Rebecca Mordecai reached into the porcelain
bowl on the table in front. She reached without looking, keeping her nose in
her book as her went into the chalice where her clients were expected to
deposit her fee for the services she provided
Rebecca read cards, she read palms, she cast
lots and she gazed into the future with her crystal ball, but mostly she just
listened and doled out common sense.
The man who had just left had dropped a coin
of some kind into her cup; the coin sounded heavy and she wondered what it was.
Rebecca had not given a proper reading to the
handsome fellow form the newspaper, but he had asked enough questions and taken
a sufficient amount of her time for her to charge him. They had not discussed
her rates, and she was curious to know if he was a cheapskate or a fair player.
She found the round metal object with her
fingers, feeling a sense of satisfaction in knowing that it was not a worthless
bauble.
Rebecca could tell that it was much heavier
than a dollar, or even a five-dollar piece, and as soon as she laid her eyes on
it she saw that it was gold and knew that it was solid.
Her heart skipped a beat and then sped-up
rapidly as she brought the gold coin near to her face and adjusted her glasses
for a closer inspection.
Rebecca turned in her chair to catch a better
light and she saw that it had been minted as a twenty-dollar coin, but she knew
immediately that it was something special and worth far more than its face
value simply based on the fact that the price of gold had risen considerably
since it had been struck. She also recognized it for what it was, a token of
the notorious Colonel Forrester…the most powerful man in St. Anthony, and there
was nothing impure about the metal.
Rebecca had seen two coins like it before,
when she was a girl sitting in her uncle Tubal’s workshop. He was a gun-smith who
specialized in custom firearms. One day , when Renecca was still a little girl,
a tall-thin-blonde-man with the most brilliant blue eyes came through the door
to make a requisition. Her uncle told him that the order would take months to
fill, but the tall man did not accept his response; instead the blue eyed man produced
two golds coin and said in his lilting Scandinavian accent: “The Colonel”
requires the rifles with greater haste, it is urgent and must be given
priority.
Rebecca had never heard of this “colonel”
before, but by the way her uncle reacted she could tell that he knew exactly
who the man was, and her uncles bearing changed suddenly.
He apologized and agreed to take the
commission.
As he spoke Rebecca thought she detected a dirty
mix of chagrin and resentment in his voice, what Rebecca would now call a false
obsequiousness, a tone mixed with anger, resolve…and a dash of helplessness.
Her uncle Tubal only made one request.
He told him that he would have to leave the
coins and explained that they would be melted down for use in fulfilment of the
order.
The blue-eyed man did not need to consider the
request, he merely paused while appearing thoughtful and calculating. He
reflected, then, after a few moments he nodded, left the coins on the counter
and said “good day then.”
Tubal turned to Rebecca and showed her the
gold-coin.
“Look at this,” he said in his thick Yiddish
accent. “This belongs to a power we cannot stand against, power that can never
be refused…you should know this.” He handed it to her. “Study it and never
forget.”
Rebecca did as he asked and studied the
markings on the coin.
She committed them to memory; and now she saw
that they were the same markings as those she was holding in front of her face
right then.
She wasn’t sure what her uncle was talking
about so many years ago, but now she was well aware of the powers that Colonel
Forrester possessed, the powers that he used to run Saint Anthony, and Rebecca knew
that at least some of those powers were not of this world.
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