Psychic for Hire Series Box Set

by Hermione Stark

  “Er, no, the amulet’s fine, I think.”

  “You should ask her to come and see me. If it really is a spiritual possession I am sure I can do something to remove the spirit. Most of the weaker spirits aren’t terribly complicated to remove, and if it’s the pain that she’s worried about—”

  “Thanks, Theo, but it’s not the pain. Really. I appreciate your concern though.”

  It is best to cut Theo off before he demands outright whether it is me who is having the problem. I’d told the lie before I really knew him, and now that we are friends it has been bothering me immensely. I don’t want to lie to him. If only it had been a simple possession I would have gone to him in a heartbeat. But how can I tell him that I’ve got a murderous little entity inside my head that calls herself Nemesis, who may or may not be the Angel of Death?

  A car crash at age fifteen had left me with amnesia and no memory of my life before that. All I know is that since I was fifteen I have had a little voice in my head that had protected me from dangers I’d been too scared to face alone. She’d told me I was the Angel of Death, and I hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry about it. I’d just accepted it as the truth.

  It hadn’t been so bad. I was human and ‘Angel of Death’ had just been meaningless words to me. So I had a weird navelstone. So my wounds healed overnight in my sleep. It meant nothing. I’d gotten used to thinking of the little voice as my angry little friend. But that was before she’d taken over my body three weeks ago and attempted to murder someone.

  The amulet Theo had given me had had the blessed effect of shutting her up for good. I haven’t heard a peep out of her these past three weeks. It has been such a relief to no longer worry about her taking over my body when I am too tired or emotionally overwrought to stop her.

  The only problem is that Theo’s amulet seems to have cut off my psychic powers too. It can’t be a coincidence. It has to be the amulet. And I need those psychic powers back.

  “Where are you?” Theo asks suddenly.

  “Walking home.”

  “And talking on the phone at the same time?” His voice has risen an octave in dismay. “You’d better get off and keep your wits about you.”

  Chapter 3

  STORM

  Special Agent Constantine Storm crouches over the dismembered hand, scrutinizing the cut marks at the severed wrist. He is in a narrow road, little more than an alleyway, off a main commercial street in Shoreditch, a stone’s throw from the city’s banking and financial district. The alleyway stinks of urine from late-night drunkards staggering home after a night out.

  It is Sunday evening and this part of the city is like a ghost town on the weekends. Come Monday the main roads will be thriving again. The cleaning crew that had arrived to clean up the streets today before the weekly influx of the working population tomorrow had made the gruesome find.

  The hand is small. Storm judges it belonged to a young female going by the smoothness of the skin and the shimmering gold polish on the freshly manicured nails.

  Agent Leo Kane, a member of Storm’s team, is standing next to him. “Smells like it was dismembered a couple of days ago,” Leo says.

  “The coroner needs to confirm that,” says Detective Inspector Brynden Zael somewhat tetchily.

  Ten minutes ago DI Zael of the London Metropolitan Police had been the Senior Investigation Officer in charge of this new case. That had changed the minute Storm arrived at the scene. Zael did not seem to be taking the shift in authority kindly, particularly since Storm is clearly the younger of the two by several years.

  DI Zael appears in his early thirties, and whatever vigor got him promoted to his current rank seems to have left him already. His clothes are slightly disheveled as if he hadn’t expected to need to get dressed for work on a Sunday.

  Storm is aware that the only reason DI Zael had called in the Agency of Otherkind Investigations was the worry of this possibly being another Wolf-Claw Killer victim. Wolf-Claw is in the Agency’s jurisdiction and the case had been assigned to Storm’s team.

  Storm and Leo exchange a glance but neither of them responds to DI Zael’s comment. Leo is Storm’s trusted second-in-command, an experienced agent and a werewolf to boot. If he says the hand smells a couple of days old, Storm believes him.

  The cut on the wrist looks too clean, certainly compared to the savagery of the Wolf-Claw Killer’s other attacks. But then again, to strike a blow capable of taking a hand off like that would require a lot of strength. The kind of strength a werewolf has even in human form.

  “Werewolf?” Storm asks Leo.

  Leo shakes his head. “Cleaning crew’s chemicals have washed any scent markers away.”

  DI Zael huffs grumpily. “Where the hell is the rest of her is what I want to know,” he says. “You don’t just walk off leaving your hand behind. We’ve called the nearest hospitals but they haven't had anyone turn up handless. The girl must be dead somewhere.”

  “This hand was found two hours ago, shortly after 6:30 pm, is that right?” says Storm.

  DI Zael nods.

  “And the cleaning vehicle came from a northerly direction down this street?” Storm gestures at the truck which is parked in the middle of the road and facing him.

  DI Zael glances at the truck and shrugs his shoulder. “Sure, I guess.”

  Storm walks past the truck, thinking out loud. “So the truck came from over there and gathered up the hand in its cleaning brushes somewhere along the way.”

  Storm glances behind him. Some distance down the alleyway is the back entrance of a pub called The Half Moon that is popular with city types. “Let’s assume she was at that pub on Friday night, at the end of a working week. She walked in this direction before being attacked.” Storm keeps walking, retracing what may have been the girl’s route. Leo and DI Zael follow him.

  At the end of the street Storm reaches the police cordon that is sectioning off the alleyway and crime scene. He glances around. To his left the alley turns off to a private car parking area belonging to a neighboring office building. It is guarded by a closed gate. Storm goes towards it and pushes the gate. It swings open easily.

  The ground here is tarmac. Storm crouches to take a closer look. The cleaning crew have not touched this area. Against the black ground Storm sees a large stain that may be blood. Storm glances up at the wall of the office building. He spots a security camera over-looking the parking bay entrance.

  “Did you ask for the footage from that camera?” he asks DI Zael.

  “Sure, sure, we’ll get it,” says DI Zael.

  He calls over one of his officers and dispatches him to the task. Storm tries not to look irritated. If this is the work of the Wolf-Claw Killer then the last thing he needs is DI Zael’s careless attitude getting in his way. But until they’ve established what this is, he is going to have to deal with the man.

  “Let’s assume the girl walked from the bar to here,” Storm theorizes. “The assailant arrives either in a vehicle or on foot, forcing her towards the parking bay and blocking her exit. He attacks her. Her hand is dismembered in the attack with enough force to land somewhere in the street. He either pulls her into his vehicle and leaves or…”

  Storm pauses as looks around, his mind busily working out which alternative scenarios could have taken place. He looks at Leo who is frowning and turning first this way and then the other. The breeze here is buffeting off the walls, tossing any scents in every direction.

  “It’s unlikely he wanted to take her alive,” says Leo.

  Storm nods in agreement.

  “How’s that?” DI Zael demands.

  “He wouldn’t have attacked with such force if he wanted her alive,” says Leo.

  Storm walks into the parking bay. It is empty. No cars. Nothing but a bank of large bins at the back.

  “The girl runs this way in an effort to escape.” He crouches but he cannot see much of a blood trail on the dark and dirty tarmac. “No. He’s already killed her back there. She bled o
ut. He drags or carries her here, away from the street, to stop her body being discovered too soon.”

  Leo is frowning at the bins. DI Zael marches to them and throws them open with gusto and little regard for forensic integrity. “Nothing in here,” he shouts. “They’re empty.”

  Storm walks carefully to the bins. He crouches and looks beneath them. The girl is there, her slender body shoved beneath a bin like discarded trash. She is long dead. A small spangly gold handbag is at her side, its contents spilled onto the ground. Storm calls over a forensics tech to take photos before he carefully picks up the girl’s purse. He finds a driving license inside it.

  The picture on it is of the same girl. Her smile is wide, her blue eyes twinkling beneath the thick black bangs tumbling over her forehead. She looks sweet, and far too young to be dead.

  “She was celebrating her birthday,” Storm says.

  “You a psychic or something?” scoffs DI Zael.

  “Doesn’t take a psychic,” says Leo impatiently.

  “Her twenty-third birthday was on Friday,” says Storm. “And look at her dress.”

  It is snug and scarlet, a world away from the prim pearl-buttoned blouse she is wearing in her driving license photo. This dress is not her usual attire. She had dressed to impress. To celebrate her life.

  “Rachel Garrett,” Storm murmurs. “Who did this to you, Rachel?”

  Chapter 4

  DIANA

  It is Monday and my lunch date with India is due. I’ve had butterflies in my stomach since I decided what to wear this morning. I can’t tell if it is excitement or nerves, but one thing’s for sure — I seriously need to get more of a life if the mere prospect of a new friend can reduce me to this.

  It is 12:44 pm and Theo is not down yet, which is not good because I need to leave soon if I am going to meet India on time.

  Theo lives in an apartment above the magic shop and these days he rarely wakes before midday, which is unsurprising given that he’s often up most of the night reading his books or perfecting some new invention or other. Some days he doesn’t even get up until mid-afternoon, which is good for me because I suspect this is the very reason he has given me a job.

  Most days I have my lunch here. Most days I would not even think of waking him. Today is not most days.

  At 12:45 pm on the dot I send Theo a text message. ‘Theo, I’m leaving in five minutes. Do you want me to shut the store over lunch?’

  ‘No. I’ll be down soon,’ he replies.

  Not trusting him not to fall back asleep, I write back, ‘Okay. I will flip the sign to Closed and lock up until you get here.’

  As I grab my satchel, Mozz chooses this moment to appear. She looks like she has awoken from a nap. “Where you going?” she says sleepily.

  I scoop her up and cannot resist planting a kiss on her cheek. It makes her giggle.

  “I’m going to meet a new friend.”

  “New fwend?” She wrinkles her nose.

  “Yes. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  “Mozzawella can come too?” she enquires.

  “No, Mozz baby. You know you can’t come with me.”

  “But Mozzawella bored. Mozzawella and Diana play a game now?” She gives me a wide-eyed pleading look. It never fails to tug at my heart, no matter how often I have told myself she isn’t the toddler she looks like, and has managed to get along perfectly well for many years without me.

  “Aww, Mozz baby. I promise we can play a game when I come back. And in the meantime Beastie will keep you company. Okay?”

  She nods solemnly, declaring, “Okay,” in her cute little voice and happily going off in search of Beastie.

  Twenty minutes later I am waiting outside the café that India and I agreed to meet at. I had arrived on time. She is ten minutes late. I hadn’t even thought to ask her for her phone number, and she doesn’t have mine. It being peak lunch hour in trendy Soho, the café is packed. Through the window, I see a couple vacate a table. I decide to go in and grab it before someone else does. Surely India will think to look for me inside.

  I take a seat and put India’s bottle of wolfsbane potion on the table so that I do not forget to give it to her. It is wrapped securely in a brown paper bag.

  The couple have left their newspaper behind. It is a free edition of the Metro that I usually read on the bus on the way in to work in the mornings, but today I had fallen asleep while scanning a manual on using crystals to unlock the psychic mind. The manual hadn’t been of much help for my particular problem anyway. I turn over the newspaper to take a look at the front page.

  The headline screams, ‘Police Cover-up As Wolf-Claw Strikes Again!’

  My heart goes from sluggish to pounding in a second flat. I quickly scour the column. The article speculates that a crime scene had been cordoned off in Shoreditch yesterday evening and Special Agents from the Agency of Otherkind Investigations had been seen arriving at the scene.

  The article has a frustrating lack of any real information. Mostly it recaps the timing and details of the previous murders and speculates that another was overdue. It says that the London Met Police are cooperating closely with the Agency.

  The Agency. I wonder if that means Storm’s team.

  On the front page of the paper are the images of the girls that the werewolf had savaged to death - ranging from age fifteen to eighteen, all similar looking with their sweet features and hair in varying degrees of blond.

  If I’d had my psychic powers, would I have dreamed of them? Could I have saved any of them? Have I made the wrong choice by choosing to keep wearing Theo’s amulet? These are the thoughts that haunt me every time I see this news story.

  I turn over the page, and find a grainy black and white photo on the second page. It was taken at night, and shows the Special Agents working at the scene of the crime. My pulse rockets when I spot Storm. The picture is too grainy and the figure too distant to really tell for sure that it is him, but I know it is.

  If Storm is there then it has to be another Wolf-Claw Kill. Not that any of the team have contacted me to let me know if they are working the Wolf-Claw case, but I have no doubt that they will be. Storm’s team is the Agency’s top team for murders involving otherkind. It makes sense they would be working this case.

  It stings that Storm hasn’t even messaged me about it. It has been three weeks since I practically solved the copycat Devil Claw case on my own, and the chief had agreed that Storm could continue to hire me as a consultant on a case-by-case basis, but Storm hasn’t called me once. Not once.

  Oh, I had gone for dinner with the team that Monday after catching the killer. It had been like a little celebration for a case closed, but no other dinner invitations had been forthcoming. Not even from Remi.

  I sigh. I should probably be glad. If Storm called me I would have to tell him my psychic powers are on the blink, and then he might never call me again. I am still hoping I will have them sorted before he makes that call. I have to get them sorted. I will get them sorted. I will. Because I need to work for the Agency if I am ever going to catch the Devil Claw Killer and make him suffer for what he did to my mother.

  The café’s door opens and a swift breeze rushes in with a bunch of new customers. I glance up hoping to see India, but she is not among them. I check the time on my phone. She is twenty-five minutes late. That’s nearly half my lunch hour gone. I feel a twinge of disappointment. Something has no doubt held her up. I can’t wait for her much longer. I flag down a waitress and order a panini and a tea.

  After eating it I find myself yawning again. I decide to rest my head on the table for a few minutes, and next thing I know I am raising my head from the table and blinking blearily and realizing it is ten past two. Not only is my lunch hour over, but I should have been back at the office ten minutes ago!

  Swallowing my disappointment that India never turned up, I grab India’s wolfsbane potion and run back to the shop.

  The front door of Grimshaw’s is still locked, just as I had l
eft it. Either Theo has not come down or he is pottering around his workshop working on some new project. Unlocking the door, I let myself in.

  A man follows me in, so close at my heels that he must have been just outside. And yet I had not noticed him.

  “Diana Bellona?” he says.

  I turn to him in surprise, feeling totally creeped out that he knows my name. I’ve never told my full name to anyone, not even the regulars, and he is not one of them.

  “Maybe. How can I help?”

  The man is of average height, a couple of inches shy of six feet, with muddy brown hair and a day or two’s worth of stubble on his cheeks. Early thirties maybe, and wearing smart-casual clothes that are more rumpled than smart. He might have come into the store before, but I can’t be sure.