Hollywood Hills (Medium Mysteries Book 3)

by Eve Paludan

  I let out a sigh. “No? Not going to leave?”

  The warrior shook his head again and pointed to the woods once more. I looked toward the woods and a bunch of demonic eyes blinked from every bush. Oh, hell, no. I wasn’t walking into his ambush.

  He’d left me no choice. I raised both of my hands with my palms facing him, but that was mostly a bluff. I felt a disturbing lack of medium power within me.

  For his part, the warrior wasn’t going to wait for me to figure out my power outage. He raised the weapon in his hand—a wooden club of sorts—and charged straight at me. I released a wave of power—as weak as it was—from my hands and straight at the warrior. He used the weapon in his hand to absorb the stream of energy from my hands. He grinned at me as if to tell me I couldn’t hurt him.

  And, with my powers weakened, I worried that maybe I couldn’t. I swallowed hard and I put even more of my focus and energy into banishing the warrior. But, with a flick of his wrists, the warrior blew me backward. I painfully fell on my butt with a grunt. “Hey, no fair! Nothing is supposed to hurt in here!”

  The warrior smiled at me, relishing his triumph. He strode over to me, his smile turning predatory as he raised his weapon over his head. He let out a triumphant cry as he prepared to smash in my head. But I grabbed hold of his legs.

  He looked at me, shocked. I poured even more of my energy into my hands and slowly, the warrior began to fade. It wasn’t long before he was nearly transparent. And then, he was gone. The things out in the woods beyond the circle—those dark entities that filled Amanda’s soul—howled in outrage and anger. But they dared not step into the light to make a move on me.

  I stood and stared at them. I wasn’t about to venture into the woods to evict them. Not with my power as diminished as it was. I had to figure out what was going on.

  In the center of the field, a canary-yellow door with a green frame hung just above the ground. The door—and this whole field and world I was standing in—was just a mental representation created in my own mind.

  It was my own brain’s way of making sense of just how abstract the inside of somebody’s mind and body were. It had taken me quite a while to learn how to create these representations. And these were things I was trying to teach my students—when I wasn’t canceling or handing off my classes to Julie, anyway.

  I walked to the door, opened it, and stepped through it...and opened my eyes to find my own face staring down at me. I’d successfully managed to insert my consciousness into Amanda’s body.

  “Amanda?” I asked, back in my apartment. Weird, but cool.

  “Pauline?” Amanda—who was in my body—asked. “What happened?” Amanda looked down at my body. She felt her face. Her hair. She touched every conceivable part of her body, in shock to find herself in my body and not her own. And me in her body.

  “You were possessed by the spirit of a Native American warrior back at the drumming circle,” I replied. “I had to switch our consciousnesses to evict him and get him out of your body.”

  She gasped, recalling the series of frightful events. “I remember feeling like somebody had taken control of me. Tried to get me to do—things. Bad things.”

  “Mack,” I called out, sitting up. “Where’s Mack?”

  “You rang?” Mack stepped through the wall with a smile on his face.

  “How did it go?” I asked. “Did you convince the warrior to cross over?”

  “He wasn’t really pleased with it. Kept talking about getting revenge on the woman with the fire hands or something like that. Seems like you really upset him by kicking him out of Amanda’s body.”

  “But, did he leave?” Amanda asked. “There’s a ghost in the room!”

  “Relax. That’s my friend, Mack. He’s one of the good guys.”

  “Hello,” Mack said, waving at her with his rippling shape. “The warrior guy left. He went into the light. Home. No one else came out, though.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. “Amanda, do you feel like your strength has been—sapped?”

  She cocked her head and looked at me. “No, actually. If anything, I feel stronger than I think I ever have. It’s really strange, actually. Especially since I am in your body, which hasn’t seen a workout, apparently, for some years.” She let loose with my cigarette cough and said, “Oh, gross.”

  “Yeah, it is. I know.”

  I had to stop and think. How was my power cut, but she somehow got stronger in my body? It made no sense. She, like me, had her own problems with addiction, so her spirit would also have been weakened. I stood and pondered over what had happened.

  “There are still some strong, dark entities within you, Amanda,” I said. “They were in you when I met you.”

  She nodded. “I know. I can feel them, hear them. But when I’m in my own body, I also know that I don’t have the power to get rid of them.”

  “Empaths can be powerful, too.”

  “Is that what I am?”

  “For lack of a better description, yes. Maybe if you find a way to cure your own addictions...” I suggested.

  “And you with yours.”

  “Touché.”

  I let it hang in the air between us. I had no doubt that if she addressed her addictions, she’d be able to dispose of those dark entities, once and for all.

  “So, are we going to switch our bodies back now that the warrior is literally off my back?” Amanda asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t have the strength just yet. Fighting that warrior took a lot out of me. He was so strong. I need time to recharge.”

  “Oh. How long do you think that will take?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “So, I’m stuck in your body? And you’re stuck in mine?”

  I nodded. “Temporarily.” I stood in front of a full-length mirror in my entryway. I was gorgeous. I was absolutely stunning. Or at least, I was in Amanda’s body. I was just a temporary passenger in her skin.

  Still, as I looked at her body that I’d entered, at how gorgeous she was, it made me wonder what it would be like to be her—to turn heads whenever I walked into a room, or have men clamoring for my attention.

  Amanda—in my body—stepped up behind me and watched herself. “We make quite the unlikely pair, don’t we?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I think you were right and we should get to that house where you’re going to be shooting the movie on Monday,” I said. “I need to check and see what the situation with the spirits is up there. It might take me a little while to get them all out of the house and into the light.”

  She nodded. “Maybe we can get some answers to questions I have. But first of all, when do you think we’re going to be able to change bodies again?”

  I laughed. “Don’t worry, Amanda, we’ll be able to switch back soon. I just need to restore my power. And while we’re waiting on that, might as well go check out this house. See how badly it’s haunted and see what we can do to clean it out.”

  “Mind if I tag along?” Mack asked.

  “Bless you. I was already going to ask you to come with us,” I replied and smiled at myself in the mirror.

  “No offense, but I like you better in your own body, Pauline,” he said. “Trying to talk to you—but seeing Amanda’s face—is throwing me off.”

  “It’s only temporary.” I extended my smile. “Do you have directions to the house, Amanda?”

  “I’ve only been there once. I’m just pulling them up in my phone.”

  “Well, then, let’s head on out there, huh?”

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  “Wait! I have to go do something.” I ran into the bathroom, slammed the door and tore off my clothes so I could see myself in the bathroom wall mirror. After a few seconds, I said, “I’m gorgeous!”

  Amanda banged on the door and yelled, “That’s my body, Pauline! Don’t you dare mess it up because I want it back in the same condition that you entered it. If you pig out on ice cream, I swear, I’ll kill you.”

  I l
aughed and replied, “Don’t mess up my body either.”

  “That would be impossible,” came her terse reply. “Your tongue tastes like stale tobacco, your lung capacity stinks, and I keep thinking about how good a frozen margarita would taste right now. It’s like constant drink o’clock in your body.”

  “That’s me all right.” I paused. “If it makes you feel any better, I have this urgent need for speed that I don’t understand. I have this desire to drive about ninety miles an hour to a place where I can get some nose candy and then have lots of hot sex.”

  “Welcome to my world,” she said. “The world of a coke and sex addict. Kinky sex.”

  I gasped. “Holy cow, I didn’t know about the sex addict part. I don’t even want to know about the kinky part.”

  “Promise you won’t do those things in my body,” she said.

  “Promise you won’t drink or smoke in my body.”

  “I would pinky swear, but this is going to be hard.” She paused. “I want my body back.”

  “Me, too,” I said, unconvincingly. Oh, hell, yes. I felt amazing. I wanted to see what this body could do. I wanted to shop for bikinis. I wanted to try on all of Amanda’s clothes and take selfies of my outfit of the day, or OOTD, and put them on Instagram.

  What the hell am I thinking?

  I hurried to put clothes back on and exited the bathroom. I tried to act casual, but it was hard to do that when I was so hyper and so needy and so…beautiful.

  I flipped my long, shiny blonde hair over my tanned, shapely shoulder as Amanda, in my shorter, plumper body, grimaced at herself in the mirror and stuck out a tongue at the reflection.

  “We need to make an emergency stop at a donut shop,” she said. “This quitting-smoking thing you have going on is going to suck if I don’t have some sugar to appease my cravings that your body is having.”

  “Well, I have this sudden urge to go to LA Fitness and do an hour on the elliptical trainer while listening to Taylor Swift music,” I said.

  She laughed. “That’s totally me.”

  Mack chimed in, “Will you two please stop horsing around in each other’s bodies? Let’s get this freak show on the road.”

  Chapter Eight

  In Amanda’s body, after I adjusted the seat backward to accommodate her ridiculously long legs, I drove my car much too fast. I would probably get mailed a speeding ticket or a lane-change ticket because of doing it in the HOV lane. We arrived at the set location in Hollywood Hills in record time…only to find that we were not alone at the mansion. Not by a long shot.

  “What is going on here?” Amanda asked, her irritation clear. It was weird to hear her speaking in my voice…from my body. In fact, I had a pretty good case of the willies, which was not easy to do to a medium.

  Either I was freaked out by our polyphony transference, or I really needed to put some sort of substance in my body. If I’d thought alcohol was hard to kick in my own body, I had a different obsession in hers. She was used to doing cocaine and apparently, a lot of it. I was shaking a bit when we got to the house and the unexpected sight of dozens of partiers had me feeling a bit paranoid for her sobriety, as well as mine.

  We all got out of the car—me, still in Amanda’s body, Amanda, still in mine, and Mack, in his amorphous form—and surveyed the scene in front of us. Rather than it being an empty house—a closed and locked set, ready for filming, come Monday—instead, it was the scene of what looked to be one hell of a Hollywood Hills house party, complete with raucous laughter, music, and the smells, sights, and emotions of lots of people, which threw me for a loop as a medium.

  I could feel people’s emotions surging with a party atmosphere all around me. Apparently, Amanda really was an empath. I should have had this information before I had switched bodies with her. But I hadn’t.

  Lights blazed in every window and the sound of music—loud and annoying music—reverberated through the air around us.

  “Did you know anything about this bash?” I asked Amanda.

  “Of course not, and don’t go throwing those dated expressions out of my mouth or people are going to know it’s not me in my body,” she replied.

  “Right, I’ll try to be more cool.”

  “Don’t say the word ‘cool,’ either,” she advised. “It’s a dead giveaway that you’re not me.”

  “You betcha,” I replied, taking mental notes on Being Amanda 101.

  She face-palmed…my face. “What the hell, Pauline. You sound like you’ve escaped from the movie, Fargo.”

  “Oops. My bad,” I said.

  “There you go. That sounds like me. This set is supposed to be closed and locked. I have no idea who’s throwing this random party.”

  “Well, whoever it is,” Mack said, “it certainly looks like they know how to throw a party. Cocktails for sixty, anyone? Apparently, the bar is open.”

  I turned to him. “I guess the only way to find out what’s going on and who’s responsible for this party is to go have a look.”

  We walked from the car to the front door of the house. People in various states of intoxication and stages of undress loitered on the front entryway, talking and laughing far too loudly. The smell of clove cigarettes and nicer alcohol than I usually drank saturated the air and stirred up the cravings within me. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I stuffed it all down. I had work to do here. Medium work.

  We strode into an elaborate foyer crowded with people—both the living and the dead. Even though my consciousness was in Amanda’s body and my powers were slightly diminished, I could see the fuzzy, out-of-focus shapes of the departed mingling amongst the throng of live people. But nobody else seemed to notice them.

  “We’ve got company,” I announced and flipped that long, shiny blonde hair again. I could get used to having such shiny hair and flipping it in that look-at-me way. I wondered how much her regular Brazilian blowouts cost. And it was fun being tall, tanned and lanky with actual pointy hipbones that jutted ahead of my…lankiness. Hoo, boy, I’m going to have a hard time switching back to my shorter, lumpier body.

  “I see them, Pauline,” Amanda whispered to me. “In your body, I can see all of the spirits in this place. It’s scary.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, this place is filled to the rafters with them. I can feel people’s emotions in your body. Big time.”

  “I hardly had time to warn you about my crazy penchant for feeling the needs and desires of the people around me,” Amanda said from my Pauline body. “Let alone their silly angst that nowhere near approaches my own.”

  “Apparently,” I said. “It’s been no picnic being Amanda Jordan.”

  “It has its plusses and minuses,” she quipped. “The outer shell makes up for a lot.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Amanda!” called out a woman, who rushed over and wrapped me up in a tight embrace. She reeked of booze and smokes and Chanel.

  “Uh—hi?” I said.

  “So good to see you, Amanda,” the woman gushed. “I’m so glad you’re here. We all thought you were away for the weekend.”

  “Yeah, uh, my plans changed. I’m glad to be here, too. Among friends.”

  “Awesome. Well, we’re glad you’re here.” The woman rushed off.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “That was Darlene,” Amanda said. “She’s our hair and makeup artist. Thanks for not asking her name, which would have blown our cover.”

  “Ahh,” I said. “I see this entire evening is going to be like playing Clue. I’m going to jump right in and say it was Miss Scarlett, in the library, with the lead pipe.”

  She laughed and, hearing it come out of my body, I realized how much I liked my own laugh.

  I grabbed her hand. “We need to stick together. Come on, you.”

  Mack followed us as we moved deeper into the house with Amanda smiling and waving to people who gave her strange, curious expressions in return. Because, oh, yeah, she was doing it from inside my body.

  “Amanda,” I whispered, “No
body knows it’s you in my body.”

  “I keep forgetting that.”

  I gave her a sheepish grin. “Do you know all of these people?”

  “Yeah, I see a lot of the cast and crew of the movie we’re supposed to be shooting on Monday. There are a few faces I haven’t seen before.”

  “Amanda, you’re here!” came a deep voice with a very sexy accent.

  A tingle swept through me, all the way down to there…it was a different tingle than I had ever felt in my own body. Weird, but pleasant.

  Amanda’s eyes grew wide as a tall, dark, and very handsome Hispanic man pulled me into a tight embrace and planted the kiss of a lifetime on my lips. It seemed to go on forever—but not nearly long enough because my toes curled. And when his fingers tracked down the length of my spine, my knees nearly buckled from the waves of pleasure that he caused.

  “Hi,” I managed to say. What in the hell is his name?

  His firm grip on me and his passionate kiss sent little jolts of electricity surging through my body—Amanda’s body. It awakened something in me that I hadn’t felt in—hell, I didn’t even know how long. The man was beautiful, he smelled fantastic, and his mouth tasted even better, like expensive champagne. I wasn’t ready for the kiss to end when he pulled away and looked at me, a wide smile upon his face.

  “I’m so glad you are here, querida,” he said, his rich accent melting my heart—and other things within this body I inhabited. “I wasn’t sure you were going to come.”

  He was calling me his beloved in Spanish. I only knew this from watching The Addams Family. “I—uh—wasn’t sure either. My friend, Pauline and I had to leave the spa weekend early.”

  “Why, what happened?”

  “You don’t want to know. Trust me,” I said.

  As the handsome man gave me a confused stare, I felt someone elbow me from behind and I shot a look at Amanda, who was staring daggers into me from my body. I gave her an innocent expression that tried to convey I had no idea who this man was or why he’d kissed me like that, though I wasn’t going to complain about that last part. Of course, given Amanda’s jealous expression, I wasn’t about to tell her that.