Magic in the Desert: Three Paranormal Romance Series Starters Set in the American Southwest

by Christine Pope

  That wasn’t completely true. There had been or two instances in the past when I had put my foot down over one of Otto’s more, shall we say, inspired suggestions, but annoying as he could be, he’d been part of my life for the greater part of twenty years. He hadn’t been fooling around. For whatever reason, he truly did believe that it was of the utmost importance that I go haring off to the Sheraton Universal hotel.

  At least it wasn’t raining. Earlier in the week, a late-season rainstorm had scrubbed L.A. all clean and shiny. I appreciated what the weather had done for the city’s aesthetics, but I hated driving in the rain. Especially when I was tired and — if we were going to be completely truthful about the situation — not entirely sober. Oh, I knew I wasn’t horrendously impaired, or anything close to it, or I would have told Otto to stuff it, no matter what the stakes. However, I could tell I wasn’t at the top of my game.

  As I’d told Mystery Man, I knew most of Los Angeles like the back of my hand, so I didn’t have any trouble negotiating the sometimes tricky entrance onto the Hollywood Freeway from Highland Avenue, and I pointed my Volvo toward the Lankershim off-ramp as if I took that route every day. Actually, I hadn’t been there for at least five years. My college roommate Jess had held her wedding reception at the hotel. Now her marriage was on the rocks. I hoped that wasn’t an omen of what I might encounter at the Sheraton myself.

  I pulled into the parking garage, winced a little at the prices listed at the entrance, then grimly pulled the ticket from the machine and headed into the structure. Something had to be going on at the hotel, because the garage was packed. I had to wind all the way down to the lowest level before I found a spot at the far end near one of the utility elevators. Lovely. Just the perfect spot to get mugged.

  Clutching my purse a little more closely to myself, I speed-walked over to the elevator — thank God I’d worn boots with kitten heels instead of the ankle-breaking stilettos Ginger had talked me into at one of last summer’s end-of-season sales. On my way to the elevator, I couldn’t help noticing that there seemed to be a good number of somewhat shabby-looking vehicles in the structure, some of them emblazoned with bumper stickers that read “I want to believe” or “MUFON”…whatever that meant.

  Maybe the hotel was hosting an X-Files convention. But weren’t they about twenty years too late for that?

  I was the only person in the elevator, and was profoundly grateful for that. I took advantage of the solitude to adjust my hair as best I could, using the polished steel of the elevator doors as a makeshift mirror. My lipstick was mostly gone; I scrounged a tube out of my purse and did a hasty reapplication just before the doors opened and deposited me in the lobby.

  Okay, time for some recon. I guessed that Mystery Man must be here for some sort of conference or convention — he certainly didn’t have the air of a casual tourist. So most likely my best chance of finding him would be to go to the meeting room and conference section of the hotel. If, of course, he was even the reason Otto had sent me on this fool’s errand.

  A quick scan of the floor plan map by the elevators told me that the meeting room spaces were all downstairs, on the Terrace Level. I followed the signs to the escalator and headed down, all the while telling myself this really wasn’t as crazy as it seemed, that there had to be a perfectly logical explanation as to why I was here.

  When I got off the escalator, I found myself facing a large banner that said, Mutual UFO Network Symposium — Welcome!

  UFOs? Seriously?

  And then I remembered Space Boy, and how he believed his girlfriend was possessed by an alien. A sick feeling rose in my stomach that had very little to do with the two mojitos I had downed earlier.

  I was beginning to understand just why Otto might have sent me here.

  Chapter Three

  A pasty individual rose from the table situated directly beneath the banner. “Help you?” he inquired.

  Oh, you can help me, all right…help me right into a straitjacket. I cleared my throat, “Um…actually, I’m looking for someone.”

  “Are you attending the conference?”

  “No.” The last thing I needed was to have to pay even more to find out where Mystery Man might be hiding. Then inspiration struck. “That is — I think one of your guests left his cell phone at the bar where he stopped for directions.” I fished my iPhone out of my purse and flashed it at the conference worker, glad that I’d opted for a plain silver model this time rather than rose gold. Somehow, I doubted the man with the briefcase would have gone for a pink phone. “I couldn’t call him, though, because he has the phone locked down. Tall guy, mid-thirties…tweed jacket and khakis?”

  “That sounds like Dr. Oliver.” The other man at the table, who could have been anything between thirty-five and forty-five, pushed his glasses up his nose and frowned. “He’s giving the keynote address right now.” Another frown, as if my bad timing were a personal affront. “It’s almost over, but there’s a cocktail reception afterward — ”

  “It’ll only take a minute,” I said. “Really, all I have to do is slip in and give him the phone.”

  “You could give it to me.”

  Crap. As I flailed mentally for a reply to the man’s remark, I heard a wave of applause through the doors to the ballroom immediately to the left of us. A few seconds later, people began to stream out through those same doors.

  “Looks like it’s over!” I chirped, flashing a smile that I hoped appeared friendly and not at all stalker-ish. “I’ll just pop in there and give the phone to Mr. Oliver myself.”

  “That’s Doctor Oliver — and — wait!”

  But I didn’t wait. I turned at once and began pushing my way through the crowd, feeling a definite affinity with all those salmon who had to spend their lives swimming upstream. Luckily, there was such a crush that if anyone had been checking for membership badges at the door, there was no way they could have seen me clearly enough to know whether or not I was wearing one.

  After a breathless minute, I found myself in a mostly empty ballroom. What if this Dr. Oliver had left, too? But the few conferences I had attended generally had the speakers and other guests leaving by way of the backstage area, not going out with the rest of the general attendees. I had to hope that was the case here as well.

  Then I spotted him, standing at the far end of the stage and chatting with an older woman with improbably platinum blonde hair. His back was toward me. Thank God. That way I could take a second or two to catch my breath and steel myself to move forward. I just knew I didn’t dare wait too long in case the guy from the information table was in hot pursuit.

  I dodged a couple of stragglers and paused a few feet away from the stage. “Dr. Oliver?”

  He turned and stared down at me in incomprehension, and then an expression of astonishment flitted over his features. “Persephone?”

  I didn’t know whether to be impressed he’d remembered my name or worried that I’d made a little too indelible of an impression. “That’s right. Look, I — that is, I really need to talk to you.”

  “Talk to me? About what?” He sounded more than a little impatient, and I guessed I couldn’t blame him too much. After all, I’d interrupted what could have been an important conversation. And he had to be wondering just what the hell I was doing there.

  “About — ” I hesitated, aware of the older woman’s slightly irritated gaze. “Um…could I talk to you in private?”

  “Ms.…” He trailed off; I hadn’t given him my last name.

  “O’Brien,” I supplied. It couldn’t be a good sign if he was falling back on addressing me by my last name.

  “Ms. O’Brien, I’m here as a guest of the conference. I’m expected at a reception — ”

  “Five minutes. Just give me five minutes, and if you don’t want to hear any more, I won’t ask anything else.”

  For a few agonizing seconds, he didn’t say anything, but only scanned me with a pair of hazel eyes that were a little too penetrating. He certainly di
dn’t look like your standard-issue UFO crackpot. I found myself wondering what he was a doctor of.

  Then, “All right. Five minutes.” He turned back to the woman with the platinum beehive and said, “Let everyone know I’ll be a little late.”

  She nodded but apparently couldn’t resist sending me another annoyed glance. “Of course, Paul.”

  So his name was Paul. I filed that tidbit away, then waited while she disappeared somewhere backstage and he came down the risers they were using as steps to the platform. As he approached, he seemed a lot taller than he had back at El Churro. Maybe the difference had something to do with the half-frown that creased his forehead, making him look almost forbidding.

  “Where’s the bar?” I asked.

  “Why on earth do you want to go to the bar?”

  “Because I have a feeling you’re going to want a drink after you hear this.”

  The hotel’s lobby lounge featured moody neon lighting and sleek black furniture. Appropriate — I almost felt as if I were aboard a UFO. Paul Oliver sat down across from me at a small two-seat table but waved off the waitress when she approached. Obviously he didn’t think he was going to be giving me anything more than the agreed-upon five minutes.

  I resisted the urge to order a drink, but I did ask for some Perrier just so we wouldn’t seem like complete freeloaders.

  The waitress left, and he leveled a very direct gaze at me. “So precisely what is so important, Ms. O’Brien?”

  There wasn’t any way to phrase it without sounding like a complete idiot. “Do you believe aliens can possess human beings, Dr. Oliver?”

  That question threw him a little, I could tell. He sat back in his chair and tilted his head slightly, as if considering. “What makes you ask?”

  “This morning, I had a client come to me who was convinced that his girlfriend had been taken over by some sort of alien intelligence. He was quite adamant about it.”

  “Client?”

  I didn’t bother to lie. What would be the point? He’d only find out sooner or later. You didn’t get a lot of different hits when you Googled “Persephone O’Brien.”

  “I’m a psychic.”

  Almost at once, a shuttered expression took over his face.

  “Don’t you dare get all judgey,” I snapped, a familiar irritation stirring in me. “Not when you’re the guy who just gave the keynote speech at a UFO convention.”

  “Symposium,” he said absently, and then almost smiled. The softening of his expression did all sorts of wonderful things to his features…and a few interesting things to my stomach as well. This might have been easier if he wasn’t so damn good-looking. “What kind of psychic?”

  Somehow, I managed to gather my wits. “Clairsentience and precognition mostly, although I’ve done some psychometry as well if the wind is coming from the right direction.” That comment prompted an actual smile, and I continued, hoping I wasn’t blushing and, if I was, that the lounge’s dim lighting hid most of it. “I get a good deal of input from Otto, my spirit guide. He said I had to come here tonight but wouldn’t tell me why. I’ve learned to follow Otto’s directions or risk the consequences. So I came here, and saw that the hotel was hosting a UFO con — symposium, and the pieces came together. He must have sent me here so I could get your advice.”

  “Shouldn’t your spirit guide be the one providing you with advice?” Paul’s tone was amused, but not so much that I could construe it as mocking me.

  “Not always. Not if it’s something that affects me directly.”

  “And how does this affect you directly? I thought you said it was a client who had come to you with the problem.”

  Good question. With a lift of my shoulders, I said, “Otto wouldn’t tell me. But he looked…worried. So tell me, Dr. Oliver, was my client crazy? Or is alien possession something that can actually occur?”

  For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. During that silence, the waitress arrived with my Perrier. She set it down in front of me, then asked, “Anything else?”

  Paul spoke up then. “Vodka martini, two olives.”

  I blinked at him. “Thought you weren’t ordering a drink.”

  He smiled again, but it looked a little strained. “I have a feeling I’m going to need one.”

  “What about the five minutes?”

  “I’m considering an extension.” And he pulled out his own phone and began to enter a text — begging off from the cocktail reception, I guessed.

  Well, in that case…. “I’ll have a glass of pinot noir,” I told her. “And an order of the Thai spring rolls.”

  She nodded and wrote down our orders, then made herself scarce again.

  “As to your question,” Paul said, apparently unfazed by the assumption that this might take a while, considering I’d order an appetizer along with my drink, “there are accounts where individuals state their bodies have been taken over by entities not of this world, or that they have felt the presence of some ‘other’ within their thoughts. It’s far less common than abduction, but it isn’t unknown.”

  The image of Alex Hathaway’s haunted eyes rose in my mind, and I shivered. Not that I believed in possession — as I’d told Alex, ghosts couldn’t possess people, and in all my time working with troubled people, I’d never seen any evidence to suggest that demons or devils even existed. But Paul Oliver seemed to believe, or at least be open to the idea.

  “So you believe in alien abduction?”

  He crossed his arms and watched me over the flickering little tea light in its blue glass holder at the center of our table. “Of course I do. Wouldn’t make much sense to have me as the keynote speaker here if I didn’t, would it?”

  I had to admit to myself that he had a point. “Have you ever been abducted?”

  “No.”

  “But you believe it happens?”

  “Absolutely.”

  It was my turn to settle back in my seat and give him a narrow glance. “Exactly what are you a doctor of, Dr. Oliver?”

  “I have Ph.Ds in astronomy and astrophysics,” he replied imperturbably. There might have been the slightest glint in his hazel eyes as he watched me…or maybe it was just a reflection from the candle flame. “From Stanford.”

  Oh. While I knew it was entirely possible for a university as prestigious as Stanford to churn out its share of crackpots, I was becoming less and less convinced that Paul Oliver was one. After all, there were plenty of people in the world who didn’t believe in psychics, and yet here I was.

  “So, my client,” I went on doggedly. “He was absolutely convinced that his girlfriend had been taken over by some alien intelligence. He noted changes in her behavior and personality…none of which seemed all that strange to me, but of course, I didn’t have a chance to meet her.”

  At that moment, the waitress showed up with our drinks and the appetizer. I made myself take several bites of a spring roll before I had any of the pinot. Best to lay down a base. At least it seemed as if the ghosts of mojitos past had pretty much disappeared by that time.

  Paul didn’t bother with the appetizers, and lifted his martini right away. He had long, strong fingers, but not pale and smooth the way I might imagine a scientist’s would be. No, they were tanned and even callused, as if he did some kind of physical labor as well. Maybe setting up telescopes took more work than I had thought.

  “What were these personality changes?” he inquired.

  “Well, primarily reading Variety, from what I can recall.”

  He choked, then helped himself to a medicinal application of martini before replying, “Reading what?”

  “Variety. And the Hollywood Reporter, apparently, along with some other entertainment industry websites. And the two of them hadn’t — ” I felt myself flush but persevered. “That is, Alex claimed they hadn’t been intimate for some time.”

  “That actually follows with a good deal of what I’ve read on the topic. But the reading material….”

  “I know.” It hadn’
t made any sense to me, either. “What use would aliens have for Hollywood trade rags and gossip sites?”

  “I’m not sure.” Paul rubbed his chin absently, as if considering. Then he seemed to notice the spring rolls, and bent down and picked one up. “What’s the young woman’s profession?” he asked before taking a bite.

  “Out-of-work actress, from what I gathered. Not exactly someone in a position to assist much in world domination, as far as I can tell.”

  “No, I wouldn’t think so. Anything else?”

  “My client believed the change had come over her after a visit to a tanning salon.”

  “‘A tanning salon,’” Paul repeated, obviously nonplussed by that particular piece of information.

  All along, I’d been hoping maybe the story wouldn’t sound so crazy on repetition, but I reflected that it actually sounded worse. My companion’s expression didn’t change, but it didn’t need to. He gave the distinct impression of someone who was struggling to be polite.

  “The sort of place where they spray it on,” I said, my voice sounding strained even to myself. “Look, don’t you think I know how ridiculous all this sounds? Normally, I would have brushed it all off as just one of the left-field things that happens to me from time to time, but this can’t all be a coincidence, can it? You coming into El Churro for directions, Otto telling me I had to come to this one hotel out of all the hundreds in L.A.?”

  “How do I know this Otto even exists?”

  “You tell him I most certainly do exist,” came Otto’s voice at my ear.

  I started, spilling some of my pinot. Luckily, I had just picked it up from where it sat on the table, so most of the wine splashed on my hand and on the little cocktail napkin, and not on my clothes.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered fiercely.

  “Checking in.”

  “Well, don’t. This is hard enough as — ”

  “Is he here now?” Paul leaned forward over the table that separated us, his eyes eagerly scanning the space above my head.