Psychic Undercover (With The Undead): A Paranormal Mystery (SDF Book 1)

by Amie Gibbons

  “Who took my hair clip?” I asked. “It wasn’t the demon, it was kicked out by then. So it had to be one of the people there last night, but how? I touched most of them, but probably missed someone.”

  She squeezed my neck so tight it cut off all but the smallest bit of airway.

  I gagged, sucking in air as hard as I could and Quil took half a step forward.

  “Don’t do it,” she said with a hiss.

  I clawed at her hand and she lightened the death grip just enough so the stars stopped dancing in my eyes.

  “What do you want?” Quil asked. “This. All this. Hiring the demons, calling attention to our nest, trying to have it kill me, why?”

  “Why do we do anything, Quil?” she asked. “And it wasn’t trying to kill you.”

  He nodded. He already knew that, of course. “No, it was trying to kidnap me. Why?”

  “You know why. Who would benefit from having you distracted? Who wants you dead or gone? That was the deal. I help here, she gives me you. You’d be a great second with a little bit of… what do the humans say? Reprogramming?”

  Quil paled and my heart went out to him even as I sucked air through a straw.

  Huh, turned out I had a gut sense too, and it was right about Jade.

  Not that it’d help me now.

  Were those birdies really flyin’ around or was I blacking out?

  “No, it doesn’t make sense,” Quil said. “It makes her look weak too. She would never hurt her own nest.”

  “But the demon went after humans, and we all know how she feels about them.”

  “No, I don’t believe you. You’re trying to undermine us. You did this.”

  “Of course I did, but I just did it for power. She solidifies her power base by scaring her people into submission, finds the vampire responsible, and sends him off to live with another nest who can properly control him because she still cares for him too much to kill him.”

  Her and Jade were going to frame Quil?

  “No one would believe that,” Quil said.

  “Oh, they will. Everything’s already laid out.”

  “How could she?”

  “Power,” a voice said from behind us.

  I didn’t have to see to know it was Milo.

  “Jade knows Carvi and I are planning a summit next year to discuss coming out into the open, telling humans about magic,” Milo said. “This was just the first step to undermining that. She would get rid of you, and then start picking off humans in other nests, which would bring in human authorities, and the resulting tensions would scare vampires into wanting to stay hidden.”

  Marie loosened her grip and I took a deep breath, the world solidifying again. Blood pounded through my neck and skull, makin’ them ache down through my spine.

  “And you didn’t tell me this before because?” Quil asked, his eyes still on me.

  “I just got the vision now, give me a break.”

  Give me a break? He was really up on modern day English. Which I guess wasn’t too surprising. He had a long time to learn to adjust to new languages. I mean, he was alive before English was even created.

  Marie took a sharp breath. “You’re psychic too?”

  Milo chuckled. “I’d tell you to keep your mouth shut, but I think that’s the least of our worries. Now Marie, you really do need to let this lovely young lady go.”

  “You’re psychic?”

  Wow, she was really thrown by that.

  “Yes.” I could practically see his smug grin in his voice. “And I know who you hired to summon the demon.”

  “One word and I’ll kill her.” She tightened her hand again and I squirmed, makin’ her squeeze tighter.

  “Gah!” I tried to say, the words stuck in my throat.

  “Marie, you know she’s a fed, and that there are others here,” Milo said with an exaggerated sigh. “And they’re pretty damn good at what they do.”

  Flash.

  Grant crept up the back hallway, holding the silver whip. He inched the door open and Milo talking came through as an echo.

  “So,” Milo said, “why don’t you agree to let her go in exchange for us promising no retaliation?”

  Grant motioned to Quil over her head, pointing to me.

  I blinked and the scene was exactly like I saw it, just outta my eyes and not floating above Grant’s head.

  Holy crap on a cracker, did I just force a real time vision?

  “So,” Milo said in the exact same tone he’d just had in my vision, “why don’t you agree to let her go in exchange for us promising no retaliation?”

  Nope, I’d just forced a future vision. It was in the future like three seconds, but it was still the future.

  “You go back to your nest and call off your demon,” Milo said. “You give us Jade, her plans, everything, the vampire you turned to make him summon the demon, and your word as a vampire that you will not attack anyone in our nests or anyone attached to them ever again. In exchange, we won’t go after you, and we won’t tell the other leaders what you did. You know this is a sweetheart deal. You won’t get out of here any other way.”

  “You give me your word you won’t come after me?” she asked.

  I squirmed in her grip and she clamped down.

  “Stop that,” she said, cold as an icicle.

  I nodded, heart racin’ as fear twisted my stomach.

  Grant was gonna hit any second. He had to. But I was supposed to be brave! I should’ve been fighting to get away.

  And all I wanted was to wake up in bed with Quil, the case solved, Jade gone, and me about to go to work to do something boring like paperwork.

  Stop it! This isn’t a nightmare. And you can’t always expect Grant to save your butt.

  I wasn’t going to wake up. This was real, but I wasn’t dead yet.

  And I was gonna keep it that way.

  I just needed to get outta her grip

  “You should stop being stupid and take the deal,” I said.

  She squeezed harder and I sucked air, strugglin’.

  She wouldn’t kill me. Not with the two older vamps who’d take her down the second she didn’t have a hostage.

  “You think I won’t kill you because you’re the only thing keeping them from killing me,” Marie said, wrappin’ an arm around my shoulders to pin me to her. “You’re right, I can’t. Milo, that is a wonderful deal, but I’m no fool. You can lower that whip, Agent Grant. We both know you won’t use it while I literally hold your agent’s life in my hands.”

  Oh crap on crackers and kittens!

  So she did know he was behind her.

  “I can smell human and silver. You honestly thought you could sneak up on me?” she asked. “And you can stop trying your earbuds, my man overrode them five minutes ago. I would be insulted by this trap, but I know how stupid humans are.”

  Hey. Rude.

  She’d backed us up into the farthest dark corner, Grant probably still hovered in the doorway behind us, and Quil and Milo were on each side. To anyone giving our group a casual glance, we were just a few people talking and hanging on each other.

  But couldn’t they see the tension, smell the fear? How could they not even be paying attention? They were all dancing and chatting, even the guys at the bar didn’t give us more than a few quick glances.

  How could her guy get into our system?

  And then I knew.

  Grant always tells me not to assume, and I didn’t have any proof, not even a vision to back up my suspicions, but I knew.

  My heart froze.

  I didn’t touch everyone here tonight.

  There was a certain group of people I never even considered tryin’ to touch.

  “The summoner’s-” I started as fast as I could, but apparently not even my roadrunner voice box can beat vamp reflexes.

  She squelched my words with a firmer grip and I gurgled as I struggled to suck in air again.

  I felt Marie nod above my head as she held me tighter.

  A
nd all hell broke loose.

  The room erupted in front of us. Vampires I assumed were with her leapt out of the crowd at our small group, takin’ Quil and Milo down.

  She whirled and held me between her and Grant. The long silver whip in his hand was probably the only reason she didn’t just snap my neck and be done with it.

  I wasn’t complaining.

  Actually, no matter what she did, I wouldn’t be able to complain on account of no air.

  The world darkened around the edges like it does sometimes when I get a vision, but this time I wouldn’t be gettin’ any pretty pictures when the world blinked off.

  Quil grunted behind us and something, actually someone probably, hit the wall off to our side.

  “Drop the whip and move out of my way, or she dies and I’ll make you move,” Marie hissed at Grant.

  My eyes found his and the world narrowed down to us.

  I couldn’t feel the hand on my neck or the lack of oxygen.

  I swam on a wave of green champagne and it willed me to hear it.

  To understand.

  To run.

  I snapped back to the present and Grant’s eyes held somethin’ I’d never seen there before.

  Fear.

  “She’s going to use Ariana to trade,” Milo called as the fight noises behind us grew.

  Something was keeping Quil from running to my rescue and I could only imagine that it was something pretty bad.

  Marie closed the delicate steel hand and I saw stars as my airway was completely blocked. I clawed at the hand, tears leaking out of my eyes.

  And then Grant did the unthinkable.

  He dropped the whip and walked out of the hallway with his hands up.

  What?

  “I don’t need to tell you what I’ll do to you and your entire nest if she dies,” Grant said in a tone fitting his name.

  “I do not fear humans,” she said, lettin’ me go and pushing me into the back hall past him.

  “Do you fear our explosives?” he asked, lookin’ at me.

  I ran fast as my little legs could take me before he even stopped talking and she grabbed me from behind.

  I flew.

  The small popping was all I heard before pain flared in my neck and darkness took me.

  Chapter twenty

  “Ariana?”

  Something shook me in the darkness and I knew there was no way I was pullin’ out of it without some extreme pain.

  I started sinking back down, then...“Agent Ryder!”

  Something wet sprinkled on my face and the darkness started to retract.

  No, no, no! It would hurt too much. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?

  The pain inched in slowly. It started with a conga line of screwdrivers through my brain, then danced down my brain stem and settled in my neck and shoulders, running round and round until my muscles seized into one big ball of confused, tied up barbed wire.

  “Hey,” that same voice said.

  A hand cupped my chin as I came back to consciousness and my eyes refused to open past slits flirtin’ with the room.

  Thank God the lights were dim.

  “And until this is settled,” a voice very far away was saying, “no one’s leaving. She wasn’t working alone. Someone here is the demon and someone else is the summoner.”

  Voices rose and I couldn’t distinguish between them. I did know one thing, they weren’t happy.

  “I don’t care if you don’t like this plan,” Quil said. “I don’t care if you feel tricked because I did not tell you the actual plan before. It doesn’t matter because we found the traitor, and lost two of our own in the process. The only reason we didn’t lose more was because of the humans sneaking in those weapons. So you can whine about betrayal and trickery, but you are not leaving.”

  “And,” Quil said in a harder tone, “your leaders have already agreed. So sit down, shut up, and we’ll get to you as soon as we can. Once this is over, you can file all the complaints with your leaders that you wish, but until then, no one tries to leave. If they do, they will be maced first and questioned later. If you want to get out of here quickly, you’ll cooperate.”

  That’s a little jackbooted. What about Jade?

  I floated on the sea of pain, still not openin’ my eyes for over half a second at a time.

  “Come on, Ariana, open your eyes. I need you to open your eyes.” It almost sounded like Grant’s voice, but he would never sound so desperate.

  “Agent Ryder, open your damn eyes!”

  That was definitely Grant.

  My eyes fluttered open.

  I whimpered as the pain roared into reality.

  I wanted to rip off my skull and slough off my muscles because then at least they wouldn’t be attached to hurt me.

  Grant held my face in his huge meaty ones, and I clung to him.

  “Wh...’appened?” I asked, throat sore enough to make me not want to talk again for a week.

  Jet, Dan, Kat, and Milo surrounded me. Quil rushed through the doorway a moment later. We were still in the hallway and Kat was trying to check me out.

  “Guys, you need to back up,” she said, voice tense.

  Quil dropped in between her and Jet and grabbed my hand.

  Jet and Dan did as they were told, but the other three wouldn’t budge.

  Okay, I got Grant and Quil stayin’ by my side, but Milo? Seriously, what was up with that? He just met me. And yet he was leaning over with the other two, concern in his eyes even as that same stupid smile graced his face.

  “Fine.” Kat sighed. “Someone can hold her hand, that should be okay, but I need the space so two of you need to move.”

  Grant took my other hand. I smiled and met his eyes, trying to lose my pain in their cool green depths.

  “Great,” Kat said. “You two, back up, this isn’t a large hallway.”

  My other hand suddenly felt very cold.

  Why would it feel cold cuz Quil let it go when his hands were room temp?

  A small whimper escaped me. I didn’t know if it was pain, or my suddenly very lonely hand, or some combination of the two. I turned my eyes to Quil as he backed up.

  He offered a small smile, but then was blocked by Kat.

  She shined a light in my eyes. What was that supposed to accomplish? Cuz all it did was make my headache worse. The conga line went up from a waltz to a jive.

  Yeah, I know that’s a lot of mixed dance metaphors; the point is, it hurt.

  Apparently she liked what she saw cuz her face looked a little less pinched. “No concussion.”

  Oh right, that’s why doctors did the light in the eyes thing.

  Grant tilted my head back towards him. “She needs to examine your neck after what Marie did. Hold still. That’s an order.”

  I couldn’t nod, but I blinked once and kept my eyes on his.

  Kat poked and prodded and I tried, and failed, not to whimper and cry. Grant held my hand tightly, murmuring over it.

  “Oww!” I cried out one last time as Kat gently maneuvered my neck over again.

  “She’s got full range of motion, I think it’s just a little strained, but the shoulder’s dislocated,” Kat said after a few minutes.

  I wanted to black out again cuz I knew what was coming next.

  When a shoulder’s dislocated, they have to pop it back in. And, as Quil already said, none of us were going anywhere until the demon and summoner were caught, which meant they couldn’t call an ambulance and take me to a nice ER with doctors and pretty, pretty painkillers.

  The summoner!

  “Grant.” Man, did my throat hurt. “The summoner’s...”

  “Shhhh,” he said, placing fingers over my lips. “I know.”

  My eyes popped. “How? Ohhhhh, trackin’ device.”

  His head snapped back at me. I’d never envied the ability to move your head before now.

  “How?” he asked.

  “Vision,” I said.

  “Humph.” He turned to the vamps. “Y
ou said you can heal her?”

  Quil nodded. “It will take both Milo and myself since I’m not trained as he is.”

  “Trained?” Jet asked, voice cracking all over the place.

  If I looked at him, I knew he’d be holding back tears. Jet doesn’t cry easily, but when he wants to and when he’s trying not to, ya know it.

  “Massage therapist,” Milo said with another of his stupid grins. “I went to school about twenty years ago, but I still got it.” He cracked his knuckles and wiggled his fingers at me suggestively. “We can give her blood and work out the muscles with some saliva. Quil’s only does cuts, but I can help loosen her up.”

  Double entendre much?

  Why is it every word out of his mouth came with that dirty tone?

  “I can give her blood,” Quil said.

  “We’re not leaving you alone. This won’t be like last night,” Grant said, keeping his grip on my hand.

  “So orgy instead of menage a trois,” Milo said. “Sounds good to me. But I got rules. I go first and I don’t do men.”

  Oh crap. Grant’s gonna punch him.

  “Oh dear,” I couldn’t help but moan, regrettin’ it as it blazed up my bruised throat.

  “Don’t worry, Agent Grant,” Quil said. “We’ll fix her up. Sweets, can you deal with a little embarrassment here?”

  I blinked once.

  “That’s a yes,” Grant said.

  He shrugged off his vest and motioned at Dan and Jet. They took theirs off too. Grant folded them into a nice little purple silk pillow.

  “This is going to hurt, Ryder,” Grant said.

  I blinked at him and he nodded.

  Together, a lot of large hands rolled me over and I bit down on a scream as my right shoulder tapped the ground. My vision blacked out for a moment and I really wished I could stay there as the fire went back down.

  “What did she do? What happened?” I asked as small hands moved my head to the side so it was restin’ on the pillow. I would’ve killed for some water.

  Grant held onto my hand as one of the others undid the tie up top around my neck and unzipped my dress.

  “This feels so wrong,” Kat said as she stood.

  My head was towards Grant so I couldn’t see where she went, but I figured she was close.

  I felt hands I knew were Quil’s run down my bare back and I closed my eyes.