Psychic for Hire Series Box Set

by Hermione Stark

  “Is that really all you are going to tell me?” I say incredulously.

  “I’ll keep you updated when I have all of the information,” he says, and to my frustration he hangs up.

  I glare in annoyance at my phone. It’s so typical of Storm to tell me to do something but not give me all of the information.

  “Problem?” says Theo looking amused.

  “It’s fine,” I mutter. Theo is far too observant sometimes. I don’t want him knowing what I might or might not feel for Storm. Or how irritating I think the damn man is.

  Theo has already gone to stand over India’s bed, and now he turns his attention back to scrutinizing her. I go over to her and Theo.

  “I was hoping you might be able to help her. They said she is in a coma. Is there some kind of magic you could use to help her to wake up?”

  Theo is frowning. “Actually,” he says. “I think it might be magic that has been used to do this to her. You said that the hospital said that there is nothing physically wrong with her?”

  I nod. “They couldn’t find anything that might have caused her to slip into a coma. They don’t know if she came in by herself and passed out in the waiting room or if someone brought her in. Accident and emergency was so busy that no one noticed. She looked just like another ailing person waiting to be called up. She could have been there for hours. She’s stable, but she won’t wake up. Why do you think its magic? Can you sense something?”

  The very first time that I had come into his magic shop Theo had told me that he could sense I had magic. I assume as a wizard that he must be finely attuned to the presence of magic.

  Theo nods. “It’s the most curious thing,” he says. “I have no idea how this could be, but it feels like my magic.”

  “Your magic? Well, she did come into your store on Friday,” I say. “Could that have left some trace of your magic on her?”

  “No. It feels like one of my spells. Like the sort of magic that I would bind into an amulet. It’s localized on her body, but I can’t actually see anything on her.” He raises an eyebrow at me and gestures at India’s prone body on the bed. “Perhaps you can check?”

  India looks just like she is sleeping. I hope that she doesn’t mind when I ease back the sheet covering her. The nurses have put her into a hospital gown. I have no idea where she could have come by one of Theo’s amulets, but if he says that is what he is sensing, then I am more than willing to check. Even if it is just to eliminate that possibility.

  “She said she’d never been to your shop before Friday,” I say as I look her over. “But maybe someone else got her something from the shop? Maybe they told her about the shop and that’s how she knew about it? It could have been her boyfriend. He could have afforded one of your amulets.”

  India’s wrists and her ankles are bare. There are no rings on her fingers. I feel around her throat and chest in case there is a necklace hidden out of sight beneath the gown, but I don’t find any chains there. I pat down her torso and her hips and thighs, but there are no unexpected little bumps.

  “There’s nothing,” I tell Theo, in frustration.

  I cannot understand how it came to this. She had been talking to me only yesterday. She had wanted so badly to recover her memory. I had thought she would in time. It never occurred to me that she might get worse. Where could she have been? She must have been gone for at least a few hours. Why take her and allow her to escape again? Or maybe she hadn’t needed to escape. Maybe she had walked out of here of her own free will.

  I wonder if India is the girl that I thought she was at all, or if I had been so eager to make a friend that I had wanted to believe that she is something that she isn’t. I really don’t know what to think any more.

  Feeling utterly dejected, I pull the sheet back up in place around India. When I see her foster parents I am going to give them a piece of my mind. I cannot understand why they didn’t come and visit her. She cares for them so much. Do they really think she did that to Rachel?

  Theo is frowning. He has moved to the other side of the bed. He gently turns India’s head to the side. He gives a murmur of dismay. I quickly go to his side to see what he is looking at. India’s thick curly hair has been bound into a ponytail. It is held in place by a hair band with two flat stones dangling off it. I recognize one of them. It is a lavastone, a red the color of hot lava, like my own amulet. The other is dark purple.

  Theo looks astonished. And angry. He quickly slides the hair band off India’s hair. His fists close around the two stones. He utters a series of sharp words that I don’t understand, and I hear a cracking sound. When he opens up his hand, the two stones have broken into several pieces.

  He walks out of the room and all the way down the corridor to a bin and throws them into it with disgust. He returns looking still angrier.

  “What was it?” I ask him.

  Theo closes the door firmly behind him. He is glowering at me in a way that he never has before. “Did you remove those stones from my inventory?” he says abruptly.

  “What? No way. Why would I do that?”

  “When this girl visited my shop did you allow her anywhere near the inventory storage?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Was she out of your sight at any time?”

  “No. I was with her the entire time right up until she left.” My cheeks have grown hot with anger and humiliation. It sounds like Theo thinks that I have stolen from him, or allowed India to steal from him.

  “Those stones were taken from my inventory,” says Theo grimly. “One contains a powerful memory spell designed to destroy memories, starting with the most recent, and the other is cursed. It’s why your friend is in this comatose state.”

  I press my hands to my cheeks in shock. “I had nothing to do with this. Theo, you have to believe me. Can you help her?”

  The mixed expression of disbelief and disgusted disappointment on his face makes my insides writhe with humiliation.

  “You’re lucky that you asked me to come in, otherwise things would have been much worse for your friend. It’s been only a few hours. I should be able to bring her out of this trance.”

  “Thank you,” I say in a small voice. “Will it cause any lasting damage? Or have interfered with her memories of what happened last night?”

  “Hopefully not,” he says. “These two amulets should not have been used together. They are not compatible. They were interfering with each other’s designed purpose.”

  “And she’ll be okay?”

  He nods. “No thanks to whoever did this.” The expression in his eyes lets me know he still thinks it might be me. “After this you and I are going to have to have a serious word about what has happened here.”

  I helplessly watch Theo take a piece of leather string out of the bag of supplies that he had brought with him. He threads several small crystals onto it, and then ties it around India’s wrist. He holds both of India’s limp hands. He closes his eyes and seems to concentrate. For more than thirty minutes he chants the same string of incomprehensible words under his breath.

  Suddenly India gasps and sits up in bed. She yanks her hands away from Theo’s and clutches them to her chest. She looks at him with wide eyes. “Who are you?” She looks scared.

  “This is my friend, Theo,” I say to her quickly. “I asked him to come. I wanted him to help you. You weren’t well.”

  She is gasping for breath as if she has had a terrible shock.

  “He’s Theo Grimshaw who owns the magic shop,” I explain. “He came to help you.”

  I get her a glass of water from her bedside table, and hold it steady while she takes a few sips of it. Theo’s presence here is clearly agitating her. He has backed away from the bed.

  “Thank you, Theo,” I say quietly.

  I don’t want to discuss what had happened between us in front of India, but I ask him with my eyes to please believe that I had nothing to do with this. “I’ll come and see you tomorrow at the store?”

&n
bsp; He gives me a nod before he goes. “Make sure you do.”

  I wonder if the only reason he left me alone with her is because of the guard posted outside the door. I hope it is because he believes I would never want to harm India.

  “What was that about?” says India when the door has shut behind him. “He looked mad at you.”

  “Nothing,” I tell her. “Just a work thing. How do you feel?”

  “Really weird. What happened? Is everything okay?”

  “You were unconscious for hours. Maybe even all night. They thought you were in a coma. Are you sure you're okay? Do you want me to call a nurse?”

  “No, I’m fine,” she says. But then she starts crying. She buries her face into both of her hands and sobs, her shoulders shaking.

  I sit down on the bed beside her, hugging her, feeling guilty for thinking that she might have had something to do with what happened to Rachel. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” I say to her over and over until her sobs subside a little bit. Then I ask, “What’s wrong, India?”

  “I wish I had never remembered what happened,” she says in despair. “I can’t believe Rachel slept with Charlie. How could she do that to me? It’s no wonder she didn’t want me to move in with him. It’s no wonder she kept telling me that he was no good. And all the while she was sleeping with him.” The words come out in fits and starts, jerky with her anger and rage and grief.

  “And I was so angry with her,” she says. “I was saying such awful things to her. And then that man came and killed her. And the last thing I ever said to her were those awful awful things.”

  “What man?” I ask her urgently. “Did you remember the man? Do you remember what he looks like?”

  But she is not paying attention to my questions. She is shaking her head, the tears pouring down her cheeks. “I don’t even think Charlie wanted me to move in with him really,” she sobs out. “I think he only asked me to make Rachel jealous.”

  “India, what man did you see? Tell me!”

  But India is shouting now. “Charlie that evil bastard. How could he do that to me? How could he do that to us? She was my best friend! My foster sister! But he didn’t care. I hate him. I hate him so much!”

  I grab hold of her shoulders and make her look at me. “India, pay attention. I’m sorry that Charlie and Rachel did that to you. But we need to find the man who killed Rachel. We need to make sure he doesn’t come after you. Who was he? Did you know him? What did he look like?”

  She looks confused. “What are you talking about? I told you what he looked like!”

  Now it is my turn to be confused. “What?”

  “I told you. Dark hair. Glasses. 6 feet tall. I told you yesterday when you took me back to the bar.”

  “Me?” I say. “But I never took you anywhere. No one saw who it was. They said the guards were given a potion in their pizza.”

  “But that was you,” she says. “You did it. You came to get me. Remember?”

  I shake my head. “You’re confused.”

  She gives me a funny smile, as if I must be joking. “It was you,” she insists. “You had a black wig on. You were acting really weird. It was you.”

  Chapter 26

  DIANA

  I show India the picture of Hank Lowry on my phone and she is horrified. She confirms it was him who abducted her after killing Rachel. The photo makes her hysterical and nurses arrive to sedate her. I leave her in the care of them and the Agency officer, and go to find a bathroom. I make sure all of the toilet cubicles are empty before locking the outer door so that no one else can get in.

  I stand over a sink and stare at myself in the mirror. India said it was me. She said I came to get her yesterday. But I had been home. Sleeping. I hadn’t felt well at Agency Headquarters so I had gone home. Hadn’t I?

  The thing is that I don’t actually remember going home. All I remember is waking up in my bed late this morning. I had slept seemingly for nearly eighteen hours, and yet I had still felt weary when I awoke. Even now I still feel like someone who has barely slept at all.

  “Nemesis,” I say quietly to myself in the mirror.

  My memory of yesterday evening is a black hole. There is no memory. India said I came to see her. She said I was wearing a black wig. How could that possibly be? I don’t own a black wig. It has to have been someone else. Someone pretending to be me. But just because I don’t own a black wig doesn’t mean I couldn’t have got one. I have got things before that I never remembered getting.

  This whole thing is like deja vu. It has happened to me before.

  “Nemesis,” I say again into the mirror.

  I know now that she can hear me. Somewhere inside my head she can hear me.

  I want so badly to believe that it had not been me who came to the hospital yesterday to take India out. But I can’t deny it. Who else could have got those two amulets that belong to Theo? I feel like I am going mad. It has even crossed my mind that maybe Theo is involved in all this. But I know he isn’t. Not Theo. I would stake my life on it. Not Theo, but me. It was me.

  “Nemesis,” I say again. “I know it was you. Answer me. I know you can hear me.”

  But even as I say these words I am horrified at what they mean. They mean that Theo’s amulet did not work. They mean that she has learned to take control of my body without me even being aware of it. It can’t be true. And yet I know that it is true. The amulet is still around my neck, the red lavastone glaring at me from my reflection in the mirror.

  I should take it off. I should give it to Theo to break apart like he had done the others, but what is the use? I already know that it does not work.

  “I know it was you. You stole the amulets from Theo. You gave them to India. You wanted her to forget that it was you. And it would have worked if I hadn’t called Theo. It would have worked if he hadn’t found the amulets in time. I know it was you. How could you steal from him? He’s looked out for me. He’s my friend!”

  She does not reply. She is silent. My head is utterly empty, devoid of any little voice, as if there is only me inside there. But I know she is there. Not locked away like I had thought, but free. She is free. And she has found a way to stop me from sensing her. To stop me from hearing her.

  Oh what a fool I have allowed myself to be. I had believed the amulet worked on us because I so desperately had wanted it to work. And all the while I have let Nemesis be free.

  “God, you must have loved that Theo thought it was little Mozz misplacing the things you stole,” I say bitterly. “You must’ve thought she was such a blessing in disguise. I bet you laughed. You fooled us all.”

  Still she does not say a word.

  “Speak to me, damn you. Do you know how much trouble I am in? India is going to tell them it was me who abducted her from the hospital yesterday. They’ll think it was me who put her in a coma. They are going to think that I am involved in all this!”

  She does not answer. The bathroom is silent but for the sound of my harsh breathing.

  “Speak to me or I’ll go to Storm. I’ll tell him everything. I’ll tell them about you inside my head. I’ll tell him that you’re a killer. You tried to kill before. He’ll lock me up, and I’ll let him. You speak to me right now, or I will do it. I swear.”

  There’s no need to get in a huff about it, she says.

  I flinch at the sound of her voice, so loud and clear in my mind, not even pretending that she is weak. Not even pretending that Theo’s amulet has any effect on her. I had known it already but to hear her speak out loud so easily is worse than knowing it. I clench my fists, my nails cutting into the palm of my hands.

  “What have you been doing?” I whisper in horror, an awful new thought occurring to me. How many nights have I thought I was asleep when Nemesis has been awake? What else has she been doing? “Tell me it wasn’t you?” I gasp.

  She cackles, her laugh full of contempt. Me who killed Rachel? You really are paranoid. Of course I never killed Rachel. Why would I?

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nbsp; I sag in relief against the sink. “Then why? Why did you take India out yesterday? What are you up to?”

  The clue is in the name, she says snidely. I’m a nemesis. I was made for punishing the wicked, and that is what I have to do. I found the man who wanted India first. Before you. Before your precious Agent Storm. I’m the one who found him and made him pay.

  “You found Sergeant Lowry?” I whisper.

  His real name is Stephen Manners, she says smugly. I found that out. I made him tell us his name. And oh what a naughty boy Stephen Manners is.

  “What did you do?” I demand. “Tell me you didn’t kill him. Please tell me you didn’t kill him?”