Killer's Gambit

by Hermione Stark

  I sat in the back seat of the cab impatiently bouncing up and down in my seat like Ronin had been doing earlier. But in my case it was not excitement. It was fury. Ronin had tricked us. Why had I not seen that coming? And now Ronin was going to get away. And if the Devil Claw did not turn up like Ronin was sure he would, then I would never find out who the Devil Claw was. Ronin had lied. He was supposed to tell me with words. But Ronin thought that this was him completing his half of the deal. The sneaky dhampir had better be right!

  The cab drove halfway across London before it finally stopped outside a large house in a very wealthy area of town. “This is it,” said the cabbie.

  I let myself out. The instant my feet were on the pavement, the cabbie drove off without a backward glance.

  It was past 10 o’clock at night, and dark outside. Dark enough for a vampire to be comfortable. I wondered if the large mansion in front of me belonged to one of Ronin’s vampire friends. I wondered if the house was empty, or if it was a seething vampire’s nest. But there was nothing for it, so I squared my shoulders and marched down the driveway towards the front door, and experienced a jolt of unease when I found that that door was open.

  I knew immediately that something was wrong. It was like all of the air had been sucked out of my lungs. The psychic music all around the house had some sort of ominous tone to it. A dead-end quietness that made me feel like whatever was waiting inside was not good.

  I pushed open the door and walked in. The darkness within embraced me. It called me forward. It was like there was a path in front of me that my psychic senses were pointing me down. I followed it. Down the plushly carpeted corridor and up a set of stairs, and down another corridor to a closed door on the end.

  There was something on the door. I didn’t have to turn on the light to see it, but I turned it on anyway.

  The mark of the Devil Claw was gouged into the white painted door. The blood was dripping slowly down towards the floor. It hadn’t reached the white carpet beneath yet. I felt sickened. I felt like I had felt when I had seen Magda’s kitchen door two years ago. I knew what I would find when I turned that handle.

  I turned it anyway. I didn’t care that I was getting my fingerprints everywhere. What did that even matter?

  I stepped into the room. The killer had left the light on for me so that I could see exactly what he had done. Steffane Ronin’s blood was splattered everywhere. All over the white carpet, all over the cream covers of the bed, all over the ceiling, all over the walls. So much blood for one body. Steffane Ronin himself was sitting propped up on the bed. Or at least his corpse was. It turned out that a damphir’s corpse did not disintegrate when it was killed, or at least Ronin’s had not. The corpse of Steffane Ronin was holding its own head in its hands. The head was grinning.

  A hand reached out to touch me from behind and I screamed a battle cry. I whirled around to smack whoever was there, but it was only Storm. I took a shuddering breath, and threw myself into his arms.

  “It’s too late,” I said. “It’s too late. He’s already gone.”

  My words came out sounding as deadened as I felt inside. Finally that bubble of sunshiny delight that had filled me for the last three weeks had popped. And the awful rage and grief left in its place left me staggering in shock. Only Storm’s arms were holding me up. If he wasn’t there I was sure that I would have collapsed to my knees and sobbed my heart out.

  I had thought I was going to get him. I had really thought I was going to get the Devil Claw Killer. But he had outsmarted me again. One step ahead. Just like Ronin.

  And I did not deserve Storm’s comforting embrace. I didn’t deserve his warm strong arms wrapped around me, or to have my head tucked under his chin so securely. I had meant to betray Storm. I had meant to kill the Devil Claw myself. I would have done it if I had found him here. I hadn’t cared that Storm wanted only justice. Storm could have justice with any other killer, but not this one. And now I never knew if I was gonna catch this killer at all.

  I pulled myself away from Storm but he held on, refusing to let me go. Several moments later I tried again, and this time his arms dropped to his sides. I turned round to take a good long look at the body that had been Steffane Ronin. I saw what I had failed to see earlier. Gasping, I strode over to the bed and reached for it.

  Sitting on the coverlet right in front of Ronin’s body was a single long stemmed black rose. The instant my fingers touched it it disintegrated into ash. “No!” I cried out in rage. My fingers clenched, closing over nothing. I was holding nothing in my fist, just as Devil Claw had intended.

  Chapter 33

  DIANA

  Storm sent me home to rest. He wasn’t mad at me, and after all why would he be? He had no idea what I had planned. He just thought that I had raced to this house to try and save Steffane Ronin. I had let him believe that. How could I admit to him what I had really planned to do?

  When I woke up the next morning I felt no better. I had dreamed of the black rose laughing at me. The Devil Claw Killer had left it for me. How could he have known that I had dreamed of a black rose? Had he seen into my dreams? Was he like me? Could he see and know things that he wasn’t supposed to know?

  It felt horrifying to not know. I had wanted to torture him before killing him to find out what he really knew about to me, and now I was scared that he knew more than I had ever thought. Scared that he could reach into my mind and pluck out a dream.

  I spent that weekend working at Grimshaw’s magic shop, trying to achieve some sort of normality. But I felt odd. I felt like my psychic radar was a giant drum that had taken a bashing. I felt like I was resonating with the furious emotional aftermath of what had taken place. I couldn’t control it. It would have to stop on its own. And worse, now that the buoyant feeling inside me had gone, I had no idea how I really felt.

  The one thing that kept me going that weekend was the memory of Storm hugging me. Of holding me tight and refusing to let me go. That wasn’t just what a boss did, right? That meant that he felt something. It meant that he cared. Maybe it meant that he had been horrified by what he had seen in there when he had followed me into the house, and that he had been scared that I might have been hurt. I was speculating, but that’s what I did when it came to Storm. My mind went into overdrive.

  And I wanted to talk to him on Monday. I should have realized why he had been behaving so warily around me. Storm had problems and family secrets of his own. And I was a psychic. Obviously he didn’t know me yet, and he didn’t know how I would deal with any of his secrets. He didn’t want me in his private business. Storm felt vulnerable around me. That was why he had kept a distance, especially after I had pried into his private life that day he had ended up in my bed thoroughly drunk. That had to be it. And I was going to tell him that I would never betray him. Not when it came to that. I would never tell anybody any of his secrets. That he was safe with me.

  Secretly I supposed I wanted him to hug me again. And tell me that we were both going to be all right.

  This was the thought I woke up with on Monday morning when it was time to go into Agency Headquarters for work again. I woke up earlier than usual, determined for once to arrive at the office on time. I got dressed and didn’t bother to eat breakfast. That would only slow me down. I scooped up AngelBeastie, ready to let her out on the street outside my building, and opened the door of my apartment and promptly stumbled over Finch Greyiron.

  He had been sitting cross-legged on the floor, his back leaning against my door. I had to grab onto his shoulders to keep myself upright.

  “Finch!” I cried. “What are you doing here?”

  Immediately I felt horribly guilty. It had been a week since I had spoken to Finch. I had completely forgotten about him and Zezi. I had promised him that I would help to find her and I had not bothered to call him back, and now the poor guy had been forced to to come looking for me.

  That he had found out where I lived was a fact that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with.
I find myself scowling at him accusingly.

  Finch looked at me with those bright intense hazel eyes of his that I’d never bothered to pay much attention to before. There was a hint of green in them that reminded me of a vast and magical forest. And there was grief in them to. Finch was not smiling. He was pale anyway, but now he looked downright ashen.

  “She’s dead,” he said in a dull voice. “We went looking for her, and now they’ve killed her.” His voice shook on the last part.

  I stared at him in disbelief. “What?” I said.

  “She’s dead!” he yelled. “And it’s our fault. We are the reason why she is dead!”

  And so instead of going into the office that morning I went with Finch to the coroner’s building where we found Zezi’s mother identifying Zezi body, which was laid out on a steel gurney covered with a white sheet. Only Zezi’s face was visible. Her mother was bent over Zezi, her forehead pressed against Zezi’s forehead.

  Zezi looked just like she had in her pictures. Except now her eyes were closed and she was no longer smiling. She really was dead. She hadn’t died years ago. She had died just yesterday.

  Mrs Shahidi turned and saw me and Finch standing in the doorway. She screamed and she ran towards him and started beating him with her fists. “You did this!” she screamed. “You did this! You killed my Zezi.”

  Finch didn’t lift a single finger to defend himself. He let her beat him as if he deserved it. He was shaking. Tears were pouring down his cheeks. He flinched at every blow that landed on his face. He let her hit him until she was exhausted and sank to her knees.

  I sank to my knees too and hugged her. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry I didn’t find her.”

  She was sobbing in a gasping convulsing way that seemed like she would never stop. I didn’t notice the young girl sitting on the bench outside the mortuary until the girl came over to us and put her arm around her mother. “Mama, don’t cry,” she said in a small voice. She looked lost, like she didn’t know what to do.

  Mrs Shahidi shoved me away. She put her hands over her face so that her daughter would not see her tears. “You’re just like the rest of them,” she said to me. “You don’t care. You didn’t find her. She was alive. All these years she was alive.”

  She struggled to her feet and walked away from us, taking her little daughter with her. The girl looked over her shoulder at me, taking one long lingering look at me, the girl who had promised to find her sister and not kept that promise. She had big glowing eyes, just like Zezi’s.

  I found Finch staring down at Zezi, but when I tried to make him go home he refused to leave her. So I stayed with him for a while, while he just stared at her helplessly. I knew that he didn’t want to go because this is was the last time he would ever see her. Zezi was really gone, and he was spending these moments trying to get to used to it. To know that he would never get to tell her that he loved her. He would never hear her say those words to him either.

  It was my fault. I couldn’t help feeling that it was my fault. In the end the coroner came back to make us leave. As the coroner started to cover Zezi;s face with the white sheet, Zezi hand fell off the gurney.

  With a gasp Finch grabbed it. The coroner pushed him away and made us leave the room.

  Outside Finch stood trembling as I flagged down a cab.

  “It wasn’t her,” he said.

  “I’m so sorry, Finch,” I said.

  “It wasn’t her!” he shouted. “Zezi had a scar on her wrist. This body had none. It wasn’t Zezi!”

  A cab pulled up and I had to make Finch get into it. I rode with him back to his university halls of residence. He didn’t say a single word for the entire journey, and then he got out of the other end and slammed the door shut behind him.

  I got out too. “I’m sorry Finch,” I said to him. “I’m so sorry. We will find out who did this. I promise.”

  “It wasn’t her,” he told me again, a burning expression in his eyes. “She’s still alive. I know it.”

  I could understand his refusal to believe she was dead. “I’m so sorry,” I said again. I told him that I would call him.

  “Yeah, right,” he said. He didn’t even look at me before walking into his apartment and slamming the door shut with finality.

  In my single minded determination to find the Devil Claw Killer I had forgotten that life went on for other people. That death was happening elsewhere too. That there were other people who needed my help and maybe I was letting them down. Finch had been prepared to be my friend, to keep my secret when he had discovered me in the madness of preparing a my kill room. He had trusted me. And I had let him down.

  “I’ll find her killer,” I said quietly, but he was already gone.

  With a heavy heart I went in to Agency Headquarters late. I went straight to Storm’s office. I needed his help. I had promised to find Zezi’s killer, and I knew that my best chance was with Storm and the team. I planned to beg him to persuade him to take on this case. But when I got there Storm was not in there. A strange woman was sitting behind his desk in his chair.

  She had dark hair that glimmered as if full of a magical life of its own. She had gleaming golden skin. A deep thrumming music was coming from her that reminded me strongly of Storm and the music that came from him. It had the power of a thunderstorm. It felt as vast as an ocean. Just like the music that came from Storm.

  I frowned at her. “Where is Storm? Who are you?”

  She stood up from the chair and smiled at me politely. She extended her hand to shake mine. “I’m Constantine’s wife,” she said. “And you are?”

  The End

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  Books in the Psychic For Hire series:

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  Killer’s Gambit

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  Angel of Death

  By HERMIONE STARK

  My name is Diana Bellona and I am the Angel of Death.

  Except I can’t be, because the Angel of Death isn’t human, and couldn’t possibly be a helpless girl kept imprisoned by her cruel adoptive family for years. The only thing I’m sure about is that the deaths I dream of always come true.

  And now I have dreamt of the murder of Xander Daxx, an angelus who is about to marry an English princess. A murder which could spark war between humans and otherkind. I risk everything to escape, only to arrive at a castle with a royal engagement party in full swing, where no one wants to believe me. Worse, I find myself falling for Xander’s long-time nemesis, the mysterious Constantine Storm with his dangerous past.

  I don’t even know if an Angel of Death is supposed to save people. But I must, because the closer I get to the killer, the closer the killer is getting to me.

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  About The Author

  Hermione Stark has a passion for fantasy novels and loves to make up new worlds (or new spins on our world) in her head for her characters to have adventures in.

  She lives in England with her fabulous moody fluff ball of a kitty, he who must not be named. Currently she is looking forward to getting her hands on the next ASOIAF novel (Game of Thrones to you show watchers) but doesn’t mind wa
iting for George to perfect it. In the meantime she’ll be writing her novels…

  Contents

  Killer’s Gambit

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27