“Maybe you could check with them,” Gertrude said. “Those places usually have employee files with photo IDs. He might still be with them. Who knows, you might get lucky.”
Lucky. Who me? Not friggin’ likely.
Chapter Sixteen
It wasn’t long after I’d hung out my shingle and started my career as an intuitive consciousness explorer that I realized being a psychic is a lot like being a doctor. The second people find out what you do, they ask for free advice.
“Are you Madame Hell… something? That psychic lady Channel Six did a story on a while back?”
I’d done the interview with the cute guy from WTAE three years ago to try to drum up business. It’d worked, even if he had treated the interview about as seriously as if he’d been interviewing a dancing monkey or a talking horse. Whatever. Turns out, there really is no such thing as bad press. But after that I stuck to print ads in the local papers and yellow pages.
Intuitive Consciousness Explorer
Explore your past, present, and future.
Don’t pay for the answers you want. Get the answers you need from Madame Hellsbane.
Call for an appointment or party rates: 412-Hel-bane
Today though, I’d cleared my schedule to do some major sleuthing on my laptop. Dan had gotten me access to the Bedford Company mainframe computer and their employee records folder. The face-recognition program he’d lent me had spit out three possible matches to the blurry photo I had of the man who was possibly my angelic father. But—because my life often sucks…and hard—only two of the possibilities actually had photos for me to compare.
The missing mug turned out to be none other than the CEO of The Bedford Company. Of course it did. Apparently, he wasn’t required to submit a photo. And since the program couldn’t eliminate him, it listed him as a possible match. Not exactly damning evidence.
I needed a picture to show Eli. I needed a picture to see for myself if he was the same Fallen from last summer. But just in case I was totally wrong, I wanted to check out the other two as well. See if I could figure out where they were twenty-four years ago, see if there was anything weird about them.
Weird, in this case, was a good thing. It meant that they might not be human, and not human would likely mean fallen angel. Finding Daddy dearest was the only way I’d be free of all this angel-and-demon crap and have half a shot at a normal relationship with Dan—if I could convince him to give us another try. That’s all I wanted. I was almost positive about that.
Still, I didn’t see why I couldn’t cyberstalk these guys while catching some rays at Pittsburgh’s Point State Park, and listening to the live bands they had playing for the regatta. But I wouldn’t get anywhere if I was busy doing free readings for every half-naked boat freak who recognized me.
Unfortunately, however, a potential client also meant money, and I certainly wasn’t allergic to that.
I slid my wide-rimmed sunglasses down to the tip of my nose and squinted up at the half-dressed couple from my beach towel. “Madame Hellsbane. Yep. That’s me.”
The girl jabbed her elbow into her guy friend’s ribs and smirked. “See, I told you.”
The guy gave a halfhearted shrug, unaffected. They were both about nineteen, maybe twenty. He was cruisin’ the park in his Bermuda bathing suit bottoms—buff, muscled chest bare—and she had her tiny, red bikini top and jean short-shorts. If they were dating, it wouldn’t last long. They were both trying way too hard to attract attention—anyone’s attention.
“Can you tell me if my boyfriend is going to propose to me this weekend?” the girl asked.
I looked from her to the guy next to her and back again. “I take it this isn’t your boyfriend?”
“No.” She snorted, though the guy didn’t look nearly as amused. “This is Jamie. My boyfriend is Mike. He’s way hot. He drives a Mustang. Jamie drives his mom’s minivan.”
“I told you, that’s only temporary.” Poor Jamie’s tan cheeks flushed.
The girl shrugged and focused on me. “So can you?”
I pushed my sunglasses up and folded my legs yoga-style. “Call him.”
“Huh?” she said.
“Call your boyfriend on his cell.” I set my laptop beside me. “I need him to be thinking of you to get a reading.” I didn’t really. I could follow her thoughts of the guy to him, but it would speed things up if he were already thinking of her when I searched for specific answers.
She pulled a pink cell phone from her back pocket but didn’t look like she wanted to use it. “What do I say?”
“Anything. Say hi. I don’t know,” I said. “Whatever. Tell him it’s you. That should be enough.”
“Don’t do it, Katie,” Jamie said, crossing his arms under his thick pecs. “He told you he’d be studying. Besides, this kind of thing is just a scam anyway.”
I glared at him despite the fact that he couldn’t see my eyes behind my dark glasses. “You guys interrupted my day to ask for a free read, not the other way around. You don’t like the way I do it, go find another psychic trying to get a decent tan somewhere in the park.”
He huffed with a quick pfft…and looked away while Katie dialed Mike.
Just for shits and giggles I opened my senses to Jamie. Something had him wearing a sourpuss, and I couldn’t help nosing around in the top layer of his thoughts to find out what.
His thoughts screamed through my head as easily as if he’d been projecting them through a bullhorn. Finally, a whole day without that douchebag making her nuts and this crazy chick tells her to call him. Jeezus, I hope he’s really studying. This could go bad fast. Katie doesn’t deserve this shit.
“Mike?” Katie said into her cell phone and her gaze flicked to mine. “It’s me…Katie. I uh…just wanted to say hi and um, see how the studying was going.”
Katie’s thin, sculpted brows creased and a few seconds of awkward silence passed. “Mike? What was that? Is there someone at the apartment with you?”
I closed my eyes and called on my power, reaching deep inside me to that swell of energy that wasn’t human but was as much a part of me as my arms and legs and heart. Like the nylon string of a fishing pole I cast my power out, following the mental connection from Katie across the city to Mike—finding her words, her name, her image echoing through his mind. Once I’d found him he was as easy to read as if he was standing at my side…at least it was easy for me.
God, did she really hear Amy laughing? Mike thought. Shit, I seriously don’t feel like dealing with her paranoia. Thank God, Amy’s not like that. Maybe if Katie trusted me a little more I wouldn’t have to cheat just to get a break from her crazy shit.
I closed my mind to the dirtbag before I caught an STD or something. “You can hang up.”
Katie blinked at me, nodding, “Sss…sorry, honey. I’ll call you later and explain.”
She hung up and slipped her phone back into her pocket, flashing a hopeful smile. “So is he? Is he going to propose to me this weekend after he takes his last final?”
Jeezus, I hope not. My gaze flicked to Jamie, and a hunch had me reaching out to his thoughts again.
That jerk doesn’t deserve her. I’d have cut him loose a long time ago if it weren’t for her. What the hell makes him so special? Why can’t she go for a decent guy like me?
Why’s this Hellsbane chick staring at me like that? “What?”
It took a half second to realize he’d said it aloud. “Oh. Nothing.” I looked back at Katie. “To answer your question…I don’t know.”
Jamie snorted. “Knew it.”
I ignored him. “I do know that if he does pop the question, I’d advise that you think long and hard before you give him an answer.”
“Why?” Her big, long-lashed, eyes blinked slowly.
“Because driving a Mustang doesn’t necessarily make him a good husband. And because there just might be someone better for you out there.” I glanced at Jamie. “Someone who’s just waiting for you to notice him. Someone closer tha
n you think.”
Katie followed my head turn, her skinny brows going high just as my phone rang. I dug it out of my bag and saw the number. “Sorry, guys. I’ve gotta take this.”
I thumbed the accept button. “Hey, Dan. What’s up?”
“Nothing good,” he said. He was using his cop voice—cold, emotionless. “There’s been an…incident. I need you to meet me.”
My stomach did that weird quivering thing it does when my sixth sense kicks in telling me things were about to get dicey. “Sure. Where?”
§
After having spent the last hour answering the questions of Detective Ed Yearly, who just showed up on my doorstep flashing his badge and saying things like official police business, and ongoing investigation, like I was a perfect stranger, I got a call from Dan telling me to meet him downtown at the bus terminal. I still wasn’t sure what was going on when I parked in the lot outside of the Greyhound bus terminal and walked through the front doors only to be stopped a few steps in by Dan’s buddy, Officer Weinbaum.
“Hey, Larry. Dan called me down. What’s going on?” My gaze skipped past him to the cluster of cops at the door to the bus bay outside, then farther down the terminal to where several other cops had separated witnesses to get statements.
“Ms. Hellsbane. Yeah. I’ll let Officer Wysocki know you’re here. He’ll fill you in. Have a seat.” He gestured to the molded plastic seats along the wall, as he squeezed the trigger button on his shoulder-mounted walkie-talkie. “Wysocki. She’s here.”
Ms. Hellsbane? That probably wasn’t a good sign. Crap. I kinda hoped I’d win Dan back before we started dividing up the friends. “Larry, what happened? What’s all the fuss about? Give a girl a little heads-up.”
“Just have a seat, ma’am.”
“Um, okay. Whatever I can do to help, Officer.” I smiled at him and took a seat, trying to ignore the feeling that I was being treated like a suspect.
I looked back down the long terminal—the florescent lights overhead washing everything in a sickly light. One by one I met cop eyes before they turned away. Everyone getting a good look at the She Larry had announced was here.
Perfect. I straightened, crossed my legs, and folded my arms, head high. Then I found an interesting spot on the wall across the aisle from me to study.
“Emma.”
“Dan.” I flinched, then sighed in relief, happy to see a trusted face. I pushed to my feet. “What on earth is going on? No one will tell me anything and you sounded so…official over the phone.”
“There’s been a murder,” he said. “At least we think it was murder. Several actually. Truthfully we don’t know what the hell happened.” He huffed, exasperated. “Just follow me. See for yourself.”
My stomach clenched, sixth sense kicking into high gear. We walked down the terminal toward the doors to the bus bay. The small cluster of cops and witnesses moved aside, staring as we passed. Curiosity got the better of me and I called up my power, tapping into the cloud of thought floating through the ether inside the terminal.
She’s the one, someone thought.
That’s Madame Hellsbane, the woman from the ad, came another person’s thoughts.
Do the cops think it’s her fault? Did she kill them?
They’re all connected to her.
Those are the ugliest shoes I’ve ever seen.
I refused to glance down at my vintage moccasins and followed Dan through the glass door. There were more cops standing around outside and at least five marked cars—lights flashing, engines idling in the large covered bus bay.
The Greyhound terminal was normally loud with the constant coming and going of buses. But this time there were only two parked in the long spots—one nearest the terminal doors—windows dark, engine off—and one at the far end. Unlike the nearer bus, the other bus had its internal lights on, and inside a light flashed every few seconds from the police photographer’s camera.
I could see him and at least two other men inside the bus as we neared—one talking, the other taking notes. But there was something splashed inside the windows making it harder to see through in spots.
Dan stopped at the bus door—one foot resting on the first step, his latex-gloved hand gripping the silver bar railing. He looked back at me and dug a set of blue crime-scene gloves from his back pocket and shoved them in my direction. “Put these on. I should warn you, this is bad. Real bad. I’m only showing you because I think it might have something to do with your…area of expertise and I thought you might get a better…I don’t know, read on it if you were at the scene.”
I swallowed hard and nodded as I slipped on the thin rubber gloves. Everything inside me screamed to turn around and walk away…run away, but I followed Dan up the black nonslip steps and turned just as he stepped aside into the front seat. Suddenly I had an unobstructed view and I almost puked.
“You okay?” he asked.
My hand to my mouth, I forced the bile out of the back of my throat and did my best to nod. The three officers I’d seen from outside looked up at the sound of Dan’s voice and took it as a cue to leave. I sidestepped into the driver’s seat as they filed past, gripping the privacy shield behind the seat to keep my knees from giving out.
The men’s quick retreat brought the odor of rancid meat in an invisible wave behind them. The stench wafted over me, and my stomach protested again, shooting bile up my throat, making me swallow it back.
“Sorry about the smell,” Dan said. “The bus was left running with the air on, but it’s pushing eighty-five out there today and the records show that this bus got in last night. Doesn’t take long for a dead body to start decomposing.”
I nodded again and forced myself out from behind the driver’s shield. God, I didn’t want to see this. How could this have anything to do with me? I hunted fallen angels, demons, creatures that bled white mist or black ooze.
There was so much blood.
I stopped at the second row of seats, any farther and I’d step in something I didn’t want to identify. I counted twelve victims—the nearest sat alone at the window in the third seat, most of the others were farther back side by side. All of them were headless.
“What the hell happened?” I wasn’t positive that I’d said it aloud until Dan answered.
“We’re not sure. Our techs have gone over the surveillance tape a hundred times, but they still can’t make sense of it,” he said. “One minute they’re each sitting there alive and the next, the video goes white. When it comes back, they’re like this. Coroner says their heads exploded from the inside out.”
“What did the other passengers see?”
“There weren’t any. Twelve passengers and twelve dead bodies,” he said, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the carnage.
“What about the driver?”
“We’re looking for him,” he said. “For now, we’re guessing he parked the bus and took off. Didn’t report in. Didn’t talk to anyone and so far no one has seen him.”
“You said the video goes white.” A possibility itched at the back of my brain. “You mean it cut off?”
He shook his head. “No. It went white, like overexposed film. You see this white orb in the middle of the screen and it flashes outward until the whole screen whites out. A minute and a half later it shrinks down and then disappears.”
“Can I see it?”
He looked away for a second, thinking, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess. But there’s something else I have to talk to you about first.” He hiked a shoulder to talk into his walkie-talkie. “Rizzo, bring the laptop and video out here.”
His somber tone sent a shiver down my back, and I realized the horror scene in front of me wasn’t the end of this bad dream. “What else is there?”
“We found this on one of the victims.” For the first time I noticed he was holding a paper evidence envelope. He opened it and pulled out a newspaper clipping and held it up for me. “Don’t touch it. Just read.”
I did, and instantly recognized the
familiar text. “Intuitive Consciousness Explorer. Explore your past, present and… This is my ad.”
“Is it?” he asked. “Keep reading.”
“Don’t pay for the answers you want. Get the answers you need from Madame Hellsbane,” I read, pausing when the text went off script. “Specializing in aiding angelic ascension. Discount rates for those who have already completed the induction cleansing offered by the spiritualist Richard Hubert. Call for an appointment…” The rest of the text was mine except for the last digit in the phone number was a two instead of a three.
I looked at Dan. “I didn’t write this, and the number’s wrong.”
He exhaled and slipped the clipping back into the envelope. “I didn’t think so. We checked with the paper. They don’t have any record of you calling or sending in an updated ad. They insist the ad they printed didn’t have the extra text about Hubert. And they have no explanation for why the paper they printed isn’t the same as the one that was distributed. As far as we can tell, your ad is the only discrepancy.”
“Peachy.” My gaze drifted back over the bloody scene, the decimated bodies. I swallowed hard, trying not to breathe through my nose. My hands were shaking, but I wasn’t sure if it was from nerves or the nausea churning through my stomach.
“We called the number,” Dan said. “It was a recorded message. Mechanical voice. Said ascension appointments were being taken yesterday only on a first-come-first-serve basis. Anyone interested was to come to your new location. But the address it gave was the parking lot in front of Saint Anthony’s Chapel in Troy Hill. This bus was to make several stops. Most of them are in Troy Hill.”
“She didn’t make it to Troy Hill.” I said.
“Who?”
“Whoever had that ad.”
“Emma, none of them made it.”
“What do you mean none of them?” I asked. “They were all answering the ad?”
Dan shrugged and looked back over the bus. “We’ve confirmed that five of them called the number. Still ID’ing the rest, but I’m betting this was a targeted attack. We just don’t know why they were targeted.”
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