"Go ahead 215." A woman's voice said over the radio.
"I'm at 1135 Cross Avenue, and there's no sign of Foley. There aren't any lights on, and the door is locked. He may have already come and gone, but I think we need to go ahead with the warrant. He may be coming back, so we need to get an unmarked to sit close."
"10-4, 215. The unmarked is in route. E.T.A, ten minutes. I just received a call of shots fired at 1490 Maple. They need back up."
"10-4, I'm in route," the officer said, and Ciera heard him step off the porch. She listened closely as his car door shut and the engine came to life. She let out her breath, then let go of Mitch's hand.
"He's leaving, but there is an unmarked on its way. We have about eight minutes to get out of here. Did you leave any evidence that you had been in the house? They're getting a search warrant. They can't know that you're in Arkansas."
He thought for a minute. He had turned the lights off in the basement and grabbed his dirty clothes from the bathroom. "Did you turn out the lights in my mother's room and bathroom?"
She nodded. They had become visible again when she'd released his hand. She looked up at him in horror. "Yeah, but that chair you broke will certainly give them a red flag." She opened the door and raced back into the house. She was only gone a few seconds before he heard the garage door being raised. She poked her head back around the door and looked at him. "Back out of the garage, and I'll come out the front with the evidence."
He quickly moved behind the wheel and started the vehicle. He had it in drive and was moving before the garage door made it to a complete stop. He backed out, then watched as the door began to close again. He threw it in park and moved to the passenger seat. The back door of the Tahoe opened a minute later.
Ciera put the chair pieces and the wet towels, as well as the bloody sheets from his bed, in the back seat and then got behind the wheel. She looked behind her and backed out of the driveway. They were four houses away when they saw the unmarked police car round the corner. She obeyed the traffic laws, and held her breath as she passed the car. Mitch turned in his seat to look behind them as she watched in the rearview mirror. The car pulled over on the side of the road and killed its lights two houses away from his mother's house.
Ciera turned at the stop sign and he relaxed in his seat with a sigh of relief. He sat there in silence for a few minutes, wondering how in the hell they'd found him. He asked Ciera as much. "They don't have anything on record that I have a house here. The house is still in my mother's name." He paused a moment. "But I guess they would think to look at my mother's house," he said a little sadly.
"Did you bring your cell phone with you?"
He pulled it out of his pocket and flipped it open. Before he had a chance to read the first of seven text messages, Ciera had grabbed it from him and thrown the piece of technology out the window. He started to ask her, "Why the hell did you do that?" then it dawned on him that the cops would be able to track him by his cell phone. He put his face in his hands and cursed himself. How could he have been so careless? He had put a big-ass target on their heads. The cops would be able to find him anywhere he carried the thing.
So, they knew he was in Arkansas, but without the phone, they wouldn't be able to track him. They would find the cell phone, unless it rained and ruined the thing, but they wouldn't find them. Well, he was hoping they wouldn't.
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Chapter 20
"Well, there went our hide out, thanks to me," Mitch said.
She laced her fingers with his to comfort him, but they didn't disappear this time. "Are there any psychic houses around here? We need to find shelter. I should have known they would look at your mother's house. They may not have even thought to track you by your phone. Mine can't be tracked or traced, and if you think you need to use it, just ask me. Of course, I don't have to tell you not to tell anyone where we are, right?"
He shook his head, but didn't say anything. He rubbed his thumb over her finger absentmindedly. "There's one on the other side of town. It should still be open." he said as he glanced at the clock in the radio. It was only a quarter till nine. "Take a left at the light. It's about a mile up the road, on the right."
She followed his directions. He'd been right. The neon hand in the front window of the little house let her know this would be their first, and hopefully last, attempt to find a legitimate psychic. Ciera drove past it then pulled in an alley about a block away. The alley was dark, and she drove to the end of it to park the Tahoe in an empty parking lot behind a building that was closed for the night.
They got out and locked the doors. She walked to him, and taking his hand in hers, they instantly lost their visibility and walked to the little house.
Mitch was smiling the whole way there, thinking of all the things he could get away with while being invisible. He wished he could be at the station like this while they were trying to locate him. And he wished he could go mess with Gracie "Barbie Doll" Potter and Lazarus. He would scare the shit out of his partner. Mitch lost his smile. Well, Lazarus had been his partner. Even if they did get this all straightened out, he was sure he would never be a cop again. He had noticed that five of the text messages had been from Lazarus before Ciera had thrown the device out the window. He thought, with how weird his partner had been acting, that just maybe the guy would believe all of this shit, but he wouldn't ever be able to tell him. He knew now how dangerous it was to know about Ciera's kind. The other two messages had been from Brad. Mitch assumed the pizza guy was at the game, and probably wondering where the hell he was. Or maybe he had read in the newspaper that he was wanted for the serial murders. Brad was probably glad he hadn't shown up.
They made it to the house, but there was a problem. Someone inside would definitely notice if the door opened on its own. There were a couple of vehicles outside, so they patiently waited for a customer to exit. It wasn't long before the door opened and a middle aged woman walked out with a smile on her face.
The smile didn't comfort Ciera in the least. If it had of been a true psychic, the woman would have probably ran out the door screaming. Great things, no matter how much people wished for them to happen, just didn't happen very often. The world was a cruel, dark place, she thought, as she slipped into the house.
The room was dim and smelled of burning incense. She could tell by looking around that all the rooms would be small. There was a glass souvenir case set up against one of the walls, and Ciera walked over to browse, pulling Mitch with her by their adjoined hand. There were a lot of different religious items and stones. Glancing at the label under them let her know that they promised prosperity, good health, good fortune and love. "Please," she whispered as she rolled her eyes. She knew before they even looked at this woman that she was a hoax.
Ciera heard a voice coming from the back of the house. She tugged on Mitch's hand so he would follow her. They stopped in front of a door where strands of colorful beads hung as a curtain. She could see two women sitting across from each other at a table, and knew right away which of the two was getting screwed. The "pretend psychic" was laying it on thick too. Ciera rolled her eyes again then turned and led Mitch back out the way they had come in. She didn't wait for the door to be opened for them. She opened it herself, and they walked out. Mitch shut it quietly behind him.
He showed her where one other psychic place was in the city, but it turned out to be worse than the first one. She continued driving south. There was another one that he knew of, but it was a few counties south of there.
They rode in silence most of the way, with her in her own thoughts about the killer and different places they may be able to go hide temporarily. Mitch's thoughts weren't so complex. He had one thought on his mind, and that was of Ciera standing naked in his shower all wet and ready for him to teach her the act of lovemaking. He knew he needed to be thinking of a plan to get them out of this mess, but it was too exhausting to pull his thoughts away from the mental picture of her naked with his hands on h
er body. He hadn't really even gotten to touch her before the officer had shown up.
He glanced at his lap to realize this specific thought was going to cause him more trouble than he could stand. He wished that he had Ciera's ability to make himself invisible. He shifted uncomfortably in the leather seat and managed to rearrange certain parts of his anatomy so it was a little more bearable, and hopefully less noticeable. He wanted to groan again in his discomfort, but he knew that Ciera would hear it, and he wasn't sure that she couldn't read his mind with all the dreams of his that she had entered.
He thought back to those dreams, and wondered how he hadn't caught on to what she was trying to help him do. Maybe he knew, and maybe he also knew if he saved the victims that he would've never gotten to meet her.
He let go of the thought as he recognized his surroundings. "It's up here on the left. I think you can just pull around back," he said, and she nodded.
This place was out in the middle of nowhere practically, and there weren't any flashy neon signs to pull tourists or the gullible in. There was only a single, white wooden sign out in front of the house with black lettering that read: What Does Your Future Hold?
Ciera was wishing that she knew exactly what her future held as she pulled around back of the house. There was a small parking lot and an old shed with a lawnmower parked under the lean-to. It looked almost homey here, like this wasn't just a house for reading palms, but rather the scammer lived here as well.
She shrugged, and they got out. The place was deserted. No one else was here. It was going to be tricky for them to slip inside without the swindler knowing. Heaven forbid the woman think she was actually seeing something paranormal for real. She looked at Mitch, who had just rounded the back of the vehicle. "I think I should go in alone, visible. I will be able to tell if she is lying or not ... I think," she smiled. "Maybe I will even let her tell my fortune." He nodded, then propped himself up against the back of the Tahoe. She left him there and walked around to the entrance.
She wasn't paying attention, which was really careless of her. She was looking down at her feet when she began to walk up the old wooden steps. Two feet, attached to two legs came into view at the top of the steps. Ciera came to a halt and looked up at a middle-aged woman. Her graying hair was tight to her head, and a small bun sat low in the back. She was dainty looking, but as Ciera met the woman's eyes, she knew that she was anything but fragile. There was more wisdom there in those baby blues than Ciera had collected in her whole existence.
"I've been waiting for you. What took you so long?" the woman said, and Ciera actually took a step back down the steps. It took a lot to frighten her, but for some reason this woman did. "You may tell Mitch to come inside. I have tea," she said, then turned and walked back in the house.
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Chapter 21
Ciera stared hard at the old rickety screen door the woman had disappeared behind. Had she really known they were coming? She shook her head with a smile on her face and walked back to Mitch with a bounce in her step.
He'd gotten back in the SUV, so she opened the driver's side door and looked at him. The look on his face let her know that he was expecting her to get in and start the vehicle so they could go search for the next scam artist. She smiled. "She's been waiting for us."
His eyes got wide in amazement. "No shit? Really?"
She nodded with enthusiasm as he quickly got out and rounded the vehicle again. When he got to her he didn't pause, he just grabbed her face and kissed her hard on the lips. Her smile matched his, and they walked hand-and-hand to the front door.
Ciera raised her knuckles to knock on the screen door facing, but stopped as she heard the woman's voice inside.
"You may enter vampire and detective," her voice said. "I'm just getting the tea. You may have a seat in the living room. I'll be right along, dear."
That stopped her for a moment. So the woman was strong enough to know that she was a vampire, and Mitch was a detective. Of course she may have seen Mitch's name and face on the news, and her intentions may be to turn him in, but there was no way in hell the woman could know that she was a vampire unless she was a very strong witch or psychic. She only hoped that she was strong enough to help them.
They were standing, not sitting, in the living room when the woman came in with a silver tray with three glasses of iced tea. Guess she didn't buy in to the whole "vampires can't consume anything except blood." They took their drinks when they were offered, and the woman sat down in a green chair and motioned for them to sit on the sofa.
Ciera didn't know if she would be able to sit still with how anxious she was at the moment, but she sat on the sofa anyway, with Mitch right beside her. The way the lady was smiling at her made her a little nervous, but at least she was smiling, instead of shouting and trying to run them off. They needed her. "We've come…"
"I know very well why you've come, Ciera. You've been giving me headaches for the last twelve hours," the woman said.
Ciera fidgeted under her stare, then glanced at Mitch who only shrugged his shoulders. She looked back at the woman. It was really bothering her the way she was being stared at. "Can you help us?" she said, instead of "Why are you staring at me like that?"
The woman gave a sudden burst of laughter, making Ciera and Mitch jump. "I'm sorry child," There was a strange glint to the woman's eyes, then she finished her thought. "Well, I suppose your looks are deceiving. You aren't a child at all, are you?"
Ciera shook her head. "No, Ma'am."
The woman took in a long breath, and let it out slowly with her smile still in place. "Forgive me for staring so rudely. I am only fascinated that I have finally met one of your kind, my dear. My name is Alice," she said, but didn't offer to shake hands, not yet anyway. "I don't know how much help I can be, but everything does happen for a reason, and there is a reason that you were led to my doorstep, so I will do my best. Your young man here is in double the trouble that you are," she said, and her gaze fell on Mitch with another glint of the eye. "It seems the heavens do strange things when picking out soulmates, don't they?"
"I'm s-sorry?" Ciera stuttered, a little confused by her last remark.
Alice's grin spread wider. "You really don't know, do you?"
Mitch and Ciera only shook their heads in confusion.
"You were destined to be soulmates what ..." she had a blank stare for a moment then she smiled. "Over three centuries ago. With your untimely luck in becoming what you are, your souls never met. The heavens have given you two another chance to find one another."
"But he is a mortal!" Ciera was unsure if she believed anything the woman was saying. How could they be soulmates? She was going to live on forever, and Mitch would not.
Alice smiled shyly and glanced at Mitch. "Is she aware of how you feel, my dear?"
He'd been trying to follow the conversation, but the Alice woman had lost him a while back. The part where she had mentioned that his soul had been reincarnated from over three centuries ago was confusing the hell out of him. "She knows that I love her, yes."
Alice shook her head. "No, my dear, does she know what your intentions are?"
His brow furrowed and so did Ciera's. "We have no clue what we are going to do…Alice." He wasn't comfortable calling women he didn't know by their first name, but she hadn't offered a last one.
Alice smiled again. "I do not mean your journey ahead." She shook her head and huffed. "But perhaps your head is filled with too much as of now. I will let you tell her when you've gotten it figured out." She didn't leave time for anymore questions on that very confusing subject, before she changed it and looked back to Ciera with serious eyes. "I am not a witch that can cast a spell for you, so I can't give you protection. I have a friend that may be able to help you. Her name is Nellie Lifford, and she lives about an hour's drive from here. I will notify her when you leave, and let her know to expect you. She isn't intuitive, so she won't know anything about you. I will tell her everything, and tell
her to prepare what you need."
Mitch frowned. "Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, to tell her everything? I'm not sure I would have taken the news of a vampire visiting me so calmly only a week ago."
Alice smiled. "But you are only human, my dear."
"Do you know of one of the hidden places where our kind co-exists with mortals? I think that would be the safest place for us to go. They will protect us there from my family, and Mitch will be safe from the police as well."
Alice seemed to think a moment, then looked back at them. "You would have to give me a little while, Ciera. They have many wards around them, but I am guessing that you are aware of that already." Ciera nodded, and Alice got up and left the room.
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Chapter 22
Alice returned a few minutes later with a few crystals in her hand. She positioned them in a circle on the carpeted floor, then lowered her body to lay with them surrounding her. The biggest crystal was above her head, and she looked up and repositioned it a little to the left, relaxed and closed her eyes.
Ciera and Mitch didn't need to be told Alice needed absolute quietness to do what she was trying to do.
They watched Alice in anticipation. About fifteen agonizing minutes passed and she finally opened her eyes and sat up. She touched her head as her eyes squinted in discomfort. "Using the crystals always gives me such a terrible headache," she said as Mitch helped her to her feet.
"Well?" Ciera said anxiously. She didn't want to be rude, but they were burning precious night, and they still needed to go talk to the Nellie woman. It wouldn't be long before the cops were on the look-out for a certain black Chevrolet Tahoe. When they found out that the stolen car was in the garage of Mitch's mother's home, they would put two-and-two together and find out what the last vehicle Mitch's mother drove before she died. They should have ditched the car far away from the house. She guessed they would find out eventually though. She sighed.
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