CHAPTER FORTY

Broken Prophecies, Part 2

If Maeve wanted Sam to feel less uninvited, he doubted there would have been anything better to say.

Thunder patted Sam on the shoulder while giving him the once-over. “He does have trouble written all over him, doesn’t he?”

“I’d say,” Maeve agreed, although her words carried less bite than earlier. “Alright, get your well-toned butts into my home before all hell breaks loose…and it will...mind you.”

She stepped aside and ushered them inside, but then sighed heavily as Sam passed her by.

“That was an antique,” she said.

“What?” Sam asked.

He turned to look at her and accidentally brushed his arm against the porcelain vase that was on the display table in the mansion’s foyer. He barely had time to turn around again before the vase fell onto the hardwood floor with a resounding crash.

“That,” Maeve said with emphasis, “was an antique.”

After giving Sam a knowing look that he correctly guessed meant she knew that he was going to break her vase, Maeve stepped over the broken pieces of porcelain and led the way into the next room.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve broken a lot of her precious antiques throughout my many visits,” Thunder said conspiratorially to Sam. “And I’m thinking she puts them in places where she knows they’ll be in danger just to show off that she can see the future.”

“I can hear you,” Maeve called from beyond the archway.

“We know,” Thunder called back.

Sam and Thunder moved into the house’s main hall, a high-ceilinged room with a crystal chandelier illuminating pristine white walls, polished wooden floors, and a grand wooden staircase that snaked up to a second-floor landing that was veiled in low-lighting.

“We’ll chat in here,” Maeve called as she waited for them by a side door to the right of the wooden staircase. “There are less breakable things in my dining room.”

The dining room was a large rectangular space dominated by a long, intricately designed hardwood table, a kind similar to one Sam used to eat in back when he was living with Marie.

Maeve asked Sam and Thunder to sit on the chairs next to the seat at the head of the table while she went off to prepare the tea Thunder just asked for. When Maeve came back with the silverware in hand, Thunder asked a question that was also on Sam’s mind.

“Didn’t you have maids to handle that?” she asked.

Maeve waved off Sam’s attempt to help her with the tray before she set it down and answered with, “I sent them home. No point getting them caught up in the mess we’re about to get in.”

Wait…what?” Sam asked as Maeve shoved a cup of tea into his hands. “What mess are we about to get into?”

“Relax, Sam… it’s just Maeve’s way of saying she’s had a vision.” Thunder was less clumsy than Sam when she handled the cup Maeve offered her. “You saw something bad happening to us, Maeve?”

“To you… Probably, although it isn’t so clear,” Maeve replied with a chuckle. She plopped her skinny butt onto her seat before she said something that caused a chill to climb up to Sam’s spine. “To me, most definitely…”

“When?” Thunder asked.

“Last night,” Maeve answered, training her gray eyes on Sam. “Around the same time as your fight in the Met.”

She raised a hand to stop him from asking the obvious question.

“I saw your battle with the giant shadow days before it happened,” she answered.

Sam’s brow furrowed.

“No, I don’t think telling you would have helped,” she said almost as if she’d just read the complaint directly from his thoughts. “Unlike my sister, Farsight, I’m just an observer. What I see can’t be changed…”

Sam noticed the worry lines on Maeve’s brow and the dark bags under her eyes and thought whatever she’d seen must’ve been pretty bad.

“What kind of trouble are we expecting?” he asked.

“The kind you can’t stop, Samuel Shepard… At least not as you currently are,” Maeve answered in an all-knowing tone. She took a sip of her tea before continuing on. “But that’s not why you’re here, and we have too little time to discuss the reason for your visit without worrying about what will happen in the near future.”

Maeve’s look softened slightly when she clasped Sam’s hand with one of her own.

“I really should thank you for what you did for Lucille… She would have been stuck on the shores of the Styx if you hadn’t given her the coin to pay the ferryman,” Maeve said before withdrawing her hand.

“Seriously, Maeve,” Thunder drummed the table’s wooden surface with her fingers, “what’s going on? Does this have something to do with Sam’s caper?”

Sam raised an eyebrow at the word ‘caper’ as he remembered Thunder reacting negatively to that word. She caught his eye and stuck her tongue out at him in that playfully endearing way that made Sam feel like there were butterflies in his stomach.

Get a grip, idiot, Sam’s brain chided him. Now’s not the time to be thinking about the stuff Nurse Ortega said…

“It has everything to do with that, I’m afraid,” Maeve answered just before she took a long sip of her tea.

She really doesn’t seem to have any sense of urgency, Sam thought.

To which Maeve replied with, “No sense feeling urgent when you know exactly the moment you die, Samuel,” almost as if she read his mind, which he hoped she didn’t.

Off the top of his head, Sam quickly browsed through Red Weaver’s known powers, and he didn’t think telepathy was one of them. He wasn’t sure though. After all, it wasn’t like he fanboy’d over every hero in the country.

“No, I didn’t read your mind, but you will ask me if I did and so I know,” she replied just as Sam opened his mouth and asked that very question.

“Can you read my—” His words trailed off as he heard her explanation.

“She takes some getting used to,” Thunder said.

Maeve took another sip of her tea while she waited for Sam to pick his jaw off the floor.

“Now, you want to know why a villain is trying to destroy all sources of divination in the greater New York area,” Maeve confirmed.

Sam nodded wordlessly. It really felt like he didn’t need to say anything, and Maeve could carry the whole conversation all by herself.

“I’m surprised you’d need to visit me for this, Sarah... The answer is pretty damn obvious,” Maeve said.

“There’s nothing like visiting my friendly neighborhood seer to confirm my worst fears,” Thunder admitted with a chuckle.

“And you’ve already deduced what’s going on, haven’t you…” Maeve rolled her eyes at Thunder. “You’re just here because you wanted out of the hospital.”

That’s when Thunder’s smile turned upside down.

“Not if it means coming here put you in danger, Maeve,” Thunder said as she reached out for the older woman’s hand.

“Honey, trouble was coming whether or not you came…” Maeve patted Thunder’s hand with one of hers. “Although it’s nice to have company on days like this one…”

“Um,” Sam raised his hand, “I’m totally lost here… you know what’s going on, Thunder?”

“Like Maeve said, Sam, it was pretty obvious,” Thunder admitted. “There’s only one reason someone would want to destroy nearby divination sources—”

“—to keep anyone in the city from knowing something about the future,” Sam realized suddenly. “But what sort of future is the Trickster trying to hide?”

“The Trickster’s the least of your worries, Sam,” Maeve chimed in. “You’ve already seen the shadow behind him, haven’t you?”

Sam’s throat went dry as the memory of that malevolent presence hiding within the darkness appeared in his mind’s eye.

“I remember,” he said, his hands curling into fists. “Kind of wish I could forget it…”

“Maeve,” it was typical of Thunder to break the silence that followed Sam’s admission, “he needs to hear it.”

“I know...but it’ll just confuse him the same way it confused you,” Maeve warned.

Thunder’s face mirrored the concern showing on Maeve’s. “Better to hear half the story than run blindly into fate’s cruel embrace...”

Sam glanced from one to the other. “What do I need to hear?”

“Don’t expect Sarah to keep spoon-feeding you, boy,” Maeve scolded. “Why else would she bring you here to me, the last sane seer in the entire city?”

Meet with the sisters, Apollo had said all those years ago. They will help you find clarity.

“A prophecy,” Sam answered. “You’ve got a prophecy about me, don’t you?”

“A prophecy about you?” Maeve raised an eyebrow at Sam. “What, you think you’re some kind of chosen one?”

“Um,” Sam’s cheeks had gone red from sudden embarrassment, “so it’s not about me then?”

“Your boy’s got a hero complex as big as yours, Sarah,” Maeve answered with a shake of her head. “Oh, I’ve got a prophecy alright. Only, it’s not about you or Sarah, but of impending doom.”

If her choice of words weren’t ominous enough, the sky beyond the windows of the dining room grew dark as thick clouds blocked out the sun. Lightning streaked across the sky and was followed by the loud peal of thunder.

“Sarah, go and grab my staff in the workout room,” Maeve ordered. “You remember where it is, don’t you?”

“Room at the end of the hall on the other side of the staircase,” Thunder answered.

She rose from her seat and spared Sam a wink before making her way to the door and then vanishing back into the mansion’s front hall.

“You should take a cue from that girl. She knows how to take a hint while you’re fumbling the ball on your first outing together,” Maeve chided. “Did you even see the mistletoe I set up in the foyer just for your benefit?”

Sam’s cheeks turned the color of apples.

“I, um, no... I didn’t see it,” he answered lamely.

“Too busy worrying about the vase you broke to notice opportunity staring you in the face,” Maeve sighed. “You’ve got a lot to learn about the opposite sex, Sam. Let’s hope you survive what’s coming so you can learn them.”

She placed both of her hands on the table.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” she said. “Take my hands.”

Sam hesitated, his own hands hovering over hers for longer than the few seconds it should have taken to hold someone’s hand. Maeve didn’t have time for him to find his resolve, however, and so she plucked his hands from the air herself. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head immediately afterward, and then she spoke in an otherworldly voice that caused goosebumps to rise over the skin of Sam’s arms.

“A shadow’s curse rises from the earth, Immortal in the land of its birth,” Maeve chanted. “The great horrors it shall awaken, to slay the source of all creation...”

Maeve’s grip tightened on Sam a second longer before her hand slackened in his. Her shoulders slumped as her head dipped forward.

“Maeve?” Sam whispered. “Are you okay?”

Long seconds passed before Maeve stirred. She opened her eyes, and Sam noticed that they’d lost their glassy look.

“You didn’t finish the prophecy,” Sam pointed out.

Maeve kept her hands clasped around Sam’s hands when she replied with, “That’s all I’ve got... the part of the great red thread that I can see.”

“Hold on... your prophecy is broken?” Sam’s brow furrowed. “How’s that even possible?”

“There are three Fated Sisters,” Maeve reminded him. “Unfortunately, mine is the only part you’ll hear before it’s too late...”

“Wait...” Sam’s frown only deepened. “What do you mean by that?”

Then they heard the loud boom from outside the dining room. The walls shook from the force of whatever had caused that appalling sound.

“Holy Zeus,” Sam gasped. “What was—”

Maeve’s fingers tightened on Sam’s hands. “Too late...”