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hand holding his . . . felt like nothing but a skeletal icicle. He was about to speak when Sara suddenly pushed back from the table. Her eyes rolled back, white orbs against her face, then white orbs washed with the uncanny blue light of the lamp.
    â€œYou’ll hurt her . . . You’ll hurt her. You’re dangerous. . . Megan . . . Stay away from Megan. You’ll hurt your wife. There’s evil. It touches you. You are the evil . . .”
    At first, he couldn’t move. He just sat there, frozen and paralyzed, as the seer went into her weird, trancelike oracle.
    Then he tried to move, and couldn’t. He just kept hearing her, like a broken record,
    â€œYou . . . evil . . . you’ll hurt her . . . I see blood . . . smell blood . . . evil . . . Finn Douglas . . . you’re the evil . . . it’s your touch . . . she’ll die . . . evil, evil, evil, evil, evil . . .”
    The words seemed to have a grip on him as powerful as the trance that seemed to have taken over the seer. He felt nothing but cold, and a seeping sense of raw terror.
    He fought it.
    And anger kicked in.
    Fuck this whole place. It was a setup. These people knew that he and Megan had been split up. They’d heard about Megan screaming in the dead of night, and they weren’t about to believe it had been a dream, no—they were all just convinced that he was one real bastard, beating his wife.
    With a rush of fury and determination, he wrenched his hand free and stood.
    The woman immediately seemed to snap out of it—maybe because he almost knocked the table over. She jumped up as well. Staring at him, her eyes rolled back into a normal position, she looked as if she was terrified herself.
    â€œThat’s bullshit!” he swore.
    â€œWhat?” Sara gave a good impression of being out of it.
    â€œLook, I don’t know what you’ve heard, or what you think, but I love my wife, and I’d shoot myself in the head before I hurt her.”
    â€œI said that you’d hurt your wife?” She sounded truly baffled.
    He fought to control his temper. They weren’t going to get the best of him.
    â€œYou know what you said.”
    â€œI don’t, but . . . hey, whatever. Yes . . . of course, whatever I said . . . it’s just a tale, a story, what might be . . . bullshit!” she said herself. She shook her head strenuously, looking from where he stood to the two inches to the door, as if she wished desperately that he weren’t there, blocking it. “Morwenna should give you a reading, not me . . . not me. I’m sorry. I suck, really, I’m new . . . I . . . Let’s go out, shall we?”
    He turned, nearly slamming open the door.
    The scent of incense wafted over him again. There was an Enya CD playing. There was light, pouring in then from the work area.
    The cold fell from his shoulders like a discarded cloak. He felt like a fool. He had been scared in that room, really scared. He was an adult male in his prime, in pretty damned good shape, and he’d been scared by the silly words of a little five-foot-two woman in a blue-lit closet.
    He turned to her. “Sorry—but you shouldn’t do that to clients. No matter what you might have been told.”
    She gazed at him, then carefully stepped a distance past him. “You know, I’m new here. I don’t know anything about you, or Megan, except that she and Morwenna are cousins. I told you, I’m sorry. I’m not . . . never mind. You should go to someone else.”
    She was irritatingly believable, and he was appearing like a royal idiot. He gritted his teeth, determined to calm down, or else he’d have her thinking the whole Shakespearean thing— Methinks thou doth protest too much.
    â€œI don’t believe in readings,” he said flatly.
    â€œWell, that’s good. Good for you.”
    The door opposite from them opened then. Megan stepped out, laughing at something her cousin had