Power Play (Amanda Byrne Book 1)

by Kimberly Keane

  “So, what do you want to know?” she said.

  “Anything you can tell me. He’s suing me and I’m looking for information.”

  “He’s a bastard.”

  “Oh, yes, he is,” I said, nodding. “How did you know him?”

  “He dated my daughter.” Mrs. Lopez crossed herself and said a prayer.

  “What happened?”

  “The bastard killed her, but the cops can’t prove it.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  For the next few minutes, Mrs. Lopez told me the story of how Maria and Mr. Bradley met, how he promised them security and power, and how he poisoned her Maria and left the poor girl for dead.

  “Thank you so much for your time, Mrs. Lopez.” I stood and reached out my hand. “If there’s anything else I can think of that may help my case, may I call you?”

  “Yes,” she said and shook my hand. As soon as her skin touched mine, I knew she hadn’t created the curse. Anger was certainly a cornerstone in her life, but it felt old and tired. An abandoned house in the middle of the city. The energy of the curse was clipped and tense.

  I called Miriam during the cab ride back. She’d joined me on the trip to New York. We rarely took trips together, and we’d decided to spend a bit of time taking in the sights. “No joy with Maria.”

  “What’s next?”

  “I need to figure out how to find Katherine Smith.”

  “You mentioned Harry didn’t have any luck.”

  “Yeah, he suggested you might be able to find her, but I’d have to give you a place to start.”

  “Unfortunately. Maybe we can throw around some ideas over dinner. Or . . .” She paused, “maybe the boys can help.”

  “Ethan’s not in any shape to help.”

  “I just got off the phone with him. He’s fine.”

  “Really? Fine?”

  “He needs some time to heal, physically and mentally. But he’s doing so much better now that he’s spending some time with Dillon.”

  “Gods, Miriam, I almost lost him.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t . . . I can’t do it again.”

  “I know. And you don’t have to.”

  I let out a shaky breath.

  “He’s healing. And you can focus on other things. Like whoever made this damned curse.”

  “Yeah. Okay. See you soon.”

  I had no idea how to go about finding Katherine. I needed a direction, a clue, something to follow that might lead me to her. Miriam and I might come up with something over dinner, but maybe the Fates were listening now.

  Any help would be great. I put significant effort into the thought as if that could send it out into the universe and catch the ears of the Fates.

  I wouldn’t know how to locate someone in your world without my powers, Urd said.

  Sorry, I was trying to talk to the Fates. But then . . . you are part of the Fates.

  Yes, but I’m too disconnected in this state. I’m not sure how you can function being so out of touch with the universe.

  I laughed out loud, and the cab driver glanced at me in his rearview mirror. I offered him a lopsided smile.

  So, Fates, any word?

  There wasn’t any.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  I wore a summer dress with a button-down sweater in hopes I wouldn’t freeze in the air conditioning. I made sure to put my contacts in, pulled my hair back into a ponytail that hung down my back, and put on mascara. I hoped a simple hairstyle and minimal makeup would promote my innocence, be it real or imagined.

  The vultures had landed—there were reporters in front of the courthouse when we arrived. But none could stand up to the size and determination of Mr. Wesley. I couldn’t be seen behind him and walked quietly in his wake.

  Mr. Wesley and I entered through the double doors, made our way to the front of the courtroom, and took our designated seats. The room smelled of air freshener and polished wood.

  The reporters didn’t come through the doors and I assumed the ones with cameras weren’t allowed inside. The sounds of the reporters shouting questions rose as the doors opened and was muffled as the doors closed with each person who entered. Most folks wore suits and carried portfolios. They jockeyed for the best seats. Excitement poured from the spectators and bounced around the courtroom.

  I blocked out the sounds as Mr. Wesley and I conferred, but noticed Miriam and the boys taking seats in the row behind me. Ethan had just recently been cleared to travel. He moved deliberately, as if his body weren’t quite his own. I was happy he was up and moving. And with his furry companion. Dillon had taken on the role of service animal. He was well trained enough to slide into the role easily.

  Quiet descended when the double doors both opened to admit Mr. Bradley. He lay in a hospital bed and had at least five medical staff that alternated between pushing the bed and hovering over him. I recognized one of them as the nurse who’d pushed his wheelchair at our last meeting. She glared at me. I wondered what I’d done to get on her bad side—it wasn’t like we had said more than two words to each other.

  Mr. Bradley looked like he’d aged fifteen years since the last time I’d seen him. His skin hung on him and his eyes had receded, but they had the same hateful glare. They looked around the courtroom until they found me. The blackness I’d seen before lay in his aura quietly, undulating slowly, like waves on the open ocean on a calm day. I eyed it anyway. It had reached out toward me every time I’d seen it and I didn’t trust its seeming complacency. The creature that lay within both Mr. Bradley and the darkness had lost its luster. Matte black and skeletal, it breathed laboriously.

  “Are you ready to look at the curse?” I said to Mr. Wesley. We had decided over the phone that he’d look so he’d know whether or not to show it to the judge.

  He nodded, so I took his hand and turned.

  Mr. Wesley gaped, his jaw falling open. “This is . . . amazing. Is this actually here all the time?” I was momentarily stunned that I had heard him and chalked the loss of my alternate realm hearing issues up to the akasha.

  I nodded. “I actually see something close to this all the time.”

  It looked like an effort for him to pull his eyes from the spectators and look at me. “You look different than everyone. It’s like your body shimmers. Is that because you can bring people here?”

  “Not exactly. It’s a temporary thing.” I chose to remain silent about Urd’s ride-along.

  He rubbed at his chin, then he leaned forward and inhaled deeply through his nose. “I can’t smell them.”

  “What?”

  “The colors. I can only see them. What are they?”

  Because I was the one who’d taken him to the alternate realm, he would experience it as I would. The god realm he had gone to before looked much like our world looked, so this really was a more impactful experience. I would have to remember that if I ever introduced anyone else to the psychic world. “They’re emotions.” I pointed to Miriam. Her aura was laced with olive green. “She’s worried,” I said, but left out the part that she was probably worried about me. “Do you see the orangey color floating around?”

  He nodded. “It looks like it’s coming from almost everyone.”

  “That’s excitement . . .” I noted the orange pale in places. “See how the orange fades to be a lighter color there and there?” I pointed.

  He nodded again.

  “That’s anticipation.”

  He pursed his lips and tilted his head. “This could really be helpful in jury selection.”

  It was my turn to nod. “I’ve done that once or twice.”

  “Is that something you’d like to do more of?”

  “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On the defendant. I know the legal system is here to defend everyone, but the second jury trial I worked . . . let’s just say that I didn’t feel terribly good about the not-guilty verdict.”

  “So, if you were okay with the defendant, yo
u’d be willing to work on jury selection and monitoring their emotions during the trial?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You may get a call from me.”

  “Assuming I get out of this in one piece.”

  “We’ve got a good case.”

  “Speaking of that . . .” I pointed to Mr. Bradley. “There’s the curse.”

  Mr. Wesley stared at Mr. Bradley for a long moment. “The thing’s ugly, but it looks pitiful . . . Why does Mr. Bradley’s shape change?”

  “The curse probably looks bad because it’s dying as he’s dying,” I said. “I don’t know about the shape-shifting thing.” Which reminded me I hadn’t talked to Miriam to see if she was able to figure anything out about that.

  “Ready to go back?” I said.

  He nodded, and I pulled us back to the mundane courtroom.

  “I’d like to talk to Miriam for a moment,” I said and pushed my chair back and got Miriam’s attention. She leaned forward over the banister that separated the spectators from those involved in the trial, and I whispered in her ear. “Were you able to figure out anything about Mr. Bradley having a visitor, like I’ve got Urd?”

  “No,” she said. “When I’m close, I get a low-level frequency that shifts. When I’m far away, I get a black hole. I couldn’t get anywhere else with it.”

  “Thanks for trying.”

  She sat back, and I reached out and touched Ethan for a moment before moving my chair back up to the table as the bailiff stood tall, commanding everyone’s attention. “All rise,” he said. “The Honorable Susan Peterson presiding.”

  We all rose and sat after the judge told us to. At first sight, I thought the judge was fifty-something with very short blond hair. Upon closer inspection, she’d had more than one face-lift, which made me up my estimate of her age. She had the less-than-human look people get when they’ve had too many procedures.

  “Mr. Duvall for the plaintiff, Your Honor,” Mr. Bradley’s lawyer said.

  “Mr. Wesley for the defense.” Mr. Wesley stood. “Your Honor, please.” He swept his hand as if he were on stage revealing what was behind curtain number one, and then kept going to encompass Mr. Bradley and his entire entourage. “This is an inflammatory tactic to raise your sympathy toward the plaintiff.”

  “This isn’t my first case,” the judge said, but then followed it by addressing the other side of the courtroom. “Mr. Duvall, does your client require the entire hospital staff at his service during these proceedings?”

  “I’ll confer with my client,” Mr. Duvall said, then moved to the hospital bed and placed his ear close to Mr. Bradley’s mouth. He listened to the whispered words, stood, and addressed the judge. “My client requests one nurse be allowed to stay and attend to his needs.”

  The judge nodded her assent. All but the gray-haired nurse packed up and left the courtroom. Then the trial began.

  By the middle of Mr. Duvall’s opening statement, I hated me. He painted me as a conniving, manipulative, money-grubbing hack with a modicum of psychic talent I abused to defraud my clients.

  “We understand our culture has difficulty accepting the reality of psychic phenomena; therefore, our claims regarding the existence of a curse are unusual and difficult to believe,” he continued. “But we have testimony that will shock and enlighten everyone in the courtroom.”

  I looked at Mr. Wesley and he returned my look. Just great. Neither of us knew what was coming.

  Mr. Wesley let a long moment of silence pass before he stood. He moved gracefully, which was made more profound by his size. He turned and faced Mr. Bradley. “Mr. Bradley. Indeed, a great tragedy has fallen on you.” He turned away from Mr. Bradley and addressed himself to the judge. “Suffering is always difficult to witness. We feel for the mountain lion that is euthanized after it has attacked a community. We grieve for a rapist who is killed in a prison riot. We even root for the fictional Hannibal Lector to elude capture despite his horrendous crimes. Compassion is what makes us human. Empathy allows us to choose our suffering over that of another. Those with compassion may strike out, without thought, to protect themselves. They differ from those who knowingly inflict suffering upon others. Ms. Byrne willingly accepted a curse to save the life of a dying boy. This boy was the plaintiff’s son. Mr. Bradley did not show gratitude. Instead, he had Ms. Byrne injected with a drug—a drug that would either kill her or increase her psychic talent. Already weakened from the curse, this drug, which has an extremely high mortality rate, threatened Ms. Byrne’s life. Against all odds, she survived. She found herself disoriented and held captive by a ruthless man who altered her memories. When she discovered the ruse, Mr. Bradley again threatened her life. As he passed her and attempted to place a spell upon her that would drain her of her power, Ms. Byrne pushed the curse away from her, much like a drowning man reaches toward the light above the waterline. The curse then attached itself to the closest person available: Mr. Bradley.” Mr. Wesley turned back to Mr. Bradley. “Indeed, this is a tragedy. Even more so that you did this horrible thing to yourself.”

  Mr. Duvall popped out of his chair immediately after Mr. Wesley finished speaking. “We call Mr. Eugene Woodley.”

  Mr. Woodley, a short, round man with thick brown hair was sworn in and asked for his credentials. He was a psychic that had been working as such for twenty years, much longer than I had and long before the gods returned to our world. He gave readings and had been the subject of a few scientific tests to prove the existence of psychic phenomena. He also stated he could show others the spirit realm. This was the plaintiff’s proof to the judge and the courtroom that psychic phenomena existed.

  There was one limitation to this gift: he had to be touching the person, and in turn, they had to be touching anyone else who wanted to see. It was the same as my ability. With much jockeying, the courtroom managed to configure itself so almost everyone was touching. Miriam moved to the wall and I kept my seat to ensure we were out of the way. The bailiff, who stood in the corner of the courtroom on a desk, presumably so he could see everyone, did not join in the fun.

  “On three,” Mr. Woodley said. “One . . . two . . . three.”

  Animation dropped from people’s faces—emotions paled, and stresses erased themselves—as they were pulled into the alternate realm. One woman lost ten years—an instant face-lift. I wondered if I carried that much stress in mine. I glanced at Miriam and she met my eyes. A few minutes passed, and everyone gasped as they returned to their bodies.

  Mr. Wesley rose quickly. “Your Honor,” he said. “I understand this is outside of the norm for courtroom proceedings, but, in the interest of not having everyone move about again, my client is capable of bringing others to an alternate realm as well. It is a similar experience, one that is part of our case.”

  “Very well,” she said.

  I looked at Mr. Wesley and let the confusion show on my face. He didn’t explain but extended his hand to me. I took it. I inhaled and exhaled the stress I felt. Then I turned and pulled everyone along with me. Faces lit up with surprise, then admiration. What had they seen when Mr. Woodley brought them?

  “You can return us now,” Mr. Wesley said, and I took us back.

  Mr. Duvall released Mr. Woodley as a witness.

  I leaned over and whispered in Mr. Wesley’s ear. “What was that about?”

  “Your version of the alternate realm has the same things in it, but it’s bright and colorful. Mr. Woodley’s is drab and grainy. The curse looked pitiful in his sight and even more pathetic in yours. We just disproved their ‘hack’ theory.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  The case moved ahead after lunch. Mr. Duvall called a psychic expert on curses to the stand. Ms. Martinez was tiny; even I would have to look down to meet her eyes. Her hair was thick and black, falling past her waist in glorious waves. But, holy mothers of gods, her power. The air got heavy, and it felt like I was trying to breathe through a wet washcloth. I pushed my chair backward a few inches, as if that could alle
viate the waves of power that buffeted me.

  I tried, unsuccessfully, to ignore my bitterness—when I needed an expert to lift the curse, there weren’t any to be found. Of course, I didn’t have the monetary resources Mr. Bradley had.

  “Ms. Martinez,” Mr. Duvall said. “What specific damage can a curse do?”

  “A curse can do whatever damage it was created to do,” Ms. Martinez said.

  “Is it possible for a curse to make someone ill?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that what this curse is doing to Mr. Bradley?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What, exactly, is the curse doing to Mr. Bradley?”

  “It is feeding on his life force.”

  “And by feeding on his life force, it is making him ill?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Ms. Martinez, please,” Mr. Duvall said.

  “Objection,” Mr. Wesley said. “Is there a question in there somewhere?”

  “Sustained,” said the judge.

  “Why, in your opinion, is Mr. Bradley so ill?” Mr. Duvall asked.

  “As Mr. Bradley’s life force is drained, his body isn’t able to fix itself. He’s breaking down.”

  “Can curses be removed?”

  “Usually.”

  “Have you tried to remove the curse from Mr. Bradley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why weren’t you able to?”

  “The curse is fused to him. His life force and its life force have become one and the same.”

  “Can anyone lift the curse?”

  “No. Its life is now his life.”

  “How did this occur?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No further questions.” Mr. Duvall sat down.

  “Ms. Martinez.” Mr. Wesley stood and walked halfway to the witness stand. “Is it possible to tell who created the curse?”

  “Yes,” Ms. Martinez said, throwing a nervous glance toward Mr. Bradley and clasping her hands in her lap.