spades,
mort.
    Ella plucked it away from him and tucked it back into the pack. “The nine of spades doesn’t always mean death.”
    â€œOh, yeah? What else does it mean? I’m going to buy an eggtimer?”
    â€œIt can signify mourning. The cards have probably sensed that you’re grieving for your sister. Or it can mean that somebody very close to you will try to deceive you.”
    â€œOn the whole, though, not a great card?”
    Ella gave him a long, steady look. “You don’t believe in it, so don’t let it worry you.”
    Nancy said, “This card,
révélations …
what are we going to find out tonight that’s going to change our whole lives?”
    â€œYou came back tonight because you wanted to ask me something. That’s what the cards are telling me. You wanted to ask me about locks and keys and doors and getting through doors.”
    â€œHow did you know that? There’s nothing like that in any of these cards.”
    Ella said, “When I turned up the revelations card, all the keys in my key box started to jump.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    She went over to the bookshelf and brought down a battered black tin box. She shook it hard, and then put it down on the table. “This was something else I learned from my grandma. Never throw