Room Four: To See Through the Fog

There are things that scare each of us, and just because we seemed to have gotten over our fears doesn't mean we shouldn't still be afraid.

The policeman had come by to investigate the shooting on Cross, but it was a slow night and it seemed like dispatch had put every cop in the county on the case. He pulled into the sea of parked police cars and parked. It was near nightfall and most of the stores around were closing early on that Sunday night. With countless officers patrolling the area for suspects, his presence was unnessicary.

Yet, a small store was still open. A storefront sign read "Card Parlor" in occult symbols. The murder had taken place just across the street from the store, yet none if his colleagues seemed interested in the tiny shop.

He entered the store and was hit heavy in the face with a waft of incense smoke. The card shop was like none he had ever seen. Not a single poker table in sight.

Eyes to the ground, he trudged through a pile of ash. He wondered how long it had been since the shop owner had swept his store.

A hunched old man with an animate face and a light, velvet cloak entered the room through a curtained doorway. "May I help you officer?"

"I'm here to..."

Cutting off the cop, the seer spoke. "I know why you're here. Sit down please." As the old man spoke he walked to the back of the store and pulled a silk pouch from a shelf of unusual things that the officer couldn't distinguish through the smoke that hung like fog in the room and lights as dim as the moon.

He waited until the seer sat across from him at the table to speak. "I need..." As he began to speak the seer pulled the cards from the velvet pouch. The policeman fixed his eyes on the cards and absentmindedly wiped his nose. "I was saying..." Again, he trailed off.

"I said I already know why your here; the answers you seek; split the deck." The cop was dumbstruck.

"I'm not here for fortune-telling and games." He looked down at his lap.

"You think so? Why do you think you are here? Investigation's over, nothing left for you to do. When you walked into my store you thought you would waste some time here. Time is never wasted. Your fate brings you here. It's that simple."

"I'll play your game; if it gets answers." Said the cop, attempting to sound coy.

"It will." Said the seer definitively. He smirked. "I'll even tell you about the murder."

"What do you know?"

"Draw a card from each stack and I'll tell you." Groaned the seer with a demanding grin.

The cop did what he was told, almost eagerly. Before him lay the Hierophant and the Devil. Clear indicators of twisted morals and the power to use them. The Hierophant held a gun to his head and grinned, and the Devil was chained to a table covered in white stripes with a razorblade laying next to them. At first the cop smiled at the sight of the cards, but quickly turned his head in disdain.

"What now?" He asked, not even looking at the cards.

"I'll tell you something, if you tell me something. I'm an information dealer of sorts, private interests, you know. And I think yours is very valuable. Just tell me why you became a cop and I'll give you some good info."

Without thinking the cop pulled an old line. "To protect and serve, keep the streets safe."

"The truth will get you further than lies." The seer paused, allowing the cop time to think over what he had said. "His wife was in here, doing the same thing you are now, when he was shot. It wasn't her."

"And she didn't give you a little something to make up an alibi for her? Extra payment, you know?" The policeman leaned in in an attempt to be threatening.

"I do not lie." A cold surge shocked the room. "Lies will always come back to you; in the worst ways." The seer mimicked the cop's intimidating stance. In response the cop moved back in a slump, wearily looking at the cards he had been dealt. "Nothing more I can say until you draw another card."

With a reluctant smirk he drew his next card. The Tower. The officer completely disregarded the ominous card. "What else do you know?" He asked with a stern look to the seer.

"The victim wasn't the father of their child."

The officer was shocked, already the assumption had been circulated as fact. This gave him a lead that no one else would have and perhaps the promotion into Narcotics he had been gunning for. Still it was an odd fact for the man who, as it seemed, had only just met the victim's wife. "How do you know that?"

"As much as this is a house of cards, it is also a house of spirituality." With a piercing look to the officer, he added. "Confession is good for the soul, it lifts the weights put on us by our lies. As a licensed Minister of the lord, everything said in here has it's own confidentiality." And just to further the point. "I will tell them nothing. So, again I ask you, why did you join the force?"

The cop turned a bright red. "I.. I told you!" He screamed, spitting as he bellowed. Then he became calm, the room lightened , and a cool breeze could be felt throughout the room. "I was 20 and all my friends started getting arrested. One by one, they went to jail, and every day I could feel the cops closing in on me. Every day, I feared they would get my name from one of them. Every knock at the door was terrifying.

Finally I decided that the only way to sleep at night was to become one of them."

"And what were you doing that terrified you so? An honest man has no fear of the law."

"Nothing." He answered hurriedly, while drawing a card. Laying the card down he wiped at his nose nervously. "I just realized that I wasn't invincible anymore."

"What does this card mean? I've drawn it twice." He pointed down at a tower decaying in the snow.

"It means change; It means destruction, personal downfall or defeat. You must wonder if you could ever tell the truth, if that could've prevented this. But no, you feel you must lie, to protect the monster you have become. Tell me, how long have you been using cocaine?"

"What?" He stammered, turning so deep a red that he began to blend into the darkness of the room. "How did you know that? I ask the questions here! You owe me a question!" He screamed at the wrinckled specter, reaching down for his gun and stopping abruptly when the man standing in the doorway cleared his throat. The officer froze.

"How long have you been standing there?" He asked the silhouette without turning to face him.

"Long enough, Officer Redmond. Now come with me."

Hearing his name, the policeman turned to face his accuser. "Sargent Withers? No!"

"Then you give me no choice but to arrest you here."

"For rumors? For my past?"

"For the 3 ounces of cocaine you stole from the evidence lock-up. You are under arrest; Mr. Redmond."

Officer Redmond's hand flew into motion drawing his gun and firing blindly. The bullet shattered a plate glass window on the storefront. As the glass fell Sargent Withers fluidly drew his gun. At that second, Officer Redmond froze, realizing just what the seer had meant. His fear had almost cost a man his life and if he had come clean, and subsequently gotten clean, he wouldn't have been in this situation. In that brief second before his shoulder exploded with pain he realized the monster he had become.

As he fell he swore he could've seen Sargent Withers mouthing the words, 'my pleasure'. Just before he slipped into unconciousness.

Sargent Withers placed the gun in his embroidered leather holster which was definitly not standard issue.

"I'm sure the state will replace the window, and I'll have someone clean up the blood and glass after the crime scene guys take care of... This place."

"Don't worry about it too much, this store has seen worse."