Psychic Series Boxset: Books 1-3

by Lisa Freed

  “Entitled to steal your nephew’s body and do whatever you want with it? I don’t think so.”

  A mocking grin surfaced, “Oh, I doubt he would object to what I was doing with it.”

  I got his drift and exploded upward. “You pig!”

  “They weren’t you, you are who I want to be with. I did this for us, let me move in and then we can start living our life together. Nobody else matters.”

  My hands balled into fists, energy coursed through me in ragged bolts of red that stung as my vision clouded and all that could escape my mouth were bitten off grunts between my clenched and grinding teeth. Then I blinked and whatever had temporarily taken over me was gone. My jaw made popping noises as I opened it to speak but otherwise, I seemed fine. “You did it for you, Victor. You want to do something for me? Release Adrian’s body.”

  Victor’s mouth opened and closed then his arms crossed defensively across his chest. “We’ve been through this before, T. I leave and this body dies. Adrian’s not returning.”

  “Then we’ll just have to find him,” I said with a genuine smile. I walked around Victor and headed up the stairs, tossing over my shoulder as I went, “Ouija board time.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  That sprung the infuriating man into action and he dashed forward blocking my progress up the stairs. Large hands settled on my shoulders, gripping the soft cotton fabric between hard fingers. “Teresa, you know that never goes well.”

  Pulling back, I bared my teeth at him in a large smile. “And that’s how we met,” I reminded him.

  “I know, and you got fortunate it was me and not someone or something else.”

  I pushed my shoulders up and extended my arms rocking his hands off. “Guess we’ll just have to hope we’re lucky this time too.” Flattening myself to the wall, I squeezed around him and continued up to the second floor.

  The board was in the guest bedroom’s closet, up under a pile of folded up blankets. Most people would wonder why I would keep such a silly board game that ended up being far more powerful than any marketing executives ever would have dreamed. The reason was twofold. Yes, it was a nasty little thing but it was useful at times. Despite our current situation, Victor had been a good friend to me during my awkward high school years when Megan had been so busy with her studies that I had lost my mother figure and sister and had desperately needed someone. Also, yes, I could see and speak to spirits but locating them? I needed a map and the board was a handy compass.

  Carrying it slowly down the hardwood stairs under my left arm my right hand skimmed along the white wooden railings of the banister. Nothing came from the box itself, no odors or awful feelings, it was just a simple cardboard box containing a cheap wood board with letters and numbers on it. The spinner was even plastic. No, the power came from the other side.

  Victor must have realized how serious I was because when I entered the living room, I saw he had cleared off the coffee table and had pulled it close enough that it touched the sharp creases of his pants at his bent knees.

  Placing the box in the middle of the table, I sat down next to him, trying not to let Victor’s anxiousness rub off on me despite feeling the worry radiating off him in waves.

  Victor remained as he was, arms followed over his chest, pulling the black material of his shirt tight against his pecs. I had to admit Victor had good taste in bodies to take over. I pulled out the board and spinner, tossing the box up on the couch next to me. That got a reaction from him as he frowned at me.

  I placed my right hand on the ivory plastic heart-shaped spinner and waited for him to do the same but he kept his arms stubbornly crossed.

  In exasperation, I threw an elbow at him. “You can’t move the spinner with your mind anymore, you’re not a ghost.”

  That caught his attention as his rigid shoulders lowered and he turned questioning eyes to me. “The what? It’s not a spinner, it’s a planchette.” A rumble of laughter bubbled up out of his chest but he covered it with a cough.

  “Whatever, put your hand on it and let’s get moving. It’s been a long day and I wouldn’t mind having dinner soon.”

  “Is that an invitation?” he murmured, his lips coming close enough to my ear for me to feel his warm breath fan my skin.

  I turned to him, giving him my patented death stare. It had the opposite effect on him as he leaned close enough for me to smell the peppermint on his breath.

  “I’ll cook,” he offered, then his hand captured my left hand that had been resting in my lap, tugging it toward his crotch as his lips swooped in on my mouth.

  I jerked back from his advancing mouth while my right hand rose and I slammed the planchette it had been holding into his middle, satisfied with the loud oath that escaped his mouth and the way his face flushed red. “I’m so not in the mood, Victor,” I said sweetly, placing the planchette back on the board. “Now, back to business.”

  He rubbed at the spot where he had been hit but complied without another word. His right hand joined mine on the simple plastic piece.

  “Hello, we seek contact with Adrian….” I trailed off, then turned to Victor. “What’s his last name?”

  The incredulous look he gave me told me that I clearly hadn’t been paying attention. “Michaelides,” he said gruffly.

  “Sorry,” I whispered his way before addressing the board again. “The spirit of Adrian Michaelides, please speak with us.”

  My breath held in my chest as my eyes were glued to the board and the non-moving bit of cool plastic under my fingertips. After a minute, the breath released in a slow hiss through my flaring nostrils. I plucked the planchette from under Victor’s hand and rubbed across the three little felt-covered feet. Putting it down I cruised it over the board. It moved just fine when under my power.

  “Maybe he’s not strong enough to move it,” I commented.

  “And maybe he’s crossed over already,” Victor said dryly, taking the piece from me and returning it to the board.

  I shook my head, my lips pursed, debating if I should mention anything and then thought now was the time to unburden myself. “He hasn’t.”

  Victor favored me with a slight grin. “You don’t know that.”

  Turning slightly on the couch to put a little more space between us and to see him better I opened up. “I do. I’ve seen him at least twice now.”

  That brought about a grimace from him, his mouth twisted to the left. “Where? How?” he questioned.

  “In the cemetery across from salon and in my bathroom mirror.”

  He rubbed at his smooth jawline. “Hmmm…”

  “That’s it? Hmmm? Come on! You have to know something about this.”

  He shrugged, then leaned back, crossing one long leg over the other while his arm went behind me to rest on the couch. “All I know is that every single time I’ve left Adrian’s body he has failed to return. Lance would return immediately.”

  “So Lance remained near his body but Adrian is traveling,” I mused out loud.

  “Appears that way.”

  “I thought he started following me because he was aware of our connection but here you are and he’s not here.” My eyes flashed around the room before coming to rest back on Adrian’s handsome, unsmiling face.

  “No,” was Victor’s instant reply to my, as of yet, unspoken demand.

  “Victor!”

  “You cannot make me,” he declared, his arm coming off the couch to rest in his lap, no longer as relaxed as he appeared a moment ago.

  “I might not be able to make you, but I can stop bankrolling your New York lifestyle.”

  His dark eyes narrowed and I squinted right back at him.

  “Fine!” he threw up his hands in mock surrender then crossed his arms once again. “Here I go, watch and see what happens.”

  Sure enough, as I looked at Adrian’s body, Victor’s own form lifted from it and stood. He twirled around, gave a tiny salute, then walked away. Turning my attention back to Adrian, who had slumped over to the lef
t, I felt his neck. His skin was warm and taut against my fingers but absolutely no pulse. My eyes scanned the room. “Adrian? Adrian, if you can hear me you need to get back into your body.”

  Nothing.

  My own heart rate went up as I tried to remember how long someone could be without air to the brain before they became a vegetable. Why hadn’t I paid more attention in health class?!

  Mentally I struggled then Victor made his way into the living room again. Propping a shoulder against the doorframe, he crossed his arms over his chest and smirked. “A no show, right?”

  “Yes, I don’t know why he isn’t coming back. Victor, you need to get back into his body before it dies for good!” I yelled, feeling more panicky by the second.

  Victor took his sweet time before finally straightening up from the wall and walking over to where I sat with Adrian’s limp body. All he did was sit back into Adrian’s form, melting in as the two touched. With a soft exhale, Victor, now in control of Adrian, sat up and gave me a nasty grin. “I told you so,” he said as if the grin hadn’t said the same thing.

  “So you did,” I snapped back, a tad unnerved at having sat next to and touched a dead body. My hands rubbed at my upper arms willing the chill away. “I just don’t understand why he wouldn’t want to get back in his body.”

  “Maybe he finds life better on the other side?” Victor said, stretching his arms over his head before lacing his long fingers together and cracking them.

  “But he was a drug dealer and a bad guy,” I protested.

  Victor paused mid-crack, his fingers still interlocked, “When did I say that?” he asked softly.

  Oops. Maybe I had heard that from Mateo.

  “I just figured the apple didn’t fall far from the tree…” I said carefully before something that had been tugging at my memory came charging to the forefront. “That reminds me! That man you took over in Greece, the one with the gold tooth, what happened to him?”

  Victor’s fingers unclasped and he leaned over, picking up his water bottle from the floor next to the couch. He finished his water and shrugged his shoulders in a slow roll. “How should I know? I released him and left him in his car.”

  “You didn’t shoot him?”

  Wide dark brown eyes locked onto my face. If he was acting, he was doing a great job and had me convinced that this was the first he was hearing about it.

  “Of course not,” he sputtered out between pinched white lips. “Where did you hear this?”

  “Online,” I said, which was partially true. After Mateo had told me about it, I had scoured the net for the story.

  “Guess he pissed off the wrong people,” Victor said.

  “Or maybe you did,” I accused.

  Victor settled back against the couch and put his arm around my shoulders pulling me closer to him. “Listen, he was a low-level guy, it could have been a client, his connection, or something completely random like being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Hmmm…I supposed that could be the case. Agnes came into the room and stopped when she spotted Adrian on the couch with me. Then she trotted over and hopped up into his lap with a soft little meow.

  Victor scratched at her ears and under her chin. “Glad somebody missed me.”

  My red rage from earlier exploded. “What did you expect?” I thundered. My raised voice scared Agnes who dug her claws into Victor’s leg as she took off. I ignored Victor’s hissed whines of pain and continued on. “You turned my life upside down! Why couldn’t you have left things the way they were?”

  His hand stilled on his rent pant leg, “Because I wanted more.” His dark eyes flashed as he looked at me. “I thought we both did.”

  Just as quickly as it came, the anger drained from me. “I don’t know what I want,” I answered honestly.

  “So I still can’t stay?”

  “That I am certain of, the answer is still no!” That’s all I needed, Victor in my house trying to worm his way back into my bed and ruining things with Mateo. Guess that did answer things. I wanted a chance at a normal life and relationship with Mateo. To enjoy being giddy in the first throes of a crush. “I think you need to do a lot of soul-searching, Victor, in addition to finding Adrian.”

  As he stiffly rose to his feet, I saw a few patches of blood making his already dark pants even darker in two spots on his leg where Agnes had gotten him.

  “I’ll need more money,” he said softly, a hint of something dangerous in his low voice.

  “I’m not your personal ATM!” I snapped. “Go ask your brother for money. You highjacked his son, I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to give you some.”

  “He cut me off. Froze all Adrian’s assets, credit cards…” Victor trailed off.

  That did give me pause, “He’s wise to you not being his son?”

  Victor gave a chilling half-grin, “Obviously.”

  I stood up while I digested that. “Okay, let me get you a check. But I’m not going to finance the rest of your ill-gotten life.”

  He ignored that and took the check from my hand without a word of thanks, pausing only briefly at the front door to glance back at me. “Don’t mess with the board again, T,” was his warning before he left.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Back in the living room, I bent down to pick up the planchette when it moved, avoiding my grasping hand. I made a grab for it but it slid smoothly across the board away.

  Shoot! We never closed it up properly, leaving the board open for whoever to make the connection with this world. A rookie move on my part. Ugh, how was I going to put this safely in the box if it was leading me on a merry chase? My eyes followed the heart-shaped piece’s progress in case it was spelling a word out, but so far, it only zigged and zagged, not stopping on a letter long enough for it to mean anything.

  “Who are you?” I whispered, catching my lower lip beneath my front teeth.

  It stopped at the sound of my voice before it began a much slower crawl across the board. Each second that passed was agony as I waited to see just who wanted to talk to me. When it had almost settled on the letter C it rocketed to the goodbye, rubbed across it several times, then stilled.

  A ghostly hand materialized holding the planchette but it was the thick husky smoker’s laugh that drew my eyes up. There beside me, laughing her butt off, if she still had one, was my Aunt Prudy.

  Prudence Lane, either my mom or dad’s aunt, I never was too clear on that, had popped in and out of my life for as long as I could recall. And she hadn’t let the small matter of her death five years ago stop her. Nope, she still came and went as she pleased and usually when I needed her.

  I looked at her fondly as she continued to choke and gasp. Dressed in a pair of bright white pants, that she had called pedal pushers but I called clam diggers, and a hot pink tank top with a flamingo in silver and pink sequins on it, she looked like a typical grandma on vacation. The only thing missing that she’d had in life was the ever-present cigarette in her hand or hanging off her lip.

  When she had gotten hold of herself Aunt Prudy gave her knee a slap and commented, “Nothing like an early Halloween prank!” Then she gave me a sideways glance over her half-glasses, “But kid, that was a rookie mistake you made not closing the connection. Good thing it was me and not someone else.”

  She had me there, I had thought the exact thing. And I was grateful for her shutting down the board and even more so if she could help me figure out just what was going on.

  After I put the Ouija board back in the box and closed the lid, I held it against my chest and turned to Aunt Prudy. “Where you here the whole time?”

  “Nope, but I caught the tail end of things. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Adrian is gone. He actually didn’t want to come back.”

  “Aunt Prudy, that cannot be, I keep seeing him.” I hesitated then rush on, “I thought he wanted my help.”

  “Can’t help you with that.”

  “I just can’t imagine giving up on life, he’s so young.”
>
  “T, we’re not best buds or anything. It’s not like he told me, personally. Word gets around and apparently, this was a nice pain-free release for him and he took it. I guess being the son of a big mover and shaker in the drug world isn’t all the movies make it out to be.” Prudy let loose with another of her smoker’s laughs.

  I walked to the stairs knowing she would follow and continued our conversation as we headed upstairs. “So, I shouldn’t keep pressing Victor to release Adrian’s body?”

  “Oh, I didn’t say that. He’s not keeping it,” Prudy said, an edge to her normally upbeat voice.

  I mulled that bit of information over as I lifted the thick stack of blankets and tried to shove the board game underneath them at the same time. My grip on the blankets slipped as the box moved to the back of the closet on its own. A heavy comforter tumbled out on top of me.

  Lifting the substantial blanket off my head I peered at a beaming Aunt Prudy. “When did you start being able to move things?” I asked in shock. Prudy had never done that before.

  Her grin widened as another delighted chuckle escaped. “Been practicing. Not too shabby for an old lady, huh?” Then her already thin lips diminished as she continued staring at me. “Before I go, just one more bit of advice…”

  I cut her off, “Go? Already? Why must you always disappear after a few cryptic words of wisdom?”

  She croaked out another of her wheezy laughs. “Isn’t that what we spirits do?”

  I finished folding the blanket back up and stuffed it back into the guest bedroom’s closet, pushing the door closed before it could come falling back down again. “Seriously, can you at least tell me what’s going on with my parents?” I implored.

  Her thin hand waved dismissively at my question. “Them,” she snorted. “Same old nonsense in a different way, don’t worry about it.”

  That relieved my mind greatly. I had been half afraid they were going to try to set up residence in my life after they got done with Megan.

  “Now, about that advice,” Prudy continued, then paused, her mouth scrunching up. “You know what? Never mind. Some things you need to figure out for yourself.” She gave me a sunny smile, “Love you!” she called out. Then, without waiting for my reply, Prudence Lane disappeared.