Esprit are easy.
Letting my breath escape, I placed a fingertip to the cork of the vial sitting before me, and focused. A single pearlescent drop of essence lay at its bottom, giving off a dull cerulean glimmer.
In my mind's eye, a silhouette sharpened from chaotic fuzz into something I could wrangle. A feminine shape.
At my alleyway stand's opposite side crouched a pure, unadulterated vixen. Wide hips and heaving boobs tested the limits of her dark-green velvet dress, a slit running up it all the way to her waist. I'd have thought her running commando if I couldn't make out an extremely high-set thong strap beneath its fabric.
Customer of the year. No, the decade, easy.
I gauged her around mid-thirties, maybe twice my age.
The vial held a tight seal, and the dangling blue form in my second sight fought against definition.
"I'll need to pop the cork, hope this isn't a keepsake," I said to her, tapping at it.
She seemed unbothered, leveling that same uninterested expression through long waves of dark-brown hair that reached the small of her back, "That's of little import. Proceed."
"Yes Ma'am," I snatched it from the top of the crate I'd been using as reading table, popped the cork and set vials rim tight to my right nostril, taking a sharp whiff.
She was pure salt, of the mer. I set my palm to the rough wood to steady myself and the vial clinked off the cobblestone beneath my boots. The clouded silhouette sharpened, gathered into one place, short-haired, wry smile, small tits she wore nipple-out, and an athletic figure. She looked like a good time, swimming in place, giggling, skin translucent and foaming like beachwater on a sunny day.
I closed my eyes, placing my entirely on the Esprit, then unclasped the pouch at my hip, lifting its lip, "Got her. What's the intention?"
My fingernail riffled across the top of the deck I kept holstered at my side, settling on the edge of the card furthest out.
"Location." her voice dripped on the ear, bleeding into my vision, a rolling emerald fog that I imagined blown away.
"That's it?" I asked, "West-Southwest. Four to five blocks." I didn't need cards for that sort of thing. With strong essence it was simple line-tracing.
"Can you be more specific?"
That pushed things a touch further, surroundings carried little essence compared to the Esprit within them. I peeled out the card's lip, waiting for my target's edges to clarify further, until they were sharper than real life.
Draw.
I slapped the card down on my makeshift countertop, opening my eyes and letting the result repaint my mental image.
Two of Cups, Upright. Two partners, exchanging goblets, the Caduceus between them. My first guess was her entangled with a partner, but my mind painted over the card's image, one cerulean, one dark green. The two were unified, working in tandem.
A chill breeze wormed down the alleyway and a twinge hit my shoulder. I respected twinges.
Pulling another card, just to be sure, it came up The Wheel of Fortune, Reversed, and green, pure green.
"What is this?" I asked, collecting the two and preparing to bolt, tendons firing in my calves.
"Don't make me chase you. I'm in heels."
Yeah she is. As if yanked by a lure, my eyes trailed down, past soft knees to thin ankles. The Esprit disappeared. I was standing in place and tiptoeing into poison ivy, and I knew it.
"Julian Poirot."
Shit, she did her homework. Do I know her? Maybe help her husband unearth an affair? She's not got a ring on... Idiot, that doesn't mean anything.
Twelve escape-routes listed through my head, ranked in order of difficulty to manage in heels. A roof-top chase felt imminent.
"Look," I feigned calm as best I could, "I'm just angling for some pocket change out here."
"I'm serious. If I end up running barefoot through this piss-drenched side-street... You stay where you're standing." She drummed her finely tipped fingernails on the crate's top, waiting for me to make up my mind.
"Give me a good reason. If this is about Bonaparte, I told the police everything I know," I lied, I could have written a book on that misstep. Yet here I was again, playing bargain P.I.
"I have no interest in the case," she rose and placed her hands on those hips, "I'm here to discuss wasted potential."
I met her yellow, strigid eyes, "You want a personal cartomancien? I don't do long-term gigs, too much risk."
"No, and that's what you'll end up, without intervention," she reached across to my cheek, skin catching on my stubble, "You'll accompany me to Bloom, accept tutelage, Julian."
That's obviously a non-starter.
"I know my hair's a bit long-" I said and she cut me off. "No issue. Male attendance is rare, but not unheard of. I'm allowed certain indulgences in my research."
Research? My interest piqued.
"You will have a separate dorm-space, tuition provided, and there will be measures in place to ensure the comfort of the female student body. You'd be a fool to turn this down." She was right. My current day to day was little more than dodging Bonaparte's attention and selling my services for a pittance.
"Security," I said, "Keeping to one place is difficult."
"You'll be under my personal scrutiny, and Bloom is a bunker. I found you, how long do you think it will take others?"
Another solid point. The knife pressed.
"And I'll be compensated for your research?"
"You're reaching."
Fair enough.