Psychic Wanted (Un)Dead or Alive (The SDF Paranormal Mysteries Book 4)

by Amie Gibbons

  “The bishop’s the tulpa!” I said. “It’s not following the rules.”

  “Yes,” Carvi said. “And what happened when it broke the rules and went through other pieces.”

  “They started breaking the rules too,” I said. “They aren’t moving, they’re just fighting.”

  “Chaos,” he said.

  “That’s important?”

  “Very,” he said. “We are forever fighting against chaos. Against the degeneration of systems, of cultures, of ourselves. Vampires are an example of order because we do not age, and aging is the prime example of entropy.”

  “So whatever did this?”

  “Was chaos, doing what it does best,” he said. “It wasn’t something sentient doing this on purpose, it was the chaos every system has, coming out in a horrible way.”

  “So you’re sayin’ this whole thing is Murphy’s Law? Whatever could go wrong did?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Someone kicked it off, trying to follow the rules of magic, and things went off the rails.”

  “That is comforting and not at the same time,” I said. “That there’s nothing big and bad out there to fight besides the tulpa is good, but that this horrible spell and the results could come from random bad luck, that’s… that’s terrifying! Cuz then it could happen again.”

  “Yep,” he said. “People don’t like that. Why do you think we work so hard to control the world around us? This, this chaos, randomness, bad luck, this is why people have OCD in the first place, because they see that and want to believe they can control it.”

  “But we can’t,” I said.

  “Nope,” he said. “Shit happens. And the shit is going to come.”

  “And it’s not the bad moments, or even the bad decisions, that define you,” I said. I’d heard this before. “The bad moments will come. It’s what you do with them that makes you who you are.”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” he said.

  “Where do we go now?” I asked. “We know it was random chaos of magics crossing in the wrong way, sure, but there’s still a trail to follow back to the person who kicked it off, right?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Start looking for a trail.”

  “Will it still be that red sort of blood lookin’ thing?” I asked.

  “It should be since that’s how you mind interprets it.”

  “Okay,” I said, focusing, imagining the red lights showing us the way.

  The world lit up with thin lines of multiple magics.

  And one red one.

  Diving straight into the middle of the fray on the chessboard.

  “Aw shit,” Carvi said, rolling his sleeves up.

  When had he gotten dressed?

  Had he imagined himself with clothes on in here? I was still in my costume, and it wasn’t like Carvi was shy, so wandering around naked wouldn’t have done anything to him.

  “You dressed me, lea,” Carvi said. “You put clothes on me when we got in here.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “I consider it a compliment. You find me undressed far too distracting.”

  I would’ve smiled if I wasn’t facing down giant marble beings beating the stuffin’ outta each other.

  “How do we get in there?” I asked.

  Carvi grinned, pulling another thread out of his hand and pressing it into the side of the chessboard. “How else? We fight our way through!”

  He said that like it was a good thing.

  Men!

  “Am I supposed to fight?” I tried to keep the squeak outta my voice.

  “No, stand there and look pretty.”

  He held up his hands and a giant slab like a two by four, but made outta something far sturdier than wood appeared in them.

  “Get yourself a weapon and get in here, lea,” he said. “Nobody said this was going to be clean.”

  I narrowed my eyes as he strode across the board, piece of wood up like a bat.

  He smacked the first pawn in his path so hard it broke in half and fell in front of him.

  I took a breath.

  I wasn’t a brawler. I was a girl for cryin’ out loud!

  But that didn’t mean I couldn’t fight like a girl.

  I closed my eyes and imagined what I wanted in my hands.

  Weight dropped into them so hard and fast I dropped it and opened my eyes.

  The bazooka lay just in front of my feet and I grinned as I picked it back up.

  “Carvi!” I called. “You might wanna move!”

  He smashed another piece and looked over his shoulder.

  And burst out laughing.

  He bowed to me and ran off the board.

  I aimed, imagining power like a magical mini nuke inside the ammunition and shot right in the middle of the pile of fighting pieces.

  Booooom, echoed across the endless plane and the earth shook as the pieces exploded outwards, shards falling around me as the middle went up in a fireball.

  The head of one of the royals on the white side sailed through the air directly at me with the pointy crown facing down.

  “Ahhhh!” I screamed, dropping the bazooka and running, covering my head with my arms.

  The stuff had already stopped falling.

  “Nice job, lea!” Carvi called. “Maybe not quite as much force next time.”

  “What happens if I get knocked out in here?”

  “Same thing that happens if you’re knocked out in the real world,” he said, jogging towards the board.

  “What?”

  “I draw on your face and take embarrassing pictures of you,” he said.

  “Ha ha.”

  I ran after him.

  I really did a number on the board.

  Shards of pieces littered the board, making it a marble graveyard.

  One of the half left pieces struggled up out from the pile of his buddies and shook a fist at us as we ran past.

  “Sorry!” I said.

  “Don’t apologize,” Carvi said.

  “Why?”

  “One, he’s not a real being. This is like a computer game more than anything else. Two, it’s showing weakness.”

  “I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that on a TV show or movie somewhere,” I said.

  We hit the middle of the board where my grenade had left a smoking hole and blew out the center of the chessboard like someone cutting a hole in bread to put an egg in.

  The red swirled deep down in there, like a fist sized whirlpool.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “That’s the next layer.”

  “Yes,” Carvi said, soundin’ resigned. “Fourth layer. This is going to get ugly.”

  He took a deep breath and pulled another string from his hand.

  He looked around and finally grabbed a broken off arm from one of the black pieces. He dragged it to the edge of the crater and tied the magical string around it.

  “What happens in there?” I asked, pointing.

  “Anything,” he said. “The more layers, the closer we get to The Other Side.”

  I nodded.

  The Other Side was where demons lived. They could come to our side if summoned, but most had lives over there and had no more reason to cross over than we did. So it was only the hired guns who wanted to cause trouble for humans, or the ones running from trouble themselves, that ever ended up in our world.

  That’s why demons had such a bad rap.

  My flying carpet Pyro was made on The Other Side. He was essentially a demon, but he crossed over.

  He doesn’t remember anything about it or his life before about ten years ago, so he could’ve been running from something, or even hired.

  But considering what a sweetheart he was, he probably wasn’t ever one of the bad ones.

  “I’m really wishin’ we could call Pyro over here right now,” I said.

  “Why can’t we?” Carvi asked.

  “What?”

  “He can travel in here…” Carvi shook his head. “But he is in your home,
which is surely being watched, so they will notice any magic, such as him crossing over, and we are also closer to The Other Side, which I don’t think he’d like.”

  “Yeah, no,” I said.

  Wait a second.

  “Hey, Carvi?” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “We are only in here in our minds. Our bodies are still in our world. So why is Pyro a physical being in our world?”

  He smiled. “Because Pyro was a creature specifically created to cross barriers between worlds. When he enters, he does it with his whole being. Very few humans on our side, or demons on their side, can do that. The ones who can are usually just manifestations that have to be summoned over, and are yanked back at sunrise, or they are like us, spirits traveling between worlds, who then must have something to possess in the other world to be able to stay.”

  “Are you sayin’ we could cross into the demon side and possess a demon, like they sometimes possess humans?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s been done. I don’t know why you would want to, but then again, most demons don’t see why other demons would want to leave their world either. Most are pretty happy there. And it is so different from our world, that coming to ours is a culture shock. I would love to know how Pyro adjusted if he remembered.”

  “Me too. I want to know what made him forget,” I said, taking a breath. “I think I’m stallin’.”

  “Probably,” Carvi said, holding out an arm. “After you.”

  I smiled and took his hand.

  And we jumped in together.

  ###

  The world rushed in red all around us and the copper sweet taste of blood coated my tongue.

  Green grass appeared below and I screamed as it rushed up far too fast.

  I let go of Carvi and hit the ground, letting my knees go the second I hit and bent forward, rolling to dissipate the impact like I’d been taught.

  I rolled a few times and something scraped me, but I sat up after a few seconds and did a quick check.

  My shoulders hurt where I’d rolled over them, my feet stung from the impact, and the scraped arm hurt, but not more than a bruise.

  So overall okay.

  I stood up and looked around.

  Carvi was already walking towards me.

  We stood in the middle of a grand lawn, a hedge maze not too far away, with a grand white mansion rising up behind it.

  “It’s so pretty,” I said.

  “Yes,” Carvi said. “Don’t let that distract you. Keep your focus. We’re in deep, and this place has a way of making people want to stay. Don’t let it. Whatever you see, whatever it tells you, don’t listen.”

  He drew a thread out of his hand and tied it around a blade of grass.

  “Quick question,” I said. “How will we know the other one is actually the other one. I mean, technically you could not be the real Carvi and you could’ve replaced him while I was rolling.”

  He stared at me. “That is a good point. After this, we stick together, no matter what, to make sure. As for now, well.”

  He grinned and grabbed me by my arms, pulling me in and kissing me.

  The kiss shot through me like lightning and I rose on tiptoes, pressing into him and kissing him back.

  He broke away first, pushing me back by my arms and stared me in the eyes.

  “Do you feel that, lea? That connection?”

  I nodded.

  I knew exactly what he was talkin’ about.

  “That’s how I know it’s you. And how you know it’s me. Because we’ve both felt that in the real world.”

  I nodded. That was good enough for me.

  He took my hand. “I do mean it, stick close.”

  “Should we have weapons?” I asked.

  “Couldn’t hurt.”

  I imagined my AR from back home appearing on its sling on my back and the weight was suddenly there.

  Carvi grinned. “And the pretty little AR makes another appearance.”

  Daddy had had the AR custom made for my birthday by a company in East Tennessee called Fighting Sheepdog. They did a lot of good custom stuff, so my rifle was very lightweight but also didn’t have a lot of kick, but on top of that, they painted it.

  It was blood red with gold swirls.

  My favorite colors.

  And very pretty.

  Which just amused the hell outta Carvi the first time he saw it.

  What? Who said guns couldn’t be pretty?

  A plain black rifle appeared on Carvi’s back and I knew there were a few knives somewhere on his body too.

  He’d told me he’d taken the name of Carvi back in the eighties when he was shedding his old name because he worked at a bar where he broke up a lot of fights with fists and knives.

  We hit the edge of the hedge maze and I looked at him.

  “Can we just go around? We had one of these the last time we were in here and I didn’t like how that ended then.”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t actually block the house, so I don’t see why not.”

  “But is the trail in there?”

  “You tell me.”

  I sighed.

  Carvi was always so on top of these things that sometimes I forgot he didn’t actually have the same psychic powers I did. That he did need my powers, even if it was just him channeling them and doin’ the actual driving.

  I focused, bringing up the lights fast and easy now.

  The red from where we landed did come this way, but it went around the maze, straight into the house.

  “Huh,” I said, pointing.

  “Yep, looks like this thing’s just here for looks,” Carvi said. “For some reason, your subconscious likes these things. Any idea why?”

  “No clue,” I said as we walked along the edge of the hedges, following the red line.

  It was so faint now I had to keep my eyes on it to make sure it didn’t fade into the grass.

  “Why is it so faint?” I asked.

  “Because the magic is very tentatively tied back to the person who started it, especially now that it has taken on a life of its own, that the closer we get, the dimmer it will become.”

  “What if it runs out before we get to her?” I asked.

  “Then at least we’ll be closer than we were,” he said. “There should be enough of a trail left, especially this deep. I don’t think we’ll even have to go down another layer to see the rest of it.”

  “Thank God.”

  We hit the door after another minute or so of walking and climbed up the steps.

  The mansion had a large wraparound porch with a swing and a few cushy patio chairs around a nice glass patio table on one end. Two red wine glasses with a little bit of the red liquid left in the bottoms and a beer bottle were on the table, like the people went inside for a moment, maybe to get another bottle, but would be back.

  “Is that important?” I asked Carvi, pointing.

  He shook his head. “I have no idea, lea. Things are strange once you’re in this deep. That could be your subconscious, mine, or just something that manifested in here all by itself, or…”

  “Or it could be someone else in here with us,” I said. “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of.”

  He grabbed the door handle and twisted.

  It opened without a problem and he squeezed my hand as he walked in, me close behind.

  Chapter fifteen

  The door opened into an old fashioned grand foyer.

  The world was awash in a red tint like an Instagram filter and made the white marble shine with a pinkish tinge.

  “Carvi?” I said, taking a step in.

  The room burst into flames.

  I screamed and scrambled back.

  Heat seared my back and I slammed to a stop, whirling around.

  The door was gone, and flames climbed the wall, licking the ceiling and spreading to it.

  Carvi grabbed my arm.

  I coughed as the smoke invaded my lungs and I huddled against Carvi as the flames ran acros
s the floor in front of us.

  I coughed again and again.

  I couldn’t breathe!

  “No, keep going,” Carvi said. “Ignore the flames.”

  “How!” I asked mentally since I couldn’t talk through the choking.

  “Believe that you can,” he said.

  The smoke obviously didn’t bother him.

  He pulled me forward and I stuck to his side like glue.

  Just prayin’ he was right.

  We hit the line of flames crossing the floor and walked across them.

  The heat flowed up me.

  But I wasn’t burned.

  Okay. I could do this.

  Carvi strode forward so fast I had to half run and I wheezed as we hit the stairs.

  The flames crackled and Carvi shook his head as I looked up.

  “Just keep going,” he said.

  I took a deep breath, imagining clean air going into my poor, rough lungs.

  And could breathe again.

  We walked up the stairs and I took Carvi’s hand, sticking close to his side but looking around, less scared now.

  “I have that if you’re going through Hell song stuck in my head right now,” I said as we walked up the stairs.

  They seemed to stretch above us for at least a hundred stairs but there had only been like ten when we’d walked in.

  “Of course you do,” Carvi said. “You’re a singer in Nashville. I’m surprised you didn’t start singing Taylor Swift songs during your argument with Grant.”

  “How did you know I was thinking of her lyrics earlier!”

  “I didn’t. I was joking. And now I’m concerned.”

  I laughed.

  And the fire roared back.

  But it sounded friendly somehow.

  Like it was laughing along with me?

  We kept climbing and my legs and lungs didn’t burn with the stairs even though a hundred steps in real life would definitely be doing me in.

  We finally hit the top and I realized I’d relaxed my death grip on Carvi’s hand during the climb.

  I let him go and he rubbed my arm, then drew a line out of his hand and tied it around the post on the stairs.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “You tell me,” he said.

  I nodded, the tune playin’ so loud in my head I could’ve sworn it was actually coming through speakers.

  “Lea,” Carvi chuckled. “Get the song out of your head. I can hear it.”