Psychic for Hire Series Box Set

by Hermione Stark

  “Do you need a lift?” he says.

  But my attention is elsewhere. Not far from the car, just inside the churchyard gates, is a man dressed in somber black. A man I’d know anywhere.

  “Storm!” I cry out, taking a few rapid steps towards him.

  Storm doesn’t move from his spot. He doesn’t come towards me. He gives Xander a cold look over my shoulder. Xander returns it. I bid Xander goodbye, feeling awkward, as if something is going on between us even though it is not. Xander’s chauffeur gets out of the car and holds open the passenger door.

  Xander lingers, his eyes seeming to see all too much. “You don’t look well.”

  “Charming,” I mutter.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I’m perfectly fine.”

  “If you need anything—,”

  I cut him off. “I can take care of myself. Thanks.”

  “I’m sure you can.” There is amusement in his eyes. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Such politeness. I doubt I will see him again.

  After Xander is gone, I turn back to Storm. I open my mouth to thank him for coming. To say I am glad to see him. Seeing him has shaken up all sorts of old feelings inside me. I am surprised I am not trembling from the sheer tumult of them crashing around inside me.

  “You two looked cozy,” he says in a clipped distant kind of way.

  His tone flattens all the feelings bursting inside me. “I’m allowed to have friends,” I say, hurt.

  “So you’re friends now?”

  “What’s it to you? I haven’t seen you or heard from you in two years. I get that I messed up the job badly. I get that you had to fire me, but I thought we—” I cut myself off sharply.

  “You thought what?” he says.

  “Nothing,” I say, my voice coming out wobbly.

  He lets out a soft sigh. He takes a couple of steps closer to me and puts his hands on my shoulders. I gaze up at his dark eyes, with that beautiful and disconcerting wedge of brilliant green in the left one. I see sympathy, and warmth, and something welcoming, like home.

  His mere presence is comforting. It feels like he knows all my troubles without me having to tell him. He knows that I feel so alone and so lost in this big city. That I had thought life would be big and rich and full of wonders, and instead it is small and grey and constantly disappointing. That I feel adrift.

  “What can I do to help?” he says.

  Suddenly I know exactly what he can do. Everything I wanted so badly two years ago comes back to me. I can almost taste it, like old blood in my mouth.

  “You can let me help you catch DCK. I came to London for that. I can still—”

  “No, Diana,” he says gently. “That’s my job. Spend your energy focusing on building your own life. I’m sorry you lost Magda. I understand you want her killer caught, but that darkness will consume you if you let it.”

  “What would you know about that?” I ask heatedly. “She was my mother. Mine. For you it’s just a job, but for me it means more. Let me help you! Please!”

  He shakes his head. “You know why I can’t.”

  “But you thought I could be useful. You gave me the job. Please, Storm—”

  “I made a mistake,” he says heavily. “You weren’t ready. I thought because you didn't know Magda that maybe you wouldn’t be so emotionally tangled up in it, but I was wrong.”

  “But I still have visions. Dreams. I’ve been having one recently. I’ve been wanting to tell you about them.”

  He shakes his head. “I can’t help you with those. But I know someone you can talk to—”

  “I don’t want to just talk. I want to do something.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I can’t just ignore them,” I snap. “I can’t turn them off like that.”

  “It’s for your own good. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  Like last time, he means, even though he leaves that part unsaid.

  “James Fenway was a predator and a murderer,” I hiss.

  He nods. He doesn't even do me the courtesy of disagreeing so that I can argue with him.

  “And I’m not some stupid child now,” I say. “I’ve learned from that mistake.”

  “Good,” he says. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  I want to shake him. I feel like we are a thousand miles apart even though we are standing so close together. I cross my arms over my chest. “Remi said you were in Paris? Been having fun, have you?”

  “It was for work,” he says. “The team is still in France. They send their condolences. I have to go back after this.”

  “I’m surprised you even came here, since we’re not friends,” I say bitterly. “Or is this work too?”

  He doesn’t say anything. His eyes flick to over my shoulder where the funeral service is wrapping up.

  “Oh my gosh,” I mutter, my cheeks flooding with hot shame.

  How incredibly stupid of me. It is work. He came because he hoped that Magda’s killer might be here, watching and relishing the grief his actions caused.

  Stunned, I turn around and scrutinize the mourners anew. Ordinary people, whom I never imagined could be DCK. The thought never even crossed my mind. Storm was right. I am not ready.

  Finally the tears that I had been so determinedly holding inside come pouring down my cheeks.

  I don’t turn back towards Storm. I can’t bear for him to see them. “Well, it was good seeing you,” I tell him in a strangled voice. “Good luck with your case.”

  “Diana,” he says, the soft note of regret in his voice only making me cry harder. His warm hand lands on my shoulder. I shrug it off and walk away.

  Chapter 4

  DIANA

  It rains all the way on my walk home from the funeral, a dreary relentless dripping that drenches the hood of my summer jacket and creeps into my collar.

  My wet misery feels appropriate. By the time I get to my neighborhood I feel completely drained. I trudge past Notting Hill tube station. This is an expensive part of town, with pristine four-storey townhouses and expensive cars outside them. I had loved it when I first moved here. It had made me feel excited about living in London. Now I wish I had chosen a cheaper location. But my rather large deposit is invested, and I can’t afford to lose it.

  Arriving at one of the immaculate looking townhouses, I let myself in. Inside, there is an entryway and a staircase leading straight up from it. The faded blue carpet and the smell of an odd cleaning fluid already feel like home. Every door on this level, and the upper ones, has a number on it. All of the rooms in this house have been converted into separate lodgings. I swiftly climb up several flights of steps to an apartment on the third level. There is no elevator.

  My sour-faced landlady comes to collect the rent every Thursday and likes to inspect the apartment to make sure I am keeping it clean. She had been here just yesterday. Her presence always makes me feel resentful. Though she is not due for another week, I am already worried that I will have to beg her to let me pay the rent late. I cannot imagine it will be a pleasant conversation.

  Stop moping, says the little voice snidely. You could have been living like a queen right now, but you chose not to.

  “I wasn’t moping,” I mutter resentfully. “And I don’t know what fantasy world you imagine we’re living in, but money doesn’t magically grow on trees.”

  Not on trees, she retorts. But there is plenty of it if you know how to get it.

  “Well I don’t,” I mutter.

  Tomorrow I am going to ask Smithers’ to release the money that I had saved up through work for Magda’s funeral. A portion of my pay packet got kept back every week. If he releases it within the next few days I can use some of it to make up the rent. The rest of it I intend to send to Xander Daxx for funeral costs. Anonymously of course.

  As I let myself into my room, a yowling AngelBeastie throws herself at me. Realising I am drenched, she hisses in complaint. I know what she wants. Most days Bea
stie is perfectly happy being a house cat and refuses to go out. But right now she’s decided she is sick of being cooped up here. She wants me to sneak her downstairs.

  I am not allowed to keep a pet. Whenever my landlady is here AngelBeastie resentfully deigns to hide under my bed. On days AngelBeastie does want to go out, I sneak her down on my way to work and then sneak her back in when I get home.

  Today I don’t have my usual Friday night shift at the restaurant. Luca, my boss, has closed it for a private family party for his daughter’s birthday. He didn’t need the extra staff. I dearly wish he had, despite my tiredness. I quickly strip off my damp clothes and step into a hot shower.

  My so-called studio apartment is just one room. On one side is a bed, a basin, and a shower inside a plexiglass cubicle. On the other side of the room is a small kitchenette against one wall, a little table and chair, and a small wardrobe. The decor is old and the wallpaper is peeling, and the air-freshener I need to cover up the musty smell that comes from the shower has run out. Still, it is better than the attic I used to live in at the Colton house.

  I could probably afford a whole house in the suburbs in America with the rent I am paying for this one room.

  London is expensive, snaps the little voice. Get used to it.

  “Can’t you be nice for once?”

  I’m never nice.

  “I’ll settle for quiet. Please. I’m tired.”

  What will you give me if I’m quiet?

  “Nothing. Because I’ve got nothing.”

  Outside the cubicle Beastie is rubbing herself on the plexiglass and meowing loudly in warning.

  “Hush, Beastie. I’m nearly done.” I am worried someone will hear her and make a complaint to my landlady.

  Beastie gives a final yowl and quietens. She retreats a few feet away, where she licks her fluffy white paws and glowers at me with baleful angelic blue eyes.

  You don’t even have your own toilet, the little voice gripes. Whoever heard of an apartment where you have to go outside it and down a flight of stairs for a shared toilet? It’s utterly demeaning.

  “At least the hot shower water is plentiful and I don’t have to fear being perved on while I am in it.”

  That’s a pathetic thing to be grateful for.

  I sigh. There is no arguing with her. I push her towards the back of my mind, determined to no longer speak to her. She goes resentfully. I get out of the shower and put on my fuzzy pajamas. Beastie yowls in protest.

  “I haven’t forgotten you,” I murmur. “Sit with me for just a moment will you?”

  I scoop her up and carry her to my bed. “Just five minutes,” I tell her.

  Yawning, I place my head on my pillow. She curls up next to me, already purring. In five minutes I will get up and let her out and then open a can of sardines for my dinner.

  I wake up gasping and drenched in perspiration. The dream. I had the dream.

  I was walking down a street. I came to a large house. I went to a window and looked in. Inside a woman and man were curled up on a sofa drinking red wine and laughing about some piece of wicked gossip that I could not hear. The woman got up and left the room. I walked to the front door and rang the doorbell. The man answered and greeted me, looking surprised and a little wary. He turned and went inside, towards the foot of the stairs. He called up to the woman. I walked in and shut the door. I picked up a solid-looking statue of a sleek black cat from the ground. I came up behind him and whacked it into his head. Upstairs the woman came out of her bedroom. She looked downstairs and she screamed.

  This is the same nightmare I’ve had every night for the past few weeks. It has the feel of a true vision, rather than an ordinary dream. I don’t know what to do with it. The woman had looked familiar to me but I’ve had no spare time to research her. I’ve checked the headlines on every newspaper I’ve seen, but no murder has been reported.

  Times like this I wish I had a smart phone so I could google it. Today I wish it more than ever. If only I could stop it from happening. I’d save their lives. Storm could read about my heroics in a newspaper. He could regret firing me.

  You wish, says the little voice.

  I sit up in bed yawning. AngelBeastie wriggles a little but continues purr-snoring. Clearly she is no longer in the mood to be let out. Morning light is coming through the window. “Crap!” I cry, leaping out of bed to check my alarm clock. It is Saturday morning already. I am late.

  In a flurry I get ready for work, pour some dry food for Beastie and refresh her water, and dash out of my room. I waste money getting a bus because there is no way I will arrive on time if I walk.

  When the bus reaches my stop I dash off it, into my building, and rush towards my locker. My phone beeps as I am hanging up my jacket. I hastily check it. It is a text from Rosalie.

  ‘Diane, Mr Smithers says your shift today is cancelled. No need for you to come in.’

  I stare at it with my mouth open as it sinks in. Today is Rosalie’s day off on the rota. She shouldn’t even be at work.

  The sneak thief. The dirty rotten sneak thief.

  In a fury I charge towards Smithers’s office to demand an explanation. I find no Smithers, but Rosalie is in there tapping away at his computer.

  “What are you doing here?” she says cattily.

  “You stole my shift,” I snarl.

  “I did no such thing. Mr Smithers decides the schedule and he’s chosen to reward my dedication. You shouldn’t have let us all down yesterday, should you?”

  “I went to a funeral.”

  “So what? Your personal problems are your personal problems. But you made them into our problem, and we just don’t need staff with that kind of attitude.”

  “My shift has been on the roster all week. It was mine!”

  “Why are you even here? You got my text, didn’t you?”

  “I got it two minutes ago,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “Not my problem,” she says, speaking in tune with her tapping fingers, her head jerking from side to side smugly. It makes me want to throttle her. She knows she only sent that text message two minutes ago. I stand in the doorway glowering, my fists bunched.

  You could punch that smile from her face, suggests the little voice.

  I could. I really could.

  Finally! I’ve been itching to knock her teeth out.

  Rosalie looks up at me, one perfectly arched brow raised. “Shoo,” she says, ushering me away with her manicured hand.

  I see red. Snarling I close the distance between us in a heartbeat. She squeals, and scoots back from the desk.

  “What’s going on here?” demands a stern voice. Mr Smithers is in the doorway.

  Shaking, I back away from Rosalie. I nearly did it. I nearly hit her. I don’t know what came over me. Actually I do. Inside my head the little voice is squirming in frustration.

  “She was going to hit me!” Rosalie squeaks, pointing her finger at me.

  “Prove it!” I snap.

  I shoulder my way past Mr Smithers before I end up saying something regrettable. I cannot lose this job. I know perfectly well that the awful terms of my zero-hours contract means they are within their rights to cancel my shift, and yet it feels so damn wrong.

  That was stupid. Fair recruitment for otherkind doesn’t really exist, despite company diversity policies. I haven’t met a single non-human here. Being violent might make them think I am otherkind, and they’d fire me a heartbeat. With my lack of work experience and the current financial climate I know am lucky to have this job.

  Just before I exit the building I remember I had intended to ask Smithers’ for my saved up pay for the funeral costs. Now I need that money twice as much. Unable to face Smithers again, I go to the payroll team’s office instead.

  Fifteen minutes later I storm out of the building, shaking. Finance had no record of my savings arrangement. They said there had been an incident of internal fraud a year earlier and supervisors had been asked to inform affected staff. Smithers’
had said nothing to me. The deadline for making claims passed months ago. The payroll manager had given me a pitying look. My money is gone. Long gone.

  Outside London is bright and busy and doesn’t give a damn about my feelings. God, how easy it is for people to make you feel worthless. It doesn’t help to know that in terms of money I really am worthless. Doesn't matter how little you care about money. When you’re worried about keeping a roof over your head, it feels like the most important thing in the world.