Psychic for Sale [Rent to Own]

by Amie Gibbons

  I gulped. “I may think they deserve it. I don’t have the stomach to dish it out.”

  “I think you’d be surprised.” Carvi shrugged as we turned onto the next street.

  It looked just like it had in my vision. Cute little shops, bodegas, restaurants. Everything looked worn in that expert way that suggested vintage without actually having to be run down and old, and the clothes alone said this was where the well-off and hip shopped.

  Not exactly what I thought of when I thought of gang owned.

  “They know how to do business,” Carvi said. “Much like vampire nests.”

  “Did you read my mind?” I asked.

  “No need, your face says it all. You really should work on that.”

  “Grant always says that.”

  “Hmmmmm.” Carvi glanced at Grant. “And yet, he says so little. Nothing to add, Grant?”

  “No,” Grant said, starin’ straight forward.

  Well, alright then.

  “What do they do?” I asked.

  “They move into an area, make sure everyone knows it’s theirs, and either take a cut of the stores already there, or put up their own stores. They moved in so fast and so recently, I’m betting they haven’t taken over this area yet. They probably haven’t started the lean. Once they do, the place will either do good business as it has been, with owners giving a percentage to the gang for protection money, or with the place falling into disarray as the owners flee.”

  “Where are the cops in all this?”

  “You mean the ones not on the payroll?” Carvi asked. “Cubans protect their own. If there are any on the force, I guarantee you at least half look the other way or are part of the gang. Either way, they’ll get paid for it.”

  “That’s a little racist.”

  Carvi looked at me. “You say that like it changes the reality. You really are a millennial.”

  Grant snorted.

  “Hey!” I said.

  “No offense, lea. You can dislike the classification, but it doesn’t change the truth. It’s the same with vampires. We have people in the force on our payrolls. It’s the only way to guarantee no human interference when something happens.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not race based.”

  “And? Humans are tribal creatures. You protect your tribe. When you come from a culture like the Cubans, you protect your own, and you’re proud to do it.”

  “One problem with your theory,” Grant said, holding up his phone. It was on an article with a picture of a pretty woman around my age in black and white at the top.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The girl who was murdered last year was Cuban, second generation.”

  “Shit,” Carvi said. “It wasn’t them.”

  “You don’t know that,” I said. “They’re gang members. They couldn’t care less. They rape and steal and it doesn’t matter who it’s against.”

  “Yes,” Carvi said as we hit the store before the restaurant, “it does. Doesn’t mean they didn’t do it, but if she was one of them, there’s more going on.”

  We hit the restaurant and even I knew it was time to shut up.

  Grant walked in first and Carvi waved me through.

  Keeping me in the middle, like the guys back home always did.

  I was an agent, but I was the psychic. They’d made it clear a long time ago that if anyone was going to get shot going in, it wouldn’t be me.

  There also could be some sexism in there, keeping the girl on the team safe.

  I wasn’t sure which… or if it really mattered.

  The inside smelled delicious, like Mexican food and beer.

  “No, Ryder,” Grant said.

  “I just ate. I’m good.”

  “I can hear the salivating.”

  “No, that’s me,” Carvi said. “I haven’t eaten since last night and leftovers are standing right here.”

  I glared at him as a hostess walked up.

  “Three for lunch today?” she asked, grinning a giant chipmunk grin that reminded me of Kat.

  “We need to speak with the boss,” Carvi said, smiling just as widely at her.

  “I’m sorry, the manager isn’t in until tonight,” she said.

  “I didn’t ask to speak with the manager. I want the boss,” Carvi said, letting his fangs slid out.

  “Carvi!” I yelped as the girl squeaked and paled.

  What happened to keeping a low profile?

  Maybe we never actually told him to do that?

  Yeah, like he’d listen even if we did.

  “I… I…” she stammered.

  “Go get the boss of your little organization, and I won’t hurt you. If you don’t, I’ll hurt you, but I swear you’ll enjoy it.”

  She scurried off.

  “What. Was. That?” Grant asked, tone so frosty I swear my ears iced over.

  “Effective,” Carvi said.

  “If they come out shooting, you will not think so,” Grant said.

  “They won’t.”

  “You don’t know that,” I said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  I shrugged.

  “Obviously you’re not too worried,” Carvi said.

  I looked at him.

  “Your weapons aren’t out,” he said. “Both of you are still here out in the open. Your body temperatures are normal. Breathing’s steady, no sweat, and nothing’s shaking. You’re both perfectly calm. So you’re either as crazy and invincible as me, or you aren’t worried about them attacking us.”

  “Huh,” I said, makin’ him smirk.

  He had a point. I didn’t like how he was doing things, but I knew I was safe.

  Why?

  Because Carvi wouldn’t let anything happen to me?

  I was so used to being safe around vamps cuz Quil would die to keep anything from happening to me. Was I transferring those feelings to Carvi since Quil wasn’t here? Why else would I feel so safe around someone I really didn’t know at all, and what I did know did not inspire trust.

  Maybe I was letting myself go with him whenever he wanted something because I was substituting him for Quil while we were here.

  Or maybe I was looking for an excuse cuz I wanted to play with him and I was just a trusting idiot.

  Also very possible.

  A man walked around the partition separating the little foyer from the restaurant and I didn’t need to know he was important any more than I needed to be told the guys earlier were human and former military.

  It was draped over him like a sash.

  “We figured it was a matter of time before you came to see us,” the man said.

  “Hello,” Carvi said without holding out his hand. “I’m here. We need to talk.”

  He met the guy’s eyes and the guy paled, clearing his throat and looking away quickly.

  “Will you join me in the back?”

  “We’d love to,” Carvi said, grinning so wide I wanted to hit him on principle.

  We followed the man back and Grant leaned over me.

  “Sir?” I asked.

  “Shooters, along the walls,” Grant whispered, jerking his chin to the right.

  I glanced as we kept walkin’.

  The servers were hanging out now that the lunch rush had died down, but he was right, something about the way they watched us said they weren’t there to bring people their food.

  Unless it was a knuckle sandwich.

  I chuckled to myself and shook my head.

  I got punchy in life or death situations.

  Huh, so now I was scared? Must’ve been from the way Grant squeezed my shoulder.

  The men didn’t move as we went by, but the hairs on my arms went up and I had to resist the urge to rub them down.

  We were going into gang territory. Headquarters if the boss was actually here. These were men who grabbed girls off the street and raped them for an initiation. These were the people who ran innocents off the road so they could beat and rob them.

  These guys were everything wrong
with the human race.

  Hatred as hot as anything I’d ever felt boiled my blood and I reached for my gun.

  Grant caught my hand and peace flowed through me.

  Water putting out the flames.

  “Sir?” I whispered.

  “Not a spell. I think you’re just angry.”

  I nodded and we crossed into the back hall. We went past the kitchen and my fingers itched for cold metal.

  I wanted to make them pay. All of them. Every gangster who killed a dad getting his kids from soccer, raped a housewife, and sold a child drugs. Every single one of them who thought their lives and territory was more important than everyone else’s right to be left alone.

  I wanted them destroyed.

  The gang leader opened the second door past the kitchen and I took a deep breath.

  This had to be the spell. I couldn’t be this instantly angry on my own.

  Could I?

  The backroom was comfy looking, in a tacky kind of way. The big table was surrounded by colorful chairs and the walls were the same garish bright pink as the restaurant’s front.

  “I know,” the gangster said. “It’s not to my taste, but I just bought it two weeks ago.”

  “No problem,” Carvi said, taking the seat at the front of the table.

  The gang leader’s face remained impassive but his left eye twitched. You could tell that was his chair.

  Let the games begin.

  He sat next to Carvi and I took the seat on Carvi’s right, Grant next to me.

  The door opened and five men and a woman walked in. One guy stayed by the door and the others walked to the table. The woman sat next to the boss, and two of the guys did, the other two taking position behind him.

  Interesting.

  The guys ranged in looks, some obviously Hispanic, some not. The woman was a pretty Latina around thirty, with thick black hair falling in waves to her waist and giant dark eyes.

  “Let’s start things off right,” Carvi said. “I’m Carvi, the king of the Miami nest. And you?”

  “King?” the boss asked.

  “Not the way you think of them. Dictator would be closer to the modern understanding, but it has such negative connotations.”

  He was lying. They were more democratic than most of America.

  I kept my mouth shut.

  If you don’t get what’s going on, usually you can’t go wrong with mouth shut.

  “I’m Antonio Vasquez.”

  Carvi nodded at me. “Ariana and Grant.”

  “No last names?” Antonio asked.

  “No need for us.”

  Antonio did a double take I almost missed.

  Ohhhh, Carvi was implying we were vamps too. Why? So maybe they wouldn’t try shooting us if things went south since they’d think it wouldn’t do any harm.

  “Legend has it you can’t go out into sunlight, but my boys tell me you walked right up here,” Antonio said.

  “Legends get a lot wrong,” Carvi said. “We prefer it that way.”

  “Misinformation.” Antonio nodded. “I can respect that. What can I do for you, your majesty?”

  He said it with no inflection, but I could swear he was mocking Carvi.

  My stomach turned as Carvi folded his hands on the table.

  “It’s just Carvi. Only douchebags make their subjects call them majesty. And we are here to discuss a murder.”

  “They letting vamps on the force now?”

  “Not knowingly. But I am not on the force.”

  “He’s five oh.” Antonio nodded at Grant. “I can feel it.”

  “You have magic, then?” Carvi asked, a slow smile taking his face.

  It didn’t reach his eyes and I shivered.

  “Let’s call it a sixth sense.”

  “Let’s not. One of the servers at my party was killed last night. Magic. Trail leads back here. I want to know why you killed one of my servers. And then I want you to pay.”

  The guys behind him drew guns and Carvi blinked up at them, face as innocent as a child’s.

  “Do you really think those will do any good?” Carvi asked.

  “Silver bullets,” Antonio said. “Or is that legend too?”

  Carvi chuckled. “I’m afraid not. But as those are not silver bullets. Even if they were, I would not be terribly worried.”

  The men didn’t waver and I resisted the urge to draw my own weapon.

  I wasn’t even sure why.

  “If there was silver in those guns,” Carvi said, still oh so pleasant, “I’d smell it. You’re full of shit, and I’m done playing.”

  He moved so fast my eyes couldn’t track, and had Antonio out of his chair and pulled against him before the guards could get their guns on him, let alone shoot.

  My heart jumped into my throat and unpacked its bags cuz it wasn’t leaving any time soon.

  Grant stood and the woman and men sitting stood too.

  Did that mean I should?

  I didn’t move.

  “I’m sick of these games,” Carvi said. “I want answers. I could take your leader out of here, run with him as fast as I just grabbed him. I’d have him out the door before you could fire a shot. Start talking, or I will demonstrate.”

  I really hope he’s bluffing.

  If he wasn’t, we were the ones who’d get shot.

  Or worse.

  “Carvi,” I said, standing too, “gentlemen, we are here to discuss business, nothing more. No need for violence.”

  “Oh, but it’s so much fun, lea.” Carvi smelled Antonio’s neck and the man went straight, eyes flying wide.

  Ohhhhh, big bad gang leader freaked out at the touch of a man?

  Carvi grinned at me like he read my mind.

  “Don’t like being touched like this by a man, do you?” Carvi asked. “You know, I’ve found the men who want it the most, are the ones who freak out the most too.”

  “Fuck you!” Antonio said.

  “See. Latent,” Carvi said.

  Now the smile was reaching his eyes.

  And it was almost worse than the cold look.

  “Lea, will you please come over here?” Carvi asked.

  “Kings say please?” the woman asked.

  “Of course,” Carvi said. “No need to be rude. Especially to one such as her.”

  I walked over to them, keeping my hand on the gun under my jacket and eyes on the guards.

  “Will you touch this man?” Carvi asked. “I want answers.”

  I grimaced and Carvi raised his eyebrows at me.

  “What! I don’t want to see a gang leader’s mind. I’ll definitely need a shower after that,” I said.

  Antonio said something in Spanish then, “Psychic?”

  “Oh, point for the gangbanger.” Carvi wrapped his hand around Antonio’s neck, meeting my eyes. “I know it won’t be pleasant, lea, but if he won’t talk.”

  “I know,” I said, shaking out my hands.

  “You don’t mind a woman walking through your brain, do you?” Carvi asked. “I mean, it won’t stop me from doing something very different with the other brain, but it will keep the torture at bay.”

  Antonio stiffened and I almost felt bad for him.

  “Carvi, I’m not sure threatenin’ to rape a rapist is really justice,” I said.

  “No, but actually raping one is.”

  I wrinkled my nose at him.

  “I’m not a rapist!” Antonio said, clearing his throat and saying more calmly, “I thought you were here about a murder.”

  “We are, but we heard about that girl y’all gang raped last year,” I said. “And, well, Carvi has a very ‘an eye for an eye’ mentality.”

  “That wasn’t us,” Antonio said. “We don’t do that. Kill for necessity, sure, but there’s never a good reason to take a woman against her will.”

  I snorted. “You expect me to buy that?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Let’s find out,” Carvi said.

  I touched the man and go
t a quick cut vision of him in a ceremony to ascend to leader of the gang. Nothing special. Most people had stuff like that.

  I shook out my hands.

  “Well?” Antonio asked.

  “Doesn’t work like that,” I said. “First touch just gives me your biggest moment. Takes some digging to get stuff beyond that. Carvi, can you drive?”

  He shook his head, thinking at me, “I have to be aware to keep an eye on these guys. If they start shooting, I’ll live, they were lying about the silver, but you two won’t.”

  The gang members probably didn’t miss his clear no, but hopefully they wouldn’t get too cocky.

  “Okay,” I said, smiling wide and bright. “Am I looking for their connection to the killing or to the rape last year?”

  “Killing,” Carvi said. “We’ll deal with the rape later.”

  Oh yeah, he didn’t think that was them anyway.

  I nodded and grabbed his hand again.

  Flash.

  Flickers of info touched my brain. Antonio’s confusion at us showing up, how he had no clue what we were talking about when we said murder or magic leading here, then further back, the gang hearing about the girl attacked, the men who were taken in cuz DNA said it was them though they’d never had their DNA put in the system, Antonio doing his own investigation to find the perps and clear his people’s names.

  I pulled out of the vision.

  “Holy crap,” I said. “I ugh, they didn’t do it, I don’t think. That was a weird vision, more info than actual pictures, but I don’t think so. They want to find the killers too. And their people were framed.”

  “Cops in on it,” Carvi said, letting Antonio go. “I told you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I flapped a hand at him. “So what now?”

  “It’d help if they told us what they know,” Carvi said. “It’d certainly be faster than having you dig through their brains.”

  “True,” I said. “Guys, we’re investigating, can you tell us anything?”

  “It’s not in our nature to help the cops… or blood suckers either,” the woman said. If she was Cuban, it was a lifetime ago cuz she sounded plain ol’ middle American.

  “We’re not the cops,” I said.

  See, I can lie.

  “We’re trying to solve a murder cuz it was at our party and we think it has something to do with the people we have in town. You know something. Help us.”

  “We’re asking nicely,” Grant said, looking at the woman.