Velveteen by Daniel Marks Page A

and so did the fortune-teller, her hands twisting into gnarled claws, her face recast into a tortured grimace. Velvet looped her finger around one of the stand’s knobby feet and pulled the base out from under the orb. Madame Despot’s hands slammed against the baretable, and both watched as the orb rolled across the tablecloth toward the edge.
    “Nooooo!” the fortune-teller cried.
    “Yesss!” Velvet hissed, hoping that the thing would just shatter when it hit the floor.
    But by some trick of fate—and frankly the fates hadn’t been so kind as of late—instead of busting into a thousand pieces, the crystal ball bounced off the soft fringe of the Oriental carpet beneath them and rolled across the maple floors toward the entry hall. Madame Despot dropped to her hands and knees and scrambled after it. Velvet launched herself from her chair, sending it crashing somewhere behind her as she cursed herself for picking such a slow body for a job as important as this one.
    “My cell!” the woman yelled. She tore at the floor with loud scrapes of her nails as she scuttled toward their rolling target. If the fortune-teller could have acted guiltier in that moment, Velvet was pretty sure she would have won an award.
    Velvet darted up next to the woman and felt a thick arm slam into her shins, clothesline style. She lost control, and the nurse’s body dropped forward onto knees that screamed with pain as they banged against the solid surface.
    “Oh, crap.” Velvet winced. That was definitely going to leave a pair of bruises.
    The fortune-teller swiped at the ball, nearly grasping it, but her fingertips clipped it and sent it rolling off toward the door. “Dammit!” she shouted, and sprang up from the floor, sneering at what she saw waiting for her in the hall.
    Velvet stood up slowly, favoring the nurse’s sore knees, brushing the dust from the scrubs. She saw the dull glow of Quentin’s spirit in the dead thing’s eyes. “You don’t mind zombies, do you, Madame Despot—or whoever’s in there?”
    The woman’s sunglasses fell from her face. She turned a pair of scornful glowing eyes on Velvet. “Shut up, girl. Don’t think I don’t know who you are.”
    Velvet wasn’t prepared to fight another body thief, but the way this one was talking to her, she was kind of looking forward to it. It wouldn’t hurt to burn off some of her aggression after the afternoon’s run-in at Bonesaw’s shed. Plus, she had a pair of the best tackles in the business in Logan and Luisa. Velvet glanced over her shoulder at the twins, Logan as Grover the happy-go-lucky Muppet, blue hands balled into tight fists, snarling and ready to rumble, and Luisa, a pretty little girl in pigtails and a Catholic-school uniform. She stood in a crouch, her fingers clawing at the air dramatically. The ghost in Madame Despot didn’t have a clue what was coming at her.
    Not a clue.
    “I’m probably not going to shut up,” Velvet said as she strode into the hall and accepted the crystal ball from Quentin’s bony grip. “What I am going to do is shatter your evil plans, right about now.”
    “You can’t stop the departure. It’s coming. It’ll be glorious. Angels will sing.”
    Velvet hesitated, the words scurrying over her like bugs. But she couldn’t let the evil spirit win; she lifted the crystal ball high above her head, just as the fortune-teller turned.
    “Oh, why be so hasty?” Madame Despot held her hands out in supplication. “Surely we can strike some sort of bargain.”
    Velvet feigned considering the bitch’s offer, then brightened. “Maybe so. How about, right after I bust the crap out of this …” She tossed the cell into the air.
    The woman cried out, and then relaxed a bit as Velvet caught it.
    Velvet loved having the upper hand in negotiations.
    “Let’s agree that you’ll be going back to whatever borough in purgatory you stole out of, and I won’t imprison you inside a Tylenol and feed it to this guy.” She