I sucked in my bottom lip. It was just too risky for others to be near me. I mistrusted my ability to control the bad luck side of my telekinesis, and I didn’t know where my so-called freaky gift stemmed from. I wasn’t sure if I had been born with telekinesis or if it’d developed over time. My abilities hadn’t shown up until I’d turned seven years old.
Thank my lucky stars I’d never gotten caught. I mean, seriously, if the government honed in on my abilities, they’d lock me up like Hannibal Lecter, pink mask and all. For the most part, practicing any kind of extra-sensory perception and magic, whether innate or externally created, was illegal. People were scared of ESP abilities and magic, a deeply rooted fear from over three hundred years ago, when Earth was overrun with sorcerers and fairies who’d done the nasty and created a race of powerful fairy-sorcerers. Eventually, the governments eradicated them all and enacted permanent worldwide laws and heavy sanctions on magical use after the Abolishment. Yet, they never defined “extrasensory perception” as magic. That spooked me, so I lived way under the radar.
The elevator stopped on my floor, and I slipped between the doors before they opened all the way. I slid my card key into the security slot and pressed my thumb to the bio-reader. Automatic entry lights flickered on, lighting my way inside the dark condo on top of the Stargazer Casino, San Jose’s newest residential-entertainment complex. The top floor of the residential tower was really the thirteenth floor, but marked fourteen. Like people can’t count.
I kicked my pink pumps off and dumped my jacket on the antique chair in the foyer. My purse clunked on the marble console, the strap leaving tracks in a film of dust. I jiggled the potpourri bowl until a wimpy bouquet of cloves and cinnamon drifted to my nose. Housework hadn’t risen to the top of my To-Do list yet.
“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” I yanked my phone from my front pants pocket and hopped the two steps down to the living room. The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the glittery amber dots of downtown’s lights. Winds had swept away the clouds, and a soothing star-blazing night greeted me, a far cry from the doom and gloom of my date.
“Cody, Cleo.” My two Himalayans always skittered away from the havoc they wreaked the second they heard my voice. “Where are you?”
Creepy crawlies teased the nape of my neck. I slanted a glance down the two empty hallways. My right pinkie twitched. Oh, hell. If the crawlies advanced to a pinkie twitch, it was bad. Alarm dipped in and squeezed my heart.
Slipping my hand inside the small drawer of the end table, I gripped my stun gun. I tapped in casino security on my cell phone without punching the send button. The wall clock tick-tocking from the dining room eclipsed the sound of my uneven breathing in the quiet-as-a-church space. Not even a mouse stirred.
“Where are you ding-a-ling cats?” My voice trilled unnaturally. “You better not be leaving stinky presents in my new ficus.”
Three halls broke off from the living room. The wide hall led to the foyer, and two narrower halls led left to the kitchen and right to the bedrooms. I tiptoed down the right hallway. The recessed lights automatically winked on. At the first door—the hall bathroom—a whiff of cheap Old Spice cologne assaulted me, reminding me of the casino blackjack dealer who marinated in it. My heart thudded in my ears, and I about hightailed it toward the front door. Gossamer threads of something foreign fluttered in my head. As a telekinetic, I sensed ESP, and I oddly absorbed the intangible energy of other beings through my aura, but never to the point where it invaded my mind. I’d never even sensed a telepath tickle my telekinetic sensors, and I sure as shit didn’t think an intruder was reading my mind.
I gripped my focusizer, a pendant encompassing the number thirteen. It helped me delve into deep telekinesis and concentrate my energy. Something just clicked in my brain whenever the dang number was present in any way, shape or form. Focusing also allowed me to deflect bad luck…when I knew in advance I needed to deflect. The enameled leaves on the vine and rose lucky charm dug into the flesh of my fingers, comforting and scary at once.
When I crossed the threshold of the wide open bathroom door, the automatic light flashed on. Stun gun held outward, I shoved aside the purple shower curtain. Empty. My heart pounded against my ribs. No rest for the terrified, I still had a bedroom and an office to check. Hating to expose my back to the hallway, I spun to face the door. Where were my useless fraidy cats? I should’ve gotten the drooling Rottweiler who ate kitties for snacks.
A crash echoed in the office next door, followed by two twelve-pound thuds on the hardwood floor. I nearly stunned myself as the furballs slid down the slick hardwood in their headlong rush toward the living room.
Feathers wavered in and out of my telekinetic receptors. Puzzled, I concentrated on the foreign invasion, but my thoughts muddled. More gossamer wings flapped in the corners of my mind, working toward the middle to totally unhinge me. What the freaking hell?
My phone rang. Startled, I hurled it into the air and it clattered onto the hallway floor. Lunging out of the bathroom, I stooped to snag it. The second I cleared the doorway, strong hands gripped my upper arms from behind.
A banshee scream erupted up my throat. Kicking backward, my bare feet connected with steel beam thighs. I thrashed side-to-side, hoping to break his death grip as his hands slid down my arms. My heart drummed so hard I thought it would pop out of my ribcage. I lost my grip on the stun gun and it spun across the hardwood to kiss my phone.
“Hold steady,” my attacker growled. He cinched both my wrists in long, lethal fingers.
Pain seared my shoulders as he yanked my arms behind my butt. He grabbed my short hair and snapped my neck back. Needles scored my scalp.
“Take whatever you want,” I gasped out. His weird ESP hit my brain in a puzzling jumble, and my telekinetic brain waves floundered beneath it. It was as if he was sending commands from his head to mine. I didn’t care for his terrifying mind commands, not one bit.
He chuckled, his skanky breath hot on my neck. “That’s the plan.”
The stench of male sweat and very Old Spice filtered into my nose. “Okay.” I stalled to collect myself. “Lock me in the bathroom and do your thing.”
Sausage fingers tightened around my wrists. My shoulder muscles burned. I muffled a gasp, refusing to dignify the attack with proof of my pain and terror.
“My thing is with you, Aria Walker.” The brute released my hair. Coarse fingers grazed the nape of my neck before sliding beneath my blouse to grip my bare shoulder.
“What are you?” I had to know what caused the tangle inside my brain.
He chuckled arrogantly. “Never met a Scrambler?”
I sucked in my stomach. “Scrambler” was slang for a strong telepath who had the ability to jumble and temporarily kill psychic abilities. A powerful Scrambler could even permanently destroy a person’s ESP, leaving behind a shell of emptiness. Some used to have the mental ability to coerce, but they hadn’t existed in centuries. Anyone with an inkling of ESP knew what a Scrambler was. The last sorcerers to permanently eradicate magic from the world used Scramblers to do the government’s dirty work.
No wonder I’d dropped my guard. The slimeball had messed with my head.
An arctic blast of shock iced my flesh. My innate electromagnetic energies swelled, steadying my growing terror. Energy surged, melting the ice, filling me with warm, heady power. My aura barriers vaulted in place to protect myself from the intense energy seething for liberation. A familiar, alluring darkness mushroomed inside my head. A flame ignited, a pinpoint of white-hot light, growing brighter, blazing hotter. I envisioned slipping into the Scrambler’s mind, forcing my command upon him. Sleep, I willed fiercely, drawing upon the light, oozing my will and my brain waves into the heat. Sleep, lights out, asshat. My bioelectric energy field—my aura—surrounded us, raining a paralysis on the guy.
Spears of energy pierced my shroud, numbing my flesh where it made contact. Mutually increasing horror threw us off kilter against the bombe chest in the hall.
Holy crap. I’d never felt my aura touch me in anger.
The dude’s fingers dropped away. The sound of ripping cloth split the charged air as he thumped to the floor. Jagged silky edges tickled my bare arm as feeling quickly returned to me. Sidestepping the heaped intruder, I scooped up my stun gun and smartphone in trembling hands.
Goose bumps broke out along my bare arm. Regardless, I scouted out my condo to ensure no accomplices waited in the fringes. My defiled haven turned up empty and my shoulders sagged in relief. What did the guy want with me? Surely, my secret telekinesis was still my secret. The Scrambler hadn’t had enough time to screw up my head. So what had caused my aura to expand to the point that I actually felt the normally intangible energy?
I tiptoed back to the hallway and scrutinized the body. The man’s bald head, trim brown beard, and mustache didn’t ring my familiar bells. Criminals were sure well-dressed, or he was wearing his charcoal, pin-stripe suit for a funeral. I hoped it wasn’t for my funeral. “Not much of a Scrambler, are you?” I kicked his thigh. “Maybe you’re a wannabe.” Maybe I was a Scrambler. Holy mother of illegal magic.
The quaking in my hands fled across my entire body. Backing out of arm’s length in case he awakened, I called casino security. City cops didn’t show their faces on California casino property without an in-house security request first. New laws for an era of overpopulation and legalized stupidity. In a shaky voice, I informed the officer that I’d apprehended a burglar. The grumpy security man of the hour wasn’t too jazzed to hear about a breach in their high-tech system, but assured me he’d dispatch a man stat.
Minutes later, the doorbell gonged. On wobbly legs, I managed to jog to the front door. A badge flashed through the peephole. I disarmed the alarm, opened the door. My breath left me in a rush. “You guys are quick.”
I looked up and up into the handsome, arrogant face of a broad, muscular guy as he slipped his wallet into his jeans pocket. He appeared twenty-one, same age as me. Shoulder-length black hair framed sun-kissed skin that took poker face to a glacial extreme. Then he cracked. Concern flashed across his somber expression, and his gaze drank me in before his gray-flecked, blue eyes flicked over me, assessing, discounting. The hair of his right eyebrow was a strange shade lighter than his left, emphasizing his disregard.
“R.L. Walker,” he said as if I had a sticky note with the answer pasted on my brow. He hauled a gun out of a shoulder holster and shoved past me, nearly knocking me against the wall.
His aura tangled around mine in a way I’d never experienced. Harmless, it seemed to seek relief, leaving a tingly sensation over my exposed skin. I froze, held my breath.
The strange sensation dissipated as quickly as it hit. Maybe the Scrambler had screwed me up. “Geez, what’d I do, interrupt your snooze fest?” I scurried down the hall behind him.
“Stay here.” Without waiting for an invite, his long legs hiked over the downed intruder as though stepping over a twelve-pound cat.
Speaking of which…my two felonious felines proceeded to sniff Old Spice. Arms crossed to keep myself from wilting into a puddle of terror, I waited in the living room. After he swept the entire condo, Security Goon barreled out of my bedroom. I checked out his snug jeans, black boots, black T-shirt, and black leather jacket. A cliché in the making? Did he wear black skivvies too? All the security guards wore plainclothes at the Stargazer, so his appearance wasn’t unusual.
He fingered the Scrambler’s neck pulse. “Did you call the cops?”
“No.” I rolled my eyes. “Isn’t that your job?” My cats dared to rub against Rent-a-Cop. I tried shooing the furry traitors away with gentle toe jabs, but they wouldn’t spare me a morsel of their time. What was up with that? My cats hated the male species.
Suspicion erased his blank expression. “Who did you call?”
“You.” I hugged my arms tighter to my chest. “Aren’t you a casino watchdog?”
Straightening, his eyes bored into my face. “Did you call them?” He stuck his gun into his shoulder holster, a good sign he didn’t plan to use me for target practice.
Bowing my head, I pooled my sketchy mental resources and knotted a knockout spell in slow motion—a fancy way of saying I’d spring an electric emanation on his mind that’d send him to Snoozeville. Why hadn’t I examined his badge closer? I swallowed my renewed turmoil and glimpsed the stun gun where I’d dumped it on the chest across the hall, next to Fake Cop. Did I have enough mental energy left to protect myself?
My gaze flitted from his chest to his face. “Who are you?”
“He’s dead. Call security off.”
As my dwindling brain waves dissipated, my “knockout spell” unraveled as fast as it knitted together. I wagged my head, dispelling my mental sludge. “Not until you tell me who the hell you are and what you’re doing here.”
He tapped his foot on the floor. “Ronan Riley. I’m bagging your ass to keep it alive.”
“Alive?” My eyelashes twitched up a breeze.
He snatched up my cell, stabbed redial, and handed it to me. “Call them off.”
“Or what?” I tugged my torn blouse over my lacy pink bra.
Ronan pointed at the intruder. “Or you’ll face murder charges, if you live long enough.”
Those icy eyes pierced me, bright and beautiful against his winter tan. Energy rolled off him, and I shivered from a sensation of familiarity, almost like a connection. Heat flared low in my middle, startling me with confusing inappropriateness.
“Right. The sleazebag may be out cold—” I bent over the Scrambler. Ronan jerked my hand down and pressed my fingers to the man’s lifeless pulse. The phone clicked on at the other end and I stuttered as my brain malfunctioned, “Aria Walker from P14. Ummm…false alarm on the burglar. Safe word, Triskelion. Just my boyfriend playing bonehead games.” I waited for dismissal, then shoved the phone in my jeans pocket.
Through slit eyes, I studied Ronan’s dark Viking build compared to my fair, petite stature. As night and day as women and men. Renewed warmth flushed my neck. I twisted my hands and scanned the unconscious intruder. Ronan’s words registered. “He’s only knocked out, right?” I whispered.
He landed his assessing glare on me. “Did you feel his pulse? You have no clue, do you? He’s dead.”
“No. No.” My knees buckled. I’d have kissed the floor if Ronan hadn’t swept me into his arms.
He carried me into the living room, dumped me on the couch, and backed away as if I’d sprouted dragon wings and spewed fire. “Water?”
“No. Thanks.” I stuck my head between my knees, fighting the nausea inching up from my stomach.
“Your first kill?” Ronan’s deep voice penetrated my chaotic thoughts.
“First…kill?” I closed my eyes. I couldn’t even kill an ant. Bug spray didn’t count. How could I have done that? Was that what had happened? Oh, God. No. The room spun.
“I know who you are, R.L. Walker.” Arrogant impatience layered his voice.
“Obviously not, since my name’s Aria.” I screwed a lid on my raging horror. I had to deal with the…situation. I had to deal with Ronan. Hoping the nausea stayed buried, I lifted my head.
No one ever called me R.L. except my… Holy shit, Batman. He’d called me that twice. I gaped at Ronan the barbarian. “How do you know me?”
He hunched down to my level. “I knew your father for a minute. He called you R.L., short for Aria Elle.” Empathy spooled off him in waves.
I longed for someone to fix this mess, to tell me what to do. Instead, I focused on his words. He knew my father? That rat-bastard who’d split from my life when I was six? The man who vanished into thin air, leaving his family behind.
Ronan stood to his full height. “We’ll talk about him…and other things later.” His hard voice held no sympathy. “Right now, we need to haul ass.”
Numb, I rose from the couch. He cupped my elbow, steadied me. His touch baffling and uncomfortable, I cast him off and clutched my throat. “What did you mean
by first kill?”
“I caused my first bad luck kill when I was fourteen. On a Friday the thirteenth.”
Chapter 2
Another telekinetic plagued by bad luck? I twisted around to face Ronan. His grim face halted my inquisition. Small disappointment pricked my heart in learning I was no longer one of a kind, but a warm rush of excitement quickly eclipsed it. My earlier intuition at a connection between us was right on the money. Had a door opened in the life of my aimlessness? The door hidden from me as I searched for my true place? Everyone had died and/or left me too soon, leaving much unsaid and undone, enhancing my bumble into a world in which I never felt connected.
Over the last few years, I’d searched high and low for others like me, hoping I’d blunder upon hidden talents, since magic was illegal to practice. It’s not like people walked around flaunting their abilities and risked arrest. My strange abilities weren’t documented anywhere and spoon-bending, book-flying show-and-tell tricks were all I’d ever shown Zoe, my most trustworthy confidant. Although there hadn’t been a forbidden magic death penalty case in decades, I certainly wasn’t going to become a freak-frenzy for the media and law enforcement.
Fearing the unknown, the New Urban World government, known as NUW, established twenty odd years ago, continued the antiquated laws against magic. If anyone exhibited magical ability above a certain kindergarten level—gifting of gemstones for their positive energy properties and palm, tarot card, and crystal ball readings—they were put on the government’s Paranormal Science Practitioners list, otherwise known as PSPs or just plain paranormals. It was like going on the terrorist watch or the FBI’s most wanted lists. Once on the PSP list, you couldn’t pop a squat without calling someone first. Big Brother at its finest.
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